And maybe dialogue, if this doesn’t get too long.
Today is the day of D. (It’s also Tuesday, but that doesn’t matter.) I have been running the past few days. Down to Calgary and back, and then to a reading by Robert J Sawyer yesterday in Edmonton. So I feel distracted today. Like it’s hard to settle in to get to work. However…..
I did figure out the perfect beginning to the novel I’m working on, so when I do get over feeling distracted, that thing is going to sing! But first, I must blog.
Dogs. I miss my dog, every darned day. Kind of blows me away, to be honest.
He should have been my husband’s dog, (after all, he brought him home!) and he was for the first year. But then he started running away, and my husband decided he was becoming more trouble that he was worth. I didn’t say anything, because I thought my soft-hearted daughter would be the one to say “Oh no! We can’t give away good old Bear! I love him too much for that!”
She didn’t. She agreed with her father. So, I talked them into keeping him — actually, I cried my eyes out, saying “We don’t get rid of a member of the family just because he causes a bit of trouble!” After that, he was mine. Right up until the day he died.
Wasn’t he pretty?
The other D word is digging (in the dirt). I’m really looking forward to working in the garden this spring. (If the snow EVER goes away, that is!) Takes me back to my farming roots. (A teeny bit. I don’t have a tractor and 500 acres to seed, after all) The back yard is starting to look really nice, if I do say so myself. But it didn’t always.
We bought the place before all the snow was gone out of the back yard. The house was a fixer upper, so we expected to have to do some work to the back yard — but we never suspected what horrors waited for us under that thin blanket of white.
We found out that spring that our yard was ground zero for the neighbourhood thistle problem. And the dandelions. And whatever other weeds you can think of. Oh, it was terrible! We fought for years to get some sort of control — and are finally, almost there. It’s now nice to go in our back yard. We can actually sit back there now. Enjoy ourselves. Not feel like we must wage war, one more spring, against the ugly enemy that is weeds. (And we did almost all of it without herbicides. Just so you know.)
See? Grass!
But the snow has to go away first. Sigh.
This is by my front step, and the snow is nearly 4 feet high here. Good grief!
No space for dialogue, so I’ll have to save that for another day.
Happy Tuesday, everyone!
Congratulations on figuring out the perfect beginning! My WIP had several completely different beginnings before I hit on the right one, and man did that help the flow. Wow at the snow. We had a truly pathetic winter here, snow-wise, so I’m a tad jealous, but also know that feeling of wanting spring to be here in its entirety.
Great post. Know how you feel about the dog. I miss ours, too, although we still have Red around here. I also can’t wait to get out in the garden. Always worth the effort. We must visit each others’ gardens, once the flowers are in. 🙂
Thanks Susan. And I like the idea very much, because that would mean spring is well and truly here!
Shannon, I HOPE it’s the perfect beginning! It’s starting to feel pretty good, and (luckily) it will tie right into what I’ve already written, so that’s a great thing. And if there was any way to ship you some of this snow, I’d do it in a heartbeat!