Thursday 13 on Monday

I haven't posted a Thursday 13 in months and years. If you like this idea, please consider doing one of your own.

1. I have just spent three days and nights alone writing ten hours a day and loving every minute of it. I have 300 pages of a first draft, much in one paragraph snippet form, and all of it will be edited, condensed, some sections deleted. This is an activity and a process I love.

2. I know the season here in New England has changed because I'm wearing socks again.

3. Soon the field up the street from me will look like this. It is a most beautiful time of year here. The farm stands are selling apples and pumpkins and mums and I'm thinking of warm fruit cobblers.

4. Is it bad of me that I am rooting for bigmouth attorney Nancy Grace on Dancing with the Stars?

5. Are introverts more comfortable being alone with themselves than extroverts? I'm the latter, mostly, but you have to be alone in order to write. And as I get older, I find I want more time alone. That's a change for me.

6. No matter what I do I cannot take proper care of my jewelry. I misplace my favorite earrings and my bracelets, I break my necklaces, I get things tangled up. I have no excuse.

7. This is the entry way of the house JB and Jessica and I lived in for twenty years. This picture was taken after everything was moved out but I still think the beauty and charm of this Queen Anne Victorian shows.

8. I wouldn't change how emotional I am, but I wish I had tougher skin.

9. If I had to choose one thing to dedicate my life to, I think it would be rescuing dogs, especially older ones like Stella, and finding them good homes.

10. When I started my blog I had no idea I would treasure the whole experience of it as I do. My creativity and appreciation levels are off the charts when scroll down my blog list, and every comment left for me is honest to god a little hersey's kiss to my heart.

11. If I took the time to learn to crop photos, I certainly would not allow this extra wide shot of me. Actually I blame the camera to at least some degree. (grin) But who wouldn't want to have a darling baby sleeping on your chest?

12. I try to be a good listener. "Seek to understand before seeking to be understood." Steven Covey said this, and I've found it to be very wise advice.

and.....

13. Here is an tiny excerpt from my new book:

Casey Mango was born in a working class industrial town where Waltham Watches were manufactured and where the mill workers lived in a slice of row houses extending two long blocks and dating back to the early 1800’s, just above the location of the Penny Pool on Willow Street where a hundred years later eleven year old Casey and her penny would independently pay her way into the girls’ locker room, squirm in and out of her first cold shower, and then emerge full steam into the bright sunlight and into the warm deep end of the city pool.

Love

kj