Sun, Warmth, and New Folks

Unbelievable! The weather that is! At 5 a.m. this morning a couple of song birds were singing their hearts out. They had no idea it was February and not April. The temps have pushed 70 for two days in a row. There is a little breeze but very tolerable one, and the sun on my face warms me clear down to my toes. DH and I even had a coatless sandwich lunch on the deck today.

I have painted a little flower bench a nice minty green, and I have bought a few yard things. Oh, I know it is way too early to get serious about fixing up deck and yard. Besides we have another problem to handle first about the yard and that is CATS!

I am an animal lover, but the cats are making me feel nasty. At the moment I have no pet of my own and yet my yard smells like an unattended outhouse at a highway rest stop. The neighbors have two cats with a cat door and assure me they stay at home. Who are they kidding? With the cat door, they jaunt over here for a poot! We find flower beds dug up and piles of dung at our south deck steps. GRRRRRR.

The only bad side effect of the weather is that I write my best on long, dark winter days. I have not been writing much new material this winter, and even my reading suffers. A friend brought me a book this morning and I moaned because it looks so good. But…I have four started already and have stacks more waiting after them. I find I can’t concentrate on anything, spring fever maybe, and if I do concentrate heavily, I get sleepy! It is a no win situation.

A good thing happening right now though is there are new members coming to the Writers’ Guild. Yippee! There are about five young women from various stations in life who are interested in the group. They have diverse interests such as fiction, poetry, fantasy and technical writing. Yesterday I met with Camille who has recently moved from St. Charles, Missouri. She is a bright gal with a sweet and agreeable demeanor. She plans on coming to visit the guild, and I hope she will become a member. After living so close to the St. Louis writing guilds and critique groups, I think our group might measure up a little short. But already, one cup of tea later, I know she will add something to our group and maybe help bring us to a higher level of writing.

Speaking of which…I have never attended or heard of a local writers open mic night around here. I wonder if I should make this happen? Any advice for a novice about how to do this?

So back to my list of things for this day… I have exercised twice, taken a load to post office, done lunch, but still one more meal for today remains along with a colossal laundry to be done, bills to be paid, letter to be penned, meeting notices to be created and well, some books to be read if I can get the chores finished soon.

I hope you all have sunshine in the last week of February.