Because I'm a wild and crazy party chick, my Friday night excitement was a lecture on Christian Nationalism given by an ethics professor from Eastern Mennonite University, hosted at my church. It was really interesting because he got into the historical context of the church/state issue.

Verdict on the fancy watermelon: Good, but probably not worth the price they'd have charged without the override. Intense crimson flesh, very sweet and with a strong flavor. But the rind was very thick and hard, took effort to cut.

I woke up ridiculously early for a Saturday and decided to just go with it, so I had breakfast on the deck and am enjoying outdoors time while it's still cool. I should probably do some yard work, but the grass is still damp.

I need to find a TV series to watch. I finished The Mandalorian and am taking a bit of a Star Wars break. A lot of the Marvel stuff is more intense than I want right now. I should probably watch something new, but I keep going back to things I've seen multiple times.

While at the grocery store, I remembered one of my favorite summer treats and got the ingredients. It's a cheesecake-like dessert that's good for those of us who like sweets but don't want them to be too sweet. 4 oz low-fat cream cheese, single-serve container of vanilla Greek yogurt

My minor thrill of the day: I chose the grocery store to go to today because they had watermelons on sale, but when I got there, they had none of the sale watermelons, only some fancy ones at twice the price. When I went to check out, the system flagged my empty spare grocery bag.

I managed to get a closer photo of the white cat, who was unhappy about it. I'm not sure if that expression is "startled" or utter loathing. Fur seems to be growing back in the bare patch from what seems to have been a hair-pulling fight.

Current state of the raspberry patch. If all of these ripen and the birds don't eat them all, I might have a few raspberries this year (the patch extends beyond the photo). I might even need to look up recipes.

Today on the blog: Looking at my "ID List" and what makes it into my books. shannaswendson.com/what-lights-...

I have a notebook for each book in which I keep all kinds of details to refer to later, like character info, the main plot outline and a few stabs at cover copy. I've written cover copy for the book I drafted earlier this year, but it's not in the notebook or on my computer.

It's #BookQW and our word this week is "several." Since The Chicken Lady in the Tales of Rydding Village series got some love this week, I thought I'd feature her. shannaswendson.com/writing/tea-...

I just am not focusing today, probably because my brain is busy working out how to fix this book and needs to get me out of the way. Today's weird obsession is curtains. It turns out that the last set of lace curtains is a different size from the others.

I've readjusted my deadline to keep myself from getting weird about hitting word count. It's more important to have the book be good than to hit an arbitrary deadline. I'm bad about getting obsessive about hitting each day's quota and plowing ahead then having to rewrite later.

They had a story on the news about what's happening with the former bakery just down the hill from my house (I can see its roof from my upstairs windows). Turns out, the owner donated the building to the community garden people, who hope to open a cafe serving healthy foods.

I was pondering going easy on myself for dinner tonight and nuking a frozen entree, then had the "but those are for busy days" feeling, then reminded myself that I'm writing a first draft, and I got these specifically for that purpose, so I don't have to cook while writing.

I'm not going to make my word count today because it's mostly been a thinky day. I've felt my way into this book, but I'm already seeing structural flaws that I need to fix before I go on. If you see cracks in the foundation, you don't keep building the frame and put on the roof before you fix it.

I'd been planning to put my last set of lace curtains in the spare room, since there's a slight gap on the edge of the blinds in the window that's directly across from my neighbors' front porch. That's my exercise room and will be a guest room, so I want more privacy there.

I'm trying to decide if the glare is too bad for me to keep working outdoors. If I were drafting, not being able to see the screen clearly would help. But I'm fixing things, so I need to be able to read what's on the screen. It's so nice, though, that I don't want to go inside.

I was thinking it was a little chilly to be sitting outside to work, and then it occurred to me that I could put on warmer clothes. The fact that I needed to put on sweatpants to sit outside in June is one reason I moved here from Texas. It makes up for the winter.

I realized as I woke up this morning what I've done wrong with this book I'm drafting, so today's work will be fixing it. I have this bad habit of writing reasonable people behaving reasonably, which is great for real life but deadly for fiction.

I did yoga today, and the stiffness in my neck has eased. I know I feel better when I do yoga. I even enjoy it when I'm doing it. But making myself do it is so hard. Then I walked to the park for the community band concert, so I get bonus exercise points.

Our choir year is over, but we're having a special workshop next week on Renaissance choral singing, focusing on William Byrd's Mass for Four Voices. Turns out, one of the people leading the workshop is the new 2nd soprano for Voces8.

Something that occurred to me because my brain tends to find patterns: After the Black Death, there was a severe labor shortage, thanks to losing about 1/3 of the population. That meant wages went up because employers had to compete for workers.

I got my word count done before lunch. Now for the rest of the day's agenda. So many things on the to-do list. It was nice enough that I did all the day's writing sitting on the deck, but the sun's getting to a bad angle now, so I guess I have to go indoors.

My strawberry jam routine may be a bit extra, but after I did it once to see if I could do it, the results were so much better than anything I bought in a store that I now can't stand store-bought jam, so I have to keep making my own.

I have canned the strawberry jam. I had to use one of the bigger jars because I ran out of the small ones, so I'll have to eat a lot of jam when I open that one to keep it from going bad (why I like the tiny jars). I also have a small amount to go in the fridge.

The new cookie recipe didn't go as quickly as what I usually make, which is quicker and easier. It may be a bit too delicate for picnics, but might work well for funerals or wedding/baby showers or tea parties. I like experimenting, so I may try to find other recipes to play with.

You'd think if there was one skill I could safely put on my resume as being good at with a lot of experience, it would be sleeping. But I managed to do it wrong last night (halfway fell off the pillow and stayed there), so now my neck is so stiff I can't move it.

I got no yard work done because I ended up cooking all day. In addition to 2 batches of cookies (1 failed), I made strawberry jam and yogurt. I'll finish and can the jam tomorrow. I made more jam than I planned because I forgot to halve the recipe, but I almost ran out of last year's batch.

I had a rare baking fail today when baking cookies for tomorrow's church picnic. There was some carelessness on my part, but a lot of it comes down to this being a badly written cookbook. The recipes in it are really good, but you have to know what you're doing and pay attention.

The fact that the ticking clock aspect was added in editing is one of those "once you know, you can't unsee it" things. It's brilliant how Marcia Lucas pulled it together based on what she had available. You notice that no one refers to it on-screen. It's all PA announcer voiceover.

I have a mile-long to-do list for the day, and yet it is nearly noon and I'm still sitting on the deck. I do have the yogurt going in the Instant Pot. I need to bake cookies for the church picnic tomorrow, and I need to make strawberry jam at some point, but maybe not today.

I have 500 words to go to hit my day's target word count. I dragged a laptop desk to the deck to work outside so I can enjoy a lovely evening while getting my work done. Now, to work.

Today's funeral for a person I never met (I was singing in the choir): a 97-year-old former aerospace engineer who worked on the Lunar Rover. He also helped bring the Shakespeare Center to town, so I guess he was well-rounded.

Listening to the 80s show on the aggressively quirky local public radio station, and I had the disturbing realization that this music is older now than the 50s Oldies But Goodies records my parents played when I was a kid were then.

Rich weirdos in the touristy areas of eastern Tennessee keep building these fantasy village resorts that turn out to be just a cluster of fantasy-themed Air BnBs. The one that has some actual activities just has stuff like axe throwing. I'd throw my money away doing it right.

The bees seem to have settled down. I don't see any of them, and the branch they were gathered on is no longer hanging low. I don't know if the beekeeper got them or if they found their way home. Maybe it was just a day out.

The story of my life: I'm starving, I planned nothing for dinner, and even though I just got back from the grocery store, I'm missing one key ingredient for every option that pops into my head. I'll have to dig into the freezer.

I had to make an abrupt retreat indoors. My neighbor's bees started swarming furiously. The sound was intense. I thought it first it was some piece of electric equipment, then I turned and saw the swarm. It's worst over my next-door neighbor's yard, but some of them reached my yard.

It's a beautiful morning, and I will be working on the deck until the sun hits an angle where there's too much glare on my screen, even with the patio umbrella.

It seems you can't conduct any transaction at all now without getting some kind of "how did we do" or "rate your experience" survey, and it seems highly unlikely that they use these for any reason other than punishing staff. Do they ever change operations based on feedback?

I'm having a really hard time getting going today. I was going to say that I never could get the hang of Thursdays, but then I realized it's Wednesday. I think it's because it's so muggy, with that feeling of impending storms/rain, so it feels like the gravity has been turned up extra high.

I went out to check my mail because I forgot to last night, and the mailbox was full of ants and tiny spiders. It seems the spiders have been nesting in the mailbox. I don't have a huge issue with spiders, but I can see why a mailman wouldn't want to stick his hand in there.

I have a firefly hovering around my deck door, possibly trying to flirt with my reading lamp. It's blinking furiously. I hadn't realized that the firefly's light was actually greenish. I haven't seen one so close before. At first, I thought it was an electronic light reflecting in the door.

It's a little discouraging that I seem to spend about 95 percent of my gardening time killing things. I just took out a whole stand of highly invasive and rapidly growing proto trees and found where the ants invading my kitchen are coming in. Deterrents were deployed.

I have strawberries growing in my yard. I don't know yet if they're wild strawberries that even the birds won't eat or edible strawberries from something that was planted and neglected ages ago (feral strawberries?) Apparently, the wild ones are hard and nasty but look cute.

I hit my target word count today before lunch, and that included a break in which I Swiffered the floors and pulled up some weeds between rain showers. I have a Zoom meeting this afternoon and I should do some admin and promo work. I could do more writing. But the obligation is done.

Work was somewhat delayed because the classical radio station I'm streaming played the Lauridsen "O Magnum Mysterium" and I can't write while that's playing, since I have to listen to it, and also I've sung three different parts in it, so it captures my attention fully as I find my part(s).

Writing office has been moved to the living room this morning so I can listen to the rain in the trees. I could open a window in the office, but I don't have the same proximity to trees there, so it doesn't have the same sound. Also, it's easier to have a heating pad on my back on the sofa.

In addition to the poison ivy, I have Virginia creeper trying to take over the lawn. It's native, so less invasive than the English ivy, and it won't cause rashes like the poison ivy. It's gorgeous in the fall. It's also a no-mow ground cover. I may let it live.