All Quiet on the Midwestern Front
It’s been quiet on the midwestern front. Too quiet. A certain amount of guilt comes from not writing my blog on a regular basis. Not enough guilt to get me to sit down at my computer very often, apparently.
I’m a true outdoor junky, and fresh air has been luring me outside almost daily for the past couple of months. Hiking, the neighborhood pool, my new flowerbed, and my struggling newly-planted lawn have all been calling my name loudly and often.
Most notable, I spent a great week with my daughter in Mumbles, Wales in August. She loves being outside just as much as I do. I love our adventures together!
This is the third time we’ve been to Wales together. The first time, it was not entirely my idea to make it a vacation destination. In 2013, I was engaged to be married. The groom chose Mumbles, Wales for part of our honeymoon and I chose Tisbury, England. I chose Tisbury because of its proximity to Stonehenge. He chose Wales because Dylan Thomas was born there and he’s a big fan. Neither of us had been to the UK before. Long-story shortened, we did not get married and I took my daughter on our planned honeymoon trip instead. We both fell in love with Mumbles.
Mumbles is a coastal small town near Swansea, Wales. When asked why we keep going back there, we cite the weather, the people, the pace of life, the food, and the sea glass and sea pottery shards that wash up each day with the tide. We spent a couple hours each day gathering sea glass. My son made my daughter a lamp that features a back-lit four-sided base for her to display her sea glass, and she needed more to fill it up. I’m making a shadowbox to display mine. We probably brought back 10-12 pounds of sea glass between us on this latest trip.
The slow strolls along the shore to gather our treasures gave us time to talk about all kinds of things. It also allowed us to fully disconnect from technology. Both of us found the time there to be very relaxing. It’s hard to be stressed with the sound of sea birds, the lapping of waves, and the sea breeze.
On our trip, I came up with a cure for my writer’s block as well. As I mentioned in earlier blogs, I have been working on my third novel, a book of my family’s family stories. That book has been hard for me to come up with a structure and voice, and I stalled out. My solution was to pick up and dust off some children’s books I’d been toying with. I’m happy to report that four of those books have been accepted for publication! I hope to have them published and available before Christmas this year. I am not totally abandoning the family story book. I will be printing it and distributing it to my family members, but not publishing it. After all, my family are likely to be the only ones who would appreciate the book anyway. I want to get that accomplished before Christmas too.
This has been a long way of explaining why I haven’t written a blog lately, hasn’t it?