Back to work and school

Summer vacation's over. My three kids caught the bus this morning, the boys for the first time. Everyone was excited, including Mom. And I was the only one who cried too, which was good. Amelia was a great big sister, showing her brothers the ropes on the bus. (Alex said, "Mommy, why does the bus have ropes?") Now I'm home, writing five actual pages of non-crap today. Wow.

The summer ended nicely, with us trying to spend a lot of time together doing fun things. As opposed to Mom yelling, "No, we don't hit or bite when someone sits on us." Sometimes, frankly, I don't blame them for hitting and biting. Not that they should do it, mind you, but the impulse is perfectly understandable. I'd be pretty pissed if someone threw a Lego creation at me too.

We had a cookie-and-milk stand on Monday, earmarking the money earned - a whole $4 (thank you, neighbors) for the Haven, a homeless shelter in the area. Tuesday, we went on a long hike, stopping a couple times for mini-snacks along the way. It was a gorgeous day and complaining was at a minimum. Couldn't ask for more than that. The highlight for me was finding our second snack stop at a place where the echo was amazing. The kids practiced their silliest sounds, just to hear the echo, then I persuaded them that echoes should be beautiful, so we sang. Loudly and sometimes out of tune, but joyfully and, to my heart if not my ears, beautifully.

So summer is over and it's back to getting things accomplished. The last two weeks, I got two rejections, one from the publishing house where my manuscript had gotten past the readers' review and to the editor-in-chief's desk. Disappointing, but I'm plugging along, having submitted it to three agents and a few more to go on the "A" list. We'll see and in the meantime, I'm back to writing more.