Who's Ready for Summer?

Just like that, another school year has come and gone. I can't believe it. Time flies by so, so fast. It seems like I was just putting my first child in school and now, 26 years later, I have finished up with elementary school. Yep, that's right. 26 years of elementary school and now it's over.

I love summer break. I love to hang out with my kids, Swim. Go to the beach (I can say that now that I live in Texas). Go to splash pads. Eat ice cream and popsicles. Have BBQs. It's a great time to just have fun with the kids. This week, two of my kids and my hubby have been at camps.

Summer is full of fun. And this summer I hope to get my kids to the newly reopened (flooded after Hurricane Harvey) Barbara Bush Library regularly so we can read books. I also want to take them to the community pool so my youngest can meet kids he'll attend school with in the fall when he goes to middle school. And I want to take them to splash pads or other water activities (because everything is bigger in Texas, including the hot temperatures and the humidity).

Are you ready for summer?

Back to School Blues

Why is it that the summer just whizzes past every year? I look so forward to summer so I can hang out with my kids.

We went to the pool several times this summer. Every time we go to the outdoor pool it makes me think of "The Sandlot." If you've seen that movie, I love the scene where they go to the pool and one of the boys plots to get a kiss from the beautiful, and much older, lifeguard so he pretends to drown in the pool. While she gives him mouth-to-mouth he kisses her. She then kicks him and his buddies out of the pool. "The Sandlot" is such a summer movie and we watch it every year.

I love hanging out at the pool because it reminds me of being a little girl. I grew up in Santa Barbara, CA and when we weren't at the beach we were at a pool. I spent the entire summer in a swimsuit. I loved the smell of chlorine on my skin because it meant I'd been swimming in the pool. I love swimming, I love being outside, and I love summer.

The best thing about summer, though, is having my kids home. I love hanging out with my kids. During the school year I feel like I hardly even get to see them. The oldest ones leave before 6:00 am and the rest leave at 6:40 am and most of them aren't home until after 5:00 pm. Then there's all the activities during the school year like cheerleading, Scouts, piano, basketball, theater. Summer is my time to just be with them and I'm always sad when they go back to school. I can't believe how fast time goes by. I spend all the time I can with my kids and I still feel like I don't get enough time with them.

So, yeah, I sing the "Back to School Blues" every year at this time.

Hiatus from Blogging

I've been absent from blogging for a few months because I've been desperately working on my work-in-progress, Aura. I've been using the little time I have to write to work on Aura and try to finish it.

It's a YA urban fantasy about a girl who fights demons. Of course, there's much more to it than that, but I'm not quite sure what market it fits because while it's about fighting demons, the main character, Crystal, finds the strength to fight those demons from her virtue. Yes, I said her strength is directly tied to her virtue. Not just her virginity, but her choices to be honest, not cheat, and to do the right thing, even when it comes to her boyfriend trying to talk her into sleeping with him. See how it doesn't quite fit into any market? The national market seems to demand YA books about sex while the LDS market doesn't like demons. So there's the rub.

But I'm determined to finish it because it's the story that burns inside me and is yelling at me to get out. I'm currently doing my last (I hope) revision. I don't know if it will find readers, but I cannot not finish it and at least try to find a market for it. I've learned so much about myself during this book that I don't regret a moment of writing it.

I hope that Crystal will speak to young teen readers and that she can share a story that's important. A story about embracing the good to defeat the evil. A story about finding and using that inner Light to combat the evil that is so rampant in the world today. A story about finding your place and making the choice to follow your path.

And that's why I've been so absent from my blog. Not sure anyone noticed, but, just in case, that's what I've been up to.

Oh, and cleaning, organizing, taking kids swimming, camps, laundry, gardening, learning to cope with no water at times (been praying and fasting for rain), unexpected trip to UT, a family death (my husband's uncle) and just trying to enjoy some summertime fun with my kids.

How's your summer?