Back To School

It is 8:24 pm and the girls are in bed. *breathes sigh of relief* School break is over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

E&L got their showers and school clothes are set out. Their backpacks have been filled in true minimalist style (1 folder, 1 notebook, 1 pencil case with 1 pencil each of 5 different colors, and 1 little pencil sharpener). The rest of the school supplies are inventoried and put away.

• 3 packs of loose leaf paper? Check.
• 5 spiral bound notebooks of varying colors? Check.
• 1 pack of highlighters? Check.
• 5 folders of various adorable animals? Check.
• 1 pack of pencil top erasers? Check.
• 2 packs of crayons? Check.
• 2 packs of colored pencils? Check.
• 2 packs of markers? Check.
• 4 glue sticks? Check.
• 1 extra pencil box? Check.
• 1 extra pencil sharpener? Check.
• 1 pair of children's safety scissors? Check.
• 2 20-packs of pencils? Check.
• 1 pack of pens? Check.

We should be good for the first week of school. And by that, I mean Thursday and Friday. I am betting that come Monday, they will be "out" of paper or pencils. They are so not liking the fact that when they went to bed, it was still light enough out to read outside. *snicker* I know, I'm mean. But damn, I've been looking forward to tomorrow since the end of May!

We are eagerly awaiting the list of required school supplies. I'm sure we will end up having the wrong color/type of notebooks, the wrong brand of crayons/markers, the wrong kind of glue, etc. Also, I'm sure they need 100 boxes of Kleenex and 50 bottles of hand sanitizer from each child. At least, to hear my mom talk about what they had to send last year, that sounds about right. I recall asking students to bring in 2 boxes of tissue, 1 container of clorox wipes, and 1 bottle of hand sanitizer when I taught. But that was 1 item per quarter. I had about 150 students and no classroom so storing 300 boxes of tissues at the beginning of the school year would have been an interesting feat.

Have your children/siblings/grandkids/neighbors/students started back yet? Did I leave anything off the list of needed school supplies? Have ideas for useful things for others to send into the classroom?

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS

Goodbye Summer Break!

I go back to work tomorrow. I'll be up at 6 or 6:30am by the latest. The coffee is ready to start. My lunch is so not packed. My clothes are set out though. 2 out of 3 isn't too bad I guess. I'm ready to get back to work.

The cats finally had their baths yesterday and today thanks to my 13 year old cousin. She wanted to do it. Yea, I know right? Weird-o. But I was sure to thank her from the bottom of my lazy heart.

I got a lot done over the break. Thanks to Steven, my 8 separate files for Immo2 morphed into 1 large manuscript weighing in at over 131,000 words. Cripes. I whittled away about 150 words today just by doing a spotty adverb purge. It took all damn day long. I fixed the chapter, section, and paragraph breaks yesterday. It took several hours but not nearly as long as today's project.

I nuked the file so now comes the fun part. This is my project list for now:

Smashwords Sale!

For the month of July, Smashwords is running a special sale for the summer (and winter for those south of the equator). As part of the sale, Journey of Shadows will be available for a 50% off discount from 12:01am on July 1st until 11:59pm on July 31st. That means you can pick up my debut novel for a whole $1.50 over the next 31 days! How cool is that? Simply enter the promo code SSW50 when you go through with the purchase. Not ready to drop that much cash just yet? Head over to the link above and download the first 15% of my novel for FREE.

Remember the sale does not start until 12:01am Pacific Time on July 1st. They will have a complete listing of participating titles from Smashwords authors for you to browse while you are there. Don't miss out on this chance!

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS