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Today, This Is All I’ve Got

Yesterday was sucked into the final stages of getting Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace ready for the publisher. Today, this is all I've got. A text from Mom. And my reply.

Yesterday was sucked into the final stages of getting Not Without My Father: One Woman’s 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace ready for the publisher. Today, this is all I’ve got.

A text from Mom.

And my reply.

mom textHow was your weekend, Dear Reader? Please tell me what your worlds looked like, so I can imagine something besides text and screen.

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39 Comments

  1. Each of our worlds tend to by cyclical. This weekend, you delt with the minutia…the tedium, the steps necessary so that early next year, the masses will cry out, “Where can I buy that book?”

    Just like the cycle of our season, some stages are more pleasant than others, but they all come together….and it is good. Have a safe an uneventful drive to Columbia and I do look forward to finally meeting you tomorrow.

    1. Ray, this book is being better prepped to have the masses cry out. 🙂 That’s for sure. I still have so much to learn, but I gained a university education with my first book’s release. I have so many cool announcements coming in the next few weeks……..it’s hard not to blow them all in one go.

      Glad you’re coming to my Tuesday talk. It’ll be great to finally meet you, too.

  2. First up – no, you are never too old. I like your mom. Second – This weekend, I survived shopping at the mall on a Saturday (a very rare occasion), eating too much yummy food, watching Star Trek DS9 repeats on Netflix, deciding on a Halloween costume, and almost having a heart attack watching my beloved GB Packers win their game in the final seconds. In summation: No one told me they liked my pants, but I think I may have actually had a fun and relaxing weekend.

    1. What’s your Halloween costume? You can’t put that out there and not tell us, Mary. 😉

      1. I hope to post about the costume…or a portion of it…this week. Stay tuned! 🙂

  3. I went for a long walk with my personal trainer (The Dog) along a quiet urban path. It starts out in our neighbourhood, a small townhouse development, and follows a creek for a short while. The trees along the trail are all deciduous but not maple, so at this time of year they are yellow leafed. The sun had just barely cleared the tops and the light that filtered down through the trees was amber and I felt like I was walking in a sepia toned photo – it was so quiet and still. It being Thanksgiving in Canada, we didn’t meet a single soul on our ramble I presume because everyone was at home prepping for the feast. We skirted another neighbourhood and broke into a footpath that eventually brought us to a small pond circled by tall grass and brilliant maples that looked like torches in the sun. The dog sniffed the edges of the water, maybe found the scent of a coyote (our urban wildlife) and rolled in the grass, his tongue lolling and eyes rolling in some kind of doggy orgasm. Canada geese honked overhead. The traffic in the sky is getting quite heavy now as the sensible critters begin abandoning the great, soon-to-be-white, north.

    (Hope that helps, Andra. How cool to be finishing your SECOND book. Bravo!)

    1. I’ve been seeing a lot of Canada geese around here lately, and I always think of my Canada friends. 🙂 Sounds like you had the idyllic Canadian Thanksgiving. I always crave those colors. We never get much color here. There’s a gingko tree I usually drive past a lot, because it turns bright yellow before the fan-shaped leaves fall.

  4. Clemson and football. My weekend was a sea of orange. It was good to see my son and visit and all, but god there was a lot of orange.

  5. I feel let down…no one at the supermarket mentioned my pants today. I wish I lived in Charleston where people are not afraid to mention how cool are one’s pants. ( Our editor explains: Roger, they talk differently in America….the passer by was talking about Andra’s trousers)

    1. I thought about the British meaning of pants, especially since we just had British guests. 🙂 (Although these were Mom’s pants, not mine.)

  6. Saturday, cutting down the Abigail and Lilah project to the top 80 pictures before making work prints and then cutting down further. Sunday, filing the old pictures of 1997 and 1998. 7 years and 8 boxes to go (Then I start on the slides.)

    1. You still have slides? MTM has a slew of slides. I think they’re in storage now. I’m not allowed to go there because of his bike part collection I’m not supposed to know about.

  7. Your mom is awesome (and my mom would do exactly the same thing. 😉 )
    Busy weekend: Soccer and fall festivals and pumpkin painting and grocery shopping, plus a long, glorious day in NYC and Central Park. (However, it took us close to an hour to get out of the city and today I’m just soooooo sleepy. )

    I think getting a book ready for a publisher sounds like fun. 🙂

    1. Looking forward to several glorious fall days in NYC and the Hudson River Valley. My schedule isn’t so packed that I can’t get outside and enjoy it. I’m taking my guideson to Storm King Art Center above all else. 🙂 I can’t wait to see him.

      Getting a book ready is fun. It’s stressful at the last minute, because I always want one more pass. But this iteration is just for ARCs. If the group of people vetting this thing have missed typos or anything like that, we can still find them before publication on Jan 15. It’s such a different process this time.

  8. Edit. Nap. Edit. Nap. Walk dog. Edit. Nap. Eat. Repeat.

  9. Ha! Your mom’s text cracks me up!
    I spent the weekend crocheting minion hats and talking to missionaries from France. Ooo la la.

    1. You didn’t tell me you made hats……………I may need to hit you up for one. I know someone who’d LOVE a minion hat………

      Missionaries from France? I’ll bet that was an interesting convo.

  10. I’m going to save my comments for an in-person confab. I’ve heard a few of them in the week+ I’ve been in the upstate with my mother…. 🙂

    1. We definitely need to get an in-person confab on the calendar, Cheryl. Please give my best to your mom.

  11. We should never be “too old” for that!! 🙂

    Our weekend was a lazy one, but I did manage to finish up a bit more outside, getting the porch/yard ready for winter. Most of the geraniums have been moved to the rear deck, prepped to go into the basement for the winter; yard art, garden hose, etc. moved into the shed. The weather was perfect for it and I’m happy to be nearly finished, since this morning, even though the temps are mild (59), we are wet and dreary yet again, and days such as these totally drain any ambitious thoughts from my head.

    Looking forward to the new book.

    1. I’m sitting here in the midst of tornado warnings, though it’s still clear.

      Do geraniums live in the basement all winter?

      1. I have a huge pot out front that’s full of 5 or 6 of last year’s plants. It was a riot of pinks, oranges and reds most of the summer. Those plants all wintered over in the basement–totally ignored–from November until Spring. (In the Pacific NW I would put geraniums in the well house to over-winter.) As long as those fleshy stems don’t get frozen they will pretty much go dormant and then perk right up with some moisture and sunshine come spring. And, if they don’t it’s not a heartbreaking loss. Geraniums are the one thing I can pretty much be sure will survive though, despite irregular attention on my part; a serious gardener I am not! 🙂

  12. We are fostering another Boxer and he arrived this weekend along with daughter and her Boxer. So three Boxers in the house. Talk about a rodeo. This latest is a nine month old with a bunch of behavior issues as one could expect from an abandoned pup. He is smart and has taken to love and understanding. Amazing how easy it is to calm them with attention. So that was the weekend. Dogs, dogs, dogs.

    1. That’s a lot of boxers in one house. They’re bigger than one thinks they are……….

  13. I love it! I secretly enjoy a complimentary cat call. I know. Vain.

    I had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend and almost completed a bathroom renovation. At last, I have toilet on my back deck. I am sure the neighbors love us.

    1. A toilet on the back deck is something to be thankful for. 🙂

  14. This is hilarious, Andra! Your mom didn’t describe the person behind the wheel…that could have added to the story. 🙂 On Saturday we took Amtrak to the beach and spent the day with the girls on the sand and in the water. It was delightful and a perfect way to shift gears from a tightly packed week to breathing much lighter. Sunday I sat outdoors and read almost all day–I don’t know when I’ve done that. It was just what I needed. I can hear that your deadlines are closing you in and keeping you a bit trapped for now…I hope you can find a way to “de-stressify” soon! oxo

    1. No de-stress for the weary, I’m afraid. I resist making lists because of how long they get, but I’ve had to force myself to do it. A good lesson for me, I’m sure.

      A train trip to the beach sounds like the perfect way to unwind. I’m looking forward to a week at the beach very soon. 🙂

  15. Saw this on Facebook and laughed out loud. 🙂

  16. My parents met my mother in law at dinner at my apartment a little more than a year after I got married. After everyone left they called me up and my mom asked, “why didn’t you marry her instead, she’s gorgeous!”. Mother in law had been separated for a few years at that time so they figured it was safe to utter that… and they didn’t get along so well with my non-Catholic and very outspoken wife. But that’s another story and that was 20 years ago. The fact is mother in law wears her 75 years very well and continuously gets complimented. And she’s very vain indeed!

    1. I was just asking MTM about you the other day, Carlos. Glad to hear from you. Your MIL is the same age as my mother. Sounds like they are cut from the same cloth. 🙂

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