A bit of a late start this morning; Miss Mabel decided that she had to bark at the neighbors at 3am, bark at the cats at 4am, bark at the wind at 5am and bark at something else between 6 and 7am. I was not happy with her at all.

Today’s rooms include the kitchen, laundry room, and entry room. Here is what need to be done:

In the entry room:

–Finish rearranging the furniture
–sweep the floor
–mop the floor
–bag up the junk mail to take to work to shred
–finish painting the white cabinet (that is now light blue)
–go through the coats on the coat rack
–break down my shipping boxes so they’re more organized.

In the laundry room:

–Sweep the floor
–Mop the floor
–Clean out the litterbox; replace the litter
–Rearrange the shelves so they are more organized
–Do laundry
–Paint the front of the white cabinet in the laundry room(?) (It’s almost a “might as well” since the paint is out and the paintbrush is already dirty.)
–Tidy up everything else

In the kitchen:

–Do the dishes
–clean off the counters, this includes tossing rotten tomatoes into the compost bin
–sweep the floor
–mop the floor
–rearrange the ‘pantry’ cupboards
–toss stale cereal
–clean out fridge
–reorganize bakeware cabinet
–dust
–put away stepladder
–put away paint (for now)
–or, if there’s time, paint that last spot on the wall and
–finish the wallpaper (?)
–Clean off kitchen table
–Clean off blue bookcase

The kitchen rug that Mabel claimed as her own finally died. She puked on it last night and I tossed it in the laundry, but it was pretty unravelled this time when I took it out and I threw it away. So I guess my search for a new kitchen rug has just been upped on my list.

I really can’t complain; I had it since ‘99. That’s not bad for a $20 rug.

I had to dodge two parades and the long line of traffic because of the fair just to get home tonight. *sigh* One more day, fair-wise, and I can sleep soundly for another year. (It’s the tractor pulls and demolition derbies that make it sound like someone is running a chainsaw in my front yard and they run until 10pm or so every single night.)

This weekend is cleaning weekend. Next weekend is craft show weekend. In between, I plan to write The Seventh Secret, which is currently 2599 words.

I am aiming for 45-50k, so it’s coming along. Slowly, but surely.

This weekend is cleaning weekend because I really have to start thinking about bringing the plants inside, and my house is a mess. And I need to work on the craft show stuff a lot next weekend, and hopefully get all of the easy stuff finished and done with. Cleaning the house first will help with that, because I will have less clutter to think about. Or at least, that’s the idea. So we’ll see how well it goes.

Right at the moment, I hope to be done with The Seventh Secret by Thanksgiving at the latest. So we’ll see how things work out. I am getting inklings of what happens, at least, which is good.

Here is a snippet:

“Sebastian,” the boy said, with only a short hesitation. “And this is my sister, Mallie, who likes to run away.” He hesitated again. “I’m–babysitting as well. But she slipped past me.”

“They do that,” Mark replied. Bethie was especially fond of throwing and spilling anything she could get her hands on. “Do you live around here?”

“You could say that,” Sebastian said. He stood, still cradling Mallie in his arms. “I should go. I’m not supposed to be here in the first place, but–thank you, Mark, for finding and caring for my sister.”

“You’re welcome,” Mark said. “Be careful–in the dark. Do you need a flashlight?”

Sebastian smiled. “No. I can see well enough. But thank you for the offer.” He turned away, just as Mallie made a small noise–almost a hiccup–and changed.

Sebastian had been holding a little girl–now he was holding a–a little dragon.

Not a lizard, not a komodo dragon, but a real dragon. With tiny little wings.

Mark stared, too shocked to speak. He pinched himself–just in case he was dreaming, but it hurt, so that meant he wasn’t dreaming at all.

Which meant–Which meant that Sebastian’s little sister– No. If Sebastian’s little sister was a dragon, then what was Sebastian?

Mark backed away when Sebastian turned around. Mallie’s little tail twitched.

“I–I won’t tell–” he managed to whisper.

“She’s only a little baby,” Sebastian said softly. “She doesn’t know any better.”

“Like Bethie,” Mark said. “S-She doesn’t know any better either–she–”

Sebastian’s arms tightened around his sister’s sleeping form. “I have to go.”

copyright 2006 Jennifer St. Clair

Against my better judgement, I went to the Brown County Fair last night with Bekah and Ethan. I’m really not a fair person. Once you’ve been to one, you’ve been to them all, but that’s just my opinion. It didn’t help that we almost got hit crossing the street–in a crosswalk and on a red light, no less.

At the moment, I’m listening to the tractor pull–hopefully it will be over with by the time I have to go to bed at 10pm. Argh.

I did eat a yummy caramel apple, but really, it was too crowded. The goats were cute, though, even the one that tried to eat my jacket.

It’s supposed to rain tonight, so I didn’t water my plants. I hope it does rain so I don’t have to get up extra early tomorrow and water them in the dark.

I ate one of the broken sweet potatoes for supper last night. It was yummy!

And I posted auctions tonight–I’m weeding my cashmere sweaters. I don’t have to keep *all* the ones I don’t like for fabric, so we’ll see how they sell.

So, considering that it would be my luck to have to hurry out to the garden and dig up the sweet potatoes in the dark, I decided that enough was enough and that I would dig up two plants. Two plants filled my large strainer–and was about 1/4 bushel. Not too bad at all! I have six plants all together, so I imagine I will get about a bushel of sweet potatoes if all goes well.

The largest one broke, but even broke it is 10 inches long! And a couple of them need to be eaten right away, so I think I will make a sweet potato casserole to eat for lunch and dinner this week since I didn’t get to make soup.

Here is a picture of the rearrangement; the cookbook desk that hopefully will help the entry room be more of a room instead of just a place to walk through:

I used it this evening to look up a recipe for our leftover chicken–and it was nice to have a space to flip through cookbooks! Now if I can figure out where to stick my boxes for shipping stuff and my cigar boxes (to use to put stuff in, of course, but I guess I could ship stuff in them too) then the entry room will be looking a lot better. All I have left to do is clean up a bit by the mail table, get rid of a couple of boxes over there, go through the coats and such on the coat rack, and sweep.

It will come together eventually.

I did verify that the kitchen floor has no hardwood under the vinyl, so that means I can do anything I want! Yay! Unfortunately, the cool MiYO flooring is out–I designed a really neat quilt-like floor on the website today, but it would cost over $700 for just the flooring. That is sooo not going to happen!

Wouldn’t a quilt floor have been cute, though? *sigh* (Click on the photo to make it a bit bigger.) It really looks like a patchwork quilt!

I completely forgot to mention what I bought at the RenFaire yesterday–a mug to replace the one I broke from last year (the one that didn’t even make it out of the parking lot) in pretty purple, and slightly larger than the one I got last year, some absolutely fabulous and cheaply priced handmade lip balm (Ginger Lemongrass) and some artisan tea.

Seriously, I should have said Artisan tea. Wow.

I had a nice conversation with the tea/lip balm (she makes soap and lotions too) lady as well–I will be buying more of her tea blends. And more of the lip balm–it’s the best lip balm I’ve ever used. The tea is fabulously tasty–I picked up Cranberry Apple, Ginger Peach, and two others that I can’t think of offhand. She does have a website too, which I will link here as soon as I get the literature upstairs from downstairs.

Today was supposed to be cleaning day. I did clean–but it was more like rearranging day. Friday at work I spent all of my break time visualizing my kitchen, laundry room, and entry room, trying to figure out a way to make them work better. I also had to figure out a way to fit the little Arts & Crafts desk Dad has for me somewhere upstairs, and I wanted all of my cookbooks in one place as well. I wanted the entry room to feel more like an actual room than a place to stick all the stuff without places. If that makes sense.

I think I’m going to succeed in my quest to make it work. So far, everything is fitting right where I want it to fit, and some things are surprising me. I moved the dryer around in the laundry room to make room for a table under the window–now the room looks a lot larger. I swapped Ethan’s computer table and the typewriter desk, put one of my stick bookshelves beside it, and now my cookbooks are all together–and we have a place to sit and look up recipes. And the loose recipes are safe in desk drawers and not getting lost here and there. And that frees up a whole shelf on the bookshelves in the kitchen, where our cereal will eventually go (in glass jars.)

It’s really strange how things are fitting so nicely. But I’m not complaining at all!!

So tomorrow will be more of that. I am hoping to finish rearranging and organizing the laundry room, and finish the entry room as well. I would like to get the kitchen done too, but I’m not going to hold my breath on that. I will be working in there, though. So I might get it done.

That would leave the dining room for the week’s list of things to do, which shouldn’t be too horrible, really, especially if I can get some more things poste d on ebay.

Obviously, I won’t get a lot written this weekend, but that’s ok. This was way overdue.

It rained, it poured (for a little while, at least) and we packed up early, because we didn’t want our books to get any damper. However, I did have a nice conversation with both the guy who makes psalteries and the weaver lady, who were very nice.

(I would get a bowed psaltery if I could. And I may still. However, if I’m going to get one, I want a custom one in osage orange wood. We’ll see.)

It was fun nonetheless. But the entire place was a Mud Show at the end.

Bob Nailor came down from Toledo, meeting up with Tina and Cindy and me, and we had a fun time. We’ll be back on October 7th, and then the very last day– the 22nd.

Oh, heck–it’s pirate weekend today, so I adapted my brown leather hat and I’m good to go. I will be Scottish next time, when it’s Highland Games weekend. That will be more appropriate!

I’m off–wish me dry weather and many sales! (I’d settle for the dry weather, really…)

RenFaire tomorrow! At least this time I have my costume almost ready–I’m being Scottish, and wearing the Sinclair plaid as a sash (it’s Dad’s, so I have to be extra careful.) I’m wearing my regular plaid skirt with a green overskirt and a really cute shirt I picked up at Goodwill a long time ago. I am also wearing the brooch I found in the dump behind our house (Mom and Dad’s house, that is) because it fits.

So cool. I will try to take a picture tonight to post.

Oh, and after rereading the prologue I had written a while ago of The Seventh Secret, I decided to start anew (and I reread The Eighth Room, too, so I could keep things straight) and I wrote almost 1000 words today on the new prologue. So far so good.

I guess my vacation is officially over, then.

There is a frost advisory tonight! What the heck! It took me 45 minutes to cover everything–all the potted plants, the 20-foot row of lima beans, and the 10 foot row of sweet potatoes (that is really longer, since they vine.) I used up swaths of fabric, sheets, tablecloths, and blankets.

I’m not that happy, because I’ll have a lot of laundry to do, and it’s supposed to rain, so everything will have to go in the dryer. ARGH.

It’s supposed to get down to 35-40 tonight. Brrrr!

Last year, I started bringing in the plants on October 20th, not September 20th!!! What’s up with that?!?!