My lilac is blooming, and it smells so good right now. I always wish they lasted longer than they do, but I’ll be happy for the amazing scent while it lasts, and then be happy with the next flowers that bloom in my garden, just maybe not as happy as with these.
I keep thinking I’m making progress with my writing goals, and then non-writing life things keep cropping up. I will say I’ll be very happy when we have my aunt’s estate settled and no more ‘oh, by the way’ things come up. I have been writing, though, just not as much as I want. This month, we have estate things to deal with, and my family is getting together in a couple of weeks to sprinkle my dad’s ashes. It will be good to see everybody, but heartbreakingly sad at the same time, because we’ll be saying good-bye to my dad. Technically, we did that in February, but this makes it feel a lot more final. Pretty soon we’ll also be placing my aunt’s ashes, too, in a spot she’d love–we’re moving my grandma’s rose bush to a new garden spot, and we’re going to “plant” my aunt with her. Truth be told, I’m a little nervous about moving the rose bush–it’s been in that spot since before my grandma died in 1980, so I’m hoping it isn’t too unhappy with being moved to a place nearby.
It is almost time for me to be planting my tomatoes here, too. Another week or so, and we’ll be past the point of freeze danger, so the tomatoes can go into the beds, and I’ll be looking forward to yummy, fresh tomatoes from the garden. I have lettuce to plant, too, enough to keep my salad bowls full for the summer, rotating through the season. I may have to fight the rabbits for my lettuce, but I think I should have enough for all of us.
I did a little more reading of old manuscripts, too, this week. A couple will need a lot of work to be publishable down the road, but one that I’d forgotten about actually is much better than I remember it being, so it made me happy to add it to my list of things to work on (though that one will have to wait until next year). It’s funny reading through some of these old stories. I’ve got a lot of them, and obviously some are better than others, even before I start reworking them, but I realized I’ve done a lot of moving around, from genre to genre. I have a couple of time travels, a whole lot of short contemporary stories, and some longer contemporary stories, as well as the paranormal romances. I have on my writing to-do list for the year to dig through my idea notebook, too. I haven’t looked at it in a long time, because I’ve been busy with other things, so it’s going to be fun to look at the things I have there, to see what I could work into an existing manuscript, or combine to create something new. Or just for entertainment, to see how far I’ve come since I started adding things to the notebook.
I’m about to go back to working on my shape-shifting tiger, inputting everything I wrote by hand at the day-job this week, but I think I need to toss in a little story snippet, maybe some from another of my tiger shifter stories. Just as an FYI, the hero in this story is one of the broodiest, with a terrible cursing habit, so be warned.
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Anton scowled at the laptop screen. Another fucking rogue group. He was sick of this shit.
He shoved to his feet and swung around to stare out the window. The bright sunlight made him squint, which annoyed him further. It was too early in the morning to be so bright. The snow on the ground didn’t help matters.
The tap at his office door had him clearing his frown before he turned around.
“Uncle Boyd.” He nodded.
The older man came in, his sharp blue gaze missing nothing. “You heard?”
Anton dipped his chin once in acknowledgment. “I just got the email from the council.”
The rogue uprising had been going on for several years now, and each time the security council thought they might have gotten the upper hand, the malcontents found some new recruits. He glanced at the open laptop on his desk. This time, it was a hyena attack in Egypt, where they shouldn’t even be. Fuckers.
Anton took a slow breath and clasped his hands behind him. “I’ll find out what I can, so we can go into the council meeting up to date.”
Boyd Wentworth smiled. “I know you will.” He didn’t leave, though, just tipped his head slightly to study Anton.
He kept his expression bland. “What’s up?” His uncle had something else on his mind, and he had the uneasy feeling it had nothing to do with rogue shifters.
“When did you last take a vacation?”
Anton frowned before he could stop himself. “What?”
Boyd smiled. “Time off. You haven’t had any in a while.”
“Too much to do.”
“You should take a couple days. At least a long weekend.”
He shook his head. “Depending on what happens at the meeting, we might be a lot busier again.”
The older man shrugged. “You haven’t had a break in longer than I can remember. Take the weekend, Thursday, Friday and Monday, do something not related to work. Find a pretty woman to have a drink. We can manage for a couple of days.”
Anton considered his uncle’s words. “Why?”
Boyd’s smile slipped a little. “I have a hunch things are going to heat up again, and if you don’t get a little down-time in soon, you probably won’t be able to for a long time.”
Interesting. “You’ve heard something more?”
The other man’s smile widened again. “Maybe. Just a rumor. I’ll talk to you about it after I confirm.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“I mean it about the long weekend. Once we get the meeting out of the way this afternoon, you should be able to take that long weekend. That’s an order.”
Anton raised an eyebrow, but his uncle was turning away already. This probably wasn’t the best time to take a mini vacation, not with fresh trouble on the horizon.
That didn’t mean he couldn’t actually work, he mused, easing into his seat again, even if he wasn’t in the office. He could work from home.
Though finding a pretty woman for a drink was appealing. Or for one night. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a date, or even a quick fuck.
And now that he’d thought it, the idea grew more appealing.
He didn’t think his last casual sex partner was still on the market, though. Pretty sure she’d gotten married. A year or two ago, now that he really thought about it.
Plenty of other willing women, he was sure. He just needed to find the right one at the right moment.
But that was for later. Right now, he had work to do, phone calls to make.
Rogues to start hunting down.
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I hope you all have a great week, with lots of good things blooming for you!
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