Ok, a quick note to let ya'll know I have not been abducted by aliens, fallen into a black hole, or gotten stuck inside a tear in the space time continuum!
This week has been crazy. Actually, last week was too! I mentioned before that I'm taking the Rose Colored Glasses' Plotting Boot Camp and, well, I've been immersed in my fictional world for Broken Chords. On top of that, I've been finishing up the proof reading for Ring of Lies. Last week my daughter was in summer camp and I thought that would give me "alone" time to finish the plotting but the camp was from 1-4 so all it really did was interrupt my day. In fact, one day I managed to forget all about her and was almost 30 minutes late picking her up!
I was determined to work like mad this week and finish plotting Broken Chords before my company arrives Friday. Oh, did I mention two of my best friends and their families are coming to visit for the 4th? No? Well, at present count there will be 14 of us

I didn't think anything about their coming, no big deal, the house is big enough, plenty of beds for adults and floor space for kids, etc. However, Tuesday I emerged from my fantasy world long enough to realize my house was a WRECK!
Now, my writing friends will surely relate when I say that house work falls by the wayside when the voices in our head's begin to chatter, but for those non-writing beings let me just say this house of mine had accumulated massive quantities of junk since the first of the year. Yes, I know, non-writers are saying, "WHAT, how can you not have cleaned since January?!" My answer is, "easily." Remember that I started plotting RIng of Lies in mid January but I was stressing and brainstorming from just after Christmas. Then I met Riley Quinn and started fleshing out my story with her and everything fell in place, but since the deadline for the submission of the manuscript was March 31st I had to devote all my time to actually writing the story. Let us also remember that I home school so some of my day had to be devoted to that as well. Oh, and there is a business that requires a modicum of my time, too!
Not surprising then that the house did not rate as a priority. I managed to sweep, mop, and keep piles of laundry from accumulating but dusting, windows, removing cobwebs, finding a home for Christmas presents ... NOPE, did not get done. The bell tolled for me Tuesday morning. I could not have guests, and so many guests, in the house without cleaning, and I mean REALLY cleaning, not just running the vacuum cleaner and swiping a wet mop across the floors.
I finished another chapter of plotting on Broken Chords then pulled out the major cleaning supplies. The "public" areas were not too bad, dusting, sweeping, mopping, scrubbing the couch my dog likes to lay on ... I completed all of that in about two hours and went back to work on Broken Chords. Yesterday however, was another story. I decided to tackle the bedrooms. Thank God the guest room is out of bounds unless occupied by an actual guest but my daughter's room will be pressed into service this weekend, and OMG! How can one fairly small girl create such HUGE messes?
Cleaning her pig sty took the better part of Wednesday. I filled two, count them TWO, kitchen sized garbage bags with trash, literally TRASH. She is an avid artist so paper is everywhere, some with drawings on them but most are just miscellaneous doodles. But ALL must be kept for posterities sake, at least according to her, so I corralled all the "art" into a bin, instructed her to gather up all the pens, pencils, markers, colored pencils, charcoal sticks, etc. and put them back on her desk where they belong, then I turned to the space under her bed.
Words escape me. I knew there was stuff under there, but I had no idea just how much she'd managed to squirrel away! I sent her little skinny self under the no man's land to rake out her stash while I decided whether it went to the keep or trash pile. Unbelievable. That is all I can say about the experience. Tiny triangles of paper she'd cut up for some forgotten purpose, piles of yarn and cotton batting, empty, and thankfully washed, pudding and yogurt containers, straws, etc. I have no idea what she intended to do with the stuff but if filled a trash bag. Then she pulled out clothes. She had half a wardrobe under there! No wonder she never has a mate for her socks, they've been living under the bed! Shoes too! Stuffed animals also came out of their prison ... I still cannot figure out how she managed to cram all that stuff under there! But, her room is now clean, and get this, she keeps going in there to look at it and had the nerve to say how much she likes it when her room is clean. You can guess my response, right?

Still waaaay too much stuff, but at least you can see the carpet!
I was exhausted after the process but the jungle that is our yard still beckoned. We used to have a man come and cut the grass, weed eat, etc. but he can't do it anymore so that chore has fallen to me. I don't mind, normally, but the lawn mower is getting up there in age and now has quirks. What kind of quirks? Well, the worst one is its refusal to start until you remove the air filter, pour "so much and no more",( a delicate balance, don't you know), gas into the carburetor, then scramble to replace the air filter and jerk on the pull chord while praying it starts, before said gas runs down into where ever it goes and you have to start the process all over again. It worked on the first go'round and I managed to get the majority of the yard mowed, but, (there is always a but

, it ran out of gas which leads me to the **#&^%$$?? mower's other major quirk. If the tank runs dry you refill it, and of course go through the carb. process again, but now, for whatever reason known only to the perverse mower, you can pull on that cord until you are red in the face but it IS NOT GOING TO START! Let us just end this with my kicking the stupid thing a few times and leave out the "choice" words I blessed it with; between gasps for air of course, since by this time I was utterly worn out from trying to start the ??(&%$#@*# thing!
On a final note, and one more thing on my list for this week, (wait! There is also a necessary grocery store visit on that list for today

, a good friend of mine and her family are moving to Canada next week and we wanted to get the girls together to play one more time. They live on Tybee Island so we are supposed to spend this afternoon at the beach, though that may get scratched since the weatherman on the radio keeps harping about taking an umbrella if you venture out today ... that will just mean I need to find something else for the girls to do or find another open day to hit the beach ... I can't wait for RWA Nationals. A hotel room to myself, a big, fluffy bed; I may not leave the room!