Welcome to yet another “7th of the month” journal post highlighting the previous month, which, for this entry, spans from 7 May through 6 June 2025. As Ive done ever since I starting writing this kind of post, I’ll be following the same pattern — by discussing events that fell into the following three categories:
- Holler,
- Personal, and, of course,
- Writing.
Holler Happenings
Hello from “my holler in Kentucky”! This month, I spent some time working outside — once I finally recovered from whatever was ailing me the first two weeks of May (more on this later)! During my “spring cleaning” sessions outside, I picked up trash that either marauding raccoons or a neighbor’s dog had found while rummaging near the barn, where we keep our trash cans; got all of the burnables, recyclables, and trash out of the house and carted off to where they belong; and cleared off the “wood processing” side of the front porch, so we can start stocking up on firewood this summer.
In addition to doing some “spring cleaning”, Sweet Thing and I spent some time talking about our plans for the holler, and we came up with a “plan of attack” — an ordered list of what we want to accomplish in the coming months (and beyond):
- finally build a place to store all of our trash cans;
- relocate the trailer to the “back 40” (which will eventually become my “writing retreat”) AND get at least one load of gravel;
- build a storage shed behind the reliquary;
- build a ramp up to the front porch (I’ve never liked stairs, so I’m REALLY looking forward to getting this project finished); and finally,
- build the much-anticipated “loft storage” in the reliquary (so we can turn half of the space into a guest house and the other half into a workshop).
Hopefully, the price of lumber will come down enough to allow us to tackle ALL of these projects between now and the end of this calendar year.
Another “Holler Happening” occurred on 21 May 2025 when we experienced a late-night power outage. I was exercising on the treadmill when the power glitched for the first time, and I was almost thrown off the treadmill when it quit working! Unfortunately, that experience seems to have had a lasting effect on me: I’m VERY leery whenever it’s time for me to get off the darned thing! I need to look down at my feet to check — and double check — to make sure that the moving belt on which I’m walking is no longer moving! Hopefully, I’ll get over the trauma that this late-night power outage seems to have caused.
Anyway… The power was out for two hours and ten minutes, and once I’d recovered from the “treadmill incident”, I spent most of the time shutting down computers: Denny, my desktop computer, and Zenny, my laptop computer. Since I tend to have A LOY of open tabs on both of my ‘puters (being affectionately called “The Queen of Open Tabs” by Sweet Thing), the power outage proved to be agreat time for me to do something about ’em — bookmarking those I wanted to revisit and CLOSING all of them! In addition, I saved and closed all of the documents and other things that I had open. Shortly after I’d finished shutting down both computers, the power was restored, but I can’t help but wonder just how many people were late to work that morning. I am a “night owl”, so I was well aware of the power outage and was able too reset the clocks in the holler house. So, yeah… I wonder how the “early to bed/early to rise” folks fared during/after the late-night power outage.
Well… That’s about all the “news” I’ve got to report about “holler happenings”, so I’ll now move on to the next category: “Personal Events”:
Personal Events
The month of May began with me getting sick after our trip to “Flordida” for my darlin’ daughter’s college graduation! Don’t know how I got sick, but I finally felt ready to “rejoin the living” and get my life back on track — after TWO full weeks of being sick! Unfortunately, I also got sick again near the end of May, but I was able to “sleep off the sickies”, so I wasn’t sick for as long as I’d been at the beginning of the month. Being sick is definitely NO FUN!
Once I was finally feeling better, I got back to working on “Butterflies”, another “Trip around the World quilt that I started during my second “quilt-along” class at the LGCHC. I had stopped working on this quilt so I could get another quilt (“Purples” finished in time to give my daughter after she graduated. I finished the inner border on 20 May, and I expect to have it finished before the start of my third “quilt-along” class on 10 June 2025. By the way, I started taking these “quilt-along” classes in the fall of 2024 after finding out about them when I started working on repairing my daughter’s (well-worn) “trailer quilt” that a dear family friend had given her decades before! I think I’m definitely hooked on quilting! In fact, I suspect that I’ll be writing a few books that will feature quilts and the Amish women who make them.
Anyway… Here are a few more things that fall into the “Personal Events” category:
- spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what I need to do to get my life back on track — after the focus of the first four months of 2025 being on getting ready for the ROAD TRIP down to “Flordida” to attend my daughter’s college graduation. After that event became history, I was at a loss as to what I want to focus on now.
- the “checking on you” phone calls from my darlin’ daughter continued throughout the month, including one during which she managed to get her brother on the phone — a rare, but greatly appreciated, treat. (Found out that he’s still alive (sometimes I wonder…) and working at a Winco — at least I think that’s the name of the grocery store where he works!) In addition, I also had an enjoyable chat with one of our family’s neighbors when I was growing up! It had been quite a while since I last spoke with her, so it was great to catch up on what’s been happening with her ever-growing family!
- I read a couple of books by Danielle Steele: “The Butler” and “Five Days in Paris”. I’ve never really been a fan of Danielle Steele, but I read those two books to give her another chance — to see whether my “literary tastes” had changed. I like the concept of “The Butler”, but as a romance (which is what I was expecting), it didn’t cut it for me. I much preferred “Five Days in Paris”. Anyway…
- I FINALLY got DJ back from the repair shop — after over TWO months (much of which was waiting for parts). Thankfully, the repair bill was A LOT less than expected! A VERY pleasant surprise.
- I created a “Summer Bucket List” — of things that I want to accomplish this summer! It includes many of the things I keep saying I want to do each summer but never do. Hopefully, this is the summer that things like (1) going to see movies at a drive-in theatre and (2) make at lease one batch of homemade ice cream! Once again, I’ll have to type it up, print it out, and post it somewhere prominent, so I’ll be able to check to see how close I am to accomplishing everything on this list.
- I ended this “month” ( on 5 June 2025) with something I know is my “civic duty” but is also something I dread: JURY DUTY! Unlike jury duty in the state where I used to live, jury duty here is an all-year responsibility — mostly due to the lower population. Thankfully, the local judge understands that jury duty isn’t always a favorite activity for the folks around here, so she does her best to make it so that the “petit court jurors” don’t have to come in until they’re really needed. Well… It turned out that these jurors, including me, were actually needed for a jury trial that day (and into the next), so I spent that morning listening to every that was going on in the courtroom — AND taking notes, so I could possibly include a scene in which one of my main characters has been summoned for jury duty. The taking of notes actually helped keep me calm during that whole “ordeal”, BUT I am VERY grateful that my name was NEVER called for me to become a juror for that trial. I was able to walk away from the courthouse breathing BIG sighs of relief. In addition to NOT being called, there was another bit of good news: the judge’s calendar was filling up fast for jury trials in the other jurisdictions in which she serves, so I won’t have to worry about jury duty again until OCTOBER! Only time will tell whether I’ll be summoned for jury duty in October…
And on that note, I’ll move on to the third, and final, category in June’s “7th of the month” journal post: my writing!
Writing
As far as my writing is concerned, I FINALLY got back to my writing on the 8th of May (after being sick for a FULL TWO WEEKS!), and one of the first things I did was to get all of my postcards mailed for April 2025’s postcard swap! With virtually all of my attention in April focused on our ROAD TRIP (for my darlin’ daughter’s college graduation), working on my postcards got pushed to the back burner. Consequently, I made working on those a priority once I (finally) regained my health! “Better late than never!”
In addition, I continued researching Amish life by perusing Web sites such as “Amish America: Exploring Amish Culture & Communities”, which is a treasure trove of information about the Amish in this country AND by ordering a book called “Pocket Guide to the Amish”, by Mindy Starns Clark, and author of Amish romance novels. (I also checked out her author Web site, too — to get more ideas about what kinds of things I might want to add to my own Web site!) Although this book is small in size, it is packed with LOTS of information that will probably be incorporated into some of my own Amish romance novels in the future!
Speaking of my own Amish novels, I decided to use my jury duty experience as research for a scene to include in my current work-in-progress or, possibly, into a “short” story. I figured that doing this would help keep my mind occupied and off the possibility that my name might be drawn as a potential juror! So… I started taking notes about jury duty as soon as I got into our “little white roadster” (thanks to Sweet Thing agreeing to drop me off and pick me up since there’s a distinct lack of parking at the local courthouse) and continued to do so throughout the whole nerve-wracking experience. Thankfully, I made it out of the courtroom WITHOUT my name being called! (THANK YOU!) Once outside, I called Sweet Thing to let him know he could come pick me up, and then I proceeded to walk to our agreed-upon pickup location: a place that might be a good place for me to park should he not be able to drop me off in the future. Anyway… Now that I’ve got pages and pages of notes from my three-hour jury duty service, I need to start thinking about how to incorporate such a scene into one of my own Amish romance novels (or a short story)! Coming soon to a book near you: JURY DUTY!
The last thing worthy of noting in this “7th of the month” post is that Sweet Thing introduced me to ways AI can help authors, including (1) creating characters, and (2) coming up with plot points for a story based on a given genre and a one-sentence description. For a long time, I’ve been hearing about AI, but I’m rather old-fashioned and just didn’t want to have anything to do with AI. However, that all changed when he started giving me examples of what AI could do the help me as an author. Now, I see the potential that AI has, so I’ll probably be “playing with” it — though NOT as much as Sweet Thing has been doing lately. At this point, “the jury is still out” about how much I’ll allow AI into my writing life, but I would love to hear about your experiences with AI. So… Please leave a comment below.
On that note, I’m going to close June’s “7th of the month” post. Stay tuned for another glimpse into my personal (AND professional) life. As always, I look forward to hearing from you! In the meantime… Take care.