If this blog does nothing else, it reminds me how quickly time passes. I really can’t believe it has been over a month since I last posted. Here’s a brief summary of life in the Garden.

This year’s herb and vegetable garden are in and looking very promising. My sunflowers did not sprout and one dill plant struggles to survive, but everything else looks remarkably healthy. In time, I should harvest tomatoes, Swiss chard and kale, peas and pole beans, white and yellow corn, and lemon cucumbers. I’ve never had much success with peppers, but my four pepper plants appear to be trying to change my luck. My eggplant also thrive, but have not begun to flower yet. Without much thought or planning, I threw in an odd assortment of flowering herbs into a pot, mainly because I think they are pretty. Even these appear to be sprouting, although some may be weeds. Overall, however, I’ve found the experience much more satisfying than in previous years. I’m guessing the time I took with the cover crop, soil preparation and mulching may be paying off.

With my boys out of school, I’ve had a bit more time for knitting. I am attempting the Warm Bundles pattern in the Leisure Arts’ Tea for Two Baby Afghans pamphlet. Unfortunately, I’ve made almost no progress, but not for lack of effort. Each time I start to make any progress, I find I’ve made some careless mistake in the preceding rows and need to start over. I’m frustrated, but this seems to be my process for starting any new pattern. I lie to myself by thinking that my stitches will be more even for all of the practice, and I cast on once again.

On the writing front, work progresses, albeit slowly. I’ve been working at upgrading and updating my blogs. As is rather evident from this blog, however, I’ve not improved my posting consistency, but I continue to view that as a goal I intend to achieve. Since I haven’t given up the goal, I suppose there is still hope I will attain it.

I did recently discover the most amazing place. It’s cool and relatively quiet (by comparison to a home with three boys, nine years and younger). It has free Wifi and comfortable chairs. It’s called a public library, and it’s completely free (after paying my taxes). They don’t even ask me to buy a coffee! And it’s only moments from my home. With this discovery, I have renewed hope I can will get more consistent writing time.

And, speaking of consistent writing, I have refused to take poetry workshops for the past six months in the hopes of finding my own internal push to write poetry. Suffice it to say, my plan has failed completely. I’ve written almost no poetry in that period. For that reason, I’m excited that I will begin another workshop next week. I look forward to producing some new poems. I also hope the workshop will also give me the nudge I evidently need to polish my villanelle and finally send it out for publication.

I continue review books consistently. This past Saturday, I uploaded nine new reviews to my editors. Forced reading time and writing deadlines are part of what attracted me to reviewing, but I also hoped to cultivate a more discerning eye. After this last batch of reviews, I think I have become more discerning, particularly in the area of young children’s literature. Good thing, as six new books are winging their way to me for review as I write.

Finally, I’ve made no progress on my goal of writing children’s literature this summer. I have a wonderful book on writing picture books, but have made little progress because my reading time has been devoted to the review books.  However, I would very much like to participate in the Cheerios’ Spoonfuls of Stories contest this year, so I need to get to work.

Well, I guess I’m not being totally honest with myself here. I could have read the children’s lit book yesterday, but I was completely lazy. Instead, I read the latest installments in my two favorite murder mystery series.  I finished Earlene Fowler’s latest Bennie Harper mystery, State Fair, and started Janet Evanovich’s latest Stephanie Plum installment, Sizzling Sixteen. If I’m forcing myself to be truthful, I really couldn’t think of a better way to spend the day.

Of course, being lazy leads me to the subject of exercise. Right now, my exercise consists mainly of swimming with my sons for an hour and a half to two hours several nights a week. While I find this exhausting, I really doubt it is giving me the cardio workout that I need.

So, that’s a fairly decent summary of life in the Curious Mind Garden. I’ll try to stop by a bit more often.