Anita's Attic: Weddings and Vacations

I'm writing this on the way back home from a week in the Adirondacks. We went for my husband's best friend's wedding which was held at their summer place there. We had no TV or email, and finding cell service reguired an elaborate phone dance, walking in zig zag patterns, hand raised in the air, then freezing mid-step when a bar appeared, only to fade as soon as the phone started to ring.

At first, I was thrilled to get away from email and blogs, until I realized that I may have inadvertantly sent my copy editor the wrong version of Embrace the Highland Warrior before I left. I wasn't able to call or email her to verify, so I had several hours of horror, imagining an old, error-riddled version of the book hitting the shelves. I was finally able to drive several miles into the nearest town so I could get a cell phone signal to call her. What a relief to know that the correct version was going to the printer. After that, I settled down and relaxed.

The place was beautiful, an old cabin on the Upper Seranac lake with a huge old boathouse, woods filled with white birch trees, pine needles, and moss. I have some strange obsessions. Moss and pine needles are two of them. There's something so magical about moss. It makes me think of elves and fairytales. Mirrors are another obsession. I only mention them because just before I started this blog, my dear husband of nearly fourteen years actually threatened to drive off and leave me at the TJ Maxx in Syracuse if I dared buy the mirror I was drooling over. We have a LOT of mirrors in our house. I love decorating, and I use mirrors where other people would use artwork, so an added bonus to this week was when after a random comment about how I'd love to have a couple hundred dollars to dress up the room in the boathouse where the bride and the bridesmaids would get ready, the groom's mother (who owns the place) asked if I was serious and handed me a wad of cash. Whoo Hoo! I got to shop and decorate on someone else's dime. And she sent some of my purchases home with me.

Even though I was helping get things ready for the wedding I found myslf so inspired to write. I would enthusiastically work on a scene, then rush off to clean or decorate a room, then rush back and write some more. I guess it was all that fresh air, or maybe the magical moss, but the ideas just started flowing. I fixed several plot points and had a moment of sheer bliss, when I was blindsided by one of those fantastic plot twists that sometimes hit when you least expect them.

I wish I could've spent several days there just writing. But vacations end,and so do lovely weddings. And this one was beautiful. Too much food, and we danced until our feet ached. I actually danced with my 13 year old son for the first time. It was so sweet. My 10 year old daughter was of course on the dance floor all night. Now, I'm back home, immersed in email and blogging and all the stuff that goes with writing. I found another pleasant surprise waiting. My mother, a true saint, had painted my kids bedrooms, a job I had been procrastinating for two years. I just hope I don't lose the inspiration I found there, so I can get this third book done. Yes, I decided I'd better leave the mirror in Syracuse...for now. But I'll find one here, hang it on the wall and see how long it takes hubby to notice.