How quiet I’ve been!

I’m actually really surprised to discover that I haven’t posted in almost three weeks. What have I been doing with myself?

Not, I’m pleased to say, wallowing in ill-health. Maybe it was the antibiotics, maybe it was the season, maybe it was just a natural slow recovery, but I’m finally over my cough. I haven’t quite gotten my daily walking back up to where it was in early May, but I’m getting there. (For my own future reference, May’s walking average, 3.8 miles. June, 2.2. July, 3.2.)

I haven’t been doing much, though. Suzanne and I took a quick camping trip up to Oregon over the 4th of July, mostly in order to keep dogs away from fireworks. As far as I know, Sophie doesn’t care about fireworks at all, but they make Riley pretty unhappy and it was a good excuse to go camping.

It was only Sophie’s second camping trip, which surprised me when I realized it, but of course Suzanne’s broken ankle derailed our camping plans in the summer of 2022. And I don’t currently own a car — or a vehicle of any sort, in fact! — so I’m not doing any camping on my own. The good news is that Sophie was a much better camper as a two-year old than she was as a puppy, “better” being defined as more relaxed. When we got into the tent, she curled up and went to sleep, instead of alerting on every passing noise.

Tent camping in campgrounds, though, is less fun than Serenity camping mostly because people are really noisy. We had neighbors one night who stayed up chatting at their campfire until 1AM. Ugh. I felt like I should invite myself to join them, but I didn’t want to join them, I wanted to sleep! It was also chilly and foggy on the coast, which isn’t surprising, but wasn’t what I was hoping for. On the other hand, it was more comfortable than if it had been sweltering like most of the rest of the planet, so no complaints.

And it was fun to be out and about. It’s already almost two weeks ago, but I think my favorite part was probably stopping at a river with the dogs and letting them swim.

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I don’t actually know how to embed a video, but that link is two seconds of Sophie swimming. Earlier in the month, we took the dogs to a splash pool event at the local shelter. Bear loved it and swam like crazy: Sophie was completely unwilling to step off the ramp into the water. Obviously, it’s fine if she doesn’t like to swim, and I’m not going to force her to. But I was glad she was willing to give it a try at the river.

Locally, I’ve gone to pick blueberries a couple of times; also appreciated the glories of the farmer’s market; also enjoyed the back yard and garden; also played lots of ball with Sophie at our local fields. We started the next level of dog classes and are currently working on “middle,” where she sits between my legs and waits patiently, and “tummy,” which is basically roll over and get petted. I’ve also worked on a book or two or three — for some reason, I’m having trouble sticking with a project and keep hopping between them. And I’ve planned some future fun trips, including investigating Mexican dental tourism. I haven’t quite taken the plunge and made an appointment, but I’m going to.

Anything else? Hmm… well, this happened:

Not because of anything I did, in either case. Well, I guess I set Cici to be free (via KU free days), so that was something. I’m fairly sure that one of the sites that advertise free books much have picked up both of them and mentioned that they were free, because books don’t generally make it onto the best giveaway list just for existing, but I didn’t do any kind of promotion to make it happen, so it was a pleasant surprise. It will be a more pleasant surprise if it helps sales or reads of the other books, of course, but I’m not counting on those chickens.

And now I should get back to writing a book. I keep reminding myself that persistence always gets me there in the end, but… well, persistence! It’s my new mantra. 🙂

I hope you’re enjoying your summers, too, and for those of you sweltering in the heat, remember to hydrate!