Days like today, I wonder why it took me so long to leave Las Vegas.

According to Google it’s 68 degrees here.  It’s not raining, but it smells like rain.  You know that yummy smell they try to make candles smell like but always fail?   I’ve lived in the desert for so long that rain-smell is like Christmas.  So rare it’s special.

In Vegas? It’s 93 degrees.  At 8 p.m. Guess what.  The rain smell is greatly diminished when it feels like you’re boiling in your own skin.

The breeze coming from my window feels so good.  The elm tree outside my window is blowing in the wind.  My veggies will get some good rain tonight I think.  And life is good.  It’s just really good.

I’ve finished the rewrite on Keeper.  I’m working on a final read-through of Devil You Don’t.  And I have a little back-up of story ideas in my head.  Who could ask for more?

Isn’t it nice to come home? I really love the feeling of sleeping in my own bed after a few nights trying to sleep with a wiggly toddler on a narrow mattress. Especially because my husband is a little bit of a clean-o-holic and I know that I’ll come home to clean sheets and a house that smells pine fresh. I am so lucky.

Las Vegas was…Las Vegas. Hot. How did I live there for twenty years? I felt physically ill after just a couple of days. Oh, I know. I never left the house in the summer when I lived there. I even had groceries delivered during July and August. I’m such a wimp.

I really love living in the mountains.

I did get a lot done on my short story. A good hard-copy edit. Yesterday I plugged the edits into my story and ended up adding 1000 words. It’s a good story. I’m proud of it. I had meant for it to be light, chic-lit-y. It didn’t happen. Every edit has made it darker, and now it’s pretty much just on the lighter side of paranormal. That’s okay. It’s my thing. I don’t even read chic-lit, so I’m not sure why I thought I could write it.

I have two stories out there right now. My novel at Pink Petal Books and a short story at Ellora’s Cave. This is not a business for the impatient. I just looked back through my email, and I submitted my story to Ellora’s Cave two months ago. Two months.

That’s it for now. I have to get out to my garden. I just put in one last bed, and I need to get it planted. It’s still June, and the last frost was less than two weeks ago, but there’s still this feeling that I need to rush and get everything in so that it can grow up before the cold comes again in September. Especially the squash. I have pumpkins, butternut, golden nugget, and spaghetti squash seeds to plant! Yum!

Ruby found a lady bug in the garden today. This was after she sat with me at the table on the patio with a pencil and some scratch paper, working on her ’story’ while I worked on a hard-copy edit of mine. So, here you have it: the aphid-eater and the baby writer.

My first chapter is up at Critique Circle.

So far I’ve had three critiques. All three said they liked my writing and only had minor issues. That’s fantastic. I submitted the first chapters of my first novel right after I wrote it and was so traumatized by the feedback that I almost gave it up completely. So I’m improving. That’s nice to know.

I’ve submitted that first novel (Devil You Don’t) to Pink Petal Books. It’s a new e-publisher. I like the idea of being in on the ground floor somewhere.

I’m spending today making some purses for my Etsy store (www.enigmavintage.etsy.com) and planting some lavender and peas in my backyard. It’s a good day for being outside. Warm enough, but not hot. A breeze, but not the crazy wind that comes up here in the mountains in the spring and early summer.