A praying mantis we found at our porch light the other day.

We do seem to find the most interesting things at our porch light, don’t we?

Some of us built my grandma a new deck over Labor Day weekend.  It was quite the adventure. . .

The jade circle is from China, but I made the other necklace recently.  Xie xie is thank-you in Chinese.

Our church had a grand opening at our new building this Sunday and served cupcakes to celebrate.  Don’t ask how this little guy snagged one with bright blue frosting.  I have now decided that cupcakes are indisputably the messiest dessert in the world.  Still like them though.

Mom and the littles are making apple sauce today with the apples from the apple orchard!

Remind me to tell you guys how it turned out. . .

And now: the schedule.

There was no dispute in any of the comments of my last post: everyone wanted to do “Mystery Quote” again, and wanted me to hurry up and get The Sacrifice up here.

So that’s precisely what I’m doing: tomorrow we will start “Mystery Quote” back up, and we’ll will do that on Tuesdays this fall.  To avoid confusion, I will call the next one #19, picking up where we left off.  That way we won’t have two #1 posts on my blog, two #2’s, two #3’s, and so on.  If anyone ever looks for “Mystery Quote #5” in the search bar, that could be kinda’ confusing.  I don’t know if anyone ever will search for it, but it will be fun to see how many we’ve done all together anyway!

Like I said, we’ll do this through the fall.  In November we’ll at least take a break, while I post several things I want to put up during the anniversary of our China-trip.  Then, sometime before, during, or slightly after the Christmas-bash of some sorts that will inevitably come*, I will start The Sacrifice;  trusting I will be done writing, editing, and over-thinking it by then.

*Can anyone explain to me my deal with holidays?

In the meantime, I am writing as fast as I can.  I’ve found that because I usually have the story-line all mapped out before I start writing, I can make myself write, whether I feel like it or not.  Which is a good thing for you all, since I would usually rather go read a book or browse blogs than sit down and write.  Thinking up stories is the fun part for me, while actually getting them written is proving to be the challenge.

Which part of the process is your favorite, all writers who read my blog (I know there’s some)?  The writing, or the musing?