progress on the projects

I am close to getting sick of fresh garden peas. Yes, even for those of us who love fresh peas, we can reach our saturation point.

Around a year ago, I had a lot of peas put away in our freezer, along with some other frozen foods from our garden... until the door of the upright freezer wasn't shut properly and stayed open overnight. Everything thawed. I discovered that mess the next morning when going into the garage to head to work. We lost a LOT of work and food last year, including all the peas I had picked and shelled and measured and bagged.

I've been waiting to restock that. This year, I planted different peas, but they're good and they are indeed mildew resistant. I had always been losing my 5-6 ft. peas (we give them fences to climb) by this time. I was low on those, so this year, I ordered new peas from Gurney's, and they were sold as mildew-resistant. They are. They're short, however, only 24-30" tall. But, boy, do they produce! Not as much as the other plants, but they haven't stopped, so I've been able to refill what was lost.

We also learned from that loss two things: 1) Don't put the kids' preferred foods in the upright freezer, and 2) put a lock/latch on the door to make sure it can't open. Hubby put a child safety lock on the upright, so it's not a locking lock but a safety lock to keep little kids out of a fridge. When we secure it each time we close the door, we can be sure that door will stay shut.

And, we learned that putting the bagged frozen garden produce into large, stackable Rubbermaid containers help us make a lot better use of the space in the upright freezer. The upright is great for being able to see everything and not have to dig around, but it does have that door-closing issue. Putting bags into bins really helps to keep it organized. AND, if it ever does have a great meltdown again, that will reduce the mess!

Writing Update

I've been editing Book 20 and it's going well. I overcame the whole extreme fatigue issue and really gained a good focus for editing again. It's going well and I still have two weeks until the end of this month. I won't say anything, because I always tend to have something go wrong that delays publication. I'll just keep my eye on the target while giving it the attention to detail that readers deserve.

And once this is published, I'll get into writing Book 23. I can't believe I'll be in the final three!

Other 

The other project is jumping ahead. The development is nearly done and all the little pieces are settling into place very well. There's still a refinement stage, but the major part is done. And I already see how this could expand and grow. It could turn into a full-time job, and it could also turn a profit; but for now, it will start small. I hope to make a public announcement by the end of September. Stay tuned!

Thanks for reading!