Happy summer everyone! This picture is from my garden. In a previous post, I spoke of my love for coneflowers. That hasn’t changed and I’ve got a plethora of them blooming right now. And then there’s . . . this. I have no idea. There are a few of them that look similar in the garden. I’ve also got some coneflowers with (as best I can describe it) rolled up petals. It’s bizarre. It’s odd enough I wanted to use it for this post.
It’s been too long since I’ve posted anything. Life is getting the best of me right now. I’m still hard at work getting the Reaping Covetous Series out there. I feel like I’ve been saying that for a while now and there’s a reason for that—it’s because I have. The good news (at least for me) is that book one just came back from copy editing. It will go out for proofreading in a few weeks and then back to me to finish up and finally get released. The cover is currently in the works and I can’t wait to see it. I’m so very excited that this looks to be finally happening. In total, there will be seven books in the series. I’m currently busy on book number five.
Work is . . . work right now. The veterinary profession is in a real crisis. There simply aren’t enough of us to go around. And if general practice is having a struggle, the emergency field is close to a meltdown. Where I live, it’s not unusual for people to have to wait 5+ hours to be seen. I recently got an e-mail from a friend of mine who works in Connecticut (hi Lisa!) and she says it’s as bad there if not worse sometimes. This is a country wide issue and I can’t see a path out of it. All I can say is please have patience with us. We really are doing the best we can with what we have. I know it’s frustrating but please try and be kind. And if you can’t be kind, then don’t be cruel or take it out on the receptionists that have no control over the situation. The strain is starting to affect all of us.
I’m thankful to say my pets are doing just fine. As I write this, Newton is sitting on my arm and making it very difficult to type. He doesn’t understand when I tell him, “mommy’s working”. I’m expecting the paw to my face any minute. He’s taken to doing that, as if sitting on my arm isn’t informative enough that he’s there. He doesn’t intentionally put his claws out (by the way, I just got the paw to the cheek), but they still scratch and don’t feel the best when he does it. I’ve gotten used to keeping one eye on him and when he starts to reach out, I lean back, hopefully out of the way.
That’s all for now. I’ll try and be better about updating. Unfortunately, my fingers aren’t what they used to be and I spend most of my days off writing. By the time I’ve gotten that done, my fingers, hands, and wrists are crap and typing is really hard. That’s life though. We push through it to do what we love.
Stay well and I hope your garden’s are growing well—mutant flowers or no. BTW, in my state, we’ve been told not to feed the birds anymore. Evidently there is some disease that’s killing off the songbirds. Many have died and necropsy isn’t very illuminating as to the cause. To try and help stem the passing of whatever disease this is, the DNR has asked us not to feed them anymore. It’s sad. I just started feeding them this year and really enjoyed it. I miss them. So do the cats. They really enjoyed watching the birds as well as the squirrels and chipmunks the food drew to the area. Sigh . . . so much for kitty enrichment.
MJ May
veterinarian and fiction writer 