It’s been three weeks since I did a blog post announcing that I want to have my memoir finished before I turned 40. I still have eleven months until my set deadline and I already have a rough draft of the book completely done! There were several things in place to make this possible. First of all I had quite a few chapters already written when I first dreamt up the memoir idea. Also, even the ones that weren’t covered I was able to pull some from blog posts. To be clear the book is not going to be blog posts in print, not at all. It helps a lot though that I wrote about my experiences along the way and I can pull heavily from that. I also looked through a lot of photos, receipts, emails, social media posts and calendars to put all the pieces into place. This whole memoir thing digs up a lot of stuff from the past. Some of it is heart breaking and I have definitely shed some tears, it’s been healing though.

Here’s the thing about the book writing process. I love writing, that’s the easy part for me. Once I get into that zone my fingers go flying over the keyboard and it’s hard for me to peel myself away. The thing I don’t have the motivation for is what comes next and that is the execution. I don’t even know all the steps it will take because I have never done this before! I do know I need to polish this first draft A LOT! After that I will need to figure out how to have it edited, then published, and promoted. There are probably infinitely more details than I even realize, but I am determined not to quit before the finish line this time.

Also, even though the blog has been quiet lately I do not want to pull back on writing on Messy Mom to focus on my book. On the contrary, I want to take things up a notch once school starts. For now though we are going to soak up the last 23 days of summer break. With that said here is a little photo dump from summer so far.

The first two weeks of summer we were in Texas. Even though the circumstances were not the best we were able to have a lot moments together as one big happy family.

Jeremy went ATVing with the guys. He ended up cracking multiple ribs and the recovery has been brutal. I think he would still do it all over again if he could, just maybe with a little more caution.

We went camping with some of friends from church and are looking forward to another camp out next month that will include caving.

Of course we spend time with the chickens every day that the weather allows. When we travel we have a neighbor that collects eggs and cares for them which is wonderful.

The Fourth of July was everything it should be. Hot dogs, lemonade, red white and blue, fireworks, and time spent with friends and family!

Last but not least we were able to take a trip to Michigan and the kids got to experience Mackinac island for the first time. Some aspects of this vacation were not “picture perfect”. We packed a lot into the five days that we were there and it took it’s toll on each of us. It was still the adventure of a lifetime. The awesome happy parts of the trip far outweighed the crabby ones.

On top of the family trips the kids have had their own separate exerutions. Z went to camp, Elle went to Florida with her grandparents and the older kids are going to DC next week. This summer has had really high highs and really low lows, but I’m definitely feeling grateful and blessed.