fall leaves, a funeral, and writing insecurites

On Monday of this week, I needed a break. So I spent a bunch of hours playing my favorite video game, Stardew Valley. I straightened the house and washed clothes and did dishes, too. But man was it nice being a slacker for a few hours in the morning. Normally I couldn't do that because I help Julia on Mondays, but she needed to change the day I come, so I'm going to be helping her on Tuesdays now.

I also needed to do a lot of work on my writing because my writing group met on Thursday and I needed to get a chapter out to them before that so they actually had time to read it. I stayed up pretty late Monday and Tuesday working on that. I also had to take time to read their submissions on Wednesday and Thursday. I always enjoy my time at writing group, and I did this time as well. But I also left feeling discouraged about my writing. I haven't met one of my writing goals yet. I sent my Alice in Wonderland book out on submission and haven't gotten any bites. I have gotten a couple of rejections that came so fast I had to wonder what turned them off in record time. I know everyone gets rejections. And it wasn't so much the rejections themselves that bothered me. It was more that I was lacking confidence in the story before I even sent it out. If I get an agent, I want to get an amazing agent that will sell my books for oodles of money. But that means I have to write a book that's worth oodles of money. I don't think I've accomplished that yet. And I have nothing tangible to show for all the time I've taken not meeting that goal so far. So I'm wondering if I need to change my goals. Or if I need to devote less time to it. Or if I need to be working on different kinds of projects. Just feeling a little lost.

Wednesday afternoon, I had a presidency meeting to plan our Christmas party and a funeral. So many tragedies lately.

Thursday, one of our cars needed to be registered, so Cecily and I took an outing to do that. We stopped for a walk around the city buildings and came home with a handful of beautiful leaves and a big idea to do some photography of it. My ideas are never small are they? So I spent a bunch of time on Friday and Saturday collecting and photographing leaves. On Friday, I also had to cut and arrange wildflowers for centerpieces at the funeral. Then Saturday, I was at the church for about 5 hours preparing food, setting up tables, and serving food for a luncheon. It's always nice to be able to ease the burden of people who are grieving at such tragic times.

We also babysat Dylan and Lincoln on Saturday and Steve had to mow the lawn for the last (or maybe second-to-last) time for the year. We both attended the temple this weekend, too. That was long overdue. I took a name of one of my ancestors for the first time and it was a very sweet experience I will remember for a long time.

Steve's parents are in St. George this weekend, so we had to make our own dinner tonight (rough, I know). We always invite someone from our ward over when that happens. We had baby back ribs and biscuits and grilled zucchini and sweet potatoes, and then had gluten-free brownie cookies for dessert. I am still stuffed. Yummmmmm!

Most of these photos are from our walk on Thursday. I also got challenged on Instagram to do black and white photos of my life for a week that don't include people. It's been an interesting challenge and I'm only on Day 2.