Five on the 13th
1) This week, from February 13-16, is the Audubon Society's Great Backyard Bird Count. Anyone can participate! Simply count the number and different kinds of birds you see around your feeder or in your backyard, then go to this website: www.birdcount.org and fill in their form. It's informal and fun and helps them get a better understanding of who's where. The count at our house after 15 minutes this morning: 34 mourning doves, 4 juncoes, 7 pairs of cardinals, 20 goldfinches and pine siskins (mixed group,) 2 starlings, 4 bluebirds, 1 red-bellied woodpecker, 1 downy woodpecker, 3 chickadees, 2 titmice, and 2 nuthatches.
2) This past Wednesday, we received a call from the local college, asking how far we had gotten on reading two books onto tape for one of their learning disabled students. We'd just received the books on Friday and were only about halfway along. Turns out the student had just been informed by her instructor that the reading was due next week and she needed the tapes like NOWNOWNOW! We just spent the last two days crash-reading and managed to deliver them yesterday. My voice is almost totally gone.
3) We experienced high winds here all day yesterday. Weather like that usually results in several calls about injured birds, but fortunately that did not happen.
4) On top of the reading mentioned above, I've been on a library binge this past month and have systematically raided the YA section.
What I've read so far: Wicked Lovely, Ink Exchange, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Hacking Harvard, King Dork, Elsewhere.
Reading right now: lessons from a dead girl, the dead and the gone, Beka Cooper.
Waiting to read: Beka Cooper, The Graveyard Book, Shadowed Summer.
This is better than chocolate!
5) I got some terrific revision notes back from my agent about my next ms! That should keep me busy for awhile. It will take me a bit to wrap my head around some of the changes, plus the ripple effect throughout the rest of the story, but they're doable and definitely improve it. And the nicest thing is that I can take some of those same suggestions and apply them to my two WIPs.
Wishing everyone a warm, safe weekend!