One of the big things in our family is family dinners.  We try to eat together every night, but with two college students and a high schooler in marching bad, that isn’t always so easy.  Still we manage to eat together more nights than not.

My boys like food and I like to cook, so all it all that works out pretty well. I’m no Master Chef contestant, but they like what I cook. And they help out in the kitchen, too. They’ve made me promise them copies of my recipes when they move out.

But the big draw is eating together. Some nights, like today, we’re pretty quite, just enjoying hanging out. Other nights, it’s a riot with the conversation touching on the Hobbit, quantum mechanics, Pokemon, Skyrim, and why the flag of Belgium looks like it does. It can and does get a bit campy at times. The squirt bottle of water intended for use of cats who would try to get on the table more than once in a while gets applied to one or more sons.  Well, one in particular…

But it is part of the fun, enough fun that all three of them make a concerted effort to be at home for dinner whenever they can.  

My eldest is getting married at the end of the year.  In a recent conversation he told me that he and his fiance really enjoyed our family dinners and wanted to continue that tradition themselves.  Needless to say that melted this momma’s heart. We’d been talking about what they have and what they will need yet for their first apartment. The need list included a lot of basic furniture. So this week, I took him on the rounds of the local thrift shops to find them a kitchen table. After all, how can you have family dinners without one?

It must have been a good idea.  At our very first stop we found the perfect table. Granted it’s a little dinged up from use. But it is solid hardwood, with drop leaves and an additional leaf for the middle. So it can seat from 2 to 6 and fit in a variety of spaces.  And it was in the right price range. He and his fiance are tickled with it and I couldn’t be more pleased. Hopefully that will make it just a little easier to continue the tradition to a new generation. 

 Not as productive week as I would have liked, but not awful either. 

Words of Fiction Written:   7100 words on 2 different fiction projects

Words of Nonfiction written:  1800 words

Blog Posts Prepared:   3 posts for 2 different sites

Emails written:  50 emails, about  2000 words 

Social Media Interactions:  20, about 400 words

Articles Read (Research and writing craft/business):   30 research and 40 craft/business  

Paper back formatting for Remember the Past–available on Amazon now!

Selected new theme for website updates. Updated Home Page, fiction, previews and menus on website

This weeks total words: 11,300  

I’ll leave you with a new entry from my Writer’s Sketchbook. This one could get interesting…

He had not! No! She clenched her fist and shuddered. He stood at the sink, gulping kool-aid…from the pitcher! The very pitcher she had poured herself a glass from not an hour ago. Her stomach clenched, then cartwheeled. She swallowed hard and willed her self not to dash to the bathroom.

 First the picture, not this? Oh, he could not have declared war more clearly and he would indeed regret what he had started. She marched to the bedroom, not dignifying is actions with even the briefest acknowledgement.

She yanked open his sock drawer and her lips drew up in a tight smile. Her fingers danced across the row of neatly rolled socks, plucking out black and one navy sock. These matched well enough! She rolled them together, tucked them back among their brethren and mated several more like them.

I would love to hear what you think. Please have your share of the conversation in the comments!