It's Official - - - I am just too busy. My hopes were that life would settle down once school was out for the summer. I've since come to realize I was only kidding myself. Why is it that I'm even BUSIER than I was when I had to do the carpool thing three days a week?

Tomorrow, I will mail out a Christmas present. Yes, a Christmas present. It's not being mailed early either. It's from LAST Christmas. Today, I mailed out thank you cards for the birthday gifts I recieved in April. That was two months ago! So, if you sent me something and I didn't respond, it's not because I didn't like the gift. In fact, I actually wrote some of the cards earlier. Put cards in my purse, along with my nifty address book and got them ready to go. My problem is that I never bought the stamps. Which is pretty pathetic considering my grocery store sells stamps and I could put letters out in the mailbox in FRONT of the house. Yup, I'm too busy when I can't take care of something as simple as a thank you card.

This has been a "free" week with most of the family gone to Myrtle Beach. I had thought of going, then decided to stay home. One of my main reasons was to finish my children's book, Snipped in the Bud, to send out to the Delacorte/Yearling Prize. Deadline June 30th.

My main concern was that the book wouldn't reach the 96 page mark. It doesn't. Sigh. I'm about twenty-two pages short. Kathi, one of my crit partners had and idea about adding an extra chapter to bring closure. That's one I'm going to try beginning tomorrow. I need to write that last chapter, pad out the pages with some non-fiction pages of "tips" (growing roses, entering contests, etc.) I'd planned to do that anyway but now I'll have to add more pages. Just hope I can finish before the deadline. This is a cute little book with a fun mystery and a great theme - learning to get along with people you don't really like.

Also hope that I can stop itching soon which is a whole different story. On Friday, I did a mulching/weeding job and saw poison sumac. I was oh, so careful NOT to touch it, knowing what could happen. On Saturday, Jarrod and I went back to spread another layer of mulch and I forgot to wear gloves. By Sunday there were two spots on my legs itching like fire ants. By Monday, IT was official. I'm a mess.

Everywhere I have creases, I have bubbles of poison sumac. My arms, my legs. the back of my legs, between my legs. I'm slathered in pinky stuff called IVYREST. It's actually a pretty wonderful cream that I discovered last night. Went to bed with pussy, oozing sores on one arm and it dried them up considerably during the night. Didn't itch or wake up once. Just put on a good coat about two hours ago and sat out on the porch swing until I dried. Well, actually, I STOOD for awhile until the back parts of me dried so I could sit.

Thankfully, I have kept it off my hands and face. I feel icky, but it could by worse. My niece, Heather, was out in the woods last week and used poison ivy in place of tp. She is VERY SORRY and itchy - not a great way to leave for Europe tonight.

Scratching and trying to play catch up. If you haven't heard from me, I'm still here. Just swamped with work, life and buying IVYREST.