where did that damn sun go?

Okay, so when summertime hits the Pacific NW, it is often difficult to get anything done. The sun lures me outside with a book to the hammock; I want to garden excessively; it just feels too nice in the world to look at my lap top's screen for too long. Especially when you are writing a book about child suicide in Mormon Utah. BUT, because this is the Pacific NW we are talking about, there are these weeks when the sun goes away, the clouds come, the sky performs that dang precipitation act, and it gives us encores for five days. With the yucky weather, one might think I've been eagerly holed up with my computer and plot twists. Alas, no.

This might be an exaggeration, but I believe I am actually less inclined to write on crummy summer days than nice summer days. Tuesday and yesterday aside (because yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL summer day), I have spent the last week fuming about the BLAH weather. Frankly, it wasn't just BLAH Friday and Saturday, it was muggy, downpour YUCK. Where do the weather gods think we are, the Northeast? If not for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for all-consuming company, I really would have been a poor state over the weekend.

I've tried to be productive, but it's so hard to get up when it's gray and muggy out. There's no sunshine to propel me out of the house to the library for a few hours of work. The hammock would be a damp place to set up camp with the laptop to write. And I just feel too crabby to have any constructive thoughts at all. So I actually made some headway on a project the last few days, a Amazon.com project, but writing nonetheless. Today is another gray, blah day. Will I rise above it? Think extremely productive thoughts for me and if you see the sun, will you tell it to get on back to Seattle ASAP?

For a tiny bit of sunshine in your day, here is a picture I took with my new Canon Power Shot yesterday during a short break from writing from a blanket in the front yard. It's of my neighbor cat, Muffin, who can be quite distracting in her own cute way.