I'm live here at Quartz Mountain!

This is Kim reporting live from the beautiful Quartz Mountain Resort in Lone Wolf, Oklahoma! What a beautiful place this is! Right on Lake Altus, surrounded by the red, rocky mountains of eastern Oklahoma, dotted with cacti and sporting fall's showy colors, this place is a fall paradise! I've seen probably 10 deer since I've been here, and I've been inside with no windows for most of the day! Last night, I was outside talking to Jay (not much cell signal out here), and I about freaked out when three does came out of the woods not 20 yards from me! They just went abou their business, snacking and looking beautiful!

I'm having a wonderful time working for hours each day with young adult author Lois Ruby, who's published 14 excellent books. I can't really vouch for all of them; I've only read one, Miriam's Well, which I read as a young adult, but I remember I really enjoyed it! She's been putting us through lots of fun and challenging writing exercises, as well as giving us lots of tips and valuable information about writing and the writing business. We share what we write in class a lot, and there are lots of talented writers in there! They're mostly middle and high school English teachers, who obviously know good writing so thoroughly that of course they're naturals when they actually give themselves the chance! But alas, it is quite difficult to be both a teacher and a writer, as I found out last year. It is truly a blessed life that I have as a mother and writer!

On to the babe: She had a great day with Mamaw and Papaw yesterday and today, but kind of a rough night. What about Daddy you say? Well readers, it's hunting season. And we've just hit a cold snap that has made the deer get a little frisky. That means my hub has to be up in a tree watching them move. He will shoot precisely one of them this fall, maybe, but this takes many many hours of just watching them first. This means that Jay is essentially getting a hunting vacation while I was foolishly hoping that while I was gone, he would get a little taste of what I go through everyday! Anyway, he was supposed to have taken Claire home tonight, so we'll see how that goes. Every few days, maybe once a week, she wakes up crying for me. She will bawl and bawl my name, even with Jay right beside her trying to comfort her. I'm praying they don't go through this this tonight!

I think I'm missing Claire more than she's mising me--except for perhaps at night, I suppose, when she usually wants me. Earlier in the evening, I called to talk to Jay, and he asked Claire if she wanted to talk to mama, and I could hear her shout quite vehemently in the background: "No! Nooooo!" What a little stinker! As I said before, No is her favorite word, even when the answer is really yes (which is what I'm assuring myself her true answer was in this case).