This is, ideally, my summertime work schedule, and for the past couple of days it really has been my schedule.

Get up at 6:15. Make coffee and read comical newspaper headlines to my son before he heads out to his painting job. Feed animals. Eat breakfast. Make bread and/or do laundry. Sit down at my desk. Eat lunch. Go back to my desk. Mid-afternoon, go outside and mow grass, weed, harvest garlic, pick peas, take clothes off the line, feed animals once again, etc. Open beer. Make dinner. Eat dinner. Sit on the couch and read while Tom washes dishes. Watch an episode of the 1936 film-serial version of Flash Gordon (a peculiar and amusing spectacle). Go to bed and read a few more pages before falling asleep.

During the past few days I've spent my desk time working on an editing project and some residual Frost Place stuff, but today I will turn my attention to the anthology, due to the press by the beginning of October, and my forthcoming poetry collection, due to the press by the end of August. I am, in fact, ahead of schedule on both of these books and am feeling hopeful about being able to go back to the western Pennsylvania manuscript in the fall. Altogether, I am in a hopeful state of mind. I still don't have a real job, but I do feel as if the strands of my vocation are finally falling into place.