Sunday Catch-Up: Geraniums, Writing Courses and Destination Weddings (and anniversaries!)

Hi everyone!

Hope all is well.  These weeks are absolutely getting away from me!  I am working hard on my writing and I also have a small contract for a not-for-profit organization which is taking a lot of my time.  Add in yard work, reading, seeing friends and things I cannot even recall, it is hard to know where the time is going.

Over the last six weeks, I have been taking an online course: Revise Your Novel/Picture Book in a Month.

Taught by super agent Jill Corcoran and Martha Alderson, author of the Plot Whisperer, this 8 video series has been an amazing tool to both improve my abilities and to get things done.  I learned so many things, so if any of you out there are sitting on a story, this is well worth the funds and you can revisit the videos for months afterwards.  You can also access Jill and Martha afterwards on Facebook for help, so it is great!


Yesterday we went to the garden center and bought tons of geraniums.  We hang baskets of them around the pool and they always make me so happy, from the scent to the bright flowers.  They are also almost completely indestructible.  This is a good thing, when the summer weather here can range from drought to torrential rains!

They also make me think of France, as it seems there is a pot of red geraniums everywhere.

Speaking of France, I have been enthralled by Habitually Chic's sojourn to Paris.

How fun would it be to move to Paris for the summer?  Pretty fun, if you ask me...

However, what I would like even better would be to go back to a little stone cottage like we stayed at in 2008...

Or maybe Nyons, where I happily spent 2 hours and where I need to go back and spend at least a week:

It's funny how places get under our skin, isn't it?  We drive through a place and make a mental note that we absolutely MUST go back there at some point...

OR

we read about a place and dream about it for years and then are surprised to find ourselves there.

There is something surreal about that kind of trip.  I remember walking through The Tower of London and thinking again and again "I am walking through the Tower of London.  I am REALLY walking through the Tower of London."

Those landmarks are familiar and yet utterly foreign to us.  Especially the most iconic ones...

You can't be alive this weekend I think and not know about Kim Kardashian and Kanye West's wedding.  There is something very Marie Antoinette-ish about these kinds of weddings, but I will not speak ill of them, as frankly it is a waste of energy and I hope that they, like everyone else whose wedding I am aware of, live a happy life together.  There is enough negativity in this world without piling on.

But if got me to thinking.  Next year is my 30th wedding anniversary.  We went nowhere for our 25th, so perhaps a celebration is in order.  Where would I renew my vows were I to do such a thing?

A destination wedding appears to be all the vogue now, though we got married in a little stone chapel here in Fredericton.

Would I pay Florence, like Kim and Kanye?  Perhaps, I've not yet been to Italy and I wouldn't need a wall around me to shield me from the paps and would be content with field flowers...

Maybe Scotland at the old family homestead?

I also really need to go see Charleston and the other Bloomsbury haunts..

Would have to leave Barry at the local pubs for some of that...

I am also thinking of Bruges...

Or maybe I would beg Rosemary over at the amazing blog Share My Garden, to let me do the vows in her spectacular garden:

It's fun to wile away the hours while you are doing mundane tasks and dream of places to visit.

How about you?  What would be your dream wedding destination?

Have a great day and stay safe out there!

xoxo wendy