*%&@#* Daylight Savings Time!

I'm still not caught up on sleep from the time change. Why is that always so hard to adjust to? It's just an hour, you'd think we'd just shrug it off, fall asleep a little earlier for a few nights, and be done with it. But no, apparently its the MOST VITAL HOUR of sleep, the one where 99% of the rest occurs, that gets sucked into the daylight vault for the entire summer. Can you tell I'm tired?

Of course, the State of Maryland has decided that the week after the time shift, when our kids are at their groggiest, is the PERFECT time to make them take the state assessment tests. Yesterday morning, Lulu had to get up before sunrise, rush to school, and take a huge math exam for two hours. She had to do the same thing again today, but at least this morning she managed to get out of bed without a crowbar. Thursday and Friday are the big days for the language portion of the test, but I'm still a little peeved they didn't take these tests last week, or next week, after they've had a chance to adjust. Grrrr. Who the heck planned that brilliant strategy?

And the rest of life continues as normal. It's actually irritating, because I usually plan to be out of my writing chair from about 9 am until 9:30 because that's when the sun hits me in the face through the window. I've had to adjust that schedule, because it now hits me in the face at 10 am. Just when I'm sitting down to write, I have to get up and move.

I was also enjoying waking up post-dawn. Once again, it's dark enough to need lights when I get up. On the plus side, it's still light outside at 7 pm. It's nice to be able to go outside if I wanted to, but still. Do I really want to? It's going to get harder and harder to make the kid go to bed at a reasonable time, because the sun's gonna be up later and later every night. When I ask her to brush her teeth at 9:30, she's going to laugh in my face. So maybe that's not a plus-side to this after all.

One plus, completely unrelated to the saving of daylight, the weather around here's been GORGEOUS for the last few days. It's getting nicer and nicer. Hello, June! It's supposed to be 75 here today. Let me tell you, that's not our typical Smarch weather. We're usually still battling the freezing/thawing cycle of pothole genesis.

Most disappointing, the lake never froze over this winter. It got a little icy a few times, but it never froze solid enough to skate on. I played exactly zero hockey games with the neighbor kids. One more plus side: at least I didn't fall on my kiester in front of the neighborhood kids while trying to play hockey.

So that's my plus-minus review of the unseasonable weather.

I finished editing Dragon Hunter yesterday, and submitted it to two writing contests, so hopefully, even if I don't win a prize, an agent might see it and say, "Hey, this ain't bad!" Exposure isn't a bad thing in this case.

I'm really looking forward to making Tim read it again (he promised to start today) so he can tell me if it's improved from the last go-around. And my current dilemma is how to approach agents who read the previous draft and liked it, but didn't LOVE it. Maybe they'd love it now? We'll see. I want to get resubmitting, but I don't want to jump the gun again. They might go for a second read-through, but I doubt they'd stick around and wait for a third. Or maybe they would. Gah!

I started editing/revising the second book last night, so hopefully I can bring it in line with the revisions I made in book one. The characters are starting out at a slightly different mental and emotional place, because of changes I made in the first novel. And doing another major revision is just what the doctor ordered, apparently. So I'll be off. Back to the mines.