Hi everybody. This is Jean coming to you from on vacation and I'm doing something really different. At the moment, I'm in the middle of the lake on a Wednesday, I think, morning. I know it's morning. I think it's Wednesday because I've been on vacation long enough, I guess. I've forgotten what day it is. I know I'm going home tomorrow, so it must be Wednesday. And I haven't done any interviews since earlier in the month and I thought it would be nice to try and post something. So I'm going to try to just bring you with me on my kayak this morning.

I did some videos, which I'll post if they turn out okay.

I really can't tell.

If they did or not, I'll look at them when I get back.

And I'm going to try just doing some audio recording too.

And, okay, so here's the sound of my phone going into a

plastic bag with the microphone sticking out the top. So far so good. And here's the sound

of that plastic bag going into my life jacket.

There, hopefully you can still hear me.

And now what you're hearing is me picking up my paddles and turning my kayak and just going for a little bit of a boat and I just thought it might be nice to kind of have you join me because as much as I love to sneak away from the cabin and kayak on my own.

I have been missing connecting with listeners and with readers.

I did write a bog post a couple days ago.

And now that I'm retired, or semi-retired, especially with summertime coming,

it seems that I'm just doing a lot of traveling.

And that means it's harder to record on a regular schedule.

But I also feel like it makes me a little bit boring because, you know, it's the day-to-day life

that tends to present us with our challenges and give us interesting things to talk about.

And when I'm up here at the lake and there's nobody around, I could report to you on what I ate for dinner, which has been great. We always eat really good up here. I could report to you on what I ate for dinner, which has been great.

We always eat really good up here.

I could report to you that I sat on my computer for four hours yesterday and worked on my novel,

which is really, I've imposed a deadline on myself of June 19th, which is my birthday.

I've said I'd have a first draft done by my birthday, so now I have to work on it every

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