It struck me that it was this time two years ago that I came here on a vacation/scouting mission to try to decide if this was a place I wanted to move to. That was a weirdly scary trip because I had no idea what the place would be like (as I learned in last week’s exploring adventure, there can be a big gap between the tourism website and the reality), and I wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to like it. If I’d been disappointed in the place and had known for sure it wasn’t for me, then in some ways life would have been a lot easier. I wouldn’t have had to make any big decisions. My life could have kept on going the way it was and I could have quit daydreaming about moving, at least to this place. I could have delayed the decision while trying to find some other place to target.

But if I liked it, then it would change from an idle daydream to a reality, and it meant I would have to make some big decisions and possibly uproot my entire life.

I did like it. In fact, I felt right at home instantly, like I’d always been here. It took me a while to firmly decide to move and to actually take action, but I think in my heart I knew all along that I was going to do it.

Now I have to remind myself that I live here. I’m not a tourist. If I don’t get around to seeing or doing something, I can see or do it some other time. I’m really feeling that this weekend, as there are so many things going on. It’s peak fall color, the last weekend of a lot of the “warm weather” activities, like the sidewalk cafes downtown and the steam train on the scenic railway (I passed it while driving last Friday, but I still haven’t managed to catch it on the nearby tracks to see it up close). Today may be the best day for the Blue Ridge Parkway or Skyline drive, as the wind is low, it’s sunny, and it’s a weekday (it still may be crowded), but I had a meeting this morning, an online meeting this afternoon, and there’s a special sale at a big bookstore nearby. I’m going to have to choose what to do and maybe find a way to squeeze it all in. Then Saturday there’s an event at the Frontier Culture Museum, as well as the downtown trick-or-treating (it’s so fun to see all the costumes), plus the houseplant store downtown is going out of business and selling off their inventory, and I want to add to my indoor jungle.

One of the things I like about fall, the fact that it’s ephemeral, lasting only a short time and constantly changing, is also the challenge about it, trying to fit in everything I want to do in my favorite season in a short period of time. The mantra is “there’s always next year.” I’m not a tourist fitting everything into a few days. I live here.

Now to go see how much I can cram into today.

My plumbing has now been fixed, and it was definitely an adventure in owning an older home. The plumbing setup in this house is rather interesting, and even the plumber couldn’t be sure if it was an afterthought, if the house had been built without indoor plumbing and the plumbing added later or if it was built with plumbing but the plumbing was replaced/upgraded along the way. The house is from 1945, so you’d think there would be indoor plumbing by then, and it’s surrounded by older houses, so it’s one of the “new” houses on my block, but that’s a borderline time when it all depends on the budget of the person who built the house and how far out the city water had come by then. Now I’m considered on the edge of downtown, but this would have been “suburbs” in 1945. My house is on what used to be a large farming estate that was gradually sold off, but was one of the last lots sold, as the original manor house for the estate is three doors down. At one time, this was considered the country, but there are houses from the late 1800s and early 1900s surrounding my block, with the houses on my block (aside from the 1850s or so manor) mostly from the 1930s.

The problem turned out to be the bathtub drain that was connected badly with too short a pipe used as a connection between pipes, and whoever installed that had tightened it too much, probably to stop it from leaking, but that ended up breaking the washers, so it leaked even more. It probably didn’t show up on the inspection or in the first few months I lived here because it was holding, but with use that short pipe slid deeper into the connection, creating a gap. Of course, the part that had to be replaced was in the one spot that was hard to access. I was impressed that there was no swearing from the plumber as he stood on a stepstool in the basement and angled a wrench in to try to get it loose. There was some coaxing, and possibly a magic spell or two, as well as I think a few prayers, but no bad language. He was worried he’d have to cut out other pipes to access this part and then replace those pipes, but he managed to pull it off the “easy” (and less expensive) way. He was a little amazed at the “creativity” of some of the plumbing. It’s a good thing I’ve found a good plumber because I might need more help in the future. A lot of it looks like it was replaced when the house was restored, but this part looked like it was older. Not too old — it was PVC tubing, so that wasn’t from 1945 — but not done earlier this year. It might have been a relic from the previous owner, who also did some of the creative work to add central air and heat. I’ve thought it was weird being able to see all the plumbing from the house from the basement, but if this had happened in my house in Texas, they’d have had to cut into drywall.

Speaking of Texas, the Texas connection continues, as the plumber had also lived in the Dallas area. He knew my old neighborhood, and I knew of the place where he used to be a bartender.

Watching the plumber persuade the connections to loosen gave me the idea of a story about a plumbing wizard. That seems to me to be an appropriate use of magical power. Now I need to think of a plot.

And now I’m off to have an Autumn Adventure. I have a general idea of where to go and a paper map to back up the map on my phone that links to my car (since cell coverage can be spotty). I’m packing a lunch, bringing my hiking boots and heading into the western mountains, where fall color is supposed to be at its peak today and tomorrow. I’m also bringing my notebook, in case ideas strike me.

Tomorrow is publication day for Weaving & Wyverns, book 4 in the Tales of Rydding Village series. I will be celebrating by waiting for a plumber, since I noticed something that seems to be a leak in a pipe. Fortunately, all the plumbing in this house is grouped together in the basement and the pipes are exposed, so it should be easy to get to them. There’s even a removable panel in the room behind the shower to get to those pipes. I hope it’s an easy fix. But while I’m waiting during the appointment window, I’ll be able to obsessively check my Amazon ranking. Normally, I try to get out of the house on release day so I don’t get weird and obsessive about it. Maybe the plumber will get here early in the window and finish early, so I can then celebrate the rest of the day.

Yesterday, I took my notebook and a lunch in my backpack and walked to a nearby park to do some hiking and brainstorming. The park is about a 10-minute walk from my house, and it’s the more “wild” of the big city parks. There are sports fields, playgrounds, tennis courts, and a swimming pool, but those are around the base of the hill at the center of the park. The hill has been left forested, with hiking paths winding through the forest around the hill. The top of the hill has a nice picnic area with a view of the mountains.

When I visited the area before moving here, I’d thought I’d rather live close to the “nicer” city park than to downtown because I’d want to go walking more often than I’d want to go downtown. I’d picked out the general area where I wanted to live, and that was where I got an apartment. Living there for a while turned out to be a good idea because that park isn’t great for walking. There are no dedicated walking paths, just what used to be a carriageway through the park that’s now a street, and walkers have to share the street with cars. That’s also where all the big special events like festivals, art fairs, and outdoor concerts are held. It’s a very pretty park, but living nearby can be loud. And it turns out that I go downtown quite a bit.

I ended up buying a house in a totally different neighborhood than I planned, and that turned out to be a good move because I’m still about a 20-minute walk from that park for going to festivals and concerts, but I’m 10 minutes from both downtown and the park that’s actually good for walking. I have good hiking trails in walking distance of my house. You can almost forget you’re in a city, but since the park is in a city, I don’t have to worry about bears (at most of the hiking areas around here, there are signs at the parking lots about what to do about bears) or getting lost. There may be times you don’t know exactly where you are on a trail, but all the trails will eventually lead you to a parking lot, picnic area, or park road, and you can’t go all that far in any direction without coming out of the woods. There’s one trail that does a lot of winding around the hill just to give you a little more distance, but it intersects with other trails that are more direct and with some of the frisbee golf holes that will also get you out of the woods. But you still feel like you’re in the wilderness (unless a train goes by on the tracks that run alongside the park).

I got some good brainstorming done sitting at the picnic area on top of the hill. With no Internet access, my only distraction was the view of the mountains, and then I got some quality thinking done while walking back down the hill and walking home. I need to get in better shape by doing that more often. Then I might be more up to “real” hiking. There’s a local hiking group I’d like to get involved with, but I need to build up to the kind of hiking they do.

So anyway, Weaving & Wyverns tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it. I have so much fun writing these books.

I’ve finished work on Rydding Village book 4, Weaving and Wyverns. I’m just waiting on a cover, which is supposed to come in the next few days.

Now I’m going to get to do what I’ve been saying I want to do for years: take October off. I won’t be entirely off, but I won’t be doing work that chains me to my desk at my favorite time of year. I’m not going to be writing a first draft, editing, or proofreading. I’ll mostly be doing some planning, plotting, and brainstorming for future projects. I also have some business and promotional work I need to do and some projects I want to get started in that area. But the working time will be flexible. I’m allowing myself to take time off. If it’s a lovely day and I want to go for a hike, I will. If it’s a cool, rainy day, I’ll spend the day baking and curled up on the sofa with a book. There are a couple of day trips I want to take. There’s an old logging train in West Virginia that now does excursions into the mountains, and I want to do that. I also want to visit Monticello. On weekends, there are so many festivals around the area to visit.

I guess I need to work on the house, as well. I need to organize the basement, and now that things aren’t growing so furiously, I might be able to catch up on getting rid of weeds in my yard. I’d like to unearth the fire pit so I can have a real bonfire night or two. Right now, it’s full of weeds.

But this weekend will mostly be for rest. This morning I had a meeting in a nearby town and did some shopping while I was there. I may hit the community garden market later in the afternoon and try to time it to coincide with the steam train that will be coming by. Saturday is supposed to be cool and rainy, and I’m going to spend a very lazy day with tea and books.

It’s already starting to feel like fall. The first hints of gold are showing in the trees, and when there’s a gust of wind, leaves fall. It’s been pretty chilly overnight, so it’s still cold in the mornings, gets warm in the afternoon, then it’s cool again as soon as the sun sets. I started regularly wearing my lightweight hoodie in August. This was one of the main reasons I moved away from Texas. I wanted more fall. In Texas, it’s warm through October, then sort of starts looking and feeling like fall around Thanksgiving, aside from spurts of cool weather that last a day or two. Here, we had “Texas October” in August, and fall-like weather will last through Thanksgiving.

But we’re about to get another warmish spell, close to Texas October, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s hitting the weekend we’re having a church and choir retreat up in the mountains. There’s an Episcopalian retreat center that apparently started as a camp-type place, but then it ended up incorporating what was once a Victorian spa resort, the place people went from Washington, D.C., to “take the waters” and get away from the heat and humidity on the coast during the summer. Now the old Victorian hotels are part of this retreat center. It may be a bit warm for hiking, but it’ll be nice for sitting around a bonfire at night.

Since I finished this round of revisions on Rydding Village book 4, I’m making a day of the trip up there. Along the way I’m planning to visit the New Market battlefield and the Civil War museum there. I just watched the Ken Burns Civil War series from PBS, so now I’m trying to get around to some of the related sites in this area. The house three doors down was used as a military hospital during the war (the person who lives there now says there are blood stains still in the wood floors), and I can see a cemetery with a war section from my front windows, so since I’m surrounded by this history I figure I need to learn more. That was never an era in history I was that interested in.

There’s also a regionally famous potato chip factory near the museum, where you can watch them making the chips, get samples, and buy some, so I may do that while I’m nearby.

Then we’ll see if my voice has recovered enough to do three days of choir rehearsals. We won’t be rehearsing the whole time. There will be other activities and a lot of free time. I’m bringing books to read and some notebooks to write in, since there’s no Internet. It’ll be a good time for an online detox. Then I’ll be ready for a round of edits.

Last night was my first choir rehearsal in about four years. I’ve been singing in “summer choir,” where you just show up on Sunday morning and learn a simple piece, but this was the start of “real” choir, with rehearsals and with everyone there. This choir sings for the Episcopal church services, but it also functions as a kind of community chorale, with several concerts of big classical pieces every year, so there are people who come to rehearsals and who sing in the concerts who don’t sing for church services. There are several who go to other churches. The cantor of the town’s synagogue sings with this choir.

One thing that’s really different for me is that they need me to sing alto, since they’re top-heavy with sopranos. I think half the alto section is made up of sopranos. I have a good low register, so I can do it, but it’s definitely a mental shift that I’ll have to get used to. I’m not sure I’d want to sing soprano in this choir, anyway, because they do a lot of Anglican church music that’s written for boy sopranos, and that’s not the kind of soprano voice I have. What little voice training I’ve had has been with opera singers, and that’s a different technique. I’d be blasting them out with a strong vibrato instead of having that pure, sweet sound. In the alto section, I can be rich and lush, though I’ve warned them that I’ve mostly sung jazz in my lower register, so I get pretty torchy. When I sing low, I sound like I should be wearing a slinky dress and leaning against a piano. My low voice has been called “sexy” by people I’ve been in choirs with before.

I had a huge “it’s a small world” moment at the rehearsal when I learned that the woman sitting next to me went to the high school I would have gone to if we’d stayed in that place after I finished eighth grade, went to the same university I went to, and then worked for a while in the part of Texas where I went to high school and where my parents live, so she even knew that small town. This town seems to be full of former Texans. I guess we’re reversing the flow from when Stephen F. Austin came from Virginia (not too far from here) to Texas with a group of settlers. Now they’re all coming back.

I put new batteries in my electronic keyboard so I can do some practicing and get the alto part in my head. Next weekend is a church retreat that includes a choir rehearsal, so I’ll be doing some serious singing (in between hiking jaunts, since we’re going to a retreat center in the mountains). I’m not sure my voice is up for that much, since I’ve barely used it in a long time. I’ll have to do some exercises every day this week to see if I can build up to it.