Quick house progress: after two quiet days, the workers were back at floor installation yesterday. The noise of power saws and power guns, the pounding of rubber mallet on floorboard getting it into place, and their radio. The smell of sawdust, of burnt wood when they cut the bottoms off trim so the new floor would fit, and of varnish, where they were redoing the door jambs. It's not quite familiar enough to be background noise. But the cabinet people called, and they'll deliver the new cabinets for kitchen and bathrooms next week. It's rare that I'm lucky enough to get in on the early end of a window.As for writing…Every now and then, there's a scene that absolutely refuses to get from opening to closing in a straightforward fashion. I just got up close and personal with one of them—for over two days.I had my starting plot points, there were only two characters in the scene (and one was asleep for most of it), and I had a reasonable idea of where it should end. 
As I worked on it, however, it was more like a connect-the-dots picture, but without any numbers telling you what the next dot should be. Sort of like this one--with an entirely different way to get the right picture.
What I'm reading: One Last Breath, by Laura Griffin
Thanks to Patrick for his helpful tips on editing yesterday. Lots of meat there.
Quick wildlife update: A glimpse of red in an aspen outside our bedroom caught my eye. I didn't recognize the bird, so I mentioned it to the hubster. I could sense skepticism as he asked me to describe it. I'm sure he thought I'd seen one of our regular visitors. And, of course, it had flown away by the time he came upstairs to look for himself. He poked through his field guide and showed me 'what it probably was'. I said no. It showed up a little while later, and indeed, it was a new bird. Not only new to our house, but one he'd never seen before. Ever. A Red Crossbill. Points for me.
I will confess that not a lot of writing got done yesterday. Our stalwart crew of two showed up with a jackhammer type device to break out the tile in the kitchen area. Actually, not a lot of thinking got done, either. However, on a serendipitous note, they had to take out the old range to get the tile out from underneath it. In doing so, they found that there was a capped gas line already in place, so they won't have to deal with installing a new one for my new gas range.
Also, the installer for our window treatment showed up on schedule, so he was in and out putting up our shades. We should have a dark bedroom—maybe I won't be up at 5:30 in the morning anymore. And with a covering for my west-facing office window, I can continue to work after 6 PM.
However, I did work on the manuscript Monday.
