Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can also follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

1. You may have noticed you’re receiving this on a Tuesday instead of Monday. It's been more and more challenging for me to get my Monday blogs up on time due to my school schedule and the fact that Monday’s are often travel days for us. With that in mind, I’m experimenting with posting on Tuesdays as the third quarter of 2024 begins. We’ll see how it goes!

2. Speaking of school, the summer session is in full swing! We’re currently in our reading period for Fundamentals of Genre Fiction, meeting weekly for the Common Read, and by residency, I’ll have finished drafting a short story to workshop. I’ve written and sold many short stories over the years, but working without a specific prompt or theme had me pretty stressed out! Fortunately, I spent Dallas Fan Expo with two of my best writing pals, and I talked through an idea with them until it felt solid enough to run with. Writing is often a solitary endeavor, but the experience of being a writer isn’t. Having a supportive community of creative friends and colleagues makes all the difference.

3. Ray and I are finishing our official tour of New England, and we’ll be in Rhode Island for the rest of the summer by next week. While we’ve both spent plenty of time in each of these states, our rule is that we have to spend the night in the RV in order to put the corresponding sticker on our map, hence the whirlwind, slightly exhausting tour of the Northeast!

4. July 1st marked the first day of the second half of 2024. At the midpoint of the year, I make it a habit to review what I’ve accomplished and what I still have on my professional to-do list. Just as importantly, I try to assess my personal health and well-being. At the moment, I have a nasty cold, so my head is a little foggy, but I’ll be spending time this week reflecting, course-correcting, and prioritizing for the second half of the year. It’s a solid practice, and one I highly recommend!

5. “May we think of freedom, not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.” — Peter Marshall