And the final draft...

It's as if those last seven days never happened...

Here's the final draft after submitting my writing to my editor (It does help to have someone read your work--someone who can tell you the parts that don't make sense or don't flow--even gramatical errors--AND especially if they can make suggestions to fix things. Find a writing buddy to help with this part--thankfully I have my sister--who obviously did not proof this paragraph :) )

I hopped out of bed and flew through the morning routine, singing my way around the kitchen. Finally. TODAY, I could start putting the rock on the house. Before I knew it, I was on the porch roof doing the prep work. Sweating, I wrestled with the long sheets of black tar paper and unruly chicken wire. I was as determined to finish prepping quickly as the chicken-wire was determined to stay in a curled up roll. It took most of the morning to prep for the upper level rock…frustration. But now it was FINALLY time to put the rock on! With slightly renewed vigor, I loaded the tractor bucket with an assortment of rock sizes and colors and maneuvered it into place. I mixed my first batch of cement to attach the rocks and crawled out onto the porch to begin—just as it began to rain. Determined, I started anyway. It wasn’t raining THAT hard. I was working on the south side of the upper level portion, right under the valley of the front roof. Before I’d finished even three rocks, the run-off from most of the south side of the roof was pouring down on me. Dejectedly I gathered my tools and the cement and crawled back inside to wait out the rain.
After a couple of hours the sun came out. To learn the “trade”, I’d helped the Welkers with their rock work—square rocks only. I thought arranging my round rocks would be simple—compared to the Welker’s but it soon proved difficult to find rocks to fit. Nevertheless, I was excited as I quickly finished the south side—about 5 square feet. It looked so awesome! Now for the mortar. Even with Dave’s special tools, I just couldn’t get the sticky cement to stay in place! I worked near the top—but it didn’t look any better. I worked near the bottom—still no improvement. The fast-drying cement seemed to be sucking all the happiness out of me! I wanted so badly for my mortar to be smooth and beautiful, but I just couldn’t make it look right. The 1100 more square feet of rock that was all going to be a mess seemed to squash any determination I had left. The more I messed with it, the worse it looked—there were gaps around the rocks and the cement was far from smooth. I crumpled in my still damp clothes and cried. I called Dave (my husband) who called Dave (my contractor) who didn’t have time to do it, nor did we have the money to pay him. But he did offer to teach me AGAIN. I had dried my tears and slowly begun attaching rocks to the front of the house when he found the time to come teach me. It made a lot more sense as we worked on it together and I quickly caught on to how to seal the concrete to the edges of each rock and then smooth everything out. My spirits soared as I watched it come together right before my eyes. After school, Dad came to help. I was working up high, with room on the ladder for only 2 or 3 rocks. That meant I was traversing the ladder every couple of minutes to haul more rocks. Having him hand me rocks in the right color and shape sped up the process drastically. Every so often we switched places.Then next morning I didn’t hop out of bed. I was still excited about the rock, but my arms felt as if they might fall off. Too much lifting 50 lb bags of mortar mix, and 35 lb buckets of cement, but mostly too much lifting 5 lb rocks above my head. Three days later at 10 pm, we finished the upper floor portion so the porch could be roofed. But the rock work had just barely begun…