May in the high desert is a crap shoot. Will it be hot? Will it be cold? Will there be snow on the mountain top? Will a freeze crush all the blooming plants? Will I need my allergy medicine? This May, all of that is happening and more.

I love my home environment for that very reason. You never know what kind of day it will be when you wake up. Roll the dice and get any combination of the above-mentioned scenarios in one day! That’s exciting in my book. If I take a walk in the morning, I might need a jacket and will see my breath in front of my face. If I walk at noon, I’ll need a hat and sunglasses to guard against the hot sun while I inhale all the wonderful-smelling natural blooms. If I walk in the afternoon, the high winds will push me and the huge puffy clouds along for the ride, and I’m back in my jacket.

The high today was 58, the low 36–Fahrenheit. But the sun is oh so warm… until the wind blows. We had snow last weekend. No one in my 5,000-foot elevation valley plants anything until June.

May brings other things to enjoy besides the mercurial weather. It’s MerMay for one. I love checking out the creative output during MerMay and have been doing so for the last five years, ever since I got embroiled in my mixed media phase of life. It’s primarily about sketching and art, but we writers get inspired too.

At the end of the month, I’m participating with five indie authors in a MerMay Selkie Take Over giveaway. You can follow me on Instagram if you would like to participate. We’ll be posting the event instructions and the drawing results. There’s more about the event and selkies in my May newsletter going out soon.

What’s MerMay you ask? A Disney creator back in 2016 posted an illustration of two mermaids chatting on their “shell phones” and the craze was born. Every May, artists follow daily prompts to draw something mermaid-inspired throughout the month. Check out MerMay.com and this NPR piece for the scoop.

Here is my MerMay gift to you. It’s humble, I know, but she’s sort of cute. She was inspired by a class at Willowing.org and has lived in an art journals for a while now. I recently ran her through a couple digital backgrounds (side images. I know… duh) to explore color alternatives.

My other big happening coming up is a pet sitting gig. I don’t pet sit for just anyone. Okay, so I only have one client–because I adore her dogs–and it’s like going on vacation–and when they do what they do the cutest, which is sleep side by side, it even becomes a writing retreat.

Meet Bully brothers Mack and Elway. They’re actually quite active a good portion of the day, but I love listening to them snore. Can’t you hear it?

Happy MerMay!