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Welcome back to Austen Promises and the Writer’s Journal!

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I told you last week in my journal entry that I have begun writing a few days a week at a bakery that recently opened up in my town. I have to tell you, I love it. The ladies are so incredibly nice and friendly, and so accommodating! They allow me to occupy one corner of one of the tables, and bring me my quiche (they sell quiche nearly every day) all heated up and warm. Best of all, they let me use their bathroom so I can stay longer. LOL <3

They’re open five days a week, Wednesday through Sunday. I’m there every day but Sunday. I get there between 10:30 and noon, generally. My goal is to stay three hours and write 2,500 words, each day. I came close one day but haven’t hit that number just yet.

As I write this, it’s Saturday of Labor Day weekend. This is always a busy weekend in my town, with campers making the most of the last weekend of summer. Kids are back to school, or will be starting soon, and with it, all manner of activities that will keep the families home on the weekends. This means they have flocked to the Pymatuning Lake area in droves to get one last blast of swimming, fishing, and hiking in.

Add to this the big Route 7 yard sale thing. All up and down Ohio Route 7, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, there are yard sales. There’s one on the street just south of me, and one on South Main two doors down from the end of my street. With yard sales come drivers who park willy nilly (for example, on the street when there is a BIG sign pointing to parking in the church lot ACROSS THE STREET from the yard sale), drivers who are not paying any attention at all to who is around them and where they are going, and drivers who are going so slow they’re blocking traffic.

My two-minute drive from the bakery to my house took well over five today. Talk about aggravating!

But I digress …

My point in bringing this up is that the bakery was hugely busy for most of the three hours I was there. I’m very happy about that, because it means it’s more likely for them to stick around if they’re making good money. However, with an increase in the number of customers comes an increase in noise. It’s almost impossible for me to write when it’s noisy. I need to have silence to maintain my focus.

I have been wearing purple foam ear plugs, which muffle sounds but don’t eliminate them. They really did not help today, sadly. There was just too much noise. This means I have to come up with another solution.

The solution I’d like to implement is noise blocking headphones. Not just ear protection, but headphones I can also use to listen to podcasts when I mow. I didn’t think of it until just this second, but I’ll use the pair I decide on for mowing and for writing in the bakery. Good thinking, eh? LOL

I did a search for “noise blocking headphones” and did not find what I was looking for. I found some pretty purple headphones, but they don’t block out the noises, though they do cancel them so the people in the bakery can’t hear whatever I might have going on (which will be nothing when I’m there, because I need silence to write.) This also means they won’t do me much good when I mow.

I did see a Bose headset that ran well over $200. Yeah, no. I’d love to get them, but I do not have that kind of cash and if I did, I’m not sure I’d spend it. LOL

For now, I think I’ll use my old wireless headset with my purple foam earplugs. The headset only needs a charge if I’m going to actually listen to stuff, which I’m not, so that’s all good. It will leave pieces of black stuff on me, because it’s nearly ten years old and the coverings over the ear pieces are falling apart, but I’ll have to deal with that for now.

Do you use headphones to block sounds? If so, do you have any suggestions for me?

Come back next Wednesday for another peek into my journal! <3

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