Apologies for disappearing like that.  Again.  Remember how I was getting ready to assess what needed to be done before Christmas a few weeks ago when I posted last?  Yeah.  I was behind.  Way behind.  And now I’m not!  Mostly.  Also, a great big portion of last week got eaten up by preparations for our now-annual Christmas party, which went off with hardly a hitch last Friday.  We had 39 people in our rather small apartment at one time.  It was hoppin’.  Unfortunately, despite my best intentions and the fact that I had the camera out on a table so I wouldn’t forget, I didn’t take even one photo of the entire night.

Saturday morning I would rather have not left my bed at all.  The week’s work was a little crazy on me, and I took the day off to cuddle on the couch with the magic blanket and the dog and a book.

Sunday morning went more or less as usual, with the usual church activities.  But the highlight, really, was the children’s mini-pageant.  It was hilarious–unintentionally so–thanks to the littlest kids, who proved to be an amazingly unruly flock of sheep.  I really hope someone got it on video and can post it on YouTube, because it almost made me cry, I was laughing so hard.

Anyway, the rest of the day went pretty quickly, thanks to our friends lending us their copy of LEGO Star Wars.

This morning I revisited the lame query letter I may or may not have mentioned on the blog before–it was still lame, so I ditched it and have the beginning of a (hopefully) less-lame version in the works.

I still need to wrap Matt’s presents, and mail some things for people who know their stuff will be a bit late, and buy stocking stuffers for Matt.  We usually do that in a shopping trip together–go to Target and split up for a half an hour, check out separately, and hide our purchases on the ride home so the stocking presents stay secret.  But that’s about it.

I’m looking forward to getting back to writing.  I’ve missed it these last few weeks.  It’s good to feel that way about my job of choice.

And that’s about all there is to it.  More soon!  Much sooner than two weeks.  I pinky swear.

Why is it that oversee and overlook are not the same? But something that has been overlooked is an oversight?

These are the sort of things I think about.

For the last few days I have had the niggling feeling that I must be behind on the various Christmassy things I usually do.  Things like buying Christmas gifts so they can be sent east to relatives in time for the 25th and sending out Christmas cards or, for that matter, having Christmas cards to send in the first place.  I have no concrete idea whether I actually AM behind, however, because I haven’t had the time to actually check.

Rather, I haven’t taken the time to survey the situation and determine exactly how far behind I am. I’m not especially looking forward to it, since I have a feeling it will produce a mild to moderate feeling of panic, but I recognize the necessity of the exercise.

So that’s my project for this morning: figure out what needs to be done, by when, and then get to work.  If I get that done, I’ll be working on a query letter for the manuscript.  My first attempt, last week, was Super Lame.  And I have an outside, unbiased opinion on that as well, so don’t try to tell me I’m exaggerating.  I’m not.  It was LAME.

Now, to find last year’s list of people who got gifts and cards….

Just because I haven’t posted any photos to make you all drool lately, here’s what Matt and I had for lunch, with Ritz crackers:

Well December has come in with a bang here–first of all, my sister-in-law delivered a healthy baby boy in the wee hours of the morning, so that makes me an aunt again!  I’ve only seen one photo, but Josiah Perrin Wright is definitely a cutie.

Also, on a less positive, I think I’ve identified the major side effect from which I will suffer while I’m on Drug D.  It is less disruptive than inability to sleep, but no more enjoyable, and falls firmly in the quarter of Too Much Information For The Public. I’m still debating whether or not to call the doctor now or wait a few weeks to see whether the effect fades as my body adjusts to the new drugs.

Finally, a few weeks ago I received a summons to jury duty for the county with instructions to call the magic phone number on the night before my scheduled date to be sure I needed to report.  I do.  I have to be there early, and I have to deal with rush hour traffic and the potential of snow falling overnight, and in general I’m having a good time being dramatic and grumpy about the whole thing.  I do not relish the idea of sitting in a room all day waiting to be picked or not be picked, especially since I have real life things to catch up on at home, things that I put off all last week because I was finishing my manuscript!  I suspect the chairs will be uncomfortable.  That alone should give me the prerogative to be grumpy.

At any rate, I will not be around tomorrow on any of my usual internet haunts and, if I get picked to serve on a jury, I might be scarce for a few days, juggling time at the courthouse with handling things at home that usually get done at a more leisurely pace.

So, if I’m not around, I wish you all a lovely week.

I’d like to extend my thanks to all those who serve and have served in the armed forces. I may not agree with the government on all points, but the individuals who serve our country deserve a great deal more than simple respect.

So, to those I know personally and those I don’t: Thank you. We owe you more than we know. You have my appreciation.

I stole my husband for a few days this weekend and took him up to the mountains.  He contests that I did not kidnap him because he went willingly, and it’s true that he asked me to make the arrangements in the first place, but it’s more fun to say I husband-napped him.

At any rate, we had a lovely time, met some lovely people and saw some great scenery, and got three very nice horseback rides in.  The first was a good warm-up, the second satisfyingly filled with loping, and the third with a bit more technical narrow-trail riding up and down some really amazing terrain.  We took Shiloh with us, and she had fun with the two ranch dogs.  She adjusted to the goats and horses really quickly, and came along with us for all three rides, though it was clear that we plumb wore her out by the end of the last one.  She only got nipped once, when she annoyed one of the horses by running around too close to him on the trail.  Scared her more than anything, and taught her the appropriate lesson.

As usual, I had great intentions for taking all kinds of photos, and I failed miserably on the follow-through.  Regardless, it was wonderful and relaxing and I suspect we will be going back sooner or later.  Hopefully sooner.

I feel like I should have more to say, but I really don’t.  Maybe that’s because it’s just about time to head to bed.  Speaking of which, I’m headed in that direction.

It’s gratifying to go back and read things I’ve written here and think, “Huh, sometimes I’m pretty funny.”

I haven’t done anything for NaNo today. I’m going to stick more or less to my usual writing schedule, especially as the goal is a month-long one and my daily average goal of pages to revise is just that–an average. That means I’ll probably work more hours on my writing days, but I’ll still take days off, because I really don’t function well without time to relax.

Also, I stood up in heels for five hours this morning and sang for about three of those hours, and I think that entitles my brain to shut down for a fair portion of the rest of the afternoon. Yes, my feet are connected to my brain through the direct link of my body, so don’t mess with my logic.

In other news, I’m kidnapping Matt later this week and taking him up to the mountains. It’ll be great. There will probably still be snow. And I found a place that will let us bring Shiloh without charging extra. Best of everything! I’m jazzed.

And now I’m beginning to babble, which clearly signals the appropriate time for me to stop typing.

I have decided to stop apologizing.  So hah!  Take that, guilt!  For those who wish I would update a bit more often, I’ve added a widget to display my twitter feed in the right-hand column at the bottom of this page, so you can keep up with goings-on even when I’m not finding much time for blogging.

The last few weeks have been busy ones.  I’ve been writing, Matt’s been super-busy with work and classes, and we currently have almost two feet of snow, and it’s supposed to keep coming down for another 12 hours or so.  I do like snow, but this is really early for winter to hit like this.  I have a feeling we’re going to have a whopper of a winter.  Also, we need to get new tires on the truck.  I thought that could wait for another month or maybe two, but with this much snow we can’t put it off much longer.

As I browsed through a bookstore earlier this week I came across a copy of Elaine St. James’s Simplify Your Life on super-sale, and since I usually do better when I have a checklist of sorts, after I paged through it a bit I brought it home.  (I did pay for it first. I’m not always a book thief.)  I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been updated since it was written in 1994, so there are some pretty great time/lifestyle gap things, but the concepts are all very solid and easily modified to apply to life 15 years later.  And the first thing is to clear out the clutter.

You see, we have a LOT of stuff.  We’ve acquired it in the usual ways: purchased back in the day when we had extra money, gifted by well-meaning friends and family members, swapped with friends, salvaged from other people’s trash, and generally accumulated so slowly we never realized how it was piling up.  We even clean out every time we move, which has been once a year lately, and we STILL have tons of stuff we never use and probably never will.

So, following the first two suggestions in The Book, we have been cleaning out the house during the last two days as drifts of snow piled up outside.  So far, we have almost two 18×18x18-inch boxes of stuff to donate and at least two 30-gallon trash bags to throw out.  That’s from the office (and closet), our bedroom (and closet) and two bathrooms.  We haven’t touched the main living area, the kitchen, or the garage.  It feels really good to get rid of stuff that’s just been sitting there, being moved from apartment to apartment.  It’s amazing–there’s room in the closets for things that have been “living” on the floor, getting kicked out of the way all the time.  Crazy!

Also, we bought some cheap plastic drawers for my quilting fabric, which means now it’s not all piled in big boxes, so I can actually get to what I need without taking over the whole office.  There are drawers for my projects-in-process and all sorts of loveliness.  See?

So today warrants hot chocolate and cozy writing time, at least until Matt gets back from his youth ministry symposium.  Then I suspect there will be snowshoeing.  I’ll try to get video of Shiloh–she LOVES the snow and has tons of fun.

Oh, and I am signed on as a Official Participant for NaNoWriMo 2009, but honestly I haven’t figured out how serious I am about that.  I suppose I should decide, since it starts in two and a half days.

Also, my good friend Venessa Giunta has asked a good question over at her blog:  Do you [as a writer] tell people what you do?

Finally, for those who use Amazon Wish Lists and/or those who wish they could get their hands on a Kindle without paying for it, don’t miss the Kindle Love Sweepstakes.  You can enter through Saturday for the Kindle, and then it moves on to another kind of prize next week.

That’s all for now!  Time for hot chocolate!

Today has been one of those days. You know, the kind that start out with lovely intentions of rising when the alarm first sounds and gleefully attacking the to-do list like the ninja I sometimes am. And then gets derailed by sleeping in an hour and a half and puttering around not getting much done aside from thinking about everything I need to get done, and reading a book instead of dealing with it all.

It’s frustrating. I have an excuse, and it’s a pretty valid one too, but it seems lame when I type it out so I’m not sharing. :-P

But seriously, now. It’s time to shake things up a bit. Get things done. Now is the time.  Today is the day, and all that.

Thanks. I needed this pep talk. You’re such a good friend for giving it to me.