Whet Your Appetite

I don't always plug my book releases here, but Whetting the Appetite just hit the distribution markets and I am so in love with this book, it isn't even funny. It's a collection of 46 ultra-short stories (most of them no more than a page or two) written by KT (in her writing disguise of Lynn Townsend) and me over a period of about six months, and trust me, we've got it all!

It's gender-mixed -- the characters are male and female and trans* and up to your own interpretation (and not all of them are even human). It's orientation-blind -- gay, straight, bisexual, or even more complicated than that. Their ages range from new adult to end-of-life seniors. The relationships swing from the barest beginnings of new romance to the ins and outs of long-term commitments. The genres bounce from contemporary to historical to fantasy to sci-fi to steampunk to horror. The eroticism takes you from warm glances to scorching encounters to sizzling BDSM.

There's something here for everyone, and I'm pretty sure I mean everyone. Please check it out and pass the word!

Book trailer

Postcards (Taste-test the entire table of contents!)

Publisher's link (including excerpts!)

Amazon / Kindle

Barnes & Noble / Nook

All Romance eBooks (your choice of format)

Scattered Reports

Ack, have I really not posted here at all this month?

It's been an insanely busy month, so let's see if we can sum it all up...

I took the kids to a children's play. And to the dentist. I threw an adults-only Valentisn't party (which is just like Missmas, only in February instead of January) that was a lot of fun. Both kids came down with the flu, weekend before last, so I spent all week last week working from home in an effort to keep germs isolated. It totally didn't work, though, because over this past weekend I caught a cold and am back in the office with it today. (I'm keeping my office door closed, though.)

I went down to Chesapeake to have dinner with KT and Kevin just before Valentine's Day. Then the next week I went down to VA Beach with KT to meet up with a fellow local erotica writer for coffee. That was fantastic, and I'm looking forward to doing it again.

I went to the theater with Elizabeth to see her dad in "Faith Healer," which was simultaneously hysterical and heartbreaking.

I went with Jenn and Brian to a bowling social for letting hopeful adoptive parents meet prospective adoptive kids. That was mildly awkward, but still fun. We had great plans for the afternoon and evening, too, but Jenn got sick before we could put them into play, so we just sat around their place and watched movies and got takeout Chinese. Which was also still good.

Long-time reader Ami told me on Facebook that she wanted to hear more about dating... Which is a little tricky, since the guys I've dated haven't really given me permission to talk about them (I'm not even sure they know about my blog). Let's see, what can I say...? Ah! I'll re-share a few observations I've made to some girlfriends:

• God, but I've missed kissing.
• I can understand why, when I was a young, it was so easy to confuse this heady exhilaration with actual love.
• Necking on the couch like teenagers is even more fun when you're not worried about your parents coming home.
• There are things that I sort of knew when I was younger, but hadn't really absorbed yet, that seem to have finally sunk in, over the years. Like: Confidence is incredibly sexy. It's okay to make mistakes and admit to ignorance. And it's okay to say no -- and equally okay to say yes.

I did stop seeing one guy, for a variety of reasons that boiled down to -- I just wasn't feeling it. There's another that I'm pretty happy with, but neither of us is quite ready to try to make it into anything official or exclusive. I'm still logging into my online dating account from time to time and seeing what looks good.

So that's the state of my dating life. I hope that's sufficient to keep your prurient interests satisfied.

I need to get back to work and throw down another dose of cold medicine so I can recover in time for my date this week...

Con Report

You guys. You guys. MarsCon was fantastic. I don't even know where to begin.

I got to dress in costumes and wear snarky t-shirts, and I got lots of compliments on both. On Friday, I was Doctor Who. On Saturday, I wore a shirt that read, "Huge tracts of land," and that night, I put my corset on over that shirt, to emphasize, y'know... my tracts of land. Sunday, I wore my favorite writing shirt, which reads, "You're just jealous that the voices talk to me." And I got to see a lot (a lot) of other really amazing costumes and funny t-shirts and a couple of scarves that were basically works of art.

I got to listen to some great filk and otherwise geek-related music. I may need to start growing my geek-rock library, because despite not having actually heard the song played, I've had Mikey Mason's "Best Game Ever" stuck in my head for three days, and Danny Birt played a song called "Silent Letter Blues" that very nearly made me fall out of my chair entirely from laughing so hard.

I got to sit on three panels about writing and editing and talk with it as if I was a professional or something, and I participated in a writing contest against the amazing Kathryn Lively and did not win but felt pretty good about it anyway. All of which I will write more about on Wednesday, at my writing blog. I handed out a lot of business cards and post cards and bookmarks, and even sold one of my paperbacks that I'd brought with me. And I went to an Allen Wold writing workshop about plot building which spawned a new plot idea and gave me some really excellent tools for helping my plots to gel, which is always a win.

I got to watch my children blooming into nerds and geeks -- especially Penny. She sat in on a Blibbering Humdingers concert and afterwards begged me to buy one of their CDs for her. (I did. She doesn't know that yet, though.) And both of them got their faces painted, and they went with me to a pirate show and sang along and got up to participate.

Alex and Penny learning to be pirates during the
Hysterically Correct Pirate Show.

After that, Alex went with Matt to a birthday party and I got to hang with Penny. We did a craft, making people out of clothespins, and then I took her to an activity called "Playing With Your Food" in which everyone was given a big takeout box full of gummy candy and a plastic knife and encouraged to build monsters out of the candy, and when they had to clear the room we took it back to my hotel room where she continued pretending to be a mad scientist for the better part of an hour, and we had this conversation where I asked her if she wanted some chips and she said, "Not right now, Mom. I'm not done making my robot/clone army."

My girl, the mad scientist.

I got to look at some really amazing art, and I put a bid on one of my brother's ribbon trees and won it in the art auction. (I bid on a few more pieces, but didn't get them.) And I got to rejoice with him that he sold not just the piece I bought, but five of the things he'd brought with him, and we talked about how he should re-do one of the other pieces for next year. (It was a ribbon dragon he'd made like ten years ago, and he's learned a lot since then.)

I flirted a lot, mostly just in fun (but sometimes seriously), and was amused by KT's efforts on my behalf in that direction. I stopped into the gaming room a couple of times to say hi to a guy I've been on a couple of dates with, and significantly boosted his rep with the other gamers by giving him my phone number so we could meet up after the con. (He re-enacted for me later: "Dude. You've been sitting here gaming all weekend and you managed to score digits?") It's possible that I was totally aware of the effect that would have, especially since I was wearing my corset at the time, and deliberately waited until I was in there to write my number on my card for him.

But as always, the best part of the con was the people. I got to visit with old friends and acquaintances, like Elliot and Marcy and John. I got to visit with other friends I don't get to see often enough, like Greg and DJ and Ora. And also my brother and his wife, and some of their friends that I like a lot, like Melissa. I got to hang out with KT for hours and talk about writing and sex and writing about sex in a way that we almost never get to do any more. I got to hear about an engagement. I got to make new friends and chat with several of the writers and editors who were on panels with me (especially the multi-talented and snarky and totally amazing Cynical Woman, aka Helen Madden, who has the most gorgeous business cards ever). I even enjoyed striking up random conversations with strangers in the hallway or on the elevator.

I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do. Hell, I didn't even get to do half of what I'd wanted to do. My back and legs and knee were already killing me by Friday night (and I'd been dumb enough not to bring any painkillers). I went to bed around 2am both nights (and last night was still so keyed up that I couldn't get to sleep until nearly 1) and thanks to my stupid body clock, got up both mornings at 7:30 sharp (6:30, this morning, because my office is not closed for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day). This morning, I'm exhausted and sore and not entirely mentally present, and I fully expect the Con Crud to hit me in the next couple of days... and I already can't wait for next year.

Creepy and Cold (But In a Good Way)

I spent Thursday and Friday working from home in the hopes that Saint Nicholas-- wait, wrong hope. In the hopes that I'd get my heater/furnace replaced. But the company doing the repair had to reschedule me -- one repair scheduled before mine was running longer than expected, and they bumped up another one for a house that had no heating at all, not even emergency heat.

I suppose I can accept that. They're scheduled this time to come out tomorrow, so I probably will not be blogging.

Aside from that, I had a pretty busy weekend. I took a long lunch on Friday and went shopping, and knocked out almost all the rest of my Christmas shopping (I just have to order cards and my dad's annual calendar, and then take Penny shopping for a couple of her friends). I got some editing done, and made some Christmas gifts for the kids' teachers (except I need the kids to sign them before they're officially done, but I'll get them to do that tonight, and then I can wrap them and that's all done). I spent most of Saturday morning and a couple of hours Sunday night working on a book trailer for He Loves Me For My Brainsss, which is coming out in about a month.

Saturday afternoon, I went to KT and Kevin's for their Creepy Christmas Party. KT, being the music freak that she is, hired Jonah Knight to come and perform for her (I think it was part of a kickstarter, or some similar crowdfunded effort). I was expecting the kids present to be a problem, but aside from some in-and-out at the beginning, they were remarkably well-behaved. And the music was great, of course. I have a new favorite novelty Christmas song ("Bacon and Beer", which, alas, is not actually available for sale) and I didn't bring any cash with me to KT's party, but I will be sure to have some on hand at MarsCon. (And during the break between his two sets, Jonah agreed to let me use his zombie song as background music for my book trailer, whoo!) After Jonah finished singing, we had a Geeky Gift Exchange, in which the ring I brought was well-liked, and Greg kindly rescued me from the wacky wig I first opened so that I could go home with a fairly impressive Nerf gun. After that, all the ladies posed on the bed with Jonah (there was apparently a joke with his wife about groupies), and then we all went out to a Chinese buffet for dinner. Mm, Chinese buffet.

Pictures, you say? Why, yes, I do have pictures!

Sunday morning, I ran a bunch of errands, and then after lunch, I drove up to W&M campus to meet Elizabeth for a craft show. I'd forgotten about it being Grand Illumination night -- all of CW and campus were already swarming. It was insane. But I found a parking space over at Zable Stadium and walked from there (more or less in the break between the Old and New campuses) up to the Campus Center, where the craft show was being held. (Holy CRAP, am I out of shape... It's hard to believe that I once did that walk, and longer ones, several times a day, at top speed.)

The craft show was nice, though; I picked up a new necklace, and also stumbled across the most amazing handmade chocolate ever. It's made with, they swear, absolutely no sweeteners. At all. No sugar, no honey, no agave, no artificial sweeteners. Nothing. Just cocoa and salt. So the resulting chocolate is low in both calories and carbs. And unlike artificially sweetened chocolate, which tastes kind of like chocolate-scented wax, this stuff. Is. Amazing. And best of all: they have a physical store right here in Williamsburg. I bought some coffee spoons at the show -- I figure I'll split them between the kids' stockings (only instead of coffee, I'll give them warm milk to make chocolate milk with). Each coffee spoon is only about a third of a gram of carbs, which means Penny can pig out on all six of hers in one day if she wants!

I ended the day with some editing and some slouching about watching television, though I ended up staying up a good hour and a half later than I'd intended trying to finish the book trailer and get it uploaded.

All in all: an excellent weekend!

This coming weekend promises to be excessively busy, but it should all be loads of fun, so I'm looking forward to it.

Weenie

I went down to KT's for dinner last night. She made stuffed shells and breadsticks, and I brought tiramisu for dessert.

It was nice. Kevin wasn't there -- he's on a short business trip -- but I got to see Jess a little, and KT and I got to talk for several hours, which is something we don't get to do much of anymore, these days. I miss being able to randomly hang out on IRC and chat, especially now that it takes about an hour and a half -- each way -- to go see each other in person.

But maybe, now that I've got weeknights where I don't have to worry about getting kids to bed on time, I'll make a date to go down there once a month or something, because it made for a nice break in the routine, and it was good not to have to figure out how to make dinner for one.

I came home with a couple of books to read and their Hunger Games DVD so I can finally watch that, having missed it in the theaters.

***

I'm giving some thought to throwing a Hallowe'en party. Nothing elaborate, just an afternoon thing (so as to be kid-friendly) with snacks and drinks and an excuse to wear costumes.

What do y'all think?

***

Of course, I'm also giving some thought to giving myself a short vacation after the holidays (or maybe over New Year's?). Nothing fancy -- a long weekend, probably, just to go somewhere I've never been before or do something I've never done before. Exactly where or what, I'm not sure. Feel free to offer up some suggestions.

Mother'd

So KT and crew moved to their new condo on Saturday -- whoo! It's a really nice place, and I hope they enjoy it a lot. It's got a lot of advantages over the old apartment, even besides the whole "equity" question and the obvious bonus of "more space".

My assorted physical issues make me a poor candidate for schlepping boxes, so my contribution to the effort was to take all the kids for the day. We went to the play area at the mall for an hour or so, then ate lunch there (of course each of the three kids wanted a completely different cuisine for lunch!) After lunch, I took them down the road to Kangaroo Jac's (an inflatable bounce-house place), where they ran insane for three hours or so. By the time we were into the third hour, the mutant worrybrain was in full swing, wondering why the hell no one had broken a limb yet, so I decided it was time for a calmer activity, and I took them to Barnes and Noble, where they seemed pretty happy to settle in to read and play with the toy trains in the kids' section. (I think I read Mo Willems' entire repertoire to Alex while we were there, plus an assortment of other books, including some Berenstain Bears, a couple of Cliffords, The Very Busy Spider, and Goodnight, Gorilla.)

I told Matt later that if I'd really thought about it, what I would have done was take all the kids back home. Alex could've gotten a nap and then gone down the street to play with a friend near his own age, lunch wouldn't have been such a cluster, and I would've had a comfortable place to sit while the kids were doing their thing. (Not to mention the headache I would've been saved from the sheer noise at the mall and Kangaroo Jac's.) But for some reason, when I'd made my original plans, I was thinking the moving would be done by 3 or so, and it didn't make sense to drive all the way back home to only be there for a couple of hours. Instead, we spent at least 2 hours at the mall, 3 and a half at Kangaroo Jac's, and more than 2 hours at Barnes and Noble. Oy.

Mother's Day, the kids woke me up at 8:30 with breakfast in bed (oatmeal, Penny's specialty tri-color toast, and a chocolate-covered strawberry) and presents. Alex gave me a little wooden flower with his picture on it, and Penny gave me a "coupon" book that she made in school. And Matt gave me (in addition to the flowers and chocolate-covered strawberries he'd had delivered to my office on Friday) a genetic testing kit. (This is why my husband is awesome. He comes up with these fantastic, nerdy gifts, completely off the beaten path and yet totally cool.) I sent it off this morning, and I can't wait to see what turns up in the results!

(How I'm going to even come close to matching that level of neat for Father's Day, I have no idea.)

Later, I went to Target and bought myself some Avengers toys. Because I'm just that much of a nerd.

We went to my parents' for dinner -- I made beef stew and brought ice cream and berries and cookies for dessert, and my brother brought the bread and salad. It was nice to sit and talk with my family.

Then we came home, got the kids put to bed, and I spent an hour or so doing the first part of the Avengers LEGO set I'd bought. (I also bought this one, because it's the only way to get Captain America. I'll probably get this one, too, for Thor and Hawkeye and Hulk. I'm on the fence about this one -- I'll already have all the characters, but the little truck is cool and also I'm sometimes a bit of a completist. Also: why do they not have a set with Nick Fury?!)

So it was a busy weekend. But good. Definitely good.

First of May

Happy May Day! And Happy Birthday to KT! And, um. Everything else that fits here.

***

When I got home from work yesterday, my next-door neighbors -- Melissa and her son Ray, who's just a smidge younger than Penny -- were outside, planting things in their front yard.

So I ambled over and said hello, and asked what they were planting this year. (Most of us keep bushes in our front yard beds; Melissa actually puts veggies in hers during the summer.) They showed me a flat of strawberries, and several enthusiastic-looking zucchini plants.

"We got three zucchinis this year," Ray told me, "because last year we only had one, and something ate it."

"Rabbits, probably," I said. "There's a lot of rabbits that live around here." I see them all the time, especially in the spring.

"Or groundhogs," Ray said.

"I guess it could be groundhogs, but I haven't really seen any of those."

"That's because they live under the ground. It's even in their name!" His tone was carefully informative rather than snarky.

Melissa shot him a sharp look, but despite the implied duh, he'd been very careful not to actually be rude, so all she could do was sigh and say, "One of us is not going to survive his teenage years."

How swiftly they grow.

Six years ago.

Good News/Bad News

Okay, so I didn't get everything done that I wanted to do. Especially sleep.

Okay, Friday was pretty awesome. I met Adin for lunch, and then the two of us went to a pottery painting place and had fun making a mess of some ceramic. (We'll get our pieces back at the end of this week, I think. I'm looking forward to seeing how awful mine turn out, or if they're actually half-decent.) And then, because the weather was so nice and warm, we had grilled meats for dinner. Yum!

I'd forgotten I had a hair appointment Saturday morning, so even though I actually went to bed more or less on time (thanks to Alex throwing a hissy fit so I took him home rather than put him to bed at the Hegemony), I was up at 8 so I could caffeinate and get over to the salon.

Hair re-colored and trimmed, I considered Penny's plea that we join the Hedge at Busch Gardens' pre-opening preview day for pass holders, and decided it was good. So we left the boys at home (Alex was still in pretty dire need of a nap) and headed out. Naturally, the park was completely packed -- we left home at 11:30. It took us 5 minutes to get to the park grounds, and then another twenty minutes to get through the parking line. And then by the time we'd made it to the back of the park to where the Hedge were having lunch, it took us another hour to get our food. (Note to self: Remember, when at Busch Gardens this summer, not to eat at "normal" mealtimes. Get a snack at noon, and have lunch at 2.)

But we did eventually get to have some fun, though Penny didn't get to do any roller coasters, as she was hoping. (There were pictures, but I haven't had time to upload them to flickr yet.) But after we left Busch Gardens, I went home and collected Alex so Matt could go to his D&D game, and then we met up with the Hedge again for dinner. Some begging had induced me to agree that Sarah could sleep over at our house, so we packed up and came home shortly after dinner, and I got all three kids to bed.

Blam! Saturday gone.

Sunday was the usual chores, mostly. We met up with the Hedge for lunch so we could give Sarah back to her dad, but other than that just lounged around the house. I made a pot roast for dinner that turned out very well, though, and I'm eagerly anticipating the leftovers. (Pot roast is always better as leftovers. I don't know why, but it's true.)

And then Monday -- yesterday -- was supposed to be my day off to really relax. Catch up on sleep, do some writing, maybe run a couple of errands. Matt looked at the calendar Sunday night and noticed a doctor appointment I'd completely forgotten about, so that was good, because otherwise I'd have missed it.

The morning got off slow, though -- I did more chatting with KT than writing (this is why I should register my copy of Freedom) and when that two hours was up, I finally guilted myself into doing our taxes.

That was a weird conglomeration of good news/bad news. Good news: We've paid down quite a chunk of the principle on our mortgage, so in 2011 we paid only half the interest we'd paid in 2010. Bad news: That drop meant that our itemized deduction was actually smaller than the standard deduction. Good news: Using the standard deduction is loads easier and lighter on the paperwork, so next year I can probably skip straight to the standard unless something happens to make me think itemizing would be a good idea again.

Good news: I actually did save the receipts from my Vistaprint orders and when I went to Roanoke Pride in September, so I could claim all that stuff as a business expense (advertising and promotion travel are allowable). Bad news: I made less than $1600 from my writing and editing combined; less than $1400 after factoring in the expenses. I won't be able to give up the Day Job any time soon. Good news: That means I got to use the "EZ" version of the self-employment form. (That would be Schedule C, for my writer friends who haven't done their taxes yet...)

Good news: We owed less than last year. Bad news: We still owed. Good news: We make enough money that we owe taxes.

Bad news: The VA form is still put together by epileptic meth addicts. Good news: The VA form still lets us claim a lot more of our daycare expenses, so we're getting a small refund from the state.

Back and forth like that. I think if I had to write them all down and add them up, the good outweighed the bad... but only just barely. Anyway, I lost a solid three hours to wading through all that paperwork. Which is nothing compared to, say, my brother and sister-in-law, who operate their own business out of their home. (Sam spent over 20 hours just gathering files and organizing things for their CPA.) But it was still three hours out of a day I'd really wanted to spend on less mentally draining efforts. Or at least, more enjoyable ones.

Then I ran some errands and ate lunch and tried to wake up a little. Later in the afternoon, I drove over to the doctor's office and had my annual boobsmashing. (I realize I am now old enough that even if I switched to a different insurance company, they're pretty much guaranteed to agree to pay for annual mammograms. I guess that's... good?)

I thought about going to bed early last night, but instead I thought I should recover some of the writing time I'd meant to have earlier in the day, so I started up Freedom (Twitter is my nemesis in the evenings) and dove into my current project. I didn't do a progressive word count, but I wrote a solid two and a half single-spaced pages, so probably 1500 words, give or take? That felt like pretty good progress. I'm only another maybe four pages from wrapping up the story, so I might make that April 1 submission deadline with it, after all. (And if not -- or if they reject it for the anthology -- I think it's good enough that a little scrub would let it stand alone.)

So that was my long weekend. Not nearly as relaxing and sleep-intensive as I'd hoped, but still (mostly, except for the taxes) pretty good.

Now, I just need a good, long nap... What? Work?

Dammit.

Fourish

I had a lovely day off on Friday. I spent the morning at Panera, writing, and then Adin joined me for lunch, and after that we went shopping and got pedicures. We all met up again at Plaza Azteca for dinner, and then we went back to Adin's place so Alex could open his birthday present from them, which turned out to be an "I Spy" bingo game. (Like regular bingo, but with objects and letters of the alphabet, with a number of variations suggested by the rules, depending on how advanced the players are.) We played a few rounds of that, and then I went to my book club party.

For the first time this year, we decided to hold it at a restaurant instead of burdening anyone with the job of cleaning up and providing snacks. That turned out to be an awesome idea. We went to Food For Thought and had a fantastic time. As a clever holiday promotion, the manager was handing out what he called "Secret Santa cards" -- little envelopes that contained a surprise gift, ranging from a free glass of wine to a complete dinner for two on Valentine's Day. The catch was that we couldn't open them ourselves; we have to bring them in sometime in January and have a manager open them. So of course we decided that we have to have our January book club there, too!

Saturday was calmer -- we ran some errands in the morning (like taking a box of stuff to the post office so we can hope it gets to his mom's before we do), and Matt went to his monthly D&D game that evening. I took the kids out to dinner, and they were surprisingly good.

Sunday was a little crazier. We had the usual chores, and we exchanged presents with our next-door neighbors, and then Matt and Penny went to see a production of the Nutcracker ballet while Alex napped. After Alex woke up, I took him down to my parents', where Matt and Penny met up with us (they'd had a good time at the ballet, though as Matt said, it was a children's dance troupe, so the performances were a little uneven) for the family birthday party for Alex. Mom made her homemade mac-and-cheese, and Sam brought a gorgeous salad, and Alex seemed quite happy with all his presents. We all had big pieces of cake (except John and Sam, who were being good and making the rest of us look bad) and HOLY CRAP MY BABY IS (nearly) FOUR.

Who let that happen?

Speaking of crazier...

My office Christmas party holiday luncheon annual morale event is today. (Catered lunch, yum!) Tonight we're swapping gifts with the Hegemony. No plans yet for Tuesday, but I expect I'll spend a chunk of it packing, because. Wednesday morning has a doctor's appointment of some sort for everyone in the house except Matt, Penny has a half-day of school (if she goes at all, depending on how long her doctor appointment goes) and that evening, the Hickses are coming up to do the Christmas thing (and also so KT can give me my thirty-one gear and we can sequester ourselves in a corner and talk writer-stuff for a bit).

And then Thursday, we're off to Chicago for the holidays.

In the meantime, one of the gifts I ordered for Matt still hasn't come in, and I have to figure out a way to wrap another one. Details that I had thought long since established (like whether Santa wraps gifts) are being called into question, and since I haven't really been thinking past the Chicago trip, I was blindsided by the need to plan the events for New Year's Eve. I feel like my head isn't screwed on quite right; I'm dropping details right and left, and my body has reacted by making me drop into a drowse every time I stop moving for more than ten minutes.

But at least I finally remembered to load my holiday music onto my iPad!

WHEE!

Humpty

So, the Day Job's HR/benefits department is making changes to the schedule for our holidays which essentially is going to screw us out of a day of vacation next year. (Worse, they're moving it around so that we don't get our annual holiday pool until after the Christmas holidays, which completely sucks. I liked that they'd been giving it to us just before Christmas, because it ensured that we always had that time available. It's now essentially a gigantic sandpaper dildo for people who aren't good at planning a whole year in advance.) They're also changing how much vacation we're allowed to save up, but that's much less of an issue for me since I'm barely keeping my vacation balance above water right now, anyway.

***

Speaking of barely keeping things above water... the schedule probably could have a few more things crammed into it, but it would take a crowbar.

Penny has a half-day today, and tonight we'll probably do our usual Friday night shindig with the Hegemony. Tomorrow, Jenn and Brian are coming into town to do some shopping and then stopping to visit with us afterward. Matt has his D&D game, so he'll probably miss some of their visit, but that'll be okay. They can help me take the kids out to dinner and then we'll figure out something to do once the kids are in bed.

Sunday, so far, has no plans. I'm hoping against hope that the Christmas cards I ordered will arrive today or Saturday so that I can spend part of Sunday signing and addressing them and they can go in the mail on Monday. And I did kind of promise Penny that I'd take her out shopping to try to find some fancy shoes to go with her Christmas dress. I'm not sure when that will happen, but I'm betting on either Saturday or Sunday this weekend.

Next week, I have two doctor appointments on the books, plus I'll probably have to schedule a bloodletting so that my GP will refill my synthyroid prescription.

Then, next weekend, I've got my book club meeting/Christmas party on Friday night, and then nothing on Saturday (except probably doing Christmas cards, if they don't arrive in time to do them this weekend, and shipping those gifts that need to be shipped -- which means we should probably get a move on the last of our gift shopping -- and a box or two of stuff to Matt's mom in advance of our trip, like some presents for the gang there, and we can fill extra space in the box with some of our bulkier clothes), and then Sunday Matt's taking Penny to a local production of The Nutcracker ballet, followed by dinner at my folks' to celebrate Alex's birthday (for which I need to acquire a cake).

And the following Wednesday, Alex and I both have appointments with the ear/nose/throat doctor at the same time that Penny has her quarterly checkup with the endocrinologist, and then she has a half-day of school. We'll spend that night and Thursday morning packing stuff, and then pretty much right after lunch that Thursday, we're off to Richmond to catch our flight to Chicago. (Which should be a hoot, as the flight was already slam-packed full when I booked it in September, and I couldn't get ANY seats together. We'll be relying on the kindness of surrounding strangers to swap around so that the kids can sit with us.)

Matt has been trying to impose some level of organization on our time in Chicago, but my impression is that he's getting a lot of, "Oh, let's just wait and see" responses, so... not so much. I'm trying to stay out of it, for the most part. I'm just chalking those 9 days up to a blur of alternating running around and trying to keep the kids from getting so bored that they wreck his mom's house, and otherwise letting the chips fall as they may.

We're coming back from Chicago on the 30th (at least our seats are all together on that flight), and then on the 31st we'll "do" a mid-day Christmas with my family and end up at the Hegemony to ring in the New Year. (I've promised Penny she can try to stay up until midnight this year. We Shall See how that goes -- and whether I manage to stay awake that late, myself.)

And then I'll have the 1st and the 2nd of January to catch up on sleep, unpack our bags, try to figure out where all the new loot fits, and start un-decorating the house.

Somewhere in all that, we need to find a time to match schedules and meet up with KT and Kevin and Jess so we can give them their presents (and I can get the stuff I ordered from KT's thirty-one show). I need to get some occasional exercise, stay on top of everything at work, finish editing the story I'm working on, and gin up a couple of promotional blurbs for my publisher. I also need to do something with an assortment of vegetables and fruits in my kitchen before they start to go bad on me, and I'd really like to try out the all-edges brownie pan that Karen sent for my birthday. (Maybe Alex will get brownies in addition to cake for his birthday. Just 'cause.)

What I'm saying is -- if I miss a day or two of posting in the next couple of weeks, don't worry; I'm not dead, just insane. And between the 22nd and the 3rd, you probably shouldn't expect to hear from me at all, though I may manage a post or two via my phone. My twitter account is much more likely to see semi-regular posts, if you find yourself saddened by the silence here.

Wait, What?

There was a weekend, right?

I got up this morning and literally could not remember what I'd done on Saturday. At all. I wasn't sure the day had even happened until Matt jogged my memory: "You went to KT's thing."

Oh, right. KT threw a thirty-one show. And it's weird that I forgot it, because I've been looking forward to it. Because I bought way too many things at it. Because I signed up to host a show, myself, come spring (when hopefully the available patterns will be a little less... brown.)

And after that, I went over to Braz and Adin's to find my kids, and it looked for a while like I was going to leave both of them there overnight, but Penny only had 2 glucose test strips left in her kit, and Alex started whining at about 9 that he wanted to go home, so... we went home. (Good thing, too, because Penny had a persistent low blood sugar that kept me up until after midnight, and then Matt stayed up until nearly 2am trying to keep her in range.)

Sunday we met up with them again to take in Happy Feet Two, which turned out to be pretty good, though I'm distinctly disturbed that Mumble is still sporting his chick-feathers like he was at the end of the first movie. But it was funny (oh my goodness, the krill puns! I want a whole movie now that's just Bill and Will!) and the music adaptions were fun, and it kept the kids pretty well entertained.

This week promises to be nice and slow -- not too much to do at work, and I've got all my ingredients in place for the cooking/eating frenzy of Wednesday evening and Thursday. I do need to remember to put the Macy's parade on the TiVo so I can jump the commercials, and get Karen's birthday package to the post poffice. I'm technically working on Friday, but I don't think anyone else is, so I'm planning to work from home and probably just check email every so often to make sure nothing is happening.

So things will be quiet here. Some thankful contemplation, perhaps.

But hey! If you take digital pictures at all, go check out the contest I have running for free digital scrapbooking software! They're releasing the new version of the software next week, and the contest winner will get the new version, which fixes quite a few of my quibbles from the review, so for petesake enter the contest! Right now!

Party Time

Saturday was my birthday party. I invited my family and closest, longest-known friends (and their families) to have dinner with me at the Center Street Grill. We had a room to ourselves and a separate table for the kids, and of the 25 who'd RSVPed, I only had one adult and one kid who had to cancel at the last minute (due to illness, so I'm grateful that she kept it home). Which meant that the room looked like this:

And the kids' table looked like this:

It was a great party. I'd brought little activity bags for the kids with pencils and crayons and notepads and notebooks and play jewelry to keep them occupied, and it worked surprisingly well -- we only had to turn around to tell the kids to get back in their seats about once every five minutes instead of the usual ninety seconds.

The adults had a great time eating and talking and eating some more; I thought there would be more drinking, but I never even got around to ordering anything other than iced tea. As dinner was winding up, there were some fireworks outside that completely wowed the kids -- apparently, they thought it was, in fact, part of the party, and they all ran to the window to look. (I have no idea what they were really for -- the general consensus was that it was probably a Veteran's Day thing.)

When I stood up to do a general introduction around the table and thank everyone for coming, I found myself completely overwhelmed with gratitude that I could count so many wonderful and interesting people among my friends. I did the introductions, and then got about as far as, "Thank you all for coming. I'm really happy you could all make it, and I'm just... Just..." And then my mom chimed in with "...Forty!" and we all cracked up with laughter.

And one benefit of having guests at your party who've known you for more than twenty years is that they bring perfect gifts. I'm just sayin'. A "writer's kit" (gorgeous feathered quill, chocolate, and wine). A gorgeous new coffee mug and a Barnes and Noble gift card nestled in a reusable little book-shaped box. A board game that appears to be the evil twin of the bastard child of Candyland and D&D. And that's just a few! Plus, most of the card were hysterically funny. Do these people know what I like, or what?

The only downer was poor Henry's stomach rebelling at the combination of corn dog and chocolate milk and Sprite and ice cream, and reversing engines, so the entire Hegemony set had to pack up and head out pretty much immediately after dessert, while the rest of us stuck around for another hour, just chatting.

At one point, I saw the waitress bring in the bill folder, and I started to reach for it... but she went around to the far side of the table and handed it to my dad. "Hey," I said, "that comes to me!"

My dad took his already-run credit card out of the folder and said, "Yes, that's what they told me." And that on top of the gift they'd given me -- that I hadn't been expecting, because they'd bought me some very nice jewelry while we were in Cancun as my early birthday present!!!

And to top it all off, despite Henry's mishap, the Hegemony took Alex home with them, and when we were all done at Center Street, Matt and I took Penny over to their place as well -- they kept both our kids (along with all four of theirs!) overnight, so that Matt and I could have a child-free date night.

We'd talked about catching Cabaret at William and Mary, but the party didn't break up until after the show had started, so we just went over to the Barnes and Noble and wandered around, relishing the ability to peruse at our own pace and not having to take turns remaining confined to the children's area to keep an eye on the kids. I bought some stuff with the B&N gift card I'd just received, and we also picked up some Christmas gifts for the kids. Then we went home and watched one of our Netflix (Casanova, which I was expecting to be a sexy drama, or perhaps a dramedy, but it turned out to be completely campy and stupid, alas). But we got to sleep in a bit the next morning, and we went out to breakfast and got to bask in a meal where we didn't have to tell anyone to be quiet and sit down, argue with Penny about volume or carbiness of her selections, or cut up Alex's food for him. Ah, bliss.

It had been Alex's first sleepover anywhere, and he had a fantastic time. He was all set to do it again Sunday night -- alas, we had to shoot that down, as it was a school night. But Braz and Adin promised that both our kids had been well-behaved and wonderful (they'd only had to tell Alex and Henry to shut up and go to sleep two or three times!), so it looks like another sleepover could well happen in the future! Whoo-hoo! (And now, if we can just get Ripley comfortable with the notion of sleeping over at our place, we could trade sleepovers with them and get more frequent kid-free nights!)

So all in all: doubleplus good, awesome, amazing, fantastic weekend. As KT and Kevin told me: Obviously, I need to have 40th birthday parties more often!

Lordy, Lordy

I had, quite possibly, the best possible 40th birthday. No lie.

I couldn't take the day off from work -- too much workstuff to do, alas -- but the day before my birthday was a school holiday for Penny, so I opted to work from home, which turned out to be a great decision, as Adin and Ripley were at loose ends for the day due to a cancellation from another friend, so they came over and hung out with us. We went out to lunch at Penny's favorite restaurant (Wasabi!) and then later in the afternoon, after I'd cleared a little more workstuff, we went out and had mani/pedis. (It was going to be just pedicures, but it turned out that the shop runs a combo special on Tuesdays. How do you pass that up?!) So I had freshly painted, gorgeous nails ready to go for my birthday!

 

That afternoon, Penny and Ripley did coloring and papercrafts while I did more work (see, I do actually get work done when I work from home!) and they both made me birthday cakes! Ripley's was a flat cutout of a gorgeously-decorated tiered cake (she snipped a hole at the top and tied a string in it so I could hang it up) and Penny managed to craft a 3-D paper cake, plain and smooth, decorated tastefully with a ribbon around the middle and a small sprig of fresh blueberries on top. Penny also made me a sign to hang on my office door at work, "just in case anyone doesn't know it's your birthday!"

I got up on my birthday morning to even more hugs and kisses than usual (which is really saying something, as Alex and Penny are always both very affectionate) and presents from Matt (the OOTS Dragon Tales collection, Leverage Season 3 DVDs, and an Amazon gift card!). After I took the kids to school, I went to work, where I had promised Caren that she could decorate my office and be as evil as she wanted.

Thanks to a picky customer and a snarl of workstuff and a bored kid in tow, she hadn't had time to decorate liberally, but when she came in, she brought me a little pot of very pretty peach-colored begonias, to which were attached two enormous balloons. Well, the pirate ship is enormous. The other one was only enormous in its evil, because she'd deliberately gotten one with the wrong age on it.

Diabolical! But then she went with me to meet Matt and Adin for lunch at Plaza Azteca, where we all had margaritas and tableside guacamole. We got a couple of appetizer-type things to split, because dessert was the plan! But when we got to dessert, we just couldn't narrow it down, and we were talking about all getting different things and sharing, and Matt said, "I only want to share if I can have two," and there were only six desserts on the menu anyway, so when the waiter came back for the order, I just said, "Bring us one of each!" The look on the man's face was priceless, and we all laughed when all six desserts came out and we arrayed them on the table in the middle to sample. It was awesome.

(I should have taken a picture, but I didn't think of it. Alas.)

When I got home, Matt had a final present for me, which was the completely brand new expansion pack for Cards Against Humanity that was just released on Monday! Squee! I perused the cards, and now I can't wait to give them a whirl! (Though I may just have to order the official CAH starter deck so all the cards are the same size...)

Penny made dinner -- a "sandwich salad" recipe of her own invention -- almost completely by herself (I helped her core the lettuce and I sliced carrots, but she made the rest of our salads entirely by herself, sharp knives and all!) And then Matt and Penny had picked out a coconut cake from Martin's/Ukrop's for me -- which is one of my very favorite cakes, from one of my very favorite bakeries, so 100% WIN on that! Matt and I were still full from all the guacamole and dessert we'd had at lunch, so we didn't have much cake... but that just means more leftovers!

(You know what one of the best things is about being 40 years and 1 day old? Birthday cake for breakfast.)

My parents called to wish me a happy, and throughout the day, I got a ton of well-wishes on Facebook, too, which was incredibly sweet and nice. KT "combarded" me with snarky e-cards that made me giggle, and Karen sent another e-card later in the day containing an awesome, punny joke. (Knock-knock! Who's there? Señor! Señor, who? Señor share of birthdays, haven't you?!) (Actually, there were multiple puns, and the first one was even off-color, which goes to prove that Karen understands my taste in jokes quite well. Well, of course she does; she's played Cards Against Humanity with me!)

After we got the kids to bed, Matt and I watched all the special features on the Leverage DVDs, and after Matt went to bed early to sleep off his coconut cake, I finally finished the last level of Gemcraft: Labyrinth. A fitting and perfect end to the day.

Gardening

We took the kids to Busch Gardens yesterday. The plan was to meet up with KT and Kevin to celebrate Jess's birthday. We'd sort of forgotten about it being a "holiday" weekend (not for us, of course, but there are apparently still plenty of places that get the day off for Columbus Day) so we weren't really braced for the place to be as crowded as it was -- it took us over 45 minutes to get through parking and ticketing, and everything was crazy busy the whole time we were there.

We did eventually meet up with the others. We watched a dance show that terrified Alex, not because of its spooky Hallowe'en theme, but because it was so effing loud. Once it was over, Matt and Penny stayed with them so they could go do big-kid rides, while I took Alex back over to the Sesame Street area.

He had a blast. Since it was just the two of us, I gave myself up to it and let him make nearly every decision about what to do and where to go. We rode Prince Elmo's Tower about six times, and Oscar's Wiggle Worms once, and Gover's roller coaster once, and he spent ten or fifteen minutes getting soaked right to the skin in the water play area, until a show started and its noise terrified him. (That was a theme.)

The only real difficulty is that Alex has not yet given up his afternoon nap, so going without led to a little moodiness, from time to time. But it wasn't too bad (there was plenty to keep him entertained). He was so completely exhausted by bedtime, though, that he didn't even want me to sing when I put him to bed. So I kissed him and went to take my shower, and when I was done, I peeked in on him -- he'd fallen asleep so fast that he was still in the exact same position he'd been in when I left the room.

Next time, I'll remember to pack a swimsuit, or at least a change of clothes for him.

And there will be a next time, because while we were standing in line, Matt and I looked at the price of admission (almost $70) and then at the price of a one-year pass ($100) and decided, what the hell. So now we're all set for casual half-days or evenings or whatever we want to do for the next year. Matt and I want to go back some evening to see the scary parts of Howl-o-scream? Done. Come summer, want to take the kids over to play in the water park for an hour or two, or run in at night just for the fireworks? Done. Matt wants to take Penny to ride a couple of roller coasters some day when she's got a half-day of school? Done.

Plus half-off admission to Christmas Town, which I really want to do this year. Done.

We'll see how much we actually end up using them. Matt's had a year pass and Penny had a summer-long pass already, and I think they only went a couple of times.

But this morning, Alex is still chattering endlessly about how much fun the Elmo ride was. And I've got these great memories of him dashing in and out of the water spouts yelling, "Mom! This is so much fun!" And I think... Yeah. We're totally going back.

Snuffle

The weather changed again overnight. Yesterday it was 85 and sunny; today is rainy with a high of 65. Which means my sinuses are throwing a party and I spent half the night snoring (I assume, based on the sore throat I had this morning) and all I want right now is to climb back into bed.

But we got Penny's passport application turned in yesterday, so we'll be looking for that in a month or two. And my brother and I worked out what we're bringing for Mother's Day dinner on Sunday. So that's a bonus.

And! And! I heard yesterday that KT had a short story accepted for an anthology publication -- the book is due out in October. I'm so excited for her that I let out a little squee! every time I even think about it.

And I'm going to a fun concert tomorrow and taking Friday off, and looking forward to a good weekend. So all in all, the sinus headache and rainy-day sleepies are amply overbalanced. All in all, life is good.

Pros and Cons

So this past weekend was MarsCon, and it went almost insanely well.

Penny had her swimming lesson on Saturday morning, so while she and Matt went to the Y, I took Alex over to the con and got myself registered with a day pass, and I got him a badge and lanyard to wear as well, mostly just so I could put a "If lost, please call..." note on it.

We wandered around for a bit, and stopped in the Con Suite for a little snack. Alex was enchanted by the MarsCon aliens; every time he saw one, he'd spend the next ten minutes pretending to be an alien, which is to say he'd walk around stiff-legged saying "Mineh mineh mineh!" It was adorable.

Then I herded him down to the main programming room where we found a "fair" in progress, which is to say they'd set up about a dozen large tables and had a bunch of different groups showing off their stuff. One table was doing "explosive" science -- if Penny had been able to come that early, I think she'd have gotten a kick out of it -- and there was a video and Q&A going on with the CNU Quidditch team, and lots of other stuff. On one side of the room was a big area dedicated to the local Lego fan club -- they had a long buffet table covered with their creations, and then they had a round table covered with loose bricks for anyone to play with. And there was a big blanket on the floor also covered with free-for-all bricks. So Alex and I sat on the floor and played with Legos for probably a good half-hour or more.

While we were doing that, the local Humane Society chapter came in with some dogs and cats up for adoption for people to play with and pet. Alex gravitated toward the kittens, and when Matt and Penny caught up with us a bit later, Penny lost her mind over the dogs.

Then Penny sat down at one of the craft tables and made a mask -- they had dozens of plastic domino masks and all kinds of paint and glitter and ribbons and stuff to decorate them with. Some of the kids at the table were making really elaborate and beautiful things. I wish I'd thought to take a picture.

Then I took her up to the Con Suite where Matt and Alex had already headed to get lunch. We met up with KT and Kevin and Jess, and sat in the hallway to eat and talk. Just as we were finishing up, Braz sent me a text message to let me know that he and Adin were in the area shopping, and did we want them to swing by and pick up the kids? Well, sure! So I took Penny down to the dealer's room so she could pick out a toy, and by the time she'd picked something out, Braz and Adin and crew were there; we all stood around in the lobby and talked for a bit, and then handed the kids over to Braz and Adin.

And then Matt and I were on our own. At the con. It was wonderful. (Yes, Matt and I are geeky enough that being at a con together without the kids counts as a date.) We chatted with KT a bit more (she was standing in the line to get stuff signed by Jim Butcher, the con's guest of honor) and then went into the dealer's room to look at stuff. Without the kids along, we were able to actually, you know... look at stuff. Examine things without having to be interrupted every thirty seconds. I wound up getting corralled by the leather fashion lady who exclaimed that she had a couple of pieces I just had to try on... and without the kids along, hey, why not?

At one point, a friend wandered by and I said, "Hey, Greg, what do you think? Like it?" Greg said, "If I liked it any more, Matt would punch me." And then KT came over and I showed her the one I was leaning toward, and she said, "Do you still have that skirt you made back in college? It would look fantastic with that!" And well... yes, I do still have that skirt, and she was right, they would go perfectly together. So, um. I bought a corset.

A couple of things in particular make me very squee about it: the front buttons are hand-cast pewter on a steampunk theme (steampunk is the big fashion rage amongst the geek set right now) but are loose-set on screws so I can change them out with something completely different if I want, which makes the thing lots more versatile. And those buttons fasten with... hair bidgies. No, I'm not joking. And it's perfect. They're just the right size, can be color-coordinated to match the other clothes, and provide enough elasticity to keep the costume comfortable.

Now I need to plan on going to more cons, just so I can wear it.

We also tried one of the leather lady's jackets on Matt, and I must say he looked quite dashing in it. We got someone to take a picture of us together, but that was on Matt's camera, so I don't have a link to share yet.

After that, we split up so I could go to a discussion/Q&A panel on science fiction and romance, which turned out to be very interesting as well. And definitely not something I could've sat through with the kids in tow. I even talked to the panel authors a little afterward about marketing and giveaways and such.

Speaking of romance marketing, I took a bunch of leaflets for Of One Mind along with me and left a few on every flat surface where I thought people might pick them up -- on the table outside the elevator, outside the con suite, in the con suite, etc. Matt told me later that KT had told him she'd seen someone reading it and exclaiming that they thought it sounded fantastic and they were going to have to buy it! So yay for marketing, and I hope that person wasn't the only one!

After that, Matt and I went to the big Q&A session for Jim Butcher. I've only read a couple of his books (his big claim to fame is the Harry Dresden series, and while I mostly enjoyed the couple I read, I'm not that much into urban paranormal or detective stories, which is what they are) but he was a really entertaining speaker, so it was a fun panel to watch.

After that, we decided to head home. KT and Kevin and Jess came with us, and Braz and Adin brought the kids over shortly afterward, and all of us sat around and chatted, and then we got Chinese takeout for dinner and sat around talking for a while longer.

After KT and Kevin and Jess headed home and we got the kids put to bed, the plan was for us to game with Braz and Adin, but it never quite gelled. It's been a couple of months since we'd all just sat and talked, so that's what we wound up doing. Which was fine, as that was fun, too.

The next morning, Matt took Penny back over to the con for some kids' activities. (I stayed home with Alex on the theory that there really wasn't that much to draw a 3-year-old's attention, and there were chores to be done anyway.) They met back up with KT and Kevin and Jess, so they wound up staying until after 2 and having a grand time.

And then after Alex woke up from his nap, we went down to my parents' to celebrate my dad's birthday. I made two pies (key lime and peanut butter) and everyone liked both, and Dad was happy with his present. Since Matt and the kids have today off from school and work, we stayed a bit longer than usual after dinner, and I'm really glad we did -- both kids wound up in a pillow fight with my dad and my brother, and while John and the kids obviously were enjoying themselves, and Matt and Sam and Mom and I had a grand time sitting on the sidelines (mostly) and watching it, I think the real winner there, in terms of sheer enjoyment, was my dad. That pillow fight was probably the best birthday present ever. (Though I'm quite certain he slept Very Well last night, after all that.)

So we really had a fantastic weekend. The only fly in the ointment was that Matt started to develop a sore throat on Sunday, so he's at least got a case of the Con Crud, if not the strep throat that Adin was battling last week. So he's probably in for a rough day today, alas. But the weekend... the weekend was awesome.

Oh Mama

I had a super long weekend.

Friday, after I got the kids to school and did a couple of little chores, I went down to Chesapeake to have lunch with KT and Jess. We ate on the restaurant's porch, which overlooked one of the gazillion little waterways in Norfolk that they use to keep the river delta from flooding the roads, and there were about two dozen or so turtles in the water. Which served to captivate Jess so KT and I could actually talk. Though we were nearly as distracted by the wildlife as Jess was. There were a pair of geese with two fuzzy goslings, and a pretty black bird with red spots on his wings, and even a white heron for a little bit.

After we ate, we went shoe shopping, and I wound up buying three pairs of shoes. Which is actually kind of good, because I don't have any sandals for the summer. Well, I didn't. I do now -- two heeled/dressy pairs for work and Events, and one ugly-but-comfortable pair for the weekends.

Then I stopped at Target on my way home and picked up a couple of short-sleeved cardigans (an excellent way to make my assortment of tank-tops into a viable alternative for work) and a shirt and a skirt that were on clearance.

And then I got home to find that Matt had sent me flowers for Mother's Day. What a sweetie!

Saturday I got up early and met Vicki and her friend Anne at the Williamsburg Farmers' Market. Vicki and I wandered around for the better part of an hour, taking pictures of all the flowers and things.

Vicki had found a cool hack for taking macro (extreme close-up) pictures without a macro lens, so we played with that, and both of us got some cool shots. (It's not the easiest setup, and if you're not careful, it can actually be bad for both the lens and the camera body, but it's a nice way to see how interested you are in macro photography without having to invest in a macro lens right off.)

I took this with my regular old standard kit lens.
I messed with contrast and such in post-processing, but did not crop it at all.

After we'd finished taking pictures and buying tasty treats to take home (I got some bread and two quarts of fresh strawberries) the three of us went to the Blue Talon for breakfast, which was a lovely treat.

That evening, Jennie and Brian and Braz came over, and we ordered out Thai for dinner, and once the kids were in bed, we gamed.

Sunday morning, being Mother's Day, Matt got up with the kids, and they "woke" me (I'd been awake for fifteen minutes or so, and even if I hadn't, Alex made lots of noise coming up the stairs) at 9:00 with breakfast in bed: waffles (well, Eggos) with sliced fresh strawberries and syrup, and coffee, and a banana. How awesome is Matt? Not only did he make coffee for me, even though he hates even the smell of the stuff, but he also added the banana to the menu at the last minute in order to give Alex something relatively low-risk to carry up the stairs for me.

Everyone sat on the bed with me while I ate, and then followed me downstairs to open my presents -- Penny drew me some lovely pictures and a card, and had made me a necklace and bracelet out of clover, which was both clever and adorably sweet. (I wore it for a bit, but the flowers were starting to dry and were scratchy and brittle, so it didn't last long.) Matt gave me the Order of the Stick pre-prequel and a gorgeous multi-rope turquoise necklace.

After Alex's nap, we went down to John and Sam's for dinner. We gave my mom a framed set of pictures of the kids, and some roses that Penny had picked out, and a silly card that I'd picked out. The card had to do with nuts not falling far from the tree, which is relevant because -- hysterically and entirely without planning -- my brother had got her the exact same card! I'm still giggling about that one.

Dinner was awesome -- grilled chicken and pineapple with fruit salad, and raspberry cake for dessert. And Matt took on the bulk of chasing the kids around so I could take pictures and talk to my family, which was great.

So, all in all, extremely awesome weekend. Lots of relaxing and fun stuff, lots of friends, lots of family, lots of good food.

I'm so not ready to be back at work today. But tomorrow is Penny's class "Superhero" play, and then Thursday is the Jonathan Coulton concert, so there's plenty to look forward to.

It's On!

So KT and I are going to have a writing weekend at the end of May. Memorial Day weekend, in fact, which is helpful because it gives us the Monday holiday to catch up on stuff we usually do on the weekends.

Just yesterday, she got permission for us to use her dad and stepmom's beach house, which is about two blocks from VA Beach, and sits right next to some outlet of the river. There is no wifi available, which is, actually, exactly what we want, since then we will not be tempted to log in "just for a minute". (I'll have my phone with me, but hopefully I'll be able to avoid that temptation.)

The times are still fuzzy, but I expect we'll head down Friday afternoon or evening (depending on how early I can get away from work) and come back Sunday afternoon. Which gives us Friday evening, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning to write. We'll plan our meals and bring our own food with us to avoid too many diet temptations (though I expect we'll eat out once, in celebration). We'll walk on the beach when we need to stretch and get some exercise. But otherwise, we'll act like reclusive shut-ins, staying in the cabin and writing. Or on the porch, I suppose, if the weather's good.

I can't even convey how excited both of us are about this. Mind you, KT and I get pretty excited any time we're going to get to spend time together -- we don't see each other nearly often enough. But we've been such good writing partners for each other in the past, we're both really hopeful that this will help both of us get into gear on our various projects.

I'd love to make it a regular thing. Maybe not the whole weekend -- maybe just one day a month or every other month where we find a space that we can work and not be interrupted or disturb anyone else, sort of like we used to do for scrapbooking events. Only quieter and not nearly as messy.

In the meantime, this is a possibly weird but absolutely perfect little mini-vacation for both of us, and we're thrilled to the point of having to suppress our squees.

We're also insanely grateful to have such awesome and supportive husbands. Just putting that out there, because way, way too many guys would balk at taking on single parent duty voluntarily.

My calendar is marked, and I'm counting down the days!

Long, But Busy

Approacheth the Memorial Day long weekend. Whoo!

Let's see what we have on the ol' weekend to-do list:

Saturday:
- Need to take Penny shopping to get birthday presents for Ray and Heidi. That needs to be completely done by about 10:30, because...
- At noon, I'm attending a Mary Kay party with KT down in Virginia Beach.
- At 2, well before I get back, Matt will pack Penny and Alex up and take them to Ray's birthday party. (And Jess will be there, too, with Kevin.)
- When that's done (4ish), Kevin is going to bring Jess back to our house for a sleepover.
- Matt will leave around 5ish for his monthly D&D game, so I get to herd the three kids through dinner and bedtime.

Sunday:
- Wake up with the kids (6:30-7ish), herd them through breakfast and hope they can be kept moderately quiet so Matt can sleep, since the game generally runs until 1 or 2am, and he's already been out past midnight a couple of times this week.
- No later than 10, I need to get Jess into the car so I can drive her home and be back in time for...
- Heidi's birthday party at 1 (which is down at the Living Museum, so we'll need to leave home no later than 12:30). I should double-check that time. I will feel like an idiot if we show up at 1 and the party isn't until 2.
- Sunday is also grocery-shopping day and laundry day. I'm not sure how that's going to work out. Some of it may spill into Monday, I guess. Hurrah for long weekends.

Monday:
- Go to the hardware store for a new filter for the air filter thingy, and some planter pots.
- Transplant the tomatoes and johnny-jump-ups from their seedling cups to the planters. (Yes, I've left it a bit late. I won't have tomatoes now until August.)
- Collapse.

Mama Mia!

Whoo, good weekend!

KT and I met up Friday evening -- we had dinner at Ichiban, then went to see Mama Mia. It was a sold-out show, but I think she and I were probably among the youngest people present. Eh, who cares? I love that there aren't any bad guys in the movie and it's all about personal conflicts between good people, and that it ends with everyone happy. I hate to use the trite phrase "feel-good movie" but it really is. After the movie, we got ice cream and wandered around New Town a bit and talked until quite late. It was really nice to re-connect.

Saturday was a pretty normal stay-at-home day, but it did result in the precious bit of fun that I posted yesterday -- Alex continued to laugh at that for the whole rest of the weekend. And Matt discovered a gift card to Outback that we'd forgotten about, so we did Outback takeout for dinner. Mmmm, steak.

Not much of interest happened Sunday, either, except that I took Penny to the Yankee Candle store to see the indoor snow. She had a blast.



She also managed to talk me into a new toy -- the little dalmatian puppy that's in her hand in the picture. Of course, we got a toy for Alex as well (a green hippo) and some candles for me. I did manage to leave the store for less than $50... but only barely.

This week looks mildly busy for me -- two doctor appointments today, one tomorrow (god that makes me feel old), an assortment of work appointments, and book club on Wednesday. (I hate the book so much, I haven't even bothered putting it in my sidebar.)

...and my boss just came in to give me something to occupy all my extra minutes, so I'd best hit Post and get to work.