Merry Christmas!

Wishing the best to all at the holidays. May we all have peace and joy, and may we find delight in each new day.

How the year's flying...

and I kind of hate it because these are my favorite months (cold weather--and the promise of more). I'm trying to live "in the day," and for the most part I am, but I've discovered a drawback. When you work outside an office and your beloved has retired and your daughter is home from school, living in the day means that no one knows tomorrow's date. Somehow, it's almost the holidays, and I'm way behind.

I've finished crocheting a scarf for a friend. (I made up the pattern. Pardon a prideful moment, but it's so pretty my girl wants one like it.) I still need to mail it. I've sent out a few cards. I've bought a few more gifts, and we have company coming and we sort of have a menu.

But I'm one of the few people I know who thrives on carols. I don't care how many times they're repeated--I love them. I love the calls of "Happy Holidays" and "Merry Christmas." I love walking my 2-miles per day at night by the shiny lights of the neighbors' decorations. We've finally plunged our rather tipsy-looking snowmen into the unseasonably warm sod along the sidewalk, and we put up our snowman firescreen in front of the fireplace. I'm really excited because I found the block o'glass light shaped to look like a gift our older girl gave us last year.

I'm just sad all the lights will go away so soon. I started my live-in-the-day philosophy because I tended to feel as if I were always waiting for something, instead of appreciating the here and now. All of a sudden, in a most uncharacteristic turn, I'm pushing tomorrow away. I don't want anyone to put my shiny lights back in the attic!

Late to the Post

I could not talk my sweet child into getting me off the hook, luncheon-wise, and I'm glad. It was good to see old friends and catch up. I won a candy dish at the giveaway, and now that I'm back in town, the girl and I are in the coffee shop. She's catching up on The Office, and I'm catching up on work. (And looking kind of crazy!)

I still have so much to do, but I'm happy!

Tuesday in a Rush

This is a terrible thing, but I'm wondering if I can persuade my daughter to take my place at a holiday lunch with her pop tomorrow. I love seeing the folks who'll be there, but they'd also love seeing her. College girls don't visit around the way they used to, and I feel as if I can't break away from my work.

People tell you--enjoy yourself--take some time off. But I've become too good at that. I need to stay in this story while it's talking to me.

So--I'm off to beg for a reprieve. :-)

Ooops--Waylaid!

With the Internet moving verrrrryyyy slowllllyyy again, I started to update all my electronic stuff, and opened a book to read in the wait times. Big mistake!

A few hours later, I find myself in love with The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes by Diane Chamberlain, and I'm oh so sorry to have reached the end. I had definite misgivings about this heroine. I don't want to cover any of the plot because talking about anything would give big parts of everything away, but oh--what engaging writing! And I ended up loving the heroine. I just spent several minutes gazing longingly at her next on eharlequin.com.

Sadly, I have my own work to do. But I bookmarked that page!

Writing with a Pen Again

I saw something at Target yesterday--a notepad in which you write with a pen, but the words can be transferred into a file. I love writing longhand, but I'm far too lazy to type the story in. I'd love to try this amazing, miraculous, whimsical piece of technology, but I also have a pen and paper fetish. What if the rather pricey configuration included a pen that wrote so smoothly I did not possess the moral fiber to resist?

It only works with Windows, but we have plenty of Windows systems around this house, and transferring a file from a Windows system to a Mac is a piece o'cake.

It's a quandary.

I love to write longhand.

Thursday--Holiday's are a-Startin'

The holidays are starting because my girl's coming home. In an ideal world her brother would be here too. And her sister would be coming for at least a visit. But one of the offspring will be home for several weeks, starting today! Yay!

One member of our household will not be thrilled. When she's not here, her room belongs to Kitty. I'm not sure why, but the second she goes back to school, he hotfoots it up there and spreads his voluminous girth upon her bed. (That picture's obviously not Kitty spreading out, but one of the girl's friends made it for her, and it looks so funny, so I put it in.) But the second the girl comes home, the Kitty flees "his" room and becomes a couch ornament in the family room.

Rambling again, post-wise.

Today is also two of my brothers' birthdays. They're not twins. They were born a year and an hour apart in my family's tradition of hardly ever producing a child with his or her own birthday. (Another brother and I are two days--and four years--apart, and around our birthdays are two cousins, so that four of us celebrate four days in a row. Anyway, I must call the brothers.

Tonight, the girl and I are going for pizza and then walking the square because the lights and the deco are so beautiful. Hope you'll be enjoying some holiday cheer, too.

For now, I need to write so I'm not walking the square, thinking "I should have..."

Inspiration

Where do you get it?

Today, I passed a driveway, fronted by two wooden gates, painted white. The drive curved under dripping trees, but disappeared. I didn't see the end of the drive or the house it led to, but I have a story forming in my mind, complete with a house I've made up--or maybe it made itself up--and a quirky family I'm already beginning to love. You know things will change, but I'm excited about the start--new ideas bubbling away.

I've read that P.D. James always knows her setting before she knows the rest of the story. It doesn't usually work that way for me, but today, I want to wander back into the notes I'm taking as often as I can.

I've just realized the holidays are closing in. I have three gifts, ideas for three others, and I've bought cards which I haven't begun to address.

Better get back to work so I'll have some time to work at fun!

Fir

Yesterday afternoon I had to visit the grocery store, and I managed to walk between two rows of fir trees. Oh, the memories of that scent. Blinking Christmas lights and warmth against the snowy, blowing cold. Playing pool with my little brother on his Christmas present of a table-sized pool table. Another brother making popcorn with his favorite gift that year--a real popcorn popper.

I love the scent of fir trees. I could not breathe in enough. No matter how hard I tried. Until I scared the lady actually shopping for a tree. She looked at me as if I were pervy, but nope. Just trying to imprint some more fir tree on my memory.

Musing on Monday

This is weird. Our Internet access is up. I'm going to concentrate on not talking about our service as much. Anyway, I normally have to leave the house to work because the beloved is here, wandering around, expecting responses to his "observations."

Today, he's taken my car to do some stuff for his Harley Owner's Group. I should be hard at work, head down, not making (ugly) low cal/low fat banana pudding and a fresh pot of coffee while I page through my favorite crochet patterns and Teach Yourself to Knit.

I could take the beloved's car and wander over to a non-wifi spot where people will be annoyed if I want to chat them up. I could go look up a lovely game we learned with friends this weekend. Okay, I did look up Crud. It originated with military pilots, but neither my husband nor I had ever heard of it. Odd, since he did ten years active duty and ten more in reserves, and I did four years of active duty. And both of us were in Naval Aviation. We even spent time on a NATO base so we hung out with the Air Forces of several different nations, and still never heard of Crud. (A kind of modified pool game played by teams, using a cue ball and another ball--at a really fast pace. And can I mention, naturally less-than-graceful people need not apply unless prepared to be mocked?)

Hmmm. This post tells you how disciplined I am today. I'm going to shut down everything and get back to work. Or I'm taking the beloved's car (we call it the "sacred car" around here because we must treat it as if it's made of--something really fragile and precious. When you're being that careful, you know you're seconds away from a major crash!) and I'm going somewhere quiet. Maybe I need a librarian to force me to hush!

Note: Added Romance Writing from the Edge to my favorite blogs. JoAnn Ross is an amazing writer! Her blogs are as entertaining as her edge-of-the-seat novels!

Saturday on the Square

Today's the market! Folks buying and selling in temps that I'm not sure I could have faced when they were setting up this a.m. 21 degrees F? I don't even have a coat that works for that. Well, technically, I do, but you can guess where it is when I tell you I have a daughter.

I love our square, love our town, love the twinkly lights and the ribbon and the wreaths. And I love the coffee in this shop.

My wish for everyone is a quaint square that inspires you to write a series of romance novels based in a small town where love really matters.

A Few Changes

I'm doing some blog-keeping and look at the header! My cousin took that photo--of the house that belonged to my many-many-greats-back-grandfather. He built it in 1825, and I visited in the fall. The family ghost, his wife, whom the current owners swear has visited, kept her distance. Not sure whether I'm glad or sad about that!

Anyway, I'm having Internet access problems, as always, so I'm blogging sporadically, but we're told a company of good reputation will be coming as far as our street around February. Wouldn't that be lovely? You can't imagine how you take good access for granted until you think "I'll google that," but you'd be better off driving to whatever it is you're googling and looking it over yourself. That includes, search terms like "tundra" or "Galapagos." Funny, how geography sprang to mind though I'm geographically challenged!

Anyway, I do have a few things to google, so must get at it!

First Day of December

We've had snow flurries today! Yay!

And I'm enduring Internet trials again. I hate being cut off from the Internet. As a writer, a lot of my friends are online, and we don't get out much, but we do a lot of chatting via email, Twitter, blogs, etc. I'm at a coffee shop. Again. I feel guilty for spending so much time on their wifi so I haven't actually been out to connect lately. Aaargghh! Hate to complain, of course.

So--it's December. I'm still working on proposals, though not dawdling any more. Actual hard, is-this-emotional-enough work. And that's good. I'm excited about writing. And I can say that without fear that it just means for today. Here's hoping the funk is beaten back!

Good lord--the Internet access just went down here as well. I'm a jinx. I'm going to try posting this and then shutting off the Internet entirely.

Snow and a working proposal--good things--things to rejoice about!

Bad Internet access--who needs to chitchat with friends anyway? ;-)