A Week of Writerly Thanks: Thursday

Today's a day to remember what we're thankful for, but I think this is something that we need to remind ourselves of EVERY SINGLE DAY.

My Thanksgiving resolution is to try to remember and appreciate what I have and not worry so much about everything else.

I appreciate that I have a family who does their best to support me through thick and thin, there to help me pass the waiting time in a publishing process fraught with hurry up and wait, who take on the crazy kidlets so I can get in a few more words, who (usually remember) social networking is part of my job, and no matter what ... I appreciate having a family who is THERE for me.

To that point, I am reminded how lucky I am to be able to spend today with a loving family (no matter how neurotic everyone can be), how supportive they are, in their own special way, and how, despite the fact they may not understand why I do what I do, they still love me for it. Either that, or they are thankful for the fact I always come bearing food ;)

Hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Random Stuff Friday

1) I've been about 4 weeks off soda / coffee (essentially caffeine) and each morning I am still waking asking myself "WTF was I thinking??" Still not sure the answer to this question...

2) Had a girls night with a good friend. Dinner and Magic Mike. Channing Tatum (yum!), Alex Pettyfer (needed a shower & shave), Matt Bomer (definitely not Neal Caffrey). I mean, awesome, right? Well ...

Then had convo w/my 20yo sister.
Her: What did you think of Magic Mike?
Me: Different than I expected.
Her: How?
Me: Grittier. It was a really good story, though. I liked it.
Her: You're a nerd.
Me: I know.
Her: Who goes to a stripper movie for the story???
Me: A writer.

3) You may have seen on my FB, but I recently discovered and lovelovelove this new line of products from a company called Norwex. If you are at all conscientious of the environment, or being chemical-free and gree in your home, or you just want to cut your cleaning time by up to 75% (mememe!!), check it out HERE! I don't usually endorse any specific products, other than, yanno, books or writing related schtuff, but this was something I had to share. Why? Well, because if you can clean your house that much faster, you get that much more time to read and write!! Duh.

4) We start another #APirateTrip in about 6 days. And 15 hours. Not that I'm counting down or anything.

5) Althought it's been more than 100 days, we're doing a traditional Laotian 100 Days Rememberance Ceremony for my mom this weekend. Modern-day schedules simply didn't allow for us to be able to do the ceremony at the actual 100 days, but I don't think Mom will mind. So this weekend = Family time :)

Have a great weekend everyone!

Should Be

Tomorrow there should be cake.

There should be ice cream.

There should be singing and smiles.

And fifty-two candles.

And Mom.

July 9, 1960 - January 12, 2012

Miss you, Mom. 

Random Stuff Friday

#1) Happy Friday! I don't know about you guys, but however weird it may be to have a holiday in the middle of a week and get that day off, I could really get used to having a "mini-weekend" in the middle of every week!

#2) Remember how last week I told you about our family's big fireworks and bbq extravaganza? Well, we were very careful, what with all the fire restrictions and wildfires burning in Utah right now, we even had a couple of people assigned as firefighters, just in case. Everything was going great. And then a police officer appeared. There was that OMG moment everyone had. Followed by a "It's only June 30th. You have to wait until July." Followed by a big group SIGH. At which point my cousin, Captain Fireworks, decided we would postpone the rest of the show until Tuesday night. Especially since if we kept going, we figured the officer would come back and give us the $10,000 fine and no one wanted that. How's that for extravaganza?

#3) I've been working through revisions for L'Agent and finally caved from attempting to revise on the computer. I'm old school when it comes to revisions, which is something I'm trying to work on, what with the movement to be all green and environmentally friendly and what not. But I printed out my ms. All 309 pages of it. At least it's on recycled paper, right?

#4) It's officially 13 days until our family vacation. Can I just say how excited I am? Things have been turning a bit into a loony bin around here and I canNOT wait for an escape!

#5) Yay rain! Yesterday it rained in Utah after 38 straight dry days. And we desperately needed it! It seems there's a new fire somewhere in the state everyday, but yesterday's moisture definitely helped to quell that. And cool things off for us a bit too!

Hope everyone has a happy Friday and a great weekend!

Random Stuff Friday

1) yesterday I thought it was Friday. Then someone was so kind (mean!) as to tell me that it was only Thursday. So that whole mix-up is probably why I just realized now, at lunchtime on actual-Friday, I hadn't written this week's blogpost yet.

2) the pitfalls of semi-routine traveling is that when you end up coming home a day early (huzzah!), you forget it's a day early and then you think you're a day ahead only to realize the actual day is one day behind what you thought. confused yet? see #1

3) so remember how last week I was telling you the excitement around Maczilla? Oh, did I forget to tell you that is what I named him? Well, silly me. Well, now I'm sitting around suffering from severe buyer's remorse. Is the buying-nice-things-for-yourself just a me or does anyone else constantly deal with this? Probably not, right?

4) in celebration of NOT getting on an airplane for the entire month of July, instead, the Aphayrath family is getting ready for another #APirateTrip! This time we're headed up to see some dear friends, Husband will get to do some salmon fishing (hopefully!), and I will get to finish up my revisions and get them to L'Agent by August!

5) but before vacation, we've got our big huge family 4th of July shindig going on tomorrow night. The kids get to parade on festively decorated scooters and bikes, AND there will be tons of fireworks, food, and family. All you need for a summer night, right? Oh, and we've been told there's a 2-shot penalty (for those of age) if you're not appropriately patriotically dressed.

All right, I'm off to take the bubs shopping for some red, white, and blue and hopefully be up to dress code!

Have a great weekend everyone!

A Pirate* Trip

And now, it's Thursday.

We're on the road. Have been for a few hours now. I'm not sure where we're at right at this moment, but I decided that I'm going to make an adventure out of this.

One can never be sure just how much writerly fodder you can get while on road trips and people watching and always trying to ensure you capture each and every valuable moment ... I've decided I'm live tweeting this whole trip. Well, most of it anyway.

I might skip on a few things tomorrow morning, and my blog post tomorrow will explain why.

Catch my updates on #APirateTrip on Twitter. You'll get to see just how fun it is to go on a road trip with 3 kids under 7 in a strategically Tetris-packed Honda Pilot.




*If you're wondering about the "A Pirate" part ... soften the "t" in the middle and toss a "th" at the end of that and that's how you pronounce my last name!

Tetris Packing

Holy crow ... three posts in one week? WHAT is going on???

Yeah, it's probably because I'm prescheduling and trying to catch up on my bloggerliness.

I really am trying to get back into the writerly groove, like I said yesterday. I miss everyone and the interaction and how you guys just let me air my random thoughts and catching up with what everyone else has been up to and yeah. That was a horrible run on sentence, please forgive me.

Anyway, today is Wednesday and I'm actually not sure if I'm working. Because it's only Tuesday early morning as I write this.
I actually need to be packing right now. For the family trip to California AND for my trip to Baltimore next week. I'm not going to have time when we get back from CA to pack for the work trip, so I'm trying to be efficient. Hopefully it pans out.

As for CA, I have to pack for myself, Husband, 6yo, 3yo, and the bubs - who is currently 5 1/2 months old. That includes clothes, toys, toiletries, diapers, stroller, car seats, snacks ... oh, and my dad has just informed me that he'd like us to also include the 5-day cooler packed with a bunch of frozen items he'd like to take to his brother.

And somehow, this is all supposed to fit in the car?

Good thing I enjoy a good game of Tetris. Wish me luck!

Working Too Hard

There is such a thing.

I hope people realize that it is real and not just one of those cliche things that people say.

I bring this up because today is technically my Friday from day job. I'm supposed to be off after today, but we'll see if this really pans out: I still have SO MUCH work that needs to be done before I'm off.

You see, I'm heading out to California for some family business and won't be back in town until Sunday night. Then first thing Monday morning, I leave for another business trip, this one taking me to Baltimore for all day meetings for nearly a week. I won't be back until late Thursday night. The day before Husband's big 30th birthday, which I've also got scheduled off. So basically, all work that is due between now and the end of March has to be done TODAY!

Plus, I've been trying to lay out my plans to get myself back into the writing groove, with a couple new projects tugging at me for attention.

Needless to say, there's lots of running, running, running.

And yesterday, in my uber-day-job-productivty, something happened to tell me that I've been running too much over the past several days:

My good (not!) friend, Migraine, decided to stop in for a brief visit last night. Just long enough to knock me off my feet for several hours and keep me from working after I got home last night.

So just a reminder to all those out there who feel that pressure of working (whatever you may be working on) too hard, too long, too much ... really, it's okay to take a few minutes and have a break. It's way better than to end up out of commission and lose hours.

Luckily, I'm up, rested and refreshed today, so here's to some uber-productivity and NO visits from any not-so-good friends!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Begin Again

Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it?

What, like, 3... close to 4 months? Yeah, sorry about that. Things have been a bit hectic to say the least around here. So let's start again, shall we?I know I talk about the Husband and Kidlets a fair bit here, but brace yourself for all the family-ish stuff you're about to get.

Here's a quick recap of my last few months...
 

I had a baby. (3 weeks earlier than planned.)

He actually looks more like this now:

 While on maternity leave, I started revisions on a project.

Mom was diagnosed with late stage cancer.

Revisions went on hold.

Just before Christmas, Grandma lost her battle with cancer.

My brother, sister, and me with Grandma.

Revisions still on hold.

Husband's position at work changed as did his shift ... going from a 12-hour graveyard

to 12-hour day shift. Yay to having him home at night, boo to trying to juggle daycare for the kidlets.

I decided to take an extra week off at the end of my maternity leave ... putting my total time off at 13 weeks. So much had happened in such a short time. I was still adjusting.

I'd been back to work for 2 days and then Mom lost her battle with cancer.

My sister, Mom, and me.

Took another 2 weeks of leave from work.

And now, I'm trying to begin again.

So for now, we are all still reeling a bit and taking some time to figure out what the "new normal" is for our family. Hope you guys bear with my inconsistency for a bit longer.

A couple last thoughts for the moment:

#1) We don't use the word "hate" in our family. It's one of those words we have on the "list of bad words" the kids are not supposed to use. But I have to say, I hate cancer. I always have. I always will. To all those fighting the fight, supporting those who are fighting the fight, or honoring those who've lost their fights, my heart goes out to you. You will always be in my thoughts. And also...

Did I already tell you that?

#2) I wanted to say a quick thanks to you guys who have stuck around, reading, commenting, or just lurking on the blog. I know you're there and even when I wasn't blogging I knew you were there. You guys mean a lot to me and I wanted to make sure you knew how much I appreciate each and every one of you!

Legitimate Distractions

I haven't posted for a while. Since October 4, to be exact. I double-checked to make sure.

I apologize to all of you for my lack of frequency and regularity in posting. There was a recent Nathan Bransford post regarding the whole blogging burnout thing, and I think I may be one of the many who fell victim to that. Plus, I've been a bit distracted.

Distractions come in all shapes and sizes and, well, this one had a very specific shape and size.

While I've been very honest about the fact that I have a general ADD affliction *oh look, shiny!!!* where was I? ... oh yes, I am easily distracted, but this was different kind of distraction. If you follow me on Twitter or we're friends on Facebook, you've already gotten the news, but the reason for my distraction?

Let me introduce you to the newest little Aphayrath.

The last few months have been anything but routine for us around here, and The Boy's sudden appearance last Wednesday, 3 weeks before his official due date, was, well, unexpected to say the least. (Traumatic would be a much better word for it, I think, but without any of the negative connotations...)

Anyway, we are all doing well and I hope you'll forgive me for my continued lack of regularity on the blog for the next few weeks as we adjust from being a family of 4 to being a family of 5.

Sometimes distractions are not a great thing, in this case, I don't think I could have asked for a better reason to be distracted :)

Random Stuff Friday

1) Kidlets were sick over the weekend and I caught it. Or so I thought. Turns out... 2 dr visits, Husband telling me I looked like death warmed over, AND Bossman sending me home from work later I've got some "highly contagious, viral laryngitis that's 'going around.'" Throat's raw, can't stop coughing hurts to speak / eat / move anything above my collar bone. Suck. On the other hand, I got some kick-A drugs, the "controlled substance" variety that makes me feel way better, but maybe not a great thing to be under the influence of when parenting, Lol!

2) I apologize in advance in my posts over the next week or so, as I remain under a controlled substance's influence, are completely discombobulated.

3) We're repainting 3yo's room this weekend. Well, Husband is. We're tagteaming on the housework (as I'm able what with the sickies on me and all). I get to catch the family's laundry up and he gets to move furniture, replace a light fixture and repaint 3yo's entirely pink room. It came with the house when we bought it and we've just been putting it off. And now? It's been decided that it's time. And our little pink princess? We've discussed it and she's totally okay with painting it the "vanilla ice cream" color we've picked out.

4) Oh, another apology: to anyone I owe anything to. I'm a little behind because of all this sickiness and not wanting to spread this God-awful plague to the rest of the world. Soon as I'm out of quarantine, I'll get things sent.

5) All right, almost just hacked up a lung. Gonna take some drugs and head back to bed now.

Hope your weekends are filled with way more fun than mine will be.

Off the Beaten Path

Speaking of the Scenic Route, I thought I'd just drop in a few pictures from the scenic route the family and I took over the summer when we went to visit one of my dear friends who is an awesome crit partner and AMAZING adult urban fantasy writer --Amanda Bonilla. (SHAEDES OF GRAY, Signet, is out December 6, 2011 and is available for pre-order it now!)

We had opportunities we wouldn't otherwise have had and both our families had a great time getting to know each other!

I would show you where we stayed, in this cute little 1975 nostaligic (flowered wallpaper, orange/green decor - very *ahem* vintage. It was awesome!) lakeside cabin. Husband was too excited by everything else, he forgot to take a picture of the outside of the cabin we stayed in, but here's a picture of a picture of it! Yep, that says May 10, 1917. And guess what? It looks EXACTLY the same on the outside. Well, except it's a dark red color, not the black and white, but you know what I mean. See, totally vintage. So cool!

This was the view we woke up to every morning, coupled with the sounds of boat motors and people wakeboarding and waterskiing

3yo discovered the way down to the dock, beach and lake pretty quickly after we arrived.

Besides the lake, we got to go out on ATVs - which we'd never been before. And we all had an awesome time!

The view from the top of the ATV trail we went on. Beautiful!

Husband (who is an avid outdoorsy-man - fishing, hunting and all that) got to go salmon fishing! And he caught enough for us to bring some fresh fish home too! Yummilicious (see last Friday's Lox post!)

We got to see wolf tracks! And Husband was too excited to remember to put something beside the track to really demonstrate the size, but that thing was close to the size of BOTH my hands open, palm up!

Fire Chief Juan took us on a fire station tour complete with checking out the ambulance. 3yo to the Chief: "I'm sorry sir, it's too late. I can't hear your heartbeat." Lol!

We went on a fire truck ride through the district.

Then came back and learned how to use the hose and foam spray the firefighters use. We may have a couple little firefighters on our hands...

...Or maybe not. They decided the best part of the tour was playing in the foam spray afterwards!

We picked deliciously sweet wild strawberries. They're tiny but PACKED with flavor.

Every strawberry I've had since then has been bland in comparison.

Thanks so much, Amanda, for letting us come to visit! We had a blast getting to know the family and I'm thinking our husbands may be BFF from here on out. You know, since they are already planning next year's trip out there!

So you see, sometimes, getting off the beaten path and taking the scenic route is good for the soul, the spirit and just plain fun. It lets you recharge and take a break from "reality" and all things that comes with. Doesn't hurt, either, when the place you're staying has NO internet except for what you can get on a little smartphone. After a while, that just gets annoying.

*Raises glass* Here's to summer vacations and scenic routes! Make sure you take some time once in a while to get off the beaten path. Wild strawberries and wolf tracks may just be around the next corner!

Random Stuff Friday

1) It feels like it's been a while since I've done one of these, doesn't it? It does to me. I suppose that's what happens when I'm frantically planning for our family vacation, then off ON our family vacation, so it's about time right? And in case you were thinking that Idaho is only good for potatoes . . . ummm, nope. We had a super-fun vacation staying in a lakeside cabin and hanging out with some great friends. The kids didn't want to come back! 6yo was crying in the car as we drove away. Pics to share are soon to come!!

2) Is anyone else STILL dealing with allergies? Usually, my seasonal allergies are a springish thing and by the beginning of June, I'm all right. It's going to be August in just a few days time and I'm still sneezing up a storm! Ugh.

3) While we were on vacation, my little brother came over and watered our plants for us. He did a really good job, since we had a few that were still in pots that we didn't have time to plant before we left, and most of them are still alive! ;) ... Then he gave me crap for the weeds in our backyard, but after a rough negotiation, and the fact that he's 18 and unemployed, he's going to weed our patio for $20. I think I just got a pretty kick-A deal.

4) I have most of the furniture for my new office nook! Woohoo! (Thank you, IKEA!) You see, I did have a home office, and our kidlets shared a room, but 6yo decided as part of her whole "turning 6" thing, she wanted her own room, which was fine. But it also involved dismantling my office and that furniture was not going to fit into anything nookish. So now, in 3 boxes on our living room floor - to be assembled by Husband today!! - is my new desk and chair! I'm so excited. All that's left now is the shelves that are going on the wall above it to house my gazillions of books. There's some shelving weight limits I apparently have to go figure out ...

5) With the end of the summer came one huge success for us: 6yo is officially off training wheels on her bike! And she is trekking along so fast! It only took her about 4 hours to figure out most of the basics of balancing and by the next day, she was ready to ride by herself, no one helping to give her a push start! We're so proud of her and she's so excited to be able to go on bike rides with the bigger kids in the family now!

All right everyone, have a nice weekend. Cling to the last few weekends of summer and enjoy your sunshine!

MIA ... Time for some Vacay!

I've been meaning to blog for the last week and clearly I've been terribly remiss.

Few things going on. Firstly, a sort of impromptu work trip to Mexico City that left me scrambling to plan my presentations, followed by me being completely exhausted from the trip. That led to a weekend full of family events and then FINALLY, the family summer vacation we've been waiting for for over a year!

So I will catch up with all of you on the flip side of the vacation because seriously, if you were waking up to this view every morning, I don't think you'd be all that interested in blogging either.

Peace out, yo! Just kidding, hold down the forts and don't have too much fun without me!

Random Stuff Friday

1) Holy crow, it's been a while, hasn't it? I swore I was gonna get better at blogging more regularly and then ... well, 4 graduations, 2 birthday parties, revisions, new wips and ... yeah. The list goes on and on. Anyway, I'm back now and--

*** WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST WITH AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE: Tuesday, June 7th we will all be wishing a Happy Book Birthday to POSSESSION, the debut novel from the one and only, Elana Johnson and lucky, lucky you could have a chance for some personalized Elana-time! This contest is open from now until Wednesday, June 15th and all winners will be announced by Elana on Thursday, June 16th. For complete details ... CLICK HERE!!! *** WE NOW RETURN YOU TO YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED BLOG POST ***

2) My baby brother graduated from high school this week (yeah, he's the tall one in the middle in case you couldn't tell by the cap & gown) and we're all so proud of him! And the best part about his graduation? I don't HAVE to go to another graduation for at least 2 years (depending on how long he and my sister decide to take until they graduation college!). It's the little things I tell ya!

This is my cute family: Dad on the left, my younger sister, baby brother, me and Mom.

3) Speaking of graduations, 5yo who will be 6yo as of the middle of this month has now graduated kindergarten. It's bittersweet, as a mom. I'm proud of her and she loved school and I hope that continues, but she's growing up SO fast, I almost started crying the other day. I know, lame and emotional, but I bet the rest of you moms out there totally know what I'm talking about. *sniffles*

4) I'm seriously considering shelving a project I've been working intensely on for the last year and a half. Over the past several weeks, I've just fallen out of the mojo of the story and I cannot seem to get a firm grasp on the characters' voices right now. I'm having a tough time with this because, well, despite having "fallen out" with the story, I still really love it. What's a girl to do?

5) Rain, rain, go away, come again another day . . .

Safety First

Okay, so the votes are in .... and it seems everyone's pretty supportive of, well, whatever vice I choose to have. Though I'm not sure how much it helped in my whole decision-making process I so appreciate that everyone took the time to weigh in! You guys all rock.

But before I took this morning to really decide if I was going to start the day with a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, the decision, for practicality reasons, was sorta made for me.

Last night, just as I was settling in to begin writing and critting, after the husband went off to work and the kidlets were tucked into bed, our carbon monoxide detector went off. And I don't mean it did it's weekly test, beeping a couple times obnoxiously and then saying "this was only a test" it WENT OFF. Needless to say, I panicked. I mean, my children! Save the children! Save the children!! Call 911!!

But then, it turned off. I had a pretty major What the ----?!?!? moment, seeing as the device had just awoken our 4-year-old on a school night, and had the 18 month old baby screaming with every beep. So I get the kids tucked back into bed. All is well.

False alarm. (You see, we have two other detectors in the house, and neither of them were panicked about anything.)

Then the blasted thing went off AGAIN! Just long enough to wake the kids and irritate the blazes out of me. Then it turned off. We just replaced the batteries. We test it every week. I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it.

Mind you, I realize that there is no really GOOD way to know without the detectors of CO2 as it is odorless, colorless, etc, etc.

With my children in tow, I went and grabbed one of the other detectors we had and put both units side by side. Nothing happened. NOTHING!

So just to be safe, I opened all the upstairs windows (had to shut off the heat) and grabbed both my kidlets to come sleep with me, because more people in the bed = warmer place to sleep, and then proceeded to wake up EVERY 30-45 minutes, just to make sure my kids were still breathing. I'm a mom, what can I say. No more beeping. Kids got to sleep. Life is much better.

This morning Husband stopped and picked up one of those hand held tester units at Home Depot on his way home and proceeded to wander around the entire house testing to make sure that when he went to sleep with the baby today, things were all good. -- Even the detector that is closest to our furnace & water heater (the only gas appliances in the house) had a reading of almost 0.

But I did learn 1 big lesson in all my rampant panicked mom research last night: If you start your car to warm it up before you leave in the morning / at night / whenever .... don't do it if it is parked in the garage, regardless of how much you have the door open.  Back it out first. That is the only thing we can figure out that would have caused the inflated levels of CO2. Our bedrooms are upstairs, above the garage, and husband had started his car to warm it up before leaving for his night shift. The CO2 can collect inside the enclosed space, even with the garage door open all the way.

Lesson learned.

So there is the long winded reason for what is in my cup today. I don't think I'd be able to keep my eyes open ... or function at all this morning without some concentrated form of caffeine... so, yeah. Here's to my first cup back on the wagon.

P.S. If you don't have a CO2 detector in your house - GET 1. Get several. You should have 1 everywhere you have a smoke detector. They sell really affordable combo-smoke detector/CO2 detectors now that you can put in place of existing units. Most new homes come with these, but you might want to double check.

And no, I'm not being commissioned by anyone to promote all this. I just want to make sure your families are safe too!

The Miracles of Sunscreen

I'm on a flight to Baltimore this morning and wasn't sure what to blog about before I left for the airport today, but thanks to my sister V who fell asleep in the sun in my backyard on Sunday afternoon. This one's for you.



Will check in again from the east coast! Happy Monday everyone.

Baby E

Happy 1st Birthday to Our Baby E!

Family Time

I didn't get near as much writing done as I wanted to this past weekend, as I've been playing catch up at work since I was out of the office. Did some editing on one of the wips, unfortunately, probably not the one I needed to be working on.

We spent Mother's Day doing some shopping - mostly for me ;) - and then topped it off with a stop at my grandma's house. Luckily, my husband's family and mine are pretty close, so some members of his family came over too, so we had 4 generations on both sides barbecueing at my grandma's house. Good times.

I really did want to get some writing in over this past weekend, but it turned out to be much more of relax and recover weekend than anything else. I read some (I'm really on book 7 of my Recent Reads to 100, I've just been slow on the reviews side), I didn't write nearly enough and then just cuddled with the kids, which is a good thing since P keeps telling me how much she misses me even though I'm sitting right in front of her. Melts your heart just a little every time she says it too.

My daughter says the funniest things sometimes and most of the time it is when she's speaking with my sister, V. We went to the park for a picnic on Saturday and just watching their interaction brought on a strange sort of deja vu for me. My sister is 11 years younger than me. P is 13 years younger than V. So the age difference is about the same and their relationship is so similar to what I had with my sister it's almost eerie. And more recently, I've seen where this sort of interaction has been bleeding into my writing. My current wip still in 1st draft stage has so many of this relationship dynamic pulled in, it made me wonder how writers figure out just how the relationships in their projects will work. Mostly familial relationships.

How do you know a brother and sister will get along? Or maybe just when they will get along? Do all siblings have the intrinsic sense to protect their own, or is it just wishful thinking? Are these relationships built on your own experience with your siblings or something you wished you had with your family?

The answer, I'm guessing, for most is that it's all of the above. When you're getting along, things are great, when you're fighting, not so much. But it's life and that's what makes life so colorful. Besides, who wants to read a book about siblings who are best friends who never fight and have no conflict and agree on everything? Seriously, even the Brady Bunch didn't get along sometimes.

Just rambling now. I guess all this family talk is what happens after you've spent the last 8 weekends bonding with anywhere from 2 to 4 generations of your family.

And there's my phone buzzing - text from my sister. Well, happy Monday everyone!

Back! .... Temporarily At Least

Hello, World!

So today I am back. Home and in my office. Staring out at the fabulous staircase I have oh-so-missed while I was traveling with work. Who would've thought I'd ever miss the whole monkey at the zoo vibe I get because my office window overlooks the top of the staircase and people come up the stairs and just stare at me? Anyway, at one point I was in 3 timezones within 4 days. Yowza! To all those who travel extensively with work, whatever kind of work you may do, *bowing down*.

I don't normally travel much at all with work, prior to this past two weeks, I'd been on 3 trips in about 3 years. Things just culminated and suddenly I understand much more what the people I work with mean when they talk about how much they are on the road. It's tough. I missed my kids, my husband. I missed my bed, my stuff. And I missed have MY time. On a work trip with a big group, it leaves little time to hole up in your room and work on your book. There's a level of social interaction that is expected.

The expectation aside, there are some changes being made at a higher level that impact our whole team and it was a tough thing to have to accept. But hey, as I've been advised repeated ... "I serve at the discretion of my leadership" ....

Okay, that's enough whining. So I haven't had much time to write. Read. Sleep. Or pretty much anything. Even this morning, being back home, my body is still trying to figure out what timezone I'm in and if I should be hungry now or later. Seriously. So to solve that problem, I've just taken on eating all the time. Probably not the healthiest of options. But I have a week home to stabilize before I head off on another week-long trip to the East Coast. Baltimore this time.

Meanwhile, in what little writing I have been able to do, I've found some places where I definitely need some work. A while back I read a blog post by Lady Glamis: Working in Layers and I am really understanding that concept better now. That initial flow of your pen, though it may be fabulous as a first draft, that is what it is. A first draft. There are SEVERAL of these long before any project is truly ready. And each run through, another layer should be added. *Lightbulb* - Yeah, I really get it now.

In addition to that, I am still writing in my "organized-haphazardness" way what the "voices" in my head tell me. I did get to the point where it was such a hodge podge of sections, I've gone back and layed it out to match my outline. I even had to print out a calendar and make notes on it so I've got a sort of timeline when things happen and I'm not having things happen in the wrong order. My husband thinks this is totally bizarro and I've thought about it much too thoroughly, but I don't get how he can stare at a box of fishing jig-thingys for ten minutes deciding which one is the right one for his next trip. *Raises cup of coffee* to each his/her own, I guess.

This was just an update, I've not been that great about keeping up and have found myself stretched a bit thin, but over the next week, hopefully, I should be able to get back to my routine. At least until I'm thrown completely off track by my trip to Baltimore.

Ahh, well, back to the grind of it. At least I remembered my coffee this morning. Oh yes, did I forget to mention that all these trips have me back on my coffee addiction? And I have been so good since I had the baby! (E will be 1 next Friday! Eeek! Time flies...)

Have a great weekend everyone!