Back At It!

Howdy all,

I'm back from vacation & finally have a free moment to post. Yesterday was (of course) that dreaded day of the week wherein all evil things occur so I did not have a free moment until after midnight had come and the week had moved on to a more reasonable day.

The vacation was good, though not nearly as restful as I'd hoped. We did much running from place to place with a tight itinerary to make sure we saw & did everything there was to see and do! I hate that. Oh, it was fun - don't get me wrong: it's just that the wife and I have different ideas of what the word "vacation" means. To her it's a time to force fit as much "family fun" as you possibly can into an eighteen hour day of madness. To me, it means sleeping late, having a leisurely brunch, doing one or two slow paced relaxing things then finishing up with a nice dinner and a casual walk before hitting the hay early. Repeat until real life intrudes and you must return to work.

The driving was an adventure. Despite our well established routine, the wife decided that I had to do the driving because she is uncomfortable with Interstates, trucks, and long distance driving at high speed. Yay. I drove eight hours straight, with her constantly jumping every time a truck got within 300 yards of the car, telling me to slow down, and -as always- slamming her foot onto imaginary brakes when she felt I was getting too close to the cars in front. The sad part is: that was a pleasure compared to the drive home! Actually, the first 1/2 of the ride back was great, a very friendly Virginian who used to live up here in Jersey gave me an alternate route to take that was wonderful. No trucks, no traffic . . . just two lane roads with 55 mph speed limits that I could drive on for hours without touching my brakes (or the wife hitting hers!). It only took me 4 hours to reach the Jersey border from central Virginia! Of course, it then took me 5-1/2 hours to travel the last 70 miles home. (Gotta love New-frikkin'-Jersey, folks!)

So, in the midst of all this driving my plans to work on the synopsis for GS (or anything else!) were shot to hell. Then yesterday was . . . well, MONDAY! Over 100 e-mails waiting at work, seventeen voice mails, a new trainee and a few assorted emergencies. After that I headed home to a doctor's appointment, followed by a trip to the pool store because the motor on my pump filter died, followed by a quick dinner, followed by being out in the yard at 10:30 at night trying to disconnect the broken pump from the pool because it has to go into the shop for two weeks (while my pool becomes the great green water pit of viral death and disease!) after which I managed to get on the home computer and go through the one-hundred-fourty-three messages that were waiting for me. Luckily, all but ten or so were spam & I dumped them quickly. By that time it was Tuesday and I was able to go to bed & get at least some rest. Oy.

Good news: I did recieve the ARC copy of "Talyn" from Holly Lisle while I was away. I opened it late Sunday night & found that Holly had written a wonderful note in the front encouraging my writing and telling me to keep following the dream. It was really thoughtful and a great boost to know someone who does this professionally thinks you have a real chance. Thanks, Holly!

I'm traveling at work today and tonight is Boy Scouts so the writing time will be sparse but I hope to at least get some stuff done. The rest of the week should (I hope!) go easier and I can get back into the daily swing. I haven't written in five days now & I'm getting antsy! Gotta get back to it!

Later!