Where have I been?!

It's January 11th. So much has happened since I last blogged. It is actually overwhelming.

First, I sold a book.

No. JUST KIDDING. Sheesh, you'd think I'd wait to post something like that?

I did, however, pass into another decade. I am now out of my twenties and am...relieved. My twenties were harsh. I did a lot, made many, many mistakes. I found true love, went to Iraq, married my love in an awesome Buddhist temple in Japan, had two babies, and wrote my first novel. By the end of my twenties, I'd seen and done enough to give the other play-date moms plenty to gossip about.

And now that I'm thirty, I am ready. I am looking forward to a decade of accomplishments. I hope.

For starters, I hope to finish this awesome jinni book. But what should it be called? I think JINN is just a boring title. Any ideas? Maybe when I'm done and ready to send it to my most awesome agent, I'll have a mini contest and let one of my readers (the two of you) pick/suggest the perfect title. :-) What do you think?

Today my daughter went back to preschool, which means my days will be more productive. At least my son takes naps during which I can write. (Or blog. Today, I got totally distracted by Suzanne Young's THE NAUGHTY LIST---my first-ever ARC! It is so strawberry smoothie!)

Ok. Enough! Must get to work...

Happy Birthday, Dad!

My dad turns Old today, so I had to do something honoring such an event.

Yes, Elizabeth keeps trying to poke Henry in the chest with an oral medicine dropper from her Doctor kit, but other than that, aren't they cute?

E.A.P.

Today is the 200th birthday of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849).

RockSugarBeets

It has taken me far too long to talk about the RockSugarBeets, so here I go...

A few of the people I met at the conference were so fantastic, in fact, that we ended up eating the last few dinners together and formed a write-and-share group (not a critique group, as we've all got plenty of that going on). If you check out Cindy and Jacqui's blog posts from L.A., you'll see what I mean. (Everyone else already blogged about this, and it'd be better if you'd just check out their blogs than if I regurgitated everything. I mean, really, twice-chewed news is about as nice as fish bits picked from a mama seagull's beak.) Be sure to check out their photos, too, since I apparently am failing at posting pics lately.

Yesterday was Elizabeth's 2nd birthday and we had four other two-year-olds come over for the party (with their parents, of course). There was much insanity, but it was good insanity, you know?

She was so happy to have kids over to play with. The presents were great (Little People toys, a hand-made Tinker Bell blanket, Crocs, clothes, and a tricycle), the food was great (Brewster's Ice Cream Cake), and the guests were great.

She was so wound up after everyone left that when she spoke on the phone with my mom, she told her "Happy Birthday." (Except it was "Happy Dirtday," because although she can say pterodactyl, she can't say birthday.)

This morning we punched balloons around the living room until after breakfast. And then we played with hairstyles. I was SO proud of getting this done on a moving target (even with her sitting in the sink) that I had to take a picture.

Today was our 3rd Anniversary. (Yes, our 1st anniversary was spent mostly in the hospital.) Since we didn't have childcare set up for the evening but we had it during the day (Kid's Day Out), we went to the obligatory Japanese restaurant for lunch. Jim wasn't expecting anything in the way of gifts, so I surprised him with a huge bag of new clothes and a cute card. He needed those clothes, and I needed him to get something else to wear so my eyes didn't burn out, but he would never have gone out and bought himself anything. I think he was pretty happy. Not the greatest of gifts, like, say, something for his bicycle, but oh well. Last year I had more time and made him a scrapbook of our wedding pictures.

I must get off the computer now, as I was just informed that I should be spending time with him tonight. ;-)