Yay! My mom’s surgery went well and she’s looking, feeling, and progressing much better than I ever anticipated. Thanks so much to everyone who sent a healing thought her way. And the family seems to have settled down back home. As Barbara commented on my previous blog, it’s good for The Girl to realize what all her mom does and it’s not a bad thing for my husband to get a feel for it as well. :O

I’ve worked a bit on the next book, the anthology. My galley’s for the January book are at home waiting on me, but aren’t due back til mid-September. I’m trying not to hyperventilate when I think about the fact that I should have gotten more work done than I did this week. Perpetually behind. I think it’s my lot in life. :confused:

Jen

Thanks to everyone who sent healing thoughts and prayers our way. Yesterday was a very long day at the hospital but my mother’s initial procedure went well. Tomorrow morning she’ll have her open heart surgery with a double by-pass and either a valve repair or replacement. It’s been delayed a day due to some poor man going into emergency cardiac surgery, so today we’re sitting in a hotel room. Thanking everyone in advance for their healing thoughts and prayers.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my fam seems to be falling apart with The Girl and her father not handling being on their own very well. She called me yesterday, wailing: “When you come home, I’m going back with you because I can’t stay with HIM.” And I can tell that juggling The Girl, school, homework, extra-curricular activities, the house, the cats and dogs, and work is proving a challenge for my husband who is used to focusing on work alone. It was not the time to tell The Girl that I won’t possibly get back home until week-end after next. :confused:

I did get in a much-needed run this morning. After my shower, I’m sticking on my headphones and working. One of my best friend’s from middle and high school lives here and tonight we’re meeting for dinner. I can’t wait to see her. It’s been years and years since I saw her and I can’t wait to catch up with her.

Oh, yeah, I want to apologize to everyone for my contest brain-spasm. I think I had way to many irons in the proverbial fire for the last couple of weeks. :hehe:

Jen

My husband and I own a pest control company. In the past year, I’ve really pulled back on my involvement with the company, but I’ve spent quite a bit of time working on company business stuff this week. The writing has sort of been percolating while my focus has been on the bug biz. :satisfied:

Today I’ve got laundry and house cleaning and grocery shopping on my list of “to do” fun. :O I’m leaving Monday for an indefinite stay with my mother. She’s having heart surgery on Tuesday morning and then another procedure on Wednesday morning. She’s 71 and my stepfather’s 79. I’ll be there for the surgeries and then as long as they need me. The doctor’s have told her a three-week recovery period. They live four hours away. I’ll have my lap top and can work essentially any where, but I’m going to have to at least come home on the week-ends to see my family, or Mom may be feeling better sooner, it’s just up in the air. The last time I was at their house, I had a devil of a time accessing the Internet–as in I couldn’t. :crazy: They live in a very small town in south Georgia and net connecting is somewhat challenging.

I think my novella I’m working on is going to be a nice escape. :rolleyes:

Jen

So, The Girl is back in school. :( I’m not exactly sure where the summer went. It sort of zoomed past. I spent yesterday and then again this morning in my annual ritual of filing. I think that’s part of the problem–I file once a year. I was thinking while I was out running this morning that instead of spending a couple of days once a year that I should try to make this a weekly thing. You know, maybe half an hour to get all the paperwork shuffled and in the right spot. :doze: I”ll try, but I don’t do well with that maintenance stuff.

So, except for the line edits, my January Blaze, ANTICIPATION, is put to bed. Now I get into my next Signature anthology–the working title of the anthology is 3 Guys You Wouldn’t Want to Date. My story is a Pygmalion with the genders changed. The hero is a super geek who talks the heroine into making him over so he can approach the woman of his dreams (and no, it’s not her, but it will be by the end of the story :P). It should be a lot of fun to write…if I can just finish wading through this *&^& paperwork. :crazy:

Jen

Hi! Checking in from the beach. I don’t think I realized just how much our entire family needed this until I was walking on the beach yesterday looking for shells and I realized I wasn’t stressing about anything. Nothing. Nada. I was just enjoying the sand beneath my feet and the sun at my back and having no obligations except to put one foot in front of the other and enjoy myself. I don’t look for the most perfect shells, but the most interesting. I think they’re the most fascintaing things and I love the different hues and colors and shapes–they’re incredible. I’m not much for laying on a beach towel but we’ve had a great time playing beach badminton, shell seeking and splashing about in the water. Our first day here we all had to get henna tattoos. :O Ya know–the family that tattoos together, stays together. And last night we went to the dog tracks which made me and The Girl very homesick for your greyts at home. :angry: I started the morning with a totally self-indulgent massage at the spa and this afternoon or tomorrow we’re all going to try parasailing. I’ll definitely check back in if I’m still in one piece after that. :hehe:

Jen

I took the red-eye flight home from Reno. While it’s true that I can sleep almost anywhere, I remembered that doesn’t necessarily translate to good sleep. However, the three hours I logged in on my sofa yesterday afternoon…now that was good sleep.

The national conference was good. Like anything else, you can make it what you want it to be. It can definitely be overwhelming and exhausting, but I wanted a kinder, gentler experience this year. :rolleyes: I didn’t try to cram in a ton of workshops and then lots of late nights. Quite frankly, with the three hour time difference, it would’ve killed me. As it was, I was hard-pressed to keep my face out of my dinner plate after the literacy signing.

One of the highlights of the trip was whitewater kayaking Wednesday morning on the Truckee River. Definitely fun–once I got the hang of it. Definitely different from a sea kayak. They were inflatables and I swear to you, for the first part of the trip, my butt seemed to be a rock magnet–as in I got stuck on every rock available. :crazy: Another great moment was when my editor, Brenda Chin, won the Pasic Editor of the Year Award. She definitely deserved it!!! That was very cool.

While the conference was good, the venue was sort of weird. There is something almost surreal about where we were in Reno. The Hilton is out by the airport and there’s nothing there. You couldn’t walk to other restaurants outside of the hotel. No shopping other than what was in the hotel. Just lots of KOA camping so people could camp and gamble. Weird city. And every morning one of my suite-mates and I would go running along a running/biking path that follows the Truckee River. Lots of homeless people. It was disconcerting to run past people sleeping in the bushes. It’s just not part of my usual suburban experience. HOwever, the most disconcerting person we met while running wasn’t homeless. He was a big, muscular guy who had on sweats with the hood up and was wearing gloves — fairly odd combination considering we were running in shorts and tank tops.

I haven’t looked at my photos from the conference yet, but I’ll try to download them and get them up in the next week or so. I’m changing out suitcases and we’re leaving for Florida today. I’m working on copy edits but hopefully I’ll get them finished on the drive down. Okay…off to pack…again :hehe: