Post Christmas Decompression

Home again, home again.  Glad to be back from Mom’s and with our poochies again.  Callie (who really should be known as Fart Blossom at the moment…whew!) is curled up next to me.  We had our first white Christmas.  It was, in fact, the first white Christmas in north Mississippi since 1913.  It was awesome.  What a fantastic gift from Mother Nature for the holiday. It snowed for 2 days.  Not much in the way of accumulation, but it sure was beautiful to watch.

The house is kind of a wreck, and of course we must find room for the new stuff.  My mom found a stellar deal on no-iron button down shirts somewhere for FIVE BUCKS APIECE, so I got a BUNCH of those.  And new flannel jammies (obviously my mother doesn’t know me at all–when am I ever going to sleep in flannel?  We keep it at 65 in the winter because we get hot).  And a lot of new fun socks (it’s a thing–I love fun socks).  My MIL found me a great new tote bag (perfect for hauling books!).  And I got some cooking stuff.  Oddly enough, one of my favorite things wasn’t actually in a gift, but rather on it.  A giant beanie chocolate chip cookie.  It’s adorable.  A calorie-free cookie that makes me smile without adding to my waistline.  Hubby got his own Snuggie, so he can stop stealing mine.  Between the snuggie and the new pillows I got him (both red) in his red chair, he could go all stealth ninja and disappear.

I’ve been making list after list of stuff I want to get done this year.  Lots of cleaning out and getting rid of things.  I just started entering them into my Intuition app, and as the year goes on, I figure I’ll pick one a week or so.  Trying to keep it small and manageable.  Like “clear out tupperware” and “clean out workout clothes drawer” and that kind of thing.  I’ve been hanging on to stuff for ages and realized I haven’t touched a lot of this stuff since I moved into this house four years ago.  It is TIME.  I am so far past ready to part with stuff.  Ruthlessly tossing.  It’s all part of my Simplify Life in 2011 Plan.

Tomorrow is my last day to play.  I’m headed to Jackson to see a couple of my girlfriends and pick up my own little splurge with some of my Christmas money.  Then it’s back to lecture writing in a big way to prep for the start of the semester.  There’s more family coming to town on Tuesday.  And then next week it is, sadly, back to the Evil Day Job.  But also on Monday is the start of the very first Round of Words in 80 Days!  And Red.  I’ve been pecking away at it a little bit in snatches of spare time the last week, but haven’t quite dived in the way I’m ready to, so I’m really looking forward to that.

Devil’s Eye is having a pretty decent launch.  Debuted around 8k on release day.  Forsaken By Shadow debuted more like 80k, so hey, improvement!  It’s still not up at Barnes and Noble yet.  I’m very nervous about how it will be received.  It’s about 15k shorter than FBS, and is really more of an introduction to these two characters–their story isn’t finished.  I’m really afraid of people who snag it thinking it’s a full length novel.  There are plenty of people out there who wouldn’t read that part of a description and then fault the thing because it “wasn’t long enough”.  Those have already started.  But hey, whatever.  Not every book will be well received.  It is what it is.  I’m finished with it, and I’m moving on to something else.  Have to focus on the current project.