Back in Biz

Hi all! Hope your Julys were fun/productive. I hoped to be back blogging a week ago but instead went on a writing retreat to a friend's cabin on the far, far side of Missouri, with no internet connection. So my "unplugged" extended an extra week, and just as well! I am now 25K words into my YA dystopian novel. (Pause for self-congratulations here.)

In case you're wondering/jealous, here is how the writing retreat(s) work. I team up with a colleague from work who also likes to write, mostly academically. We go about once a year. The last time we took an entire week and drove to her sister's cabin on the far, far side of Missouri was over two years ago, and I spent it editing my academic book (bleuch!). If we "only" have a 3-day weekend, we instead rent a cabin much closer (but still in Missouri, because it's purdy).

We split the meal plans, and shop for extravagant foodstuffs. We go for a walk every day that weather permits. We get straight to our respective work right after breakfast, break for lunch, and then continue to work until 6pm. Then, we have a glass of wine, compare notes about our day's work/frustrations, make a gourmet feast, and settle in for a movie. My favorite movie of this trip was re-watching Whale Rider, in case you were wondering.

On the way there and back we passed Mansfield, the later life home of Laura Ingalls Wilder, about whom I wrote earlier. We resisted going to visit, because my mother is visiting from the Antipodes later this year, and I would like to see the Ingalls houses for the first time with her and my daughter. Daughter has become entranced by the experience of reading Little House with me this month, and I have the TV pilot for the series awaiting the end of the first book.

I look forward to reading your blogs over the next day or two, and resuming the writing and parenting business as usual!

Fight. For Your Right. To Party...

Hubby, to Son: Come on, now. We just don't have time to goof around.
Son, indignant: No time to play? That's just sad. We're kids!

**
And on another note, my work building is undergoing heavy construction this summer, and we aren't allowed in. Which means, taking all our teaching/writing/computing stuff out with us. We were to have until the end of this week, but the building is already cordoned off with caution tape. Personnel have been moving everything out, and plastic sheeting what remains. I'm in my office with the eery sense that dynamite has been laid in the basement, and it's all over but for the sirens. I feel like a lone holdout. I'd hate to miss the crucial memo about a change in the date! (Just another comma! Boom.)

Because Fatherhood Wasn't Difficult Enough

So the fabulous table for the Game Room (the father's day material gift, as opposed to the gift of time spent in Home Depot ordering drywall etc) arrived yesterday on back of furniture store truck. It was factory damaged, ever so barely, which made it ten percent of its original price (yay!) and is so perfect I literally squealed when I saw it, half lay on it, and wouldn't leave it to go find store personnel. It is large, heavy, square, and bar table height (ie. perfect for playing tabletop games). Also, cherry, and beautiful. And it has a leaf in the middle, which cunningly folds up under the table itself and pins there. Which is how hubby put his back out yesterday. Overwhelmed by the table. He is now walking sideways, and reassuring me that my gift hasn't killed him, yet.

It really is amazing how much time there is without Netflix in my life right now. And since daughter woke me at 4.30am, and I'm done with email and blogs and oatmeal already, I think I'll get writing. Getting back into bed sounded great, but son's in there now as well...