Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey day is here once again. The cranberry sauce is made. That's my contribution this year to our family meal. Yes, I get off easy and I'm grateful for that.

Every Sunday we go around the dinner table and each of us says what we're thankful for that week. It's something I put in a book (Billionaire's Wedding Masquerade) and had my family start doing, too. Tonight we'll do it again. But there isn't time to list all the things I'm thankful for this year or the food would get cold so I'll do it now:

1. My family. Our move into temporary housing, that has turned out to be not so temporary, has shown us that home is really wherever we are together.

2. Our health. After a year of nightly antibiotics, our youngest was finally taken off her medicine a couple weeks ago.

3. My friends. For their support and love.

4. My writing. It feels so good to be writing each and every day again. I'm so excited to be a part of the new Harlequin Romance line.

5. My readers. For allowing my stories to be a part of their lives and for letting me know their opinions-both good and bad!

6. George Lucas. For the amazing Star Wars saga and casting Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker.

7. ABC. For LOST and Invasion. The two television shows I watch each and every week.

I'm back

My few days away turned into a couple of weeks, but that deadline really did me in. I've been catching up with my family, my To Do list and my sleep. Forget about NANOWRIMO. I tried. I had my alphasmart all ready to go, but then I realized my brain was just too tired to jump into another book. Plus I had to send ideas to my editor for my next book. And since I didn't have any ideas I had to spend my time brainstorming. I sent three ideas off yesterday. Fingers crossed she likes one of them!

Today we signed the paperwork to close on our new house! But do you know what music played as we sat at the title company? Christmas music. One radio station in Portland, K106.7, has been playing all Christmas music since early November. I don't know about you, but that's just too early. I heard the song Do They Know It's Christmas Time and all I could think was Do They Realize It's Still November? Another station K103.3 is doing weekend Christmas samplers until Thanksgiving when they switch over to all Christmas music, too.

I have a question for you all? Do we really need Christmas samplers? What's to sample? I emailed them about that. I was asked if I didn't like Christmas music. Anyone who has seen my Christmas music collection would know the answer to that one.

I love Christmas music, but I like it when it's Christmas time. Not when we haven't even started planning the menu for Thanksgiving dinner. Too bad the radio stations in town don't agree. Thank goodness, the hubby got me the iPod for my birthday. It's getting a lot of use this month!

A few days off

Thanks for the congrats both here and in email! Although I finished the book, I realized I had to fill out a AFS (art fact sheet) which gives Harlequin information they can use for the cover art. I emailed that off last night. So today is my first real free day! I'm still tired and have not yet managed to find the time to watch all the extras on the ROTS DVD, but I did watch the movie with the kids on Tuesday.

Anyway, I'm going to take a few more days off from the blog and try to get some rest and caught up! I also must start nanowrimo, too. I'll be back in a couple of days!

D-Day

Here's the final tally:

New pages written: none
Old pages revised on paper: all
Pages of revisions typed in: all
Pages lost or gained due to revisions: 2
Total page count to date: 217 (goal: 200 pages)
Days remaining until D-day: none

Hooray! I did it! I emailed the completed manuscript to my editor a few minutes ago. I even managed to read the entire thing out loud, too. Hubby just got home from the 24 hour Walmart where he bought me the ROTS DVD with bonus DVD when it went on sale at midnight. He was the first one there. I love that man so much!

Thanks for all your comments. The support, words of encouragement, photos of Hayden emailed to me and virtual chocolate really helped me get through this!