Pages of Notes Written... 30?
Listening to... Evanescence - Fallen
Exercise Done... Cleaning. Lots.

The drive to Phoenix, for one, took forever. Ten and a half hours. That's not our record, but it comes damn close.

Thanksgiving Day was wonderful, we ate dinner at Hubby's nephew's house with the rest of the family and the four kids running around being kids. A good time, but I missed my own cooking - so I foresee a turkey dinner in my near future. But probably just at Christmas...

However, I was bombarded with stories that I'm not qualified to tell, yet. My bro-in-law is going through some serious stuff and he wants me to write about it. But that ain't romance territory. I've told him I will, because it will make a fascinating and timely book (military shit, basically), so he talked - and talked - over a couple bottles of wine and two days of meals. It was great, but a lot to take in.

The house was the other story, in and of itself. With hubby's mom in a nursing home, it was time to clean out the back bedroom that used to be hers. It was so packed it was hard to walk into. I stormed through there on Friday, spent all day with little to no breaks (oh, wait - a long lunch with my BIL and family). But I got it done, yessir - four bags of trash (and sundry stuff that just, you know, needed to be tossed but a softer heart would have kept). Nine bags to goodwill (that my hubby, bless his heart, didn't even look through). And there's still the closet and another storage cupboard to go through. But at least a body can walk into the room and not worry that something will fall on them.

This all relates to another story that has been in the incubating stages for a couple of years now, and no, that's not a romance, either. It's more a women's fiction, generational-family story.

But I figure by the time I'm actually published and have several romances under my belt, I'll know how to write these two books, and damn it I'll actually have an audience by then, too. I hope.

By the end of yesterday, I was pulled tighter than a rubber band at its breaking point and yeah, I came damned close to breaking. Some SAM E and kicking off my shoes in the passenger side of the car helped a lot to calm me down, not to mention the free flowing traffic on the way home (only 8 1/2 hours).

It seems like a lot of responsibility to the family for stories that I want to tell. Need to tell. It's going to be interesting to see how long it takes to incubate them.

But we're home, I've got lamb stew that's been in the oven for 5 hours and scenting the house divinely, and there's champagne to drink. The house is warm and the kids are home and safe, and the wind howls outside thereby preventing a further-cozying fire.

And tomorrow is another day.