Tales of Christmas 2010

Our tree on Christmas Eve

-My twenty-year-old brother shoved me while I was taking the picture. Then he made me forward him the photo, because it looked "artistic." *gives bro stern elder sister glare* Actually, my sister - who looked over my shoulder just now - agrees with him.

Our tree after I told my brother what a punk he was

-So cute, right? It's roughly five feet tall. We needed one that would fit inside the car. (The other option was strapping a tree on top of the car for a hour-long winding drive through the mountain highway during a snowstorm.) My brother and my father weren't here yet, so I sawed off the end of the trunk and screwed it into the tree stand myself. *proudly flexes handy-woman muscles*

-I knitted my sister a quilt for Christmas. I knitted three pieces of it in front of her, and she was STILL surprised when she opened it. (Yes, I'm v. v. v. proud of myself.)

My great-grandma and another quilt I knitted her for Christmas.
My grandmother took this pic and sent it to me this morning.

-I debated on whether or not to mention it in this post, but after last night's shoving, the debate was over - embarrassing stories can be told. My brother and I made my great-grandma's infamous eggnog. (Yes, the same great-grandmother pictured above. Her eggnog is infamous, because of how much whiskey she puts in it.) Because I beat the egg whites, I let Clint beat the cream. I thought it was cute, so I stood back and took a few pics. BIG mistake. 'Cause he whipped the cream into butter. Luckily, we had extra cream on hand, so nobody was too unhappy about it. Then the eggnog turned out great, so that made us pretty cheerful too. :-)

-Last night, after the rest of my family went to bed, I stayed up late reading my most recent B&N purchase, Isabel Wolff's A VINTAGE AFFAIR (yeah, I'm sure you're completely shocked - it's totally out of character). On page 75, I read "it's lucky to find a nail, to eat an apple on Christmas Eve, and to accidentally put a garment on inside out." I paused (mainly because it was warm under my covers and NOT warm out of bed) before deciding that it was too much of a coincidence. Besides, with my own book(s) coming out soon, I could really use all the luck I could get. So, I climbed out of bed, snuck into the kitchen, and groped around in the dark until I found the fruit bowl. I must say that green apples make fantastic late night snacks, even on Christmas Eve, but I'm not totally sure it gave me any luck: I woke up with a cold this morning...but then again, I'm sure staying up late didn't help my immune system much. :-P

- (See if you can follow the family tree in this one.) My grandmother - ie. my father's mother - gave MY mother a cookbook for Christmas. Not just any cookbook, but a local one from Louisiana. (Both sides of my extended family live in or near Texas, so this isn't as random as it sounds.) Leafing through the cookbook this afternoon, my mom discovered a long lost recipe for "Condensed Milk Pie," submitted to the cookbook by Mom's father's brother's wife. BUT, Mom says, this recipe was actually invented by her grandmother, ie. Mom's father's mother. Scandal! (P.S. If you followed all that, you deserve so many point. Also, believe it or not, the story could've been a lot more complicated: my mother has four siblings, which gives me eight cousins on one side. But my mother's FATHER had TEN siblings, which means she would have to sit down with pen and paper and a family tree to figure how many siblings SHE has.)

- We had turkey for our big Christmas meal, which means that everyone was too sleepy to reach for their computers right away. Which meant that I had enough time to sneak onto the internet and throw a blog post together.

I hope everyone's holidays have been as fun, silly, and random as mine!!

XOXO!!
SB

In Case You're Curious...

During my last post, I actually didn't mention what I've actually been up to in the past three months.

So, in case you're curious, and without further ado, I...

• Got my author photo (Actually, it was a bunch of photos, and I haven't picked one yet. Wanna see one? Wanna? Look right! Honour Hiers took them. She's absolutely awesome.)
  
  
• Replaced all the software on my poor crashed comp. (I actually like the new Microsoft for Mac. I even set up Outlook, because I missed its calendar. Yes, I am a dork.)
  
  
• Started walking again (although less now since it got so freaking cold)
  
  
• I found Sarabeth’s jam at Sur La Table and have used up almost the entire jar. (If you are wondering why this is worth mentioning, you probably haven't ever had Sarabeth's jam. Go get some! Totally worth it!)
  
  
• I knitted and embroidered four Christmas gifts. I would be more specific, or maybe even post pictures as evidence, but some of my family members read this blog. - I don't want to spoil the surprise.
  
  
• Watched ALL of Avatar: The Last Airbender (so CUTE! I know everyone says this, but the series is much much better than the movie. Even if you've seen the movie, don't give up on the cartoon without watching a few episodes. )
  
  
• Reread EAS#1 and made a TON of revision notes
  
  
• Wrote a more detailed synopsis for EAS#2 for Jo (yaaaaaay! I actually don’t mind synopses so much. It’s more the timelines I set for myself.)
  
  
• Was sick – like SICK IN BED and totally out of it – for two weeks straight
  
  
• Sickly, I watched a ridiculous and random amount of films on my laptop, including all of the Harry Potter movies (I, uh, bought the box set at Target *whistles awkwardly in her fandom*) and Anne of Green Gables (Does anyone else remember this one? I loved it so much as a kid. It's the only time I ever had a crush on a dude named Gilbert.)
  
  
  
• Wrote and rewrote the beginning of EAS#2 at least six times. Sigh. Still not totally happy with it.
  
  
• Filed ALL of my receipts from the past 18 months (I think I also caught some sort of organizing bug right after my flu phase.)
  
  
• We did Thanksgiving, and I ate a ton of Turkey and took a four hour nap.
  
  
• Saw Harry Potter 7: Part I with Angela over Thanksgiving (OMG!! Did they really have to end it there????)
  
  
• Reread HP7 (Yes, after the movie. The order is important. I enjoy the movies so much more if I don’t read the book beforehand.)
  
  
• Actually, I only read 18 books.
  
  
• But I finally finished the FABLEHAVEN series, and OMG, they just kept getting more and more awesome.
  
  
• Visited my sister in Charleston for her birthday. (Actually, this was my first trip driving on the highway by MYSELF – at least outside of Montana.)
  
  
• Snuck in a half-hour trip to the beach on the way back from Charleston, where I had lots of epic EAS#2 thoughts.
  
  
• Did the dreaded Christmas shopping. (I even braved the mall...)
  
  
• Went to my high school and told my advisor (ie. homeroom teacher) that I’m gonna be published. *grins* He was excited. (And now you know what I looked like the day I graduated from high school....about the same, actually. I wonder if Waps minds that I put his picture on this blog. Hmmmm. I will have to ask him when I see him in January.)
  
  
• Wrote some Christmas cards. (Before Christmas even!)
  
  
• Sent some Christmas packages with the cards. (Also before Christmas! I'm totally on a roll this year.)
  
  
• Helped my mom and dad put on a company party for 30+ people (Except for the meat plates, Mom and I made all the food. I swear, my arms are STILL sore from mashing those potatoes. In fact, we may still have some of those mashed potatoes.)
  
  
• Relocated to Montana for Christmas and New Year's, which is where I am now. I am aiming to write as much as possible (Hmmmmmm. So far it's working pretty well, I'd say) AND to reach my goal of reading 100 books this year (two more to go!).
  

What It's Like to Be Back in Montana

(I didn't realize that how much traveling I'd been doing in the past few weeks until I looked at some of my past blog post titles. :-o)

1. I had to learn to cook for myself again. (Oh, Mom - how I miss you and your delicious cooking.) It wasn't without mishaps. I tried to grill on the cabin's tiny tabletop grill. But the temperature was hanging around the fifties and I couldn't get it to light properly. (I still haven't figured out if the two are related.) So, I left the chicken on, thinking that even if the grill wasn't hot enough to cook it, the tenderloins would get the nice BBQ flavor.

When I came back, they looked like this.


Namely, kind of blackened on one side. Oooooops.

2. The weather has been insane. I know I promised not to talk about the weather anymore, but I figured out why I do it - I'm completely fascinated. It's not at all what I grew up with in Charlotte, NC. As a writer, it's very helpful as far as developing setting goes.

As for my blog readers, please bear with me. (Hehehehe - okay, that was a pun. You'll see why later.)

First of all, when I arrived a week and a half ago, the snow hadn't completely melted:


I decided to just deal with it. Since the temperatures, in the 50's and 60's, I figured it would melt soon enough.

In Montana's June, it storms often. If you're in the valley, you can see it in the distance...

...and coming in fast.


(I may or may not have taken those pictures while I was driving. Whichever isn't illegal.)

In the mountains, thunderstorms can drop enough hail that it almost looks like it snowed (see below).


Then, last Friday, it DID actually snow. That's right. On June 11, 2010, I saw this view from my writing desk:


By the way, all the snow has melted off the porch, but little patches still dot the landscape.

3. In the middle of mud season, the mountain has less people and more animals. For instance, a bear came up on my porch and sniffed the grill I used to cook the afore-mentioned blackened chicken...


(That's where I left the grill by the way, and yes, that's the bear's back.)

...and then left.


I was a little nervous at the time, but after all, it's not a very big bear. And according to wikipedia, black bears are 85% vegetarian. :-D

Anyway, I've stopped taking walks around the neighborhood, just as a precaution, but I haven't seen the bear since I took this picture last Wednesday.

4. I've been working. I need to get a revision to my editor. I've owed her a revision for several months, and we have a couple more rounds of revision to get through before it goes to copy-editing (!!!) in the beginning of September (!!!!).

I haven't been blogging or tweeting regularly. Sadly, I haven't even been reading or commenting on blogs regularly recently either. I'm so sorry, my dears, but that might not change until after my revisions are under control... (insert embarrassed face here)

I'll try to catch up once I get a better handle on work. <3!!

The Long Winter

I don't mean to talk about the weather all the time (especially after about a week of radio silence), but I kind of can't get over it.

On April Fool's Day, ie. two weeks after spring officially started, I walked out to my car, and I found this:

Which is basically my car buried under 14 inches of snow. No joke.

Although I was tempted to go accuse my neighbors of messing with my head, I didn't, because I realized the snow might have a little something to do with the blizzard I saw outside my window the day before:



(Okay, so with this bad video quality, you can't see the actual snow. However, all that noise is the howling wind. The wind gusts got up to about eighty miles per hour that night. :-o)

Since then, not a day has passed without fresh snow.

the view out my window yesterday

This may be the last winter I spend in a place where winter doesn't seem to end, but right now, I don't mind it much. I've been telling people that I'm using this time in Montana as a winter writer's retreat, and since it still looks like winter, I don't have any trouble buckling down and getting to my desk every day. I know that if it were warm, I would be tempted to take a book outside and drowse in the sun rather than tackle that day's to-do list.

Sooooo, the intense weather is actually a big help, because I have plenty to do this month: revisions for two separate manuscripts, and one Intellectual Property for a five-book middle grade series. I told myself that my writer's retreat can't end until I get these things knocked out. (enter determined face here)

Then a friend of mine who lives in DC sent me this picture to remind me that spring is sprung in most of the world.


Then there was jealousy.

Suddenly, I have the itch again. The itch to move. It won't happen for a while. The HUGE to-do list mentioned stands between me and other plans at the moment, but it won't forever. Then I will need to find a new destination.

I don't remember very much of what the keynote speaker said at my college graduation, but one thing stuck with me: Find a place you want to live, and then find a job in that place.

That may seem a little backward. Many decisions to move are based on finding a new job elsewhere, especially in this economy. But I'm starting to think that the speaker's way is more helpful in the long run.

For example, the first place I lived after graduation was New York City. I wanted a job in publishing, and that was where many great jobs in publishing were.

However, New York was never my cup of tea. Raised in the South, I didn't grow up taking field trips into NYC like many kids from the Tri-State area do. In fact, despite attending college in upstate New York, I didn't visit the City even once until the spring of my sophomore year. It was a fun trip, but it was also noisy and dirty and a little too hectic for me to be completely comfortable. I remember telling my mom that I would never live in New York after graduation, unlike most Vassar grads.

Cue Senior Year. Suddenly, there's a class-wide freak-out about employment, which I joined. Since I was an English major, many people commented, "What are you going to do with that? Teach?" (Not my parents, though - they're awesome.) I was determined to prove them wrong.

There was also this little thing called editorial that I had wanted to try ever since I learned that there was a job where you get paid to read and make books.

And where were most of those editor jobs? New York.

Thus, the road into New York started getting paved with very lucky twists of fate:

1. Without any prior experience, I secured a spring-semester internship at a publishing house. I became Queen of the Slush Pile. It was no match for my quick typing skills. (This was probably why it was easier for me not to take rejections too hard. At this point in my life, I've written more of them than I have actually received. With this kind of karma, I have been bracing myself for years now.)
   
2. One of my very best friends from high school moved to New York, which meant that I had a great roommate all ready to go.
   
3. I was accepted into a prestigious publishing program, where I learned a lot from big industry names and met tons of people who geeked out over books just as much as I did. (Gasp! I thought it was impossible.)
   
4. My new roomie and I signed for our first apartment in the way, way Upper East Side.
   
5. I was lucky enough to be hired for an editorial assistant position in children's publishing at the end of summer, and for many many months, I loved my job.

Everything slipped into place so easily that it felt a little like Destiny. Dreams were coming true.

But I still didn't love New York.

I got used to it. I blocked out the noise with my iPod. I hated the price of groceries, but I loved Pinkberry (pomegranate is the BEST!!). I hated the subway, but I loved being able to walk to everywhere. I hated the crowds, but I loved the Strand. I wasn't all that fond of my neighborhood, but I knew where to find fantastic nighttime views:


I picked out favorite places in Central Park, which I visited often.


Still, my job was far-and-away the best part of my NY life. I enjoyed even the menial tasks (ie. answering epic amounts of fan mail for one of our authors), and I was incredibly fond of everyone I worked with. When I was at work, I felt like I was in the right place, and doing the right thing.

That stopped pretty much as soon as I left the office.

Then I started realizing that I wasn't getting used to New York. I was coping with it, and at a certain point, all my coping mechanisms didn't work any more.

New York is known as "The City that Never Sleeps." My body took this very literally. After a few months, I couldn't unwind the way I needed to. By summer, I was averaging about four to six hours of sleep every night, which is never good for anyone's health. Finally, after many (literally) sleepless nights and quite a few sick days, I had to resign my position and start a new life elsewhere (as well as this blog, actually).

MORAL OF THE STORY: If you feel like you don't like a place when you first go there, you probably don't like it. You may be able to trick yourself into thinking that you can deal with it, but there may be some unforeseen consequences, ie. insomnia.

Now, I don't mean to hate on New York. Plenty of people are very happy there, and I've noticed that if you live in the outer boroughs, you're more likely to settle there for the long-haul. It just wasn't a place for me. I couldn't make a home there.

And although Montana is great place for writer winter's retreats (and I get plenty of sleep), I'm beginning to realize that this too isn't the place for me to settle indefinitely. (There is such a thing as too isolated for the long-term.)

A change is coming. As a writer, I'm lucky enough to be able to take my job with me wherever I go. As a very young person with no dependents, I have the luxury of making a decision on personal inclination without worry about the effect my choices will have on others. The next stop is coming up.

Actually, I think beaches might be in my future...

Adventures with Snail Mail

Don't scoff. It's epic.

If you're like most people in the U.S., the toughest part of getting your mail is remembering to go get it. It arrives in a cute little mailbox at the end of your drive, or a slot in your front door, or - at the very most - the first floor of your apartment building.

(If you are living at school, I have a little more sympathy. You may have to walk or even drive to the building with your mailbox. My poor brother and sister - both attending the same college - have to walk across campus in the wet Maine snow to the student center and use combination locks to get to their mail. (Combination locks have always intimidated me. They don't listen to my fingers on a good day, but if they were frozen after a long walk in the ice....yikes!))

On the mountain, mail is definitely an adventure. It's been an adventure from the get-go.

Getting the P.O. Box

So, the roads up the mountain are so scary that the postal service will not go there. (UPS and FedEx usually deliver, but sometimes can't find you.) So, if you happen to be living on the mountain (or know someone who owns a house there), you can get a post office box for free....if you have the right paperwork.

The right paperwork mainly constitutes a legal document with the house's physical address. In a developing community, where roads aren't always named yet - and sometimes renamed, this is more difficult than it sounds. When my mother was still here, we visited the post office no less than three times with different documents. Mom was not pleased. She may have been feeling a little sick on the second visit and was not her usual patient self.

On the third trip, when the nice postal people could accept our documents, we tried to be as nice as possible as they explained the process. I tried to pay attention and ask as many intelligent questions as possible. For example:

The postmistress apologized for not being able to accept the documents without the physical address. "Now, that they're trying to get everything on the 9-1-1 system, they're--"

"9-1-1 system? What's that?" For some reason, I thought that this 9-1-1 system was to be some sort of new GPS system that I hadn't heard of.

The postmistress stared at me incredulously. "Uh...9-1-1, as in I have an emergency?"

I laughed really hard as my mother explained that I was usually very smart but I had, in fact, inherited the blond moments from her. I tried to make up for it later. When the postmistress brought out our new P.O. box key and told us that we were going to love our P.O. box number, I grinned and asked, "Is it 9-1-1?" It was not, but the postmistress laughed anyway.

As I said the postal people, the postal people in Big Sky are very nice, but this is a small town - they're used to locals. They tend to know the locals personally and ask about their children. So, they're not going to be polite for the sake of professionalism.

And now I'm forever the girl who asked what 9-1-1 is. :-P

Driving to Get Mail

I don't get my mail every day. It's only a twenty-five minute drive, but that does end up guzzling gas when you're in four wheel drive in second gear around hairpin turns. As a result, sometimes I go out to the car and find it looking like this:


I don't know if that picture really demonstrates how deep the snow is. Here's another, after I'd attacked it with a broom:


A foot of snow blanketed the car, as well as a thin layer of ice, which needed to be scraped.

And if there was a foot of snow on the car, that meant that there was a foot of snow on the ground.


Sometimes, your neighbor parks in an inopportune place, so you've got to do some fancy maneuvering to squeeze your big SUV between his mini-van and the snowbank.


All that, just to get out of the driveway.

I've already mentioned the hairpin turns and the inclines. The other scary thing about the mountain highway are the other driveways. Some of these people have been living in the mountains their whole lives. They don't feel like they need to take it slow. Instead, they zip around the bends with their snow tires and tail-gate slower drivers, like myself.

On one especially scary trip to the post office, I was sandwiched between a very pushy Jeep Cherokee and an oil truck. I had visions of tragic fiery accidents (hey, I'm a writer with an overactive imagination - and I'm a little morbid). Thank goodness for turn-outs! I noticed later that the Jeep Cherokee started to go a lot slower when he realized what kind of vehicle was in front of him. :-o

Getting Your Mail

So, you've arrived at the post office. The hard part is over, right?

....

Well, kind of. Sometimes, you open up your P.O. box and...find nothing. Which is very disappointing after all the effort you made to get there.

Sometimes, you're waiting for a very important Amazon package (well, all Amazon packages are important, but this one has work-related research books in there - why, oh why, did I choose Super Saver Shipping??). You go your P.O. box to find...not your package slip, but Valentines from your little sister and your best friend. (A happy surprise!) Or even after receiving a delivery confirmation notice from Amazon, you still find your P.O. box empty, and the nice postmistress says that she can't help you find it without the certified mail number. Or when you return after the weekend with the certified mail number nicely printed out, the nice postmistress says that it was definitely delivered and spends five minutes trying to find the package - while you bite your fingernails and wonder if your books have been accidentally picked up by someone else - before magically pulling it out of the locker right beside the cash register.

You have your mail. The adventure continues. You go out to your car and discover that since it was a warm day, there was a lot melting but not a lot of drainage, and...


...your car is surrounded with several inches of very gross looking water. You must enter from the passenger side, throw your stuff in, and leap over the puddle to keep from soaking your hiking boots.

Mail on the mountain is not for the faint of heart. Or those who hate the outdoors. :-]

I told you it was epic.

Forget all your cares and go downtown..

Today, I went to town.

Now that I'm living on a mountain in the country, going to town is kind of an ordeal. You drive down one mountain and then through dozens more on a two-lane highway that snakes along the banks of the Gallatin River. The route is lined with small white crosses, memorials to those that have died in crashes on that road. It takes about an hour and a half each way.

It's also beautiful.

Okay, so this is technically the grocery store parking lot, but it proves my point.
What does the view from your grocery store look like?

Since it's a trek to go to town, a lot of shopping gets done.

I went to get produce (I have been joaking that I'll get scurvy). I came back with books.

1. Impossible, by Nancy Werlin (which I have been eyeing for over a month now)
2. Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine (one of my favorite books of all time. I think this is the fifth copy I've owned, BUT I needed a copy up here - and obviously couldn't wait)
3. Bras and Broomsticks, by Sarah Mlynowski (I've heard good things for years. However, her last name is an example of why I use a pseudonym.)
4. A Barnes & Noble membership (okay, not a book, but I was proud of myself)

Actually, I recently realized that I've spent more on books this year than on food. I blame it on working in a publishing house. A year ago, I got books for free!!

It didn't help my addiction. :-/

The First Week

The bad news: in the six days since I've arrived, I've only left the cabin once. I know. It's shocking. Especially since I didn't actually count the days until a few sentences ago. :-/

In my defense, it's been ridiculously cold. The mountain temperature hasn't gotten up to zero in days. Yesterday, I brushed the snow off my car yesterday and drove down to the grocery store. The temperature read negative eight at the cabin. I lost feeling in my fingertips, even though I wore gloves and had the heat blasting. To make sure I kept all of them, I bought some handwarmers at the grocery store before driving up.

Apparently, last night, it got down to negative 20. Getting out of bed was tough. I made a fire, which started out really well.



Ten minutes later, it didn't look so hot. :-(


The good news: I made an awesome chicken pot pie.

This is a sure sign that I have too much time on my hands.

The First Day

Today has been devoted to altitude sickness.

Which basically means that I gave myself permission to be lazy on my first day up the mountain. And I kept a glass of water next to me at all times. I lost count of how many I drank.

I don't mean that I haven't done anything with my day. I unpacked. I typed up all the manuscript scribblings that I have. I added two new scenes. I did a little yoga. I called my sister twice, because it's her birthday. I received a bunch of calls - from my father, my uncle, my ex-roommate, and my mother - all of them worried that I might be lonely.

I wasn't lonely. It was just too quiet. Cars rarely travel this far up the mountain, and the snow muffles sound. If I had moved here straight from New York, I might have gone a little nuts, but Charlotte was a good transition. Now it's easy to fill up the silence. I watched two movies. While I unpacked, I turned up my iTunes and sang along as loud as possible.

This is where I'm hanging out.

My view. I know - it's a hard life.

My library. I packed forty-some in my luggage, which surprised me when I counted.
I expected there to be at least 50. Don't worry. I'll get more. :-)

My writing nest. Usually, the blanket goes over my lap.

The cold is still a problem. I emailed back and forth with my coworkers about it. I heard a rumor en route that it was negative twenty up here, so I was relieved when I woke up to five whole degrees. (Yes, still pretty sad, but better than being below zero.) It doesn't look like I'll be skiing for a little while. :-/

I'm relieved to be here, where writing is the whole point. My dad called this the first day of my new life, and I think he's right. This is where I can get really serious about my writing career and put that seriousness into action.

The Day of Travels

I am in Denver on my way to Montana, posting here courtesy of free holiday internet. Very exciting times.

The thing about being at home means that you revert to many of your old habits, even the ones that aren't good for you. A major one of mine is doing stuff for other people - so much, in fact, that I stop making progress on my own agenda. This is a catastrophe for a writer, especially for a newly professional one like myself. I’m too embarrassed to admit how little I’ve gotten done, but I did know this would happen.

That’s why I arranged to spend a couple months in an isolated log cabin with only my computer and the internet for company. I want to finish two novels while I’m up there, and to revise one extensively. After that, I’ll move to California.

This is the first time that I’ve ever lived alone, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I practiced. In college, while I was studying abroad at Oxford’s St. Catz, I tool a ten-day solitary tour of the U.K.:

Whitby - the Abbey ruins

Edinburgh – the castle as seen from my hostel’s front door

Bath – the Royal Victoria Park in Bloom

I didn’t get any good pictures of it, but I also went to Haworth, where the Brontë sisters lived. (Yes, I am that much of a literary geek. I also went to the café where J.K. Rowling penned a great deal of Harry Potter. They have great scrambled eggs – very fluffy.)

I won’t lie: I’m a little nervous. (So are my parents, so it has been necessary to downplay my own jitters.) I’m nervous about how cold it’ll be. I’m worried about driving in the snow and about cabin fever. I’m worried about not getting enough exercise. I’m worried about being lonely.

But I’m also incredibly excited. I’ve been craving an adventure.

Mad Dash Day

I move on Wednesday.

I was a little behind on packing. A whole bunch of errands awaited me since my weekend was full of debutante-related activities. I FedExed all three signed copies of my contract. I bought my ex-roommate a frame for Christmas and printed out a picture of her and her current beau to put inside it. I shopped around for a fancy cute folder to keep my manuscript in. I started laundry. I wrapped two rounds of Christmas presents and scanned my parents' wedding pictures.

While I waited at the bank for an associate to help me open a savings account, I even got to a chance to finish a chapter and to start another one.

I also packed. Unsurprisingly, I packed my books first. Now that the airline companies have all these luggage restrictions and fees, I had to strategize. My first thought was to check a box of books, but sadly, I ran out of room too quickly. I looked through the box and couldn't find any to take out. So, I dug out a giant suitcase. The books went in the bottom section, and I lined it with lightweight, bulky winter gear. It weighs 48.5 pounds. :-)

FYI: I use the Baby Name Book to help name my characters.

Tomorrow, I need to pack my clothes.