I made a grocery store run this morning and spent more in one trip than I have in probably a year or longer... only to get home and realize that I didn't have one single kid home to unload the car and put it all away.  Tell me WHY didn't I remember that BEFORE I filled the grocery cart!?!  **grumble, grumble**  :-)

The default decision has finally been made, so I'll let you know and then keep you posted as things settle in more.

As a result of all the fun financial stuff mentioned in the previous status post, I'm job seeking.  I have lots of resumes out and circulating, but no serious nibbles, yet.

If nothing comes of the job search, then as a default, beginning early-August I'll pack up the house, and when my parents come back through town mid-August on their way south for the winter, I'll head to Texas and live with them (north of Dallas) until I can find a job down there.

Where the kids are going isn't for-sure, either.  #1-son is job seeking, too, and will go wherever a job is.  #2-son is down in Texas already.  #3-son will stay with his father until he heads to college late-August. And #4-son wants to say with his father so he doesn't have to switch schools half-way through high school, and I'm hoping that they can iron out some major personality clashes and be able to make it work out.

But, are any of those plans final?  Not in the least.  I applied for a cool job in Madison, that would start July 1st, the one in San Francisco sounds fun, too... and many more.  Sooo... who knows?  Certainly not me.  :-)

Nothing is set, nothing is final, but if all else falls through, I'll head to Texas mid-August, with whichever kids decide to go with me.

Life is ever an adventure.  :-)  But, man-oh-man, I'm not looking forward to packing up or moving 33 bookcases full of books.  :-(

Finally getting around to a status update, which is long overdue.  :-)

Last weekend, #3-son graduated from high school, so there was lots of cleaning, guests, confusion and celebration.  I greatly appreciate everybody who came to his party, and my folks coming all the way from Texas to attend.  My kid really liked the support, and so did I.  :-)

#3-son also has solidified his college plans.  He's going to Michigan Technological University, the college that I graduated from twenty-nine years ago.  Which is a really funky feeling, both that my kid is going there, and how long it's been since I graduated.  Very strange.  The kid and I had worried for a while about how we were going to pay for it (especially since #2-son had to drop out of school because he and I couldn't pay for it).  Because I'm an alumni, #3-son gets in-state tuition, but it still left us $11,000 short.  The wonderful news is that my folks are generous beyond belief and have agreed to co-sign his school loans, which is a HUGE weight off my shoulders.  Thank you very much Grandma and Grandpa.  :-) (Read more)

I feel like I'm suddenly back in the saddle. 

I haven't written for months because I've been busy on another project that is so off-topic for most of this stuff that I'll just leave it at that.  If it actually grows into anything viable, then I'll go into more detail.

But last week, out of the blue, I started on a new story.  Which, of course, is the last thing I need to be doing as I've already got too many stories in process.  And this morning, my main characters from my very first manuscript started yammering at me, for the first time in years.  So, I'm assuming that I'm getting back into the fiction business.

Nothing's moving in the submission process for my erotica.  The one place that asked for the full replied thanks-but-no-thanks, and everybody else has either said we're-too-busy or not replied.  So, need to send it out on a second round when I have the time.

Beyond that, all the kids except #3-son are home for the summer, so the house is full and noisy.  #3-son is working for my brother in Texas.

And, for the most obvious change, I redid the look of the website.  Obviously tons more to do on it, but I decided that if I was going to be serious about getting my act in gear, I had to quit act like the cobbler whose kids didn't hae any shoes, and get my own blasted websites in some kind of reasonable order.  I have my work cut out for me, but it'll be nice to have it done.

Anyway... obviously late, and I have early plans tomorrow, so best head to bed.

This morning I worked through the details of how the hero saved the day and the consequences thereof.  Which left me with all the tons of stuff that needs to be foreshadowed, which is what I've been waiting for.  Because how can I know what scenes I need to write before I know what scenes need to be foreshadowed.  So, tons of work, but now I have a direction.

Good news/bad news, this also led me to yet another book, as one of the side characters suddenly became much more interesting.  *sigh*  Just what I need.

Also good news/bad news, in the last week I've gotten direction on several other major projects... my "I hate computers" project has finally turned itself around, plus several others.  Which in a way is good, as I like having specific things to do and goals to work towards... except that I didn't need them to all come to fruition in the same week!!

On top of that, my father called yesterday and asked a huge favor, which he rarely does. So, since he's a great father, plus the fact that he's been my sole financial support for the last six months... I wasn't about to turn him down.  But it means that I'm gone from Tuesday of this week through Saturday.  So all my plans to get to work on all these projects this week, which I had free before my contract job starts back up, just got all shot to hell.

Oh well, if nothing else, life remains interesting.  And now I'm off to take #1-son back to school for his last semester of college before he graduates... scary thought.

I'm job hunting again. 

This job (with the bank), like the last one, has been wonderful and I've learned tons, but I need more hours.  So, I'm on the hunt for a full-time job... which is sucking up all the energy that I'd normally spend writing.

I've updated my resume, found a couple places to apply to (one of which I'm really excited about), and today I'm writing cover letters and sending applications off.

The agent is still sitting on my manuscript.  I emailed her last week to confirm she got it, and she did.  So it's more waiting.  Which is fine, as I don't have the brain cells to deal with it if she did get back to me. (Read more)

Bad planning on my part let the fact that #4-son started school on Wednesday catch me by surprise.  He had all his school supplies, but I hadn't adjusted my sleep schedule to get up at 6:30am instead of the 9am or 10am (with 1am or 2am bedtimes) that it's been most of the summer.

So I've been up at 6:30am the last two days, and spent both days basically incoherent.   Not good.

I'm hoping that if I get to bed at decent hours this weekend that next week will be easier.

After spending the summer in Texas working for my brother, my #2-son is home.  He pulled in about 3am.  Right now he's unloading all his stuff out of the car and comparing his tan to the pasty-whitness of the rest of us.  :-)

And we just had our first fight... ahhh... the joy of children.

Blessings upon my boss for being understanding.

So, starting off with that, I worked today, because I really needed the money, unfortunately having to work didn't negate everything else that had to be done today, so I actually didn't even start working until 4pm today.  But I put in four hours on not-critical-but-useful stuff for work, so that's good. 

And before 4pm, I actually got a fair number of things checked off my to-do list for today.  Make note, that was only today's to-do list, not the overall to-do list, but I guess every little bit helps.

It also helped that today I realized I've been wallowing in victim-mode for the last few days.  When I recognize what's going on, I can deal with it, and as soon as I realized what was up, I knew why I was thinking that way, so I'm now working on thinking a more productive way.  It's not an immediate fix, but it's a start. (Read more)

I was tired of #1-son sitting around playing video games so I put him to work porting my old blogs to here.  Tedious, but useful.  I'd been dreading doing it, but I really wanted all my blog entries in one place so I could search them, so it was perfect for him to do and well worth the investment.  #3-son helped him, which made it go faster. 

#3-son was also very useful this last couple days since two of my websites got hit by a comment spammer... to the tune of about 120,000 comments on one of the sites.  And there apparently is no easy way to take massive amounts of comments off at once.  So, my kid went to work cleaning up the site for me.  He clocked his hours, and I'm happy to pay him to do it because it's such a huge load off my mind. (Read more)