Suburban (in)Sanity

Core Story

Last post of Reverb10, and I find myself a little melancholy. I have viewed it as a challenge to write something new every day for this, and I've succeded, yay me! But what ever will I do tomorrow? Just...come up with my own ideas for what to write? That sounds just a little insane.

But today's prompt asks us to look back on the month and reflect on our Core Story.

So like usual I'm going to turn left and talk about something this got me thinking about, something I've seen other bloggers talk about lately.

Why do I write a blog?

It's a strange thing, you know, writing and putting your thoughts out on the intarnets. Every so often I look at what search strings brought people here and it's quite funny. But I don't really write for anyone else, exactly.

I write for my kids, in an abstract way. I write so they have some knowledge of what it's like to be with them. I am very happy being a parent, even while I'm also conflicted and miss some parts of my before-parent life. I hope that when they do read this (they might read over my shoulder here and there but they don't currently read my blog on a regular basis, being 7 and 9 their interests in reading material lean more in the Rangers Apprentice and Edward Tulane directions.) I hope that when they do read this, they appreciate the journey that being a parent is. And the deep respect I have for this journey, in spite of all its challenges and the perils that lie within.

But I do write for them in the way that much of what I do as a parent is for them, because the more aware I am as a parent, I think the better off we all are. So that leads me to my second unintended audience, which is other parents, mothers in particular. I hope that the things I talk about here are things they've thought about but haven't put words to, or ideas they've had but have been scared to try, or that the things I say here help some parents figure out a solution to a challenge.

I also write because I've chosen writing as a hobby with ambitions of making it a career. To be a good writer one must write, so write I must.

But really, the reason I write is because much of the time, I just can't think something through without writing about it. I write for me. My brain works in pictures, which means it's horrendously hard for me to write sometimes. Try writing the description of a movie trailer just once and see what I mean about how hard it is to translate pictures to words (digression: the literal trailers are some of the funniest things I've seen ever. Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 1 and Assasin's Creed are my favorites. "Take a second to look awesome.")

I write to figure it out, to puzzle together or tear apart my ideas. To make sense of senseless things and to give witness to important ones (like my children, my aspirations, and my pets, natch.)

Do you write? (Be honest. Many people write but don't think of it as writing because they don't SHARE what they write, which is fine. But do you?) Do you find that it helps you think more clearly? Even if you don't, what's your core story? Do you know what makes you you?

*remind me tomorrow, this feeds perfectly into my "perils of being a generalist" post. See there how I did that? Now I've got a prompt for tomorrow and everything!

Happy New Year!!

 

The most memorable gift of the year?

Reverb10 challenges me today to write about the most memorable gift I've given or received in 2010.

By far, it would have to be this, which is not an iPad:

(The chaise, not the dog, who was not a specific gift to anyone, though she is pretty nifty and we're glad to have her.)

If you don't know what I'm talking about, clearly you don't read my blog regularly! Here's where I explain this.

Best part? For Christmas I got...an ottoman to match the chaise! (Oddly enough, it came in an iPad box. Strange.)

Defining Moment

Three more Reverb10 prompts to go, holy cow I think I will actually do this daily blog/writing thing this month! Hooray for me.

Today's prompt asks about a defining moment or series of events that affected my life this year. I think I'm going to take a spin on this a bit (really, what else is new?) and talk instead about a defining moment/series of moments that defines my LIFE in 2010.

And that is, the proverbial Death March to the Jefferson Memorial, July 13, 2010.

First, I hope you dear readers understand that I don't use the term Death March lightly. I was living in the Philippines when I was first exposed to the term "death march" in high school. The Bataan (just to be clear, this is pronounced Bah-tah-AHN. Not Bah-TAN. That would make me want to murder bunnies if you pronounced it that way. Save the bunnies, please.) Death March was a horrid piece of World War II, taking place along the Bataan Peninsula on the north end of Manila Bay in the Philippines. Many, many people died. We studied it in detail in school, at one point I was very familiar with the particulars. I don't mean to belittle that horrid event in history.

So when I tell you that I dragged my children on a 3.5 mile hike in downtown Washington, D.C., in JULY. Well, you'll know I mean the comparison in purely the literal sense. There were times when we thought we would actually die. No, we were certain.

The day started innocently enough. We've visited Washington, D.C. a number of summers in a row, tagging along with a regular work event of the husband's. So we've seen many of the sights. We did WWII in '08, the major monuments at night in '09, Air/Space and the Capitol in '09, etc. So when asking around this year, I got the recommendation to see the Building Museum, as they had a special lego exhibit.

We made it an adventure. First, I made the kids figure out the Metro, having given them some information ahead of time. They had to study the map, figure out our destination, figure out how much money to put on the metro cards, and see where to switch trains (yes, I helped a smidge, but mostly I let them figure it out.) Living waaaaay the heck out in the suburbs means we don't get the chance to use public transportation much, so I take it as a specific responsibility of mine to teach them/give them opportunities to learn about how to navigate another city's transportation systems when we travel. We did this again in NYC in November, very successful.

The building museum was lovely. 
One of my favorite pictures of the kids from 2010 (I used this as the cover for my annual Shutterfly Photo Book, which arrived today and came out great!) The lego part was so-so, but the kids had fun building in a huge playspace for lego building, so that was entertaining too.

We also managed to find an antique in the building museum, a real pay phone!

Very strange.

After the building museum, we stopped at a restaurant down the road for lunch. I reconnoitered with my phone and determined it was just under a mile to the White House, so I begged, I pleaded, I wheedled. The children agreed with me to go see the White House.

Along the way we had to stop to see a man about a horse.

Cause I'm addicted to taking pictures of my loved ones with bronze statuary. I have a whole collection of photos like this.

Then we did proceed on and see the White House, which is a bit of a disappointment these days since you're shunted pretty far away, but we saw the vegetable garden that First Lady Obama put in, neato.

Somewhere along here, we began to melt. Quite literally. I was alarmed. We set out in the morning with temps in the low 80s and a light drizzle/mist rain falling. By now it was over eleven hundred degrees.

Of course if you're familiar with the geography of D.C., you'll know that being next to the White House puts you in a public transportation No Man's Land. Not even taxis can get close, so we walked. Trudged. Marched. On.

Right past the Washington Monument, which is cool when you try to hold it up or pinch its top.

And of course as any sane person knows, after melting in D.C., you absolutely must buy popsicles from a street vendor. So we did that and got a huge bottle of water to split, then trudged on.

By now I had the brilliant idea of taking them past the World War Two monument, which was Right There. And had a FOUNTAIN. This was very smart of me.

We all cooled our tootsies, and then I convinced them that we should also go to see the Jefferson Memorial, which was Right There.

Where?

There.

And there's this strange rip in the space-time continuum along the walkway to the Jefferson Memorial, because no matter how far you walk you can't seem to get any closer.

So we walked.

And it turns out the FDR Memorial is along the way. More water! And the very interesting bread line to line up in. Remember my bit about bronze statuary?

But after FDR, we had to keep walking.

Can you tell how thrilled my little angels were by now?

It just didn't seem to get any closer.

Until, suddenly, we were there. Can you imagine the joy? Best part? It was mildly air conditioned on the lower level. We shopped for souvenirs until our legs couldn't take it anymore.

We made it!

And, really, it was worth it for this photo alone:

And now? We have this memory to talk about, joke about, compare other experiences to. "Oh, it's no Jefferson Memorial." And my kids are old enough to laugh along, appreciate the joke, and enjoy the process that got us there, even though we did spontaneously combust somewhere on the ellipses.

Money, here's your mouth - on getting published in 2011

Today's prompt is Achieve. The scoopage:

December 28 – Achieve What’s the thing you most want to achieve next year? How do you imagine you’ll feel when you get it? Free? Happy? Complete? Blissful? Write that feeling down. Then, brainstorm 10 things you can do, or 10 new thoughts you can think, in order to experience that feeling today.

So, either publishing my active novel (by that I mean the one that is currently finished and I'm actively seeking publication for) through traditional publishing or putting it out myself as a self-published ebook and print-on-deman (POD) book is my goal.

I think I will feel elated when I reach one of these two goals (traditional publishing is my primary goal. Doing it myself will be less elational but still exciting.) I've been writing since 2007, started as a New Year's Resolution. I love to write. I wish I were better at it, but I know the cure for that - more writing (and/or cowbell, in appropriate doses.)

I feel two things very strongly about writing. The first is that writing is a career that is actually compatible with my desire to raise my children. This is big, since my other career (technology and eLearning consulting) is often in direct opposition to my desire to be here for my kids, either due to geography, time commitment, client needs/demands, or my own personal style and work ethic.

The second thing I feel very strongly about re. writing is that I *need* to write these books, these sci-fi books where girls are the main characters and do amazing things with technology, have crazy adventures, and come out okay. I need to write books that girls can read when they are ten and twelve and fourteen and see that being a girl geek can be normal, can be good, and is perfectly reasonable. This is really really important. I need to write these books for my own girl, but for all the other girls out there, too, the ones like me who had an aptitude but didn't know another soul who liked to figure out how to solve problems using technology, who wanted to know what was inside a computer, who could make things happen without even realizing they knew how.

This is the part of the post where I list what I will do to achieve this goal.

Deep breath.

1. Keep novel marketing packages in the mail, at least five of them, at all times. Sidenote: A novel marketing package includes a query letter, a sample of the book (first two chapters in my case, 15 pages) and a synopsis of all the major events of the story, including the ending. I blogged about writing a query letter back in October.

2. Research more markets, so the process of addressing a new query letter is simpler, as this is one of those things that tends to hold me up.

3. Hmm...I think I need to read more YA book blogs, and find more YA sci-fi to read. I have not found a whole lot out there. Gone, Maze Runner, and I am Number Four are the only recent ones I've read. (Would love more ideas if you have them...high-end Middle-grade would work, too. Protagonists in the 12-14 range.)

4. Put up another short story (or two, or fifteen) on Kindle/Barnes and Noble/Smashwords, to practice the formatting needed for ebook publishing. (Did you see my post from yesterday about my stories available for purchase?)

5. Pre-address five more novel packages. Wow, that's a simple and smart idea.

6. Implement a simpler tracking system for novel submissions. I am not happy with the spreadsheet I've dreamed up, it seems overly complex for what I need it to do. I think I might do best with a simple chronological listing. Out to X market on Y date, back on Z...

7. Read this writing book that's sitting on my desk (20 Master Plots by Ronald B. Tobias.)

8. Consider attending a writer's conference, though this requires such careful planning due to DH's job and life commitments, it might not be possible. At least research some.

9. Start editing book #2, prepping it for market. Hope to have it in the mail by March.

10. Write the next book.

I think a lot of writers forget #10, but that's got to be high on the list if I want to make any sort of living at this. If I am to be a self-published writer, one of the primary things that will help me be successful is having a number of publications available for purchase, not just one or two novels, but whole collections, batchs of short stories, and other things to help people who read one book of mine find my other work (and hopefully spend their hard-earned pennies on it!) I write fast, if I could just crack this confidence/skill issue (I am a good writer, I just don't always know WHAT to write. When I know what to write I can write extremely quickly.)

What about you? What goal do you hope to achieve in 2011? How do you plan to go about getting there? Care to join me on a crazy train?

Joy so close I can almost taste it

This ties in so well with an old post of mine from when the now 9 year old was what, maybe 5 years old? Entertaining walk down memory lane with that one.

But to get to the point, reverb10 today is talking about joy. I reflected on this for quite a while today (compared to my normal "crud it's 10 PM and I should do my post for the day and haven't even looked to see what the prompt was!" kind of thing. Because I care about you guys *that* much.)

2010 was the year we got a dog. That was pretty exciting and a joy-full event. Which reminds me, my friends Susan and Bill are getting a new dog today, I wonder how that's going... We also said goodbye to Selene, our old lady cat that my husband and I got a year after we started dating. She'd seen a lot of years, homes, and hiding places. Good times.

Hestia, the Replacement Cat is an adorable little gray bundle of purrs, and I am enjoying every minute of her silly pouncing and playing, curling up and purring, and otherwise chumming around. Today she played with a drinking straw for an hour straight, not kidding. One end of the hall to the next, behind the bathroom door then under it, around and over, roll, bat, roll splat. She was a riot.

You hardly need me to tell you again how my children bring me joy on a daily basis. I mean, what, don't you read my blog or anything?

But, no, I think the thing that when I look back on 2010 and think about that brought me the most joy was an accomplishment of my own. Something I worked hard on and completed. That is finish editing a novel (that I wrote during National Novel Writing Month in 2007) and put it in the mail to editors. That's right, I'm working to become a published novelist, and I had a smile from ear to ear for a solid day or two after the writer's workshop I attended in Oregon (which focused on preparing a marketing package for a novel and mailing it.) The final task of the workshop was to leave the hotel where it was held and stop at the post office on the way out of town to mail your submissions packages. I did it!

I have three other novels now, waiting in the wings. One of which I'm convinced is actually quite good (I'm working on that one next!) and I have ideas for plenty of other stories and fiction to write. I'm still working on getting better at the story - the plot is what keeps holding me back (if I write without knowing pretty well what happens in the end, I meander far too much and can't stay focused, but knowing what happens in the end often takes a bit of meandering and writing to figure it out...thus it's a bit of a cycle...working on this in 2011...)

But in the meantime, I have five novel packages in the mail at the moment, five rejections (in varying shades of personalization - some just a form postcard, others an actual note to me) and a solid grasp of what is needed to market a novel. Hoping that 2011 is my year for the actual sale (and if not, I'm going to put the book out on my own mid-year as an ebook and POD book, I think.)

Soul Food

Asking me to pick what food touched my soul this year is like asking me to pick my favorite child. It's really quite impossible, seeing as how I do so dearly love food.

So like so many other of the Reverb10 prompts, I'm just not going to choose, but rather talk about memorable foods from the year.

I posted earlier in the summer about one of my favorite summer treats, pizza on the grill. Something about the combination of tomato-sauce tanginess and the sweet flavor of corn and the slight salt of the dough just zings all of my taste buds alive. Yum.

We celebrated our anniversary in July at our usual anniversary haunt, Geja's Fondue in Chicago. True story, one year on our anniversary the PBS show Check Please! was filming there, and so we're in an episode of Check Please! As a thank-you (the crew was all over the section of the restaurant we were sitting in, though it wasn't a big deal) they bought us a bottle of wine, which was just lovely. We look forward to this dinner all year and it's become a nice touchstone for us. We've even started writing in a notebook each year (after me having kept track of little sticky notes and scraps of paper that we unearthed from the bottom of my purse to write on for years) to write down our goals, wishes, dreams. It's a nice meal and a nice tradition and I look forward to it for 2011 already.

Another positive food memory/association for the year is my subscription to the Six O'Clock Scramble, a newsletter put out by Aviva Goldfarb and crew that is a fabulous way to plan meals for a busy life. Each Wednesday you get an email newsletter with five dinner recipes (with side dish suggestions) and a grocery list sorted by staples and required items for the menu for the week. You can customize your menu plan by going to the website and regenerating the grocery list. It's fantastic, and seriously - we haven't had a bad recipe from the scramble yet. When my husband, who does not live for food (he's one of those "food as fuel" guys, little bit aggravating now that you mention it...) hears that the meal for the evening is a scramble meal, he always perks up. That's saying something! (Psst - if you read up on the Scramble and want to give it a try, send me a message, I can hook you up with a discount coupon!)

Of course just coming off Christmas right now, another positive association is the process of making cookies with family. We started a semi-tradition back when I was pregnant with Anastasia and we first moved out here to the Great Suburban Wilderness (funny story: that day was the first and only day our dead-end street was closed due to a house fire at the first lot going into the neighborhood, so my sister had to park in back on a street that doesn't really permit parking, and walk her 6 month old in through the back yard, then go back for the mixer and other gear she had brought to my house. We live on country lots, so this was no small feat for her, and I being 9+ months pregnant at the time was NO help, other than to coo at the 6 month old nephew!)

So we've been making cookies here at my house on and off through the years - I have a fantastic kitchen that has plenty of counter space until you start filling it with cookies, dough, dough in-progress, cookies in-progress, frosting, and all the crapola that I and my family seem to need to keep up on the counter even though all the children are long since out of the phase of digging inappropriately in mommy's purse and coloring their whole head in her Lancome lipstick.

In fact, my family departed a few days ago (phew, I mean I miss them so!) but I still have cookie dough in my fridge (thanks to the aforementioned sister whose 6 month old is now seven and a half and chest-high on me, and her mixer which is now getting on quite a bit in years.) So tonight I rolled out a few more of the Hershey's Kiss Cookies (no, not peanut blossoms. That's some other weird cookie that supposedly looks like the ones we make. We make Hershey's Kiss Cookies, though. So there.) Mmmm.

On that happy note, I best go...check them for poison one more time before putting them in containers...

Photograph

Remember that great Def Leppard song, Photograph? Today's prompt is about a photo of yourself, one you really like.

Well, I'm so tempted to use this one:

Because who doesn't love an alien kitty picture?

Or that one:

Because, you know, the doggy and kitty look like they're kissing!

But the one of ME that I really like from this year is this one:

Which I took myself, using the self-timer feature on my camera. I'm a big fat geek, I saw the really gorgeous afternoon autumn sun and took out the camera and tripod and took some pictures of myself. Hey - one of these days I hope to be a world-famous author, thus I need a reasonable "author photo" and this did the trick, at least for now (and hey! saved the $$ I would have to eventually spend on a photographer, though maybe someday my publisher will be spending the $$ for me, eh?)

Our yard is just gorgeous four seasons a year, we're so lucky to live out on the prairie and to have put in a bunch of prairie gardens a few years back, each year they mature and grow out in ways we didn't expect, to the point where we now have some 20 foot cottonwood (or some type of poplar) trees in one garden, and a whole lot of other stuff nobody remembers planting in another. Great way to fill in a garden without a lot of effort, 1-2 years of weeding and then step back. The garden takes care of itself. Perfect for us lazy gardeners. When I'm feeling fancy I call myself a "Darwinian gardener" - survival of the fittest!

Wildflower garden pictured in early May, 2010, when it's barely growing in but starting to look gorgeous with the anenome, prairie smoke, and a hundred other things I can't remember the names of. By midsummer, the whole garden is chest-high with some parts more than eight feet tall. In the winter it all either stands as bird feed or dies back, really amazing the rebirth each year. The cottonwood I'm leaning against in the previous photo is center left in this one.

At any rate, this picture was taken with my (older) Canon Eos Rebel Digital XL, which will soon be a friend's new Canon (and the best part? It used to be another friend's!) and a $40 tripod. I'm leaning against one of the 20 foot cottonwoods. I'm in the midst of the wildflower garden put into place by Art and Linda's Wildflowers about 6 growing seasons ago. I highly recommend them. Nice stuff, local business, very cool when the garden starts to mature.

Mama's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird...

Today's Reverb10 prompt is "Everything's OK" -

December 24 Prompt – Everything’s OK What was the best moment that could serve as proof that everything is going to be alright? And how will you incorporate that discovery into the year ahead?

Family blog and all, but if your family is reading over your shoulder and involved in certain myths of the season, you might choose to read this later. Just sayin'.

My seven year old is still into the big guy in the red suit, which surprised me because it was long about this time in the year when my now-9 year old called me in privately to talk with him one night before bed and asked me directly. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have a policy of always telling my kids the truth, within reason (I'm allowed to keep a surprise for later, e.g., identity of gifts or special destination or something like that.) But direct questions, I answer truthfully even when they make me uncomfortable or if I think the child might be embarrassed by what I say.

So when I got The Question about the big red guy, I answered it. And even though it seemed like he was too young (I swear I was close to 12 before I pieced it all together!) and it was tricky figuring out how much to divulge (if you're not careful, you dismiss not only the red suited fella but the tooth-stealing vixen, that rascally wabbit and all sorts of other careful constructed childhood myths)

One of the beauties of knowing your own children is knowing that it's okay to let go of some childhood myths, know that it's okay because it means your child is growing up, appreciating the other side of the previously shielded myth, and knowing that your child is wise enough to take you seriously when you tell him not to divulge this new information to ANYONE, not a friend on the playground and CERTAINLY not his baby sister.

One of the other interesting things about raising children is how they surprise you. My daughter is scary-smart, surprising everyone with her knowledge about things, always knowing the answers in class, coming up with interesting insights into life (just this morning, she asked me "Mom, why are we all here? Do you ever wonder that? Why are all the people here?" Not kidding.) Yet here she is, this afternoon eagerly writing a note to Big Red Guy. It's a thank-you note, and it reads in part, "We really appreciate all you do."

So, tell me, how can you look out from that fascinating contradiction (contemplating the meaning of life to writing a thank-you  note to Santa Claus) and not know that everything is OK and going to be just fine?

 

A rose by another name...

Today's post is about names. If I had to introduce myself to strangers with another name just for a day, what would it be and why?

I have to say, I'm satisfied with my name. It's not an uncommon name, by any stretch (Karen) but it's also not a run-of-the-mill name either (with utmost respect to my Susan, Mary, and Kathy friends.) I'm paired with a very common last name (Smith) which I have always loved, even when the stupid pizza delivery guys in college would say "last name spelled slowly please" and I'd reply "Smith - Q - S - M..." and get a pizza box with a Q scratched out at the start of the name. ;)

But it's a fine name, it's a good name, it's common enough that it's rarely misspelled (though who on earth thinks Caryn is a reasonable way to spell my name?!) It's all good.

However, if I had to use another name...well, not sure what I would choose. I could choose the name I renamed my cabbage patch doll back in...what like 1983? Tabitha Stephanie. I think you should be impressed with my ability to A) Remember that and B) at age 9 (or whatever) figure out which form had to be filled out and sent where so I could get the cutesy little Cabbage Patch Kid proper birth certificate. I wonder where that is, now that I think of it.

I could use the name I have in the wings, you know, just in case the accidental third child shows up. Anastasia's backup name if she had boy parts was going to be Aiden, but I've moved away from that and now my backup boy name is Tobias (Tobey, maybe, though we've learned to not be too free with giving unborn children nicknames lest they be born and you decide the nickname doesn't suit. Anastasia aka "Anya" in utero is still called Anya by a few aunts/uncles and friends who apparently didn't get the memo.) My backup girl name is Talia (one L? two? Your thoughts?) In part because the nickname of Tally (Taly?) is nice. But only in that way you shorten a name when you're calling someone, not as a perma-nickname like Joe for Joseph or anything.

This is apparently now a post about nicknames. In that case, I'll mention how Anastasia's name is Anastasia, the full thing, yet in everyday talk we call her Stasia probably 90% of the time. Yet we'd never introduce her as Stasia, nor would she. And never, ever, ever Ana! Just not our baby!

Another interesting thing about me and names, I would probably choose Ariadne, because I've always loved greek mythology. Or another A name like Annabelle, Amelia, or Abigail. Somehow I'm drawn to girls names that start with A. I went through a phase where all of my main characters in stories had names that started with As.

What about you? What if you could go by another name for a day or a lifetime? What would it be? Do you ever feel like you were misnamed as a child? That really you should have been a Beth or a Melissa or a Marissa or Sophie?

Travel in 2010

For someone who doesn't travel much, I sure travelled a lot in 2010!

We've been doing a trip to Florida for spring break the last few years. I've discovered that my emotional well-being is GREATLY enhanced by excessive amounts of sunshine and warmth in the late March timeframe. We stayed with Nana and Granddad, and visited the beach and pool many times. We went to Florida with two kids, but we returned with two...fish! Swimming is something the kids are getting better and better at and in Florida they had ample time to practice.

Summer, my nice, calm summer. Sigh. We went to Washington, D.C. in July, tagging along with DH on a business trip as we've done three or four of the last five summers. It's always an excellent trip, even though it's frigging JULY in WASHINGTON, D.C.! I am lucky to have a couple of really great cousins in the area, with kids all the same ages so the second cousins (did you know that's what it's called? My cousins' kids are my kids' second cousins. If all our children have children, those kids, that generation, would be third cousins, as the number + cousins indicates generation, apparently. Or so I was told. By a cousin. ;)

We also have some really great friends in the area who put us up for the weekend after the downtown part of the trip, which was fabulous. I'm convinced that some people's houses just have good house karma or a good house feel, probably has something to do with natural light and how a house sits on the lot and the division of rooms and the like, but it's just wonderful being with them. Maybe it's also about not seeing them very often and enjoying the time to catch up while the kids play.

Later in August, we went to Wisconsin for a week on a lake. None of the fancy lakes, but close enough to Milwaukee that we took an evening to go see a Brewer's game.

Then late in August, the kids and husband went to Kansas City for a weekend to see his family, which was great for them, and surprisingly great for me, too. I was able to get a lot of editing done (more on that later) on a novel I'd been working on for a long time, and had a nice time just being on my own in my own house, something that doesn't happen very often as most moms would understand.

In October, I went to Oregon on my first big trip away from family for a writer's workshop (one of Dean Wesley Smith's if you were curious. If you're serious about your writing, I highly recommend them!) It was 5 nights away, though I was home late late on the 5th night. I'm happy to report that the children and I survived, as did the husband. I had a great time, went to learn how to prep a marketing package for a novel and learned exactly that, and am now four rejections in on that novel. Le sigh. One of these times it'll hit, I'm sure.

November brought another trip, if you can believe it. I haven't been able to put my head around all this travel myself, particularly given I'm such a homebody! We went to New York City for the NYC marathon that my husband and his brother ran. Very cool marathon, and it was great being in the city with the kids. Great trip, I love being able to walk/train everywhere (another reason why I like D.C. so much!)

And also in November we drove to the Kansas City area to spend Thanksgiving with my husband's family. As vegetarians, Thanksgiving isn't the kind of event for us that it is for most people, but it was lovely and we had a good time. Glad we went. I enjoyed talking walks each day with the dogs and various nieces, uncles, grandparents, etc. Very cool.

Now here in December we're breathing a sigh of relief about not having to travel anymore this year! And mind you, this is a report of my/the kids' travel only - my poor husband has been logging loads of miles for work. Hard. We're doing the opposite, which is hard in its own way, right now - hosting much family for the few days we're all in the same state at the same time. Worth it, but a wee bit part of me is slightly looking forward to Friday when nobody needs to be in our house for any reason. ;)

Did you do much travelling this year? Plans for next?  I honestly don't know what next year holds, but if ticket prices stay this high for everything, we might be staying put the whole year!