I'm back! There's probably way more than three things I should post about, but I'm going to try to keep it short because...

Thing 1: I have a draft of all but the last scene of my Yuletide story! It's going to end up about 3000-4000 words, which is all it needs to be to tell this particular story, and I'll no doubt be polishing it up at some point post-deadline, but I'll have a slightly-better-than-bus pass thing ready to submit by the deadline. Which was not entirely certain to be the case because...

Thing 2: The weekend after Thanksgiving I came down with a really bad head cold. But of course it was not so bad I couldn't go to work. I had field trips/presentations/tours every day that next week, and there was no one who could step in since the other educator had her own set of field trips and tours every day that week. And it snowed, but never enough to give the schools a snow day until Wednesday of this week, when I had to go into work anyway because we had an Important Staff Meeting. So I pushed through every day and then came home and collapsed, and it wasn't until Thursday of *this* week that I truly felt like myself again. I never had a full day where I could just stay home and be sick and sleep it off, even on the weekend, because...

Thing 3: Starting with the week after Thanksgiving, Magpie and JuneBug have concerts of some form or another every other night, and for several days in a row in JuneBug's case, as the high school madrigal singers visit nursing homes, elementary schools, churches, and businesses. It's taking 3 full-ass adults to get them everywhere they need to be. I mean, it's lovely, and there's so much great music and performing happening and they're growing right in front of my eyes! But it is A Freaking Lot. And it meant that even when I had some energy that could go to writing, I had to spend it instead at cello/youth choir/madrigal/middle school concerts. Last night Magpie had a solo--"Naughty" from Matilda. It was the perfect song for her, she had it completely memorized, and she just got more and more expressive and revolutionary as she went along. All her friends sitting on the risers behind her started waving their hands in time with the song and she didn't even know, but it was the most adorable thing ever. I flat-out sobbed, I was so proud and impressed.

And now her dad is texting me about chauffeuring the kids around for the beginning of this week because my sister has to go back to Omaha for a funeral (her high school BFF's sister died of cancer at 34. She was in a trial at Walter Reed last spring when the funding for the research got cut and they sent her home. Don't even get me started). So I will cut this off. But hi, I'm still here! Just a little overwhelmed by all the pre-holiday stuff and grateful that it's so cold today that everything got canceled and I had time to flesh out that story. Whew!