What the heck -- where did the end of February and most of March go?  Man, have we been horrifically busy.  Work, projects, visiting relatives, you name it.  Some fun times, some not so fun-- that's life.  Among the highlights of this blur of a month was buying the very first brand new car I've ever owned, then, at mile 17 that I put on it (with a total of 43 miles on the odometer -- I hadn't even signed the freakin' papers yet) getting a written warning from a Highway Patrolman.  Unfortunately I was paying more attention to the whiz bangs in the new car -- mirror, radio, what's this button do?-- than my speed.  A week and a half later I was gifted with an extremely pricey (and annoying) speeding ticket, a real one, by a different Highway Patrolman.  Alas, I will be spending Easter Sunday morning in Defensive Driving School.  ::sigh::

Find of the Month:  A German-made bookshelf unit in the Post Thrift Store, made of three sections of beautiful varnished knotty pine.  One of those sections is a curved corner unit.  I rearranged the other two sections a bit to fit my office and it's just fabulous. 

My ancient cousin fell and broke her hip 2 days before I had her scheduled to go into assisted living.  She had surgery and went from the hospital straight into a nursing home and we had to empty out her apartment.  She was quite the pill for the first two weeks but is finally calming down, so we might be able to get her into assisted living after all.  For awhile she was so difficult that they wouldn't have accepted her.

Goblin came through his surgery with all the grace of a drunken sailor.  My poor boy was on the table for quite a bit longer than anticipated, with the accompanying increase in anesthesia.  It seems the cyst was attached to some kind of larger mass underneath.  The vet speculated it might have been caused by an old injury.  (What old injury?  ::grrrr:: to his original owners...)  Anyway, they got it all, the biopsy came back negative, and my staggering little boy is now his old self but with a nice long scar from 14 (ow ow ow) stitches.


Ghost is fine, cute as a button and my CuddleBug.  Poe is also fine.  She likes Daddy's nose.


The Husband (westonochse) and I will both be presenters at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, coming up in about two weeks.  We're also on a bunch of panels -- I have to get one of my rare Google Groups newsletters together.  If you aren't signed up and want to be, let me know.  I mean it when I say I send updates only rarely-- I've only sent one out so far.

And finally, best for last:  I pulled out a long-ago novel proposal and reworked it from start to finish, then, because the old stuff just wasn't on the mark, hammered out 50 new pages of writing-- yes, NEW PAGES-- to start off the novel.  I did all this in 4 days.  For awhile, it felt like the old me, circa mid- to late-1990s, was back.  Said packet has been sent off to an agent and I am now typing with fingers and toes crossed.  Feel free to cross a few of yours on my behalf.

It snowed here today.  Yes, we live in Arizona.  WTF???