Home Again

I woke up this morning with the strangest sense that I had left something undone. But what? I had even unpacked my suitcase before collapsing into bed last night! Then I remembered:

No blog post.

I almost always write these posts Sunday night, in order to have them up in good time Monday morning. Last night, though … well, it’s probably a good thing I did forget, because otherwise the post would look like this:

asfkjbarlsuhdflkgjbfkdjbgjskbg Graduated! sfkgjbnjlkjbjb..!

I was tired. It was an amazing weekend, watching my mom receive her Master’s hood (afterward, while I was helping Grace in the ladies’ room, a news photographer stopped by and took a picture of my gram, Mom, my sister, and Joy, to do a piece about the four generations in the paper. SO wish I hadn’t missed that!), bullying my pregnant sister into taking her vitamins every day and drink enough water, celebrating Grace’s birthday a little early, just enjoying being together with family.

But it was exhausting. Especially since my brother-in-law took out all four of Carl’s wisdom teeth on Thursday, leaving Carl pretty much non-functional for the rest of the weekend. Our trip to Ottawa on Sunday, intended to be the cap on a fantastic weekend, ended up being mostly a bust just because he was still having a hard time forming coherent thought and I was too tired by then to do the thinking for him. We wandered around Parliament, drove by the tulip beds, and came home with little more than a box of Timbits to show for it. Oh well. Another year.

We’re all doing much better after sleeping in our own beds. (and those Timbits were not scorned for breakfast today, let me tell you.) I’m even hoping to start first grade with Joy today.

(We’re starting right after finishing kindergarten, because we know we’ll be having to take time off during the year and I would rather start early than have to go late next spring, and also I’m a little concerned she’ll forget half of what she knows if we go a few months in between right now. Also I’m still really bad at sticking to a schedule, so the more time I have to form good habits, the better.)

Other exciting things will be happing soon. Magic Most Deadly is with my proofreader. The cover designer and I are trying to restrain ourselves from going overboard with shinies. I’m currently debating between finishing up a new Sophie short story, putting in more work on Magic Most Deadly’s prequel (this one set in Regency times!), or going over to the Louise Bates side and starting work on the 1930s historical fiction. I’m really strongly leaning toward the 1930s story, but … I would love to do some physical research on that first, going over to the area in which it is set and getting a real feel for it, but that’s not likely to happen until next summer. So I’m still dithering.

In the meantime, laundry, school, meal planning, and grocery shopping beckon. It was a great weekend, but it’s good to be home!