So yeah. The day was not good. Turns out that Voodoo has managed to tear the ligament in his leg. This means surgery. I don’t know a lot more. Tomorrow there will be Xrays and then we start figuring out the rest. I’m rather upset by the news. I’m a bit attached to the dogs and, well, not a great day for me.

I think I’m going to make chicken enchilada chile tomorrow. Found a cool recipe and it seems a good choice for football watching. Anybody else out there planning football and food?

In other not so important news, Voodoo (dog) has managed to hurt his himself. Not sure how, but he’s not wanting to put a lot of weight on his back leg. Giving him Rimadyl and coddling him, but if he’s not better soon, he’ll be heading for the vet come Monday.

We finally got around to raking up some leaves. Only a few months or so after they fell. That’s not terribly slow, is it?

Did a couple of geocaches today. It was sleeting. Better than snowing, I spose.

Saw Shadow City at Walmart. That was exciting. At least in so much as there’s some distribution on it. Now if it’s getting bought. What? Nervous writers are nervous?

Speaking of books, I’m pushing through this sticky spot in Blood Winter. It’s sticky because it’s where a lot of things have to come together and weave out and it’s a place for being careful. So it’s slow. Hopefully after that, the pace of writing will pick up. I’ve got a number of new characters and of course the old, and trying to keep them all juggled is interesting. Entertaining even.

Worst part is I want to read some stuff and I haven’t any time!!! Noooo!!!

The new printer arrived. Well, it looks new, though it’s probably refurbished, but the important thing is that it actually prints. Whoohoo! Actually, I had to delete all the previous software and redownload, so it wasn’t as easy as just plug and play, but I’ll take it and be grateful.

We are expecting a storm. The number of inches of snow to fall varies by forecast, though my best guess is somewhere between 1 and 10. Yeah, I’m going to hit that target with a shotgun blast. Uhhuh. If it snows, sledding may follow, though right now, the way the wind is whipping, I want to hunch down by the fire with some tea and a book and just stay there. Sadly, there is still work to be done. No rest from the day jobbery. I think I should probably dig out my snow boots.

Work on Blood Winter is continuing apace. which is to say, not as fast as I should like because things have not gone as expected plotwise. It’s really interesting to hear from people what they think will happen, since I thought I knew and now I’m really not so sure. I’m totally pantsing it at this point, though I do still know some things.

I can tell you there’s action. Lots. Did you expect different? Also, I struggled with whether or not to include Alexander’s POV. He’s not around in the first seven or eight chapters, and I wondered if it would be weird to bring him back in so late. Well, I decided weird or not, I would do it, and looking back, I think I’m liking the way that went. So hopefully it’s not terribly odd. I also thought about having Giselle’s point of view, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be in her head yet. She’s still struggling with herself and I like how Max and she deal with one another without knowing what she’s thinking.

I want to say thanks to all of you. You’ve been terrific in reading my books, talking to bookstores, talking to librarians, passing recommendations for friends, reviewing me . . . All these things are tremendously important to writers. We are, as they say, a referral business. We survive and thrive based upon referrals. If you don’t talk about us, then we don’t succeed in this profession that we love so very much.

I don’t remember to say thank you enough, but know that I’m extremely grateful. And by way of thanks, a Blood Winter snippet:

She glared at the three men, her eyes brilliant blue. “Holy shit, how can you three breathe with all those male hormones flying around in here?” She waved a hand in front of her face to disperse invisible fumes.

Thor chuckled. “Don’t look at me. I don’t have a rooster in this fight.”

“Cock,” she corrected. “And I’ve not yet met a man who doesn’t have his in every fight,” she said. “Don’t feel bad that yours is just smaller than the other cocks on the playground,” she said with syrupy sweetness, patting his shoulder in mock sympathy.

Thor snorted and choked on his peanut butter.

Alexander grinned and Oz chuckled as Thor bent double, great coughs bellowing his ribs.

“Someday that mouth of yours is going to get you in real trouble,” Oz said to Lise, reaching out to take a powerbar from the cupboard.

“What else is new?” she said. “Is someone going to give him mouth to mouth or something? Before he dies?”

“Not me,” Oz said, biting into the bar. “I’m not kissing him.”

“Nor I,” Alexander said, licking peanut butter off the spoon.

“Well don’t look at me,” she said, brushing imaginary lint off the front of her shirt. “I don’t kiss men. Women taste better, smell better, and they are soft in all the right places.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Oz said with a wolfish grin.

“Nor can I,” Alexander said, humor rising up through the shroud of worry that encased him.

Thor at last straightened, his voice raspy. “I wouldn’t want any of you kissing me anyhow. Specially Lise. She’d probably bite off my tongue.”

She patted his butt. “No probablies about it, Tex. Now, aren’t you two supposed to be getting into bed? Dawn is just about to break. If you fry inside the RV, we’ll never get it clean.”

“Your concern for us is overwhelming,” Thor said, grabbing a jug of lemonade and sweeping up the rest of his food hoard into his arms.

“Somebody has to care,” Lise said with a pirate smile. “Where are we?”

Alexander explained. “Do try to hurry,” he added. Then as an afterthought, “but do not drive us into trouble.”

“Can’t have it both ways,” she said airily as she pulled a hunk of cheese out of the small refrigerator. She whipped out one of her knives and sliced off a piece, as she headed to the driver’s seat. “Either you want to go fast or you want to go safe. Which will it be?”

So first, the good news is that I’m down a pant size. It’s taken awhile, but I’m finally making it. Obviously exercise and eating well has something to do with it, but I was doing that for awhile without much effect. I’m beginning to think that going off diet soda and artificial sweetners has been pretty crucial. I’m also drinking a lot of tea. Yes, it’s sweetened, but I’m using stevia and not a lot of that. I think this is having an impact, though I’m not entirely sure how that works inside my body. One thing I will say is that I did have a diet coke on the roadtrip back from CA and it didn’t taste good. I drank it to try to stay awake when we were on the road. But it just wasn’t that good. I hope getting to the next size down doesn’t take quite as much time.

Also, I was having some bursitis issues and then the other day I was reaching for the alarm clock and my shoulder Popped. Ow. Painful. So then I worked on resting it and not sleeping on it and was doing well for a day. (In that day I chose to smash my head into a shelf instead). Then this morning I popped my arm twice while getting out of bed. Hurt like, well, let’s just say there was much swearing. Much. And whining. So now I’m doing some old PT exercises with a green strap. I think this has to do with my hypermobility issues.

The man has shingles. It’s itchy and painful but limited to a patch on his side, so that’s goodish. Of course he has a really nasty cold to go with it, and he has to work tomorrow. No holidays for him.

I’m coming up on my two year back surgery anniversary. Which was my latest back surgery, but I’m excited that I’ve not had back pain since.

I’m liveblogging over at Bitten By Books today. Come over and hang out, ask questions, win stuff, and find out what you shouldn’t do if you happen to end up in a fantasy world.

Also, I think my husband has shingles in a patch on his side, though without a lot of other symptoms. It’s very odd.

And I am having something like bursitis in my shoulder. About killed myself turning off the alarm clock this a.m.

And my students and I talked about some of the most strange and eccentric people this morning and I think I can now populate an Elmore Leonard novel. Like the local guy who saved all his toenail clippings for five years and is selling them on ebay, but is wondering if he should save for 5 more and sell them then. Or the old woman who got hearing aids and finally realized her birds are as loud an obnoxious as everyone has been telling her, and so she wants to get rid of them. She says she has a pellet gun.

Okay, so now there is good news on the printer front. When I bought it from STaples, it came with their extra warranty as a bonus. I never registered it and I lost the receipt. But I remembered the warranty. I also, because of taxes, knew to the day when I bought it. So I called the store today and they pulled up the receipt. And then I registered it. And then I asked for a replacement and do you know what? It’s now on its way. How freaking cool is that? *does wingnut dance*

Classes started today. First one went well. I think it’s going to be fun. Read a Tobias Wolff story in class that I just love. Now dancing off to commit words to paper and then to fetch kidlets from bus. Now, have you ever had something completely unexpectedly good come of your stupidity?

I broke my printer. I was prepping my classes and printing out the syllabus and schedule and some other stuff, and I ran out of paper. So I put some in, but then the printer grabbed the whole stack and started trying to pull it through. It was in less than an inch and I grabbed it to pull it out and in the process broke off some little plastic teeth. Now it won’t take paper unless I push each sheet in an inch. I’m really pissed at myself. I now need to find another printer that takes the same ink, since I have ink backups and I like the printer in general, and because I need a working printer. I’m just so freaking pissed at myself!!! I don’t think I can get a replacement part either.

So. What have you done stupid lately? Come on, misery loves company.

We are in Twin Falls, Idaho (signed books at the BN tonight, so if you’re in the neighborhood, they have signed copies!). We are staying the night at the Best Western, which has the best shower ever. Best shower head. I mean it. I want to take it home. The dogs are welcomed here also and Sandy, the clerk, and her daughter, are just so very nice.

Voodoo, however, is not doing so well. He’s having stomach trouble again. He’s still on the special diet and I added water to his food and tried to water him a lot today as well as walk him a lot. I think being home tomorrow will help. We only have about a five hour drive left, so it should be pretty quick.

As for the despicable me part, the kids got this game for Xmas called Bookworm. It’s a word game for the NIntendo DS system. We all played it. All four of us are addicted. Crazy addicted. Up til now, I didn’t have a DS. But now I do. Because I love puzzle games and I’m giving in to the bug. Specially word games. Love ‘em. This is kind of a word search/Tetris style game. sigh. I’m really weak.

Someone looked at our house today. I’m dying to know what they thought. Sigh.

The end of the vacation that is. We’ll be heading home shortly. On the positive side, the dog is better. Not totally well, but getting there.

I have a post up on Magical Words today about emotional and physical action. Come on and have a read.

Also, if anybody is in the Roseville, California area, The Barnes and Noble at Creekside has copies of my books signed. I stopped in today and signed some stuff they just got in.

Had a great visit with friends tonight, with good beer and food. It was really cool to talk about very old times and some new.

I really hate the idea of going back to the cold. It’s been bizarrely warm and dry here. I can smell the green grass and the oaks and it’s been so amazing. There really aren’t oaks in Montana and it’s really a trip down memory lane. Usually in winter the smells aren’t really there. I keep stumbling on our walks because I close my eyes and just smell. I’m going to miss walking once I’m home. I’m hoping there’s not a lot of ice and I can get outside.