Oof. MrD has been sick again this past week - a throat infection that started about three days after the chest infection went away, and which requires a whole new round of disgusting antibiotics to be forced down him four times a day - so we’ve all been pretty exhausted. Then, yesterday, I woke up with an ominous, thick-headed feeling, and today I ( Read more... )

Aaaagh ( Read more... )

Aiyee. What is it about Mothercare? At 11a.m., we decided to drive out there to buy a new car seat for MrD. I figured we'd be back by noon. Instead, we staggered back into the house after 2:00, weighed down by boxes and boxes and bags and bags of stuff, all of which somehow turned out to be vitally important ( Read more... )

Whew! After months of preparation and planning, today my brand-new author website is finally online! Patrick designed and built the website for me (it is sooooo convenient to be married to a web developer!), I wrote the text, we came up with photos together...and I can't believe it's finally up ( Read more... )

I moved to Europe for the first time when I was 20, as part of an Oberlin Conservatory exchange program. For 6 months, five other Oberlin students and I lived in two apartments in Vienna, studying Arnold Schönberg's music with his last assistant (half our lessons took place in the Arnold Schönberg house, and the other half at the University of ( Read more... )

I've been moving through a zombie-like haze of exhaustion for the last few days, since MrD is teething and therefore none of us are sleeping. Days like these, I don't do much writing or anything else productive beyond survival. I am in AWE of moms who manage to work fulltime jobs when their babies are this age. How do they not fall asleep or space ( Read more... )

Wow. It's a rare weekend when I'm actually bitter-conning over two different places at once - but last weekend definitely qualified. Tons of friends at WorldCon in Montreal, mmmm; tons of other friends at the SCBWI conference in LA, sighhh...yup, there was lots & lots of bittercon around this neighborhood ( Read more... )

It's always hard to settle back into routine after time off. This weekend was particularly wonderful, for many reasons - for one thing, on Saturday afternoon Patrick and MrD dropped me off at Borders with strict instructions NOT to do any work, no matter what! - and then didn't come back for me for four hours. Poor me, abandoned in a bookstore with ( Read more... )

Yesterday was just about the perfect birthday. We went to Skipton Castle, one of my favorite castles (and I am a total castle-addict, as you guys know!), ate lunch afterwards at a great vegetarian café, and then Patrick made chocolate birthday cake, and we got takeaway from my favorite Indian restaurant for dinner. I loved it all, especially ( Read more... )

I woke up this morning and felt MrD snuggled up against me. And I thought: Wow. It's my birthday...and I have a baby! Best Birthday Present Ever ( Read more... )