Today is Gingerbread House Day.

Just don't go eating anyone's windowsills or you'll be sorry!

No Mo' NaNoWriMo
So, remember how I was all to-ing and fro-ing about joining the National Novel Writers' Month thing? Well, I'd finally psyched myself up to do it--made a new blog template and everything--when my hard drive decided to commit felodise. (No doubt it sensed that I had been making goo-goo eyes at my stepfather's flatscreen monitor while in the States. Ah, the price of infidelity!)

That ate up a whole week of the twentysomething days allotted for me to write 50,000 words of at least marginal sense. I could probably still do it, if I tossed everything else on the back burner. Which I can't. I could, of course, give it the ol' college try anyway, but I pride myself on never yet having missed a deadline in my adult writing career, and I'm not about to risk my clean slate now.

Instead, I wound up creating new templates for Dean's and Vin's novels-in-the-making, which--if I do say so myself--are nearly as lovely as the actual writing my husband and best male friend are somehow managing to churn out day after day. Do take a moment to check out Salamanca and Midnight Marquee, as well as Andrew's Pop Monster (also well-written, but not nearly as pretty, haha!).

one of the 'everything else' that keeps me so busy
One of the little side projects I've done has come out: an article on reading to unborn children in this month's Smart Parenting. Check it out if you have kids or take care of kids; otherwise, it will probably bore you out of your skulls. And don't say I didn't warn you!

finally...
Thanks to everybody who commiserated with me over the tooth and the computer, as well as alla youse who welcomed me and mine back to the country. And welcome to the blogroll, Kat and Ella!