The Wrap-Up

1.  My littlest turned 3 this week amidst homemade gifts, cards, and lots of love. She’s such a person. I mean, she has been for the past year and a half, she’s been becoming more and more who she is. But she’s *such* a person. I LOVE that. Even when her personhood is showing signs of stubbornness (don’t know where she gets that from *ahem*) or following in her brothers’ sometimes undesirable footsteps. And she’s quick, wicked smart, and doesn’t miss a THING around here. I swear each child has gotten more clever than the last, which means she could easily become a criminal mastermind. Sigh. I LOVE that.

2. Riley and Torin spent the day with Steve at work this week and they were so. darn. cute. about it. The night before, they gathered their clothes (button-down shirts and ties, just like Dad) and asked me if I’d make them sandwiches for lunch. Riley woke up at 10pm that night and came out thinking it was morning and time to get ready. He even complained that Steve hadn’t woken him up yet. Steve pointed him back toward bed, laughing. The two of them were wide awake by 5:30 am, ate breakfast right away, took showers, asked Steve to iron their clothes as he was ironing his own, and told me AGAIN what kind of sandwiches they wanted. They were giddy with excitement. Torin couldn’t believe his luck that he was going to get to spend the whole day with Dad. “I’ve never gotten to spend the whole day with Dad before,”  he said over and over again, a huge grin on his face. (I didn’t bother pointing out all the time he has days with Steve on weekends, holidays, and when Steve takes them all away for the day for adventures sometimes. I didn’t want to taint his happiness AT ALL.) Then they called here two or three times to check in, see what we were doing, if they were missing anything exciting. Cute, I tell you, CUTE!

3. In totally unrelated, but happy, news I’m making good progress on the outline for book two. (YAY!) (And WHEW.) Ideas are flowing, I’m figuring out my lore (isn’t it weird that I didn’t have to have it all figured out for the first book? I didn’t, which was good because I couldn’t make up my mind about a few things…of course now I HAVE to), and I feel like I’m on the right track. It feels good. It’s funny. For some bizarre reason I’d totally forgotten how much work making the outline is, how much thought, puzzling, and problem-solving goes into it. It sounds like it should be a quick thing, doesn’t it? I can tell you it’s decidedly not. It’s writing the entire book in shorthand, and it takes a while to get everything in a logical order, throw in/think up twists, turns, and as much misery as possible.

4. In really, really unrelated news I’m thinking about cutting all my hair off really short and donating my hair to Locks of Love. Okay, I’m not just thinking about it, I’m planning on doing it in the next month or two. In all honesty, I’m tired of coloring my hair and have decided to go natural (which is brown with LOTS of gray now—the latter of which I’m actually very happy about because I look better with lighter hair). I can’t quite bear growing out the color while my hair is long, and since I have enough length to donate, I’m going to chop it off nice and short. (And then I’ll proceed to grow my hair out again. Because that’s what I always do. Short hair is NOT my best style.) If I don’t look too terrible afterwards, I’ll post before and after pics.

5. Lastly, I’m feeling so grateful for the internet these days and the virtual friends I’ve been making all over the country. People I would never have met otherwise, who are becoming real friends and who I hope to meet in person someday. It’s amazing me this week—that I can get to know and care about wonderful people so far away, without having met them in the traditional sense. That friendships can develop over time, just like they do in person. That I can “get together” with these friends or bump into them on Twitter and have a conversation just as if I’m bumping into friends at the grocery store. It’s really so lovely. Thank you, my new friends. (You know who you are.) I’m feeling so blessed by you.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend, everyone!