So with the sole exception of my December 27 post, why haven't I been on-line since early December? I had baking, shopping, wrapping, decorating, cooking, cards, etc. to do before Christmas. Then 3 of my 4 kids were here for Christmas Eve, along with husband's aging mom who has just been diagnosed with dementia, in addition to all of her physical problem. His one sister and her husband were here also. My brother and his wife came the night before for dinner. One son's girlfriend was here for a few days, so my house was crowded, even all night, since both of the guest rooms were in use. Then the day after Christmas is my birthday. One of my BFF's took me out to lunch, because she was in town from Tennessee for the same week that my daughter was staying with us, and there was NO other time we could see each other! Then one son and my daughter came along while I birthday-shopped. Then we went out for dinner. The next morning, we all set out, in 3 cars, for Detroit, to return my daughter home (she'd flown in) and to visit with the other son who is married and has my two grandbabies. We spent a few days there.
Then it was New Year's Eve and day. Husband and I celebrated being newly-empty nesters, by binge-watching Witcher, on NetFlix. If you haven't seen it, it stars Henry Cavill, and there are only 8 episodes in the first season. We'll watch the last two tonight. It's interesting and odd...my favorite kind of show! The last show I was interested enough in to watch it was Penny Dreadful, which was cancelled after 3 seasons. I'm hoping they get to keep Witcher on for a while. We tuned into local TV in time for the end of a Marx Brothers movie, then the countdown, then another Marx Brothers movie. In previous years our sons had blasted very loud heavy metal at midnight, to turn us on to new bands, so this was a relatively quiet celebration for us. We both made it up until about 1am, before our energy flagged and we headed to bed.
Since then, I've been shopping, to use up the gift cards I received, going out to lunches with girlfriends that I rarely have time to see during the school year, and going to Jazzercise classes daily. I've been doing Jazzercise, which turned 50 last year, for about 25 years, taking off 10 years when I was home with multiple babies and couldn't afford it. Now it's my main physical outlet. I love to dance, and my husband doesn't. So he goes to the gym, and I go dancing...with my friends.
Monday school will resume. I've been subbing in various high school districts for 16 years. Originally I hoped to get hired as an English teacher, but despite interviews early on, they always hired the newbie with the ink not dry on her diploma yet. Sigh. So I sub almost every day, and tutor 2 nights a week, teaching younger kids how to read and write. This leaves me very little time to write, and even less to promote my books. Until the summer. Then I can do for 3 months what I wish I could do all year! Write all day, promote as needed. Stupid money! Stupid bills!
Lots of authors advise letting your readers know a little bit about you. This is actually more than I've ever put up about me, personally. I want you to enjoy my writing. I'm not as interesting as my characters, whose lives are so much wilder than mine! But at least now you know why there are lags in my posts. If you always want to know when I post, click on the RSS feed to the upper right of this, and you'll be in the know. My new year's resolution is to try to carve more time out of my workweeks, to write...and to post...and to promote! And I'm looking into doing self-publishing on the 9 books that are out-of-print now, after the publishers closed, though that may have to wait until the summer.
Welcome to 2020, and hope this new year finds you healthy and happy.