Family, friends—and daemons!

It's been busy lately.

Work was crazed last week and the start of this week. For those of you who saw my private post, it's gotten a bit better the past two days. Which is good, since it couldn't have gotten much worse. But the table is back under control and I can start to breathe again.

I'm still not writing as much as I'd like right now, and I need to get that moving properly again. One hoped-for source of motivation has proven to be a dud, which is a shame.

My dad was here week before last, and my youngest sister and one of her friends were here last weekend. Both visits were nice, though my sister's was too short. My daughter loved seeing her Grampa and her aunt, though. And we hung out on the beach one day with my dad, which was a lot of fun. My daughter loved the water! My son didn’t—the waves freaked him out—but he enjoyed the beach itself.

The house is doing fine—no new wackiness to report, probably because I haven't tried to fix or install anything lately. :) I do have some projects I need to get to, though, esp. now that it seems the weather might be turning a touch cooler finally.

Got the car back—for those who don’t know, I’ve got use of my dad’s car for the time being. It needed some repairs last week but my sister and I trekked down to get it back from the garage last Friday, just in time to get her friend from the airport. It’s strange—for years I had a car and felt weird without one. Then I moved to NY and didn’t have a car and got completely used to that. Now I have one again, at least on loan, and I’ve fallen back into that mindset. Not when in Manhattan, fortunately, but we have gotten used to having the car and to that increased mobility. It really does make a huge difference when you have two kids.

My best buddy is coming up next week, and I'm stoked! It's only for a day, alas, but I'll take what I can get. And another pair of friends may be up some time over Labor Day weekend, which would be cool. Another friend was supposed to come visit then but her plans were scotched by her evil overlord/manager.

In other news, I got materials for Night of the Daemon, the second book of my Daemon Gates trilogy, this week. I've got page proofs to go over, which is unglamorous but cool. But I've got a cover! Whee!







It's a bit darker than the first one but otherwise matches pretty well. And yes, expect skeletons in the novel. Is it just me, though, or does it look like he's offering Alaric (the guy with the sword) his dagger? Kind of like "oh here, did you want this blade?" And Alaric is pulling away, saying "No! I've got my sword!" :)

Yet again . . .

. . . I go quiet. At least for a little bit. But I am keeping the blog for now.

I’ve been busy, but nothing out of the ordinary.

We went to visit the wife’s grandmother weekend before last, out in southern NJ (near Trenton) and had a very nice time. The kids enjoyed themselves, the toddler especially—we have several very sweet photos of her hugging her great-grandma, who was absolutely thrilled.

Went to Dave & Buster’s off Times Square for a friend’s birthday. It was amusing. Going to see Pirates 2 tomorrow night with some friends, finally. I’m looking forward to it—and to a distant future when the wife and I can actually do such things together again.

I’ve been writing, of course, and the novel is coming along, though I’ve had to put it down once or twice for other things. I just finished edits on my second Warhammer novel, for one—it’s a much stronger book now and I’m well pleased with it. I’ve got another short piece to finish up tonight and tomorrow and then it’s back to the novel again. After that I’ve got another project to work on, and two more I need to start outlining.

Otherwise it’s business as usual. Work’s been busy lately, which is good and bad, and I’ve had my hands full. The kids are good, and fully recovered from the bugs they had a week or two ago. The cat was ill but seems to be doing better now. The wife and I are still a little sleep-deprived but not too bad, and she’s recovered from the serious deprivation of the weekend.

My dad’s coming up to visit next week, and my youngest sister the following weekend. Then we’ve got a two-week gap before my best friend visits—alas, for only a day or two!—followed rapidly by another of our good friends. August will be filled with visitors!

I haven’t done any house stuff in a while, in part because it’s been so beastly hot. I still need to paint the new radiator cover and the chair railing and there are a few other things I want to get done but none of them are urgent.

We’ve been catching up on Dr. Who finally, and have only the last two eps of second season left. We will be sad when they’re done. It’s the only thing we’re watching right now, and that’s up on the computer—if not for the toddler watching DVDs downstairs from time to time the TV would crumble from disuse.

Hm. Not a lot else, really. But that’ll do for now. :)