1. I’ve officially fasted from Facebook for one week. I’m ashamed to say I struggled with “withdrawal” the first couple of days. I haven’t missed it much this week, once I got past that. What I have missed is being in touch with old friends who live far away. So I’ve been thinking about resurrecting my page so they have access to my email addresses again. However, I fear if I bring it back too soon, I will fall right back into spending too much time there. So I’m going to wait a little longer, then re-evaluate.

2. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is getting tougher. Once I got my story idea, I raced along, easily making the daily quotas the first week. This week my pace has slowed significantly. I need to be at 25,000 words by Sunday, but I’m only at 18,000 so far. That’s a lot of words to write in just 3 days, but I really need to get caught up this weekend if I’m going to stay on pace.

Fun factoid about my story: Even though I’ve been working on it for nearly two weeks, the actual time elapsed in book = 4 days.

3. I’m thinking about trying to write a publishable book. I’ve been reading the blogs of agents and publishers, trying to learn about the process and the people. There’s a lot to learn, and the process is very time-consuming, if it happens at all.

4. I’m not sure the story I’m writing now is the one I’ll try to publish. It’s ours and Elli’s story, even though I changed the names and am making up some of it. Many have suggested that we write it into a book. I’ve never tried before because I didn’t know how the story ended. I’m writing it now, since we know. But it might be really difficult to submit for editorial critique since it is so personal. But then I think, maybe if I write it as a memoir instead of a novel, the criticism would be more about structure, organization, and writing, rather than the story itself. I don’t know. I do know that I want to have her story written up, if only for our families.

5. Big Boy has his first job! Some neighbors are going out of town for 5 days in a couple of weeks. They have a really sweet dog they hate to board, so they asked if he’d be willing to come over 2-3 times a day to let her out and give her food and water. He’ll make $5 a day, and if it goes well, they’ll hire him to do this again next year! He’s very excited, and we’re very proud of him.

6. Little Girl gave herself another haircut. This one is front and center, though a smaller chunk of hair. I’m really bummed, but thanks be to God, I  managed not to get angry with her about it. She’s been trying to grow her hair long, but when asked why she cut some of it, she had no answer. I guess that’s a four-year-old for you.

7. Our Christmas cards are printed and our letters are written. Here’s a friendly public service announcement: Christmas is 43 days away. My goal for the next 2 weeks, in addition to staying on schedule with NaNoWriMo, is to get those cards stuffed, addressed, stamped, and *gasp* actually mailed. I believe everyone understood, but while we had cards made, I couldn’t mail any last year. I just couldn’t do it. This year, we’re more settled into a new normal (nowhere near all the way, but better than last year). So Christmas cards seem more doable.