holiday prep

Yesterday we went to Dublin to do any shopping that could be done in the real world. I was moderately successful; Ted was not. He was, however, very, very tired after tromping all over hell and breakfast without finding anything. Poor guy. I had some kind of story I was going to tell about the shopping, but I seem to have forgotten it. Unless it was the fact that when I stood to get off the bus, coming home, the bottom fell out of one of the bags I had,…

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Recent Reads: Little House books

I bought the Little House series (the proper edition, illustrated by Garth Williams) for Young Indiana last year for Christmas, thinking that sometime in the next year or so he might be about ready to start having them read to him. A few months ago he got LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE, brought it to me, and said, “Maybe we could read this book! It has a FEW pictures!” I told him we had to start with LITTLE HOUSE IN THE BIG WOODS, but that I would love to read…

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worst. cooking. ever.

I have, in a really stunning run, made two bad batches of fudge in a row and followed it up with pie crust worse than what I made at Thanksgiving, which was, up until then, easily the worst I’d ever made. But that’s okay, because the pie I then made was too sweet, too! Srsly. *dies in a pit* I’ve now gotten all the necessary ingredients to make experimental allergy-safe fudge for my friend’s dairy-and-eggs-allergic son, and since I was in the market anyway I also got enough to make…

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Nano No More

I made it through about 35K in November, then totally failed in the last ten days to get the last 15K in. Still, it means that after today’s writing session I’m at 70K on REDEEMER, which means I have somewhere between 30-50K to go. I hate having that broad a target to shoot for. I usually have a much better sense of my wordcount, going in. I suppose I’ll see when I get to the end, though. What else. Not much else. I have ambitions of 80K by the weekend…

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Celtic Cross, Athy, Ireland

Ten Years In Ireland

I was just thinking that I’ve been a freelancer ten years today, and then it slowly dawned on me that no, I’ve been a freelancer *eleven* years today; I apparently missed last year’s anniversary totally. *Today*, we’re ten years in Ireland. I am, in fact, ten years and 24 days in Ireland today, but Ted, who came a month after me, arrived on the 1st. Or possibly the 5th, but anyway, we count from his arrival at the start of December. Ten years. Wow. People still ask if we think…

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