Back From Vacation

Life might actually be returning to some semblance of normal.

(Even as I type that I kind of duck and hunch over my keyboard, looking cautiously over my shoulders to see from what direction I'm going to be thrown the next curve.)

Tuesday morning I'll report to work at The Virginian Review and collect my first actual paycheck in nearly nine months. It won't be a full week's pay since Bethany and I went to Pigeon Forge for most of last week, but even still, it will be a paycheck.

Part one of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows hits theaters Friday and I can't wait to see it. Well, I can, since obviously I'm going to have to, but I'm looking forward to it. This will be the first time I've seen a movie adaptation of a book actually go to the effort of splitting the film into two parts to cover it all. I hope they do a better job than they did with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I can't think of another time that I left a movie theater that angry.

Before I left last week I spent some time on the second draft of Blood & Steel. I made it through a good chunk of typing and I'm still getting into the opening act of the novel, but it felt good to be writing again. And it feels good to be earning a living with my pen again.

To make it even better, the holidays are coming up. Bethany and I did the first bit of Christmas shopping while we were on vacation and we even have the gifts wrapped and waiting to go under a tree the day after Thanksgiving. Since we're speaking of Thanksgiving, we also made it out to Kroger this morning where we purchased a handsome 21 pound turkey for the holiday feast. I'm figuring on having about eight people total at dinner for Thanksgiving and that works out to almost three pounds of turkey per person. It just doesn't get any better than that.

Oh, and I now have plenty to read. So much so that I doubt I'll be purchasing much in the way of fine literature until next year. I have one or two titles that I plan to add to the Kindle when they're released because I'm closely following those series, but I think I'm pretty well set for a while.

Yes, life is good.