If it works, there will be a picture from Thanksgiving on here. We shall see. . .

Hope everyone had a happy and merry Christmas. Mine whizzed by much too fast once I got into the holiday spirit. Had some trouble with the Christmas tree at first. It had been so cold that we opted not to cut one down but went to Lowe's instead. They had three measly trees left, dropping needles but we went ahead and picked one against my better judgement. Dad tried to put it up for me but we ran into another problem - the stand was too small.

Bought another stand and then ran into problem number two - the tree had a crooked trunk and had no intention of standing in the stand. Dad gave it a valiant effort, even building a wooden frame to hold the tree in the stand - but it still had a tipsy appearance.

Since I'd wanted a fresh tree anyway, I asked Sister #2 and her hubby to cut one down. They found a beautifully shaped tree. I'll have to post some pictures because it's one of the prettiest trees we've had in years. The red icicles weren't my idea but one has to make concessions. . .LOL!

Christmas week ended up being brisk, breezy and actually quite warm. We hit 70 degrees the day after the holiday!! It's supposed to get cold again though so I'm not hoping for a return of winter/spring.

Got back into the writing groove on Saturday. Sent out worksheets, sent out articles for the student newspaper at church, worked on a first draft for another writing job and sent off a first chapter to a literary agency offering a query holiday. Today I managed to do a bit more. Tomorrow I have to dive back into my many projects and decide what I want to work on first. Finishing Cattle Rustler for good seems a possibility.

Have been reading some books on plotting before writing. While it seems it might help some, I can't say that it's always foolproof. I can remember sitting down and doing a storyboard for Cattle Rustler. Had the whole thing planned out - knew exactly what would happen, when it should happen and how it would end. The problem was that after I wrote it that way I realized I'd rewritten the same book as my first Jenny. So, back to the computer - had to redo the ending. Once I realized that, I realized I had to rewrite more. Then I sent that version out to my new crit partners who made more suggestions. Realized I needed to rewrite the beginning so I did. Once I did that, I decided the new ending didn't work because there was no motivation for Jenny to get into the trouble she did.

So. . .I think I have it this time and I'm writing it for the last time. However it turns out, it does.

I'm also looking at a couple of contests for my adult manuscripts. Really need some feedback on my horse book and Stepmother. So that should take care of January!

Just a test to see if the photo upload is STILL working. I think I have everything on my pc working RIGHT now. It's a great feeling. Right now, I need all the great feelings I can crumble together - especially in light of a defunct cookie press, a tipsy Christmas tree, a zillion pre-Christmas things to do and the fact that I've spent more time trying to get my pc in shape than working at Christmas prep. Ah, well -

This is a photo of my dad with some of his great-grandchildren at a September wedding. We have Samantha, Kris, Stephanie, Taylor, Dad, Mariah, Austin, Emma, Drew, Braedon, Mackenzie and Hayleigh in front with the doll.

Whoa! Well, clearly I have solved the photo upload problem. Thanks, Leona for the suggestions! This is also clearly not the Thanksgiving mug shot --LOL! These little cuties are the Dionne Quintuplets and they are dressed very appropriately for today's snowy weather. I've long been a quint collector and wish I had this postcard in my collection - sigh.

Last night I tried several things and ended up with both my emails not working. My MSN account would open the emails, but not let me reply. So I went to my Hotmail account which is really the same thing but opens on a different page. Go figure. I really love the Hotmail account better as it has emoticons, colors and is easier to use. For some reason while I was on the photo upload fix, the Hotmail stopped opening the email. So I could open and read on MSN, but not reply. I could not open or reply on Hotmail. This morning it fixed by angel power, I'm sure. There is no other explanation.

This week has been hard from a computer angle. My worksheet batch got scambled and refused to open at my editor's end. I tried five times to resend. He kept emailing back - nope, not right yet. My plan had been to download MSWORD on here anyway and go to that almost exclusively. (Even though I do like Word Perfect.) So, had to download word, retype the worksheets into word (only three as I had already downloaded word on the laptop and written some on that.) Then, send them in and wait. Sure was relieved on Friday to get an email - they look fine now! Whew!! Got paid later that day Praise God.

With all that, I didn't get to do much fiction writing. Am rethinking part of Cattle Rustler now and will probably work this week at rewritting those chapters. Am not sure what that will do for my plan to have the book in final form by the end of the year. :(

Managed to read part of one of the Kentucky Derby books yesterday after the spinning class. To my surprise, I discovered that the man who started the race --Clark committed suicide on my birthdate a hundred and forty three years before I was born. Very strange coincidence.

Time to get a ride next door to watch White Christmas, one of my favorite Christmas movies.

Hmmmmm--for some reason my blog has stopped allowing me to post pictures. Will have to figure this out somehow.

Not much activity here. We started back to Leaves yesterday after our Thanksgiving break. For various reasons, we were 45 minutes late for class. So - okay - it takes me awhile to get back in the groove!
Have been feeling kind of icky anyway.

I am slowly working through the edits on Cattle Rustler. Hoping to have it finished by the end of December. We shall see - Christmas and all the preparations for that will be in there somewhere.

Got the assignment for the Drummer boy article! Need to send out a couple more queries this week. I'm setting a goal to send out ten a month - unless I get so many assignments it would be foolhardy to add more work to my list.

We got our first spitting snowfall. It didn't last but it looked ominous. Funny, I'm not a fan of snow but I love anything snowman. Am drinking a nice hot cup of tea out of a snowman mug right now. Mmmmmmmmmm....