So remember when I told y’all I was doing the whole “slow blog” thing? Yeah. Well, 6 months later…(that’s reeeeaaallly slooooow blogging, yes?) I’m going to try to get back into posting more. I really enjoy it, and would love to be able to do it more regularly…if I can only find the time (yeah, yeah, cry me a river, right? Hopefully some of you are still out there, or I’ll be shouting into the wind…but at least I’m shouting?)

Please don’t hold me to it, though. Life has a way of shtupping my best-laid plans. You can relate? Yeah.

Thought so.

I’ve been thinking about time a lot lately, probably because my octogenarian parents are here for the summer (literally here, as in they’re living in the mother-in-law apartment in the back yard…) and time seems to have compressed into that whole day-to-day, deal with the now and all the crazy that happens when you have a couple of generations sharing space.

I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Having said that, though, I must confess to yearning for a deserted beach with warm, white sand and turquoise blue water and nothing to do except read and sleep because there’s no service and my cell phone has essentially become a camera. Or a doorstop. Your choice.

So take a vacation, you say. We did. To Europe. In the name of research *cough*

Not to a quiet tropical locale with copious amounts of rum and sun, which, in retrospect may have been a wee bit easier on our so-not-twenty-anymore bodies… (I only took my phone this time–no laptop, no professional camera–to see if I could survive without them. I’d like to report that I only had one or two moments when I wished I had one or the other. It still amazes me.)

All kidding aside, our time my research trip to Europe was amazing. We saw too many museums, cathedrals, and castles, ate and drank too much, seriously walked way too much, met some fine people (I’m looking at you, Dawn and Barry…and you, too, Dave and Ivca), and had too much fun (wait–is that even possible?). But apparently when I plan a trip, I tend to plan for someone much younger than myself.

Oops.

(Yes, Mark and I are still on speaking terms…)

To top it off, as soon as we got back there was the book launch for Dark Return and all the myriad details attendant to that, including formatting (yes, I still do it myself. I know. I know), updating the back matter in the other books, sending out advance reader copies, emails to my readers’ list, all sorts of promotion, making sure I got some swag out the door, yada yada yada.  Then we flew to Arizona to pick up the folks in sweltering, furnace-like heat (so not comfortable when you’re used to the weather in the Pacific Northwet).

We just got back (after the flight from hell, but that’s another story) and now I’m in the middle of a big sale on one of my box sets. In between, we got Mom and Dad stocked up with all the necessities—wine, snacks, chocolate, wine, and soup—as well as help them get settled, which is understandably more difficult when you’re in your 80s. Oh, and I have a vegetable garden that needs massive help, tons of flowers and too many weeds, the lawn needs mowing, the outdoor chairs really need repainting, and you can’t see my house because the wisteria is taking over the front porch.

And my neighbors wonder why there are so many wine bottles in our recycling.

Anyhow, that’s my report for spring break. Crossing fingers everything settles down and I’ll be able to breathe and actually start posting again. How about you? How is your spring/fall shaping up? Is it just me or is time whooshing by faster than you can say “Holy crap?”