Hello there. Remember me? I’ve been trapped under something heavy, and that has kept me from posting. Use your imagination. Let me know what you come up with and we’ll go with that. Better than just admitting that sometimes when I juggle I drop things. (I’m why we don’t have nice things…)

Anyway, so here I am. The kids are excited about school coming to a close for the summer, so things are a little amped up out this way. As far as general life updates, the Major and I bought a house in December, so there’s been a lot of stuff to do. It was nice renting for a while, but we’re happy to get to do what we want again. I guess this also means that we’re staying for a while, even though we are three thousand miles from home. I’d always expected that we’d get back West at some point…it never crossed my mind that we wouldn’t. That’s where we live, after all. Okay, maybe not really, but I think somewhere in me I’ll always be a Californian. Once we bought a house here, though, I guess I feel like we settled. In every definition of that word. I also switched jobs — kind of. I am doing exactly the same work, just for the government instead of as a contractor. It makes things a little simpler.

We moved in December, but it was important to me to keep the kids at the same school. Turbo had a lot of adjusting to do in Kindergarten and First Grade, and this year had really been shaping up to be his first truly successful year, thanks to his amazing teacher. There was no way in hell I was going to pull him out of that class and drop him into a totally new school. So it’s been long days of driving the kids to the busstop and returning to the stop in the old ‘hood to pick them up. My schedule is completely dictated by the bus… the good thing is that I get to see all my friends in the hood. The new hood hasn’t been as social, and I miss the joy of wandering into a neighbor’s house for a glass of wine when the kids get home.

I’m not really sure the kids get that once school is out they don’t really get a break. They have to go straight to summer camp… Sometimes I feel guilty that they spend such long hours in various establishments, away from me, away from home. But then I spend a long afternoon with them, and they wrestle and fight and generally rip the new house apart, and I feel more okay about it.

I think I’ve mentioned here before that I’m an undercover romance novelist, right? Well, tomorrow is a big day. I have a two book launch, and I’m pretty jazzed about it. I’m even doing jazz hands. you just can’t see because of the things and the stuff and the webitrons. But I am. And they. are. fabulous. Anyway, the books are based on the time I lived in NYC in my twenties. They’re all about friends and dating and generally running around and figuring stuff out, and they’re pretty funny, too. What’s that you say? You want to go buy ALL the books and be super duper supportive? Well, that’s very kind. Here’s where you can find them!

MEN AND MARTINIS

HIGHBALLS IN THE HAMPTONS

Happy reading… and I promise, I’ll be back around a bit more often.