*Fanfare* (for various reasons)

First and foremost, congrats to Carol on her release!  Head over to The Wild Rose Press and purchase her book.  Then pop by Jen's blog with your order number for another contest!

As for myself...tonight I officially resumed work in earnest on OHN!  The Next Level Workshop opened properly yesterday, but I was exhausted and brain-drained and so I didn't really dive in until tonight.

Thank God for caffeine pills, though.  I think my single greatest discipline in working on this MS is making myself take one (note to self: taking a caffeine pill WITH a Mt. Dew is a bit of overkill and makes you jittery) and then getting BICHOK until it kicks in.  Then I'm golden.  Last night I was practically passing out at my keyboard by 10:30, but now it's almost 2 am and I'm going relatively strong.  Off to bed soon, though.

I may continue to have a reduced online presence for the immediate future.  With my writing time restricted to late night (generally the hours between 9 pm and midnight) and so much work to do on revisions, I can't afford to futz around playing Text Twirl or looking at LOLcats for very long.  Also we've been asked to scale back our internet usage at work, and with a load of new (and old) projects - not to mention an upcoming certification exam - I'm too busy to do much online there anyway.  Even my e-mail activity will be restricted to only the most urgent of dealings.  I will TRY to maintain a presence on the CompuServe Forum (and yes - I know I still owe several people replies!) but I've cut myself off from most of my other message boards and hangouts as nonessential for the time being. 

Notes from the home front:

• I'm just now almost over the upper respiratory infection that kept me coughing for a week, then morphed into a sinus infection that's had me blowing my nose constantly for the past 5 days.
  
• We've decided to enroll Little Boy in a Montessori preschool beginning in the fall.  He'll be 2 1/2, which was way younger than I planned to have him in any kind of program, but I just recently discovered Montessori and from what I've read it sounds like a GREAT fit for him, and they usually start kids at 2.5-3 years old.  It's only half days, and it will also give DH a chance to go to class/work on schoolwork/have some downtime.
  
• To that end, we've also begun potty training in earnest.  Pray for my sanity, hehe!  LB is doing well, all things considered...which is to say he's no longer screaming and running from the room when we ask him to sit on the potty chair.  Switching to cotton training pants during the day has gone a long way to further his awareness, and he does want to keep them "kween an' dry!"  (Though I felt bad for him the other day, when he was trying so hard to not pee on himself that he wouldn't go AT ALL - even in the potty or his diaper.  He spent the last hour or so before bed with tucked knees and a hand over his bladder, and then filled the diaper as soon as he relaxed for sleep.  Bless his heart.)
  

Up and Coming:

• More posts!  I try to post a little progress bit at the end of each session when I'm actively working.  And believe you me, this workshop's gonna kick my ass (in a good way!) for the foreseeable future, so I WILL be actively working.
• Blog updates.   New pics and stuff for the sidebars, mainly.  I'll be updating my blogroll, so if you're a regular reader and want your blog linked to, just drop me a line to remind me!