Upcoming at The Lily Cafe #8

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a wonderful, healthy, and restful (?) holiday season, and I hope we all remember to write 2022. I know I’ll need a couple of months to get the hang of it. Right now, I’m just hoping I remember to write and give the correct year to my kids for their school work. Knowing my oldest, though, he’ll be reminding me every day.

Anyways, it’s hard to believe two weeks have flown by. My husband still has another week off, but my kids are back at school (at home), so I’m a little scattered. I can’t quite tell yet if my brain is still out on vacation or at least sort of back. But may as well jump back in here!

Let’s Catch Up a Bit

So, I didn’t get nearly as much done as I had wanted, especially when it came to the writing. My kids’ schedules and my husband’s did not sync up well, so I really only feel like I had a week to get things done. But I believe all of my pages are updated and I do have a ton of books read and reviews written. As always, though, still more to do.

I got so much reading done, and I’m so thrilled to have finally gotten a chance to sit down with Fan Fiction by Brent Spiner. I remember watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with my mom a good decade or so after the episodes aired, so I have a lot of fond memories of those years and that show. I couldn’t miss reading Spiner’s book, and I’m so grateful to the publisher for sending me a copy! It was a lot of fun, and kind of fun being driven nuts over what was real and what was fiction. Anyways, I read a ton since the child care and rearing load was shared with my husband, whose workload was kind of punishing for the last month of the year. It took a little longer to get into the review writing, but I’m satisfied with how much I got done. And I’m so glad I got a chance to curl up with #19 of the Coffeehouse Mystery series by Cleo Coyle. I love when it comes out in December because it makes for an easy Christmas present, but publication was pushed back to January so I’m glad to have an eARC courtesy of the publisher to enjoy over the holiday season.

My husband and I have rediscovered our love of jigsaw puzzles and we spent our time off doing a couple. The kids tried to help, but they’re not quite ready for 1000 piece puzzles. My oldest did get a 100 piece puzzle that he enjoys doing and is learning to do it on his own now. We’ll be ready for family 1000 piece puzzles one day (hopefully when we have a big enough table for all of us to cluster around)!

Southern California saw a lot of rain, which was kind of weird since a La Nina was forecast, which means it was supposed to be a dry winter. I’m still baffled as to where all this rain came from, but, considering we’re on the verge of a severe drought and some serious water restrictions, it’s definitely a blessing, even if it meant we were all stuck indoors all vacation.

But we did get to do a virtual tour of JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory). My oldest adores space, so, since JPL isn’t too far away, we like to do the tours when we can. We were supposed to go on one right before the pandemic shut everything down, so that one was canceled. Now they’re doing virtual tours, so we can enjoy it without all the walking. I also believe people who are not local can register for the tours. Their February schedule of tour dates should be up today if anyone out there (I’m not sure if they allow international registrants) is interested in getting a look at JPL: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/tours/

What’s Up Next

This year will be a bit different as, instead of trying to post more, I’m aiming to post less. Instead of this section outlining what to expect over the next 6 weeks, I’m going to chat a bit about the whole year.

From now until the beginning of June, my oldest, at least, will be doing school online. It looks like my youngest will continue to be homeschooled as well, but we’re going day by day depending on the state of our county in terms of the pandemic since she’s too young to be vaccinated. Trying to keep up in the fall with everything was almost completely overwhelming. Additionally, we’ll be house hunting this spring to hopefully move in the summer. So my time will not necessarily be going into my blog. August and beyond is a complete mystery. I’m hopeful we’ll be settled into a new home and both kids will be back in the classroom, but, as I always tell my husband, I can’t guarantee anything. All I know is I’m trying to not make any solid plans because far too much is up in the air for me. I’ll be blogging, but probably not 5 days a week, or even 4 or 3. I’ll guarantee the reviews because I feel some serious obligation to publishers and authors to get those up. Everything else is a solid maybe.

I’m also switching gears a bit. Not in terms of the blog, but in terms of what I want out of life. I’ve spent a number of years devoted to my family, so now I’ve decided it’s time for me to do something for me. I’m hoping to start to pursue my dream of becoming a published writer, which, of course, means having a finished manuscript first. I have no intention of publishing Queen of the Garden of Girls or Sisters of String and Glass, at least not any time soon (they’ve been fun writing practice that lets me indulge in my love of fairy tales). But I have a few other mostly written manuscripts and some ideas prodding at me that I’d like to finish and start writing, respectively. So I’ll be turning to my creative writing more, which also means I won’t be writing posts here as often.

In terms of posting Sisters, I’ve decided splitting up each chapter over 5 days was too taxing for my brain. I’ll still be posting a chapter a week (assuming I keep writing enough to do so – the hard part of posting while writing!), but I’ll be breaking it into two parts for Tuesdays and Thursdays.

I could never leave this blog. It’s been the only thing I could truly call mine for the past 4 years. But I do need to take a step or two back just so I can balance everything coming up this year and to get going on my own personal dreams.

Anyone have anything exciting coming up the next couple of months? Any upcoming posts you’re excited to share?

Sincerely, kat

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