Apologies for the silence!

In light of my lack of blog posts over the last week, several readers have expressed concern. Are we okay?

Yep, we're fine. Just busy. Here's what's been happening in the last two weeks.

I finally got my next six-book contract with Harlequin. This is wonderful news, but it also means I have a proposal (synopsis + three chapters) due October 1. I'm (ahem) bookin' on that!

My latest book, "Uncovering her Amish Past," is currently available. I don't keep track of release dates and somehow they always catch me by surprise.

A friend was in Walmart recently and took a photo of the available books, which included mine.

Next, I've been working extra days with my online job, covering for coworkers. This means I'm often working 10 to 14 days at a stretch with maybe one day off. It's extra work, yes; but it's also extra income, always welcome.

Then, to top it off, I've been canning blueberries and peaches.

All this, dear readers, accounts for the blog silence. I've been slowly working on documenting the rest of the Montana road trip we took earlier this month, and have just been too busy to get anything up.

To those who have expressed concern, thank you! And no worries, we're all fine. Just ... busy.

Sorry for the silence!

Sorry for the silence, dear readers. It's been an intense two weeks of work.

Normally I work three days a week at my online job. However for the last two weeks, I've been covering for an absent coworker. I've had two days off in the last fifteen days, and ten of those days have been without a break. I normally work 12-hour days, so it's been intense.

I'll be all finished Saturday night and intend to have a glass of wine to celebrate. I'll get back to more regular blogging after that.

Apologies for the silence

It's been one of those weeks where we were just very, very busy -- house guests, potluck, deadlines, taxes, interviews ... everything added up and the blog got neglected. Sorry!

Oops!

So I just clicked "approve" on a reader's comment -- and then couldn't find it on the post. Turns out Blogger had shuffled it into spam.

I went into my blog's spam file and found the reader's comment -- as well as a whole bunch of other comments I had never seen and certainly had no intent of filing as spam.

To anyone who kindly posted a comment at some time in the past and then were puzzled when they never appeared, I beg your pardon. I had no idea Blogger would automatically shuffle comments into spam; I thought all comments, even those which clearly are spam, came through for my approval.

Guess I'll start checking my spam folder more often.

I owe everyone an apology

In my post from a few days ago entitled "Forgive our Messy House," several readers quite rightfully took exception to a dig I made at the end of the post concerning homeliness (in the cozy, domestic sense of the word) of large, beautiful houses. The implication was newer, beautifully decorated houses cannot be homely.

The point I tried (but failed) to make is the difference between a HOUSE and a HOME. A house can be large or small, old or new, clean or messy. A home can be all those things as well – but includes the critical and distinguishing factors of love and a practicing of the domestic arts.

We have an enormous – over 8000 square feet – luxury house in our immediate neighborhood, and at no time has it ever been anything but a home. The former owners hosted parties, weddings, potlucks, get-togethers, and even canning classes.

The lights from all the lit bedrooms during holidays (Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.) when the house was filled to capacity with extended family looked like Brandybuck Hall from the Lord of the Rings – warm and welcoming and cozy, despite the size of the structure.

This is a classic example where a house and a home intersect.

So please accept my apologies to those who make their large, newer houses into homes – places of domestic joy for friends and family. The wording in my post was clumsy and accusatory, and it was not my intent to be insulting to those who work hard to make a home out of a house – no matter what size or age it is.

We are experiencing technical difficulties. Please stand by.

The technical difficulty we're experiencing is the stomach flu, which we're passing around and around. Last night was my turn. Gotta get my WND column finished and then I'm heading for bed.

Poor Lydia had no idea why we kept darting into the bathroom and yelling (retching) at the toilet. One confused dog!

Busy as a beaver

Oh my goodness I've had a busy day.

It started with an hour long conversation with a Public Relations specialist in Tennessee who was hired by WorldNetDaily to help promote my book (as well as a few others). She's a sharp, energetic, go-gettum woman and I look forward to working with her.

Next we had our bull butchered. More on that later.

Next we had to dash to town so the kids could do their volunteer work at the animal shelter. While they did that, I wrote up the talk I'm giving tomorrow in Coeur d'Alene, where I'm conducting a four-hour workshop on a variety of writing issues.

Next we attended our homeschooling group. I excused myself and spent much of the time being unsociable while I finished writing my talk.

Home, then out the door to do a workout at our local health club.

Home, then muck out the barn and do the evening chores.

Dinner, household tasks, finish up the talk, print out all my handouts, pull together all my display items, etc.

I'll be up at 5 am tomorrow finishing up the workshop material and hauling the kids out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6:30 so we can be in Coeur d'Alene by 8 am (where they'll be staying with their grandparents while I'm at the workshop).

Pant pant wheeze gasp. That's why I've been so silent all day. That's why I haven't had a chance to post all the wonderful links folks have been sending.

Please be patient, I'll be human again tomorrow evening!

Meanwhile, here's a couple of news articles I found interesting.

One is how Australian women in urban areas are having trouble finding eligible men, so tours are being set up for urban women to meet rural men. "A dating agency has started sending busloads of single women out to country towns, where the ratio of men to women is far more favourable. The weekend tours, named Thank Goodness He's A Country Boy, involve eight hours of intensive speed dating at a country pub, where lonely farmers are introduced to single city girls."

The second article which caught my eye was how summer camps are now being set up on farms so urban kids can get a taste of farm life. The article is by Time Magazine and is condescendingly titled, "Farm Camp: Would You Pay $460 to Shovel Crap?" (Which pretty much sums up what Time Magazine thinks of farmers, I'd say.)

"That blog is still busy; will you hold till Monday?"

Back in the mid-1980's I spent a couple years working as a receptionist and legal secretary in a law firm. Have you ever noticed how law firms never have nice easy names like "Smith, Brown and Jones?" The one I worked in -- no kidding -- had the ponderous handle of "Laugenour, Johanson & Robinson." Try saying that fifty times a day on the telephone.

Anyway, sometimes the phones were pretty crazy; and so one year for Christmas one of my coworkers gave me a mug that said, "That line is still busy; will you hold till Monday?"

I thought it was hilarious because it expressed how I so often felt. (That's why I still have the mug after all these years.)

Well, that's how I've been feeling this week as I remain immersed in taxes.

I've been putting everything else on hold while I crunch numbers. I don't use Quickbooks or any other computer program (I hate them!) so everything is done by hand.

But I'm making progress. Excellent progress. In fact, I should be done by tomorrow. Then I can re-emerge to join the living and might even answer some calls... er, emails.

Please stand by.......

Another one bites the dust

Among the many projects I've been finishing up in the last two weeks, another one bites the dust today.

Last year I was contracted to revise a book entitled How to Start a Home-Based Craft Business, by a fellow named Kenn Oberrecht. Mr. Oberrecht had gone through five revisions of this book and wasn't interested in doing it again, even though the book was badly out-of-date (understandably and most notably in the section on computers and their usage in a craft business). Because of my experience helping run a home-based crafts business -- as well as being a freelance writer -- I was contacted and then contracted to revise the book for a flat fee (no royalties).

It was actually rather a delightful project with many fine editors. I am just now reviewing the final pdf before it goes to press.

Last week's projects included a magazine article and a column (both due Friday) as well as finishing up the layout for the quarterly Dexter magazine:

This week will be entirely devoted to taxes (insert groan). Our appointment with the accountant is on Friday and I have not -- quite literally -- even begun to work on them (insert double groan).

At this point I would like to apologize to everyone whose emails I have NOT answered. They're piling up, and they're likely to pile up even more this week. I'll get to them, I promise!

(singing) I'm sorrrrry, so sorrrrry....please accept my apologeeee....

Remember the Brenda Lee song I'm Sorry? Well, that's how I feel about the tons of unanswered emails I have piled up in my inbox. I'm up to about a hundred emails a day (a lot of spam, a lot of generic announcements, as well as a lot of personal emails), and in the last week I've been overwhelmed by farm duties, writing obligations, blog updates, schoolwork, run-around stuff (music and sports), household obligations, and all the other things your typical rural housewife deals with.

Right after posting this, I'm off. Music, animal shelter, a homeschooling group meeting, a family workout at the local health club, dinner...I probably won't have a chance to sit down at my computer again until about 8 pm tonight - when I'll have another eighty or ninety emails to download!

So for all the kind, concerned, helpful folks who took the time to send me an email, please accept my apology for not replying! Yet! I'll get to them eventually, but meanwhile I don't want anyone thinking I'm brushing them off or refusing to reply.

Dexter affairs

Sorry for the silence! I've been slammed with multiple deadlines this week. I had my usual column due last Friday, another one due next Friday, an article due this morning for Crafts Report Magazine, and I had an (ahem) exciting mystery surprise also due last Friday (I won't report yet what it is, but keep your fingers crossed - it could be good news).

But my biggest shindig at the moment is putting the finishing touches on the layout for a quarterly magazine I do for the Purebred Dexter Cattle Association. This is a big issue, sixty pages. It was technically due today but I'm not quite finished.

Those are our cattle on the front cover. I took the picture two winters ago when we were still baling round instead of square bales. The bales look enormous but that's only because they're up close. In reality they're only about five feet high.

I'm baaaaAAAAaaack....

Well, yesterday was it. We shipped the last of the boxes to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, thus marking the Official End of our busy season, as well as the Official End of most of our income until next April or so. But that's okay - we're used to living with income that fluctuates wildly. Seasonable businesses train you to be frugal in the extreme, and we'll be fine until things pick up in the spring.

I have a boatload of stuff backed up which I've been wanting to post on the blog, and I'll get to it as time permits in the next few days.

(big sigh of relief) Man it's good to be back!

Sorry for the silence

We're having a loopy week since this is the last push before the end of the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. Yesterday we worked a thirteen hour day and tumbled into bed exhausted. I have tons of stuff to post here on the blog but no time in which to do it.

Stand by...and thanks for being patient.

Sorry for the silence!

Bet a bunch o' you have been wondering if I dropped off the face of the earth. Sorry about that!

I was on a business trip that lasted from early (as in, 4 am) Wednesday morning (7/22) and lasted until late Wednesday (7/29) night. I needed to go to Portland (Oregon), a nine-hour drive. It wasn't until I was about three hours away from home that I remembered I hadn't put anything on my blog. No internet access for the duration, of course. So I say again, sorry for the silence.

I had 325+ emails waiting for me when I got home. I still have 175 to get through. I have houseguests coming in tomorrow. I have a sick dog. Been a busy week.

I'll post some photos of the trip when I have a breather. In the meantime, thanks for your patience!