While I was gone....

Hear ye, Hear ye! It's over. The book is done. The files are burned to 3 DVDs and have been
delivered to the publisher. Done, done, done. My apologies to all of you who had to listen to me complain endlessly, or worse, to Bob talk endlessy about the characters of the book. We're done. Now life can begin again. I can arise in the morning and make plans, go to the store, shop, cook, make grandkid movies, read, and EXERCISE! Five pounds, maybe more if I were to be honest with myself but I won't go near a scale now. It doesn't matter what my measly 2.5 percent royalty is for designing the book (way less, by the way, than Bob's author royalty - now how does that work? He busted his ass, no argument, but if time is the measure, mine sat at the computer 7x24....with only Cheez-its for nourishment!). OK, done. Really.

There's lots to catch up on and most of it is wonderful. Joys that I had that kept me smiling throughout these past months. Things I wanted to post but was too busy to get to. Here they are in no particular order:





We made a grandchild's dream come true 2 weeks ago when Bob found a group of people who run dogsleds in the Pine Barrens. Casey (age 8) is enthralled with the movie "Balto" the story about the dog who led the team that delivered serum to Nome, Alaska and thus saved the children from diptheria (or some like disease). We surprised her with her very
own opportunity to 'mush"and a video for posterity. We love days like this.








I granted myself a few leaves during the past several
months and one of the best was my annual Halloween
visit to Pleasantville. I still chuckle when I think of
how little Zoe tailed the Monster throughout the entire at parade at Lissa's company party. She had no fear of the
gentle giant (a wierd looking company mascot, but hey,
it's a new world); nor did she have any fear on our
December visit when she basically introduced her
Pop Pop to the big man in the red and white suit.
Her mother insisted that we let Zoe unwrap her
gift before the big day, and that, too, was a joy to
watch since we would have to be apart on Christmas
day.




Helping Cindy take care of Gram has been the biggest part of my non-book life these past months. We got this close to putting her in a memory unit of a local assisted living facility
when fate intervened. Just at the same time and unexplainedly (is that a word?), her
memory improved somewhat and we are enjoying the respite for however long. We managed to get all six great-grandchildren around her at Christmas. This is not the best of the pictures and not the one I framed for her, but I really love this one.

















During this time Helayna learned how to ride her two-wheeler and subsequently lost her second front tooth right after Christmas. It dangled for weeks in her mouth and then, as she tells me, she awoke one morning and it was gone. Bob was disappointed as he was planning to tie it to the motorhome in Florida and pull it out on his own!