Well it’s been a while, but then it always is with me (grimace). Life has been terribly chaotic for the last several years. I keep hoping that will change soon, and finally I think it might. I have arranged my deadlines in a way I hope gives me more time.  We shall find out by fall if it works. 

In the meantime, we have settled into the new house which was quite a chore. Just filling it with furniture was a task and a half. Unfortunately, a lot of our furniture in our lovely old Victorian house was antique, so when the buyers asked if they could purchase some things we said yes. The new house is more contemporary in style and the furniture wouldn’t have suited it. But that meant we got here with a lot less furniture than we had before. That was kind of good in a way, this house is actually smaller in some ways than the old one. There are only three bedrooms not five and so on . . . Although we have the two offices instead of bedrooms . . .  hmm. . .   Anyway, we had to buy a lot of things when we got here. Bedroom sets, the office furniture for both offices, living room furniture for the upper sitting area, etc. We also had to have blinds put into my office and Terri’s to discourage Mr. Spice from spooking me by staring in the windows at me at night when I couldn’t see him and then coming in to tell me so. That was kinda freaky if you ask me. Made me paranoid he was standing out there looking in all the time.  Ah well.

Amid the madness of furniture shopping, delivery, return of furniture (because we seemed to always have the wrong furniture show up, or have it show up late, or show up damaged. Seriously, I was starting to think we were cursed. For a while there it seemed like every delivery was a screw up of some variety or another). Then there were the various installation guys coming and going, as well as problems with our email provider, internet provider and so on (you know it never rains but it pours. I swear Terri and I spent two weeks straight just dealing with phone calls trying to straighten out the internet and email issues) On top of all that, we also had a death in the family, my lovely Gran. She was a sweetie and feisty as they come, fighting the cancer to the bitter end. It was hard as hell to watch knowing you couldn’t do a damned thing to help her and it took me right back to my mother’s death fifteen years ago. 

Right, so, to change that depressing subject, following shortly on the heels of all that chaos and the tragic loss of Gran was the scramble to get everything set for the RWA conference in Washington.  Apparently I maybe ran myself a little ragged. Too much stress for too long maybe, wore down the old immune system and the Monday night before we were to leave for the RWA I landed in hospital emergency with pneumonia. It came on quite suddenly. Sunday I woke up with burning irritated sinuses thinking allergies were acting up or some such thing, then Monday I woke feeling not too well, still I had running to do for the conference and appointments as well, so headed out, but by the time I returned a little after 5:30 I felt like a train had hit me. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed, but Terri and Dave took one look at me and put their heads together and the next thing I knew I was on the way to emergency. The diagnosis was pneumonia with spasming lungs and bronchi adding to my inability to breathe and the bluish look that had Terri suggesting Dave take me straight to the hospital.  We left the hospital shortly before midnight with half a dozen prescriptions and permission to attend RWA so long as I took it easy and got to a doctor at once if I encountered trouble breathing. etc..

Yes, I went to RWA with pneumonia. Not the contagious kind, a lung infection. However, the first day there Terri came down with strep throat and the two of us were a pitiful pair, lol. I’ve never been so happy to see the end of a trip, but I got home about as sick as I’d been when I left. It’s been bed rest since then with the threat of a return to the doc’s if I didn’t, so I spent a week banned from the computer and going crazy with nothing to do but relax, lol.  I don’t relax well. Haven’t done it in so long, it’s like a form of torture. Or at least it was at first, after the first couple of days I started reading though and it got better. Now I’m doing much better, still have a bit of a cough and runny nose, but otherwise fine.  So I thought I’d start on emails. . . WELL . . . I’ve got a lot recently pointing out that I have never posted pics of the new house, that the pics of the new old house were still there from three years ago, but none of our new home in the country, so I’ve come to post this and put them up.

Right now I have pics mostly of the offices (mine and Terri’s) and the little seating area outside our offices and the views from them.  I shall endeavour to take pics of the rest of the house and get them us as well soon.  In the meantime, this is a start.  By the way, we just love the new house. Having actual offices to work in is lovely and it is so peaceful and quiet out here. There are wild bunnies our at all hours of the day munching on grass, chipmunks everywhere and quite often around dusk a family of deers charge across the lawn headed for the woods. Then there are voles, moles and raccoons as well as an array of quite the loveliest birds I’ve ever seen.  There are Cardinals and Blue jays as we had in town, as well as hummingbirds, orioles and other birds we haven’t identified yet but all seem to have lovely plumage.

So, here’s a pic of my office. No it’s not usually this clean. At the moment my desk has about a gazillion things on it.

This next pic shows a little more of the office 

This is the view from the sliding glass doors in my office. I love looking out at the hanging baskets of red flowers. It always cheers me

These next two are my view from my desk window behind my computer. 

This is the right side of the office. I think it’s a bit blurry, sorry.  The French doors with the copper colored blinds in the back left corner of the pic lead into Terri’s office and the rest of the house.

Ugh, this is the more healthy office equipment. Yes, I’m trying to incorporate more time on healthy pursuits. Actually, that’s a portable I have there on the treadmill, I’m hoping to be able to type while walking so that I don’t just drop using the treadmill when under the pressure of deadlines.

This is Terri’s office from my french doors. You’ll notice she’s hard at work. (Grin)

Terri is my assistant. She is also my sister and hates getting her pics taken as much as I do, but I just had to show you how relaxed she is at work. Doesn’t she have cute toes? LOL. Seriously, she says she likes her job, but the fact is she’s a joy to work with.

This is the Immortal Hunter poster. It was made for a conference and then my editor kindly sent it to us to do what we wanted with it. Terri likes it in her office. I’ve told her she doesn’t have to hang it there if she’s tired of it, but she said she liked coming into work to his handsome face every day so . . . shrug

The long hall to the rest of the house. It really is quite a distance, you can see the entrance to it in the pic above beside the blue boy there and it’s about two rooms long. Twenty-seven or thirty feet or something. It’s kind of the adjustment place, I shed my work worries as I walk up that hall to enter the rest of the house.

So enough about the offices, now come the views outside. We have a table and chairs set up outside the outer entrance to both my and Terri’s office and believe me we use it. Sometimes we have lunch out there, but most of the time so far it has come in handy when we were having all those troubles with the internet and email and trips to the hospital to visit Gran and so on. Both of us would be about ready to start shrieking and yanking out hanks of hair after arguing on the phone for several hours with someone and then one or the other would say “Outside!” and we’d rush outside and plop on the chairs and just listen to the little pond and the birdsong and rustle of trees and look at everything and calm down enough to head back in. We both love that spot. So here they are for your enjoyment, the views of and from our little break area outside. Sometimes that includes Mr. Spice on his nifty riding lawn mower.

So that’s it from me for now. I shall be back soon with pics of the rest of the house

Hope you’re all well

Lynsay