Because we're cute!

About a month ago, we (finally!) got some new family photos. Huzzah!

There's this whole big story about the perfect outfits that I gathered and how they each perfectly represented each of our family and yet still managed to coordinate appropriately and actually work together and how it was going to be amazing and how that plan went out the window when I procrastinated and it got cold and all of those outfits were actually summer outfits and then I had to try again to find things we would all wear and sort of coordinate and then how I just gave up and tried not to have a nervous breakdown about it and then it got even colder for the day of the photos and how I really don't like that pink zipper in the pictures ... but I won't bother you with that story.

Instead, I'll just show you some cute pictures! We have about a gazillion, so it was hard to choose what to share, so I'll just post a few of my very favorites, including an individual shot of everyone. Aaaaaannnndddd...

[And it turns out that my baby woke up, so computer time is over, so you'll just have to start with the pics I've got so far, our individual shots! Enjoy!]

Not Off the Face of the Planet

Contrary to public evidence on this blog, we are not dead. We have not fallen in any black holes recently. My fingers have not been chewed off by rabid squirrels. There is only one key missing from my computer keyboard (the “s”), and it is still possible to type without it. So essentially life has, in fact, been continuing along for our little family. You just haven’t been hearing about it.

We’ve actually been up to excessive amounts of stuff. We’re talking big stuff here, people. Coriel has been going to preschool. Addra is learning to say important words like “money” and “shoes” and “banana.” Brice has been going to work conferences and schmoozing. I have been alternately working on my novel and panicking because I’m not working on my novel. We’ve been avoiding weeding our garden. We’ve been traveling—to Utah, to Guatemala, to Texas (that last one was just Brice). We’ve even been doing laundry!

I’d like to say that I will neatly arrange everything into well-organized and chronological blog posts for you to see and read about. But that would be a lie. If I do that, I will never EVER get any of it written. So here’s what we’re gonna do instead: I’m going to randomly write up bits and pieces of our last few weeks, with little to no order or sense to it. And I will post it whenever I feel like it. You can love it or hate it or ignore it.

So there.

And just to prove exactly how randomly all of this blog posting is going to take place,
I'll start with this picture. Pongo and Perdita out on a date.

Coriel being fancy. Again.

If you can't tell, Addra is wearing at least three outfits here. Coriel helped her dress.

Writing Avoidance

First, may I simply say, “ugh”? Over the past few months, particularly as I have been planning to really buckle down and work on rewriting my retelling of Beauty and the Beast (2008’s NaNoWriMo effort), I have begun to truly fine-tune my procrastination skills.

Have you ever noticed how many incredibly fascinating blogs there are out there? Blogs that you never knew you missed before, but now that you’ve discovered them, you cannot live without them? Um, yes, well, I have. Also, isn’t it just possible that someone posted something incredibly fascinating on Facebook in the 20 minutes since you last checked it? (I’m exceedingly embarrassed by this growing tendency to compulsively check Facebook—I used to be among the Facebook mockers, and now I am one of the mockees.)

In case you were wondering about exactly what I’m avoiding, here it is: My goal for writing in 2012, in a gazillion complicated steps. Rewrite B&B draft 1. Go through set of alpha readers (friends/colleagues/etc. who read and comment). Rewrite again. Go through another set of readers. Rewrite again. Finish up in time to plan and participate in NaNoWriMo.

Insane, yes?

It should be noticed that I’m already waaaaay behind and revising my plans. The above was my original plan, but now it’s more like this: Finish writing B&B draft 1. Revise it extensively until it makes sense. Revise it some more. Maybe show it to Brice. Revise it some more. Then get some other readers. Try to frantically revise it. Then off to NaNoWriMo. Still insane, but maybe possible?

Anyway, this writing avoidance thing has been expanding to include the blog. Blech. (Is there a hidden meaning in the fact that “blog” and “blech” are so vocally similar?) And now I have a stack—I mean really a stack—of things I’ve been meaning to blog about. So many it’s a little ridiculous. Pretty soon I might just have to start posting fragments of this ridiculousness. Or just scrap them all. Or throw them in a blender and then post what comes out.

On the upside, though, the writing avoidance has been slowing down. I’m actually on a 2.5-week streak of writing at least a little bit each day. Granted, yes, some of the days were kind of pathetic, some were not on my novel (like the Sundays when I worked on my blog instead), and some were just random. And, well, yesterday I added exactly 17 words to my manuscript.

But, hey, at least I wrote, right?

What are you avoiding today?