Sailor Boy has gone back to work, and, as my father keeps reminding me, if I were at a real job, my maternity leave would be up, so I guess that means that I, as my boss, should be firing me, as my employee, given that my company (i.e., me) does not qualify for FMLA.

But can I, as my boss, decide that my employee, me, can take the full 12 weeks? I think I can. Which gives me four more weeks to ease my enlarged-by-50% office workplace into a new schedule. I know how lucky I’ve been — to have so much help for two whole months (my mom stayed here for the first month after the baby was born), but now I have to figure out how to handle things on my own. This past week I took the baby with me to the grocery store for the first time (she was great!) and she slept all morning while I cleaned the kitchen and prepared for a Thanksgiving dinner.

I wonder if she’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security?

Today, we’re going to the post office and the dry cleaners, and making turkey stock with a leftover turkey carcass. If I’m feeling really good, I may take Rio out for her first walk with just the baby and me (up until now, I’ve either walked her alone or brought someone else to help while I carried the baby).

As for work work, I’m mostly in the daydreaming phase. It’s been a while since I put any words down on paper. I hope to start easing myself back into that this wek as well, starting with getting a print out and reading through my current WIP.

Wish me luck!

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Yesterday I had my first mommy playgroup. And then the whole family went for a walk. And then we hung bird feeders in the backyard. I’m feeling downright suburban, y’all.

For any newcomers to the site, it’s traditional for me to post a spoiler thread for readers to discuss/debate/argue/or ask questions about elements in the novel. From time to time, I might drop by and comment as well. So here’s one for ASCENDANT, albeit a month late.

This is the place to talk about how strange you found it when they discovered that the real secret weapon to unicorn hunting was employing a special breed of gopher*, or how Phil invented that exploding volleyball unicorn bomb**, or how the secret to the Remedy was actually Nutella gelato***.

__________

* Native to Macedonia, natch.
** Patent pending.
*** Delicious and nutritious!

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I can’t believe it’s been an entire month since I’ve updated. Actually, I can. The little snapdragon has been keeping me pretty busy for the last six weeks, and it’s so hard to type one-handed!* I’ve been limited mostly to three a.m. twitter updates from my Droid**. I was talking to Carrie recently, and she was discussing some new thing going on in publishing, and I was all, “Look, if it doesn’t have to do with bouncers or breastfeeding, I am OUT OF THE LOOP.”

Y’all don’t even WANT to know when I heard about the Frey thing.

Other things I have not done: returned any of the three (count ‘em!) contracts I’ve received since October, sent out giveaway prizes, posted the Ascendant spoiler thread (upcoming), dealt with a highly unfortunate oversight in the publication of Ascendant (also forthcoming), visited more than one book store to see my last three releases in the flesh (luckily, there’s a Borders ’round the corner from my house), or seen the film of Morning Glory.

In fact, the only business I’ve done at all in the past month and a half is accepting the aforementioned three new contracts. (Saying yes is apparently the easy part). So you will be seeing at least two short stories from me in new anthologies in 2011, and possibly three (I’m not sure about publication dates for that last one). Which is good, because we’ve also decided to push back publication of the post-apocalyptic Persuasion book to 2012, which has been a major load off my mind, as well as the mind of Sailor Boy, Rio, and I’m sure (though she doesn’t know it yet), the lil’ bit***.

But that’s okay. How long is maternity leave supposed to last if you have a day job? Twelve weeks? (Shut up, Canadians. I know you get twelve months.) I’m only half way through.  I miss it, though. I miss writing. I miss blogging — though if I have any spare time at all, I’m going to use it for writing.

Y’all don’t even want to know how many times i’ve been interrupted in the writing of this blog post.

Anyway, where was I?

Right, giveaway winners. And since I know I have to get these contracts out this week, I am also going to get the other giveaways out, too. I promise. I will enlist Sailor Boy, who is on paternity leave,******* and just do it. Meanwhile:

THE WINNERS OF THE MORNING GLORY GIVEAWAY ARE:

CONNIE ONNIE and LUCIA

And since it’s been a month, I will go ahead and email you because otherwise, I’m sure you’ll never find these things.

Okay. Back to the rugrat. But I’ll be posting this week. I have two more big things to announce.

_______

* I’m seriously considering Dragon-speak, or whatever the Mac equivalent is.

** My Droid, which I’ve named HALey, is one of my must-have baby items. It’s how I keep in touch with family and friends, the internet, and my reading.

*** She doesn’t have an official blog name yet. I was thinking Snapdragon, but SB and SD starts to get confusing. Good thing we have Rio to balance it out.**** And no, I’m not taking suggestions, since I know they’ll all be unicorn-tinged.***** And yes, I’m doing footnotes to footnotes, which not even Amy Haskel has attempted.******

**** Though Rio is Rio’s real name. She also answers to “baby girl” (talk about confusing!), “pretty girl”, “puppy” and “I’m currently opening something that at the very least sounds like a bag of potato chips.” (Seriously, she came running to the sound of a bag of baby wipes the other day.)

***** I’m pleased to see that most of my family and friends avoided the Dodgeball-like impulse they have to make sure every one of my belongings has a unicorn theme when it came to baby items. Her nursery is NOT unicorn-themed. She only has two unicorn items: a really freaky rattle that Carrie found (it’s anthropomorphic, and I know it’s just the latest volley in our ZvU smackdown), and a cutey-patootie pair of unicorn pajamas from my sister in law.

****** Wow, I almost forget her last name for a second there. My Amy! Baby brain is totally real.

******* For any of you still laboring under the delusion that SB is my gay roommate — I know you’re out there. Is it the nickname?

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