Picking Up Where I Left Off

I told you so!  When I'm not sitting around languishing from chemo or surgery all the time, I don't get around to blogging like I should.  Sorry if you've been waiting anxiously for news. ;-)

I have only 2 herceptin (mild chemo) treatments left, then I'm really done with chemo and all things resembling it.  (Hurray!)  I guess you could say I will soon be liberated from the Borg (see some of my earliest posts).  My most recent treatment was last Monday.  It went well.  I haven't had any problems with my port for awhile, so that's a blessing.

On Thursday, I started working for Steve as his secretary and office manager.  It was different, going to a real job outside my home, but I found to my surprise that I enjoyed it.  I like getting things done for him so that he can work more efficiently.

Yesterday, we finished our bedroom remodeling project.  We have yet to move several pieces of furniture and sundry belongings, but the girls slept in their own rooms last night.  I think everybody is happy with the new arrangement!

Here, the walls are going up.  You can see the completed mermaid in the background.

Really jazzed about the hot pink in her new room!  OK.  She's hamming it up . . . just a little.

Diamonds are a girl's best friend.

I did the dolphins, but she painted the coral and several of the fish herself.

For the last month (since my last post, in fact), I've been rewriting my novel.  I guess being away from it for nearly a year helped me see some of the flaws more clearly, and I decided I'd better fix them.  There were some big issues (like going from first person point of view to third), so it required a complete rewrite.  I got the first draft finished last week, and now I'm polishing it up.  I gave myself a deadline by signing up to pitch the book to an editor from Shadow Mountain at a conference this coming weekend.  The rewrite won't be finished, but I hope I'll at least have the first 3 chapters polished to show off.

Sometimes I wonder if I've gone crazy, diving into a pitch like this when the book is in the middle of a rewrite--but I think I just really needed to pick up my life where I left off, one year ago.  The conference I will attend (Life, the Universe, and Everything) is the same conference I went to last year the very weekend I found a lump in my breast that turned out to be cancer.  In a sense, I've lost a year of my life, at least as far as progressing in my career goes.

However--as my mother-in-law pointed out to me recently--a year is really not that much, in the grand scheme of things.  Besides that, I've progressed in so many other ways.  I feel like I'm a much better person for the experiences I've had this year.  I know I'm a stronger person.  Pitching to an editor terrifies me as much as it did before cancer, but I have the scars to prove that I can do tough things.

(Not that this editor is tough: I've heard that she is kind and easy to talk to.  In spite of jitters, I'm looking forward to meeting her because I'm a fan of not only all the books she's edited, but also those she wrote herself.  So, there will be just a touch of hero-worship in there.  ;-)

Shameless plug: This is a great read for those who like time travel romance!