Or at least part of it.

Today we got new tattoos:

Mine – Right below the back of my neck, with Biker Dude’s name in the heart.

And his, on his right shoulder (it’s an eagle):

More on our vacation when I’m officially back on Monday. :giggle:

For the first time in…well, longer than I can recall, I’m at a resting point in my work. I can take a few minutes to relax. I’m not in deadline hell. There aren’t projects breathing down my neck to be finished now now now (I do have a novella to write, but I’ve got that covered. I started it this week and intend to finish it after vacation.)

It’s a strange place that I haven’t been to in a very long time. On the one hand it’s absolutely terrifying, because it means I’m currently out of contract with my two NY publishers. Out of contract means you’ve finished all the work owed under contract, which basically means I’m officially unemployed, though of course all the work I just turned in will still have to go through revisions, copyedits, galleys, and then release. So it’s not like I won’t have anything to do. But right now, I’m not under the gun, and for the past several years, I have been.

I did just turn in a proposal to my agent, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed I’ll be under contract again very soon. In the meantime, I’ve had a chance to take a step back and do some dreaded housekeeping. Not the kind where you vacuum and dust and clean the bathrooms, though lord knows I need to do that, too. (I tend to avoid that kind of housecleaning like Ebola).

The housecleaning I’m talking about is organizational as it relates to my business. My desk was an omg mess. Papers piled a foot high all over the desk. You couldn’t even see the monitor. It was getting ugly. But I’ve been so busy that all I had time to do was just toss more crap onto the pile.

So this week I actually had time to tackle the mounds of paperwork and books and magazines and articles and galleys and whatever else had managed to swarm across my desk. I cleaned and purged and filed, and then when it was all cleared off, I dusted *cough*. The dust bunnies were fierce competitors, but in the end, I won.

Trust me, it won’t look like this for long. (You would appreciate that picture so much more if you’d seen the before pic :giggle: )

Now I guess I’ll have to deal with the laundry. Bleh.