Trying to get back to normal

Or at least, normal for me.

I intend to get back to my regular Mon/Thurs blogging schedule starting today. Of course, I am also on serious deadline for the third Demons book, but I do intend to try. (I did tell y'all we had a deal for the third Demons book, didn't I? Because, um, we do. But I'm pretty sure I mentioned it already.)

We've had a pretty eventful few weeks, we have. Being in Miami again was...interesting. Good, but strange. It felt weird to be Just Visiting in a place where we'd lived for so long. At the same time it was awesome to drive around and know exactly where we were at all times, and to go to all our old haunts--or most of them, anyway, as to our horror we found a restaurant we used to visit weekly had closed. We made up for it with countless Target visits. :-)

We were offered the opportunity to stay in Miami, in fact. And oh, how we considered it. Time softened the edges of our old hatred for South Florida; that happened before we returned to the US. A while ago we watched "Stephen Fry's America," which was a really good BBC special in which Stephen Fry drove around the US in a converted old-style English taxi. Good show. He drove down to Miami, and it was hysterical, actually; a minute-long shot of him behind the wheel with his lip curled, saying "Well, this is just...horrible. It's all gray and awful, the people are terrible, this is a hellhole." Hubs and I laughed, but...yeah, maybe Miami is a hellhole, but it was OUR hellhole, and being away from it for so long made us realize that deep down we love the place. Really, truly love it, hurricanes, flying hand-sized roaches, and all.

But sadly, that doesn't mean it's the best place for us to live at the moment. Rents and the cost of living in general are very high, so high it would have made life difficult. The schools aren't the greatest--or rather, they aren't in the areas we could afford to live in--and that is obviously a big concern when e have two little ones. The friends and family we have down there are all planning on getting out, and in one case did while we were down there; a great pal of ours had a fantastic opportunity in another place, and took it, and the timing just happened to be such that we only got to see him twice before he left.

We also got to go to the Mai Kai, which is this huge awesome Polynesian restaurant with killer cocktails. They do a live show, too, but we'd seen it already so didn't watch. We just ate and drank and had a great time.

But the point is, much as we've realized we love South Florida, it just doesn't feel like the right place for us now. We said we'd give Atlanta a try and we decided we need to stick to that. So here we are. With our fingers crossed that we didn't just shoot ourselves in the foot.

I am also now using a Mac. Interesting. I like it so far. :-)

Also, we saw STAR TREK. OMG fucking awesome. Seriously. If you haven't seen it you need to go. NOW. In fact, I'll go with you, as we're already scheming when we get to see it again. I honestly can't remember the last time I had that much fun at a movie. And I've seen enough TREK that I caught all the inside jokes, I believe, but even if I hadn't or didn't I would still have had a blast. The funny thing is, the movie had what I always thought was missing from the original series and most of the later ones (with the exception of DS9, which is my favorite of the series): sex and humor. They were both in the film. Yay! (Yes, I know all the series had their sex/humor moments. But not enough for me.)

Also at the theater, in addition to my large popcorn (OMGpopcornhowImissedyourdeliciousness) we tried those new mini Hershey's Kisses, the candy-coated ones? Delicious!

I realize this post doesn't really offer a lot of value, and I apologize. But hopefully we'll be back on track soon.

Oh, and just to give some kind of writing-related info, I have also done the following in the last couple of weeks:

1. Reviewed galleys for DEMON INSIDE (second Demons book)

2. Reviewed galleys for UNHOLY GHOSTS (first Downside book)

3. Completed first editor-led revision on CITY OF GHOSTS (Third Downside book). Still needs some fine-tuning before I hand it back in but in general I'm happy with it. Word count at the moment is around 109k; I anticipate it will stay around there.

4. Started DEMON POSSESSED (Third Demons book).