1. Well, I'm no longer in Japan. I had already been planning on taking a one-week vacation in October to go to my friend's wedding, but when I got a phone call that my grandmother passed away, I went home a week earlier. And I've been here ever since for various reasons.
2. With my grandmother's passing I finally acquired a dining room table set. This is a pretty big deal for me since I've never had one of my own. At the last apartment my husband and I had during college, our dining room was more of place to keep all our bookshelves.
3. My friend's wedding was interesting. It was sad because I wasn't able to go to it with my husband, since he is still in Japan, but my friend was happy that I could make it.
4. With staying here for two months and counting, I finally decided I really needed to get a job. I've had a couple interviews and am waiting to hear back. But I've definitely been enjoying my time not needing to work.
5. Part of why I wasn't really motivated to get a job was that November was National Novel Writing Month. This was my third year participating, and my second year not getting to the 50,000 word mark. But I don't care. I absolutely love the book I started in November, and am anxious to finish it in December.
6. In addition, my husband is coming back around December 20th. So we're both pretty excited to be together again. Though it won't be for long since he'll need to go back to Japan in early January. But he'll be coming back again sometime in March.
7. Lastly, my husband challenged me to have a book ready to submit by the end of the year. Of course logic says I should go back to Kitsu's book and wade through the massive amounts of rewrites I have for that, but my heart is telling me to work on the new story I started in November.
8. The new story is called Wolf Eyes. It's a teen werewolf romance about a girl named Nisus Asano and the boy she likes. I'll try to post more info about this story later.
9. I'm also trying to get my husband and I ready to go to grad school, starting August 2009.
All things considered, I should be staying pretty busy for the holidays.
