Happy New Year!

Hope your celebrations were fun and safe. We stayed up until midnight, said Happy New Year, and went to bed. My parents were in bed much earlier, my mom sicker than a dog (having caught a bug from my dad who is now over it — I wonder if we're next).

We drank our wine earlier in the evening, with dinner, and toasted friends, family, the coming year, and our lost kitties. Miss Kitty passed on New Year's Eve 2004. Thumper joined her on Dec 26, 2006.

It is indeed a brave new year for us. We've transitioned from the military to civilian life, from the tropics to the South, from living thousands of miles away from family to living in the same house. It's been amazing.

What does the new year hold? Hopefully, new opportunities — a fulfilling career for Mike, a lot of writing and submitting for me, a new home, and continuing good health.

I don't usually make specific resolutions, so I suppose I won't start now. I intend to write more, to submit my work, to attend chapter meetings, to go to my first conference, to work harder and become more focused on my goals of publication. 2007 is the year to put up or shut up. I don't have to get a contract, but I should at least have some rejections to show for my trouble. This is the year I submit my work. No more letting time get away, no more saying I'll do it later or I need to make things perfect first. Write, submit, repeat.

How about you? (Photo courtesy of bigfoto.com)

Happy Birthday!

To my husband, whose big day is today. I cannot tell his age, or he might yank my internet cord. 🙂

Still working on the blog, still adjusting to Bama, still frowning at commercials featuring ocean, surfing, and people in shorts.

Here we are, giving the shaka, from Monte Sano in Huntsville. Pretty, isn't it?

Updating can be a pain….

Okay, so you can tell I'm fiddling again. I switched to the new Blogger, so we'll see what happens. If I was linking to you previously, I will do so again! It's just going to take me a little bit of time to figure this all out, so don't worry, I'll get your link back up soon. 🙂

Aloha, Mele Kalikimaka, and bye y'all. 🙂

Aloha y’all

I owe some emails, I know, but I'm finally beginning to emerge from moving hell and I wanted to pop in here with a post to that effect. I have missed blogging! I have missed everyone! I have missed writing!

The hard parts of the move are done for now, but there's more hard stuff to come in the future (job, house, unpacking, etc). We are in Alabama, experiencing Southern hospitality and wonderful food, enjoying the company of family, and finding the weather isn't all that bad after all. My feet are a bit miffed about having to wear shoes, but I'll adapt. 🙂 I've even managed to wear my flip flops a couple of times since being here (see, weather not bad).

I miss Hawaii, but not as badly as I thought I might. It's a great place, but it's small and after awhile the adventure factor drops to nil. Here, we've got so much to explore and experience that it's almost overwhelming. Like driving to Atlanta to get our car a couple of weeks ago. It was simply amazing to be able to drive so far in one direction on highways without tons of traffic (until Atlanta, of course, where the traffic became very thick; oh, and Birmingham, where the drivers all seem to be in training for Talladega).

My goals in the next couple of weeks are to get this blog back into shape, start working on my manuscript again, get in touch with the people who emailed me about critiquing (hope y'all still want to critique!), and just generally get back in touch with the writerly things I love to do. So look for updates to my profile and maybe a template and name change. 🙂

How about you? What have you been doing to get ready for the holidays? I love this time of year, whether I'm in the tropics or in a place where the grass is brown and the trees have no leaves (but it isn't cold, hallelujah!). It's about beginnings to me, starting a new year fresh, with new goals and plans and opportunities to accomplish dreams. So I'm really looking forward to a fresh start and having 2007 be the year I get some things done that I've wanted to do. I'm also looking forward to joining a new RWA chapter and meeting new friends, as well as keeping in touch with old friends and sharing in their writers' journeys.

Aloha and Mele Kalikimaka!

One More Week

Almost out of here! Life has been crazy — the movers have come and gone, the house is empty, and we're counting down the days. Romancing Paradise is about to become Romancing the South, or some such thing. Not sure yet what to do with the title. I guess paradise is where you make it, so maybe I'll keep the name.

The writing has been non-existent lately. Too much to do and too much upheaval going on. But I will get back to it soon. I am ready for things to settle down again. I'm tired and cranky and irritated quite a bit lately, but it will pass.

Much aloha to you in the approaching season. I hope to be back to blogging soon. 🙂

We’re okay!

This is just a quick post to say we're okay here in Honolulu! We've had power outages, intermittent phone service, and a surreal experience here today. The Big Island got the worst of it, but we were definitely awakened by the quake. Felt like someone had picked up our bed and started shaking it. Services are slowly coming back, though I'm at a friend's house who has power to write this. We still do not have power, and we're about a quarter mile from his house.

It's amazing how much you rely on cell phones and electricity. You really realize it when it's gone.

Aloha nui loa and mahalo for asking about us!