I'm almost scared to say it out loud, because what if Kristy changes her mind or maybe she made a mistake and sent me the wrong letter, but I'll take a deep breath and whooosh it out: Dancing Girl Press has accepted my chapbook, Kitchen Witch, for publication in September of 2007. And to say I'm over the moon about it is the understatement of the year. I have so much respect for this press and the thought of being a tiny part of it is humbling (and a little terrifying!).

In other news: I am being steamrollered by Christmas. Cards are going out late. Gifts are still unpurchased. The cookie list needs to be wheedled down from 46 different cookies to something a wee bit more manageable. And our tree is still naked. Sad little nude Christmas tree.

B has been traveling for work a TON lately and the kids' activities have seemingly switched into high gear. Band concerts, aikido classes, robotics courses, speech team meetings. I've been having a CALGON, TAKE ME AWAY sort of few weeks. And I just found out B will be gone a lot next week too. I've gotta say, I'm starting to feel a little grinchy.

My one respite from the insanity has been the discovery of an online sudoku game at BlogExplosion. I spend 30 minutes before bedtime, filling numbers in the clean little grid and forgetting momentarily about all the items still unstricken from my to-do-list. It helps me unwind, helps me sleep. And when I'm sudoku-ing, my favorite expression is, "not now."

The kids come in to tell me one of them has bopped the other over the head with the Christmas band sausage and I say, "Not now."

Keegan complains that Tristan is dressed as the "British tax man" and is sticking labels that say "Tax: $10.00" on all the snack foods in our pantry, and I say, "Not now."

It's thirty minutes. I figure they'll manage.

And then yesterday, T's counselor asks him how things are going and he responds, "My mom has been on the computer all the time because she's addicted to sudoku and she doesn't listen to me when she's playing it. Which is all the time, like five thousand times a day. And she tells me not to talk to her because she's too busy."

And where, I ask you, is a good rock to crawl under when you need it?

My short story, "Waxing Razal," is up at Storyglossia, as are the stories of the other finalists. I plan on wrapping myself in a blanket tonight, pouring a big hot mug of tea, and settling in for a nice long read.

Steven McDermott is a big sparkly gem of an editor and I'm thrilled to be a part of his journal. The news that the story received a Pushcart nom. has pretty much made my year.
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Candy update:Convinced that 11 bags of sweets might not be adequate for the hoards of trick-or-treaters I was expecting, I went shopping yesterday and picked up an additional 7 bags.

The weather last night was miserable. Bitterly cold, windy, icy. The low was something like 11 degrees.

My doorbell rang a total of four times.

I am going to lose every tooth in my big fat candy-eating head.

I have a cold.

Not a death-grip cold, but rather an amusing little cold. I'm all stuffed up and my head feels packed with cotton. But I can get around fine, can do whatever ~ just slowly.

This means I can get away with lingering in bed all day. Which I did yesterday. With a big pile of catalogues that I've been meaning to peruse for the past four months.

I drank Diet Snapple, took a Nyquil at 4pm that failed to knock me out, took another around 9pm that didn't. And I spent all day yesterday looking at every freaking catalogue you can imagine.

Hammacher Schlemmer. Victoria's Secret. eToys. Spillsbury. Office Depot. Legos. Young Explorers. LL Bean.

I marked pages and took notes, because this year, THIS YEAR, I will finish my Christmas shopping before December 24. I'm a woman with a plan.Watch out.

The other thing I did yesterday was eat Halloween candy. This is not a good thing. I went a little wacky at Target a few days ago and walked out with eleven gigantic bags of candy. Even I can see that this is excessive.

And so in between sneezing and moaning (the moaning helped in the sympathy department and I'm pretty sure it was solely responsible for B. volunteering to both do the grocery shopping and make a yummy lentil dish), I ate SpongeBob Gummy Krabby Patties (these were my downfall last year) and Razzles and Swedish Fish and Tootsie Rolls and Crunch bars and Sour Cherry Airheads.

I admit it. I have a problem.

But isn't this the perfect weather in which to have a cold & read catalogues & eat candy?