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?