Is it December already?

Oh hi! Bet you thought I had completely forgotten about you. I didn't. I promise. I've been thinking about you quite a lot, but the world has just been too busy for me to find time to blog. But I have been reading and a whole boat load of other things I want to share with you.

First, I posted about this during November, but I have an update. I attempted NaNoWriMo for a second time this year. It was quite scary as I didn't have any real ideas until the weekend before....and even those were just pictures on a poster board. But, it seems that the collage worked.

 

And I'm still not actually finished. I hit the 50,000 required words, but I"m not at the end of my story. My plan is to pick it back up during Christmas break....see if I can finish it.

Oh! Also, I want to mention the book blogger  holiday swap...

I've already mailed out my gift.....I hope the receiver enjoys it!  And I received my package...It's sitting under the tree, tempting me with it's colorful paper and cards. I really want to give into temptation and open it, but I'm going to be good and restrain myself...Christmas isn't that far away! I'll share pictures with you when I've opened it.

And then reviews.....I have a pile of them to get through, an ebook, a YA novel or two, and a few romances...some are from November...some from Dec. It will be busy on this here blog. :)

How's December looking for you?

Merry Christmas!

I made it! A house full of my husband's family (mine live too far away to do the house-filling gathering thing), music, food, Christmas traditions out the wazoo, and in the midst of it all I was finally able to open my Book Blogger Holiday Swap and Secret Santa gifts!

My Santas gave me awesome loot!

On the left is the gift from a lovely gifter as part of the Secret Santa. They gave me the first two Sookie Stackhouse books (Squee!), a whole pile of book marks, and an additional gift of a magical expanding washcloth. I haven't tried it yet....my husband wants to see it expand too!  

(I have no idea who you are.....will you tell me?)

The right is from Susan as part of the Book Blogger Holiday Swap.  She gave me a beautiful set of stationary cards, and glammed-out pen to write on those pretty cards. There was also a Santa postcard ornament and a set of joyful magnets. The ornament went up right away and the magnets are already making a home on our fridge!

(The name and address were smeared on the package. I can only make out Susan  from Escondido, CA.  Would you tell me if this was you?)

Thank you!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Secret Santa Update

I've sent and received the gifts for both of the Secret Santa type exchanges. I'm trying very.....very hard to be a good girl and leave the gifts alone until Christmas. It's so hard to resist!

I'm also feeling a bit like a schmo. I didn't gift wrap my presents. I did include a nice card, but I just slid the gifts into their packing envelopes and called it good. Oddly, it didn't occur to me that generally Christmas gifts come wrapped, so therefore these probably should have been as well. I'm a terrible Santa. Hopefully, the gifts make up for the lack of wrapping!