Dec 15

My granddaughter sat in Santa’s lap and took a picture!!!! She will be three on Jan 1st, and so far, she has been terrified of Santa. It’s a long story, but ever since she found out that Santa can be a real live person, she has been afraid of him. In fact, whenever anything goes wrong or something happens, she always says that Santa Claus did it. We’ve been telling her that Santa isn’t a bad guy for a while now. And, now she knows that he brings her gifts and likes to eat cookies. So, after several tries, she finally let us get her close to a Santa at a school carnival. She saw all of her cousins sitting on his lap and taking pictures. With a little coaxing, she said she would do it if my eldest daughter went with her. In the picture, she is looking at the camera, but her body is twisted halfway around so that she could hold on to my daughter’s hand. She looked a little concerned, but since nothing happened and she got a piece of candy for doing it, she decided she could do it without my daughter as long as her cousins went with her. That picture was pretty good. She looked more comfortable. Now all we have to do is get her one by herself with Santa.
I finished chapter 14 yesterday. I’m going to work on Chapter 15 today. Even with all that time I took off, the pieces are still falling into place. I’m not going to estimate a completion date, but I like the way this one is shaping up. I checked on my order for my latest two books and they are still in the queued for printing phase. It takes about a week to mail them here, so it’s getting really close to being too late for me to get them out as presents for Christmas. If they print and are shipped tomorrow on Thursday, I probably won’t get them until next Thursday which is the 23rd. I’ll be a wrapping fool trying to get them ready and then a driving maniac trying to get them to everyone’s house. Because, I work the day shift on Friday so I won’t be able to do anything that day. Then, Christmas is on Saturday. I sent a concerned note to the support staff at Createspace asking if anything was wrong. Usually, they print within a day or so. But, it’s been over a week since I placed the order. If they’re just busy, maybe they’ll move me up in the queue after reading my concerned note.
We finished our Christmas shopping for everyone today. Now, I can sneak out and finish my secret Christmas shopping. I have to work a little overtime tomorrow morning, so if I wake up in time, I’ll get it done tomorrow. I’ll use the old excuse of having to go to my old company to pick up my last check, which I really have to do.
I’m putting some Blondie, Duran Duran, Led Zeppelin, and Rush into the playlist for background music while I get going today.
-Thom