The Good, the Bad, and the In-Between

What is it about the start of the year? Is it a summer thing, or does life just regularly go a bit haywire in January? Last year this time was not a good time ... seems like this year is trying to catch up. Doing my best to stay positive, though. Kinda.

The GoodI've finished the book! Yes, 11:15 pm on Saturday night. Hurrah! Never thought it would be over ... over 3,100 files created in 3 months. I put in a 14 hour work day on Saturday to get it all done, to get a whole two days off. There was champagne!

This isn't the end of the process, though. I've now got 4 weeks of Author Review - addressing all the edits / comments / suggestions made on the text and puzzles by Sarah (Project Editor), Megan (Copy Editor), and Raymond (Technical Editor) One quarter of the book each week. So I'm not out of the woods yet. But at least I'm working on existing stuff now, not having to write new material. Fair bit easier.

I've got a second book waiting in the wings, too, for Hinkler Books - a sticker / puzzle book for 5-year-olds. To be finished by early March. This one is worrying me for reasons below.

The Bad

Hubby's lovely Uncle Paul isn't going well. He got bowel cancer a few years ago, and in fact has lived longer than anyone expected. But the doctors now say they can do no more, and are setting up palliative care in his home. Paul is a professional, and very talented, watercolor artist. His wife is the one who designed these crazy and wonderful knitted vegetables. He is a handsome, softly-spoken, intelligent and lovely man. Hard on his sister (Hubby's mum) too. It's all rather crap.

The In-Between

Hubby's dad is still in hospital, but hopes to be out in a week or so. He keeps threatening to 'walk out'. The Aged Care Assessment was done yesterday, and we were able to give the nice young woman assessor a pretty good idea of his situation. She's going to recommend an at-home Community Aged Care Package for him - and largely as way of supporting us, too, which is really good - fingers crossed that it's approved. He doesn't really understand what's going on, though, and is - shall we be nice and just say 'somewhat wearing' ...

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I called the hospital yesterday to find out where I was roughly, on the waiting list for my hip replacement. Remember when I signed up back in September? A year's wait, they said. Plenty of time, they said. I was cool with that! Well, they lied! Next bloody month!! "February - early March at the latest," said the chirpy young thing on the other end of the phone. What, this year?! Aaaaaaaaaaah!

I know it needs to be done, and I still think I've made the right decision, and my doctor and physio are really happy – but I really wasn't counting on it happening quite so soon. I'm feeling a little tense about getting my contracted work done at the same time as dealing with all the hip stuff. I don't feel ready.

I hope that working on the various books will be a distraction while I'm in hospital, and that I'm not in so much pain / doped out on pain killers etc that I can't work, and there aren't any complications. Ideally I'd like to have taken a good month off for the operation and recovery. Bugger.

I've already put time restrictions on my surgery booking, and can't keep changing the date otherwise I'll be dropped from the list altogether... here's hoping the exact date will be early March, and not in February. And hopefully my publishers will be understanding. I've been working towards having all of March off, so hopefully that can still work for my rehab (although it won't be quite the holiday I was imagining!).

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Insert general complaint about living with two young adults, and a chronically-ill husband. Nothing specific, have just generally had enough at the moment. Working practically non-stop while the rest of the family is in bed or lounging around for whatever reason (illness or school holidays) is starting to get to me. Funny, that.

To mitigate the above, here's Dotter in a slightly red wig - crazy, or cute, or crazy and cute?

I probably shouldn't be writing when I've only had 5 hours sleep, so please take the above with a dash of salt, and I'll catch you on a happier day before too long, I'm sure.