This weekend, I am heading to New Jersey for the New Jersey Romance Writers’ Conference. Yay! The P-I-C and I are sharing a room, and I bet many laughs will be had. I also bet that, at some point, I will be needlessly snarky. The Spouse will have the care and feeding of the Nine Year-Old; look for the attendance of Knicks games (go Nate!), Wii-playing and some grousing about how Mommy didn’t leave enough a) food b) laundry or c) anything else that is difficult to locate in five seconds.

In New Jersey, I will get to see Samhain’s Angela James, who is so cool and self-assured she intimidates me (true dat!), Abby Godwin (blog to the right) and other friends from the NYC chapter.

Still working fairly diligently on the new ms., although yesterday I hit a creative wall. Bam. Today I hope to be more inspired.

*New Jersey, Megan Frampton and Not Much Else.

My husband has Knicks season tickets. While this may dismay some–especially Knicks fans–it thrills me. Why, you ask? Because he is out for a set number of evenings, which means I can do what I want, including:

1. Write

2. Eat early (i.e. not 8:30)

3. Watch historical dramas/MI-5 with impunity

4. Write. Really, this time.

5. Talk on the phone.

6. Check various sites for shoes I can neither wear nor afford.

7. WRITE, Megan.

8. Read.

9. Make excuses for not writing.

10. Write long emails to justify the not writing thing (gotta stay in touch with the fam, yo!)

What do you do on ‘free’ nights?

It’s a holiday, so the Seems Like He Never Goes to School Son is home today. BUT a friend is taking him off my hands and heading to the aquarium.

I fell off the Q-Tip wagon. Back to Day One for me.

Still writing, still stressing, still weighing way more than I should (but whose fault is that? MINE–the tasty beers were clamoring from the fridge over the weekend, and the Doesn’t Cook Often, But When He Does, Oh Boy Spouse made brisket. So I have no regrets).

In other words, a normal Monday.

I went running this morning with Shoulder Guy, and it wasn’t awful! I have to rid myself of my summer weight, because I am too cheap to buy new clothes. Plus I’m kinda vain, too.

And I did a whole bunch of paperwork (like taxes, and change of address, and filing for due monies, and such), and feel way less of a lout than before. Go me.

Tomorrow I write.

This weekend the Younger, and His Friends Are Even Younger Spouse and I go to a wedding. Not sure what to wear.

And I’ve been listening to Vampire Weekend, Friendly Fires, Estelle, Solange and Rodriguez. Go look them up yourself, do you want me to do all the work?

Yay! I am here in San Francisco, it’s not nearly as cold as I’d been led to believe (chilly! sweaters! long sleeves! the word was), and today is the Beau Monde Conference, at which I am presenting a workshop with fellow Risky Amanda  McCabe and Andrea Pickens.  Needless to say, I am ill-prepared.

I got word from my agent just before I left that she will be sending my work out to editors when I return, which is very exciting. And the Spouse made a point of saying we had to find time for me to write, so that was just lovely. Getting that kind of partner affirmation is a balm to my frenetic soul, which wonders if I am doing the right thing by devoting energy and passion to writing. But I am. I know it. It’s just making that commitment to myself that is difficult.

I am rooming with Carolyn Jewel, who got an awesome haircut and has some cool new clothes to match. Right now she’s behind me doing revisions on her next book, so I feel as though I am In The Presence of Greatness.

Carolyn and I just saw an incredible workshop on pistols, rifles, muskets and such from the 1500s through 1900. Since my proposed next hero is based on Rifleman Richard Sharpe, it was very, very useful. And I’m reading a Sharpe–Sharpe’s Trafalgar–so that just serves to reinforce my image of my hero, Jack (props to the Delightful Phone Friend for Jack’s name).

Anyhoo, I am off to see more workshops, present a portion of one, and try not to freak out because I’m being confronted by SO MANY PEOPLE. I know I live in New York City, and all, but it’s not like I say hi to all of them during the course of my normal day, so this experience is stressful for me.

So insanely cute.

The Son and his class did a study of Ghana this year (as well as the Inuit, and the Amazon, I think). Anyway. We have a CD called London Is The Place For Me, which is a compilation of Trinidadian calypso in London, and includes the song “Birth of Ghana” by Lord Kitchener. The Spouse burned it onto a disc for our son to take into school and wow his classmates.

Does it make up for the fact that between the two of his parents, we can find a song that relates to almost any topic, and will sing it loudly even though the Son begs us to stop?

Probably not.

But still.

(Scott also included the Wylde Bunch “Last Day of School.” Beats Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out For Summer” anyday).

So the Spouse and the Eight Year-Old and I had a housewarming party on Saturday, which was fun; a lot of friends from disparate groups came, and that’s what we love, the mingling of folks who would otherwise not meet each other (we had a NUCLEAR PHYSICIST in the house, as well as a cartoonist who came up with the “-saurus,” stuff, like “Aerobicasaurus,” or however it was spelled, of a dinosaur in Jane Fonda gear. So, like that, and it was fun).

It meant, however, we were working until 2am every night getting stuff put together/put away/put down (no, wait, that was me. I got put down. Ouch, smack!)

And now the real life starts: I am going back to the gym, I am finishing the revision, I am starting a new book. Yay.

Isn’t summertime grand? I have heard the living is easy. Not so sure about that.

As anyone who has spoken to me, read this blog, walked by me randomly or any other brief contact knows, we just moved into our first owned house. Yay.

When we moved in, we knew we hated the cabinets, and also knew we had no money with which to fix them (we joke that instead of being made of MDF, mid-density fiberboard, they’re LDF–low-density fiberboard. Oh, aren’t we cards).

Even before construction started, we painted them orange on the inside to make them pop, a trick we found in Domino Magazine. Which was fine until we chose soft, subtle colors for the outsides of the cabinets. Suddenly, the orange looked garish, plus the paint kept flaking off the cheap cabinet material.

So the Ambitious Spouse (clearly not me) got the idea to wallpaper the insides, after I’d sent him here to a wallpaper site I found.

And last weekend, he did it. I painted the insides of the cabinets white and he papered, and here are the results:

I think they look awesome. Really suits our mid-century modern style, and the cabinets don’t make us cringe anymore.

Yesterday I was beyond wiped. Just plain exhausted. Today? Yay! I have energy! And the Must Do It Now Spouse and I are communicating well. Whew. Sometimes our different styles work for us, sometimes not so much.

And today we get carpet installed in the family room, which means BOOKS will be removed from Boxes and placed lovingly on Shelves.

And tomorrow I plan to write. Really. I do.