Prepping for Christmas

It’s that time of year. Decorating (the ornament in the photo is one of my favorites), shopping, wrapping, and Christmas card writing (yes, I still send a few out) are in full swing. I participated in my last craft fair on Saturday and after five weekends of bookselling, I’m ready to call it a year. Stepping out of my comfort zone to talk about books to strangers is both exciting and daunting. I met several wonderful vendors who sell their products year-round, but I don’t have the stamina to follow their lead. While it’s satisfying to have repeat customers return for the next book in my series, writing is still my favorite part of the business.

My granddaughters visited last week. Two-year-old Ellie started removing ornaments that attracted her (including this pink flamingo), which is why I placed the unbreakable ones near the bottom. Yesterday, I visited them, which was the most relaxing part of my week. There’s something extremely calming about playing with a two-year-old and holding a 4-month-old smiling baby in my arms. I’ll get to do a lot of that this holiday, and for that I’m extremely grateful.

Aside from Christmas, I find myself already pondering writing goals for 2023. I’m also thinking about our pending move in the spring and the to-do list forming in my head. I’ll be sorting out my office and donating books in January. There’s much to think about, but one thing at a time, right?

On the promo front: I’m taking part in a new BookFunnel “Fill Your e-Readers for Free” promotion which ends on January 1^st. So if you’re looking for new mystery authors to try, this is the perfect time, which you can check out HERE.

Knock Knock and The Blade Man are still on sale for $.99 till Dec. 31^st HERE, as is A Gold Satin Murder is available HERE.

Planning the Rest of the Year

My biggest 2020 events have now passed…The publication of my 6^th Casey Holland mystery, retirement from the day job, and the birth of my first grandchild. As far as I know, nothing major’s coming along over the next four and a half months, which means this is a good time to start making plans for the rest of the year and into 2021.

The problem with this idea is that our COVID world is only a few months old and not likely to disappear soon. Uncertainties are everywhere and planning is trickier than usual. Under normal circumstances, my fall craft fairs would be booked and paid for by now. These days, such events are up in the air. One of the fairs is planning to host their event online and it will be interesting to see how that goes. One was cancelled and I’m still waiting to hear on another.

As far as my casual job goes, which is to facilitate Port Moody Recreation’s creative writing workshops, the rec center is still trying to figure out how to make it work. Registration normally starts in July, so I and my three co-facilitators usually know what our schedules will be by now but we don’t.

So, I’m going to focus on what I can arrange, which mainly involves more writing and promotion work. As mentioned in last week’s blog, I have idea for a new series that requires a great deal of thought and note making before I write the first word. And there are always household projects waiting for attention.

At some point, the cold rainy weather will set in and the yardwork will stop and I’ll switch to indoor sorting. I have bins filled with the kids’ old schoolwork that needs to be sorted and some of it recycled. I’ve also started collecting new recipes which will be fun to try.

On some levels, I’m also preparing for a COVID relapse in case things go south in our area. In late May, we bought a freezer for the first time in my life. It’s not huge but should I or the people I live with get sick, we want to be able to feed ourselves or provide food and meals for family members, should they became ill. I’ve also stocked up on hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes, which are plentiful in the stores these days.

I’m thinking about starting Christmas shopping early. My mother used to have her shopping done by the end of August and wrapped by the end of September, but that was before the dementia took hold. I used to think she was nuts to do everything so early, but retirement and COVID is changing my perspective.

I’d prefer not to shop online, so maybe I’ll start while the weather’s good and everyone else is outside. Needless to say, there’s lots to plan for. Who knows what the next four and half months will bring, but I’m going to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

What are you all doing to plan for the fall, personally or professionally? Do you find it difficult to make plans right now, or are you looking ahead as well? Meanwhile, here’s the latest baby Ellie photo. I’m blown away by the changes in just a few days.

Baby Ellie, 8 days old.

The Contrarian in Me

I’ve always been someone who follows my own path, and that path is chosen mostly by instinct. It’s worked out pretty well in my life, but it’s also caused some raised eyebrows when I don’t quite measure up to the standard of what’s considered “normal” by some.

For instance, I really don’t like clothes and shoe shopping, and never have. In fact, I’m only inspired to shop when my kids give me a gift card for my birthday. It takes me a while to make a choice, usually much longer than it does before I’m in sensory overload and the energy begins to drain away.

I don’t like parties either, or even tons of socializing. Believe me, I’ve tried over the decades, having done my share of Halloween and New Year’s bashes in my teens and twenties, but again they were usually events that I was talked into or felt I should do.

Let’s face it I’m an introvert, but a happy one. My father, who was the complete opposite, never really understood me, and I’m pretty sure that he and his extremely social relatives were convinced that something was wrong with me. So be it.

This New Year’s Eve, hubby and I went to see The Last Jedi. Having watched Star Wars movies from the beginning (one of the originals was our date movie back in the day) I looked forward to this one. This will run against almost every opinion I’ve heard, but the story was completely boring. Sure, there was some vintage stuff with the return of Luke and Yoda, etc., but it also left me feeling that nothing was new or daring or bold. I keep hearing how great the movie was, and how people loved it. This contrarian disagrees. Still, if we all agreed about everything, wouldn’t that be truly boring?