Oof. It's one of those Sundays when I slop around at a loose end all day, waiting (whether I like it or not) for Monday, and for the work week to begin...

In the best news of the day, I wrote a new short-short story today--woohoo! (I'm completely undecided on the title, so I won't even bother posting a working title here!) Now I'm just waiting on tenterhooks for reactions from first readers...

And I'm on page 180 of Congress of Shadows. Things continue to get more and more complicated and twisty, and I really hope I can figure out a way at the end to sort them all out...

Yesterday--in a mark of my upswing back to good health, hurray--we took the train out to Hebden Bridge and had a lovely day out there. It was cold and wintry, and we kicked aside wet leaves as we walked along the sidewalks. I bought a perfect, quirky Christmas ornament at one of the little craft galleries--two Christmas fairies riding on the back of a happy big black-and-white dog--and am really looking forward to hanging it on our tree this year. And we will have our own tree this year, since--for the first time ever--we're celebrating Christmas in our own house! I can't wait to set up the tree. It felt wonderful to buy our first shared Christmas ornament, and to think about our collection of Christmas ornaments growing over the years, added to by us and our kids. It's a lovely image of stability and comfort, for me.

We're off in a few minutes to attend a three-year-old's birthday party across the street, in the same building where we held our wedding reception over 14 months ago. It's amazing how quickly time passes.