Ethan is sick. I am sick. Andy is sick. Garrett and Katie are getting over being sick. I took Katie to the doctor yesterday because I was convinced she had bronchitis. Sunday night she coughed for four hours straight. She also threw up all over her bed at 1 AM. But no, it is just a cold. I guess that makes me feel better, but we're still dealing with the cough. Fortunately, the doctor wrote a perscription for some good cough medicine.

As for me, I am just beginning whatever it is. I'm afraid that what Ethan has is not the same thing Kate and Garrett are getting over, because he woke up at 4 AM with a raging fever, and their colds did not involve fever at all.

Anyway, at least we got the weird issue with the people in New York somewhat resolved, and they made Andy an offer. Now they're bargaining, and Andy is driving me crazy. Yesterday he was optimistic, looking at house plans, etc. Today he has decided there's probably no chance they'll want to pay him enough.

I informed him that I am not a ping-pong ball. So if he wants his wife to stay sane, he will keep all such opinions to himself until the situation has worked itself out one way or the other. I mean, I have enough to worry about, what with the our local library giving me a hard time because the kids have mixed up the CDS they checked out into different cases, and they would really appreciate having their rightful CDs back, so much so that they are calling me twice a day (I am going to crawl under a rock), and postnasal drip and the current state of our bedroom. Not to mention the fact that we are out of chocolate chip granola bars.

You know, the important things.

But! The writing has been going better. I managed to get through ch. 3 yesterday morning, and did some work on chapter 4 in the car last night while I waited on Garrett to get out of PSR. Today I decided to scrap most of what I'd done last night -- actually, I decided to scrap the whole chapter and start over. It's a short chapter, but a tough one because it involves 21st century Americans encountering magic for the first time. I personally believe that if I encountered real magic like this I would wet my pants. But it's hard to convey the kind of disbelief and terror one would experience in real life in a novel. We have to settle for a reasonable (and yet meaningful) facsimile.