I haven’t been keeping up with things this week, due to numerous family members visiting up at my dad’s house on the lake. At my mom’s memorial service last September, my brother-in-law got to talking with some of the cousins in our generation, mostly on my dad’s side of the family, and proposed this “family reunion” over Fourth of July. My dad has been stressing about having all these people in the house, but it went fairly well. People came and went the whole week, with the first group arriving Friday night, June 29th, and the last guests, my sister, niece and nephew, just departing today. But Wednesday night, there were 10 people staying over–and the house only has three bedrooms and two baths! I spent more time up there than I intended to, and had a better time schmoozing with my cousins, sister, niece and nephew and brother-in-law than I expected to. Historically I don’t mesh that well with my family, but for some reason, I was enjoying the interactions and just hanging out, whether it was with the younger kids or the people my age. So that was a plus. The down side, unfortunately, is that I didn’t get squit done this entire week on publishing and writing work, and I have two major pushes right now: the forthcoming release of Mortal Touch on July 20th, and finishing the next book so it can get beta-read, and edited, and typeset, and galleyed, and off for pre-pub reviews. This was not the week that I needed to take a week’s vacation. But…c’est la vie, and more to the point, c’est la famille.
Along with this, on Tuesday morning my mom’s ashes were interred at Cathedral of the Pines, it having taken them this long to get the marker, which they evidently engraved by means of dripping water on a stone slab. (Do not get me started on Cathedral of the Pines. My folks have their plots there, but I hate the place with a puce passion, and as far as I’m concerned, I’d rather be shipped to India and eaten by the vultures on that tower than interred in Cathedral of the Pines. Ptooey.) We had no ceremony or anything, just went down to the grave site and looked at mom’s urn set in a decorative box by the plot, and dad cried. *sigh* Mom had a lovely urn, and quite honestly, I would like to have kept it, and made a little shrine for it at my house. However, I was not consulted about my preferences in that situation, or indeed on any aspect of mom’s death whatsoever.
But, I finally got to go swimming in the lake–the weather has been somewhat disappointing, 70’s and lots of thunderstorms. The band concert my dad conducts on Thursdays was cancelled due to thunderstorms and my nephew and niece were going to sit in and play with the band, so that was a bummer. On Friday, a squall line went through and rolled over a big tent that had been set up for the kids to sleep in when the visitor population maxed out during the week. My sister was completely discombobulated by that tent, and was disproportionately grateful to me on Saturday when I got it untangled, folded up and packed for her. To me, after all my tenting at Pagan gatherings, it was a no-brainer! My sister and I went out in the paddleboat, and put its canopy back on. I accompanied my niece and nephew to the new “Fantastic Four” movie which I wanted to see and which we all liked. We all went to some fireworks on Saturday night. I got to schmooze with several of my cousins who I rarely see–I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to have a really good talk with my cousin Karoline, for instance. But I ended up driving up to the lake nearly every day, which was more than I planned to do, and with that and keeping up with my daily workouts and the compulsory chores (like changing the litter boxes), I didn’t get much else done.
But now everyone has gone home, so I’m trying to get back on track!
My dad is painfully forcing himself to read a galley of Mortal Touch I gave him–he keeps saying, “you sure are a good writer,” when I ask about it, but we all know what that means! *laugh* I didn’t think it would be his cuppa, anyway. But the visiting relatives this week kept snitching the galley and reading pieces of it. My brother-in-law loved Mortal Touch, and it’s not the type of book he normally reads. He’s never read a vampire book of any kind! And I have now made my first official sale! Okay, it’s to my sister. But she’s pre-ordered four copies, and she’s going to e-mail me the information for autographing them. I have the very first actual check to deposit in By Light Unseen Media’s bank account! (Meaning that I better start filing those quarterly tax forms I’m supposed to file, since I’m starting to make actual money from my company…) I already wrote the first check from By Light Unseen Media–I got a call from a local sports booster group, saying that they’d list “your family” in their program book for a donation. I said, “would you list my business?” Sure, no problem! So I gave them the first check written on By Light Unseen Media’s bank account, for an ad in their program book. Hey, it’s a start.