I sit here home on a Monday due to the sad fact that Riker if sick. Poor little guy has a fever, chills, a mouth sore, and absolutely no energy. It breaks my heart to see him not his non-stop-energy self. Although, I must admit, I welcome a little break. It’s refreshing to have the chance to finally write a blog post for the first time since the end of September, wow!

October was a long & busy, yet fast moving month. It’s hard to believe we are already into November!

October is one of my favorite months for several reasons:

• It’s the heart of autumn.
• It’s not too cold or too hot usually.
• The smell of pumpkins, apples, crisp leaves, and spices constantly fill the air.
• It just feels happy!
• Best of all, it’s my wedding anniversary month (October 30th).

This October, in particular, was full of adventures and new surprises!

To start the month on the right foot, I organized the human video team I’m heading for Fine Arts early this year. For those who don’t know what Fine Arts is you can check it out here. A human video is an acting/dance performance done to song. It’s choreographed with the students not speaking a word, but relying on their body movements to relay the message. Human video is just 1 of 75 categories in this competition.  There are 13 teenagers this year that I get to work with and I’m so excited with how far we might go this year!! There are three rounds to this Fine Arts competition that start in February locally, then going to Hershey PA for April, and finally ending in Houston Texas in August. It’s a tough challenge, but if we place in the top 10 in the country each student is awarded scholarships. It’s an exciting program and I’m psyched to be a part of it for the 4th year now! So stay tuned to hear more about that journey 🙂

On a side note: I’m working on directing a children’s play at our church as well as assisting in the nativity performance where I’m helping stage blocking, write, and perform as Mary. So, needless to say the church activities alone have been keeping me busy!

I also decided to join Twitter! With this decision I made several new writer friends all around the world! It’s exciting to meet people that share my creative & crazy flare. (BTW, regular Twitter is boring, but the world of writers in Twitter make it AMAZING!!) These strangers and new friends have encouraged me in my writings constantly in the last month. They are a huge reason for me writing leaps and bounds in my novel! More on that in a bit…

We went on a few outdoor adventures, including this fun hiking trip with great friends of ours!!

The views were spectacular!

 

This year also marks our 7 year anniversary! 7 blessed years!! Andrew’s gift to us were two adorable kittens! We picked them out together at the SPCA and they already are a complete part of our little family…

We ended the month of October with a fun time at our church’s “Trunk or Treat”. We went DIY and frugal by creating Gotham out of Riker’s leftover party decor, boxes, poster board, paint, a dollar store black curtain, and lots of duct tape.

We were SHOCKED to learn that we were voted best trunk!! Very humbling.

Well, that was October! Now to end with the exciting news of November….

After 4 years of writing (I actually took 2 years off in the middle of that, so it is 2 years of work that started 4 years ago, confusing I know)…

I finished the first draft of my novel on Friday!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jump for joy with me!!!! 😀 It’s been a long process and it’s not done yet! I now begin adding another chapter or two in the middle that I thought of, as well as reading through my work to edit. I edited a lot as I worked (thus why it took me so long), so this process shouldn’t take more than a week or two.  Then it gets proof read by two friends of mine I trust with being brutally honest (you know who you are 😉 ). While they are do that I’ll be writing my proposal, and finally I pray as I send it to my possible publisher!

It you want to follow my writing journey more closely, please like and follow my new author page on Facebook. I’m so excited seeing my dream within reach! 🙂

Well, those are some snapshots of my life in the last month. It’s time to see if my kid is sick of watching cartoons yet. Yeah, I know that’s a silly question…