The Wayfaring Wordhack

As the mother of three small children, I often find myself wondering where my days and time go. Unsurprisingly, I have a definite answer to where all my energy goes.

These past two months have been crazy busy, though, what with dealing with the whole family being sick with one thing after another. We are coasting along with mild coughs and some eye discharge for the boys. As lon as its doesn't et any worse, l can cope. Ok, from that sentence, uess what key is screwing up on my kelybolarld now.l LWelll, besides the llinsane lllllllll that just inserts itself where elvesl.l...olr clever ...ollr ever it lwanlltls. Does charming things with my auto-correct, let me tell you. And makes it very hard to type. Sigh.

All this because there are no ground wires here in Egypt, at least not in the flats we've had. So every time there is a surge, my keyboard flips out. :( My laptop will also be glad to be back in France.)

And speaking of France...

We learned that despite setting aside vacation days into a special account for the past four years so he could insure having some time to settle the family on our return to France, J's employer insists he come straight to work. This is the craziness that they subject him to in order to not have his pay docked: remain at work until the end of his shift on 31 July, fly out on 31 July so that he can land IN FRANCE no later than 11:59 p.m., and report to work at 8 a.m. on 1 August. The answer to his request to have one day off from his vacation time (not a freebie) was, "Absolutely not."

Fine, we thought, and proceeded to plan out an alternative. J decided to take more vacation time before his termination date to accompany the family back to France, settle us in, fly back to Cairo on the 29th, sign some papers on the 30th, and fly back the 31st in order to be at work on August 1. We even asked the current owners of the house we are buying to move the hand-off date from 2 Aug to July 22. They agreed.

Then we had to look like idiots and ask them to move the date up even more when one of J's colleagues told him to be careful about the dates he was taking off. Apparently, he has to be in Egypt for the two weeks prior to his termination date. So nice of his boss to tell him.

The family we are buying from is super nice and understanding, so we'll leave Egypt 4 July, move into our new place 8 July, and J will spend a few days with us before flying back to Cairo. When he returns to France, he'll head straight to work and will work until the company releases him for time off.

For those who don't know or remember, he is with the riot police in France and is regularly sent on deployment for 3 weeks at a time. This means that we could potentially go for 5 weeks without seeing him. This is going to be a trying time for the kids. First an international move--for the boys from the only country they've ever known, but one could argue that Sprout doesn't remember much of living in France--and then not seeing their father for such an extended period of time.

BUT! We will be back in France. We will have a gorgeous home in a lovely, clean! rural setting. We'll have awesome adventures getting to know a new place. It will be peaceful; we will be in our element.  So good things on the horizon despite the bumps.

I'm to that stage of change where I'm getting antsy, with physical pangs, yearning for this transition to either get more squarely under way or to pass altogether. We should get the boxes from the moving company within a couple of weeks; that will help. As will a more solid move into hotter temps so I can put away all mid-season clothing and bedding.

In other news, I was also been busy painting a lot to raise money for Egyptian charities. I'll try to remember to take some photos and do a Sunday snippet...

Draft the First of Witherwilds is complete, right on schedule, at 118K.

How do I feel?  Well, I don't know.  Accomplished, I guess, but I don't have that high that comes from completing a novel where the story is wrapped up. This is book one of a trilogy, and there is no great and resounding final action that ends the story. It sets up the events of book two. That leaves me with the feeling that all is still open and still to be resolved.

I will not, however, minimize my achievement. So:

HOORAY!

And I've made a decision.  Instead of setting the book aside for a mere two weeks, I'm going to let it rest for a month because, really, what's the rush? This means I'll have it ready for betas by Sept 1st.

The net connection at Lionel's house is as infernal and unstable as I thought it would be (I've been disconnected four times just trying to get this page open), so I'm not going to take the time to respond individually to all who wished us well. Here is your collective thank you: Thanks for thinking of us! *g*

Two days after emptying our house, we are still in the middle of sorting our affairs. I weighed our baggage and cats today, and we are 40+ kilos over our limit. That means we have 120 kilos of stuff to haul with us!!! Needless to say, the post is cheaper than air fret, so we are in the middle of weeding out some of the heavier stuff and putting it into boxes to mail ourselves. Why oh why did we not do a better job when we packed for our shipping container?

No idea (well, aside from the rush and tiredness), but done is done. We have to live with the mess we still have. Luckily, Lionel flew back to continental France on Monday, so he has not seen the bombsite that is now his house. Our fellow house squatters arrive on Saturday, but for our own sanity, I would like to wrap it all up today.

We have yet to take advantage of our last days here because we are so worn out and busy taking care of last minute details, not to mention because the weather has been horrid with too much wind (our night dive was cancelled! *wails* And there won't be another before we leave) and even hissing, spitting, unseasonal rainshowers. I haven't written since Monday; I'm so exhausted every night that I can't sleep; the mattress we have here sucks so bad that I wake up several times per night with cramps in my neck, back, and thighs. We have had no water since 8 a.m. today... All in all, I'm just ready for this stage to be over.

Enough whinging. Think happy thoughts. Happy. Happy.

Back to work.

 I'm watching my last rugby match in Mayotte today. Tomorrow, we have to take the satellite decoder back and cancel our subscription. The lady who bought the television is picking it up tomorrow, too. Not a big deal. Without satellite, there is nothing to watch here. Only one channel and we don't have a satellite to receive it.

This morning, Julien packed all the odds and ends that remain and took them to the Place du Congres, where there is a group "yard sale."

Isn't he a swell guy? He went to put up with that hassle while I stay home and watch rugby! :P

I just finished the second draft of my second-ever WIP, To Be Undone, which involved a major rewrite from the first slapdash NaNo effort. The total word count is 69,010. Looks like I'll have some plumping up to do in my next draft. Never fear. It is in no danger of getting as [Poll #1029768]

Can I just say how much I hate LJ sometimes? Good. I hate LJ sometimes.

NaNoWriMo is over.  For me, at least. So I give you: 



Can someone tell me why, even though I've written almost a complete first draft, I feel like I've done nothing all month? Must but the copious amounts of S.U.C.K. in said draft.

Roll on December. 

ETA: This sounds like I'm down and depressed.  I'm not.  I'm just tired.  I need a nap.  I need to vary my sentence structure.  I need... *zonk*