Moving, Moving, Moving! By Susan Sands

We are scheduled to move the middle of this month. Fingers crossed all goes well with the closing on

  

our house! It's a local move--a downsize that's a long-time coming. Add to that my daughter's move to college, my middle son's move to a new apartment for college, and my oldest son's upsize with roommates. That one I'm not paying for!

With everyone in my family moving, it means the landscape of our world is changing permanently. Forever. We've lived in the same house for seventeen years. Our children were eighteen months, three years, and in second grade when we moved in 2001. It's the only home they remember--their childhood haven. You'll forgive me if I'm having a moment. My youngest is leaving for college in a week.

I've also been searching listings for a place to live. Has anyone done that lately? Such a big decision to make in a short amount of time. I can't even...

Someone asked me how the writing was going and when my new book was scheduled to release, and I think my stare resembled a cross between wild panic and goofy drooling confusion that made her question my sanity.

Yes, that's how the writing has gone the past month. I've missed it terribly! But sometimes life truly takes over, and without a deadline, I've allowed my passion for writing to take a back seat to the demands of now. But the story hasn't left me. In fact, it's been rolling ahead in my brain during this hiatus. I've solved some plot issues and worked out a timeline conundrum during the packing and hefting. Taking a writing break might just make things go more smoothly when I sit down and open the file. Or, so I like to tell my guilt-ridden self while away from the document.

Anyway, wish us luck with our huge changes. I look forward to the coming weeks, when, for better or worse, we will be on the other side of change.

I hope your summer has been a sweet combination of reading, picnics, and very few mosquitoes! I'm imagining summers' past in my head and wondering where the years went.

Enjoy the last weeks of the best time of the year!!

Susan Sands

Just a little late for Christmas in July!!

Nicole Locke - Are we having fun yet?

As you know, my family moved to Seattle from London at the end of December. Things have been crazy, an adjustment, perplexing, and chaotic ever since.

First, there’s the culture shock which I didn’t expect. I was born in this country; how could I be flummoxed by drive-thru menus? But it’s been a while since I lived here. Time’s change.

Second, add in work, kids, renovations, and trying to unpack. Yep. There’s chaos here. And as a family, we’ve been chained to the house, to school, to our desks. We’ve been trying to navigate school announcements and shopping. The myriad of government forms is astounding, and I still second guess myself when crossing the road.

So why are we here?

Ah, because we’ve reached that time in our life when we realize…Time. We want our kids to know their extended family. Also, they’re missing the culture we grew up with. We knew that if we didn’t seize this moment, our son may never know how to kayak, ski, or ride a bike. Our daughter will only know city life, and not the blisters of hiking in the woods for miles because she’s lost.

This gets to the crux of the matter. My fear is that we may have returned too late. The way we’re going, it’ll be a year before any fun happens. We bought ski clothes…and then missed the ski season. The drastic change in daily living has been one hurdle after another. Our kids are young, but habits have already been created.

It took weeks for my daughter to learn she can approach a car differently than her brother. You see, she only knows taxis. And in taxis you all pile into the vehicle from one side. She kept piling in after her brother until he pointed out she could use the other door. My son still shows no interest in driving, and as for that kayak? His nose continues to be buried in books or on his phone.

But this must stop; otherwise, what’s the point of moving? I may have lived here before, but it’s all new to them. They need to see the world with their young eyes, and with all the possibilities of youth. So when they grow up they can embrace what culture they want, and where they want to live. 

When I can, I force myself to stop with all the work needing done. My house is a wreck, and I’ll have boxes to unpack in December. Renovations? I need to pick out paint samples still. The kids should see the open water, and not just the house in shambles.

Thus far, I may have managed only a handful of these moments, but they do exist. Like glimmers of light at the end of a very long, crazy, perplexing, and chaotic tunnel.

How do you stop the hectic schedule of everyday life to have fun?

Nicole :-)

To celebrate the upcoming release of The Knight's Scarred Maiden, I'm attempting to bake Medieval food! Come join me all month at the Unlaced Book Club and guess what food I'm making for a chance to win a signed copy. https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheUnlacedBookClub  Or join me at the Harlequin Blog May 25th, June 2nd, June 13th and chat with me about my failures! http://harlequinblog.com/



Nicole Locke is the author of Harlequin Lovers and Legends series. For more information about her and her writing, check out her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.

Nicole Locke - Get Me Out of this Car!

I’m a stay-at-home mom. Doesn’t that sound divine? To be fair, I know I have it easy. My husband makes the majority of the income, so I’m able to do the other stuff.

The other stuff is enormous. Huge. It’s so big, my husband has to help, too (the garage does not clean itself). I work as well. I do this writing thing, and it has deadlines, and some days it’s incredibly hard.

Add in this moving thing I did in December, and well…. My ship is sinking. In fact, I’m typing this at 10pm because it can’t wait until tomorrow, or the next because I have deadlines looming, and my 7yo daughter has this concert, oh wait, two concerts, and my 14yo son is in need of clothes because I’ve shrunk everything (or is he getting bigger--again!).

In truth, maybe if I had this home schedule all along it’d be easier because I wouldn’t know any different. But I’m in culture shock. London school life was so different.

There, I walked my daughter the half a mile to school every day. That got in my exercise and times-tables quiz time. All moms brought their kids to the gate, we visited, and then got on with our days.

 

My son had been getting himself to school and to his after-school activities by age 12. Other than making sure he did his homework, I didn’t have to worry about him at all.

In America, my son starts school at 8:45am. The bus can’t get him there on time unless he leaves much earlier. Since we are new, I’m not putting that burden on him. So I schlep him out of the house at 8:20. Unfortunately, my daughter has to come with us. Really unfortunately, her school doesn’t start until 9:30. So she’s stuck in the car an extra 45 minutes (we do her homework and run errands).

I’m not even going to mention that my son gets out of school at 3:15pm, and my daughter at 4:10. Or that some days he can’t get himself home. Like Tuesdays, when I have to pick him up, and drive him to the library for volunteer time. Then drive to pick daughter from school, only to return to the library (while she eats in car) to pick up son. Continue driving to another school so my daughter can have orchestra practice and where my son can take a bus home. She and I don’t return home until 7:30pm when we eat dinner (maybe…if I prepared it earlier).

I can’t start work until 10am and on good days I write until 2pm. And I don’t want to think about my house, that I’m living in a suitcase still or the fact our container full of clothes hasn’t arrived yet (though the moving company has had it since December 6^th). It’ll be Spring and I’ll still be wearing my winter wools….

Am I crazy. Is this driving all around schedule normal for parents in America? How have you been doing it all this time? And why is the image of stay-at-home moms all about eating bonbons? It’s not that way in the UK. Here, I feel I have to justify my day with people I meet. Do you?

Whew. I’m glad I can share this. I truly do want to know how you do it, and if I’m missing a trick. Please tell me there’s a magical time bending necklace I didn’t know about….

Nicole :-)

 

Nicole Locke is the author of Harlequin Lovers and Legends series. For more information about her and her writing, check out her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest.

 

Moving, moving, moving

This is my moving crew, ready to roll. Two more trips...

Does the moving process ever end? As near as I can tell, no.  I'm about to embark on yet another long drive from Montana back to Nevada to pick up yet another load. This is almost...but not quite...enough to make me a minimalist. Almost.

Rumor has it that in only two more trips, we will have transferred everything from one place to the other. Call me a skeptic, but I'll believe it when I see an empty house on one end of the trip and a full house on the other.





I've written quite a few books this year, despitethe never-ending move in addition to my son's wedding this summer. I'm not sure how I got all the books done, to tell you the truth, although the other day I glanced over at my husband and murmured, "I'm so looking forward to not writing in the car."

If all goes according to plan, I will be living in only one house, instead of two, by the end of this month and I will be writing at a desk instead of on a lapboard.

I'm very excited about the Tule books I have in the works. Catch Me, Cowboy released last month, and now I'm working on an International Bull Rider book that will release next spring and have contracted to write a book for a fun series set in a Victorian hotel next fall. In addition to this, I have more bull rider books coming from Harlequin Western and more Brody's of Lightning Creek coming from Harlequin Superromance.

It's been a productive year, despite the chaos and I'm looking forward to doing a lot of Montana research for my future books--just as soon as the dust settles.

Have a great day!
Jeannie

Anne McAllister: The Lost Summer

The author as essayist. Not.

What I did on my summer vacation . . .

What vacation?  We moved!

Yes, I know, people move all the time. We live in a mobile society.  And I'm not averse to that. I like to move around, go places, travel.  But for the last forty-plus years, while I did my share of moving around, going places and traveling, I always came back home to the same house.

And now . .  .not.

I knew for over a year that we were going to up sticks and head out to Montana full-time. But when you know something that long, it never seems quite real. I mean, when do you start packing for a move that's light years away?

Not soon enough. I have learned that much.  And after those forty-plus years in the same house, we had accumulated a lot of stuff.  It just built up, like sedimentary rock, and about as movable.

The living room in May; we moved in July

There were stalagmites in the attic of stuff kids did in elementary school and junior high and high school and college that came home and never somehow went away. There were the boxes that came to me when my grandfather died and when my grandmother on the other side of the family passed away.  Then my mother-in-law died leaving us with three sets of china, two sets of silverware, a bookshelf of diaries (bless her) and 97 years worth of paintings that we needed to deal with (moral of the story: if you marry the son of an artist, be prepared to have a lot of canvases and, even heavier, Masonite, to move).
My mother (and bless her, too) lived a spare and uncluttered life. Her china went to our daughter, she only left one set of silverware and one painting.  We should all be so thoughtful.

The new view -- disracting enough

We aren't. We won't be to our children, and we haven't been to ourselves because we had books. Hundreds of books, thousands of books, millions and billions and trillions of books (to misquote Wanda Gag's Millions of Cats -- of which we had three copies). So we packed books, and then we gave away books to every person and institution we could think of, and then we packed more books.

I wonder what people move who don't move books.

The draw of our new home was the bookshelves.  There were lots of them. There weren't enough. We had to buy two seven foot tall shelves.  There are still some books looking for homes.

The view when it gets even more distracting

But we are moved.  And now it is nearly midway through September, and I barely remember August at all, except for our daughter visiting from Texas to see the new digs (and unpack books while she was here).

My own almost finished book, neglected all summer long, has emerged from hibernation and is slowly and sluggishly moving toward its conclusion (fortunately the action on the page is faster than the author typing it).

And hard as it was, long as it was, fraught as it was -- not to mention, hot as it was (never move from Iowa in July; you will regret it)  -- we are so glad to be here.

I'm hoping that autumn in Montana won't be lost at all.  But it might be unless I finish my book!



Photos:
1) © By dotmatchbox at flickr [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
2) © own photo, 2016
3) © own photo, 2016
4) © own photo, 2016

Jeannie Watt: Tosser Envy (Not the Rude Kind)

I’m moving. I love where I live now, but it’s time to move closer to my parents, so my husband and I are pulling up stakes this summer and moving to Montana. I’m excited to be closer to my mom and excited to have a new house, however…there’s this one small problem. I haven’t moved in twenty-two years.

My new view--as of this summer. So excited!

Do you have any idea how much stuff a person can accumulate in that length of time?  

A lot.

My house has a full basement and I have packed that sucker to the gills. Now I have to sort and toss and prioritize…and convince myself that the object is not the same as the memory.

Hard lesson—especially when I keep finding cool things I’d forgotten about, like, say, the velvet pants I wore in high school. Surely I’ll be a size 2 again and hip-hugger button-front crushed-velvet jeans will come back into style. Right?

The engagement boots--35 years later.

And what to do with the engagement boots? My husband and I met in college, where we were geology students, and instead of buying a ring, we spent the money on something we honestly needed—well-made his and her hiking boots. I still have mine. His wore out long ago and we can’t remember what happened to them. I’ll probably find them while packing up the rest of the basement.

But I can’t move everything, so I’m going to hire a hit man. I’ll put the stuff I need to get rid of in a certain area of the basement and ask my son to haul it away. And then I’ll hope that he gets the right stuff, because otherwise, he’ll be back at the donation place buying it all back.

Are you a saver or a tosser? Let me tell you—right now, I’m suffering from a huge case of tosser-envy.

Find out more about Jeannie at her website or on Facebook.