And it's December.

  How did that happen? Well, Nano is over. I stayed the course and won, official website count, 51,631. (I validated early because even though I had hit 50k, I was afraid I wasn't going to finish the story by midnight.) My end total (according to Scrivener) when I finished the story (just under the wire at 11:53pm!) was about 53,600. Yay! Streak unbroken four years running :)
    I JUST started editing my next story for publication (shooting for a pre-Valentine's Day release) and if the first page is any indication of what's come, it's going to be a LONG December. THat's as far as I got. There are purple marks all over the page. (yes, I edit in purple instead of red because of something my 11th grade psych teacher told me about self-esteem.)
    Double bonus: just got my first paycheck at the new job! I was shocked and amazed that my take-home pay was nearly 93%. I was only expecting about 85-88%, but since the check was a little small (a day short because I didn't get paid for the holiday), I think that percentage will probably change with my next "full" paycheck.

    Hopefully not by too much, though, seeing as I still owe money for car insurance, and a whole bunch of my stuff broke at the same time. I dropped my camera and now it won't turn on, and the battery on my laptop just conked out. Five years later, that's pretty good, I think, but it's still another chunk of change I'm going to have to shell out because I can't afford to get a new computer, and in any case, this one still runs pretty well considering its age. (knock on wood!)
    This last week, I fell really behind on everything. The blogging, the social media, my contract work, and even my health, was put on hold so that I could finish that novel.
    Now that it's done, I can procrastinate editing while I catch up on this other stuff. Over on Always Happy to Entertain You, I have the entire week's worth of shows to post about. As an added bonus, Netflix just got season 7 of How I Met your Mother, so I'm finally able to catch up on that (albeit 4 months into season 8, but better late than never!), and I'm going to enjoy catching up on the movies this winter as the regular network shows go on break for the holiday season.
    Despite the slight relief I have in not having to average writing 1,667 words this month, I am still going to be super-busy with things. I have to do Christmas presents, and I am completely behind on that too. last year, I did all of my shopping online, and if I want to do that again, I'm going to need to get on that ASAP to make sure everything arrives in time.

    Last but not least--I almost forgot!--new phone! Finally! The touch screen on my old one was starting to act up, only working about half the time, the data signal was going in and out, and battery was not holding a charge. So nice to have something that works! But, now that I have this nice new phone, I'm really terrified of dropping it! It's the first really nice phone I've ever had (I usually get the cheap/free ones that come with the new contract agreement), and I don't want to lose it or drop it accidentally and have to get stuck with one of the cheap/free ones again!
    Anyway, hopefully I can get back on track with the regular posts soon.

Happy December!