Did you miss me?

So. Totes obvs too much has happened since I last posted *4 months ago* to catch everyone up on it all.

The highlights (these are not in order of importance, I'm just typing them as I think of them):
1) The cat is still doing well! He has stabilized at about 10 pounds, and the vet has told us that he's at a good weight and now we're in maintenance mode! So glad my guy is still kicking his cancer in the ass.

2) The moms are well!
2a) Blondie's mom was diagnosed with colon cancer last year, and had surgery in January to remove the tumor. She came through like a champ and is now officially cancer free. Blondie took a week and went back to The Land of Cheese to help his mom. I'm glad he was able to do that for her.

2b) My mom has had heart problems for years and in February, they performed heart surgery on her to help stop her problems. I went back for over a week to the Land of Whiskey, Tobacco and Horses, to help her out. She was in a lot of pain for a lot of days, but was well on her way to recovery when I left. She had a quick trip to the ER after I got back to NYC for a skin infection, but is already back at work!

3) My book. My book. My dirty filthy book.
Well. Folks. My first book has come back from my editor. I'm in the process of cleaning it up, which is surprisingly way harder than writing it initially, and have a minor change to make to the setting of the novel, but other than that, I should be GTG by end of April. I'm excited. I'm nervous. I'm ready. My editor's comments are: I don't use commas correctly, and I like to do things like incorporate invalid simultaneous actions, wandering body parts, and multiple points of view in the same paragraph. Said in a whiney voice: "writing is hard guyz!"

My second book is done as well, but I will have to modify it some to take into account the setting change from my first novel. And my third novel is about 90% done. Again, a few changes there as well. I'll have one more book in that series and then I get to start on my next idea (so excited!)

Mr Pooh was da bomb and made me an avatar for my writer's page and social media sites - I owe him big time! And Glitter did my book cover design - so awesome. What would've probably cost me over $200 between the two ended up costing me nothing. You guys are the best!

4) Work. I think it's time I headed back. I've been wavering about this, but I think getting out of the house will be good for me again. I have a tough decision about something in regards to this, but once my mind is made up, I'll let you all know.

5) Visitors! I had a friend from DFW visit that I hadn't seen in over 8 years, Blondie had a friend from college visit, and I had 2 old coworkers from SF come visit. It was nice getting to see some friendly new (old) faces again!

6) Packers / Wisconsin / UK - Every single one of you loses? And now only do you lose, you lose to New England, DUKE (come on now, really??!?!?) and Wisconsin (better, but not good).

7) Party Trolley - we rented a trolley for a friend's birthday party and had it drive us around the city while we drank copious amounts of alcohol. It was a lot of fun, and if we ever get the families back at the same time (like we did at Blondie's birthday), we're thinking we should rent one again. We took the trolley to Mother Burger (mexican bulldogs) and Trailer Park (margaritas), but otherwise, just drank while driving on the streets of New York. We had a driver from the trolley company. The people that were drinking were NOT driving.

8) New pizza place in da hizzou. The owners of my favorite bar in the city (Pony) and Mr Pooh's favorite bar in the city (Landsdowne) opened a new bar right beside Pony. They serve wood fired pizzas and craft beers, and the first day I managed to get Blondie in there, they bought us each two drinks and gave us a t-shirt. My new favorite Sunday activity is Pony for snacks and beer, followed by Kiabacca for pizza and beer. And I wonder why I'm fat again? ;)

9) Free concert courtesy of Blondie's work! Blondie won free tickets to see Three Days Grace a few weeks ago. We went in about 10 minutes late, but still had a blast. The band itself was a little cheesy (not the music, just the way they interacted with the crowd during downtime), but overall, it was what I needed after a stressful day dealing with something else!

10) Tex-Mex food crawl - Glitter, Indian Bar Friend and I did a tex-mex food crawl over Easter weekend. We started at a place in Gramercy Park (YUM) on Friday, then dinner at a new place in the hood on Saturday (food = good; service = not good -> 3 hours from sit down to leaving and there was only 4 of us), and then Blondie and I ordered tacos on Sunday. Best! Weekend! Ever!

And all the other stuff that comes with living in NYC - hanging with my friends; bar friends, two old jobs ago friends, last job friends. You name it, it's been happening. Movies, restaurants, wine nights with my girlfriends. Hanging with Blondie and just relaxing. Going hiking in Connecticut this weekend.

Things are good! Miss you all. And now that I've got a grip on the editing of my first book, I'll post regularly going forward!

--K