A brief FableCroft update

I’ve been noodling away on FableCroft Publishing jobs behind the scenes over the past couple of months, snatching time when I can! Managed to get a little run on things this week, so we had some announcements:

1. Christmas special on To Spin a Darker Stair by Catherynne M Valente, Faith Mudge and illustrated by Kathleen Jennings. Gift wrapped, discounted, great gift idea! Offer ends December 15.

2. I announced the (draft) table of contents for the next FableCroft anthology One Small Step. It’s very exciting!

3. I’m posting extracts from the 2009 shared world anthology New Ceres Nights that I co-edited with Alisa Krasnostein for Twelfth Planet Press, as the book is our special offer with any other purchase (either at TPP or FableCroft) – buy anything with us, and get New Ceres Nights for just $10 extra!

Right now I’m about to start edits on the One Small Step stories, and am working on two yet to be announced projects as well – lots of fun! Stay tuned for more announcements in the coming weeks.

Another week over

It boggles me how fast time is going right now! With the broken sleep, and lots of baby cuddles during the day, as well as running around after the bigger kids, it just seems to evaporate! Since last update, one thing that has happened was a surprise visit from the landlord of our rental here (COMPLETELY against all the rules!) to tell us she was not prepared to extend our lease for the duration we had requested, meaning we either have to be bullied into another 12 months, or leave. Given our lease expires 26 December, you can imagine how impressed I am. Ever so graciously, she’s given us until the 25th of January if we are moving – still unimpressed, given the schedule we have for the next six weeks. And there are bugger all houses suitable for us, in our price range, in the areas we’d be happy to move to – even MORE unimpressed. So despite my misgivings (and the fact the owner plans to put the house on the market, by the sound of things), it looks like we will probably have to re-sign for another year, and accept that we won’t be looking elsewhere for the duration. Which has positives and negatives, the most negative being (for me), that the bully wins. Grrrr.

Other than that, things speed on towards Christmas. Got Master Ten and Miss Seven’s presents wrapped yesterday, still working on the rest. Kids finished school today (a week and a half earlier than the public system, jeepers!) and now I have to find things for them to do for the next week! 🙂 Bubs is doing well, even though sleeping at night has its ups and downs – had his four week health check yesterday (a little late due to a reschedule by the clinic) and he’s put on over 1.2kg in three weeks – which you can tell, just be carrying him! And he’s outgrown both the newborn baby nappies and the first of his 000 growsuits (the 0000 one we had got one outing only!) – happens so quickly, then you turn around and they aren’t tiny any more!

Kids finished school today – a week and a half earlier than the public schools! Kids enjoyed their last few days, with lots of parties and extra activities. They finished at lunchtime, and I offered to have a friend’s two as well, as she had to work, so we hung out at Maccas for a couple of hours before coming home for more play. I spent the afternoon/evening packing all the school ephemera into a box – we have a number of such boxes, detritus of daycare/school/birthdays etc. I guess vaguely I think one day I’ll get time to “scrapbook” it all, but I think that if I listen to the honest part of me, I know that’s never going to happen! That said, I remember coming across some of my early primary school books as an adult, and it’s great fun to look through them. If Mum and Dad can be bothered carting boxes of “stuff” around for the next 20 years!

Anyway, am finally printing the Christmas letter, so might start addressing some envelopes. Have to figure out whose physical addresses I actually have! May end up only being family if I can’t unearth the address book!

Um, where did that fortnight go?

That’s a bit of a rhetorical question I guess; I know where the past fortnight went. Down the rabbit hole of newborn baby/surgery recovery/being a mum in the lead up to Christmas! I was feeling pretty ordinary for a couple of weeks, but with a bit of help from daycare for the toddler, and my lovely family & friends, by the beginning of week three I was starting to perk up. This past week I’ve felt great, am coping well with the lack of sleep and starting to get a few things done that aren’t just taking care of baby/kids and trying to keep up with washing & tidying! Getting a little computer time, a little reading time, and a little socialising time too!

Started out last week by visiting my ex-work here to introduce the baby – Master Two was also popular, as he’d not been there either! Very pleasant, and both toddler and bub behaved beautifully.

Had Katrina visit Tuesday morning, and on Wednesday, Jo & I took the boys to the YMCA playgroup, which was really good – lots of programs there that we’re interested in, so will probably spend a bit of time there next year.

Spent the morning in the city centre on Thursday, but bub wasn’t impressed with a shopping morning – managed to achieve most of my goals anyway, which was good.

Susan & Nate came round Friday to tell us about their NZ trip, though for some reason the boys weren’t as good st playing together as they usually are.

Saturday, husband took the big kids to cricket in the morning (and did some sneaky birthday shopping on the way home!), then we all walked down to the swim school at midday for levelling assessment. And in amongst that week, we had lots of other visits too!

Yesterday was my 37th birthday, and along with lots of very kind good wishes via friends online, I was lucky enough to celebrate with old and new Tassie friends in real life! Tansy, Finchy & the girls came up from Hobart for the day (SO appreciate that effort, and the cakes!), the Flinthart clan (unfortunately sans Natalie) came in from Scottsdale, as usual bearing food, and cricket gear! Newer friends Susan, Paul & little Nate and Jo and John with Sophie & James joined us too, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon in the park, on a gorgeous Tassie summer day! Despite a cake mishap which saw a four year old charge straight through a platter of newly frosted cupcakes, and a few cricket related injuries (the worst being Mr Flinthart attacking a tree with his face – I think the tree came out of the encounter the winner!), it was a simply delightful day, and I’m so thankful for the company to celebrate with. Baby was AWESOME, sleeping almost the entire time except for two very mini feeds! A great day.

And another enjoyable one yesterday – Susan & I drove out to Scottsdale to one of the last open Chickenfeed (cheap shop!) stores in Tassie to do a littleChristmas trinket shopping. We also raided Woolies, then called in on the injured Mr Flinthart, who promptly whipped up some exotic soup to charm Susan!

This morning I caved to three weeks of begging and took the baby in to the kids’ school. Miss Seven’s show & tell theme this week was “something precious” so I guess that was a no brainer 🙂 Teachers & kids were all appropriately impressed with bub, and Master Two enjoyed the visit as well – he quite liked hanging out in the Year 1 class doing drawings!

So in all, now I’m starting to feel normal again, we’re enjoying our end of year silly season lead up! Looking forward to the next few weeks (and I gotta say, glad NOT to be moving!) of the holiday season.