I got home from Japan on October 11, and felt really tired and jet lagged. On the 15th Kathy came over for coffee, and I was telling her how bad I was coping with it all, and she said are you sure you’re not coming down with something? I said no, it’s just jet lag.

Then on the 16th I woke up extremely sick with a cold, and this dragged on for a week. As I began to feel a tiny bit better, I developed a migraine, and had headaches off and on until just a few days ago. Imagine my mood.

I really couldn’t do much except e mail photos around and put some on Facebook, but other than that I didn’t accomplish anything. The poor dog wasn’t walked for a week so he was quite confused and upset as well.

I managed to follow along with my two writing courses, as they’re on-line which makes it very convenient. I foolishly tried to do something with my new WordPress website, but can’t do one single thing, so had to give up. I’ll have to hire a teenager.

The nice web designer got rid of fruitcake.ca, as people were starting to order, so I told him please close that immediately! One day I hope to have a nice website all about me as a writer. Of course there’ll always be recipes and stories about bees, flowers, dogs and all of that, but the main theme will hopefully be stories I’ve written.

To whit: the novel writing is going abysmally. The outline is due in two weeks, and by God I’m going to have it done. Thus far I have a title, The Revolt of Helga Glasscock, and some vague idea of what the book is about. Strangely enough, it’s not about a woman who decides to open a fruitcake business.

At this point I envision it as a tale about secrets, but told from a humourous viewpoint. Because growing up in the small town of Osoyoos has provided me with a wealth of stories, I plan to include flashbacks whereby Helga talks about her growing up years there.

My pal Beverly from White Rock came for her final visit of the year. We did our usual stint at the thrift stores, and I must say I’m getting really good at saying no. Even if an item is new, of excellent quality and of course dirt cheap as it’s at a thrift store, if I can’t think of a good reason for the purchase, I just won’t make it.

But one thing I got, for which I have no place, but oh well, is a cute side table. It appears someone put nice stone pieces on the top, as it’s so heavy. It was $10 and of course we only go on sale days, so with tax it ended up under $8.00

And as I explained to Bev this can be the first item for my ‘studio’ project, which will begin in the spring. As you may recall, the ‘children’ have been asked to get out of my garage, which will be all spruced up and turned into my very own area. So now I have a lovely side table to decorate around.

The dog and I were huddled by the fireplace all afternoon yesterday as Fortis shut off the power in our area. It was nice, as I read, though what I should be doing is writing. I finally did force out the opening scene of my novel, so that’s a start.