Ye ol’ blog has been a little quiet lately. … Of course, I’ve been filling my time with all kinds of glamorous post-Golden-Heart activities, don’t ya know, like shopping for ball gowns, drinking champagne, and taking calls from literary agents. …

(Just kidding. I’ve been cleaning my den and going grocery shopping.)

But I have diverted some of my energy, truly, to the craziness that followed the Golden Heart final. Here’s that and the four other main things I’ve been doing instead of blogging (even though I really miss blogging!):

1. Standing in the kitchen, talking to my eldest, during lunch time – Yep, just like old times, I’m spending my lunch hour mostly standing in the kitchen, eating lunch and chatting it up with Ricky, instead of blogging. My kid is home! He’s just completed his whole first year of college. If you’d told me when I wrote this post that the time would go by so fast, I might not have been so weepy. … Oh, wait. … Maybe ya’ll did tell me, huh? … Well, you were right. Time flew.
2. Working out in the mornings – I never thought I’d say this, but I now can’t blog in the mornings because I’m working out! Yep, for a whole half hour. Of course, my definition of “working out” is probably not the same as … say … Superman’s. But I’m giving it a half hour every single morning in my quest to lose weight. Instead of going downstairs and blogging at 6:30 a.m., I’m doing a DVD that involves some aerobic activity and some light weights for the arms. And I’m loving it. (Never thought I’d say that, either.)
3. Making dinners –While I used to have some blogging time right after work but before dinner (since Superman made dinner every night), now that time is filled up with my Rachel Ray antics, because he’s working a different shift at the Sheriff’s Dept. these days. Now he doesn’t get home until about 7  or 7:30 p.m., so I do dinners now – harkening back to my days of being a stay-home mom, where I made dinner every night for eight years while chasing after a preschooler and calling over my shoulder to see if everyone else had their homework done. I even had to dig out all my old recipes. So now that 1-1/2 to 2 hours each evening is no longer filled with blogging time, but is kind of slotted with me standing at the stove and watching HGTV or the Food Network while I whip up various chicken dishes and salads. …
4. Keeping up with Golden Heart emails – My hour or so after dinner used to have some blogging time, too, but now it’s been recently taken up by trying to read the hundreds of emails that come in every week from fellow Golden Heart finalists. I started out trying to keep up with them all because I didn’t want to miss any important info (this being my first trip to Nationals and my first contest win, and all…). But now I just try to keep up because we’ve formed quite a bond — these women are funny, engaging, charming, and inspiring. I love to read all their writing/publishing news at the end of each day, and I can’t wait to meet them all in Anaheim. And I even got to blog with one of the most well-known GH final classes of all time, known around romancelandia as The Rubies. Here’s my post with them.
5. Writing, writing, writing – And the last slot of time I used to have for blogging – the weekends – has now been filled with frenetic writing. Why the frenzy? Well, I actually had one agent ask me for my next project (although she didn’t think she could sell my GH one), so I sent her the first three chapters of the next book. And she asked that I send her the full as soon as I finish! So I’ve been pounding at the keyboard to try to get that one done. I originally told her I was hoping to have it done by November (to submit to next year’s Golden Heart), but she encouraged me to write faster – she said she hoped to see it sooner! : ) It was a compliment, but now I feel a bit of pressure to get this baby done. So I’ve been dedicating a huge portion of my weekends to reworking that manuscript, stripping it back to where I stopped liking it, applying some lessons I’ve learned from this Golden Heart contest, and rewriting from there. … Whew! I’ll need some beta readers in the next month or so. …

So if I’m quiet, that’s why. I do miss blogging. And there’s so much to say,  my gosh — Mad Men! Housewives of Orange County! Hiking in Orange County! Rene’s first commissioned piece of art! The Avengers! Ricky’s home! Nate’s making imovies! Summer’s coming! Reading The Paris Wife! Lizards are invading our backyard!

I’ll try to keep up. …

What’s going on with all ya’ll? (“All ya’ll” being a phrase this woman used in Lake Tahoe when she asked if we wanted her to take a family picture — “You want me to take a photo of all ya’ll?” I had never really heard that phrase used in real life before, and couldn’t stop saying it afterward. So cute. …)