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Today is Pre-Convention Jitter Day. This regular event almost always coincides with Packing Day. This time around I have several flavors of jitters which make for fun combinations. I can mix I-am-leaving-my-kids jitters with traveling-on-a-plane jitters or alternately, with first-big-convention-and-running-a-booth jitters, or even meeting-online-friends-in-person-for-the-first-time jitters. I know these are jitters and not things which are logical, but the suppression of blatant illogical nervousness is tiring and has me feeling edgy. I just need to plow through my task list for today. Once we’re on the move tomorrow, all the jitters will vanish because I will not have to anticipate I will just have to react to whatever comes.

I think I’ve gotten to the point where all the “make or break” decisions are made. All that is left is to deal with the consequences. I’m mostly done organizing and planning, now I just need to execute. This is much less brain-twistingly stressful and is just merely busy. Adding to the relief is that some of the tasks, like book release shipping, are totally complete. The huge majority of those packages have arrived to their owners without incident. I can deal with the odds and ends. The church swim party is done. I had my retreat. Things have been shipped to both Indianapolis and Australia. The Indianapolis shipment is already confirmed as having arrived. So the business things have moved into a place that is more routine.

This means it is time for me to pick up some of the things that I have let slide. I need to start moving the kids’ bedtimes earlier. I need to get back to cooking regular meals. Also my house is in serious need of organizational attention. Unfortunately my high gear seems a bit worn out right now. I’ll be picking those things up steadily and slowly. Time to walk, not run.

I just had a very pleasant experience with Comcast customer service. I didn’t know that such things existed anymore. The tech was local to me, completely patient, and walked me through a dozen troubleshooting steps. As we did them, he explained why each step was valuable and what we hoped to learn. It turns out that our router may be feeling its age, but because the guy was so helpful, I now know how to do the electronic version of kicking it to make it start again. Yay.

Sometimes life is too full of things and I can’t process all of it. Then my brain shuts down. I find myself reading a book without having made a conscious decision to read, or I realize that I’ve been staring at the wall for the last 30 minutes, but I can’t remember a thing that I was thinking about. It is a normal defense mechanism. Usually when I discover it, I just give myself a break and write off the next hour, afternoon, or day. I have no space for that. I’m scrambling to finish things so that I can create space. It does not help that I have a sudden influx of things happening beloved people, about which I can not write because the stories are not mine to tell. Not helpful and not anybody’s fault. For some types of news there is no convenient timing.

In the category of Good News, because I think today should have more of it:

I just sent of the large shipment of merchandise to GenCon. In a mere 5 days I will know whether it arrive intact. It is out of my hands now. There are still things to send, but not today. I’ll think about those next week.

Kiki has made friends with a local professional artist and between the two of them they have plans which essentially amount to an apprenticeship for Kiki. I could not be happier. She is going to get to do amazing projects and learn tons about being a working artist.

The Children’s Museum in Salt Lake is an excellent time for a nine year old and a seven year old to hang out for three hours. They had a great time. I would love to write a whole blog post about that trip, but I’m afraid I won’t have the space in my brain before life moves on to something else.

All the invoices are sorted for shipping. I am incredibly grateful to my Janci and really glad that she’s worked with me on this before. She kept me on track this morning. In fact the whole “prep for the shipping day” project is on track.

Howard spent part of our writing group hammering out plot points to finish off this Schlock Mercenary book. It makes me glad and is full of fun.

Next weekend I get to flee all my business things and spend time with my kids. In fact, despite how crazy busy I have been, I think I’ve done fairly well at making sure the kids get spaces each week where their things come first.

The garage is now emptier than it was yesterday. Two tons of books were transferred to the storage unit via my van and half a dozen boy scouts who did their good deed for the day. We also brought back 17 boxes of a different book so that I can put together a freight shipment to GenCon. Hopefully by the middle of next week we’ll have cleared out the garage enough that Howard can park in it again.

By tomorrow my house will be emptier too. The parakeet has already gone home, and soon my brother’s family will decamp. Then we’ll be back to just our family in the house. Over the next few weeks the population here will continue to fluctuate as kids run off to various camps and visits. Things will not truly settle down again until after GenCon.

I don’t want to skip any of the cool things that are coming, but I miss quiet routine.

At the moment I am hiding in my office. In a minute I’ll go upstairs, round up five children (three of mine, two borrowed) and take them for a promised jaunt to the pool. Swimming is not what I want today. I want to sit someplace quiet to watch a movie until bedtime. Oh well.

Some days are just muzzy, muddle-through kind of days. I’m pretty sure I got stuff done. I think some of it was important. Hopefully I can acquire a good night’s sleep tonight and have a more focused tomorrow.

On vacation. Trying to stay away from the internet because it just makes me stressed.

I pull into the cul de sac and peer toward my house. The front room light is on, but the bedroom lights are out. There is no evidence for any of the catastrophic imaginings my brain began to supply when the kids did not answer my phone call to check up on them. This bodes well. I park and walk into the house. The sweet smell of home hits my nose. It is another bit of evidence that all is well. I walk into the kitchen and it is a wreck. The counters and table are covered with boxes, dishes, and debris. Odd though it may seem, this is also reassuring. I can see that they ate dinner and that they had a bedtime snack. I find the kids themselves asleep in beds. Link is in my bed. He obviously fell asleep while trying to wait up for me like a good babysitter. This is likely why he did not answer the phone call. The two fly swatters next to him are a mystery, I’ll have to ask tomorrow. All is well. More than that, every evidence I have is that they took care of each other and followed the script I walked them through before leaving. This is good and a lovely contrast to the last time when there was weeping and yelling for me to sort out upon my return. I kiss all of my children and am glad to be home.

I think that any day where I get to participate in a panel, do a signing where people actually buy my books, read out loud to an attentive audience, go out to dinner with marvelous people, sit around talking for hours, and am not interrupted by phone calls from crying children, can count as a really good day.

Everything went well. I am glad. Now I shall sleep.

The sore throats are not strep, or so the doctor says. However there were enough swollen tonsils, fevers, and assorted other symptoms that she decided antibiotics were merited. So now we have prescriptions.

We’ve also got epic levels of cranky. Early bedtimes are in order. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.