I mentioned last week that I was giving my sister the first 100 or so pages of my WIP and that she’d promised to read it. Knowing I’d be ceaseless in my nagging, she read it while I was there, and even gave me a glowing (if somewhat facetious) review:

“A rip-roaring, rollicking good read! Quite an admirable second effort by this author, who with a little tweaking, could have a first-class book on her hands.”

-Name Withheld, author of Help! My Younger Sister Holds a Grudge: Ten Annoying Childhood Memories Revisited

(For the gullible among you, she’s not really an author. This is just a poke at me for remembering, and occasionally bringing up at family gatherings, a few best-forgotten aspects of my childhood. All I can say is that I’ll do my best.)

But otherwise, even taking the facetiousness into account, that’s almost a sparkling review! I’m very pleased.

Other highlights of the visit were this a re-enactment of Gretel von Trapp’s young life:

And the creatively draining task of piecing together a vignette of crafted creations:

I’m back from Charleston and knee-deep in laundry! Just to keep you all in the loop, we went with a preseasoned, 7 lb, turkey-in-a-bag, and it was de-licious! Really. I think it was the moistest, juiciest turkey I’ve ever had. And we didn’t have to deal with seasoning it, or any of those weird turkey parts. Yahoo! I think I definitely would have missed having Thanksgiving without the turkey. And I’m definitely not a tofurkey girl.

I’ll be posting pictures later on, but wanted to post about the wonderful surprises waiting for me at my post office boxes. First off, Enthusiasm came, and I am thrilled! I’ve read the first page (just for a little taste), and already I am loving it. Then I received an Advanced Reader Copy (a little late) of The Luxe , a tale of 1899 Manhattan by Ana Godbersen. And finally, two books from my RWA chapter pal (she sends me ARCS, and I review them for her online):
her third historical One Night With You–and if you haven’t tried Sophie Jordan, I highly recommend her–and the first of her new paranormal series, Marked by Moonlight, written sans-psuedonym as Sharie Kohler.

I’ll be visiting you all starting tomorrow. Right now I’m off to read the rest of Mansfield Park so I can get started on my stack of new goodies!

I made it through that last Thanksgiving meal, my kindergartener in paperbag vest (there you go, Stephanie!) and Indian headband. He ate fruit, crackers, and cheese. One mother decided to go all out and bring stuffing and cooked spinach (probably because her daughter is a vegetarian). She was the only one who ate that drippy, dark green mess–and only one other brave child tried the stuffing. My son didn’t even try the miniscule sliver of pumpkin pie. And now, Thankgiving is but a day away, and we can’t decide what the main course should be.

My sister doesn’t much want to do a turkey, her husband wants to deep fry a turkey, I say we don’t have to do meat at all if nobody wants it…but we’re getting down to the wire here. We have to make a decision soon. That is, unless we want to go with my brother-in-law’s other suggestion and go out to eat. I can’t even really imagine that–I’ve never eaten Thanksgiving dinner any place other than in a family member’s home. It will definitely be weird if we end up doing that.

My sister is currently reading the first portion of my WIP, and she’s being very closed mouthed. I can’t tell what she’s thinking. She edited my first book, so this time around I told her not to nit-pick, just to give me overall impressions. We shall see… I’m not sure when though, because she also told me not to bug her about it or reading it will become a chore. She’s a bit of tough cookie.

So far I’ve spent this week creating a vignette for my sister’s new website…she’s up on Etsy here, but her website is still a work-in-progress, and listening to my four-year-old niece. We watched the Sound of Music, and she pretended she was Gretel (the youngest von Trapp), and with her father, acted out the ‘So Long, Fair Well’ song, including being carried off to bed. She told me during the movie, ‘This is like a preview of my life.’ She’s a riot.

I’ll post again with the results of our Thanksgiving feast–Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!