I’ve been puttering away at my desk these days.

With my constant companions: coffee and the very big kitten that likes to sleep in my lap. It’s like she knows I get lonely when Bug is away at school.

I’ve been making all sorts of things for you guys to see along my book tour. I’m very excited about it. I think you will be too.

Production has been a little rough going. Making, fixing, making, fixing…the things I do for you! Just kidding, this is sort of like playing. But I really do hope it pays off in the end because all this playing is not paying the bills!

Five cars later, I finally got it right. Stay tuned. This post will show up on Tuesday of next week!

And this one on Wednesday. So fun! I can’t wait to see what my secret agents do with them!

Bug was inspired by the ninja costume.

Hi-Yah-Wah!

Now you see me…

Now you don’t. Wait. What? What’s going on here? I don’t know. I think she was looking for something.

Anyway, just wanted to pop in (after nearly a week of dead, dead silence) and tell you what we’ve been up to.

We also had a tea party at my grandma’s this week. I should make this a post on it’s own but the way I’ve been keeping up with the blogging…we all know that is never going to happen. So here it is squished in with another post. I hope you don’t mind.

We go over to my grandma’s and aunt Keren’s house every Wednesday for dinner and lately they’ve been doing theme dinners. (I come by my love of theme-parties genetically.) Every Wednesday my grandma asks Bug where she’d like to go for the following week’s dinner. We’ve been to Hawaii (yummy teriyaki), Thailand (for me because I love Thai food so much) and I think Italy (for Saltimboca!). Last week Bug said she wanted to go to London so my grandma and my aunt Keren put on a grand tea party spread. It was so fun! Tiny sandwiches, tea, scones with clotted cream and jam…it was fit for the Queen!

So that’s what we’ve been up to!

Mark your calendars! My book tour starts next Monday! I’ll be posting where to go here on this blog so check in.

The time has come! I finally finished SAJ Numbers and now I get to schedule a little virtual book tour. You might have thought I was going to come to your town and set up a little table and hand out cupcakes. I wish I was. Bug has perfected her signature and everything. I might do that locally but I’m not big enough to travel quite yet. But it could happen. I just need your help.

What I need right now are 26-30 bloggers who would be willing to host a little book tour for me. Just one post. There will be prizes, crafts and even a secret clue game. It’s going to be fun and don’t worry, I’ll do all the hard work for you. I will have a press release ready that you can just copy and paste blurbs from or you can interview me OR you can host a little craft that I will set up for you with printables!! It will be fun! You’ll be part of a tour with some other big bloggers (I’m calling in favors from all my old-school blogging buddies from way back) so you’ll get a lot of traffic to your site (at least that’s my evil plan anyway) because everyone will have to find the secret clue in each blog post.

Is this a mission you would like to accept? Email me and we’ll set up a date.

Numbers will drop November 15th just in time for the Kindle Fire (so you can see it in color!) The other books are already out but don’t buy them or pimp them now because I want everyone to make a big fuss on the 20th so it will get a better chance to rise to the top of the book charts and hopefully stay there if it gets good exposure. This is the strategy.

But between you and me, it’s my next book I’m excited about. The one I haven’t written yet: SAJ goes to Paris. I’m giving myself a year to illustrate it and it’s going to be full scenes instead of just illustrations on white. I’ve got a taste for this book-making business and I’m really excited about it. Maybe you’ll join me?

I’m interrupting my diligent work on my profit and loss reports to bring you this post. Did you know that filing for divorce is like filing your taxes? So guess who is in paperwork hell today as I tally up all my invoices and subtract my mountain of receipts? ME!

Remember how I vowed to convert to an electronic system last April when I did my taxes? Didn’t happen. But the good news is I’ll be ready this coming April. Or at least January through September will be ready. Anybody want to volunteer to come visit me and set me up with apple money or some other such program that will log all kinds of paypal and banking reports for me? I’ll be your best friend and make you cookies or something.

Anyway!

Good news: I have a new work space. You can see it up there. That’s my trailer park carport turned into an outdoor country kitchen. I’m not into country or anything (hold off on sending me those duck towels) but the work space is awesome. I really love it. As you know, I’ve been writing more craft tutorial posts on other sites these days and I’ve been having an awful time photographing them in my windowless kitchen. Every step of the way I have to open my carport door and stick whatever I’m photographing outside with one hand (the camera’s in the other) so I can get some natural light on my subject.

It wasn’t going very well with the dog and the cat and the flies and the kid coming in and out when they weren’t supposed to. Everyone was always going the wrong way and I do not have a screen door. I can’t just go down to Home Depot and buy one either because I live in a TRAILER with a mini door that does not conform to big box standards. I could find one on a camper or something but that is just not going to happen any time soon and I don’t really feel like buying one of those rolling expandable screen doors either because I’m just a dollar short and a day late or something or other. See above paragraph about profit and loss reports.

But now I have a lovely table to work and photograph on. One step at a time! Before I didn’t even have a camera so I’m actually making tons of progress at life this year. One of these days I’ll be a regular well-oiled machine, probably about the time I have to move into a teeny tiny apartment and start all over again with some new challenges. That’s life, right?

I almost forgot to share where the table came from! It’s my sister-in-law’s. I think my brother found it in a dumpster. My sister-in-law doesn’t even know I’m borrowing it. It was at my mom’s under a giant pile of boxes just getting dusty and full of black widow eggsacks so I think CC will be happy to know it’s being used and loved. And yes, CC, I promise I won’t spill paint or anything toxic on it. It’s mostly just for photographing.