I'm Alive!! (AKA...the holidays are over!)

Whew!

It's January 2012 and I'm still wrapping my head around that reality.  The holidays flew by.  I'm still catching my breath.  Honestly, December is a blur.  It feels like I blinked my eyes and it was over.

The hubby and I got killer colds right at Thanksgiving time and were sick for over two weeks.  We recovered enough for my final book signing in Houston on December 10th at Murder by the Book.  It was a great event.  I had the pleasure of meeting quite a few of my die-hard fans in the area and fellow author, Nicole Haddaway.  My sixteen-year-old nephew and his girlfriend also attended.  He declared the whole event "pretty cool" and even told me he is proud of me.  That made me pretty happy.

My birthday was on the 16th of December and it went pretty well until we had a major crisis go down with a very good friend of ours.  This person is basically family and it was a rough to see our friend struggling.  Happily, our group of friends rallied to the cause and our friend is doing much better now.

Just as we caught our breath, my hubby's uncle died.  In the midst of preparing for family to arrive for Christmas, we suddenly had a funeral to attend.  This death was not unexpected, but it was still difficult to see my father in law in mourning.  We spent the day of the funeral with my hubby's father, stepmom, his brother and his brother's girlfriend.  At the cemetery, as the casket was lowered into the grave I noticed two tombstones nearby draped in Christmas decorations complete with a little tree.

Christmas hit like a bomb.  My house was packed to the gills and it was wild.  I cooked Christmas dinner, but my brother, sis-in-law and mom took turns making other meals.  We hit our favorite restaurants as well, played a ton of video games, watched a few zombie movies, and basically had a great time.

My hubby and I made two trips to Forth Worth (to pick up and leave off my mom), two trips to Houston (to pick up and leave off my nephew) and one last trip to meet my brother and his family at a halfway point between Austin and their home to leave off my niece who had stayed another week after her family had departed for home.

Today is our first day without family.

I'm exhausted.

So I'm taking a little time for myself to relax over the weekend and gear up to jumping back into my writing.  My writing schedule was all thrown off by all that went down in December, but I have faith I'll be back on track soon enough.

So though I'm late to say this..I hope you all had a lovely holiday, a Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year.

2012 is here.

It's going to rock!