I have no single coherent thought right now, but there are multiple things that I can cover all at once. For starters, job hunt is going but not yet completed. I almost got a job as a grocery clerk, but I over-impressed the person who was trying to hire me and they tried to push me into a position that I didn’t want, so I’m looking elsewhere for now because I don’t want to get stuck in another bad situation that I can’t get out of. Otherwise, life goes well.

My sister’s fifth birthday was earlier this week. We celebrated it by going to the San Francisco Zoo on Monday, and then Tuesday we had a family party with cake at home. Shopping on a budget, I was only able to get her two small presents, but they were things that she specifically asked for, so at least she seemed to enjoy them a lot. I’ll try to make up for it at Christmas when I have more time and hopefully funds.

Working for my family continues to go well for the most part. There is still a little family awkwardness at times as we try to work through what my position in the household is now, but at least we haven’t gotten stuck on any major snags yet. I enjoy spending time with them and I get to see a lot of the kids.

I’m having a hard time swimming and playing soccer right now because of my burns, so my brother is disappointed a lot of the time that I’m there, but the burns are healing well and I don’t think I’ll have to wait much longer. Right now, though, my favorite thing to do is when my brother is at tae kwon do or hockey practice, and my sister asks me to have a tea party with her. I have a hand-painted “teddy bear picnic” porcelain tea set from my childhood that my mom keeps safe for me, and now I have an excuse to pull it out and use it again. Most of my tea sets are too small to really eat off of, but this one is kid-sized, at least, and functioning. As long as I sit with my sister, she uses very good manners and is careful with the tea set, so I know that there won’t be any unpleasant accidents.

I don’t manage to make myself sit down and write every day, but when I do, I tend to get a lot done. The story continues to move along well, and I’ve hit the halfway point. At 60k, this novel is officially halfway through the projected length, and also longer than any other single piece of writing that I have ever written before. Length alone is not what I’m concerned about, but it is a big deal for me to know that even with all of the stupid half-hearted junk that I’ve written almost purely for quantity, it was my carefully-planned, skillfully-executed work that has finally surpassed everything that has gone before. Even though there is a lot of work yet to come, from here on out I am not retracing old ground, but covering new territory in my writing repertoire.

I am moving forward with everything, though, and I don’t stop to worry about what’s already decided or passed on by. My life is a strange hodge podge for now but it is my life and I am happy for it, from the big things to the little ones.