Despite my best laid plans, all is running amok in my household which leaves me, today, with much to do and little time to do it in. I blame myself. It all started two days ago when I failed to back up the changes I'd made to a file, although, in my defence I am all but certain I saved the file with that day's date at the time. According to my computer and every file recovery system known to man, I didn't. And, I also didn't do my usual routine of double emailing the file to myself to two separate addresses and backing up to Dropbox. Which meant that yesterday, which was to be a preparation day for today, was spent in much futile searching and time wasting exercises trying to (a) find the file, then (b) replicate the changes and improvements I'd made to said file. Blah.
Why is today important? Well, it's my eldest daughter's birthday and we're hosting the family at our house tonight to celebrate with her. Normally that's no pressure, no stress and much fun, but this year the stress levels are running higher than usual. I'm working on a book (well, I'm always doing that,) Mr Fix-It is on an intensive training course and studying all the hours he's at home when he's not sleeping, Little Miss Fashion has her end of year show this coming Saturday (graduates next week, four years come to an end, just like that!) and has to make her final presentation to her lecturers, together with her leather bound contextual portfolio and a power point, today, and The Drill Sergeant (whose birthday it is) is working and her partner is away this week for work (totally unavoidable.) So, as you can see, the day's all a muddle.

I'm sure it will come together as soon as I find a suitable gluten free carrot cake recipe, tidy the house, make the garlic cheese ball and do all those other things you need to do to get a house ready for a family gathering (blasted Little Black Cat continues to moult all over the light coloured carpet!) All of which is why this blog is a little late going up today.Still, it's here now and I'm holding on to this as an omen that today will go smoothly and tonight will be memorable for all the right reasons! Wish me luck!
Oh, and here's the gorgeousness that is my wonderful US cover for my upcoming December release, THE HIGH PRICE OF SECRETS. You can preorder it now! And, in Aus/NZ I'm paired with Janice Maynard (fabulous author!) and, while the cover isn't as hot it's still incredibly lovely in time for Christmas! Oh heavens, Christmas!? I feel more amok coming on.
