I’m not one of those people who can write 50,000 words in a month at the best of times. (Not yet, anyway.)  Still, while I did make a dent on a new manuscript last month, this is one of the many other things that consumed my attention. Last month my wife and I decided we’d finally had enough of the bottom-grade carpet we installed ten years ago, and were ready for something new. Now just what exactly that new something should be, we were a bit less certain of. We considered new carpet, we considered tile, and I guess we must have considered laminate for at least half a second or so. In the end what you see here looks and feels like wood or laminate, but it’s actually made of vinyl. We’re pretty impressed with how good it looks, and even more so with how little it cost. Most of all, though, we’re pleased with how easy it appears to be to clean.

On a semi-related front, our older dog was diagnosed with bladder cancer last month. Isn’t it funny how you’ll be rolling along, thinking you’re making progress on finding some financial and emotional even keel in your life, when something comes out of the blue to whack you back into the deep? Wait–that’s not actually funny at all.

I’m in kind of a weird place artistically right now. I’m very motivated to write, which is no surprise at all; I’ve got a bit more than I can handle on my plate right now, and those times always make me want to disappear into one of my made up stories instead of dealing with the real-world stress going on around me. What is a surprise is that I seem to be creatively dry at the moment. Usually when I’m motivated to write I’m also overflowing with ideas. I guess it’s kind of a mixed blessing that I’ve got nothing at the moment, because it makes it easier to concentrate on my day job, which probably needs all my attention right now. In less than a week it will be Winter Break, and I’ll be free to write as much as I want to then. For now, I just have to survive these last few days.