Christmas is upon us

Well, now I'm a dumpster diver. Jeannie just called to say there was an ad for the TCU Press Annual Autograph Extravaganza in the paper this morning. Like many newspaper readers, I'm ad-blind and didn't see it. So I just put on a jacket and went out to the recyle cart, where fortunately the paper was on top and I found it easily. It's a quarter page ad and looks great. Thanks, Melinda.
I wish I felt more festive tonight. My house is all decorated--Jordan came and helped me put lights on the two artificial trees that stand sentinel at the front door and on the mantel. And she passed approval on the decorating that Maddie and I had done. I notice tonight that Jay and Susan have put white lights on their bird feeder and the fence between our houses in the back, where we are quite close to one another. It looks festive but startles me a bit every time I walk through the kitchen.
I've had a lazy day, still some catching up from the weekend, lots of emails (including a negative review crisis), a good nap, and finishing the proofing and correcting of the edited version of my cookbook. Got it off in the e-mail tonight, which makes me feel great. But I've had a scratchy throat and am determined it will not progress beyond that. Haven't done my yoga in days and am feeling guilty. I will also say I'm tired of shepherd's pie--it's really good, but enough is enough. I fixed it Wednesday night, and I cannot tell you how many meals I've had of it since. I think I won't even freeze it--will just, as my mother used to scold, pitch it.
This week will be hectic--unfortunately I scheduled two early morning doctors' appts and one early meeting with my boss. Plus our annual TCU Press Autograph Extravaganza is this Friday and my annual tree trimming party (no tree, as usual) is Saturday. Not good scheduling on my part. Tomorrow I have to stay home and wait for the U-Verse installer, but sometime I have to get to the grocery and the drugstore and do some cooking so I don't have it all to do on Saturday and find myself exhausted. (Actually, my freezer is full of baked goods and sausage balls and a cheeseball, so I'm ahead of the game--but I worry a lot!) Talk about a stressful holiday season, but I figure by December 7 it will all be over. I can lesiurely wrap the few remaining packages (I sent most of the kids' home with them). Meantime, it's good to have a lazy day.
I have a needy cat tonight--he will not get off my desk, where he insists on perching right next to me. For a while, we had a battle of the wills because he curled up on the page of editorial corrections I was trying to work from. He wants to rub noses all the time. Ah, a little fresh food and he went on his way.

HP7, fireplaces, and technology

Okay. I am bored to tears with Harry Potter. This morning I was reading Shelf Awareness, an online daily column for booksellers, and it was almost all devoted to Harry Potter, which is now familiarly called HP7. Being slow, it took me a moment to catch on to that one. And Harry Potter replaced the book section in Sunday's paper, has dominated the lifestyle section every day for two weeks, and is simply everywhere you turn. I'm not a Harry Potter fan, never will be, so my resentment is even greater. But one item on Shelf Awareness was sort of the final straw: next month visitors to the Iowa State Fair can see a lifesize HP made out of butter and kept in the refrigerated case in the dairy exhibit, right next to the cow made of butter. What desperate mind linked butter, dairy exhibits, and Harry Potter? As an author, I am pleased for J.K. Rowling's success and not envious, though I'd like 1/24th as much siccess or even less. But I think the world, particulary media, has taken her brilliant idea and gone mad with it.
Independent booksellers aren't too happy with the way marketing is being handled either, but that's another story. One very good thing has come of HP: more kids are reading. I talked recently with Rick Riordan, who has his own highly successful fantasy series, Percy Jackson and the Olympians, amd he freely admits that he is happily riding on Rowling's coattails.
Jeannie picked out a fireplace screen for me--surely I've mentioned Jacob's proclivity for eating the gravel out of the fireplace. I pointed out that he would pull a screen over on himself, and his mother was rather blase about that--it would hurt him and he wouldn't do it again, she said, but he wouldn't be choking on asbestos gravel. Jay, next door, pointed out a way to attach the screen to the ring holder for the damper chain. So Jeannie came by with the screen, and it looks great in the living room--she, Jamie, and I stood there and appraised it. The more I survey the room, though, the more Victorian it looks to me--all cluttered with pictures, statuettes (okay, they're awards won and I won't hide them!), and various geegaws. The fireplace screen is the final touch. No more! From now on, I'm simplifying (famous last words!).
My internet problems were solved today by the technician who came to make a housecall. After I worried about shorts, etc., it seems I had plugged my new phone into the DSL line instead of the phone line, thereby diluting the signal. Sorry, but I can't get more technical than that. Thanks, though, to Mike Long for responding to my troubles with indexing by pointing out that InDesign has a function that automatically corrects the index--now, if I only could get out designers to change to InDesign.