Laser printers are better than pistachio gelato

My family came to LA to visit me last week.
Those are my two sisters, Shayna and Kari, and my Dad.

I made them dinner.

At first my Dad and Shayna told me that only the two of them would be coming to visit and that my littlest sister, Kari, would be too busy with schoolwork to make the trip. But when I met my Dad and Shayna at their hotel (surprise!) Kari was there too!  Then us three gals were all together again. 

(Yes, much of what my family does revolves around food.  Much of what I do, too.  You'll learn this.  Soon).

They left on Saturday and by Monday I was feeling pretty lonely (and if it wasn't for my husband I'd be feeling VERY lonely).  Maybe that’s what I should expect to feel being home alone during the days after three weeks in India with one of my best friends, a week in Vancouver with part of my family and a week in LA with another part?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about being almost alone in LA.  I'm grateful for this new adventure with the love of my life (Tom) and this day-in-day-out sunshine.  I NEED this time.  I get distracted very easily and family is more important to me than pretty much anything.  So being away, as hard as it is, is probably what I need right now to, you know, do what I said I'd do. 

I didn’t hit the ground running on Monday either.  I'm not in a crazy writer’s frenzy (yet!) but really that's because before I do any new writing I need to read the draft I finished in December — and to do that, I need one of these:

Mine came yesterday.

(Yay!)

I never realized how much I would need a laser printer until I tried to print my last draft on an inkjet and um, yeah, it SUCKED!

So I took Jackson Pierce's advice (see below).  As for the rest of the advice in this video (offered by 28 other YA authors). Yeah, I'm taking that too.