Not the bad kind where houses are burning down, but the kind from my fireplace. I love that smell and I love the smokey smell the next day. Last night we started a fire in our fireplace because it was that kind of day out. This morning I came downstairs and the smokey smell was in my family room and it was so nice. Really comforting. It reminds me of snow, Christmas and the weeks right before I had Nate, when I was on bedrest and I started fires just about everyday because it was the coldest, snowiest winter in recent New Hampshire history. It was so nice.

Today, I have ambitious plans.  I am going to a 90 minute hot yoga class. It’s my first one. I’m nervous about it because it’s the unknown but I’m looking forward to it, I need a good yoga class.  Then I have to go the laundromat and wash our comforter – Izzy was sick last week and I don’t want the germs to fester. I have a massage scheduled too.  Let’s start a pool on whether I can get all done.

I’m already surprisingly relaxed all things considered and am happy because I’ve been able to spend time with Nate, even though I’ve been insanely busy over the last few months.

I give a ton of credit to single parents.  Izzy was sick over this weekend so it fell to me to take care of Nate. Izzy thinks he had the flu and he may very well have had it. But he got an antibiotic for a sinus infection when he went to the doctor on Monday and he felt better pretty quickly after that so who knows.  Anyways, I was the one that was solely responsible for getting myself AND Nate up and ready to go for the day for the frist three days of  the week and it exhausted me. I don’t know how single parents do it because it’s absolutely exhausting.

Halloween was so much fun. I was Hermione Granger because she is, perhaps, one of my favorite fictional characters and Nate was Superman. I actually brought him around Trick or treating. At first he was unsure of what was going on, very shy.  And that isn’t really a bad thing because he’s not even two yet but when he figured out that he was going to get candy, he went right up to people.  He even remembered to say “Thank you” – or at least his version of it which sounds like “Ank oooo.” My parents were also up this past weekend which was nice. It’s nice to be taken care of once in a while and to be pampered. That’s what parents are for isn’t it?

Work has been stressful and probably will be for the next two weeks. I can make it to Thanksgiving, really I can.

I have a few new reviews up over at Legal Mama so go on over and check it out.

So things have been really, really busy and I’m really exhausted but see no respite in sight really.  Things are getting ramped up on me very, very quickly and I don’t feel like I really have a lot of time. So here’s what I have for Booking Through Thursday.

If you could ask your favorite author (alive or dead) one question … who would you ask, and what would the question be?

I’m not very original – I would ask Margaret Atwood (one of my favorite authors) where she gets the ideas that she does and what her motivation to write is.  I absolutely adore Atwood.

This totally leads to my stress being through the roof but it has to happen like that.  The next few weeks, at least until December, are going to be absolutely busy at work.  I will be working at least 50 to 60 hours a week, so I may not have any more time to post here until December.  It’s a long story that is completely inappropriate for me to get into on this blog for a variety of reasons, but please, take my word on it that I will be very, very busy.  I will really try to keep updating more regularly but I can’t make any promises right now.

Nate had to go to the doctor last week again, he was coughing and had a fever. Luckily, it wasn’t pneumonia again – which is what I was afraid of.  The doctor thought it might have been a sinus infection or just a second cold type of virus. We didn’t do a flu test, because, quite frankly, he said, the office ones were inaccurate and he wasn’t sick enough to be admitted.  So he gave us an antibiotic and sent us on our way. Nate hasn’t had a fever since Friday, thank goodness, but that stupid cough is still there.  I am thinking about having Izzy bring Nate in tomorrow to the doctor’s office again to have the cough checked out, because it isn’t getting better, even though he is generally doing well.

I realized this weekend that I completely miss the North Country of New Hampshire.  ::sigh:: Sometimes, life tosses us curveballs that force us to make decisions for our own preservation that we may not have made had it just been us.

but not really. I’ve been in Huntington Beach, CA for the past ten days with my in laws. Here are some of my favorite misc. Cali pics:

While here, we went to the San Diego Zoo.  I really enjoyed the Zoo, maybe even more than Disneyland if that’s possible because San Diego is one of only five zoos in North America, according to Wikipedia, that has a contract with China to have pandas here in captivity.  The gorillas were pretty fun too:

We also went to Disneyland of course. We weren’t there for as long as I wanted to be because Nate wasn’t feeling too well and it was hot and crowded.  What I particularly liked was that it was decorated for Halloween. While I really liked that aspect of it, it was also pretty surreal because it felt like summer even though it was the first day of October, pretty much.  I enjoyed it. I also rediscovered my love of pin trading and am hoping to get back into it. Here are some pics:

There are more pictures to be found here.

In some ways, I’m happy to get back to New Hampshire.  I miss the fall weather. I love fall in New England and it’s just not right to be here, know it’s October and have it feel like summer. I’m also looking forward to planning our trip to Disneyworld in Florida for next year sometime, hopefully in the spring.

I’m not looking forward to the flight back. It’s a red eye leaving tonight and getting into Boston tomorrow at 6 AM.  I never do well with red eyes because I never sleep. I can never get to the point where I feel comfortable enough to sleep, so I end up completely sleep deprived until the night the next day.  Then, I get to sleep for maybe a few hours in the morning before I have to get up and go to a really long meeting on  a pretty important case at work.  I’m not looking forward to the stress about returning. The next few months are going to be really, really tough for me.  I won’t really get another break until Christmas-time.

On another front, as some of you may know, I have been kicking around the idea of writing a book and I think that I know what I want to write about.

How One Office is Preparing for the Swine Flu Epidemic
How my office has prepared for the swine flu.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/2203681/how_one_office_is_preparing_for_the.html

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Eva and Marg that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries!

I didn’t take a picture but I’m really,  really excited about my library haul this week (and this is my first post in this particular weekly event). I brought home:

This is Atwood’s latest novel (normally found in dystopia) and is about two women who somehow survive a plague that has been genetically manufactured plague (for conspiracy theorists – AIDS or H1N1?) and are isolated during its spread. The women are members of a cult that has previously stated that God has been planning vindication for all of humankind’s sins in the past. I love Atwood and loved The Handmaid’s Tale so I reserved this copy so long ago.

Considering that I’m on a Scottish kick lately, Gabaldon’s Outlander shouldn’t be a surprise. I’ve read it once before, a long, long time ago. It’s an interesting combination of historical fiction (the novel takes place in the 1940’s AND in the 16/17th century Scotland), time travel (the main female character time travels) and romance (she falls in love with a Highlander she meets after she goes back in time).  CANNOT wait to sit and read this with a glass of wine.

2009 New Hampshire Highland Games a Success
A review of the annual event held in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
http://www.associatedcontent.comarticle/2200185/2009_new_hampshire_highland_games_a.html

…made me miss the North Country, particularly days and views like this:

The games were held at Loon Mountain in Lincoln, NH. It was a really long drive but well worth it. We were up early that morning because Nate was up at like 5, per usual. Then we loaded up probably around 8:45 or so and headed out, getting there at around 10, not bad timing all things considered. We parked at the Hobo Railroad and were shuttled in, which was nice because there wasn’t any parking closer than that.  There were a ton of vendors there and some interesting food. I stuck with a veggie burger and Nate had some grilled chicken. The best part about the events though were the performances. We saw these guys (Watch both – the first is fun, the second is just a GREAT cover):

Another great song that they played:

They were really fun to watch.  Just really, really fun. And I got to spend like 10 minutes talking to one of the bagpipers (Kevin MacDonald) at their table. Really down to earth and EXCITED that we Americans were interested in them.

We also saw these folks:

They were a little edgier but still pretty cool to watch/listen to.

I have to say we had such a great time, as you can see from this picture: