Back in Canada

The husband, the dog, and I returned safely to the cold north a few days ago. To celebrate we bought the dog snow boots because the below zero (Fahrenheit - WAY below zero celsius) temperatures have been making it difficult for her to stay outside long enough to pee. With boots on, she can now handle a good long romp in the snow (as long as they stay on).

Evidence here:

I never thought I would have to buy my dog boots, as she is very much designed for winter, but it turns out there is winter and there's WINTER. The Starks were right.

The winter solstice holidays have been fun, we got to see loads of family stateside and now we're catching up on holiday time with the Canadian side of the friends and family. So that's all happy and good.

But I wouldn't want you to think that I didn't get any work done over the holidays! After getting Blade's Edge back from my copy editor and dealing with changes and suggestions, I went into a formatting frenzy.

And... I wound up compromising on the whole formatting thing. I did all the formatting myself. However, I have "shipped" the finished formatted document off to a professional formatter to be checked for formatting errors and inconsistencies and to make sure that everything meets industry standards. Said formatter will not correct anything herself, but rather will send me a list of things that need to be corrected and I will fix them. This is all done for a very small fraction of the cost of what it would take to pay a professional formatter to do a custom job (and also quite a bit less than it would cost to have someone else mush it into a template). As a bonus, I learn from my mistakes and am better prepared to do this again next time. :-D

I'm getting so excited about getting Blade's Edge in print. Just a reminder for those that live in or near Winnipeg: January 23rd is the launch party at McNally's. All are welcome.

Well, I think I'm going to call a close to my working day and spend some time with the husband and dog. Wishing everyone a happy new year!