Necessity is the Mother of Monsters

So, I guess it's time for a little catch-up!

1) Shaking Out the Dustpan
So, as you may be aware, I did finish my NaNoWriMo last year, despite my lack of blogging on the matter. Not sure what happened this year, but I lacked the sense of urgency and involvement I had in the previous attempts. Sure, I still finished, but it was probably my worst effort yet, and the difficulties I had with it early on, combined with a growing disillusionment with the story I was writing, meant that I just couldn't get excited about it. Well, 50,000 words is 50,000 words, I suppose, and the failures are as important a means of learning as the successes.
2) Defrosting the Freezer
Speaking of which, I'll be going back to my revision of my 2009 effort. It's been largely stalled for quite some time now, so I'm gonna have to start again from scratch, I think. Probably not a bad thing.
3) Scrubbing the Bathroom
So the ongoing saga of our house buying is...ongoing. We're at about 3 1/2 months and counting since our offer was accepted. It's all looking fairly positive in terms of going through, but we're waiting for lawyers to their lawyerly thing. Buying in this country is a ridiculously convoluted process, and it's easy to forget sometimes that we're about to put ourselves in debt to the tune of a couple hundred thousand pounds. As a warm-up we've been buying stuff we're gonna need. We're now the proud owners of a new telly, with a sofa and a bed ordered and due for delivery in 7 or 8 weeks. Hopefully we'll be in by then!
4) Sweeping the Floor
Work has been crazy. Two people are leaving, and I am about to go back to handling the book ordering for the store. Meanwhile libraries are spending money like they're about to lose it (they are), big changes are in the offing for our building thanks to a new owner, and we've got all kind of plans for the coming year. I've done or am doing a couple of little interview things (for the FPI blog and the Comics Bureau blog) and am on a panel about selling graphic novels at the London Book Fair this year. So that'll be fun.
5) Making the Bed
Things are all good on the married front. We've taken to having a date night, not because we're desperately trying to salvage our relationship, but rather because we've grown a bit too comfortable in our routines and both miss going out and enjoying what London has to offer, especially on the food front. Unfortunate, given we're about to have to start living on a shoestring once the mortgage payments kick in.
6) Writing the Blog.
And this thing, of course! Well, I've thought about getting rid of it, but, y'know, all the points I made in my last well-intentioned but doomed post still hold true, so I'm going to keep on with it. I won't make any foolish commitments to it, but I will get to it as often as possible and try and work it into my week somehow.

And that's about it! Now, time for some Xbox...