Post-Christmas catch-up

I haven’t posted since Christmas Eve because I’ve been on the road. And let me tell ya, I’ve seen enough snow to last me for the rest of the year. On a happy note, my folks came from Canada for a two-week visit. For Christmas, my mom gave my DH an envelope and told him, “This is for dinner at your favorite restaurant. You can take us all out.” Well, our favorite restaurant happens to be Sadie’s in Albuquerque, NM, so we loaded ourselves into the SUV and off we went! And believe me, it was worth the 18-hour drive 🙂

My parents had never been to the Grand Canyon, so on New Year’s Day the weather cleared (and so did the roads–thank you, ADoT), so we took a right turn at Williams and headed for the high country. It was a chilly three below zero when we got there, with about two feet of snow, but oh my, the canyon was glorious.

When we got home, I had enough time to do a couple of loads of laundry and pack my suitcase again, this time for Pittsburgh, PA. I teach every January and June in the MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program at Seton Hill University. It’s a low-residency program, where you go out twice a year for a week of intensive fiction writing classes and workshops, and spend the rest of the year working on your novel under a graduate advisor’s supervision, with the help of critique partners. I got my MA in this program, and am now teaching as an adjunct, as well as coming back to put the “F” in my MFA 🙂 Only one class to go and I’ll graduate in June.

So that was my winter break. How was yours?