Obviously, I've gone utterly mad. I've signed up to do NaNoWriMo again this year. Even though I'll have a month-old baby to deal with. I realized he does sleep now and then, I'll be home 24/7 now, and it usually only takes me a couple hours a day to get my word count in, so why not try it? What's the worst that can happen? I fail to complete the challenge -- which is exactly what happens if I don't try it at all. And I actually have a plot outline for this novel, which is more than I had last year.

This year's novel is going to be Salem, the third book in the yet-unnamed trilogy that started with Josey and continued in Pike. If I manage to finish it, that will make three novel first drafts in three years, which is pretty doggoned impressive, if I do say so myself. And then maybe I can really force myself to start seriously revising them? Here's hoping!

We have a Gumdrop! Except now we call him Daniel instead ;-) If there's anyone out there who hasn't seen pics of him yet, here's one:
He arrived at 9:11 on October 9th, after the Lord answered our prayers and granted me a safe and speedy delivery -- my entire labor was only four and a half hours, and without pain medication. Completely crazy, especially for a first baby! He took to nursing right away, too -- in fact, he's feeding as I type this one-handed. We got home from the hospital today about five hours ago.

Cowboy and I are so grateful to God for blessing us with our healthy, happy baby (which we also prayed for for the last nine months). I think we'll keep him!

I've been having very real contractions for a couple hours now, and they're getting pretty strong, so we're going to the hospital to get me checked out -- they may send me home again for a while, who knows. Anyway, just letting you know :-)

Ohmygiddyaunt! I just bought ice cream from an actual-factual ice cream truck!

I was walking home from the gas station when I heard this calliope-like version of "The Entertainer" somewhere up ahead. I thought, "Wow, somebody has a really loud cell phone." And then here came this little white truck toward me through the dusk, and I thought, "If I didn't know better, I'd think that was an ice cream truck." And then when it passed me, I read the side of it and it WAS an ice cream truck! But by the time I had identified it, it was past me, and I just didn't feel up to chasing it down -- it's icky sticky hot outside right now and I was carrying a gallon of milk in a plastic bag... so I chalked it up to being cool just to have seen an actual-factual ice cream truck and continued on my way home.

While I walked, I thought about the clown on top of an ice cream truck that Booth shot in an episode of Bones last season, and about my favorite ice cream man ever, Tim Conway in The Shaggy D.A. I remembered how kids in books from the 50s and 60s got visited by ice cream trucks all the time, but because I was a kid in the 80s instead, and a kid living out in the middle of nowhere, I never had. Oh sure, sometimes I've gotten ice cream or cotton candy or something from one of those big concession trucks parked outside Walmart or at the fair, and I suppose those are technically ice cream trucks. But they are not the same as a little white truck emitting tinkly music and toodling down your street.

But as I neared home, I started to hear the music again in the distance, like the truck had gone up the street I was on and then turned and was coming back down the next one. When I turned onto my block, all the little kids that live in our duplex complex were lined up on the curb, hopping up and down and discussing whether or not the ice cream truck would really come all the way back there, or if it would turn down another street and miss them completely. By the time I got to our driveway, the truck was in sight, definitely headed for us. So I quick took the milk in, dumped it unceremoniously into the fridge, grabbed some cash, and got back outside in time to be the last person in line.

He didn't have tubs of ice cream that he dipped out of like Tim Conway in The Shaggy D.A., but that's okay. I bought an ice cream sandwich and a sno-cone and walked back to the Crypt with tears in my eyes because I was so excited to have finally bought ice cream from an ice cream truck. I put the ice cream sandwich in the freezer for later and am eating the sno-cone now :-D

Yes, ladies and gerbils, it takes very little to make a Hamlette happy.

Here's an intriguing blog: A Soviet Poster a Day. Along with each Soviet propaganda poster, you get a little history lesson and sometimes some art criticism. The guy who writes it, Alexander Zhakarov, has a cool sense of humor too. Like, the most recent post is titled "In victory, you deserve Champagne, in defeat, you need it." Another one is titled "Plowed ground smells of earthworms and empires." He also includes Russian proverbs here and there, which are interesting as well.

Finally! Some good news! Jon Stewart is going to host the Oscars again! Woo! My boycotting of them this year paid off!

Today is my official due date, but as you can guess, I haven't had Gumdrop yet (tho there are still 4+ hours left in the day, so you never know, lol).

When I do go into labor, I plan to post something here about it, time permitting. So just check back every day or so to see if there's an announcement about me leaving for the hospital :-D