NOTE: crossposted from Patreon, where posts arrive earlier & come with a different cat pic. (membership also comes with access to my mostly-pet-pictures & discussions Discord server.)

Whenever I try to write a clever intro, I ground out and lose all momentum, so here goes with the straight listed answer to the question, "What the heck did I even do, this past week? Because it feels like a lot of nothing."

• Took down all the holiday decor. For the record, that's 2 faux trees (front & back)  a tub of assorted lighted garlands, a family of gnomes, and 2 additional big storage boxes full of festiveness.
• *Put away* all the holiday decor (yes, that's two whole different tasks)
• Provided moral support for the takedown & storage of Lego Holiday Village, which is yet a THIRD post-holiday task, but thankfully not one that's my responsibility.
• Took the first Highway drive in Spouseman's new vehicle, followed by two longish local rides. It's so much nicer to be a passenger in this car than in his last one. I'm looking forward to taking trips again.
• Took down all the outdoor lights & so on, and set them in the garage to dry out before storing.
• Moved all the furniture back into its non-holiday configuration, which made Pips exceedingly happy, since his perch has returned to its home in front of a window.
• Found another story to add to the anthology. It's up over 50k words of writing now. I hope to have a table of contents soon.
• Had a breakthrough on what direction to take the unfinished Serena Cats & Dogs story. All I've written is a bare-bones note-to-self about it, but I'm having tons of fun turning the ideas over in my head.
• Indulged myself in more online shopping. I have a new adapter & laptop cable so I can work upstairs or down, in office or on couch, as it suits, without worrying about running out of juice. I haven't found a good travel teapot yet, but I'm still looking.
• Cleaned out BOTH OFFICE CLOSETS. I'd been putting off this task for ages because they were just jam packed with basically forgotten stuff. (Because my brain can only keep track of things I see. if I can hide it behind a door or in a drawer, it disappears from my brain )
  ANYWAY. Two big kitchen bags of trash, a box of recycling, and two bags of plastic bags later, and I have a napping nook and a file & supplies closet instead of two packed-full hidden mess zones. Fringe benefit, all my book-related stuff is now stored in an open-shelf area on the first floor. I can't lose things as easily, and con prep will be a whole flight of stairs closer to loading the car.
• Designed a new postcard, so I now have a giveaway for each series.
• ORDERED POSTCARDS. A batch of the new Rollover Files cards, plus a re-order on the Restoration Lineup cards with refreshed back copy and slightly brightened colors.
  (If you see typos, it's too late, so please don't tell me)
• Here's the new one (With a big shoutout of thanks to Dex Greenbright, who helped me push the design from blah to RAH! Plus he designed the logo, too.)
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• And here's the refresh on the old postcard:
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• While all this cleaning & designing was going on, there was also a Big Birthday Party for a friends, two hangouts/friendsing days, organizing a getaway fr next week, and a bunch of The Usual Life Chores.
• Like, oh, five loads of laundry. DONE, I say! DONE!
• And because I am an epic nerd, I designed a bunch of new badge ribbons for funs. Here are the proofs from the first "test of concept" batch.
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•  Now that I know the program I'm using for design (Yay, Canva!)  produces files the printer can use, I'll have more designs to order soon.
• Found my passport & renewed my Trusted Traveler Program, although I failed to check if I need to order a new card or not. But plans are inching towards Glasgow. (Not gonna lie, international travel is intimidating.)
• Watched the new season of Slow Horses & embarked on a rewatch of Firefly with Spouseman.

So, yeah. Looking at that list, I guess it actually has been a busy week-plus-a-couple-of-days.

Things will get actually hectic closer to Capricon. Feb 1-4 in downtown Chicago, should be.a blast. I'm on a bunch of panels & really excited to see if the con has worked out its hotel issues. I know one thing. It cannot be worse than the WindyCon hotel.) 

Anyway. That's it for this edition. Until later!