Empty nest... sort of?

The last few months have been wild around the Silvers household. Not only was I busy running my first Kickstarter campaign (thanks to everyone for the support!), but my youngest child also moved into her first apartment. 

I helped her get everything in order, checked over her lease before she signed it, assisted with getting utilities put in her name, and even lugged tons of her stuff up a flight of stairs to her second-floor apartment. I even took her shopping for household goods and let her rob a lot of stuff from my house. LOL!

It was a rush of activity that lasted a couple of weeks. Then, when it was all over and she was settled into her place, I looked around my house and realized it still didn't feel like the "empty nest" all the older people had promised me when my kids were little. 

Nope. 

Now my house is filled with... grandkids!

The husband and I married young and started having kids right away. My youngest of three was born two days before I turned 28. We expected to have a LOT of quality alone/together time once all the kids moved out and into adulthood. We were going to travel more, eat out at new restaurants a few times a month, take drives in the mountains just because. Things we couldn't do when we had a houseful of kids and bills and responsibilities.

Then our middle child had our first grandson in 2020 when Covid hit, and then our second grandson three years later. When she returned to part-time work, I watched the babies for a few hours in the evenings. That started out as a few days a week, then more days, then longer hours, then she divorced and had to work full-time. At this point, she and the boys were used to Gammie having them.

These boys are something else. I love them more than I could have ever imagined. They make me laugh and give me cuddles. They amaze me with how brilliant they can be, and then have me rolling my eyes at the weird things little boys tend to do. Sometimes they even make me miss when my kids were this age. Then I come to my senses as one of them tries to body slam the other on the couch. *Sigh*

I thought I'd have an empty nest, yet here I am chasing a toddler and a preschooler all over again 5+ days a week, and it's not as easy this time around as I creep toward 50 years old.

Oh no! I found a fox!

I found a sneaky little fox sniffing around my chicken coop the other day, and for once I didn't chase it away! 

This little guy is now 5 months old and all ready for Halloween. What a difference these months have made to the dynamic of our family. Even my youngest (15yrs old) is enamored of this little guy. He knows his Auntie will happily pick him up and carry him around with only a pout from him. LOL! He's definitely a little stinker and knows how to play us all. 

Happy Halloween!

October 1st! We made it to level 10.

This little boy is a fox! :)

Good morning, everyone! 

We finally made it to October. This year has been pure insanity, and it doesn't look to be calming down just yet. Yet, we can hope for the best!

I've been kicking it around here lately with home improvements, cooking, cleaning, book writing, promotions, and even managed to order my 2021 planner (woohoo!). 

This coming weekend I'll even be cleaning out my chicken coop as the girls may be feeling a bit neglected lately since my 15yr old has been in charge of them while she was home from school for 6 months. Now that she's gone back to school I'm back out there tending to them and realized the teenager might have slacked a bit on cleanliness. 

On the Homefront, I've been spending a lot of time with my little grandson, Grady. He is a light in this crazy world. He's all smiles when he sees his Gammie and PopPop, and we adore him! He looks soooo much like his mommy (who looks soooo much like me!). 

On the book front, I'm still working on the 8th book in the Liz Baker series. I also wrote a little short Liz thing for a multi-author anthology coming up in the future. I've been reformatting a few of the eBooks to include extras like free short stories and even a full length book. I've joined a few multi-author promotions to boost newsletter subscribers and introduce my readers to other authors who are doing the same with their own lists. I've also been approached by a website looking to add the Alex & Fiona series to their novel-reading site (I haven't decided on that one yet). Lots of things in the works right now! 

In the meantime, I hope all of you are surviving the year. Hopefully October will be a good month and lead us all into the holiday season with a bit more calm.

What's Going On These Days?

My daughter & adorable grandson. 

Happy Wednesday, readers! I hope you're all still surviving the insanity of the world we live in now. It has been a weird year, but we're almost to the end of it. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for 2020 to be DONE. I certainly hope next year is calmer. 

In the meantime, I'm doing what I can to keep things (a.k.a. my sh*t) together and move forward, even if it's at a snail's pace. In the last three months I've had a new grandson, returned to the day job, two kids married, and went on family vacation.

It has been CRAZY!

With all that going on, the book writing has fallen by the wayside. That's not saying zero writing has happened, just that it isn't up to par with my usual production rates. I mean, this baby boy won't stay a baby forever, so I might as well enjoy him. :D

The youngest will be returning to school next month, which (hopefully) will get us back to something closely resembling normalcy. She's been home since the beginning of March and she misses her friends and the school routine. Plus, she'll be turning 16 in January and (hopefully) gets her driver's license. After that, I won't have to do the school driving any longer!

All in all, there are tons of things going on around here, even with a pandemic going on in the world. It just hasn't been book writing at a speed I would prefer. Now I'm going to get my behind out of this desk chair, change clothes, and head to the gym for a workout before heading to the day job for a few hours.

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

Welcome to the world!

Please welcome my beautiful grandson, Grady Lee! 

After two days of induction, he finally entered the world Saturday, the 23rd, at 12:15am. It was his actual due date, as well. I was on video chat with my daughter for those two days and was lucky enough to be able to see my grandson born. I wish I could have been there in person, but at least we had that much.

What a stubborn little boy we have here. However, is quite the cutie pie! :)

I think he looks so much like his mommy when she was a baby. A lot of friends and family are saying the same thing, so I guess he will be just as adorable.

In the meantime, you may not hear too much from me over the next week or two. I'm spending a lot of time helping my daughter with her little man and making sure she's eating and drinking without too much effort on her part. I've been cleaning, sweeping, doing laundry, showing her little tricks to newborn life, and anything else she asks for.

Grady Lee is named after his father's grandfather (Grady) and my hubby and his father (Lee). It's a nice tribute to both sides of Grady's family.

Once I held that little boy in my arms all the quarantine, mask wearing, hand sanitizing was more than worth it to make sure I could hold him the day he came home. He has my heart and always will!

6 Months of Insanity: Rental Property & a Grandbaby

My preggo daughter!

Hello, my wonderful readers! I've missed you all tremendously & and been tweaking hard for some writing time. Soooo, I'm going to jump in and give you guys an update on the insanity that has become my life the last six months.

#1.  The hubby & I have been remodeling our rental house since July 2019. This started out as something "simple" and "necessary," but quickly escalated into a massive overhaul project before we knew it. The entire house was torn down to bare subfloors and some rooms were down to wall studs. We tore out old, dark, wood paneling and found good sheetrock behind it. We had to patch holes, replace some and re-rock the entire bathroom (which was the worst room in the house). We replaced flooring, carpets, lights, tore out the entire kitchen and started from scratch. And a million other little things too exhausting to recount. And to this day, we still have to lay flooring in the living room/dining room area and put down baseboards before cleaning it all.

All of this for reason number 2.........

#2.  Our middle daughter is making us grandparents for the first time! She is due in late May 2020 and we are all preparing for this little one's arrival. Aside from the house remodel, I'm also shopping for the baby, planning the massive baby shower, and attending ultrasound appointment to see my new grandbaby every chance I get. We are just a few days away from finding out if it's a boy or girl. And then the shopping spree really begins! Oh, and since I'm far too young to be a Granny or Mamaw, I've decided to be Gammie. So, Gammie's baby will be wildly spoiled once he or she makes their arrival in a few months.

And during all of this insanity I even jumped in and....

#3. I am now a Master Certified Life Coach! This has been something I enjoy and when the opportunity to become certified fell in my lap I certainly couldn't pass it up. I spent several months working on courses and exams before I finally celebrated the certification. I work online and off, with an office to work out of at my day job. If you're curious, feel free to check it out at TailgateLifeCoaching.com

In the meantime, I've been working that day job I enjoy, running the household, enjoying holidays and birthday, all while working on that dang house that I'm extremely sick of. My Army daughter came home for Christmas. I had her for two weeks and it was wonderful. The holidays were fun and peaceful. Nothing crazy at all (thank goodness!)

Now that the new year is here, it's time to celebrate two more birthdays: my youngest is turning 15 & I'll be 43. I'm slowly getting back to my book writing and plan to release the next Liz Baker book in 2020. Stay tuned for future updates.

Happy New Year & wish me luck! :)