*Emerges from a pile of boxes and packing peanuts*

I’M ALIVEEEE!

(Found image here)

Over the course of the past several weeks my entire soul has been consumed by moving house. However, the real panic didn’t set in until after we had lugged our entire 2-bedroom apartment and my wife’s historical costume fabric collection and our combined book collection up 3 flights of stairs.

Our cats, Sophie (a petite black DSH) and Enzo (an enormous orange tiger), protested the 1-hour drive north by screaming in almost-human voices for the entire trip. Then, once they were unceremoniously deposited amidst the multitude of unopened boxes and wrapping paper, they ran around the new house panting with their mouths open and refusing to drink any water. Given that the day in question had been at least 96 degrees Fahrenheit we turned the AC as low as it would go and went to bed worried.

I rolled out of bed on Saturday morning and entered the bone-chillingly cold living room to find it completely empty of kitties. “Enzooooo? Sooooophieeee?”

“Mrrrow?” Enzo’s deeper voice chirped from behind the boxes on the kitchen counter. She jumped down and threw herself against my leg as though nothing had ever been wrong.

Still, no Sophie. I wandered through the apartment, checking the water dishes and calling for her. At least one water dish, the one I had placed on the carpet, was lower than it had been the other night. Finally I shook the food dish.

Rattle-rattle.

“Aow?”

I turned to see Sophie sleepily clawing her way out from under the sofa. Her chirps and head-buttings relieved me. I checked both cats to be sure they were breathing normally and didn’t look distressed, and then opened the door to the bedroom, announcing to my wife the following: “THE CATS AREN’T DEAD.”

“Thank goodness,” she mumbled, half-awake. It was a great relief to all.

We balanced the unpacking of necessities with a trip to the beach and a scenic drive to several connected islands along the Maine coast. At the beach I attempted to make a sand sculpture of the Great A’tuin. I got about as far as Cori Celesti before the ocean decided NO; destroying all my hard work in one fell swoop of briny foam.

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There will be the THIRD CHAPTER of Toymaker up shortly, as soon as I get the internet working at the new apartment. After that I have an opinion piece to write (more of an open letter to all of you), but I promise it will be worth it. 🙂

I successfully avoided being eaten by wombats while moving, which as we all know is like a trial by fire every time you relocate. The first thing I did upon arriving at the cafe this morning was ask the barista whether or not the world had exploded in my absence from the internet and I was very pleased to find that it had not. (Dear earth, please do not explode or implode, neither is a very good solution to your problems.)

I am currently doing some Patreon page prep-work; we filmed our special thank-you video a few weekends ago and I have my list of donation tiers already laid out. Toymaker’s cover should be done in the next couple months so I am wicked excited about THAT of course!

Finances are all wibbly-wobbly right now with the move and with trying to spend more time writing so as soon as the Patreon page is up PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE donate!

The more support I receive from you folks the more I will be able to not only write (more FREE chapters!) but also to do fun things like post videos! I’d really like to put up a Let’s Play of whatever video game I’m currently playing (we home-voice-acted our way through Final Fantasy 7 once, I’m sure we could do it again) and/or to do a cooking show.

See, part of being interested in history as a writer has also endeared me to 18th century colonial cuisine. I have copies of Hannah Glasse’s, Amelia Simmons’ (no relation), and Apicius’ cookbooks; scanned facsimiles of the original printing press-set books in Ye Olde English and Latin. I was thinking I could take the recipes as they appear in those books and try to follow those recipes as best as possible without the aid of a modernized recipe and measurements, and just….see how they come out. I’m pretty sure it would be fun. (Apicius’ cookbook has a recipe for “CHICKEN WITH LASERS” and I just…I’m really REALLY curious as to how that is supposed to work.)

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Let me know what you think about the video ideas and about Toymaker’s chapters as they go up! Love it, like it, hate it: I want to hear from you. 🙂

Look forward to learning more about Moira and the mystery that is the Sheer soon!

xoxoxo

Kim