I hope everyone's enjoying the merry chaos that comes with the holiday season!

This is just a drive-by post to say hello and yes, I'm still quite alive.  NaNoWriMo, among other things, kept me occupied in November and then my laptop battery and power cord both threw in the towel when December began.  This is the second battery that Hal has eaten (that'll teach me to name my electronics after evil machines!) and there are some other things amiss with it, so I think a new laptop is in order.  Until I magic up the money for a new laptop, I'm stuck on the communal computer.  It's not a terrible computer--it works, and that counts for something--but it's slow, loud, and smack in the middle of the living room.  Computer time is going to be limited and, unfortunately, dA isn't one of my top-priority sites.

(I love you, I promise.  Really.)

I can always catch up when I have a shiny new laptop, right?  

On the bright side of things, NaNoWriMo went well.  I spit out the 50,000 words, saved them to a flash drive, and then stuck that flash drive in a drawer to give myself plenty of time away from it.  It's no masterpiece, but I've heard time and time again that the only way to be a writer is to write, even if it's not brilliant.  I'll edit it eventually.  With some hefty revisions, I think it might be salvageable.

For the time being, no writing or sketching for me!  My Christmas list this year is ambitious to say the least, but that's not such a bad thing.  The holidays are roughest time of the year and the one thing that's guaranteed to make me happy is making someone else happy.  Every single "this made my day" message I've received has made my day.  I wish I had the time and resources to make something for and send a card to everyone I can possibly find an address for!

Goodbye for now, and I hope you'll find a way to keep the season bright.