Wednesday's Words for July 21, 2010

First, Mr. Ashbury and I want to say a huge thank you to all of you who sent us your good wishes on the occasion of our anniversary last week. That was so kind of you! I especially loved the messages that told me I’d described your marriage, and there were several of those. Made me feel as if Mr. A and I are right on track.

As you read this today, I am furiously trying to get ready for our vacation. We’re leaving Friday, destination Orlando and the RWA National conference. We’ll be staying a week at the Swan and Dolphin Resort in Orlando. Then from there, we’ll head to Hazleton, Pennsylvania and our annual visit with our friends.

You would think that having done this sort of thing for the last few years, we’d have the process down pat. Ha! I wish. No matter that I have known this trip was coming up since the beginning of the year, here I am running around, trying to get everything done in just a few days.

You probably have surmised by now that I tend to procrastinate, just a little. I never mean to, of course. It just kind of happens. For example, left to this week was getting my hair cut, and then colored, renewing my vehicle license sticker, making the list of clothes I must take, cleaning out the car, organizing my office (which is to say, setting out all the books and other items I’m taking with me), pick up the auto club trip-tik (I ordered it last week)...there have to be other things I need to do, too, but they slip my mind at the moment.

My beloved is, of course, nearly counting the seconds until we leave. He loves traveling, no matter where it is we go. He’s accompanying me to Orlando this year, when he didn’t last year, and I’m wondering if the little guy with the big ears, the official host of Disney World, isn’t really the reason for that. He says not, but it’s fun to tease him about the possibility.

Actually, this conference was supposed to be taking place in Nashville, but the resort that had been booked by the RWA ended up being flooded a couple of months ago and is currently closed. So here we are, setting our sights for Disney, and happy to be doing so.

I belong to several chapters of the RWA, one of them an online chapter for mystery-suspense writers. This chapter organizes a “pre-conference” tour each year. This will be my first time going on this excursion. My beloved is jealous. He’d like to go. He’ll just have to find something to do while I’m away from him on Tuesday.

I wonder what the odds are of his spending some time with Mickey that day? I have to figure out the photo feature on my cell phone, just in case. Maybe I can sneak a picture of him wearing ‘ears’. I bet our kids and grandkids would get a kick out of that.

I know that he does plan to play at least one round of golf while we’re there, as well as to become very familiar with whatever pool strikes his fancy. And he’ll likely find lots of people to talk to. We have that in common—we rarely let the opportunity for a good conversation pass, and we both will strike up conversations with perfect strangers.

It’s kind of eerie how much alike we’ve become over the years.

I’ll be taking my pillow, of course, who has indeed earned the title “Squish the third”. And you don’t need to worry that I will somehow leave him behind. I have special “traveling” pillowcases for him, cotton so bright there is no way he fails to catch my eye.

I seldom make the same mistake twice.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury