today, and other things that flew by.

This morning, at 1:50 a.m: Finish the last sweet pages of a novel and turn off my light, knowing I'll regret the late night, but not the novel.

7:00 a.m. Regret the late night. Not the novel. Reset alarm.

8:00 a.m. Plunge into work. Yes! Work! Some days, it's so full of promise. Today? Today's one of those days. I remember to be deeply thankful.

10:00 a.m. The French press and I get reacquainted. I love our breakfast dates. We have such witty conversation.

10:30 a.m. Brilliant new details for the re-revision of Chapter Three fall from the sky (or from the caffeine) and onto my computer screen. Yes. I'll take it.

12:30 p.m. Crocheting some granny squares for a massive project I fell into (and am loving). Stitch away while coming up with more brilliant details. Chapter Three is looking great. So is this afghan. Two levels of productivity? Love it.

1:00 p.m. Realize next year's a leap year. Yeah! The work is going so well today (for the first time in--what, months? months!--it feels almost effortless), and I think, hey, another fabulous day to work on the novel!

I'm not actually singing "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood," but I kind of think about it.

3:00 p.m. My sister and niece stop by for a few hours, with my brother-in-law to follow. Time to set aside writing for a while, in favor of talking, eating, laughing, and chasing my niece around the table, while she screams delightedly at the top of her lungs.

I scream at the top of my lungs too. Delightedly.

4:30 p.m. Making a cherry pie. Handing a cherry to my niece.

4:31 p.m. Niece hands back partially-chewed cherry.

5:30 p.m. As the scent of warm cherry pie fills the house, I make my niece laugh so hard, she gets the hiccups. I'm pretty sure there's nothing better in life than this.

5:45 p.m. My niece points to Lord Whitmore and says, owl!

5:46 p.m. I tell my niece what is true: She's a genius.

6:45 p.m. As we eat dinner together, we wonder and wonder: how soon until my nephew is born? Is it days, or a week?

And I wonder more quietly, if being an aunt to one little person can fill me with this much joy... will I explode when there's two?

7:15 p.m. And we eat the cherry pie. We talk about etymology, because my brother-in-law is awesome like that. Etymology. How I love it. And how it always hits my brain like a glug of Champagne. (Seriously. Just thinking about the Latin, Old French, the usage varieties, spelling changes... makes me tipsy.)

9:30 p.m. The work wasn't done, so I'm back at it. Brain's a little numb, but I'm happy. And the house still smells of cherries.

9:42 p.m. Realize: it's been another whirlwind day, of being a writer, of being part of a family, of being a die-hard pie lover, of trying to find some kind of balance.

Some days, I storm around like a crazy woman (which I probably am), saying Balance! Balance! Where is balance?! ... Like I'm trying to find the one single thing that will save us all from fiery destruction, this little key to the secret of balancing my whole entire life. (Because surely that's possible.)

Ha ha ha.

Tonight, though, I am remembering what one of my wisest professors once said: Balance is a dance. Not a heavy black line between right way and wrong way. Not always the rock or the hard place. A dance.

I like that.

Today was good.

Today, we were dancing.