Man, what a week it has been. I thought I would stop in, say hello, and give an overdue update on a few things while letting you know what I was up to this last week.

Summer Camp and Vacation Time

So last week my wife and I took my youngest to Camp Kesem for summer camp up in Hendersonville, NC. If you are not familiar with Camp Kesem, they provide summer camp opportunities for kids who have a parent that is dealing with cancer. The camp is free and continues on beyond a single summer. The counselors have been in the kids’ shoes and many of them went to Camp Kessem when they were younger. I honestly cannot say enough about the camp or the college students running the programs. I’ve met and talked with a number of them and they are all amazing. Kaitlyn found the support she needed that Tracy and I could not provide. I would strongly encourage donations so they can provide more days for more campers.

Of Wives and Puppies

While Kaitlyn was at camp, Tracy and I headed up to Franklin, NC with Appa for a little vacation of our own. Saturday we celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary. The time sure has flown by and being married to your best friend is amazing. 10 out of 10 would recommend. We spent the week exploring the area and taking Appa with us everywhere we went. We met a lot of new people…okay, Appa met a lot of new people and dogs. We were just there to answer questions about him. Who is Appa you ask? Well, he is our four-month-old Great Dane puppy. He has become the center of all attention and we think he is pretty worth it. How about you?

When Two Become One

When we were not busy showing off our dog, shopping, and eating, I was working on the website. Hopefully, you have noticed some of the changes and like the direction I am going in. In addition to the new Shop and a few cosmetic changes, I’ve consolidated my two websites into one site for all of my content. As you may have noticed, I have struggled with keeping my sites active and updated. I spent a lot of time thinking about how to change that. I spoke with Tracy and my younger son, Connor, and the consolidation was one result of those conversations. While I have not yet completely disabled innocenteric.com, I’ll be redirecting the domain to point to mywriterscramp.com at the end of this week. Since it is still a bit of a work in progress, if you notice any issues, please let me know so I can address them.

A Special Find and Thanks to Go Around

When Sunday rolled around we picked up Kaitlyn from camp and headed into Hendersonville for lunch and a little more shopping (and Appa sharing). While most of the shopping was done by the ladies in my life, I did manage to find a little something to spend my allowance on.

As you may or may not know, I am a huge Jim Butcher fan, though admittedly my experience mostly lies in the Dresden Files. The books are amazing and they are the only books I actively look forward to new additions to the series. Not only is the writing superb, but I learned a lot about writing conflict and why it is important to have it by reading these books. I have always heard about how conflict is important, but it wasn’t until reading one of the Dresden Files novels that it finally clicked in my simple little writer’s brain. So thank you, Jim Butcher. I appreciate it.

I’ve always only read the e-book format, so when I found these in The Joy of Books I had to scoop them up. The man running the shop was kind and helped me look for some Lovecraft (ended up a lost cause for the day). I also bought Kaitlyn a set of Warrior Cat books to promote her reading. It is a great store and I would really recommend checking it out if you are in the area. Who knows, maybe you’ll find my books there someday.

Crisis Averted

Eventually, we made it home, but a couple of hours later I was back out of the house taking Appa to the Emergency Vet. It turns out our little guy had a pretty severe UTI, but nothing a bunch of water, and some antibiotics won’t fix. It made for a very long night with Appa, Connor, and I not making it back home until almost 2AM.

Vacation is Over

So that brings us to today. Apparently, I need to clean up my office space before streaming tonight.

The work of a madman is never done. I’ll make sure I have it all cleaned up before tonight’s Twitch stream at 9PM Eastern.

Speaking of tonight’s stream, I plan on painting two of these beauties for members of my campaign so they will have them for Wednesday’s session. It should be a good time, so swing on by and say hello.

Well, there you have it. Life as I’ve known it for the last week. Look forward to more updates in the future as I strive to make that a real thing.