"An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth."

Samuiblue

Bonnie Friedman

That most beautiful of times is almost upon me. Annual leave. It's a world of possibilities. I have the Easter bank holiday off work, then four days after that, so that's ten glorious, office-free days in which to do whatever the hell I want and damn the consequences! (Not that I'm planning to do anything with too many consequences really, but it's nice knowing the option is there*).

It's my 31st birthday on 22nd April, which is part of the reason I'm having the time off. April is a big birthday month for our family - me and both my brothers, all very quickly together - and I'm still not at peace with having these big family occasions without Dad around, so it's a relief to know I can spend my birthday at home in relative solitude to be sad if I want to, rather than at work pretending to be okay about it.

But I don't plan to spend the whole week moping. Or any of it, ideally. I want to finish my current WIP novella if I can, and I have a feeling I may be ready to start a novel after that. I can't decide what it's going to be - I've got three potential projects in mind, plus an already-in-progress Urban Wolf novel. So I guess whichever one calls the strongest will be the one I plunge into, and I may end up dabbling in more than one at the same time.

I also want to do some work on my perfume shop and tidy up some of the photographs there. A lot of the older photos are pretty crappy and I'm keeping my fingers crossed for some good sunny days to retake them. And I have a few new perfumes to add to the shop while I'm working on it, as well as a ton of ideas and new oils to experiment with.

I'm expecting edits for PHANTOM FEARS anytime soon too, as that releases in May. I'm looking forward to revisiting Shannon and sharing a new piece of the Urban Wolf world with everyone. If I find time, I may make some limited edition perfumes as part of the release, so stay tuned for that!

And, you know, since it's my birthday, I plan to down a cocktail or two somewhere along the line.

*I am going to dye my hair pink, which may have some consequences.