Hello October!

September sucked slightly less than August.  I was sick in some form or fashion for the majority of it, but I made some personal progress that makes me optimistic for October and the rest of the year.  This is much improved over the dread I had before.

The rest of the year is gonna be good.  I can just feel it. 

• I get to see my sister soon.  
• My projects in my classes are gonna be fun.  
• Curiously enough, I am really excited for Halloween.  I have an intense craving to carve pumpkins.  I have no idea what my costume should be.
• NaNoWriMo site relaunched, and I am really getting eager to write again! Here's my author profile on the site.
• It's the holidays! What's not to like! 

And now for other news and goal updates!

With my recent sickness and onset of the busy season for both work and school, I have decided to bow out of training for the Rock and Roll San Antonio Half Marathon.  I should have learned last year that training is just one thing too many on top of my other commitments.

I read a bunch of stuff. Mockingjay, Good Omens, and 13 Little Blue Envelopes were in the first part of the month.  Since then I've read a lot more: an additional nine makes the running tally 45.  Maybe this would be a good time to back off on the reading so that I can work on some other projects!

• Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare.  The first of The Infernal Devices series, prequel to The Mortal Instruments series.  Shadowhunters gone steampunk!  Nice start to a new series.  I could see where twists were going to be, so it wasn't as much of a on-the-edge-of-your-chair read for me. 
• The Laughing Corpse by Laurell Hamilton.  Second in the Anita Blake series, this one was more zombies, less vampires. I really like the Anita Blake character a lot, but don't know if I can continue to read the series. I might gag myself to death if I read anything else about vampire love.  It did contain some interesting asides about women working in male-dominated fields that make me think.
• Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen by Tamora Pierce.  A reread of a great YA duet.
• Ascendant by Diana Peterfreund. Sequel to Rampant and another setup-for-the-third book.  Lots of information for plot and world building, but not really interesting on its own.  
• Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater. A TON of teenage drama and angst.  Loved the included lyrics. Made me think about teenage sex as portrayed in YA books.  To do it or not to do it? To show it or not to show it?  Probably a difficult decision for each author for each book, and probably also a difficult pitch to publishers. 

I haven't made a lot of progress on paying off my debt this month, but I'm still at 80% there with only 75% of the year complete.  With vacations and holidays coming up, we'll see how that goes. I was able to refinance my mortgage so reduce the APR by 1.5% and monthly payment by $100.  Also, switching ISPs saves me another $25 a month. So hopefully that will help a bit.