My baby girl in settled into her dorm room at LSU. It’s very quiet in my house now, as I anticipate days of hours all to myself. While this is how I spent last year, too, she came home from school every day and slept here almost every night (except the occasional sleepover!)

Beloved and I took her to campus after dropping The Boy off at school (pray for him – his behavior is still and issue and we’re seeing a psychologist next week). Her room is on the fourth floor of Evangeline Hall and she shares it with two other girls. Their room shares a bathroom with another room. There really isn’t much space for her to call her own, a bed, a dresser, a desk and a small closet. Her roommate Gabrielle was there with her mother and sister, but the third roommate, a sophomore, wasn’t around, even though her part of the room was all set up.

After we got the bed made and her clothes put away, there wasn’t anything else for Mom and Dad to do. Dad had to go teach some programming class at another hall and I only had a 15 minute parking pass, so we gave hugs and took her suitcase and left. On the way downstairs, we talked about how she needs a lamp or two and her power strip from home.

I drove home alone, and felt a little down.

This week has been very stressful on me – reds and sad jars from The Boy and dealing with running around to get The Girl’s registration all handled and last minute school shopping done. I think I’m coming down with a cold, so I just vegged for about an hour after I got home. The Girl called to say Gabrielle had left to “get her clothes.” She lives in Prairieville or something and The Girl got the impression they were going home to get the stuff, so she’s alone in her room. Nothing is planned until 2 pm, so she was talking about taking a nap and reading. She said she was doing okay and felt better than she had and while she doesn’t know where her classes are or anything about campus, she was feeling more confident. She was actually worried about me!

I plan to go to the gym later, and tonight is back to school night at The Boy’s school.

Tomorrow we take, that is I take, the Girl to LSU and move her into her dorm room. While at this moment, she’s dying her hair and getting ready to put something called Vampire Red on the ends, I’m thinking about the little girl who was the only grandchild on either side of the family for 12 years.

The Boy started kindergarten yesterday.

Okay, he started Kindergarten, the Sequel, yesterday, and even then it was only for a half hour so the kids could see their classroom and meet their teachers. The Boy has the older teacher who took him (and several other kids who were having behavior problems) under her wing, so he’s very happy he has her. She said she was happy he was in her class, too, and marveled at how tall he’s gotten. He can reach the top shelf of the freezer to help me put away groceries now.

Anyway, unlike last year, the kids had half an hour of one on one time with their teachers. The parents waited in the hallway. All four classrooms of kindergarteners have bulletin boards in the hallway and all of them have some theme (the Boy’s is teddy bears) with all the kids’ names. I had the best time looking at all the names.

It seems in four classrooms of kindergarten this year, we have SIX Madisons, two Noahs, two Trinitys, and (this one blows me away) two Jolies (like the mother of Brad Pitt’s kids – Angelina). Then there are the interesting ones – Sydnee, Londyn, EmilieAnne, Steffek, Ashtyn, and Makenna.

As a writer, I love names and it was fascinating to me all the interesting names entering kindergarten this year. Not as many Emilys and I would have thought and NO Jessicas I could see. One Juliette (like mine spells her name) and the two Noahs we knew about (one is mine).

Book update:

Beloved is still going through Sword & Illusion. He’s already talked to me about some ideas for fleshing out characters and possibly adding some scenes and depth to the plot. I’m not completely happy about this, but I know in the long run it’ll be a better book for it.

New book: I’m working on a vampire mystery, kinda. It’s not a total whodunit kind of thing as I’m still debating on when to let the reader in on the killer’s identity, but I think it’ll be early as the story is really about my heroine and her struggles to find her inner strength. Wow, that sounded deep! I hope I can live up to it.