In this week’s “let’s make figuring out book promotion that much harder,” The Hubs, my mother, the Rowdy Boys, and I headed on over to Gettysburg.  Because this is what we do in days that end with Y.
And then, Younger Son threw up everywhere.
Before that, though, The Hubs and I made our annual trek to the Gettysburg BrewFest.  We’ve gone since the first ever event back in…2015?  Something like that?  Anyway, now that Older Son is 8 and Younger Son in 6–and LIVE FOR PLAYING SPORTS–we don’t get a lot of time alone together.  And those times we do manage to run away….look, I’ll be honest, we take a shower, snuggle in bed, and promptly fall asleep.  1pm.  6pm.  Whatever.
I love sleep so much.
So, for BrewFest, we brought the boys and my mother along.  They did not Fest.  Older Son has inherited The Hubs and my obsession with Gettysburg and the Civil War; seriously to the point where if I say something like, “Is that lettuce iceberg?”  he’ll come flying out from underneath his headphones and two rooms away to scream, “Did you say Gettysburg!?”
We’ve watched the director’s cut of Gods and Generals A LOT this summer.
Anyway.  It was super overcast and just kind of ‘meh’ out, but Hubs and I aren’t ones to let a little bit of rain stand in our way of tasting 64 local and national craft beers.  Or whatever.  This was the best beer I tasted.  Arsenal.  And it’s actually a hard cider but let me tell you, I tasted a lot of it.
Let me pause here to say that I have cut way back on drinking.  There was a time, say, last year that I was writing with a drink in hand more often than not.  But in October I got a double ear infection-bronchitis-pink eye.  Then in February I got the FLU AND IT SUCKED. And then I put myself in training-for-a-half-marathon mode and everything was water.  Drink all the water.
Apparently, my brain didn’t get this memo.  I got a bit tipsy.
Here are the top things I recall from BrewFest, which also I apparently relayed to my mother 47,000 times:

• The green beans were too salty
• Arsenal was my favorite beer at the Fest
• The cheddar biscuits were dense
• There was this hard cider, Arsenal, there and they were fantastic
• Arsenal was from Pittsburgh
• They had the best beer at BrewFest
• The green beans were too salty
• Also, there was this hard cider place from Pittsburgh called Arsenal and they were the best.

And so on and so on.
I’m back on water now.  And, also, I’m back on thinking about writing historical.  Have we talked about this?  The last…four books I’ve written were paranormal.  Probably the last five.  My first novel, “Anything You Ask of Me” notoriously took way too long to be released.  And the company I published it with went bottoms up.  They do not exist anymore.  I’m not even sure it sold any copies, other than the one my mother bought, and that’s a bummer.  B u u u u t, that also gives me a second chance to go back over it and figure out what the issues were.  We’ve spent a lot of time at Gettysburg this year and I REALLY want to get back to writing about the 1860s.
Except….I also have several ideas for paranormal novels. Okay, so, now what I need is lots and lots of time.  Stay up late and sleep later?  Go to bed earlier and get up earlier?  Turn into Jessie Spano from Saved By The Bell and experiment with caffeine pills?  No!  Of course not!  I love sleep so, so, so much.
And, also, can I say just HOW MUCH I love the Cyclorama at Gettysburg?  It only took the Hubs and I, like…eight years (?) to finally pay to see the parts you have to pay for at the Visitor’s Center.  The movie?  Amazing.  The Cyclorama.  Incredible.  I hadn’t seen the Cyclorama since 2001 and man….it was just gorgeous.  If you haven’t seen it, go.  I recommend it!!!  I promise, it’s super rare to see anything like the Cyclorama these days.
And I bought a new book.  Imagine that—no, wait.  That’s a blog post on its own.  More to come.