Five Things - June 17, 2024

Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can also follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

1. First off, wishing a happy thirtieth birthday to our beautiful daughter-in-law, Leslie! We couldn’t have chosen a better partner for our son, or a kinder, lovelier person to join our family. Two days after her birthday, our third son, R.J. turns twenty-two. A while back I wrote a birthday post for him which you can read HERE, and all those sentiments still apply. He’s an amazing kid who is turning into an amazing adult, and we are so proud.

2. A few reflections from Dallas Fan Expo… I’ve been signing books at these sorts of events for about seven years now, and I definitely feel all those seven years, mostly in my lower back! The weekend was exhausting, but it was also invigorating and inspiring to meet people who share a love of science fiction, fantasy, and pop culture. It was also fantastic to hang out with my bestie writer pals for an entire weekend. We filled the room for our panel, met dozens of aspiring writers and gamers, ate incredible bbq, and laughed until our faces hurt. All in all, it was another successful adventure, and we look forward to Chicago Fan Expo next year.

3. Ray and I just spent a fun couple of weeks in Ohio. Yes, that’s correct, Ohio. Ray has cousins there we love to see, and we both used the convenient and easy John Glenn Columbus International Airport for travel. Even if this weren’t the case, this is one of those times when, because we are in our RV and we can’t always stay in the big, metropolitan areas, we have to find these cute little towns to drop anchor. Delaware, Ohio was just adorable, and the surrounding towns of Westerville and Dublin equally as charming. A good time was had by all!

4. Yesterday, we visited Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. It was pretty cool to be standing in a place we all read about in our history books. With both feet in West Virginia, and while overlooking the exact spot where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac, you can throw a stone and hit Maryland on one side of the water and Virginia on the other. It’s a truly magical spot.

5. Today we arrived in South Jersey, so we’re officially back on the East Coast! We’ll be darting up through New England later this week and then hanging out in little Rhody from mid-July until after Labor Day. We’re really looking forward to spending time with family and friends in the next few weeks! Happy almost summer everyone!

Five Things - June 3, 2024

Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can also follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

1. Dallas Fan Expo is right around the corner! In fact, I’m sorting through my table swag as we speak. Since we’ve been on the road, I haven’t attended nearly as many in-person book singings or events as I have in years’ past, so I’m really looking forward to hanging out with my fellow science fiction and fantasy writer pals, meeting new fans, and otherwise soaking up the atmosphere unique to Comic Cons. I’ll be moderating a panel on Saturday at 11 am titled, “A Hero, an Antihero, and a Villain Walk into a Bar,’ where we’ll have a lively discussion on character development. If you’re in the Dallas area June 7-9, come say hello!

2. School started last week! Our first class mostly focused on reviewing the course syllabus, meeting classmates, and navigating our way around the technology we’ll be using for the following few years. Nonetheless, it’s happening! I’m really back in school, and I love it already!

3. You may have noticed I’ve stopped posting our travel schedule at the end of each blog. Lately, we’ve been taking shorter hops as we trek back east, and we’ve also had to be a little more flexible with our plans. It got to be too complicated and time consuming to update the schedule here, however, I can share our general plan along with a few of our longer stops over the coming months. We’re here in Columbus, Ohio until June 14th. We hop around New England for a bit, then spend July 2-10 in Portland, ME before setting up camp in Rhode Island for the rest of the summer. I’ll be flying out to residency in Colorado from RI at the end of July. Looks like a fun summer!

4. For the first time in our travels, I had a small melt-down when we pulled into a site. It had been raining, our plans had to change last minute due to some necessary repair work on the RV, and I’d been driving more than not for a few consecutive days. Exhaustion won out and I had a good cry in the middle of setting up. I’m pleased to report, the cry was cathartic and the feeling passed quickly.

5. We’ve seen and done some amazing things while on the road. We’ve explored National Parks, visited small towns and big cities, muddied up our Jeep off-roading, and so much more. Missing our Rhode Island community has been one of the only difficult things about our nomadic life, but we’ve also been able to spend time with family and friends around the country that we might not have had a chance to see otherwise. In Kansas City we watched a Royals game with a long time work friend, and I got to hang out with writers I’d met years ago at my very first World Con. In Wisconsin, we barbecued with friends who we’d previously known only virtually. In Ohio, we’ve been spending time with family, and Daisy dog is even having a sleep-over at a cousin’s house due to some complicated work travel for Ray and me. We’re making the most of our time, for sure, even as we miss our beloved RI community.

Five Things - May 20, 2024

Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can also follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

1. Over the last ten days I’ve had a whirlwind of travel, and not in the RV. First, I flew to my sister and brother-in-law’s place in Folsom to spend Mother’s Day with my parents who were there visiting. A fabulous time was had by all. We ate, we drank, we laughed, and we got to spend some really memorable quality time together. Then, I flew to Portland to help our daughter move in to her first ever apartment. That was wonderful, but needless to say, I need a vacation from that particular vacation. Finally, I flew back to Chicago to meet up with Ray, who proceeded to fly to the west coast for work the next day. When life moves at this kind of pace, I sometimes wake up in the morning with no idea where I am or what day it is! Yesterday, after driving Ray to the airport, I went to a hot yoga class, sorted and organized my work tasks, and then cuddled up on the recliner with a good book for a reset. Hopefully, this will be a productive and less hectic week, and I will at least remember where I am when I open my eyes in the morning!

2. While I was in Sacramento, I tagged along with my sis and bro-in-law to a Pearl Jam concert, and wow, it did not disappoint. I’d been listening to a compendium of their work from the last several decades, and I downloaded their new album, Dark Matter, to get familiar with the new stuff. On the plane from Sac to Portland, the guy next to me noticed my concert t-shirt and was all excited because he’d just seen them as well. We chatted and laughed like swooning teens, which we obviously were not.

3. “Music is the soundtrack of your life.” - Dick Clark

4. Although Ray and I have been camped outside Chicago for almost two weeks, we haven’t been able to do much here due to our individual travel, but we did get to spend one day together in the city with Ray’s cousin at a Cubs game. The last time we visited Wrigley Field, our oldest had just finished boot camp, and he had around six hours of liberty to spend with us. After taking him out to dinner, we opted to hang out at a baseball game for the afternoon. He was in his dress whites, and I behaved like a nervous mama worrying about potential mustard and beer spills! We still laugh about it. As we watched the game this past weekend, I couldn’t help but reflect on all that’s happened between then and now. COVID shut the world down. Ray had a serious medical issue that rocked our world. Our son in the Navy deployed for seven months. He got married. Our youngest two children left for college. We sold our home of twenty years and bought an RV. One of my college roommates died. Ray and I crossed the country and traveled up and down both coasts. I wrote more books and applied to graduate school. Honestly, I never could have predicted or imagined most of these things. When I reflect on it all, I’m reminded that each moment is precious, worry is pointless because we can’t even fathom all the things we might worry about, and love and family transcend time and distance. Okay, I’m officially finished waxing poetic!

5. Dallas Fan Expo is right around the corner. I’ll be there June 7-9 signing books at booth A307. You can also catch me moderating a panel titled, “A Hero, an Antihero, and a Villain Walk into a Bar…” The program schedule will be coming soon. If you’re in the area, stop in and say hello!

Five Things - May 6, 2024

Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can also follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

1. My first semester of school starts next month! It’s the summer semester, which includes residency, and I’ve registered for my classes, paid my tuition bill, and booked my travel plans. Grad school has been a long time coming, and I can’t wait to get started!

2. I had to get a new laptop last week. The screen on my old one wasn’t behaving and the battery wouldn’t hold a full charge, all signs of imminent failure. I didn’t want to wait until the last minute, but never in my experience purchasing and setting up new laptops has the process ever gone smoothly. Usually, I get home thinking I’ve asked the Genius Bar guy all my questions, but then it turns out my office suite is outdated and my spreadsheets look like gibberish, or my calendar events aren’t showing up, or my contacts won’t synch, or a whole bunch of files are hiding somewhere and I can’t find them, or every single application is logged out. I may sound a bit jaded, but after hours in the store, I’ve never come home and had a smooth transition. Well, I am pleased to report, I approached this mission with a very detailed list of ALL POSSIBLE PROBLEMS, and now everything works. I’m almost afraid to say it aloud for fear the laptop gremlins will hear, but it's true. All is well in my tech world, at least for now.

3. We’re leaving Kansas City today, and it was definitely a fun stay! We caught a Royals game with a good friend of ours, and when Ray had to travel for work, I convinced my bestie to get a last minute plane ticket and come explore KC with me. Per usual, we had a great time. We ate some delish barbecue, found a great yoga studio, and binge watched Netflix. A writer friend of mine lives here, and he took us to his favorite spot, a really cool Irish pub with live music. We also crashed his weekly writer’s group gathering, after which we ended up closing down another bar. Kansas City is the site of the very first World Con I ever attended, so I have a soft spot for this city, and it didn’t disappoint!

4. A not so fun thing about the midwest – tornadoes. They’ve been touching down all around us. We left Nebraska just a day before a big one hit a few miles from where we’d been staying, and we’re heading into more unsettled weather. In these places, we have our animal carriers out and ready, we’ve located the storm shelter, and we keep the stuff we need for a quick exit all in one place. Hopefully, we won’t actually have to make a run for it in the middle of the night with four cats and a dog, but you never know!

5. If you are in the Dallas area, I’ll be signing books all weekend at Dallas Fan Expo June 7-9 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center. I’ll post my full schedule soon, and maybe I’ll see you there!

“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

Five Things - April 8, 2024

Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. In addition, at the end of the blog, I’ll keep a running itinerary of our travel plans. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

1. We’re here in Fredericksburg, Texas for the eclipse, and it’s pretty cloudy. There are still a few hours before the moon starts inching its way across the sun, so I’m hopeful for better visibility. Fingers crossed!

2. At the end of the week, we’ll be heading out of Texas to finish our trek northeast on our way to New England. I’m excited to explore parts of the country we didn’t get to the last time we crossed the continent. Next week, the Ozarks!

3. I can’t believe the first quarter of the year is behind us already. At the start of each new quarter, I review my intentions and goals for the year, evaluate, and refine the specifics for the next few months. Much of my professional focus for the year so far has been on building my alter-ego Maggie Clare’s brand and finishing the final three books of a seven book romantic suspense series I started working on during COVID. I still need to be pretty aggressive with my writing schedule, but I’m pleased with my progress so far. Tomorrow, subscriber’s to Maggie’s newsletter will get a sneak peek at the opening chapter for one of those books. If the steamy stuff is your jam, you can follow me at msmaggieclare.com. My blog ‘Dear Maggie’ runs on alternate Mondays and is a fun, playful Q&A where I answer everything from why Maggie Clare is my pen name, to my favorite book boyfriends, to how I feel about bad reviews. Have a look!

4. My first summer session of grad school is just around the corner! I have a new student virtual orientation next week, and pretty soon I’ll be booking my flight to Colorado for the residency. It’s starting to feel real!

5. Dallas Fan Expo is also just around the corner. I’ll be there from June 7-9 with a few of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy author pals signing books and otherwise making mischief. Stay tuned for more intel on our panel schedule and booth location. If you are in the Dallas area, please stop by and say hello!