Post vacation

Sorry I've been a little quiet. I got back from vacation late on the 8th, and haven't had much time to myself since then. Work's been busy. Quite busy. And my boyfriend has started his new job, so he gets home earlier than he used to. Before me now, most days. I've thought about writing, it just hasn't happened here.
Instead, I've been writing every day on my novel. I'm around 130 pages in, which is great, and my goal for September is to write 40 pages. That might not seem like much to some of you, but between working full time, playing two instruments, and having a live-in boyfriend, 40 pages is a lot! I feel good about this novel, too. I think my writing is both tighter and stronger that the first book I wrote. But I'm getting close to the end of what I've got figured out. There's going to be a lot of brainstorming over the next week or so!
Vacations always call for some rebalancing time afterward. I did have a great time. Rose's baby Raelyn was born, my grandparents were in town, I got to spend a lot of time with my godkids, and I got some good time with some of my closest friends. Good vacation. But I found myself wondering if it was a dream, even the first night back here. Oregon is SO different than New York City, it's like visiting a different world. So my first couple days back were a littl wonky, to be honest. Life is going okay, though. I am getting motivated again. I made a list of goals for September. Included are:

-relearning the Hindemith Sonata on my clarinet
-figuring out three Anais Mitchell songs on my bass guitar
-writing 40 pages
-submitting my first novel to Tor and Simon & Schuster (yikes!)
-making 1 collage

We'll see how much of it I get done. That's a pretty good list, I think, especially given that I was on vacation until September 8th. I'm shooting for all of it, of course, but add work on top of that, and the freelance I keep accepting, and we'll see what happens.
Last night I dreamed about what-if boy again. I don't remember much. There was a barbeque at somebody's house. There was a lot of food and beer. It was late evening, and what-if boy called to tell me he was on his way. I was really excited. I don't remember him actually showing up though, as we all had to leave for some reason or other. The only other thing I remember is walking down a city street and glancing down to see some stuffed animals clogging up a drain, so I crouched down to pick them up but then at least one of them was a real cat. Weird... The night before I had some sort of Buffy the Vampire Slayer type dream. I know it had a full story arc, but I can't remember it now...
Well. I'd best go do some writing before the boyfriend gets home. I know this was a little rambling; I'll try to be a little more coherent next time.