50 pages

Monday:

Most exciting news first... the literary agent I sent my synopsis to last week has asked to see the first 50 pages! So a) she is looking for that specific kind of fiction b) she thought my story sounded interesting and c) she found my writing style acceptable. Yay! I sent the first 50 pages to her this afternoon, it will probably be several weeks before I hear from her again. And Christmas might make that even longer... arg the stress!

What else happened. On Saturday Jasmine went to a pool party and got quite sunburned, as she often does, despite sunscreen. We will definitely need some kind of shade-cloth to protect part of our pool area. The pool guy hadn't finished on Friday, maybe he went home a bit early because it was so hot. He was back again all day Saturday to finish, and has now taken all his tools away. The pool now has these plastic bits holding the steel cables in place ready for the concrete pour.

We spent the whole day Sunday watching dance performances. Jasmine and my niece Emma both go to the same dance school; Emma's concert was in the morning - leaning towards the little kids (Emma is three) but also with some older groups; Jasmine's was in the afternoon. Jas and Emma both performed well. The whole day was very professionally organised, most of the dancing was polished and the changeovers between dance acts swift. Very enjoyable day. The littlest kids were funny, in every group there was at least one little girl who just stood staring wide-eyed at the audience and didn't dance or move. One boy cried and was taken off, one girl started screaming the moment the lights came on stage. She sat there and screamed and screamed until she was carried away. The little kids had their teachers with them on stage dancing with them. Emma kicked off a shoe while dancing but calmly sat and put it back on then continued dancing. Jasmine does tap, modern/contemporary and jazz funk and was great. She is considering resuming ballet next year as well.

The dance school has a 15 year tradition that they get some of the dads of children in the troupe (the professional kids not ones in the "fun" groups) to dance at the end of the concert. It was hilariously entertaining. This year for the first time they danced with their daughters. There was a medley with different dads coming on with their children (only one son that I noticed, the rest girls) and doing disco, hip hop and a really moving sort of waltz. For that they played a song I haven't heard about dancing with Cinderella and daughters growing up, and it finishes with a line about Cinderella kissing you at midnight then she's gone (i.e. all grown up). I got so teary! If Jasmine joins the troupe I can totally see Tim enjoying being part of that dad's dance.

Between the two shows we had lunch and had to hang around because Jasmine had to be there early to get ready (actually we could have gone home for a while but I was enjoying being out). We sat at the little café then lay on the grass in the park next to the theatre, reading and playing with iPads. It was really lovely. I took this photo looking up at the tree I was lying under.

I had to learn to French braid Jasmine's hair because it is the signature style for her dance school. And I glued false eyelashes on her! Here she is with little Emma and aunty Ping after the show. Ping is a couple of weeks away from having baby number two, I think she found the long day very tiring.

Today, aside from the excitement of getting asked for a partial manuscript, I spent the time dealing with tradesmen. Andrew came back and put the posts for our pergola back on (the concrete for the pool is being poured on Thursday but they don't need much room for that as they use a big hose from the truck to the backyard) and an electrician was here for nearly five hours fixing all the lighting problems we've had for months. I should be able to read in the evening again, somewhere other than in the bath! It was the only place with really good light. Craig installed two new lights and fixed five others in various rooms so it was a big job.

Oh and lastly Monday is my weigh-in day, I was up 0.3 kg which I expected after a rather dodgy week, and eating out twice yesterday. Also I've been losing a decent amount every second week then maintaining or a little gain the other weeks. It's fine. If I weighed fortnightly I would only see the downward trend. I just like knowing day by day, and the fluctuations don't bother me.

PS Brandon you haven't posted for a while, are you ok?