and away we go!

Today I am packing. Why am I packing? Because in advance of next week's RWA National Convention (which I am attending, and will be signing copies of Secrets 27 - if you're there, come say hi!), I have decided to do something that in all of my thirty something years I have never, ever done.

I am taking the man I'm dating home to meet my parents.

It occurs to me that maybe I should have done this once or twice before. Because the fact that I'm doing it now, when I have never ever done it before, has created an air of significance around the event. Especially for my mother.

My mother has been nagging me for fifteen years to give her grandbabies, although the nagging has abated considerably over the last couple of years. I think she'd finally given up hope that I would follow the example of my many cousins into marriage and motherhood, and I was happy to let her keep that impression since it made my life - and my relationship with Mom - much less complicated.

But now I'm bringing a man home. Across approximately fourteen states. On purpose. And the nagging, it has begun anew.

Thank goodness my boyfriend doesn't scare easy!