This is the week my little family typically heads to a beach somewhere to get away from the Utah cold and reconnect with each other; no school, no work, no dance and no pressures of everyday life to interfere. This year we booked a trip to a more expensive exotic location later in 2015 and instead are enjoying a week of staying home from the day jobs while the kids are out of school. Lots of heavenly reading, watching movies together and hanging out with family and friends – in sub-zero weather.

The other night, Hubby and I ditched the kids for a rare evening out alone at our favorite Tai place. There was a large group of women who were having some kind of a celebration. Nothing obnoxious, but the typical noise of many people talking over one another was unmistakable and added to the festive ambiance of folks out on their holiday errands. As we were leaving, we walked past their party, which was breaking up, and Hubby (who talks to everyone everywhere) asked several of the ladies if it was girls night out.

“No, just our book club” one of them said.

And with one sentence, my husband completely rocked my world…

“Really? My wife is a writer!”

It is rare for me to be speechless but, for a moment, I was. As if in slow motion, all eyes turned to me with that shine that all readers must have when they meet a Real. Life. Writer. I know that’s how I used to feel before I spent so much time with other authors that they have become commonplace. Several of them asked “what do you write?” and I recovered my wits quickly enough to answer “Science Fiction, mostly”. But their reactions were not what caught me so off guard.

I’ve been married for twenty years and my husband always introduces me as “my wife who works with computers” or “my wife in IT” or “my wife who drives a forklift” which was a funny inside joke when I worked in IT for a heavy equipment dealer. This was the first time he’d introduced me with five little words that knocked me sideways: My wife is a writer.

As we walked the rest of the way to the car, me grinning ear to ear and obsessing about what else I could have said like any neurotic writer would, I realized that more than what I do with my free time has changed this past year. My efforts to “someday” be a writer have brought me here, where my someday is now in the present. Who knows if I’ll ever write a novel that most people have heard of, or sell thousands of books. But it doesn’t matter. Because I’m living my dream of being a writer.