Connect Four, The Most Dangerous Game

Monday night I was playing Connect Four with the kids. With a five-year-old you can play by rules and have an actual game. With a five-year-old and a two-year-old, it quickly devolves into a contest to see who can shove as many red and black checkers into the slots as possible to fill up the board. When the checkers are spilled, it also becomes a bare-knuckled, scratching, screaming fight to see who can drag the most checkers into their laps. (I could have gotten the most if I really wanted to.) There was also a little bit of sticking one of the black checkers in my eye and pretending to be a pirate, which the kids then tried to imitate.

That’s not the most dangerous part, though. The most dangerous part comes in the disassembly. Our version of Connect Four is a little different from the version in the above video. As a kid I had the version in that old commercial and that think would fall apart if you breathed on it too hard. The newer version snaps together so it’s sturdier, and has a ring around the base that not only makes it more stable, but makes sure that checkers don’t go rolling all over the place when you slide open the bottom of the board.

I had it all taken apart except for the last side. It didn’t want to come free, but I had to get it off to store it back in the box. I applied a little more pressure (I didn’t want to break anything so I was trying to be careful) and the support leg came away from the board in a sudden jerk. My thumb was in the way and the dull bit of plastic that was sticking out dug in.

I tell you people, watch out for Connect Four, otherwise, this could happen to you!

Happy Birthday Logan

On what was a very cold and surprisingly snowy October 12 four years ago I became a father. I don’t know that I was fully prepared for it at the time. Sometimes I still don’t know if I am fully prepared for it, but I suppose that feeling’s going to stay with me for the rest of my days.

Much like his little sister would prove to be years, later, Logan was stubborn and was happy right where he was. After a long day of going to the hospital, making phone calls, checking on Brandi and waiting, lots and lots of waiting, my son came into the world. We had some scares those first ten days or so, as well as here and there throughout the first four years of his life. Still, it’s nothing I would change or give away for anything, even when I’m tired and frustrated and the kids are driving me nuts and I might say something to the contrary.

Happy birthday Logan. I hope the coming year gives you everything you need and some of the things you want.

Happy Birthday Ava

It’s hard to believe that only a year ago we welcomed you into this world. It’s also hard to believe how much you’ve grown and changed over the last year. I can’t wait to see what the next year will bring. Happy birthday sweetheart!

Stripper-in-Training

No, it's not me. I don't know that anyone would want to see that. It's Logan. It all started with me taking his shirt when he would be changing into his pajamas and whipping it across the room, a funny little something while putting a three-year-old to bed. Then it evolved into him wanting to take the shirt and whip it across the room.

I don't know what resources he's been drawing on, but now his technique has evolved. Now, he'll spin the shirt around before tossing it away. His technique it a little off though. He'll spin the shirt around for two whole minutes if I let him. That just won't do.

This is certainly not the profession I would have chosen for him, but if I he has his little mind set on being a stripper, well it's my fatherly duty to help him be the best damn stripper he can be. Therefore, I've got to try and improve the technique. Now, I've never partaken of the stripperly arts, but I've got to think that if you stand there and swing your shirt around for two whole minutes, you're going to lose people's interest. He's got to just swing the shirt around a handful of times and toss it, not whip it across the room. It probably wouldn't hurt if he had a few pelvic thrusts in there too.

We're starting early, and so I'm confident that with a little training, he can come onto the scene when he is of age as the best damn male stripper in the world.

A Perfect Day For the Zoo

Today was Logan's first day of preschool, which consisted of us going in to drop off some forms, pick up a ginormous folder full of papers--including the dreaded fundraiser stuff--and let Logan see his classroom. The room had a train table, and so our 15-minute appointment ended up being more like a half hour as we tried to get him away from said table.

Afterward, since it was such a lovely day here, we took the kids to the zoo. It was really nice. I've never seen the zoo less crowded, and the kids got a front row view of whatever they wanted to see. Logan played map keeper again, carrying the simple map proudly before him (sometimes upside down). He had a very specific itinerary in mind: monkeys; elephants; lunch; park; and giraffes.



Of course we missed the 1:00 showing of the giraffes drinking gasoline and breathing fire. Maybe next time. That's where the zoo membership comes in handy. And of course, every monkey/ape we saw was Curious George. Ava liked looking at the monkeys/apes as well, but kept shaking her head 'no' for some reason. Who knows what lurks in the minds of toddlers?

We were all pretty pooped out by the time we left, and the kids slept most of the way back. Now I've got a splitting headache and I just want to relax.

The State of Things

I realize it's been over a month since I've posted anything to the blog. Brandi keeps encouraging me to come round here and update, and by the time I get home from work, and dinner's made, and the kids are in bed, I don't really feel like being on the computer much. I really would like to get into a regular blog habit again, but I've been working on some other writing projects, and while the mood strikes me I'm going to work on those. So here's a quick update for those of you who are interested.

The Family:
Everyone's doing fine. We've had a run of colds going through the house recently, which has targeted me last. I'll be phlegmy for a while. The kids are growing quickly. Logan is doing well in gymnastics and has discovered the joys of Super Mario. Ava is getting so big, and she seems to be so smart, and she wants to walk so bad. Brandi is doing well, and has even started up a crafting project, so if you're looking for some flower headbands (mostly sewn by yours truly) go here.

Brandi and I celebrated our five-year anniversary recently by traveling down to Navy Pier and then having dinner at the Signature Lounge on the 95th (or is it 96th?) story of the Hancock Tower. It was a great night away from the kids, and it was too bad it had to be so short.

There are still little home projects going on, but nothing as substantial as the great kitchen project of '10.

The Writing:
I have a handful of projects going on right now. There's the fourth attempt at a novel, which I haven't looked at in at least a month. There's a lycanthrope story for an anthology that has a call for open submissions. Then there's a suburban fantasy story that I started the other night am just a couple handwritten pages into. I'll probably go work on that last one after I'm done with this blog post.

Work:
Work is pretty busy and getting busier all the time. I recently got approval for a big project that should keep me busy for some time.

That's all for now.

My Fairy Princess

Over the weekend, we had arranged a photo shoot with my friend Lance for Ava's baptism and 3-month-old photos. Lance does amazing work with a camera. You know what, amazing doesn't even cover it, it's more than amazing. He has been taking these great nature photos for a while now, and he's starting to do a little business in portraits and family photos. We have all of our professional photos done with him, and I doubt we'll ever go back to a regular photo studio. Sorry Lance, you're stuck with us now.

Well, he just sent me the FTP to download the latest set of photos, and while there's not a bad one among the bunch, I saw this one and thought my little girl had truly been transformed into a princess.

I'm constantly amazed that I'm so lucky to have the family that I do, and then something like this comes along and I'm just blindsided with pride, joy, and wonder at what I did to deserve this.

Oh Those Crazy Sleepless Nights

I've gotten to that scatterbrained state of mind that comes from a lack of sleep and too much to do. The one-on-one coverage with the kids has us both feeling drained. In fact, Brandi's been snoozing on the couch for almost an hour now while Ava's down for her evening nap.

Ava is sleeping through the night, and has been for a while now, but she is a night owl, much like her older brother was at that age. Most nights, she's up from 11:30 to 1:30 and sometimes later. When she's up during that time, she tends to be pretty specific about what she wants. She does not want to be rocked and held on the horizontal. Playing under her jungle gym thing is fine for short stretches but she prefers being upright. Sometimes I zonk out when Ava's getting her final feeding of the night, but most nights we're both up together.

Then over the past few weeks, Logan has been getting up in the middle of the night. He'll call out for us and is usually pretty upset. Since our room is right next to his room, and the walls are unfortunately thin, we can't just let him cry it out, especially when he decides to pound on the walls or come into our room. So then I end up in his room, trying to get him back to sleep. I don't want to end up sleeping in his bed, but I'm so tired that I will fall asleep sitting up if I sit there long enough. Logan has also developed spider sense when it comes to Brandi or me sneaking out of his room. He could be completely asleep for 20 minutes, but as soon as I set foot out of his room, he rolls over, realizes I'm not there, and starts crying.

I have a few theories as to why he's getting up in the middle of the night. We're still having...uh...poop issues. As one of the few things he can control in his life, the boy has decided that he does not want to poop under any circumstance and holds it in. It could be that at night, when he's deep asleep, he doesn't have the complete control over it any longer and he starts to cramp up or feels some other kind of pain.

Then there's the jealousy angle. As far as he knows, Ava gets to stay up later than him. For all he knows the three of us are down here living it up, watching Curious George and eating fruit snacks until we're ready to burst. Some nights it seems like he's trained himself to listen for the sound of us coming upstairs and that's his cue to wake up.

Then there are some nights when he seems like he's genuinely frightened of something. Maybe he has developed a fear of the dark, or maybe he's having nightmares.

The only nights that he doesn't seem to wake up in the middle of the night are the ones when he's going to bed late and is completely exhausted.

When I sleep in his room, I am able to fall asleep, but his bed is uncomfortable for me and some mornings I ake up with a lot of aches and pains. Most mornings, I wake up an am able to sneak back into our bedroom, only to see that I have no more than an hour before my alarm clock goes off.

I think this song about summs it up.

Oww, My Head

Brandi and I decided to go out to a nice dinner tonight to celebrate our 11-year anniversary of being together. We had gotten a slew of restaurant gift cards for Christmas, including a very generous $75 gift card from my staff for any of the Lettuce Entertain You restaurants. We decided to go to the Wildfire restaurant in Schaumburg. We've been there before and the food is really good. Brandi's aunt had offered to watch the kids for us, and we stopped at her house first to drop off the kids and the supplies.




Well I had gotten Logan out of the car and was heading around to the back of it to get the stuff out when I stepped over a snow bank and right onto a patch of ice. I hit the ground like a sack of potatoes, or more accurately, it'd probably be closer to 5 sacks of potatoes. I fell on my left side and tried to catch myself with my right hand. Brandi's initial reaction, as it usually is when I get hurt, is to laugh and then ask me if I'm ok.



I was fortunate in that I didn't hit my head or break anything. I was worried that my new ipod or my glasses would have ended up broken. I was feeling ok, but as the night wore on, the soreness started to sink in. Apparently, I pulled something in my right arm in the act of catching myself, some of my molars feel like they were hit, my chest is a little sore and I think I pinched the nerve in the left side of my neck again.

Of course, I thought that I looked like this as I was falling on my ass in the ice.

But from Brandi's point of view, I didn't have quite so much grace. I think mabye I should have just stayed down on the ice.

More UCF Awesomeness

Being the lazy blogger that I am, it has taken me entirely too long to get to this post. After coming home to find a package on the porch just after Logan's birthday, we got another surpise delivery about two weeks ago. This time, the box was much larger and addressed to Ava. Brandi was home to receive this package and opened it up to find a couple really nice presents from the most awesome members of the UCF.

The box contained a child's rocking chair and a set of book ends that had been painted nicely with ladybugs and flowers and Ava's name. This was another really nice surpise from my friends online. Again, they have outdone themselves. UCF powers activate!!!

This delightful surprise was in the box for Ava.

Ava, still working on the whole neck muscle things, kicks back to relax after a long day of pooping and eat. Also featured, one of the knit hats that the wonderful and talented Janiece made for us last year.

My Writing Buddy

As I said before, most nights over the last 10 days or so, I've been working on my NaNoWriMo story with Ava in my lap or held in the crook of an arm or sleeping on my chest. Here we are last night as I worked on pounding out some words.

As you can tell by the tilt of her head, and the fact that her eyes were open at this point, she is totally engrossed in the story.

NaNoWriMo Word Count Update

My current word count is 10,584. I'm still a few thousand words behind. Yesterday I wanted to get to at least 11,000 words before I called it a night, but Logan started calling out for me from his room around 10:30. I got upstairs and checked on him.

He was a little awake and calling out for me to lay down. I checked his forehead as I usually do when he makes noise in the night and it felt pretty warm. Not only that, but his arms, for some reason, felt like they were on fire. Obvisouly that couldn't be good. So despite his protests I went downstairs to get the thermometer. Luckily, his fever was only 99.4. I went back downstairs and got him some medicine, being sure to wash my hands each time I left his room. Then, I laid down with him for a while so he would go back to sleep.

When I was finally able to sneak out of his room it was close to 11. I worked on my story for about ten or fifteen more minutes before he started calling out again. This time when I laid down with him I ended up falling asleep next to him until about 1. At this point Brandi was headed upstairs with Ava, the night owl, and I was so tired there was no way I was going to be able to get up and type another thousand words or so.

Logan's fever was gone in the morning, so that's good, but I still felt like a bit of a bad parent when my second thought when I went upstairs and found out that he was warm was "Oh great, this is going to cut into my writing time."

The UCF is Awesome!!!

Ever since our little bundle of joy has arrived, Logan has been feeling left out. He haven't seen too much of the regression that we'd been warned about, but we've seen some mimicry, like whenever Ava sneezes, Logan sneezes, or Logan wants to be held like a baby, the way we hold Ava.

So on Saturday, we got home from Gymboree to find a large box from Amazon addressed to Logan on the front porch. It had come second day express Saturday delivery, so it was meant to get here in a hurry. After questioning Logan's computer habits, we opened the box to find a card with this inscription "Dear Logan, happy birthday from some of your dad's crazy friends. We're glad you have a sister!"

Judging by the size of the box that was wrapped up inside, I thought maybe it was a large-boxed board game of some kind, but the heft of the box was wrong. We opened it up to find the Thomas the Tank Engine Rheneas' Roller Coaster Raceway set. Jackpot! Oh boy, did Logan want that opened up in a jiffy. It's a really cool set with a tiered spiral that leads to a large ramp, rocky towers, and a stretch of bumpy track.

This really made Logan's and our day. And it's just further proof, as if we needed any, that the UCF is awesome!

As you can see above, Logan was so excited his eyes nearly burst into flame.

I could barely keep Logan out of the way long enough to assemble the track.

It's a Girl!

I continue to be a lazy blogger and I've failed to post about the most important thing to happen around here recently, the birth of our daughter Ava (long a sound in front).

At 41 weeks and 1 day, Ava was born on October 8 at 3:04 p.m. She weighed in at 8 pounds 4.5 ounces. She was 20.25 inches long. She was almost a pound heavier than Logan, but a little shorter. However, her little feet are huge, so there's no doubt she'll be a tall girl.

We didn't run into any of the complications we had with Logan when he was born, and mom and baby ended up getting to come home a day early. That was nice for me, because I only ended up spending three nights in The Most Uncomfortable Chair in the World. I swear, the chairs that they have for the dad's at the hospital are designed so that you can have as little comfort as possible while trying to sit or sleep in them.

After an 17-year girl dry spell on all three sides of Brandi's family there's finally another girl. Also, you have to go out into my extended family to find any girls born in the last 20 years or so. Brandi says it was about time, break out the pink and bows!

She also said that "this birth experience was like night and day compared to Logan's birth. It was very healing in a way. Having Ava with us the whole time and knowing she was healthy was a prayer answered, and when we all went home together this time, another answered prayer. It was such a long road to get her here and now that she is here we can't imagine life with out her. She is so beautiful and we are so thankful for our new bundle."

Thanks everyone for all the well wishing and support! It'll definetly be different raising a girl, but I think I'm up for the challenge.

Damn, Kids Are Stubborn

Well, still no baby yet. Plenty of activity going on, but with no end result. I always said I wanted the baby to be born today. There's something about the symmetry of having three birthdays in a row that are all exactly two weeks apart just tickles me the right way. Hopefully, I'll have more reason for posting soon, but until then, the waiting is the hardest part.

We Do Science! In the Kitchen

Yesterday, I was sitting in my office with one of my coworkers and the trainer for our new software system when my phone buzzed from an incoming text message. Being as jumpy as I am right now (Brandi did have about 2 hours of contractions last night with an 18-minute break in teh middle before they died down and we went to bed), I checked the message immdeiately. My reaction: "Oh no."

My coworker and the trainer both looked at me with excited expressions. "What!?"

"It's not baby related," I said. "This is what Brandi just texted me."

omg, dad just microwaved the hell out of the bowl full
of grapes thinking it was the leftover spaghetti! laughing so hard im
crying

Apparently, he was looking in the fridge for the spaghetti, felt the stems of the grapes in the bowl, thought I had left the spaghetti in the fridge uncovered and the noodles had all dried out. So he "microwaved the hell out of it" and only found out when it was done that it was the grapes he just irradiated. Here I'm thinking that I'll be cleaning grape goo out of the microwave when I get home.

Turns out the grapes didn't explode, they just got all brown and gross looking like they'd been left out on a table for a week. What we learned, though, is that you cannot make rasins in the microwave. It's grapes and sunshine people, just the the Sunmaid people want you to think.

Any Day Now

Brandi's official due date for the baby is now 12 days away. She went a day late with Logan, but is getting a lot of contractions now, some strong enough and close enough together to actually look at the clock last night. She doesn't seem to be to stressed about the wait, but the anticipation is killing me. And any time I ask her how she's feeling, I get a one-word response, which is usually "tired." I'm sorry, but at this stage of the game, a one-word response isn't going to cut it. I need details.

At least this time around, work is much closer to home, and home is much closer to the hospital.

Adventures in Parenting: Three Unfortunate Firsts

Yesterday I was busy at work, sucks to work the Sunday before Labor day, but so it goes. Right now I'm on high alert for the call that says 'It's time to go to the hospital.' So when I saw my phone number pop up on caller ID, I was ready to move. I never imagined we'd have to go to the hospital for another reason.

I pick up the phone, knowing it's Brandi. In the background Logan is wailing at the top of his lungs and I can barely hear Brandi. After putting my finger to my ear, I'm able to hear that Logan has gotten a dog bite. Does he need to go to the hospital? Yes, he does, and I need to get home. I rush to the back and call my assistant manager to come in and finish my shift. She sounds really disappointed that I've called her in, but I really don't have any other options.

I get in the car and call Brandi back. Apparently, her dad and grandparents had just gotten back from the Farm, and Logan was playing hopscotch on the driveway. Her grandparent's dog was near him, they're bussom buddies after all, and Logan fell on her. She reacted as any hurt/startled dog would and snapped at him. She bit him in the mouth and scratched him on the face under his eye. It's not clear if she scratched him with her teeth or claws. Brandi cleaned up the blood and tried to calm him down as best she could while I flew home. I found out later that Brandi's grandfather was telling Logan to stop crying, as if that would work.

Logan starts crying again when he sees me pull into the driveway, and 30 seconds after I get home, we're on the move to the ER. The bleeding's stopped, but he has a decent cut on the outside of his lip, and we're not sure about the inside of his mouth.

At the ER they get us into the room within a few minutes and after a little while, the doctor comes in to give an initial look. He says it should be two stitches on the outside and none on the inside. Then a couple of nurses come in to put some antibiotic/numbing ointment on and then they tell us that after about a half hour they'll come back to do stitches. Over an hour later a nurse comes in with a doctor.

Logan's fallen asleep by this point, but wakes up when we set him down on the table. He's angry and hurt and tired and scared and all he wants to do is go home. Instead, they pull out this padded board with ginormous Velcro straps to hold him down. Brandi and I have to hold down his arms and he's screaming "Help Daddy" "Help Mommy." We watch in stunned silence as the doctor puts multiple injections of a local anesthetic in both sides of his lip and then starts to do the stitches. The nurse his holding his head down and Logan, a big two-year-old is straining with all his might. I try to whisper in his ear that he's being a good boy and that we'll be able to leave soon to little effect. All his straining and moving makes it all the more difficult for the doctor to do his work and the stitches take a few minutes more than they'd need to. When all's said and done, he got six stitches, three outside his lip and three inside. With all the swelling and the scratches on his face, he looks more like he got into a bar brawl than he got bit by a dog.

After the stitches and the prescription for antibiotics, the nurses try to give him some Sesame Street stickers and a dragon Beanie Baby. He wants neither. He just wants to go home and he's crying and pointing at any door that looks like it might lead outside. The whole ER process only took 3 frickin hours.

All the fussing and struggling and crying wore him out and once he's in bed, he sleeps without a peep until 6 this morning and then I get him to go back to bed for another hour and a half.

Brandi's grandparents came over this morning, sans Cujo, and Logan's in high spirits and excited to see them. We'll give it a couple days before he sees Daisy again. It sucks that he had to go through all that and I'm worried that now he'll be scared of dogs, which he never was before. The internal stitches will dissolve, and we'll have to go to his doctor on Friday to get the others removed. Good thing I already had that day off of work. What a weekend.

The Binky Fairy Giveth, The Binky Fairy Taketh Away

Last Saturday, the "Binky Fairy" made a stop at our house and took Logan's binkies/plugs/pacies/*insert cutsie name here* away for good. We've been weening him off of them for a while, throwing them away when they get nasty and encouraging him to take it out or taking it away during the day, but we finally came to the point when we needed to take them away completely. We also wanted to give him at least a month or so before the new baby's here so that hopefully he won't be feeling dependent on the plug if the baby takes one.

So Saturday morning, before Gymboree, the plugs were rounded up and stuck into a large envelope addressed to the Binky Fairy. He and Brandi put the envelope into the mail slot, and then he and I left for Gymboree. Brandi threw out the plugs and then went to pick out and wrap a new toy for him. Apparently, the Binky Fairy operates much like the Tooth Fairy. They're probably related, as there's a lot of that kind of interbreeding stuff going on in the Fairy community, or so I've heard.

Logan did pretty well for a while, but about halfway through Gymboree we had a major meltdown and he wanted to go home. Not even the temptation of getting fries after Gymboree if we stayed for the whole thing would assuage his meltdown. On the way home he repeatedly asked for his Binky, wailing "Binkyyyyy," and when I told him the Binky Fairy had come to take them away he screamed "Noooo!" He was sure to go through the list in the car too, "White Binky...Blue Binky...Nemo Binky."

When we got home and he saw and opened the toy, a sweet Imaginex Helicopter, he was less whiny. It didn't hurt that Brandi got a couple suckers to go with it too. Cool Transformers G1 type suckers. I was a little jealous.

The rest of the weekend went pretty smoothly as far as tantrums and binky-based meltdowns went. Monday morning we experienced meltdown number 2. His therapist was over, and while Logan was climbing into one of his favorite hiding places, he very lightly bonked the back of his head. Oh man, did that set off the waterworks. He didn't want to cooperate with the therapist for the rest of the session.

Later, we went to the store, and while he and I waited in the car because he'd been crying in the store, he continued to cry and it drove me a little nuts. What are you going to do though?

There's still one plug that we couldn't find in the house to ship away to the Binky Fairy and while we think it's stuck behind the bed somewhere, we're waiting for Logan to come walking through the living room with it one day with a smug grin on his face.

TTBC Back From Unofficial Hiatus?

First post in a few weeks. Is TTBC back from it's unofficial hiatus? Probably not, at least not right now.

So what's been going on around here? What's been keeping from blogging. The long and the short of it is family and work.

My work schedule has changed, and I'm a lot busier at work now, and the end result is that when I come home I want and need to spend time with my family and by the time Logan's in bed and Brandi and I have a little time to relax, I don't feel much like going online.

The (not-as-) new job is still going well. It's busy. I just completed the circulation stats for May a few days ago and we were up about 46% in check outs versus the previous May. It's nice that I know the job is secure and my boss and my peer group are dedicated to my success. I've been to one management seminar and I've got another one coming up next week.

They do expect me to make decisions, which is kind of intimidating at times, but everyone's patient. Some things have made me want to scream, but I've just got to let them go. The last couple days I've been in training all day on using a new automation system. Tomorrow is the last day of training this week. It's "Novelty Food Wednesday" so I'll have to go to the grocery store in a little bit to find something to bring in. I'm thinking Wasabi Peas.

Around the house, we had an issue with squirrels that was pretty annoying. The vent for our upstairs bathroom goes directly outside and isn't covered. A couple weeks ago, a squirrel or two decided that it was a prime piece of squirrel real estate. After a long and grueling battle, we are finally squirrel free. Unfortunately, Logan is now afraid to take a bath. I made the mistake of yelling at and pounding on the ceiling one day while he was in the tub and it scared him. I had no idea it would have that kind of effect, but it did. On the plus side, bath time is totally streamlined now. On the down side, it's a battle every time we get him into the tub.

Brandi and I celebrated our 4-year anniversary last week. It was a pretty low-key celebration. We're planning on going out next month as a combination anniversary and last hurrah before the baby event. For our anniversary we got new phones. Our contracts were up and U.S. Cellular was offering some good deals on new phones. I went with a pretty basic LG flip phone. It was free with the two-year contract and it does the things that I want (make calls and send text). It also has a camera that I'll probably seldom use. Brandi went with the Samsung Delve, which is akin to the iPhone. It does everything she wanted (everything) and she's quite happy with it.

This last weekend I threw a diaper shower for Brandi. We had a small group of people over for lunch. We played the "Identify what kind of baby food is in the diaper game" and everyone decorated onsies for the baby. We got a lot of diapers in various sizes, which is great. Plus, I ordered the double stroller that Brandi was looking at.

We've been working our way through DVDs of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. We're a few episodes into season 6. I'll blog about all that later, though.

As for keeping up with my friends online, I've been mostly in lurker mode, popping around here and there and reading, but usually not commenting. I'm pretty sure everyone understands why I haven't been around much. Sometimes, life just gets in the way. If I've got any readers left, I'm still around. And to my friends online, I'm sure I'll get back into the swing of things eventually.