Another Monday

Back in the office, after staying home sick on Friday. I was really miserable on Thursday, and Friday morning it seemed like it would be more of the same. Taking it easy was probably a very good idea, especially since I had a busy weekend planned.

Friday night was w00tstock, which was so much fun. Good music (mostly), geekery, and fun. Jeremy bought me two T-shirts and a CD (and got a T-shirt for himself), so I have MORE black T-shirts. :)

Saturday was the EtsyRain spring show, which went very well. The only downside for me is that when I got my whole table set up, and went to sit down in my camp chair, I couldn't see over the display. So I ended up standing for the majority of the show. I'm still a bit sore from that. I finally gave up and sat down toward the end, but I think I waited too long to do that.

I was going to go to the CakeSpy gallery opening afterwards, but by the time I had packed up my car, all I could think about was food that was not sugar-y, so I had to go get dinner and then unload the car, and then headed to D&D instead. I'll just have to get over to the gallery another time. :)

Sunday was my Vampire game, and since it was the day before Jeremy's birthday, I got him flowers and made him a cake. He took the remainder of the cake to work today, and I'm hoping he will bring home an empty pan tonight. :)

I think I get a bit of breathing room between shows this time--I can always use more arm warmers and Decapitated Dollies before Punk Rock Flea Market, but I have 4 whole weeks to work on them. :) The breathing room is good, because we have a busy week, and I'm trying to crank out a story by the end of the week and another by the end of the month!

And now it's April!

And April Fools Day at that. I don't really do April Fools Day, so there will be no major announcements, fake or otherwise, here today. :)

Flipping the calendar to a new month is always nice. On my calendar at work, I use color coded post-it notes to designate when I'm traveling, with the color coding corresponding to why I'm traveling. March was a wash of color. April is stark white. :) So I've penciled in social activities, and it all looks very reasonable. YAY! :)

In other news, I just noticed that the tree outside of my office window is beginning to bud. If my iPhone camera were a bit more awesome, perhaps I'd start taking photos of it daily, and then figure out how to make a slide show of the leaves appearing. Wait, what am I saying?! I am already too busy. I will not make additional plans.

That needs to be my mantra this month. Too busy, no more plans. At least until I'm sure I can get through the projects already on my plate. I'll report back on how that's going... :)

Back to normal?

I think that our lives are finally settling back down to normal. Yeah, we have a convention this weekend that will throw things off a bit, but it's in Seattle. We're staying at the convention hotel for convenience sake, but if anything bizarre came up, we're only about 30-45 minutes from home.

Michigan was rather cold, but as we spent nearly all of our time inside, that didn't really matter. I got to meet some new folks, hang out more with familiar faces, and generally have a blast playing an assortment of odd characters. And we went book shopping, so I have MORE books to add to the huge stack of things I've never read. *sigh*

Crafting wise, I spent the weekend working on an afghan for my new nephew, who is due in June. I managed to use up all of the light blue, mint green, and pale yellow yarn that I had, and ended up using some variegated pastel yarn as well, and it's not quite big enough. I need to figure out if I can match one of the yarns I've already used, or if I want to use a neutral color (I'm thinking cream or gray, the latter of which seems more practical) around the edge to finish it off.

As soon as I finish my lunch and this blog post, I'm off to the post office to send a package to Australia. Both of my sales in March have been international sales, which is exciting. Makes me wonder if there are really favorable exchange rates for other countries right now, but I don't really understand the math to that topic, so I just leave it as idle wondering.

Already thinking about April, since it's just 2 days away. I'll be working on soap sweaters for Anne at the beginning of the week, and, assuming I get picked for the EtsyRain show in May, I'll spend the second half of the month stocking up on stuff for that show. I've also signed up for a needle felting workshop just for fun. In my spare time, I'm indexing a book and writing a short story... wow, I think I'm booked for the month!

Here, There, and Everywhere

We're gearing up for a month FILLED with travel, which produces all sorts of thrilling complications. Most of the complications are things I've already taken care of: we have our accommodations and transportation booked well in advance of the trips. But we've got to line up a cat sitter for 3 weekends in March and one in April. And today we had to sort out Jeremy's vacation for pretty much the entire year to make sure that he will have enough to get through November. Suffice it to say, we will NOT be traveling this December, because we'll both be scraping the bottom of the vacation barrel by the time we go to ACNW.

Of course, only one of these trips is a work related trip for me, as I'll be attending a conference in Portland. Not my typical work trip, and Jeremy gets to join me for the end of it. :) All the rest is fun travel, and the last trip isn't even out of Seattle, but we're staying at a hotel rather than dealing with driving in every day and parking near the airport. Both are nightmares.

This is certain to throw off all of my regularly scheduled everything--crafting, writing, blogging, and more. But hopefully all of the fun stuff will outweigh the chaos that it causes. :)

Busy busy busy

It's been a while since the time I did a two week trip for work; this time around, I got two days at home before having to head out again. Needless to say, this means that everything gets compressed into those two days, and I end up busy beyond belief.

We did take some time out for fun stuff this weekend, though. We had our regular D&D game on Saturday night, which was fun as usual. And yesterday, we headed to the opening bout of the Rat City Roller Girls season 6! :)

We went to one regular bout last year, and also made a trip up to see our friend Janelle (a.k.a. Su Real) ref for the Jet City Roller Girls when Grave Danger played up there. After the bouts last night, I think I am fully a Grave Danger fan. :) Jeremy is still torn between Grave Danger and the Throttle Rockets, but I think I can sway him to the dark side. :)

The bouts last night were spectacular, especially when Grave Danger was playing. They have some really great skaters this year, and watching them was a lot of fun. So we're really looking forward to the rest of the season, and are glad we have season tickets. We have to miss the next bout (we'll be in St. Louis), but we've cleared our schedule for all the rest. :)

Gearing up for NaNo!

Because I sometimes think I am more than a little crazy, I've decided to take a shot at doing NaNoWriMo this year. For those unfamiliar with the acronym, it's National Novel Writing Month, which means I'll be attempting to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.

I've avoided doing NaNo in previous years because November is a BIG month for craft shows and sales on Etsy. And it may very well turn out that I get a few days into November and realize that I'm not going to be able to do it. Looking at my calendar for November is daunting. I lose 4 days to ACNW. I lose 4 days to craft shows. I lose 2 days to flying to and from Kansas. I lose 3 or 4 days for our Thanksgiving excursion. All totaled, that adds up to probably 13 days that I will not get to write, leaving me with 17 days that I can write. Most of my weekends are completely shot.

But I've agreed to try, and try I will. This will be Jeremy's fourth year of doing NaNo, so obviously he's my big source of inspiration for it. He, however, has a slight advantage over me, in the form of more days off work, and partially clear weekends. He also often writes during his lunch break, and can write on the bus. I can't write on the bus. :( (At least I can crochet on the bus!) I may try to squeeze in writing before work and during my lunch. But by and large, I've got a couple of hours in the evening on just over half of the nights in the month. Eek!

My novel is a little hard to explain. The working title is "Daughters of the World's Fair." It blends some history with some supernatural elements, primarily fairies. It will probably end up being a young adult novel, since the protagonists are 13 year old girls. It's based around the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, but is set in 1917, with only a few brief scenes in St. Louis. Needless to say, it's a bit complicated. Cuz that's just how I roll. :)

I'm sure I'll be taking time to make blog posts all through November, but don't be surprised if a lot of them are word count posts, reporting on how many words I've written and such. I'll probably be posting most of that elsewhere, though, so if you're really interested in following my progress, let me know. :) I'll try to keep this blog a little less about the details and a little more about life in general. Just not a lot about crafting for a while, since I won't have a whole lot of time to do that. :)

Clockwork journal by redharp.etsy.com

And it's September

This year has really been flying by! So here's a pack of updates.

1) Spent three days out on the Olympic Peninsula for work, which was pretty nice. The weather was good, the food was good, and the work was interesting!
2) After a pretty rough weekend, I seem to be mostly over this cold. I still SOUND awful, but I feel a lot better.
3) I've been crocheting my fingers off working on more soap sweaters for Anne. The longer commute time that I've picked up as a result of moving has really been helpful in getting these done quickly, and makes me feel like the commute goes faster.
4) Completely and totally moved! I am so content to be all settled in, and gradually getting everything situated.

I'm looking forward to the upcoming long weekend, though it seems we've managed to pack ours full of things to do. Luckily, we're staying in town for this weekend, because we have five trips planned this fall--two by plane and three by car. Between that and my typical week a month of travel for work, it seems I won't be around to enjoy our apartment as much as you might think. Ah well, I like getting to see new places, and even returning to places I've already been. :)

Oof...

Jeremy occasionally says that he thinks his cats beat him with mallets while he sleeps. I think he may not be too far off, and they seem to be turning their attention in my direction as well.

I somehow missed posting for most of last week. I'm not entirely sure why, aside from the couple of days when I was only barely in the office, if at all. And then Jeremy's cold caught up with me, and knocked me out of commission on and off from Friday to yesterday. *sigh*

Cooking experiments last week were curtailed because of my cold (and not feeling like cooking while I had it). I did try to make a Thai beef salad, but discovered that a) the beef should have been marinated in the sauce, and b) we would like it better if it had been beef and rice, maybe with a salad on the side. I've also been threatening a panang-style curry, but that still hasn't happened. Instead, I cooked up the green beans with some small pieces of bacon, which made them delicious, but produced far more than I was interested in eating. I left them out for folks to nibble on while they gamed, and came home to a barely touched bowl... I think the bacon may have made them a little slimy after they cooled off, and who wants slimy green beans?

I have a great photo of the Thai beef salad, but it's on the Frankenstein computer. On Sunday, Andrew cobbled together a computer out of parts from mine and Jeremy's desktops. We have two hard drives and my motherboard, with my external hard drive and keyboard, and Jeremy's mega big monitor and wireless mouse. All in all, it's a lovely machine, and will be even better when Andrew can bring us his device to get the data off of Jeremy's second hard drive, which wouldn't fit into my tower because of the way the fan was mounted.

I spent the majority of my Sunday at the studio, photographing a bunch of stuff that has been sitting in bins awaiting photos for ages. I mistakenly thought that I had already measured everything and had that saved on the external hard drive, but discovered when I got home that I was wrong. Project for next weekend: measuring. :) I am happy to say, though, that the natural light that my studio gets is exceptionally indirect, and spectacular for photography. Much better than it would have been in the studio with a view... a view of someone's backyard... :)

Oh wow...

Somehow I hadn't realized that I haven't posted here since JUNE! Remember what I said about being busy in July? :)

We spent the Fourth of July weekend in Portland, hanging out with friends who live there, and of course visiting Powells. The following week was taken up with a whole lot of me practicing with Throwing Goat, and then singing at their show. There's going to be YouTube footage of that, but I don't have it yet.

The week after the show was spent in Kansas City for work, which meant a trip to my sister's to see her, her husband, and her kids. I've been back since late Friday night, and keeping plenty busy with gaming and other geeky stuff, alongside moving hijinks.

That's right, I'm moving. Not far, mind you. I'm just moving about 5 miles away from my current apartment, to share Jeremy's apartment with him. Of course, this entails lots of cleaning, packing, and unpacking. We're basically figuring out how to get two apartments worth of stuff into one apartment, a storage unit, and a studio. The studio is for me, for all of my craft stuff, though I told Jeremy I will put a desk in there so he can write while I curse at my sewing machine a lot.

But my hope is that with a studio, I will actually be able to get more sewing done, and really get things on track with Counting Stars. I've had that shop for almost a year now, and sales have been almost non-existent. So I'm going to be working on posting more regularly, and improving my photos--another thing that the studio should be good for, since I will have the space to set up a photo box finally! :)

Monday again!

So coming off of a great weekend, some Mondays seem really dreary. I think the sunshine today is helping today to feel much better than an average Monday. Either that, or I'm just enjoying the calm before the inevitable storm. We're having dinner with Jeremy's grandparents tonight, and then we have a free night tomorrow. Then there are only 7 days in July with nothing on the calendar. Goodbye, free time! :)

The weekend was Go Play Northwest, which was a gaming convention for indie games. I got to play in some okay games, and I got to play in some really wonderful games. It's hard to pick a single one as my favorite game, and nearly all of the games had at least some elements that were a whole lot of fun for me. I also know I missed out on getting to try some games that I would have liked to have played, but there just wasn't enough time to play them all. I'm sure we'll go back next year, though, since it's local. :)

Of course, it's got me amped for working on my games for Ambercon Northwest, which is just another thing I've got to figure out how to plug into my incredibly ridiculous schedule. I only need game write-ups by the end of August, and then the actual games by the beginning of November, so that's helpful. I also need to kitbash together a couple of systems to end up with systems that I like... ah, the joys of diceless gaming for someone who's always used dice. :)

I'm back!

Got back to Seattle on Friday, and then had a very busy weekend.

Kansas was hot, humid, and generally disgusting, though the trip was improved by good food, lotsa love from my niece and nephew, and inexpensive clothing shopping. :) The work was about par for the course, and it appears that I'll be returning in July for a single week. No more of this two week nonsense!

This weekend, we attended two weddings, which were about as opposite as they could get. The first was uber formalized, very dressy, etc. Lovely, but a bit stiff at times. The second was in the backyard of the couple's new home, and the amount of laughter that accompanied the wedding was really delightful. There was also Sculpey to play with, and I apparently have mad bartering skills, as I went home with 7 different colors. (Jeremy giving me his did help with the amount of Sculpey I had. :) )

My schedule for the foreseeable future is truly madness. Between July 1 and July 20, I only have one day where there is nothing on my calendar... and that happens to be our 6 month anniversary. We're actually avoiding planning anything for it just so we can have a quiet evening together. :) We honestly don't have a free weekend until August. Luckily, we do have a couple of free nights this week, and a couple next week, so that helps a lot. But we are WAY too busy!

It is so lovely to be back, though. I was chilly at the wedding yesterday afternoon, despite wearing a hoodie, and I'm still wearing my hoodie at the office today. It's gray outside, and I love it! Seattle is totally where I belong! :)

Wow...

So I didn't realize it at the time, but my last post was my 1,400th post to this blog. That's pretty crazy, but I guess I have had this blog since 2002. I posted a lot more in the early days. Now, I make my 1,400th post, and then forget I have a blog for 2 1/2 weeks. :)

I didn't actually forget, of course. I spent one week in New Mexico, with very little free time to spend on the internet. I got back in time to run around like a crazy woman before Jeremy's birthday, and then spent the past week getting ready for his birthday party and trying to help him get over the plague. I succeeded in the first, and failed in the latter. And also seem to have gotten a minor plague of my own for my efforts. *sigh*

My travel schedule for upcoming weeks is allegedly packed, but nothing is confirmed yet. So I suspect I will be spending three weeks in Kansas pretty soon, but won't know until I'm told to scramble for plane tickets. This seems increasingly to be the way of things, which is a little rough. But at least I have my schedule lined out, so I know when I can and cannot travel.

Pretty much haven't been up to much of anything else, other than re-watching season 3 of Doctor Who. Jeremy started out way behind me on Doctor Who, so I get to re-watch while he gets caught up. I like this plan. :)

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you...

Lately, it seems like my travel schedule for work has just been turned on it's ear. First I was going to be in New Mexico this week. Then that was off. Then I was going to be in New Mexico next week. Then that was off. Now it's back on, just three days before we'll be flying out there.

So needless to say, that's thrown my schedule into a lump of craziness, but at least it means I'll have stuff to keep me busy for a week and some change. It just means that we have to make some adjustments to the weekend, and that I probably won't get my day of sitting in front of the sewing machine. Poo. :( It also means that I'm going to have to miss the Art of Comedy show, and, depending on when we get back on Friday, may have to miss the EtsyRain show. :(

Ah well, I did say that next week was one of my potential travel weeks, so the missed shows are because my brain stopped working momentarily. I've now jotted down all of my potential travel weeks into July, so I'll be a little better prepared when someone says to me on a Thursday "can you go somewhere next week?" :)

Nope, I didn't fall off the face of the earth...

Just been even busier than normal, and out off the office. I don't foresee my schedule improving much in the near future, of course, because that's just how I am. But I am about to go on vacation for 6 glorious days (counting the weekend), so that will be sort of a break. :)

I honestly haven't even been doing a whole lot aside from work. I squeezed in about half an hour of Rock Band one night last week, got caught up on a few things at the writer's group, and have otherwise been filling my spare moments with gaming and a tiny bit of crocheting. I made my new character for the Exalted game (though ended up not getting it done quite in time to actually play on Saturday), and yesterday we got to make our characters for the Dragon-Blooded Exalted game.

That was seriously some of the most fun I've ever had with character creation. There were 8 players, and we started out paired up with a family member--in my case, we defined ourself as cousins, though a couple of the pairs chose to be siblings (and then because of cross-breeding, more or less, we are almost all cousins to one another). We then had to come up with some defining event that had happened before the older sibling turned 9. And that's when we discovered that really and truly, my character was meant to be a pirate her whole life. :)

Throughout the course of the afternoon, we then paired up with 4 more players, and worked out events that had occured between our two characters at other stages in our lives, up until the point where we were all hovering between the ages of 31 and 29. By that point, my character had stolen a boat, cut off another character's hand, created a makeshift hot air balloon, witnessed an assassination that she had paid for, and stolen an airship (losing an eye in the process). So yeah, all sorts of pirate-y stuff. :)

The really cool thing about this is that my character now has a strong reason to be hanging out with 5 of the other 7 PCs. And as it turns out, the two PCs that I didn't have an in-depth scene with are the siblings of two of the PCs that I did have great scenes with. So we basically know each other, just indirectly. It also really helps to flesh out my character's personality to know that even when she was 7, all she really wanted was to go where she wasn't, and that she's never grown out of that tendency.

So I'm really looking forward to the continuation of this game, when we actually start playing. Of course my hope is that everyone will end up on my airship, and we'll maraud and pillage across the Threshhold, but even if I end up having to leave my ship in storage for a bit to help out my cousins and friends, it'll still be a blast! :)

More media consumption!

Although not as much as last week. We watched Brazil on Sunday, in preparation for a Paranoia game that we were going to play. The game was cancelled, but the movie still happened. And the movie hurt my brain a bit. I think I need to re-watch Time Bandits now, to see if it has a similarly totally crazy, epic ending. Cuz seriously, Brazil and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen are both so over the top, I'd be shocked if Time Bandits was not. :)

In other news, I have been ridiculously busy lately, and I don't think it stops until May, maybe. I spent all but one day of last week out of the office. I'm here for 3 days this week, then off to Rhode Island. Next week, I won't be in the office at all, though I'll still be in town. The following week, I work 2 days, and then head out on vacation. I get back from that to a 4 day work week, and then I may be traveling the last week of April. On the few and far-between days that I am in the office, there's tons for me to work on. Whee!

In the meantime, I've been working on my characters for Ambercon, which has been an interesting process. I'm used to convention games with pre-generated characters. In the 8 games that I'm in for Ambercon, I get to make the characters for 7 of the games. I'm done with 6 of those 7, and hopefully will finish the last tonight.

Of course, I also need to make a new character for Exalted, as Laine (my Night caste archer-sorceress-tomb raider) died in the game on Saturday. So I'm going to play a Lunar now, since everyone else who shows up to the game regularly plays Lunars. Laine's demise was pretty unsurprising, as I decided to have her go out in a tiny rowboat on a lake in the middle of the Temple of Elemental Evil. Yes, there are many bad decisions there. :)

That thing with the hooks and the yarn

So between life, the universe, and everything, I have barely picked up my crochet hooks since before Christmas. Mainly it's been life getting in the way of doing much, and maybe a little bit of burnout as well. I got some work done on the baby afghan for my new niece or nephew last night, and after I finished the 2nd square (maybe 10 inches square), I asked if the two squares were big enough for a baby afghan. :) I suppose I need to get to work on that, though, as we're already halfway through January, and the baby is due near the beginning of March. Of course, the baby afghan doesn't have to be done before the baby arrives, but it would be nice. :)

I also haven't done much of anything for my Etsy shops lately. I can make the excuse with Counting Stars that my lack of being home means I can't work on pretty much anything I make for that shop. But my only real excuse for not working on stuff for Scary White Girl Designs has been the above mentioned life and burnout issues. Aside from the little bit of work I've done on the afghan, I've only worked on a custom order since Christmas.

We had a good EtsyRain leadership meeting last night, though (even if it did technically bleed into today), so maybe that will get me inspired to work on some more stuff. But I also just have to find the time! I've been filling up my schedule with games and fun things to do, and it's been at the expense of my crafts. So far it hasn't bothered me too much, but the existence of this post means that it's on my mind...

And I have a show in 2 weeks, as the February I Heart Rummage is Feb. 1st. Eek!

Eek!

I think it's just about time for me to start saying no if anyone else contacts me about custom stuff before Christmas. I've got someone who wants a couple of pairs of armwarmers to give as gifts, and I said I could do it. But I still need to stock up on more pairs for I Heart Rummage as well! And I sold another Dalek, which means I need to make more of those. For those, though, I have to order more dollhouse parts from eBay first. :) (Which means, by the way, that I've sold/traded 5 Daleks now. w00t!)

If only I knew where there was a JoAnn's or other craft shop nearby, I'd be set. Go buy more yarn and start making armwarmers in my downtime between work and dinner and dinner and bedtime. And hell, even a bit in the morning. Right now, though I'm already anticipating that I won't be putting down my crochet hook much for the week after I get home!

Hurrah for Friday!

Though I'm busy as all get out, it's still nice that it's Friday. I'm slightly less busy when I don't spend 10 hours of the day out of my apartment. :)

Tomorrow is Punk Rock Flea Market, which will have me out of the apartment for... oh, something like 10-11 hours. Well, at least I'm home for a good chunk of Sunday. Thank goodness for the people I'm traveling with having a much longer flight and not wanting to leave too early. They leave at 4 something, and I don't take off till 7 p.m. :)

Back next Friday, and then we have parties to attend the next two nights. Then I think I have a week of normal with an actual Saturday, before I Heart Rummage on the 21st. Then I work 3 days, and then get something ridiculous like 11 days of vacation. Only spending 2 of them at our apartment, but ah well. :)

I will be a very happy person when January rolls around. I'm looking forward to being bored. :)

And End of the Work Week Wisdom:
"Period military is not the dress code of a straight man."
--Owen Harper, referring to Captain Jack Harkness, on Torchwood

Yes, I am obsessed. :) Though I do have to say that I like Captain Jack better when he's on Doctor Who. He's much more of comic relief there... he only gets one or two really funny lines on his own show. :)

Wow...

So I finished off the second big order, and it went into the mail this morning. So now I have this legendary thing called "free time"... only I don't. :)

Since we're heading into fall, the fall show season is ramping up. And because I'm a crazy type person, I'm doing 2 shows in one week. Now, more specifically, I'm doing one show that's going to be Scary White Girl stuff, and another show that's going to be Counting Stars stuff. So if my first show (the SWG one) goes super well, I'll still have all of my stuff for the second show. I think that's going to be my new added bonus of this two shop thing--it'll be okay to do two shows within a short span, as long as I plan on the two shows covering opposite shops. :)

Specifically, the shows are I Heart Rummage on Sunday, September 7th, and Green Edmonds on Saturday, September 13th.

Now what makes this more interesting is that I'm out of town from September 2nd through the 5th, and then again from the 14th through the 21st. So my shows are sandwiched right in the week that I'm actually in town. :)

My calendar for September just looks like a mess of lines and arrows, though. There are only 9 days in the month that don't have anything at all written on them. Whee!

Chicken, no head. Part eleventy-billion.

Weekend was lovely, for the most part. I wandered around Ballard shopping on Saturday (nothing exciting, mostly yarn), and then went out with Aine and some other ladies for Aine's bachelorette party. Lots of fun, though I did head home on the early side. Spent most of Sunday feeling rather dead, though. I'm not sure if it was the late (for me) night, too much alcohol (doubtful), or just the mixing of alcohol (hard cider and tequila... maybe that was a bad plan...). But I did get some sewing done, and Hello Kitty continues to be a champ. :)

And now we start the insanity. I leave for a three day trip tomorrow. Friday, I'm in for half a day, before Aine and John's wedding that afternoon. Saturday, I get to run a bunch of errands in preparation for my next trip, which lasts from Sunday to Friday. I come back from that in time for the EtsyRain show on the 28th. It looks like the week following that MIGHT be mostly calm... and I get a 3 day weekend, thanks to the 4th of July. (That long weekend may just save my sanity.)

The week after that, I fly to Montana for less than 18 hours, and then come back for my much deserved vacation. But then we have a concert one day, then a free day, and then Jerome's sister arrives for his birthday weekend. The day his sister leaves, his dad arrives for the better part of a week. He leaves on a Thursday, and now it looks like I fly out for another week long trip that Sunday. I'm beginning to think that SeaTac is my home... *sigh*...

So the short version of all of this is that if you don't see me or hear from me for a while, I'm probably just fine. I might just be having difficulty finding time to BREATHE!