Long Time Comin'

Man, I haven't updated here in forever.

Well, ten days. Which is practically forever in the blogging world, even for rinky-dink nothing daily-rambling blogs like mine. What's happened since then...?

Let's see. We had Hurricane Irene blow through on August 27th (Saturday) -- we had no serious damage to the house or yard, but we did lose power around 2pm on Saturday and didn't get it back until Wednesday night, which only improves over our power loss with Hurricane Isabel by one day. "I" hurricanes have it in for us, I guess.

We made it through the days without power mostly by hanging out over at Braz and Adin's house -- they didn't have power for a few days, either, but they have a working grill, so at least we were able to eat. We cleaned out the fridge and freezer and took everything over to their place on Sunday afternoon for the mother of all barbecues. We eventually lost pretty much everything in the 'fridge, but on the bright side, it gave me an excuse to completely disassemble all the shelves and stuff and wash it all thoroughly. Matt and I were back to work by Tuesday (which let us recharge our various iDevices -- my office looked like a little Apple Store for a bit, there!), but the kids' daycare was without power at least as long as we were, so we managed the best we could; they spent some time with me at work, some time at home with Matt, and my parents took them a couple of times.

Last Thursday -- the very day after the power came back -- we took Penny to her back-to-school orientation. Matt, working as a WatchDOGS dad all last year, had met all the third-grade teachers and made his quiet wishlist concerning which teachers he particularly hoped Penny would (or wouldn't) get. The good news is that she didn't get the one teacher he was especially unimpressed with. The bad news is that she didn't get the teacher who was #1 on his list. The official news is that... they had a lot of rearrangement and turnover, so Penny wound up with a teacher who's brand new. So... we'll see, I guess.

Friday, my official boss came down from DC to do a meet-and-greet with me and go over some stuff. I was expecting it to take all day, but we were done well before lunch. Which I guess was good, but he's pushing a bunch of initiatives and training my way, so I expect I'm about to get a deal busier. Whee.

We had a pretty quiet weekend -- Penny had a sleepover with Jess Friday night, and then we went to a family party of Adin's at her place on Saturday, and then Sunday had dinner with my family to celebrate my mom's and brother's birthdays. Yesterday, being a holiday here in the U.S., we spent mostly over at Braz and Adin's again, though the kids were cranky and out of sorts, which resulted in the grownups being much the same. And since today is a school day, we had to get home early last night to get everyone to bed on time.

School drop-off went fine this morning, though I anticipate some whining from Penny tomorrow when I institute the new "drop-off, not walk-in" policy. But given that the school is suggesting we nudge her toward riding the bus next year (or at a minimum, the year after), I'm not caving. I only walked her in this morning because there was so much stuff to carry in.

In other news, Torquere Press has offered me a position as an editor (a step up from the proofreading job with them that I've had for about a year), which I find ridiculously exciting. I'm also proofing three novels at the moment, plus planning a trip to Roanoke in two weeks for a GLBT Pride event where I'll meet up with a couple of fellow authors/editors to hawk TQ's wares. (I'm still juggling the travel schedule for that -- it's a 4-hour drive, one way, so I'd really rather not do it all in one day... but it's on a Sunday, which means waiting to come home the next day may be problematic.)

...I think that gets us all caught up. How've you all been, these last couple of weeks or so?