Frogs and Paint

Good weekend, yay!

We gamed on Saturday, and it was awesome. There was grilled meat, and bags of chips and salsa, and boxes of cookies. There were obstacles to work around and party tactics to formulate. My character got to mutter the sotto voce line, "I'm working with a demon and a werewolf. Mother would be so proud," (which is very funny if you know that my character's mother is Zoya). I got to unleash my big daily power and roll 6d6 for damage. Booya! And! And! Three party members were eaten by giant frogs. Could it get any more awesome than that? No. No, I don't think it can. (...They got better.)

On Sunday, while Matt was taking a much-needed nap, I took the kids to the new Paint On Pottery shop that recently opened in Williamsburg. Alex's dinosaur is fated to look like something from the Black Lagoon, I fear, but both kids had a fantastic time and can't wait to pick up their creations next weekend.

And I made black bean soup for dinner. Now that I've figured out the proportions of the ingredients that works best for me, I could eat this soup until it starts pouring out of my ears, I swear.

And then last night, after Penny went to bed, I sat down with my latest story, did a read-through and edit, and emailed it in! Submission: accomplished!

If there was one thing detracting from the weekend... At several points in the last few days, I've been driving along and looked down the road and thought, "Wow, it looks really smoky down there. Is there a fire?" only to realize, half a beat later, that it wasn't billows of smoke I was looking at, but billows of pollen. Seriously, billowing. Like smoke. It's incredibly thick this year, and we're not even to the really prime pollen season yet, which doesn't usually hit until the first couple of weeks of April. (I'm hoping this is just an early spring, due to our mild winter, but I probably should not count on it.)