Family

Conventions, Family, and Making Choices

By / August 13, 2013 / 2 Comments

Shipping day, booth set up day, and post-con accounting day are when I discover which out of hundreds of things I failed to adequately track. That is the not fun part, when I realize that I’ve failed to do some simple thing and because of it life is more complicated. The problems are usually small and often easily resolved, but there is a voice in my head which berates me for failing to anticipate and prevent the problem. This is one of the reasons that I was glad that events conspired for me to take a break from being with Howard at major conventions. I had to figure out how to disconnect that angry voice in my head. Once the event is in motion it does not matter whose fault it is that we’re about to run out of tape. What matters is sending someone on a quick run to the store to buy more tape. Problem solved, on we go.

After I dropped Howard at the airport (he’s headed to GenCon) I came home and sat in my hammock to think. It was the first real pause I’d had all day. As part of our preparations for the three big conventions, we got to talking about the big events we have scheduled for next year. Worldcon will be in London next year, and the conversation made clear that Howard assumed I’d want to go. In my mind I’d been assuming that I would not be going. I’d love to go. We could come up with the money somehow, but childcare is the issue. One a daily basis I don’t have to seek out babysitters anymore, but if I’m going to be gone for a week or more, I have to make sure that my kids are cared for. There are three events in 2014 that I would like to be able to attend, I’m not certain which of them I’ll be able to manage. I thought about that as I swung in the hammock. And while I was thinking about the professional things I’m giving up in service to my ongoing parenting project, I also spent some time thinking about what family things I would have to give up in order to attend all the professional events that interest me. I have to choose. I am fortunate to be able to choose between things I want instead of having only bad options.

Howard is at GenCon where he will work hard, be with friends, feel exhausted, laugh loud, and come home with stories. I am a little sad that I am not there. I’m a little sad that it makes sense for me to be the one to stay home. I feel cliche about that sometimes. In two weeks Howard will be at WorldCon. Again he will be surrounded by friends and I will be home making sure the kids settle in to their school routines. I will be participating in the booth running for Salt Lake City Comic Con, but the exact schedule and extent of my participation has yet to be determined. I’ll get at least a partial professional event this fall.

On the other hand, I’ll be spending this final week before school with my kids. We’ll get to go on a final outing (if Gleek gets over her sore throat and fever). I’ll be here to sit with Kiki in church on the last Sunday before she departs for college. I’ll get to organize and clean, prepping back packs and school schedules. I wouldn’t want to miss any of that. There are so few days left. Part of me wants to slow down and savor. A larger part wants to jump ahead because things are going to change and we might as well get the change made so we can settle in.

I thought about all of this as I swayed gently in the warm evening. Then I thought of nothing much at all, because today began with a half day of shipping, was followed up by last minute convention-preparation, and then a 90 minute drive to drop Howard at the airport. I was tired. I am tired. Bedtime needs to be early tonight and all the rest of the decisions and things to do can wait until a different day.

Odds and Ends on a Sunday

By / August 11, 2013

The form of the conversation was Kiki telling me about her concerns related to intellectual property theft in relation to her artwork. The true content of the conversation was her feeling that the world is a big, scary place and she’s about to venture forth in it solo. Hugs and chocolate helped.

We all sat down at the dinner table together. We don’t have any regular patterns for when we’ll all sit down together, at least not lately. It is more likely to happen on Sunday afternoons, and definitely more likely during the school months than during the summer. We passed around food and I made announcements to the kids about the coming week so that they would know what to expect. Mostly that we’ll have influxes of people the first three days of the week and that the last two days we’ll flee the house and go on outings. There was some debate about where the outings should take us, but a compromise was reached. I think. Link did a really good non-responsive 15-year-old face. It is hard to get all four enthusiastic about the same trips in advance, but I’m pretty sure we’ll all find things to enjoy while we’re out.

I’d just finished showing Howard the packet of GenCon papers. These include this year’s sales tax license, proof of event insurance, hotel reservations, and an explanation of how he may need to go to the hotel of our booth help in order to make sure that the bill ends up on our credit card. Earlier we’d spent time going through iterations of convention flyers and packing his suitcase. I’d assembled a list of errands for me to run tomorrow to make sure that all the pieces are in place for GenCon. I sat in a chair in his office and he sat across from me painting.
“Know what is nice?” I said. “It’s nice that I know all the things to do in order to get this ready. I don’t have to feel panicked that I’m forgetting something.”

“What’s nice is that you’re amazing.” Howard replied, because the evening had demonstrated how many preparatory tasks I’ve managed and solved without him needing to think of them at all. Some days I get it right and can tell that I have. Tomorrow’s task list is full of things, as is Tuesday’s, but for once I feel competent to accomplish it all.

Time’s Up

By / August 9, 2013

It feels like time’s up. The schools have begun calling and emailing me with announcements for the coming year. Howard’s departure for GenCon is mere days away. I still have things to do to prepare for the oncoming events. Summer feels over even though we’re still in the first half of August. I suppose that is the natural consequence of school starting on August 20, summer vacation ends a full month before summer weather does. There is no time left for me to take the kids on enriching outings. Or for me to do a better job of summer gardening. I must let those intentions go and move forward to supporting them in school and trying to do a better job of fall gardening.

Today I perused the calendar, very familiar activity.
Look at this week: almost gone.

Click: next week has postage printing, shipping, Howard leaving for GenCon, watching my sister’s kids for a day, and hopefully a last family outing with the kids.

Click: The week after is when the beginning of school unfolds over three days. Monday, Gleek’s orientation day. Tuesday, First day of school. Wednesday, I drive Kiki to college and leave her there. I assume that Thursday, Friday, and Saturday will be divided among reactions to the previous and preparations for Worldcon.

Click: The week of WorldCon. Quiet at home.

Click: Return from Worldcon followed immediately by Salt Lake City Comic Con.

Most of my calendar perusals have stopped there. Surely that is enough. I can’t be expected to think of anything beyond all of that. Yet today I clicked onward and the weeks that follow are …empty. No events, just regularly scheduled days all the way into October. I am not so foolish as to think that emptiness is actually empty. We will be busy, but for the moment the illusion of being less busy is nice.

I really thought my kids would have meltdowns before the beginning of school. I braced for it. Then I was the one who had a big emotional reaction to the beginning of August, because it feels like we’re running out of time on this summer.

Back in June when I looked ahead across the hot months, I pondered what I should do for my family during that time. What should we set our minds to accomplish? An answer came to me clearly: Rest. So we rested instead of pushing. The kids played nearly endless hours of their favorite video games. The ones who love to read, spent time with books. The ones for whom reading is a chore touched none. No math was practiced, no skills worked on. Howard and I focused mostly on the work that we had to do. It was nice to let some of the things go. I don’t regret it. I only have the vaguest sort of guilt that perhaps we should have done something else. Instead we rested. I can only hope that we rested enough, because whatever comes next is coming in about a week.

20 Years

By / August 5, 2013 / 21 Comments

The other day I looked at Howard as he was gazing out of window. The light was hitting his face at one of those photographically perfect angles to highlight all the best features and I wished for a camera so I could capture in an image exactly what I see when I look at him. He was quite handsome, despite the fact that he was wearing a green shirt I’d made the mistake of buying for him without quite realizing that it exactly matches his car.

Oops. All day he wore that shirt and I kept feeling like he was wearing his car around the house. But I watched him anyway because I often do even though I don’t say anything about it.

This is us together 20 years ago today.

I can’t say that our wedding was the best day of my life, because it was far too full of various agendas, rejoicings, and stresses to be peaceful. I can say that choosing to marry Howard was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. It is one I keep making over and over as we muck our way through the various stresses and joys of sharing life, household, children, and a business.
As you can see, Howard took this wedding business quite seriously.

Very seriously indeed.

At least I had some inkling of what I was in for.

I have a smattering of photographs in between those wedding pictures and the green shirt picture above. I thought about digging out an array of them and creating a (probably cheesy) Howard-through-the-years montage, but the albums are currently buried behind boxes of merchandise which I had to move out of our storage room because the air conditioner repair guys needed to have more that two square feet of work space. Then I thought about drawing forth some larger meaning from the pictures being buried by work, but really that is just life. Things get shifted around to take care of problems and then they pass through organized before being jumbled up again for some other reason.

The important thing is that twenty years in, I don’t regret it. Not a bit of it. Not any of the dumb mistakes (see green shirt above), or the grievous mistakes (investing in real estate in early 2007), not having four kids, or buying this house, or planting all those trees half of which died. (Okay I regret planting that one maple in that one spot, but it is nothing that a saw can’t fix when we find some time.) Most importantly I don’t regret sharing all of it with Howard. I’m glad that we leaped together into creative work. I’m glad for all of the things I’ve had to become (stronger, less afraid, an accountant, a graphic designer). I say all of this even though this past weekend has been one of Howard’s worst-ever depressive episodes. For a little bit things were heart-wrenchingly, achingly hard. I don’t regret that either. He makes me laugh even when I want to cry, or even when I’ve already been crying. He’s brilliant and clever. He just keeps getting better. We keep getting better together.

Twenty years, that’s a good start.

Before the Beginning of School Anxieties

By / August 4, 2013

My children look to me to create the rhythms of their lives. They do not watch clocks, they wait for Mom to call them for lunch. Sometimes they pay attention to calendars, but usually only when there is a holiday or birthday to anticipate. In the summer they are even cast free of the school schedule, each day shaped very much like all the rest. I watch clocks and calendars. I track appointments and set alarms. Which is why I am very aware that school starts in only two weeks. On August 19th the changes that have been roiling and causing anxiety since last February will solidify. We will have things to deal with instead of things to worry about. But we are not quite there yet and I’m not looking forward to the moment when the kids figure out how close we are to that day. When they do, there will be emotional reactions and I don’t know what shape those emotional reactions will take. In fact part of my brain is convinced that one or more of the kids will melt down into major anxiety which will snowball causing stress and emotional upheaval for all of us that won’t resolve until sometime in October.

It is possible that the kids aren’t the ones I need to worry about with the before school anxiety. In fact all current evidence suggests that I am the one who is going to be stressed and fretting during the next two weeks. I’m already there. And I am trying very hard not to signal any of my anxiety to the kids. We’re not going school shopping. I haven’t scheduled before-school-starts haircuts. I’m not trying to do a few last outings before the summer is gone. As much as possible I would like this week to be summer-as-normal. Next week is soon enough for all the other things.

Taking Care of People and Things

By / August 2, 2013 / 1 Comment

The people come first. They should always come first, but sometimes I get enmeshed in all the things to do that I forget to focus on the people. That reversal never lasts very long because people in need of care tend to draw attention. They request attention even if they are not aware that this is what they are doing. On a day like today I have very little temptation to care for things first.

Howard is working on the sketch editions. Sketching season is always a time when I rearrange my schedule to support Howard’s efforts, because doing 1000 sketches is really a marathon effort. Marathon runners could not accomplish what they do without a crew. Howard can’t do the sketches without the other members of his household providing support. This time the onset of sketching coincided with one of Howard’s depressive “I can’t do all of this” swings, which increased the level of support necessary.

Kiki had four wisdom teeth removed today. We made the appointment two weeks ago and then did all in our power to forget about it, because the thought of surgery made both Kiki and I very nervous. Today she was as jittery as a junebug, which I assume is really jittery since I’ve never actually seen a junebug. I watched her walk away with a nurse and remembered the last time that I’d seen her walk away with a nurse for anesthesia. She was two back then and needed ear tubes. This time it was a removal not an addition. Everything was routine and I rejoined her in the recovery room where I learned that recovering-from-anesthesia Kiki is very chatty. Most of the thoughts that came through her head were spoken, but short term memory was not being written into long term. She was awake and alert, asked reasonable questions, but she repeated them about every five minutes because she didn’t remember the answers. That effect wore off about half way home. Now we’re helping Kiki through post surgical recovery. So far the pain has not been particularly bad for her, which I’m glad about. Hopefully in another day or so she’ll be back to normal.

I’ve taken to hovering over Gleek’s shoulder as she plays online games. She’s on public servers and has made some friends there. Making friends is good, but it is my job to make sure that Gleek learns how to stay safe. Also, I’ve realized that at twelve she does not have a comprehension that just because someone has always been nice does not mean they’re safe. So I am hovering, and mostly being bored by it, because the chatter is primarily about blocks, building, swords, monsters, and giving instructions to new players. Yet I’m getting a feel for the social context of the game so that I can offer advice for when a player seems dodgy to me. Bit by bit my kids gather experience for normal online interactions so that they are able to spot the ones that are out of the ordinary, like someone being too nice because they want something later.

My mailbox is full. Three of them actually, since I manage my mail, the Schlock box, and the box for the Jay Wake Book. Each of those messages represents a person. It is easy to think of email as things to do, but on the other end of my replies are people. Today the email people are going to have to wait an extra day, because the in-my-house people get my attention first.

Patch spent most of today at cub scout day camp, so he missed the return of loopy Kiki. But he doesn’t mind because there were boat wars, pringles, cookies, rabbit fur, slingshots, and hours in the sun. All he needs from me today is for me to listen to his adventures for a bit.

Link spent the afternoon playing Metroid Prime Corruption for Kiki’s entertainment. He beat the game with 100%. Apparently my son has gotten quite good at video games. Naturally he started playing all over again on a harder difficulty setting.

Monday is the twentieth anniversary of when Howard and I got married. Sometime between now and then I’d like to find some deep and important thoughts on the topic. At the moment I just see the date coming and know nothing in particular is planned other than postage printing. Monday will be a work day, which is in keeping with our family tradition I suppose.

Dishes, laundry, clutter, bathroom grunge, these are all things, though they are things which affect the moods of people. I wish I had the energy to solve them today. Or rather, I wish I’d had the energy to take care of them yesterday so that they would already be done today. Instead I see them and feel a measure of defeat. Another day I will find laundry victory.

One thing I did succeed at doing today: I kept refined sugar and white flour out of my diet. I’m not going to be rigid, but those things need to be the occasional treat not daily fare. So that is a success. I also ordered banners for GenCon, made some arrangements for WorldCon, re-ordered the Writing Excuses DVDs, approved TOH for reprint, accepted delivery of shipping supplies, began accounting, and communicated with several people about Jay Wake. So I did some of the things today, I just wish I’d done all of them.

People before things.

Returning Home

By / July 28, 2013

“So what is the plan for this evening?” Howard asked as we drove home from the airport. My answer was simple. Assess the state of the house, assess the state of the kids, clean up the messes both physical and otherwise, put everyone to bed on time. After three days and two nights with no parents in the house, I knew that we would be coming home to some mess. I also knew that the mess would be trivial. Kiki did a wonderful job as adult-in-residence, though it took an hour of talking for her to feel like it wasn’t an utter disaster.

The kids were very glad to have us home. I knew that they would be. The tightness of their hugs was a good first measure for how unsettled they were. Kiki is not the only one who will need to talk this through. Our absence ties into the other changes that are coming. Though I’m really hoping that we can stay focused on summer things for a few more weeks. Stressing about changes ahead of time is not particularly beneficial.

One of the things that surprised me most was the lack of anxiety on my part. I kept expecting it to be there, but it wasn’t. Rather like the way that my left foot stomps for a foot break because the van had one and I drove it for twelve years. My new car does not, so that foot reaches to find air where the habit portion of my brain expects resistance. I’ve always been anxious about leaving the kids. This time I was leaving them with newly-adult Kiki instead of an adult who has parenting experience. Surely I should have been more nervous, but I was less. I knew it would all be okay even though I knew some of it would feel quite hard.

For now we are all home. Nothing is broken. Tonight we rest, tomorrow there is work to do.

Evaluating My Summer

By / July 23, 2013

There are days when it is very easy for me to identify all the places in my life where I could be doing better. This would seem like a good thing, not being blind to the need to improve. It would surely be worse if I woke after my kids, let them play on computers all day, expected them to forage through (well-stocked) cupboards for their own meals, and did not realize that this pattern of behavior counted as sub-par parenting. As a short-term rest from Mom always being in their faces expecting chores and homework, my kids welcome this laissez faire style, but over the long haul it is not good for them. They need structure, regular bedtimes, meals, or it can get perilously Lord-of-the-flies-ish around here. So I was noticing the need to improve my parenting game. I opted to take the kids on an outing. We went to a “Fun Arcade” to which we have passes. The kids did have fun there, playing laser tag, driving go carts, steering bumper boats. I had a sort of fun too while I watched them and took some pictures. Yet we all came home cranky and in dire need to be far away from crowds of people and noise. I brought home a lovely headache. Mission accomplished. Sort of.

The plan was for the outing to occupy the morning and I would get business tasks done in the afternoon. Yet I had real difficulty re-engaging my business brain. I’d opened up my long parenting thoughts, spent a morning thinking of the other outings and things we’d like to do this summer. I mused upon ways that I could spend time with my kids and enrich their lives. Those thoughts filled my brain and did not want to be tucked away so that I could answer emails. I was stressfully aware of all work waiting on my attention, but unable to focus on a particular task enough to complete it. This, of course, sent me into an existential despair. obviously I can not possibly be a good mother and a good business owner simultaneously. The best I can manage is a haphazard rotation. I would long for the return of school, when there was more separation between the parenting and the business management, but I quite clearly remember how much I was looking forward to having less schedule for the summer.

I spoke today with a friend about the state of publishing and her current strategy for revising and submitting books. Her assessment of how the business of publishing is currently running was sound to me, but rather discouraging considering the types of things that I write and the speed at which I write them. I don’t write best-seller material, or at least I haven’t yet. My publishing career may never take of because of a hundred factors out of my control. Yet only a few days ago I spilled angst on these subjects and decided to write anyway because I have stories that I want to tell whether or not they ever gain a wide audience. The size of the audience is not how to measure the worth of a story. So I focus on the work itself, not where I think the work will take me, or what public appraisal of the work will bring to me. It is me and the words, me and the story. Those are the things that matter.

After my friend left, I looked over to my kids who were wearing headphones and clicking with their computer mouses. I walked over and kissed the tops of their heads. They didn’t even flinch, because that is a normal thing for me to do. They live in confidence that they are loved, that the cupboards will have food, that we’ll all attend church together, that if they have a problem, or a scratch, or a random thought, they can find Mom or Dad and tell us about it. They usually have to dig in baskets for clean clothes to wear, but the clothes are clean, the dishes get done (mostly), and our floors are clear in the middles where people need to walk. All of this stuff is the work of parenting. It is the moments when I fit grocery shopping and laundry in between the business email and shipping. These things are done with out expectation of accolades, and certainly not because I expect my kids to remember it. The outings (which I’ve been feeling guilty for not doing) are the times that get the photographs and are chronicled as family stories. The true work of parenting is listening when a child wants to tell every detail of her dream. The dream itself is unimportant, but the listening is very important.

The heart of creation, whether it be a family, a story, a business, or a household, is in the quiet work done almost out of sight. When I readjust my vision to focus on those things, I think I may not be doing so badly this summer after all.

Summer Scenes

By / July 21, 2013

“Oh no! They paved the street.” Gleek was genuinely distressed to see the smooth black surface as we exited the house. I was surprised that this was a surprise to her, because the fact of street paving had required my attention for much of the week, including a grocery trip “so we won’t have to go out tomorrow” and then having to sneak out of the cul de sac just before the paving crews arrived because of another urgent errand. I put up with it all because I viewed new pavement as a good thing. Our cul de sac had become a web of cracks sealed with tar. What I did not know was the long and elaborate games that Gleek had around those tarred over cracks. The cracks had personalities and they played a role in her imaginative worlds. Only now all the cracks were invisible.
“I feel like my friends are suffocating.” Gleek said. “Why do things have to change? I don’t want things to change.” I put my arm around her shoulder and we walked past the still-warm tarry street to where my car was parked. I don’t think Gleek was just lamenting her cracks. This summer she is twelve, play has changed. In a few weeks she’ll be in junior high, that is change too. Kiki will be heading off to college, that is different. Gleek shed tears for all the changes, though she only thought she cried over pavement.

It has been several days since Gleek cried over the street. She’s noted that the texture of the cracks can still be seen now that the new layer has settled in. Her friends are changed, not gone. Hopefully that bodes well for the other things.

“This has been the worst summer of my life.” Link said. I’m not surprised at the declaration. Our schedule has been very sparse on fun outings, and his schedule has been heavy with requirements and doctor’s appointments. Add to that the fact that Link feels some separation from his friends. He’s struggling to find new ways to relate because many of the things which interest his friends do not interest him. One part of me thinks I should attempt to help solve these problems, that I should direct, nudge, encourage. Another part of me recognizes that ultimately Link is the one who has to learn and grow. I can’t give that to him as a gift. Mostly what I can do is make sure that the next four weeks have some happy things for him.

Part way through church I leaned over and put my head on Kiki’s shoulder for just a moment. I could do that because Kiki has graduated from the youth programs and now sits with me during the adult classes. She looked at me puzzled. I whispered to her,
“I just counted weeks in my head. There are four.” In four weeks she’ll be off to her next adventure and I’m glad for her to go, but she’ll be missed here.

“Patch went in the dunk tank!” Kiki told me with impressed tones. Indeed he did, as evidenced by his completely drenched grin. His clothes stuck close to is lanky frame, emphasizing how much taller he has gotten this summer. “It was scary, Mom, but I’m glad that I did it.” Patch said before he proceeded to tell me in detail every moment of his dunk tank experience. He walked tall on the way home, quite pleased with his bravery. Gleek braved the tank as well and felt similarly pleased. We’ve never had a dunk tank as part of a church party before, but this one was a huge success.

We bought a veggie tray late Saturday night and put it out first thing Sunday morning. It was an experiment in psychology and healthy eating. If healthy snacks were convenient, would we eat them instead of rummaging the cupboards for chips? By Sunday evening the tray was three quarters depleted, so the answer appears to be, yes. It is only a beginning. Hopefully it is a beginning that we will follow through on, because this summer the meals have been exceedingly haphazard. Getting up and going to bed have been pretty random as well. Half the time the kids are out of bed before I am and they’re on the computers already. At least we’re making token efforts toward pulling these aspects of our family life back together. Bedtimes and meals, they’re good for us. Really.

“Mom, will you play Minecraft with me?” I haven’t played video games in years. Well, except for Plants vs. Zombies, but that’s a little game on my computer. I used to play video games quite a lot back when our console was a Nintendo 64. The kids did not have the skills to play through difficult sections, and they wanted to see the whole Zelda story, so I played for them. It was a thing I could do to entertain the kids. Then somehow they took the controllers and didn’t need me anymore. I had other things to do, so I did those instead. Occasionally I became interested in a game that had a story, but it was always the story which interested me, not holding the controller, so I was happy to be the one to watch. Minecraft is the latest craze with my kids. They love it. I’m fine with it, but I never watch because it is a sandbox game. No story, just the ability to go anywhere and build anything. I wasn’t interested. But then Gleek looked at me with big eyes. She loves this game and she wanted to do something with me. This is how I came to spend two hours of my Sunday afternoon digging a big square hole in the ground and being generally clueless about things like torches, axes, and red rock. Gleek had a great time zipping around me, making sure I didn’t fall into holes or get lost. Sometimes I need to join them in their activities rather than pulling them out to do something I dictate.

Updates on Progress and Other Things

By / July 19, 2013 / 1 Comment

I am tentatively, and with fear of jinxing, declaring my desktop computer to be fixed. We replaced the motherboard almost two weeks ago and it has not crashed since then.

There are only 35 more coin orders to ship. They are all orders where the person who purchased the coins has not given me an address.

Pre-orders for The Body Politic have been progressing well. We’re almost two weeks in and almost sold out of sketch editions. The books were delivered yesterday and my garage smells like triumph. (Triumph is the smell of 5000 freshly printed books.)

Gleek was laid flat by a migraine today, the second she’s had in the past couple of weeks. Sadly this is likely a gift from my genes. I had periodic migraines for about a year when I was her age. I’m taking it as a sign that we need to pay more attention to healthy eating. Not that I think that will solve the problem, but it is a generally good idea.

I’ve finished up the edits on the Tub of Happiness reprint. There were over a hundred corrections to evaluate and apply. I’ve handed half a dozen image edits to Howard. Once those are done, I can upload files to the printer and call it done.

I got copies of the Jay Wake book back. I’m not entirely pleased with the print on demand cover, but the contents are exactly the way I intended. In a week I will get to deliver these copies and then work will begin on the final iteration.

Travel to the Cascade Writer’s Conference and Jay Wake has been arranged. I’m looking forward to attending a writer event and to supporting the efforts of those creating Jay Wake.

Monday will be my day for shipping things to GenCon. We need to send coins, hats, mugs, and The Body Politic. Also on the preparing for GenCon task list: Banners and flyers.

There is also a preparing for WorldCon task list. Howard has acquired new boots and the new tux will be showing up soonish. I still need to buy Howard’s plane tickets. There is math to do in order to figure out how much capitol we can spend on this event. I also need to do the math “guess how much product to send” dance. At least we’ve arranged for transportation of merchandise.

Salt Lake City ComicCon is in September. I keep forgetting about it because it is a newer addition to the schedule. I should make a list for this.

The Unofficial Anecdotal History of Challenge Coins has done some basic collection, but we haven’t yet begun significant editorial work. Once Howard and I hammer out a process, I expect it to go fairly quickly.

We need a new dentist because I don’t trust either of the two we’ve worked with in the past month. Kiki’s wisdom teeth should probably come out before she heads off to college.

My new car still does not have a name. I’ve been noodling and trying to find one that fits. I’m not sure that I’m going to though. The closest I’ve come is realizing that this new car functions as our family’s sky bison, the friendly white thing that is willing to haul all of our people and our stuff, but it can’t be Appa and none of the other sky bison have names.

Howard has been writing prose regularly and making significant progress through his writing commitments. I’m happy about this. I’m working on writing as well.

My intended push toward healthier eating did not materialize in June. I’m going to have to expend some effort and do meal planning. Because it is time for us to be cooking more, eating healthier, and eating out less. Better for our budget and us.

Tonight I cooked a meal using thyme grown in my back garden. I’m quite happy about that.

Link’s doctor has said that no more follow up appointments are necessary. We just need to continue the home treatments we’ve been applying and everything should clear up.

I finally convinced Patch to let me trim the hair around his ears and neck. He looks less scraggly now.

And it has gotten late enough that I can’t remember the other things I intended to post updates about. Time to sleep.