Lots o' Randomness!

Ahhh, winter vacation is over and it's time for life to get back to normal. Who ever thought I'd be the kind of girl to say that? I'm extra thrilled that Niko gets to go back to school, which he loves. I wrote a catch-up note to his teacher, telling her all of the things that Niko picked up over vacation. He's learning to share. He's learning how to hug his sister without headbonks. (intermittently)

I received a comment on an old post yesterday that made me laugh. It was this post, comparing Niko's fits to a banshee on crack. It's still accurate. And the comment was timely, because on Saturday we took the kids to a pizza place that happened to have a little arcade area in the back. You know, the kind of place that we never frequent anymore.

Nobody loves a good arcade more than I do (hello, our daughter is named Nina. Tekken, anybody?) but Niko caught a glimpse of the flashing lights and went insane. Back arching, eyes squeezed shut, body tensing for what was going to be a long, drawn out battle. It was a noisy place, but he cut right through it like butter. I turned to Luke and I said, "You know, I am really embarrassed right now," and he nodded, teeth grit as he tried to hold Niko to calm him. Nina laughed and tried to feed him pizza. That girl is a rock, I tell you.

The pizza fiasco came after Luke and I ran a 10k that morning out in the desert. Correction: Luke ran it. I did my very best, which consisted mostly of trudging up the gigantic hills and running down them, trying not to die. Luke came back for me with a power bar so that I didn't turf it by the side of the road a mere two miles from goal. That's why I love him. It was so cold! I ran the entire thing in my hoodie, and didn't even pull the hood down until mile four. I was still getting over that awful cold that kept me in bed on New Years, and I have to admit that I started out in a pretty bad mood. Hence the picture, yeah? But after the race we were happy and tired, and we went out for breakfast, and a good time was had by all. I think that running makes me happy.

Yay, you can buy the anthology that I'm in online, now! They mention my story in the blurb, and I'm pleased that it's blurb worthy. It's all on A Broken Laptop.

I'm sorry if you're annoyed that I constantly send you off to my site. But it has a separate counter, and it's helpful to see how many people actually check something out. I'm sure that one fine day it can be useful for marketing purposes and all of that, but for right now, it's all about, "Yay! Somebody actually came to look, hooray!" It really makes my day. :)