random ramblings

The pixie had a fun weekend, last weekend.  Grandma took her to a princess party.  The pixie wore her bridesmaid dress from a friend's wedding last November, which we gave her to play dress-up in after she wore it at Easter. 

Instead of coming to her ankles like it did in November, it's about three-quarters of the way down her calves. 

She's growing so freakin' fast. 

The imp had a good weekend last weekend, too.  To keep him from feeling let down because it wasn't him spending the night, we watched Captain America with him.  He enjoyed it immensely.  I am considering Avengers for the next time the pixie goes to spend the night with Grandma and Grandpa. 

So, yesterday, we got a reminder of just how insane Midwest weather is.  When I got up, it was a lovely, sunny day.  We made plans with a friend to meet at the park and have lunch so the adults could talk while the kids played. 

And, just as we stepped out the door to leave, it started pouring. 

Yeah, we went anyway.  It quit for a little while, after we got to the park, fed the kids a car picnic, and our friend arrived with her three youngest, and two extras.  And then, it started again.  The kids didn't care much--they actually enjoyed that the rain on the slides made the slides go faster--until they got cold.

We got our table and bench put together yesterday, while the kids were napping.  We had gotten folding chairs that would have matched perfectly, but...the first time Odysseus sat down on one, the wood on one of the back legs split at the henge.  The table and bench, however, are absolutely lovely, and fit the kitchen much, much better than the heirloom dining room set we had. 

As I said, I got my pens earlier this week--a Parker VS that needs cleaned up and a new ink sac (worth around $130), a Sheaffer lever fill pen that needs the same (worth around $90-$120), and a Sheaffer Touchdown.  I may keep the Touchdown, since it wouldn't bring more than around $40-$60.  It's a neat filling system that I don't have an exemplar of in my collection.  If I get as much done over the next week as I'd like to (including re-finding the camera and taking pictures of the pens I have fixed and ready for sale so that I can, y'know, sell them), I'll permit myself to fix them.

The cats have been a bit of a problem.  Neither cat had been inclined to sleep on top of the old table; both cats are inclined to sleep on top of the new table.  I don't mind them sleeping on the chairs or benches.  However.  I do not want their fat, fuzzy little bodies on top of the table. 

I didn't get a whole lot of writing done this week.  I've been a little busy with housework; however, I have gotten some done.  I had to write last night to get my brain to slow down so that I could sleep, and put in about a thousand words on The Schrodinger Paradox.  It's currently sitting right at 17K words (in part 1--what I've got done of part 2 brings it up to 19.5K--almost as much as I have written on Detritus, done in a far shorter amount of time, and 5K less than I've got done on the Normalcy Bias short story collection).  The djinn story is sitting around 1200 words, between what I have typed, and what I've got handwritten that needs transcribed, and it's not finished, yet.  That's the first draft.  The draft that goes into the collection will likely be between 5K and 8K words, since I expand quite a lot while I'm typing it in.  I tend to summarize a lot of what I have in my head while I'm writing long hand, and develop the summarized parts when I type it up.

Well, that was my week.  I've got plans for next week, but we'll have to see how that goes.