This is my first week back at work after an extremely restful two week vacation. I was talking about our vacation with my husband and we realized that it was basically the first time in eight years or so when we weren’t traveling or entertaining visitors. It is of course lovely to visit people and have people visit us, but I really appreciated having so much time to do nothing in my own house (in between taking care of sick kids). Some of my restful vacation activities included:

• Watching most of the kdrama Pinocchio. It has been a long time since I’ve wanted to marathon a kdrama, but this one is very compelling. Pinocchio has a slightly odd premise in that a small number of people are unable to tell a lie. They immediately start hiccuping if they attempt to bend the truth. Of course, the Pinocchio heroine’s dream is to become a TV reporter! The hero of the story has a tragic past where his family was destroyed by the news media, specifically the heroine’s mother. This is good soapy fun, and is by the same writer who did I Hear Your Voice, which is one of my other recent favorite kdramas.
• I watched How To Get Away With Murder. So frightened of wallpaper now! I’m still behind with Sleepy Hollow, but caught up to a few episodes. I sampled the new Librarian’s series and feel sort of meh about it except for Christian Kane, who is consistently amusing
• I knit a ton! I finished another cowl and started on another project.
• I had more time to read! I tore through several trashy novels on my kindle. I also finally read the new Ms Marvel first collection and enjoyed it a bunch
• I had some mental space to plan out a few Amethyst Legion of Superheroes posts for this site. We will see if that happens!
• I did some home organization type activities
• I watched/rewatched a bunch of movies. Die Hard on Christmas Eve, but also the GI Joe live action movies, Locke, Imitation Game, and many others that I am forgetting in my post-vacation brain fog

Work has been mega-busy leading up to this past December and I haven’t had the luxury of a paid vacation very much in recent years, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I’m giving a talk tonight at the Salt Lake City Library!

Here’s a blurb about the talk in the Salt Lake Tribune.
Here’s the event listing on the library website.

Husband enters room holding a copy of Tennis Magazine.

Me: They really oiled him up. Nadal.
Him: That isn’t oil. He’s a beast.
Me: A very shiny beast. No one is naturally that shiny.
Him: That’s not oil. He’s a bronze god.
Me: No one is that shiny naturally.
Him: I am. I’m a sunbeam.

It is pretty sad that I’ve been so busy lately I forgot my Blogiversary. This web site has been in existence for 7 years, which must translate into being almost middle-aged in Internet time.

Here, have some virtual cake:

Daddy is going to take the bus home.
No Bus Home. Choo Choo!
No Choo Choo. Bus!
Choo Choo.
Bus.
Choo Choo.
Bus.
Choo Choo.
Bus.
Choo Choo.
Bus.
Two Choo Choo.
Why would Daddy need two trains? Isn’t one train enough?
No Two Choo Choo.
Two Bus.
Two Choo Choo.
Two Bus.
One Choo Choo.
Two Bus.
Choo Choo!
Bus!

No, you can’t push the mini-shopping cart. Can you help Mommy push the stoller? Put your hands on the stroller! Push Push Push!
Do you want strawberries? OK. No, Mommy will carry the strawberries.
Please don’t push your brother, push the stroller.
You can have some cookies. OK, we will get chocolate teddy bear cookies. No, not those cookies too.
Other cookie package crashes to the floor. I guess we’re getting those cookies.
Put your hands on the stroller, not on the shelf. Hands on the stroller. Hands on the stroller.
Where’s your yogurt? No, that’s not your yogurt. This is your yogurt.
Beer isn’t for babies.
That’s a nice color, but we don’t need limes.
Hands on the stoller. Thank you.
OK, we will buy bananas. Yes, you can eat a banana. No, we need to pay for the banana before you eat it.
You will be able to eat a banana in a minute.
Almost time to eat a banana. I swear, you will be able to eat a banana.
Get in the stroller, I will give you a banana.
Here is your banana!

I’m about to be traveling for awhile so manga reviews will be on hold for awhile. Traveling with little children means cutting down on my usual library of fun vacation reads in order to have more space to pack sippy cups and Elmo sticker books. I’m only packing one book for myself, Georgette Heyer’s An Infamous Army. Maybe I will just spend the next two weeks blogging about Waterloo.