So... if I post here every three to four months, it probably doesn't really count as a blog, huh? Sigh. It's kind of like writing emails-- the longer it takes you to reply to someone, the greater the pressure to write something worthwhile, so the long wait seems somehow more worth it. Perhaps I should have lots of pictures to make this long post more tolerable? 
dachshund-lobster hybrid from the divas unleashed parade in october
Mostly I've been quiet because I've been feeling a lot like Daisy looks in that picture over to the right. A little beaten and bedraggled. The fall wasn't so bad-- I was getting all ready for winter, the holiday shopping season, Christmas gifts, etc., ahead of the game even-- and then things just started to happen. Without going into too much detail, mr. d's dad got really, really sick; risky operation sick, and it was a rough Thanksgiving in the family. Christmas was very emotional too. Um, and New Year's. Needless to say, a lot of things fell to the wayside and we spent a lot of time driving north and back. Thankfully, though, things turned out amazingly well, and though mr.d-in-law had to endure quite a bit of bedrest (not easy for him!), it was practically a miracle how things turned out in the end.
mr. d @ man's world in north adams, mass. thanks again for the trip, mr. & mrs. s-v!
On top of mr. d's family stuff, in November my grandmother took a turn for the worse healthwise. Again, without too much detail, a visit that I expected would be me sitting around helping with pills and other 24 hour care stuff actually turned into a week of sleeping in the hospital overnight (my mom and I stayed 10pm to 10am and my aunt & uncle had the opposite). She finally got moved out of the ICU on the last day I was in California and plans were to move her from there directly to an assisted living center. The highlights of this trip were that I got a lot of knitting done at ridiculous hours of the night, and the fact that this was my rental car:
If you love the PT Cruiser, you may want to skip this paragraph. Basically, this car sucked. It didn't accelerate quickly enough and felt clunky. LA traffic sucks as it is!! This car didn't help. Plus mr. d & I (well, mr. d especially) have in the past spent a lot of time mocking this particular vehicle and the frustrating people that often drive it. Sorry if you are normal & decent driver but we seem to have run across a lot of morons who can't drive and choose to own this vehicle. I will say that it is nice and shiny & they made the dashboard very retro-like and cute. However, I never found an interior light in the car, and that is VERY inconvenient when you are looking for things in the dark in a car. PS, I reserved an ECONOMY car and this is what they gave me. 
sweet people-dressed-up-as-abraham-lincoln piece at MassMOCA!
Ok, where was I? Right. Late November, Thanksgiving in Maine. December we did Renegade Holiday Show in Chicago so we got to visit with ms. h again! Hi ms. h, hope you're not studying too hard! I don't think I took a single picture on that trip. Wait, let me check. Nope, I only took them on my cell phone and I can't deal with that right now.
ms. daisy on one of our many (crowded car) drives.
Christmas in The County, Maine, and here at home. New Year's in Maine, and then a week in & out of the hospital visiting mr. d-in-law. Right after he got released from the hospital, we headed back out to LA to visit the care center my grandma is in. I was bracing myself for the worst but I wanted to make sure I felt ok with where she was staying, and miracle of all miracles, she looked WAY better than she had in November. Her memory is not so good but I felt a little better knowing she was in a clean facility and that she seems fairly content. I still want to get back out there to spend more time with her. Here we are in her room:
If I look like hell in this photo, it's because I did. Exhausted and flying late at night and being worried about my grandmother did not improve my normal not-particularly-photogenic-ness. Basically, I have been feeling behind and like a not-efficient businessperson since November, so that is always in the back of my mind, and seeing pictures of myself made me realize that I LOOK like it most of the time. Awesome.
Here is another shot of me looking equally crappy with the still-considered-a-newlywed mrs. c. No mr. s though, he had to stay home in Hawaii and work on their new house (!)
Visting with mrs. c was really the only social thing we did while in LA this trip. Mostly we went to the care center and then to pick stuff up for my grandma's room. They advise you not to leave really nice things there, so (sadly) we couldn't give her anything really expensive or nice. Instead I'm going to make her a blanket (yes, I'm going to sew!) that has photos of us and other family members on it because no one would "misplace" a blanket that has pictures of another person's family on it, right?
Oh, I DID get to finally take mr. d to in-n-out, and it was a FANCY one! 
It was packed with scary teenagers so we went through the drive through. Speaking of driving, here is some solid proof on karma for you. When I went in November, I flew into Ontario instead of LAX. That's where I got the PT Cruiser. This time, we flew into Ontario again, and lo and behold, after all the mocking that mr. d did of the car when I got home and gave him the details about the rental in November, guess which car we got this time? 
This photo is from the November trip, but I honestly think that it was the EXACT same vehicle. Our punishment for making fun of it the first time around. Instant Karma's gonna get you...Ok, was that enough of an update for now? Are we sort of caught up? I'll work on being back more often. #1 has been & will be visiting again, so I'll actually have something non-work/website related to talk about!
