Back At It!

The past month has been a blur again. Mostly because after going home for a fun four-day weekend in Seattle, I came back and had to dive right back into more work on the DC Adventures game and Mutants & Masterminds game. We're releasing books for both line at the same time, so there's a ton of editing and development work for me to do when I get home from work at Cryptic.

We also released the DC Adventures game a couple of weeks ago and it's been both great and painful to see how people have accepted it. For the most part people have really liked the game, but there has been some gnashing of teeth from some people who don't like this particular thing or that particular thing. Regardless, it's been selling very well and I just wish I could go to GenCon to see the book actually go on sale. (Right now we're just selling the PDF through our online store.)

Enough about work.

When last I wrote it was just before a trip back to Seattle -- and once again, I'm heading to Seattle this next Thursday -- so I figured I should write about that visit.

As is normal for us, Julia and I spent a lot of time in the garden and running errands to buy plants and supplies for the garden. I also mowed the lawn, which is looking both ugly and unhealthy. Hopefully the fertilizer I put on it will help strengthen it a bit. I may also need to thatch it to help with drainage and aeration. I was hoping to do that this next visit home, but Julia just mentioned last night that the lawn is now filled with tiny froglings the size of her thumbnail and I don't want to hurt them, they're too cute. Actually, thinking about it, they may make mowing the lawn this time tricky, too. Hmm.

Back to the garden and the last visit home... Unlike many visits home, we transplanted a number of things this time around. We moved a number of plants in the backyard and even moved a couple of gigantic blue oat grasses from the front to the back. They were overpowering our young flowering dogwood, so we replaced them with some smaller flowering plants (a knockout rose and something else I can't remember the name of). Have no fear, though, because we also bought a planted a ton of other goodies as well. I'm pretty sure Julia had a fun weekend of picking out plants and planting them.

We also made plans to build an actual compost bin when I come back next time (next week) and talked about turning a couple of, so far, unused portions of the backyard into a tomato garden and a herb garden. Those are going to take a fair amount of work, however, because I'll need to take a pick-axe to the earth in both areas, line them with rock borders, and then fill them with a bunch of dirt and compost. That'll be a workout!

Sunday was the 4th of July, so I left Julia in the garden and went to Jason and Liz's for a joint birthday/4th of July part (the 4th is Liz's birthday). That was great. I was able to catch up with Jason, Liz, Seth, Melissa, and James -- as well as meet James' wife -- and a few other people from Jason and Liz's circle of friends. It was a good time. We ate some excellent BBQ and even made ice cream in their new ice cream maker.

I'm sure there was more to the weekend, but that covers the bulk of it. We had a great time and it was especially nice because I was able to stay for four days instead of my usual three days. In fact, I took my birthday off for my next visit home, so I'll have four days for this next visit as well!

I can't wait until I actually get to live at home again!