Olof has been working practically non-stop for the past couple of weeks, which means that I’m on non-stop kid duty, which means that my poor blog has been sadly neglected. My mom commented today that not much is going on here lately, and I know it must be bad if even she is mentioning it. I’d like to say that the situation’s going to change soon, but I don’t see that happening for a little while, at least, and since we just narrowly escaped having him gone to California for a week, I feel I shouldn’t complain too much. I mean, he may be working twelve or fifteen hours a day, but as long as he’s on site I can send him out with the dogs or on a quick mission to the grocery store. (I must confess, though, that when I heard about the proposed California trip a tiny part of me started making up a shopping list and I am mourning, just a little, the loss of a suitcase full of Coffee-Mate and Twizzlers.)

Things are going along more or less swimmingly here. Lydia’s been wanting to start some sort of martial arts classes and on Thursday she test-drove a karate class that looks promising. She has a couple more free lessons before she decides one way or another, but I already know that I’ll be trying to push her in the direction of continuing. Petra’s still growing like a weed and charming everyone she meets. She’s a fiend for the solids (English needs a good translation for matglad — “food-happy” just misses, somehow), and she can sit unsupported for a really long time now. And Tage … well, Tage has turned into a regular (haha, pun unintentional) poop machine. For the past week or so he’s gone three or four times every day. Don’t know why, but I’m not questioning it.

In case you missed it, we went live with a new issue of Mosaic Minds on February 1. It’s another terrific issue with plenty of good things to keep you busy for a while. I have four or five pieces, so be sure to check them out and report back to me how brilliant I am. My ego could use a good stroking.

Last week I was “challenged” by my brother-in-law (Swedish) to post about five strange habits I’ve got and I’ve been trying to think of five that are strange-but-not-too-strange and also fit for a public audience. Not as easy as you might imagine, but I’m not giving up. Watch this space.