Yes, it’s been over a month since I posted anything here. I can’t believe I let it go so long. How many blogs that you read say that now and then?

Where I have been since 21 Dec? Well, we had Christmas, of course, which was nice. I got a lovely bread machine from my in-laws. It was label as for both Beloved and myself, but let’s be honest. I will put the stuff in to make the bread and all of us will eat it. Today I’m trying a recipe for beer and cheese bread, but it turns out we’re out of beer so I used some wine so it’ll be an interesting experiment. It’s baking now and I have to say it smells good, anyway!

For New Years’, we went up to Ohio to visit my family. It’s a very long car trip and we did it in our smaller car, a red four-door Mazda. The problem is that my van has become temperamental and sometimes decides just not to start when I turn the key. We didn’t really want that to happen on the road to Ohio.

We celebrated Christmas up there, too, and that was nice. Pepper got to get some bowling in with my brother giving her some pointers that seem to have helped her scores. My father was an amazing bowler and at one time considered leaving the military to go pro. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting in a bowling alley while he bowled in a league and being sure that his ball had eyes because it always went where he wanted it to. The pins just seemed to explode!

We are now back to our normal routine, except for my short stay in the hospital earlier this week with a bout of pneumonia. Because of my kidney transplant and the meds I take for that, they didn’t want to risk the infection getting out of hand so they kept me in the hospital for three days, bombarding me with antibiotics. Everyone I know who has had this before was sick for weeks and weeks, but today I’m actually feeling pretty normal. Not tired and weak. However, I’m skipping my writers’ meeting tomorrow because I don’t want to push myself too much. I’m good saying at home, but going out for several hours might be too much.

Plus, all the family will be gone for awhile so I’ll have the house to myself. I can get some editing on Sword & Illusion done.