it's alive

I realized mostly after the fact that I didn't warn my imaginary readers that I was going on vacation.  I've been home now for about five hours, and I should have been asleep for at least two of those, but the internet has missed me.  I don't mean to imply that I wasn't on the internet for the past eleven days.  Don't be deceived, friends, my laptop met up with every wireless connection it could across several states, but I did take a very intentional break from blogging, mostly because I'm slow and I didn't want to take any extra time from my precious family and the fun stuff we were doing.  Most of my faithful readers are real people who actually know me, so the chances are high that you knew I was on vacation anyway.  But I should have warned you.  Sorry about that.  I hope you can forgive me.

So I have some plans for exciting future posts, but I'm also coming back to the land of the blog just in time for Summer Reading Club registration at the library--our busiest time of year, and as the few weeks leading up to vacation proved (to me anyway), when I'm busy with work, my writing suffers.  Sorry about that.  I hope you can forgive me.

My laptop just told me it's dying, and the power cord is still packed, so I'll leave you with one more enticing bit of news.  I have official permission to post photos of the entire Handful now, so vacation pictures are likely. Here's one to whet your appetite.  I promise there will be some where the subjects don't look like they are barely tolerating my existence.