What I'm Up To:
I haven't posted much on the blog of late save my weekly comics posts. May has been an unusually busy month, starting around April 27th when we closed on our new house. We started moving that weekend, and just finished getting everything officially out of the old house last night. So that's been a constant battle.

There's also been a fair bit of improvement to do on the house. My parents have been remarkably helpful and generous with time and money, helping us paint the master bedroom and bathroom, putting in laminate floor in my new office, staining some of the wood in the living room and, while Suzanne and I were on vacation, even putting in new doors to replace the damaged doors the previous owners had left us with.

Seriously, this is a nice house, but the previous owners just kicked. the. shit out of it. The doors were all banged up, none of the windows or coverplates for electrical outlets and light switches match, and every home improvement project seems to have been done on a "well, that'll work at least" level. It's a good house, but with a little more attention to detail, it could've been a great one. I'm pretty happy with the increased space, though, and I love my new office, which is big enough to hold all my comics and books, a spare TV with spare Tivo and cable, my computer and still have room for gaming in it with six friends. My office is easily the nicest room in the house, and given that I put up original art, posters, etc. last week, it is also the only really finished room in the house.

Suzanne got a new washer/dryer out of the deal, though (although it had a pinhole leak in one of the hoses, which they're supposed to fix today or next week), and Katy got a new pink room and a new bed, so everybody gained something. Hell, even the dog now has a back door that makes it easier for him to get out without going through an extra gate.

So there's been that, and the stress of the old house not having sold yet. We've had lots of interest, but no offers yet, and I live in constant fear of that home-owner's nightmare, having two houses and paying for both for too long. We sure as hell can't afford it, and in fact can only afford to do the home improvement we've been doing with help from both sets of parents and extra money I put away from eBay auctions just before we moved.

Then there was the weekend trip to Port Aransas, arranged months ago before we knew that: A) We'd be moving the week before and B) It was the same weekend as Free Comic Book Day. So I had to bail on working FCBD this year, which was a shame, although I heard it went well again. The weekend in Port Aransas was fun, but it was sadly kind of cloudy and cool on our main day (Saturday), so Katy only got to spend about five minutes at the beach, and in those five minutes, got kind of scared of the waves in the ocean and never had a chance to get over it and enjoy it. She did love the pool, though, and really enjoyed the aquarium in Corpus Christi that we all went to as well. So it was a good weekend, if not the relaxing one I was hoping for. In fact, I can't remember the last relaxing weekend I had.

This weekend won't be it either. We have to drive out to Arkansas for my grandfather's funeral. He was 98, so it wasn't a shock, but I'm still kind of sad. He was my last grandparent, and really, the one I liked the best. I'm gonna miss him, and I know it's hard on my mom right now. This was also the weekend my sister and her husband (and soon-to-be-born child) were going to be in Austin, and now they've got to spend that time in Arkansas, which means no Chuy's, Fajita Warehouse and generally hanging out in a town they miss.

The upside is, the family will all be in Arkansas, including Katy's young cousins Matt and Sean that she just adores, and there'll be a pool in the hotel, so Katy at least will probably have a good time, and it'll be nice to see the California branch of the family that I don't see often, as well as seeing my sister and her husband, who I don't get to see enough of these days.

All this busy-ness also means that Suzanne and I haven't had a chance to get up and see Ensley, our newest niece, born in Dallas about a month ago. We're hoping to get up there the first weekend of June, since I have to do comic ordering the last weekend in May. I feel kinda bad we haven't been up to see her yet, especially because I know Katy is going to love meeting her baby cousin, but I feel a little bit better about it because it has been literally unavoidable, we've been busy every single weekend.

So that's it, the entirety of my life at the moment. Coming up soon, my take on the new Fall season now that the upfronts are over... I'm actually pretty enthusiastic about the prospects for next year.