Jen has been gone since early Wednesday morning. You can read about her trip on her blog and Flickr page. It's funny, really, the way I can just sit down and read about her trip, as well as see photos, not only from her, but from other people attending the same convention. It's like being there... except not.

At home, I've been enjoying the extra sleep, since I've had to take off work in order to wrangle our own kids. It's funny how it's actually more difficult to get four kids up and out of the house in the morning than it is to wake up 150 - 200 kids up at camp. Of course, at camp, I just blast music over the loudspeakers and make helpful announcements on the mic between songs. The cabin leaders do the rest. Not that I'm complaining. It's been awhile since I've gotten to do the morning routine at home for more than a day at a time. It has been generally pretty easy. The boys have even been getting up before me. The girls, of course, still have to be dressed while in that hazy realm between sleep and wakefulness.

I've been staying up late too, working my way through the stack of movies purchased at the local closing (now closed and gone) video rental place. The quality of my purchases ranges from marginal to excellent, but even the marginal ones have some merit, in that they're not children's movies I've seen hundreds of times. I think that watching the movies is equally important to getting enough (or almost enough) sleep in terms of the way it's benefiting my psyche. I feel recharged.

Next week is spring break for the kids. For some reason, my week off work comes at the end of the month, so apparently not all schools have next week off.

I got an actual letter in the mail yesterday too, from a guy I met on myspace, ironically enough. We discovered a shared appreciation for early 2oth century/late 19th century weird fiction, and a shared nostalgia for simpler times (read: pre-computer), which is why I say it is somewhat ironic that we met online. He sent a couple of pieces of original art too, which are very nice indeed. There's always such a difference between seeing images online and actually holding them in your hands.

I also got a wedding invitation, and a cd. Lots of people I know are getting married later this year.

Currently listening to the new cd: Benjamin Escoriza "Alevanta!"