No, really! I'm alive!

Dear Loyal Fans,

I'm sorry. There are probably not enough words to express how apologetic I am for having hooked you into my life with my writing prowess bait and left you dangling and gasping for air for....

How long has it been now? Over two months? Geeze, Louise! My friend Stacy yelled at me a few weeks ago. Right after Easter. I was supposed to sit down and do a blog post about that. Obviously it never happened, but hey! Have a picture!

This is the first time I've she's ever been within five feet of the
 Easter Bunny without crying, let alone posing for a picture with him!

We ended up doing three egg hunts this year. Two of which were planned. Following what is steadily becoming a yearly tradition, we went back to Canal Fulton for their community egg hunt. After which we had brunch at the Sister's Century House. You should eat there. I have nothing but fond memories of that place, when I was a little girl and my dad took me for breakfast. I got hot cocoa and "bump eggs," and we sat in the back left corner booth every time.

We also swung by The Toys Time Forgot to say hello to owner Dan Hare, but he wasn't there that day. I have fond memories of him, too, from back when I was 14 and stopping in once a month to ogle Gambit everything!

He's only The Sexiest Marvel character
to have ever been drawn to life!
How could you not?

Nearly 20 years later and Dan, Dan the Toy Man still remembers my obsession for Gambit and points out every new issue or statue or playing card or bust or anything he might have in stock, just for me. I really need to get back there with some money to buy all the back-logged issues of my imaginary Cajun boyfriend one of these days.

In other news!

We got a family membership at the local YMCA and signed the girls up for a free gym day that we walk to once a week. Basically I unleash them upon the gymnasium, let them go down slides, walk the balance beams, and tumble all over the mat. Then we go swimming. We've been meeting Stacy and Addison there pretty consistently every week. It's a good, regular play date.

Your Future Overlord continues to attend ballet class every week. Her recital is coming up in just a month too! Hooboy!

The Usurper is starting to develop more and more personality, and attitude along with it. She seems to have discovered temper tantrums, and I think she's right on the fringes of starting to use actual words instead of pointing and grunting and whining to get her point across. I know she's already said a few words, but she doesn't use them much at all. Except for maybe, "Maaa-maaaaaaaa!" Often when I'm purposely ignoring her because she's driving me nuts.

Last weekend we visited the Cleveland Animal Protective League to drop off approximately $125 in assorted change that the Overlord had collected for her first charity project. I'll try to remember to make it a point to talk about that in more detail some day. We also came home with another cat.

This is Mindy. She is a one year old catch and release rescue.

I did mention we are cat people, right? Well, this brings us back up to our three cat limit, which I gave myself years ago to avoid giving into adopting ALL THE KITTIES. Because I totally would. This house would be overrun if I didn't have self-control.

We also went back to Toys Time Forgot for FREE COMIC BOOK DAY, which is the first Saturday in May every year, in case you didn't know. I've kind of made it a tradition to go to Dan's store for that, too. I don't know. What can I say? I'm a loyal customer. Even though I moved miles away, I keep coming back. It's cool. He loves my daughters and wants to steal them. It's hard to tell him now. Haha!

Mother's Day is coming up. I'm feeling rather particularly meh about it this year, and I don't know why.

Well, okay. Thus concludes my brain dump. There is so much you've missed out on because I've failed to write, and I am so, so, SO, SO SORRY about that. Life kind of grabbed me by the horns and flung me around. Two little ones sure keeps a momma busy!

Stay tuned! I promise to write more again soon!

All my love,

♥ - S. R. Miner

ps: Head stands are new.