How is everyone?

[M'kel]

Crazy year, to say the least. Busy with school like I've never been before!! But, it's almost over (thank god) - only 3 weeks left, and I'll be home!

So, I started thinking about my friends at Araelen and thought I'd pop in to leave a short hello!

Some updates on me:

I started writing a novel....with dragons playing a leading role XD
I've had some rough stuff in the family in the past month...my Grandma passed away and one of my uncles has been diagnosed with cancer.
However, I am looking forward to summer - already have plenty of hikes and fossil-hunting expeditions planned, not to mention an explosion of writing!

I'm not sure if anyone peeks in here anymore, but if so, how're ya doing? I'd love to hear from you all again!

[B'kay]

Hi, Kitty!

So sorry to hear about your grandfather and your uncle. I wish your uncle all the best, and hope the docs caught things in time for a full recovery.

We're winding down with (my son's) college year, too. One more full week of classes and then exams.

Hubby finally was offered full time work, so we'll once again have benefits/health insurance (as of week after next), so things are looking up. The main worry at the moment is our old kitty, Sasha, who has both kidney and heart failure and is kind of touch and go right now. His eighteenth birthday is in June, we're still praying he'll be here to celebrate it with us.

Busy here. That's a good thing. My second book in the Junior Handlers series comes out in August ("Wild Wings of Danger"), and I've been doing other writing as well.

Good luck with your novel! :-) Go for it!

--Gayze

[M'kel]

Hello hello!

I'm glad to hear that your husband has full-time work again! I know that has been very rough for you guys, so great news! Also, congrats on novel #2! I will have to check it out. Sorry to hear about your kitty... My cat's getting older every year (10 now!), and I'm worried about that kind of thing happening to her as well. If only our pets outlived us, or matched us like dragons!

My uncle is now in San Diego, making daily trips to Mexico, for a form of alternative treatment. It's not about curing, but prolonging the inevitable for as long as possible now. Pretty rough, but we're trying to stay positive.

As for school, I am done! Hooray! Fini! Fantastico! But of course that means back to work, hahaha, and loads of summer plans. I'll be trying out yoga, taking a course on dinosaurs and fossil excavation (since they'll be building a dinosaur museum in my town in the coming years, yay!), and possibly taking piano lessons...in addition to the usual writing, biking, and generally having summer fun!

I'm not sure where everybody else is at with school right now (cause I know some of your terms end later!), but I'm about ready to get back into writing! Anyone else?

Kittaaaay

[B'kay]

I'll be hoping for your uncle that his "inevitable" is years and years away, and the alternative treatment does wonders.

Good luck with the work, and have fun with the diney-saurs (as my Starlings call them; Okay, so they've only said that one a couple times, but hey, it was cute). We're on a mountain and have tons of ancient sea-life fossils all through our property. Mountains weren't always mountains.

Ten's not so old for a kitty, I hope she stays young and happy for a very long time for you.

His old heart gave out, and took Sasha from us yesterday. I'm sort of wandering around here not sure what to do with myself, it seems like such a long time that I've been treating him for his ailments. He's been a part of our family for so long, that it's just not the same without him.

I'll probably be in and out, and around more come end of the week, as Devon's last final is Wednesday. It'll be good to play dragons again.

[M'kel]

I think this has fast become the most depressing thread on Araelen, instead of a happy catching-up-with-everyone one.

Sorry again about your kitty. That must be very hard. When someone has been your constant companion for so long, you must feel the absence all the more.

Your starlings are hilarious, btw. And you have tons of fossils on your property? How are you not prying out all the rock under the land with your bare hands? lol. I'd go crazy if there were that many around me! Do you happen to know how old they are?

Yeah, I'm just slowly settling back into the swing of things and hopefully gonna get some posting going soon. I hope you can join!

[B'kay]

Thanks, Kitty. I guess it's good that the new baby birds are keeping me busy -- they're still in the "screaming to eat every half hour from dawn to dark" phase.

Yeah, the starlings are a trip, and no matter how glum I might feel, they can make me laugh. I was sitting here yesterday working on some website stuff and suddenly Stars, behind me, called out, "Hello? Hello? You called?"

I really don't know how old the fossils might be. I'll try to find some of the rocks we've collected from the property and get pictures that show them clearly. They're shells, for the most part, and look sort of oyster-ish. Some are little curly snail-like impressions. Some are big, inches across, others tiny ones. But I don't know if that tells you anything. They are older than me, though, and that's saying something. :-)

Here, hope this link comes through okay ... I found an old shot from a couple years ago taken during an ice storm. It's actually of the ice, but the rock in the background is riddled with shell fossils that show up fairly well. The porch railing is four inches wide, so that should give you an idea of scale.

lh4.googleusercontent.com/-tI4N42B4gBI/TdE-rPa-frI/AAAAAAAADqQ/BFh3BLnSpT0/s912/IceRocks%2B12-11-2007%2B12-04-53%2BPM.JPG