long time, no post

It's been a loooong time since I last posted. I have a fairly good reason: we were gone from home for almost a month (yes, that's the perk of the graduate student's schedule). And, yes, there is internet in Alabama, Tennessee, and Georgia. I just chose to spend time with our family and friends rather than on the internet. 

However, after a long trip back to Massachusetts (we brought one of our cars back!), which included a nasty stomach virus for Brad (PRAISE the Lord that I didn't catch it!), we are back in our little Hobbit-hole apartment and are getting reacquainted with our life here. Actually, I'm taking down the Christmas decorations today while Brad is out and about getting our car registered so that we can park it without getting ticketed. 

In an effort to make up for lost blogging time, I'm going to do my best to be very diligent in catching up on things like:

*the last two challenge outfits of 2012 (sniffle) and my thoughts on the experience
*loot that Claire raked in
*what we're up to in preparing for her arrival
*catch up posts from the fall that never got published (eh...this may or may not happen...we'll see...it's been this long already)
*an updated tour of the apartment

I'm sure I'll think of some other stories along the way. I hope you all (you know, all two of you that still read this...Mom...Dad...), have a wonderful weekend.