*Shameface*

Wow...a lot has obviously happened since I last updated this thing.  I am so sorry.  I moved, didn't have Internet for three months, and then like twelve different things started eating up my time.  And then I forgot this blog existed.  Sorry.

So, in personal news:

• I'm an aunt now!  My sister-in-law gave birth to a beautiful baby boy named Jeffrey.  He is four months old and looks like a good mash-up between his parents.  It's still weird to think my brother sired a child, but there's undeniable proof now.  It's weirder that he's so adorable and yet still directly related to Matt.  I got him Winnie the Pooh for companionship.  You know, when he can grab him.  I'm thinking over the years I'll probably be foisting many a Disney character on him....
• I'm engaged!  Tony and I have been together for 11 or 12 years now (depending on when you start counting) so this should not be a surprise to anyone who knows us.  But it is still exciting and gratifying.  No wedding plans as of yet, but we will be moving in together soon enough for me to forget about this blog again.  Also I can't stop looking at wedding dresses.  Because they are sparkly.
• I became an official Nerdfighter!  Also I finally discovered the brothers Hank and John Green.  Because I'm officially late to EVERY bandwagon.
• My gallbladder tried to escape my body and succeeded!  Literally 5 days after getting my engagement ring I ended up in the hospital with some debilitating abdominal pain.  I had six stones in my gallbladder, one stuck in the freaking valve.  I opted to get it removed, which was good because as the surgeon was trying to remove it, it was actively trying to explode.  Surgery took one hour instead of half an hour because the gallbladder was, in medical terms, "tense and throbbing".  After reading the pathology report it basically boiled down to: "This looks like an effed up gallbladder that was removed from a human body.  There are a ton of stones in it, including one stuck in the valve that was nearly 3cms.  It's really gross."  This was around the new year (surgery was the day before New Year's Eve).  Yay 2013!  Still a better ending than Twilight.  ;)

I have eagerly been reading The Infernal Devices series by the fantastic Cassandra Clare.  Long story short, my nook recommended them to me and I thought: "I've heard of Cassandra Clare before..."  It turns out that it's a penname and I remember the author because she wrote a rather famous and acclaimed Harry Potter fanfiction called The Draco Trilogy.  I remember seeing it on www.pumpkinpie.org.  Yes, I was an Auror.  No, I'm not ashamed.  Yes, I hated the canonical ending of the series, why do you ask?  Anyway, the trilogy is a prequel to the City of Ashes series which I haven't read but totally spoiled for myself on Wikipedia.  It's Steampunk Fantasy, which is a genre I've been enjoying way too much of recently.  I'm also on the last Gail Carriger book of her Soulless series.  It's awesome, please read.

I will honestly try to update more frequently in the future.  My apologies for the long gaps.
~Jill