As I said in the post before last, we are de-boxing the attic. This is due to the fact that half my house is without electricity right now. I'm missing power in the bedrooms, and the bathroom. (we've burned through quite a few candles in the past few days)
We've traced wires and tested all the outlets in the living spaces and basement of the house, which leaves the attic to test and trace..
Only, the attic is packed full of stuff. Well, actually packed half full of stuff, since we've already brought the first half down and sorted through it.

There's a giveaway/sell pile, an empty box pile, and a "store away in the dank dark basement" pile. The rest has been re-absorbed back into the living spaces of my house. That has meant bringing in bookshelves from the garage and acquiring a brand new used (but free!) wooden credenza to store my sewing stuff in. The rest of the house is slowly being redistributed and organized.

While it really feels good to get rid of all the extra junk, I'll be glad to get back to a (cleaner and more organized) version of normal in a week or two...

I like looking in on the maternal country once in a while. Here's a couple of my favorites:
1)La Baule beach in Bretagne, next to the town of Le Pouliguen, where Papi (my grandfather) used to live:
http://www.labaule.com/webcam/

2)Strasbourg, where most of my french relatives live:
http://www.webcam-strasbourg.com/adrv/webcam-strasbourg/index.html

enjoy!

ok, one year later, give or take a couple months...

Quick stream of conscious rundown, since it's 7am and I've been up since 5 --

I've been spending alot of time on Ravelry (see previous post)
Google it if you're curious... my moniker is Lady of Shalott.

The summer's been going fast. Sylvie is 20 months old, says many words (20 and counting), learning something new just about every day. Walking, almost running. Just starting to be interested in potty training. Loves books.

the weather's not too hot, and that's good because my central air doesn't work right now due to broken blower motor. We're going to replace the furnace by winter anyway.

Ethan just had his 7th birthday, and is riding a bike 2 wheeled now. He's going into 2nd grade, is almost 4 ft. tall. very into webkinz and video games, loves chess and hneftafl -- he's taking after his dad with his love of games. He's also developing the ability to try new foods and like them (most of the time). (he was previously veeery picky -- this is a major accomplishment, as he's getting hot lunch this year)

hrrmm.. whatelse? status quo mostly. Summer's halfway done, my garden has produced vegetables successfully (cucumbers are the latest crop)
We haven't taken a major vacation this year except for driving to Texas in March, and staying for 5 days to visit Terri. Mini vacations mostly -- the latest was down to see my dad for a few days and we stayed out at the farm.

My mother's coming to visit this fall. I really must email her, it's long overdue. I'm making her a Bagstopper from Knitty, almost done.

We're de-boxing the attic due to some impending electrical work, so I'm finding places again for everything we packed up last summer to do the living room painting. It's been ongoing for a couple of weeks now.

Gaming saturday nights, ongoing for the past about a year and a half. We're playing a norse setting. (big surprise there)

Electric car's accelerator cable is broken so we're down to one car since last friday. He claims he's fixing it this weekend...

hum...nothing more that I can think of at the moment

Last month sometime, being inspired by my french relatives' ability to knit themselves lovely sweaters, I decided I wanted to learn too.

So far, my finished objects include:
a hat for Sylvie (my first circular needle project -- it turned out too big so I bunched it up a bit in back and sewed it together!) -- sugar and cream cotton
A couple of hand towels for my kitchen -- sugar and cream
a few small washcloths -- also sugar and cream
a string bag -- dmc wool and cotton mix (the kind that comes on the short spool) and sugar and cream for the handles.
a small felted purse -- wool from my grandma's stash
a funky scarf -- some funky fancy yarn shop yarn
an ear warmer -- handspun yarn from my grandma's stash

my UFO's include:
--a second string bag in turkish stitch (I need one more ball of yarn to complete it -- Sugar and cream cotton)
--a crocheted shawl out of some acrylic yarn I had sitting around (I've not been feeling very inspired by it lately -- I may have to unravel it, as I accidentally began it with too small of a hook size)
--the Labyrinth Rug from the One Skein book. (I've got about 2 feet of it done so far)A stashbuster project designed to use up the not so soft wool yarns in my grandma's stash that are in colors I can't use for Regia.
--a basketweave patterned scarf from some soft acrylic yarn. (this yarn is turning out to be a bit frustrating to work with as it's very slippery, but I plan on perservering just to get the stuff out of my stash)

Stuff I want to work on in the future include:
a baby sweater -- something in superwash wool
socks -- I just bought some Louet Gems in fine weight, peony colorway.
a sweater for me -- yarn tbd
Naalbinded sock slippers (viking knitting) from my grandma's undyed handspun

That brings us to Late August. We arrived back the 22nd august by Air India. It wasn't a bad airline, but the airplane was a bit creaky, being refurbished. It was a double decker, and held many many people -- that was the most crowded waiting room I'd ever been in before. The flight was uneventful, and even fun, given that I got to be with Ethan and Sara this time and not by myself with the baby. We ate Indian food -- some chicken and rice dish which was medium spicy. I also liked the sweet carrot (or was that yams?) dessert that came with it. Ethan got a kids meal with chicken nuggets, and Sylvie got baby food. Todd met us at the airport, and was very happy to see us. It was brutally hot though, being august in illinois. I had been dreading coming back to the 90 degree heat, but adjusted fine eventually. Europe had been nice and cool, in the 60s to low 80's. We dropped Sara off at my aunt and uncle's house where she was to visit for 2 days following the trip. They invited us to stay for dinner, so we languished in the air conditioning over sandwiches and ice cream. Then home, and finally, sleep.
That was a wednesday. Thursday I had to go to a get-to-know-you meeting with Ethan's 1st grade teacher, that Todd thoughtfully scheduled on the day after I got back from my trip. Jetlagged and having woken up at 4:30 am, I went anyway. She's very nice, and Ethan really likes her. School started Friday, so I had another early jetlagged morning. We got him and his school supplies all to school on time, and the year got off to a good start. In all, I think it took me about a week to get over jetlag since I had schedule changes and teething baby to deal with as well, but we all adjusted in the end.

So, with Sylvie's passport in hand and 2 days late, we set out on our journey.
The last minute ticket I bought was for LOT, polish airlines to Frankfurt via Krakow. I liked the polish airline overall, the polish people were friendly, and the airline offered decent service and good food. I liked the sound of the language, even though I don't speak it -- it was comforting somehow. Maybe it was just relief at finally being able to leave the country.
The food was even good -- I ate beef stew with noodles for dinner (with tomatoes, zucchinis, cauliflower, and potatoes in the stew), good coffee with chocolate for dessert, and a sandwich breakfast type thingy with sunflower seeds in the bread rolls.
In Krakow, I had less than an hour to connect to my frankfurt flight, so I was sweating through the customs line -- and feeling a bit anxious at the long lines of people. But I got through it with just 10 minutes left before boarding at my gate. Unfortunately because of the tight connection, Sylvie's umbrella stroller, which I tried to gate check from chicago, got left behind in Krakow's baggage claim area. I didn't see it in my mad dash through the terminal to connect to the next flight. It wasn't a huge loss considering all I'd gone through to be on that trip though. And my mother, when she met us in Frankfurt, said Ethan's old spare stroller was still at her house.

The next 12 days were spent recovering from jetlag, visiting local attractions and seeing family.
My mother was ecstatic (sp?) to see us as were Sara and Ethan. I'd of course kept in touch to tell them my travel plans, so the wait wasn't too bad for them, but it was a very happy reunion.
I had a wonderful vacation -- I got to see my grandmother who is 93, both my cousins, my 2 aunts, my uncle and met my cousin Muriel's husband for the first time. We also did local trips out from my mom's house.
One day we went to see Haut Koenigsbourg, a reconstructed 15th c. castle (not an accurate reconstruction by the way -- it was built as a residence for Kaizer Wilhelm II of germany, and had his W's and symbols everywhere). We also went to a place called Monkey Mountain (La montagne des Singes) the same day, where you go to the top of a mountain inhabited by Barbary Macaques, and walk through their enclosure and feed them popcorn. They have handlers there, of course, to make sure nothing goes wrong. Mostly the monkeys stay away from the humans unless they want popcorn, and then they sit by the side of the trail with their hands out. Their regular diet is veggies and fruits, which they are fed several times a day. We got there around the first feeding time in the morning, so the popcorn was mainly just dessert. The monkeys live in family groups, and there are several babies in the "tribe". They are really cute little black things with huge ears.

Another thing we did was to take a guided boat tour in Strasbourg on the Ill river which runs around the old part of the city, not unlike the canals in Paris. I hadn't done that in several years, and it was nice as a way to show my aunt the city.
Back in Ottrott where my mother lives, there are a pair of local castles that are about a mile up from my mom's house, so we did a small hike up to see them one afternoon. They are unfortunately closed to the public right now, due to crumbling and lack of money to keep them up, as they are privately owned. We were able to see them from the outside though. It's sad because I've visited them in the past, and they were kept up nicely with gardens and plantings inside; also they used to have archaeological digs on the grounds.
We also visited the local aquarium in my mother's home town, which also has a petting zoo, and an area to play in. Ethan loved it -- we went there twice while I was there and he went there once the day before I got there.
I wish that I'd had time to take a trip outside of Alsace, but there just wasn't enough time -- Hedeby happens to be about 12 hours by car, and Sweden is just a few hours farther by ferry. Maybe next time...

Meanwhile, I hope to have the pictures up on Flikr sometime this week, and I will post a link shortly thereafter.

IN the meantime, I was waiting on Sylvie's passport and it still wasn't here by 2 weeks to go. Fortunately, Ethan's and mine arrived on time the saturday before the trip. Sylvie's still wasn't in the mailbox. I called the passport agency at least 3 times a day and all of those customer dis-service people each had a different answer of what I should do next. I asked them to Expedite it. They said it would be on "will call" and done the next day. 2 days before the trip and I was still waiting. It came down to the wire of one day to go, and I was unfortunately following the advice of one agent who said my daughter's passport was still on will call and that I should wait by the phone to hear when to go pick it up. The day of the trip arrived. I waited and waited by the phone to find out if Sylvie's passport was ready. they still didn't call. By noon, we made the very difficult decision to send Ethan ahead with my Aunt and I'd go down to chicago the next day, missing my original flight, and fly out the day after that. (as there was no time left that day) to wrest the passport out of their evil clutches.

So, I bought a new one way ticket (not with travelocity!)to fly out friday evening, took the train downtown to chicago and showed them proof of travel and the locator number for Sylvie's missing passport. (After being shuffled from one floor to another -- there's 2 places in the building one can go to wait on passports, depending on the situation) Fortunately,after only half an hour of waiting, I was called up and given the passport which by the way was in a fedex envelope waiting to go out that day. I had stopped it just in time apparently. In any case, the stupid guy at the passport call center had no clue what he was talking about and I should never have listened to him. I am still pissed off at the government for that one. We lost about a thousand dollars due to this whole thing, and 2 days of vacation..

So, back in June, the wednesday before Jubilee, we go to visit this house which is for sale. The house was beautiful, the price right. We went home and assessed how long we'd have to take to fix things up and sell our own house. We determined it might take about a month.
Hah! one month later and very frustrated and stressed out, we decided to extend our bidding "deadline" by another month. We kept working, but slower this time (otherwise we'd have killed each other I think, upon reflection..).
Now the living room was painted, the gutters done, the house decluttered, and the nasty linoleum in the front entryway was torn up and removed. Bought were the tiles for the back entryway. We still had a little ways to go but we figured, by the time I left for France we could bid in a week after I left (My husband would call the realtor and get the process started).
I was all psyched to move and so was he. We were busy imagining what it would be like to live in that house, where we'd have our furniture, etc etc.
It all came crashing down when I did my morning lookup of the house the morning I was to leave for France (on Friday, 2 days after my original travel plans -- but more on that later)
"What did that mean", I asked Todd in an email (he was at work). He called the realtor, and the realtor said the fateful words: "The house is under contract." That was it then.

Alas! My beautiful 1904 house, with 4 bedrooms, a potential studio on the 3rd floor attic, the architectural details, the enclosed front porch, huge living room/foyer, and pocket doored dining room, plus kitchen with breakfast room, was not to be.

Sigh. I managed to enjoy the rest of the vacation, and had a wonderful time. By the time I got back, Todd who was probably a bit depressed about the house as well as having some family health issues, had not done anything more with fixing up our own house to sell, and since then we've been sitting back and taking a break from it all.
So that ends chapter one of this summer.

As a side note, we learned one thing from all of this, as first time sellers -- we are now planning on having our own house all ready to go and on the market before even looking at another house to buy. This was, reflectively, mostly a case of getting in over our heads and not having a realistic idea of how long things were going to take us to do.

In Retrospect, here are some pictures of the 1904 house interior:

I've had a very busy summer. When last I posted Sylvie had her first tooth. Now she's getting her 7th (and standing and nearly walking! To summarize, since then, I've done Jubilee OE faire, a series of house fixing jobs, the passport fiasco, then finally our trip to france, school starting, cub scout enrolling, Kim's visit arranging, Micel Folcland new member enrolling, learning to Knit, and having fiberaholic syndrome slowly but surely take over my life... Whew!
I'll post a series of catch-ups next, so you my dear readers (all 2 of you!) can catch up along with me.

The baby has her first tooth! Bottom right front, to be more precise. At my great peril, I found it today while I was doing my several times a day excursion into the depths of her gums checking for foreign objects, and of course, new teeth. She'd been quite cranky in the past few weeks, (adding much to my sleep deficit) and finally one of the little buggers popped through! I expect the 2nd one not too long after the first one, as the gum next to it is feeling a bit swollen. She wasn't very forthcoming in showing it off though, but did manage to chomp on my finger a little. Fortunately, it's still way to small to do much damage...

7 months old and 3 days. It's about time.

Also, she's started mushy solids, is pulling up on stuff and standing, and today she also crawled on her knees for about 3 "steps" before reverting back to the army crawl again. She's testing my housekeeping skills as well lately -- It's amazing how fast one declutters the house when there's a baby crawling around chewing on everything...

Yikes. I've been extremely busy lately what with the Forest glen timeline, and getting documents and tickets ready for our trip to France in august. So, I haven't posted in over a month. Apologies to my readers (all 2 of you!).
In April, I was busy with getting ready for the Eostre Training session, and the Forest glen event. In May, with the previous 2 events out of the way, I started the process of getting our Passports for our upcoming trip to France, and the airplane tickets.

Good gods, what a fiasco it's been.

First, the Passports.

Getting the passports for the two kids was relatively easy. Show up at the local county clerks office with said kidlets, husband, and myself to fill out the paperwork, turn in birth certificates and social security numbers, pay money, and off they go.. No problems there.

The hassle started when I had to renew my own passport and they now require my legal name to be on it. My previous passport had my everyday nickname, derived from my legal name. Don't ask me why I never had my "official" name on it.. that's lost in the mists of time. I've never had problems getting it renewed before, but now they not only wanted my old passport, they had to have my birth certificate info, social security number, *and* a notarized letter explaining that My Nickname is indeed My Nickname, and I've had it for erm.. 29 and holding.. years (you thought I'd give you my real age, didn't you?), and could I please pretty please get it changed to my legal name? (notary stamp and signature here), signed "me".

That plus the Nice Ladies Behind the Desk(TM) had to have the whole thing explained to them umpteen million times...
BLEH!

I haven't heard from the passport office yet, and the forms, etc. were sent out around 2 weeks ago, so that hopefully is a Good Thing.
I should receive them sometime in July.


Next, the plane tickets.

My mother said, very nice of her indeed, that she would pay for our plane tickets. No problem. I found a discount travel site, looked up flight times from the 8 - 22 August and all that jazz and sent her the info. No problem..
maybe.. erm..

wait.

I get an email from said travel site that the tickets were on the way, sending them FEDEX next day air, etc. etc..

..from the 15 through the 22nd August.

oh crap. (she claims she entered the 8 - 22.. I have no idea since I wasn't there when she did it.)

now I have to call Customer Service.

Now, Customer Service in said discount travel corporation is located.. where else..
India.

Which I wouldn't mind so much if they actually 1)knew what they were talking about, 2)didn't make me wait forever on the phone, and 3)had good enough accents to be able to actually understand them.

Which they don't. On all 3 counts.

I spoke, on at least 2 loooong calls to a minimum of 4 Nice Indian Ladies Behind the Desk(tm), each telling me a different damn thing to do to change my tickets. (including taking the ticket to the ticket counter of the airline I was flying, at O'Hare. So off I go to O'hare one beautiful day early this week only to find there's nobody at the bloody f@#$-ing ticket counter, and wouldn't be there unless there was a flight going out) I finally got from them after yet another pissed off call to Customer Dis-Service that I needed to send them back Fedex to the location in Texas, and then, only then, my itinerary could be changed

(We're off to see the wizard...)

So off I go to send the tickets back FEDEX Overnight to Texas.

There's a nice postmart in Elgin run by (who else..?) a nice Indian Man Behind the Counter(tm), which also sells lovely Indian goods that are perfect for my tribal dance classes. So the positive thing about getting to go over there was that I not only got the tickets sent back, I picked up a lovely beaded bag to carry my B.D. stuff in. So it wasn't all bad.

Don't get me wrong, I really do like Indian folks. I just don't like it when I get bad customer service, no matter who it's from.
Fortunately, that's not from everybody.

The next day, after sending back the tickets overnight, I thought I'd call and speak to someone to make sure they got where they were supposed to go. I searched out the location of the corporate office in Texas, and found their Executive Office Numbers and called them up.

(the wonderful wizard of..)

The nice receptionist lady patched me through to a travel executive, who gave me another number to call, to get this ticketing mess straightened out. I at this point now had a "Person" assigned to me. (see, bitch enough and you get your very own "person".. )

(Texas)

Robert from Texas, was able to, over the phone, make the Changes I had requested, add my daughter to the itinerary as an infant in lap, and add my Aunt's reservation to the system. (I forgot to mention that she's going too, but was unable to get on the original reservation due to being out of town.)

I now have 2 nice Reassuring Emails in my inbox that my tickets have been sent out Fedex from the 8 - 22 of august, with Sylvie's name added and that my Aunt's reservation has been sent out as well.
Tickets should arrive tomorrow or so.

I do not plan on dealing with the discount travel sites ever again. It's going to be a travel agency next time.. and given that I had to pay fees to get stuff changed, it's probably not going to be very much more money to hire a proper travel agent. At least they will be local and not located in some 3rd world country.
(by the by, I called up another travel sites' customer service and politely asked where they were located. The nice lady behind the phone is from the Phillipines...)

So, if I've been a bit quiet lately, it's because of this whole mess..
dealing with phone answering systems and indecipherable accents and folks who tell you 3 different answers to the same question is extremely taxing...


I think everything's sorted out now.
(Crossing my fingers...)

Batten down the hatches! Sylvie is mobile! Yesterday, she started rolling around the living room floor for the first time. OMG, I'm actually going to have to start childproofing around here. Ethan's toys, beware.
She actually learned how to roll over a couple of weeks ago, but hadn't figured out yet how to go anywhere. Now she's figured that out too...
The little play yard she has seems too small now. Today I spread out a blanket on the floor for her to practice.

Other milestones she's accomplished recently are:
grabbing for stuff consistently (3 1/2 mo)
laughing (also 3 1/2 mo)
supported sitting (around 3 months)
and many more little but wonderful baby moments...

I'm so proud.


p.s. this was taken about a month ago, but it's pretty close to what she's doing now
(I'll get with the program and upload more pics after the smoke clears from Eostre weekend, or even before then if the mood strikes me...)

Not for me, but for my friend Terri who sent me this link for her new Etsy shop.
I think it's worth it to take a look -- she's a good friend, and a talented beader and seamstress. Though there's not alot there now, she plans to have more up soon.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5090140

My Favorite Season has arrived! (well ok, officially tomorrow)
Tonight I am going to a spring equinox ritual at my local unitarian church (uuce.org) to celebrate. I can already see bulbs coming up everywhere, and this morning I saw 2 robins in the back yard! It's not quite warm enough to hold ritual outside so I expect we'll be indoors, but I'm looking forward to it all the same.
Today I did a bit of spring cleaning in my son's room, on a quest to find his library books. They're still not found, but at least the room is more organized. I'm still not done though-- got interrupted midstream by a hungry baby -- but I expect to go back to it after I pick up Ethan this afternoon.
Some spring cleaning still needs to happen in the garage, so I can find that sword I'm going to donate to the Micel Folcland Eostre training event auction (say that 5 times fast!) I know it's there somewhere..

Mostly for my archives, but those who are interested can have a look.

Here's what I'm cooking for the Eostre Training event for Micel Folcland (Regia Anglorum).

Green Soup
(serves 4)
3 1/2 to 5 oz. of fresh parboiled spinach, or about 8 oz. of frozen whole spinach.
10 centimeters of the white part of a leek
1 qt. good boullion (I used chicken broth)
1/2 c. finely chopped parsely
salt, pepper to taste
dash of ground ginger (I changed this to minced fresh ginger root, to taste)
cream and/or milk to add to soup when serving, to taste (optional)

Clean and rinse the fresh spinach, or thaw the frozen. Rinse the leek and slice thinly. Bring broth to a boil and add the spinach, leek and ginger root. Let boil for 5 minutes. Add the parsely and boil together for a few more minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve with cream or milk, to taste.

modified slightly from Vikingars Gastabud (The Viking Feast)
http://www.vikinganswerlady.com/food.shtml

And if you're not tired of spinach yet...
Spinach Salad
(Servings not given)
Raw spinach, washed and stems removed
1 16 oz. container sour cream
buttermilk
1 clove garlic
1 tsp. salt, or to taste
black pepper, to taste

Thin the sour cream with buttermilk until it has a "dressing" like consistency.
Press and mince the garlic, and add it to the dressing. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Put into a jar and refrigerate overnight.

Shred the spinach and mix with dressing.

The original author, Nancy Foust, on the Norsefolk list writes:
"This one may be a bit of a stretch. Spinach is a known foodstuff, as is garlic and buttermilk. I have not found concrete evidence of sour cream but they did make skyr and cheeses. Not sure [of] ... sour cream... so it's a guess on my part..."

Anyone know anything about this one? I personally have no idea. I haven't tested this recipe yet, so anyone who has a better salad recipe, please shoot it my way : ) I'm also considering using a mesclun(sp?) mix instead of more spinach.

Beef Stew (Originally Hare, Rabbit, Veal or Chicken) With Herbs and Barley
(Serves 6)
2 oz. butter
1 lb beef stew meat
1 lb leeks, washed and trimmed and thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, chopped finely
6 oz pot barley
3 1/4 c. water, or beef stock
3 generous tablespoons of white or red wine vinegar
2 bay leaves, salt, pepper
15 fresh chopped sage leaves, or 1 Tb dried sage

Melt the butter in a heavy pan and fry the meat with the leeks and garlic till the vegetables are slightly softened and the meat seared. Add the water or stock, barley, vinegar, bay leaves and seasoning. Bring the pot to a boil, cover and simmer gently for 1 to 1 1/2 hrs, or till the meat is tender and the barley well cooked. Add the sage and continue to cook for several minutes. Adjust the seasoning to taste, and serve.

From the British Museum Cookbook by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson, contributed by Jennifer A. Newbury
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/people/mjw/recipes/ethnic/historical/med-anglosaxon-coll.html

Notes from testing recipe: I didn't use butter, but instead used olive oil (something about cooking beef in butter didn't appeal to me) It turned out fine, but I'm not sure how that would be from an authentic perspective. Also, are bay leaves acceptable? Comments?

I just spent a good half hour trying to read my emails this morning, in between the broadband crapping out, coming back up, crapping out, coming back up..
Grrrr.. grumblemumble contract grumble mumble 1 more year grumble mumble...

Maybe we'll try cable next...

blah, time to go do something else besides get frustrated sitting at the computer
-- I think I'll go work on my dress now.

3 things to be happy about:
1) I've done almost 6k of 10k steps today,and it's only 2:30 pm! One trip to the grocery store, 1 1/2 trips around the block with baby in stroller, and multiple trips around the house. (3 miles so far -- that's walking steps, counted with my new pedometer)
2) The bodice of my new dress fit on the first try! now to put together the skirt... (Simplicity 3877, split neck version with shorter skirt)
3)its sunny and warm today and I got outside! (see #1) It's in the 40's, and the snow is going away (again)

Gillian Ruth Davenport was born on teusday morning the 6th of March, around 2amish.
Congratulations to the happy family!
I don't have a picture yet, I can't wait to see her!
Sara reports that she has dark hair, weighed 7 lbs 9 oz, and 19" long.

Dan and Kristy are due today. I haven't heard anything yet, so I'm assuming she hasn't had the baby yet. I hope everything goes smoothly when it does happen.
More likely than not, she'll probably be late. Who knows though, all in good time. I'm looking forward to the news!