Still (Barely) Alive

First of all, my thanks to everyone who emailed get-well wishes. I really, really appreciated it even if I was not able to reply.

As we discovered when my two-year-old son got really, scarily sick, pneumonia visited our house twice, explaing why I could not get well from what I thought was a summer cold. Add in a bad reaction to amoxicillin for my little one, and it was a very difficult and frankly frightening few weeks in the Drout household. But now, thanks to the miracles of modern antibiotics that don't cause horrible allegic reactions and hives, everyone is well, and we even managed to celebrate my daughter's birthday without major disruption (and she is thrilled about her new pet cornsnake and her fly rod--is she a dream child, or what?).

On the other hand, I am nearly three weeks behind on things going into a semester that starts next week, so life is pretty stressful. I may actually be late on one or two deadlines, but I intend to be caught up by the end of the first week in September. If you are waiting for a reply, and haven't heard from me by then, please feel free to noodge.