Woohoo! I have espresso coffee again! My latte habit is restored to me. Better yet, I'm feeling better for the first time in a week (and starting to feel guilty about how cranky some of these recent entries have been--sorry, guys, I'm a rat when I'm sick). (Well, except that I once had a pet rat and he was very good-tempered, unlike me when I'm ill.)

So today was actually a very good day. A new-to-us issue of Realms of Fantasy appeared in the mail, we had a nice writing afternoon in the Starbucks cafe in Borders, and I even started a new short story. Yay! It came from a writing exercise Patrick and I did last night...he's already described it in his most recent journal entry, so I'll refrain from talking too much about it here. Anyway, based on the exercise, each of us ended up with 7 good short story ideas to work on, and I'm pretty excited.

And Nika's happy, too. We took her on a long, lovely hike through the forest when we got back from town. It was a great hike for all of us--the forest was absolutely gorgeous today, with leftover rain drops hanging jewel-like from the leaves, and luscious blackberries ripe and hanging out from the bushes, begging to be eaten. I must, must, must go out there with a pencil and write down some descriptions! We walked through two places that I know need to be used in Queen of Thorns.

Now, the kitchen's clean and waiting, and I'm off to make pasta con aglio e oglio. Good day.