Weekend Update from HOME

[nursedarry]

*waves* Hello! We're all back safe and sound, a lot poorer, but with better tans.

I've had the busiest four days of my life this week, and although you may have seen me comment on a few things, I've had little chance to get back into LJ with a vengeance. Luckily purdah makes work a little less hectic, but there's plently of other things going on outside of it that are taking up too much of my time.

So, quick drive-by post is quick:

HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY to softly_sweetly, my lovely lass from up North. I hope you had a great day. I'm glad your present got to you on-time, even if this message didn't.

HAPPY (early) BIRTHDAY to alovelycupoftea, my lovely lass from the Midlands. You're getting a roast dinner for tea when you get here! I'll just test out this bottle of wine I got for us...

THANK YOU, my lovely flist, for the wonderful comments (and virtual gifts:) to keep my spirits up whilst trapped in America :) We actullay (mostly) had a great time, despite the inconveniences and expense, and we had some very interesting and awesome experiences.

THANK YOU so much, lotus_lizzy for the hugely generous lift from JFK to Newark. I can't wait to meet up again and we had a brilliant time with you at lunch! I'm sorry we missed each other, snarkyscorp, rickey_a, and nuclearsugars, but I'm sure we'll be back in CA again! And drippingcherry, I'm sorry I didn't have my phone and missed you at O'Hare. I usually fly through there when I visit home, so will shout the next time I'm back. *hugs*

A HUGE THANK YOU to faithwood for the wonderful new layout!!! (And the other one, too, which I'll be using in due course *wink*.) Oh, and cassie_black12 for uploading it for me while I was at swimming lessons with the kids this morning.

And finally, another HUGE THANK YOU to moonlitdark for her hp_art_tales submission: fantastic artwork that she created for Afterglow. It's absolutely amazing and I'm so grateful to her! Everyone, please go check it out! It's very different from what I was expecting and she has chosen some brilliant scenes. I ♥ you tons, lovey!

That's it for the moment, as I now need to clean the house in preparation of my birthday guest. I'll have a couple of photos and a bit more news in the next post.

So glad to be back!