So, for the last eight days, I was dog-sitting for a friend of mine out in the middle of nowhere while he, his wife, and their new baby went to Florida to visit family. For the most part, it was a good time. Having only ever had outdoor dogs where about the most maintenance I had to do was to feed them on a regular basis and give them the occasional bath, it turned out to be a lot more work than I thought. I was watching four, indoor dogs - two German shepherds and two dachshunds. And man, did they ever love attention, and were constantly following me wanting to be petted. That took a bit to get used to, but they were good dogs and pretty well behaved.

My friends stocked me up on food pretty well too. I was in junk food heaven with frozen pizzas, and pizza rolls, and burritos, and chips, and cookies, and hot dogs (the good, expensive kind), and ice cream. Tons and tons of ice cream. I'm sure these eight days were not kind to my attempts to lose 60 pounds by July. But it was delicious.

Also, I watched a TON of superhero cartoons. I don't have cable or satellite TV, but they had Direct TV. And more often than not, there was a superhero cartoon playing somewhere. While I was there, the TV was constantly showing either Batman: The Brave and the Bold (great little show, btw), the 90s X-Men, the 90s Spider-Man, the 90s Fantastic Four, the 90s Iron Man, the 90s Incredible Hulk, the 90s Avengers, Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Justice League Unlimited, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Spider-Man Unlimited, and Wolverine and the X-Men. It was absolutely fantastic and really helped rekindle my inner geek. When those weren't on, I'd watch either an episode of A Haunting (possibly the creepiest show I've ever seen in my life), old reruns of Home Improvement, or Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (screw you, I'm a sucker for their manipulative editing and the feel good vibes they send out). Usually, I only had to watch an episode of one of those shows before another superhero-related show aired.

I didn't get anything done in the way of creative endeavors. As much as I enjoyed myself, the entire eight days I was there I felt like a guest and had a hard time getting in the mindset to do anything. I tried doing some research on novel #2, but my unrelaxed nature and the constant feeling of having to be responsible for the dogs kept my mind unfocused.

But, now I'm back home and have gotten a ton of stuff done. It was a great mini-vacation, but it's good to slip right back into my routine too. I kinda missed it.