Ssh...I'm very busy and Important

Normal blogging will resume soon. I am starting to be a bit swamped. I am teaching five classes this semester and writing a novel with a friend that we've promised to get finished by the end of May (We started writing it 3 weeks ago).
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. ..
Well, look at it this way, at least it should be finished before I have to start marking.
(More on the collaborative novel later, the contract is still in the works, so I won't speak it's name yet, but we're about half way in and it's terribly fun, not the least because chapters such spring up overnight - as if the novel speaks back to me.)
Life has been busy and stressful and hectic and costly (like the washing machine broke) and sometimes I feel like I'm working my arse off just to keep our heads above water (which I sorta am). But then there are days like yesterday, where Una and I went out for the day to the library and to treat ourselves to organic fruit & vegetables and eat chips in a cafe, and then last night, Fred and I went to a free screening of The Emperor's New Clothes at the St Andrew's hall and walked home in the DARK, which was so joyously spooky and starry.
Six is a magical, wondrous age and I am enjoying the new insights Fred is giving me. She is also an editor in the making and here is why:
Every night we read four books. Fred picks two. Una picks two. Sometimes they don't like each other's choices, though usually they do. Anyway, the other night Una picked Angelina Ballerina. (Una is the aspiring ballerina in the house, to Fred ballet is a form of unkindness enacted upon little girls and boys.) Still, Angelina ticks a few boxes. Fred likes tutus for example, and mice, and teeny little worlds. We all pore over the last page, showing a cross-section of the theatre and work out where we'd like to sit, Fred included. Even so, Fred does not like Angelina Ballerina. Not the books, not the tv series. When I was reading it the other day, we got halfway through the book and she said suddenly 'That's why I don't like this book.' And I said 'why?' And she said, quite simply, 'Because I like her mum and dad better than I like Angelina.' I think she nailed it. (I know that at least one of my favourite blog readers is an Angelina fan, so to her I say sorry. But AB is a bit of a pain in the arse.)