it’s not about you

Barack? Or Hillary?

Barack? Or Hillary?

That is the question.

I’m gonna think about it through this cup of coffee and then I’m going to load Killian in the stroller, walk up the hill to my polling station, and make up my mind.

Other thoughts on my mind are what I’m going to give up for Lent. Besides swearing, that is. I should wear my T-shirt tomorrow.

Oh! And tomorrow - we are hosting a 7:30 a.m. Ash Wednesday service for anyone who’s interested. I meant to blog about this sooner, but the kids have STILL BEEN SICK. E-mail me or comment if you’d like to come, and I’ll let you in on all the details. Now I just have to go find my ashes…

Can I just say that I love making New Year’s Resolutions?

I love making New Year’s Resolutions.

Joshua makes fun of me, because he is of the mindset that if you’re going to make a change in your life, then just MAKE A CHANGE IN YOUR LIFE ALREADY, Good Freaking Lord. But me? I love this. I’m sure I’ve blogged about it before, but I need this fresh chance, this opportunity to wipe the slate clean and start over, and I know that there are probably hundreds of thousands of people doing this with me. I mean, not WITH ME with me, but making New Year’s Resolutions just the same. Like gym buddies. Dawn, where are you? Do you read this? I know you’ll understand. Someone tell Dawn I miss her. Thanks.

So I have a few to mention here and several that are more of the wanting-to-better-myself-and-create-good-habits-while-getting-rid-of-bad-ones that I’m not going to mention.

The List, in no particular order except which they came out of my head:

Blog More.
For both the photo blog and the written blog. They both got pushed to the side for other pursuits, and due to laziness and a lack of hard drive space for the former (which brings me to one of my better-myself and get-organized resolutions of cleaning out my hard drive and organizing my digital photo library - maybe that will be one of my 43 things that gets crossed off this year…). The goal is once a day for both sites, even if it’s just a link.

Finish the Novel.
I took December off to recover from November and enjoy the holidays. My goal is to finish by the end of February and finish editing by the end of May. I think that’s reasonable.

Get Out of Debt.
‘Nuff said. At the rate I’m planning, we should be good by September, hopefully sooner. Not counting the car payments, which should be sometime in 2012 (2011 at the rate I’m going for that).

Find a Spiritual Mentor.
This is something I’ve missed since we left Texas, between Tracey and Becky and Mark and Shannon, I always had someone to go to, and I’ve missed that here. I have someone in mind, and I’ll think she’ll go for it. My goal, if this becomes a reality, is to meet at least once a month, specifically for spiritual direction/discipleship type of stuff.

Observe the Offices and the Christian Calendar.
For those of you scratching your heads, did you grow up Baptist, too? Andrew starting observing the Feast Days at the beginning of Advent, and as the Brits say, I think it’s a lovely idea. So I’ll start with the New Year. Is tomorrow anything? Will I have missed one already? I’d love any points to resources on this if you have them.

How many is that? Five? That should do. I don’t want to bore you or anything…

Happy New Year!

…is in town.

And I get to go see her!! Woo hoo!!

I missed her last time she was here. I’m taking one of my books and hopefully will get her to sign it. Maybe I can get a pic, too. We’ll see.

I just crossed the 20,000 word threshold.

i hear the 20,000’s are novel purgatory. I’m beginning to see why.

But, damn. It feels good.

Thanks to all who donated to my Write-A-Thon fundraising. I got sponsored for the rest of the amount and got to go. I wrote over 5,000 words while I was there and met some really cool people.

More later.

link

beautiful.

Click here to donate.

Okay, so I know I’ve told many of you that I’m doing nanowrimo this year. Next Saturday - a week from tomorrow - they are having a Write-A-Thon here in San Francisco, and I would really like to go. I need to raise $200 in order to attend. The link above (and below) is to a page I’ve set up where anyone can donate. The catch is, they’re only allowing the first 200 people who raise the money and respond to attend the event.

I wasn’t going to attempt this, but Cynthia made the point that I live in San Francisco, where the event is taking place, unlike all the other thousands of people who live elsewhere in this country and couldn’t go no matter how hard they wanted to.

So.

Live vicariously through me. Help me go. If 20 people donate $10, I’m set. And to show that I wouldn’t ask for money for that which I wouldn’t do myself, I’ll donate the first ten bucks. There. Now I only need 19 people to donate $10.

If my novel gets published, (and why not? there are plenty of bad authors in circulation already…) I’ll dedicate it to anyone who donates.

You DO love me, right? Right?

Click here to donate.

So much Texas love is being sent my way this month, it’s just.

Well, it’s amazing.

You know me - I don’t often lack for words.

I got to talk to Angela yesterday.

Dawn is here right now, as we speak, about to pass out from sheer exhaustion in the kids’ room. She’ll be here until Saturday morning. She’s in town for a work-related conference.

On Saturday (I think) Brent and Tracy arrive for several days. They’re here to meet Margaux, and boy is Brent going to melt into a little tiny puddle. Perhaps his new hipster frames will soften the cuteness blow.

Karen is officially in California somewhere and I know she’ll be here soon for a week or so, i think. And I CANNOT WAIT to hang out.

And Steven will be here at the end of the month for a pediatrics conference and will be staying with us for a few days.

In all of that, Judah’s preschool is going to Santa Cruz to the Monarch Grove - we get our own little tour - and we’ve got the Rudd’s Fourth Annual Pumpkin Carving Party on the 27th. And you’re invited. So please come.

My sister, her husband, my brother, his wife and my nephew are all coming out for Thanksgiving. Now if only we can convince the others…

We’ve confirmed our Christmas plans as well - skiing in Tahoe with the Rudd side of la familia - Killian’s first snow. *sigh*

I feel loved. By people who are close to me, close to me.

via Nathan, a friend with whom I share an appreciation for kitchen appliances and salting my food. Only he’s way more weird about his salt.

I laughed so hard at this while nursing Killian that milk came out HIS nose. No lie.

Maybe it’s because it’s hot and people are cranky, but for REAL, people!

Stay in your lane!
Quit blocking the intersection at red lights!
Bikes are supposed to follow traffic laws just like everyone else!

The horn on our rental car is a pansy, but I WILL USE IT!

In other news, we went to Crissy Field yesterday with Robin, Richard and Bryn. Robin swam, Richard and Judah and I tried to fly a kite - to no avail - and then Richard attempted to de-knot the kite cord from the tail while I built a sand castle and Judah kept running back and forth to the water. Killian picked up lots of sand and moved it, and tried to eat some of it, too, and Bryn chased dogs and balls and dug and got wet and had a grand old time (I’m currently sitting on my couch, barefoot, crunching souvenir grains of sand between my toes and the hardwoods).

It was a gorgeous day with clear skies and a view of the Bridge, Alcatraz, The City and the Headlands. And when we packed it up to come home, the fog was rolling in through the Golden Gate Bridge, magicking it partially away.

I drove along Crissy Field and up through the Presidio to come home, watching the fog’s fingers feel their way over the park and the water. If I didn’t have two sandy, wet and chilled children wiggling around in my backseat, I would have just sat in the grass and watched it come. Driving along the hills, the fog jumped the roadway, fighting gravity as it rushed over. We went around a bend, and as quick as we entered the fog, we left it behind.

Many people, upon hearing that we moved from The Mission to the Outer Richmond, have responded with a polite, but taken aback, “OH. Well, that’s nice…” We have fielded the eternal questions about how foggy is it, really? Aren’t we just depressed all the time? Yes it gets foggy, and it *gasp* gets sunny, too! and I might be depressed, but that has nothing to do with the fog (cue the drums - da da dum, ding!).

The reality is, we’re settling in to the micro-climate that we have. I feel like the fog is a friend. When I see it coming, I know I’m home. We can cross the street, go for a stroll in the Golden Gate Park and I feel like the blanket of fog makes the world slow down and the rest of the city disappear, despite the cars driving through and the people-filled, somewhat-cultivated presence of the surroundings.

Driving home yesterday, with The City’s skyline behind me, Alcatraz just a glance over my shoulder, sunlight, fog, the Pacific, and the most famous bridge in the world before me, I couldn’t help but feel like the luckiest girl alive to live in San Francisco. It could only have been made more perfect if Joshua had been with us.

Like I said to a wetsuit-wearing Robin on the beach, in half-amazement: “WE LIVE HERE.”

So a couple of weeks ago Judah decided to tell us a bedtime story. It goes exactly as follows:

“Once upon a time, there were a lot of fives. That’s for we do that, together. OK. Goodnight. Goodbye.”

Last night, while I was in the living room nursing Killian, Joshua was trying to get Judah ready for bed, and I heard this exchange take place:

Judah, highly excited: “Daddy, look! I found this - I found this book today! I found it!”
Daddy, very curious: “Where did you find it?”
Judah, still highly excited: “On my bookcase!”
Daddy, not so much excited: “That’s fantastic. Now put it away.”

Best quote from this weekend:

We had most of our family in town for Killian’s first birthday party and baby dedication this past weekend, although his official birthday isn’t until tomorrow (tomorrow!!), this past weekend was the best one for some family members. Saturday night we were all trying to find a place we could all eat at.

Together.
All 11 of us.
At 7 p.m.
On a Saturday.
With no reservations.
In the Haight.
Right….

Everyone was congregated in front of Memphis Minnie’s, trying to decide what to do - should we stay or should we go? - and I went up and down the block peeking into restaurants to see if any place could seat all us right then. I called Wiff to report I had a found a Thai place that looked nice and affordable and had plenty of room, and heard him ask around to the rest of group, “How’s Thai food sound.” My sister responded with, “I don’t like Chinese.”

D’oh! I crack up every time I think about it.

Second best quote, and I wasn’t even there, was Saturday morning as Joshua was taking Lacey, Katie and Josh across the Golden Gate Bridge to pick up Brad. They were stopped at a light at Fulton and the Great Highway, when the light turned green and Joshua pulled out a little bit, only to stop for the pedestrians crossing the street… you see where this is going? Yeah. Well the guy behind them didn’t stop and plowed into the back of our car, breaking a tail light, the bumper, and denting the back door.

They all agreed not to tell me what happened until after the party, knowing, of course, I was already going to be a stress puppy and not wanting to add another layer right before 30 people showed up to my house.

Lacey said something along the lines of, “And definitely don’t tell her until she’s frosted the cake.”

And once you see a picture of this cake, you will understand why. Speaking of, I’ve got to clear some space off of my computer before I can load any more pictures, so the photoblog is on a necessary hiatus for right now. Sorry. I’m working on it….