I just got a call from the volunteer coordinator at one of the hospitals nearby--and I'm meeting her tomorrow to start the orientation process. Yay!

Anyone else hear the theme from "Fame" in their heads?

This was taken at my friend Quinn's place. L to R: Claire, Cian, Rowan, Ada, and Ruairi.

Not necessarily published in 2008, but the ones you read this year that you loved, that taught you something, that you wish you could have others read.


Mine were:

Eat, Pray, Love
Bridge of Birds
The Time Traveler's Wife
Women In The Material World
Twelve Moons (poems by Mary Oliver)
Peace Is Every Step
The Art of Happiness
How to Talk So Kids Can Listen, and Listen So Kids Can Talk
Set This House In Order

I think we've just about decided that we need to re-engineer our holidays.

We've got it just about the way we like it, but despite our many requests and guidelines and such, the fact remains that when three grannies, three parents and one auntie converge on one little Rowan at Christmas, the end result is: too many presents, too much chaos, and not enough peace and appreciation. Giant fucking mountain of presents that literally took all day to open. It's not what I want the holidays to be about, you know? He was in a fugue state of ripping packages open one after the other, not present, not in his body, way overstimulated. Yuck.

We bought him an electric keyboard, and he really really likes it! I think it says something about my little guy that within five minutes of it being plugged in, he'd found "DJ mode" and was beatboxing with it. :)

We've also decided to drastically reduce the TV viewing in the new year. It creeps back up from time to time. He'll get maybe two hours on a Saturday morning, and one video a week, something like that. He needs things that make him more grounded, not less! Mamas of six-year-olds: are they all fractious and sassy, rude and hyper? He's not like that 24/7, but more than I like him to be.

We decided that next year each person is only allowed to give three presents to any one person. This will include the category of "stocking stuffers", under which heading there was much skirting of our pleas not to overdo it this year. I mean, the kid has a stack of superhero "activity books" as tall as he is, accumulated from every holiday/granny visit from the last four years.

Hell, we may just go away and hide in a cabin somewhere next year. That was not a relaxing Christmas day for me, and it wasn't that I had to cook, because I didn't, but all three of the grannies are loud and talk over one another at the same time, and they all give way too many presents that are just filler, you know, crap they got in the toy aisle of Walgreens because they feel like they have to bring "enough presents" or they won't be loved/good enough/etc. One of the grans was grousing in the weeks leading up to Christmas because the other two had already gotten Ro "the good presents", ie: membership to the aquarium and a National Geographic subscription. GROW UP, LADY. He doesn't care. He's FIVE. 

Exhausting.

Check it out, there was an earthquake in Quincy. Isn't that your old hometown?

He didn't know I was filming him with my phone. Bad Mommy.

As we rode the bus to his school this morning, there were three boys next to us, 6th or 7th graders. Rowan was totally spying on them, studying them intently. I keep thinking he's gotten so big, and then I see him next to a bigger kid and I realize how young he really is still.

My #@*&%^ statistics paper. Which I could have finished in about 1/16 of the time it took me if I hadn't been eaten by the Procrastinator Within.

Next semester: no classes. A great big whistling void of NO SCHOOL. Just tensely waiting to hear back from various oversubscribed nursing programs.

Just another 19 days of this semester left, and then I'll only be a wife, mother, full-time massage therapist, and part-time artist's administrative helper.

Maybe I'll finally learn to knit something other than a scarf!

How to tell when you've invited crafty nerds to your Thanksgiving. I wasn't at this gathering, but I wish I had been!

Apparently I have no self-control whatsoever around my social media right now, so I am just going to log out everywhere until at least this paper is finished. If my productivity soars, I might extend it till the end of the term.


Have fun everyone, and I'll catch you on the flip side.

Apparently my frail old Grandma Jane has decided to hang around a bit longer after all. My Dad and his wife have moved her into their house, and the home health/hospice nurses are coming in regularly to help out, but she's still conscious and able to breathe such on her own. (She has Parkinson's, which is affecting her esophageal muscles; she can't swallow solid food at all.) I talked to Dad on Thanksgiving and he said it's really nice having her there. She can just barely hear, can still talk a little, and is a real trooper. "She has never once complained," he said. Jeez, I could aspire to that!

Here she is with Dad, blowing out the candles on her cake. Check her out, man. Earrings and everything.

I just don't understand this mentality. Saw this in a Yahoo news story:

"Even for the growing number of parents who were limiting their gift buying to just their children this year, financial troubles were forcing them to be stingy.
'I have never slept here before to save a few bucks, but with the economy so bad I thought that even a few dollars helps,' said Analita Garcia of Falls Church, Va., who arrived at a local Best Buy store at 7 a.m. Thursday with 10 family members. She bought a 32-inch LCD TV for $400, slashed from $500, along with an iPod and several DVDs.
'This year a lot of people I know won't be getting Christmas presents. I have to pay the rent and bills, and I have two little ones at home to think of,' Garcia added."

So wait, she just spent nearly a thousand bucks on gifts for her kids, and the article is referring to this as STINGY?

I can't tell which part of this story makes me the most crazy.

Okay, now that I have your attention. I am writing a report for my statistics class and need you to answer a few simple yes/no questions. Feel free to answer in the comments, or if you'd rather, email me at earthtouchsf at yahoo dot com.

1. Are your parents married/still together?

2. What is your age and gender?

3. Are you married? Have you ever been divorced?

That is all! I need as many responses as possible, so if you wouldn't mind linking to this post in your journal and asking your friendslist to answer too, I would be SO GRATEFUL.

Other than that, how was your day?

"Images of Heaven" by Peter Godwin. Can't find it in electronic form anywhere. Anyone? Bueller?

Over the last three nights I've had dinners with friends, with too much delicious food and lots of yummy red wine. So I'm a little over-indulged and sluggish today. Fortunately, my wife sold 4 paintings at her show yesterday and has a bee in her bonnet to race around and do all the stuff I'm too stunned to take on, and is leaving me free to go poke at my books all day. Statistics and nutrition.

Really, I should be outside in the sunlight while it lasts, but I'm on the couch watching Return of the Jedi with Rowan, and it's just too nerdly awesome to be bonding with my kid over Star Wars. He is appalled that I secretly like Boba Fett. "But he's a bad guy!" Yeah, kid, I know, but he's got a really cool outfit, with a jetpack, man.

October 22, 2008
Rowan: pulled out of school early
Josh: on his way to work
Kara: "oh my god! you're getting married right now?"
Stacey (performed the ceremony): "I've got a 3:00 meeting; can we do it before then?
Rachel: "What? Yes! I'll be there in twenty minutes!"

More photos over at my flickr stream.