Thankful Thoughts
-
Monday Meme ~ Christmas Version
We’re still in the wonderful week of Hanukkah, and we’ve eaten the Stollen for St. Nicholas Day. What a confusing family, huh? Basically, we just love to celebrate many differnt cultures, even if they are not our own. This coming Saturday we’ll be baking Christmas Cookies and so on, and it’s a most wonderful time of the year. How better to commemorate it than with a meme? This one came from Scarlett, who started this meme herself just for us, and calls it “12 of my favorite things”. Here are her rules: Please share 12 of your favorite Christmas things: they can be memories, traditions, songs, presents, beliefs, whatever it…
-
‘Tis the Season for Sharing
Dee tagged me for a timely little idea she had. I won’t call it a meme, though I’m doing it for meme Monday anyway. Dee wants me to help get the word out about a charity that she is passionate about, which got me to thinking about the charities that I am passionate about, and people I love are passionate about, and how at this time of year, some folks do some end of the year giving in the name of loved ones or so on, and heck, maybe someone might not know about one of my favorite charities. So, not only am I going to tell you about Dee’s…
-
Thanksgiving, Past and Present
photo found here The first few years that Ted and I were dating, he would go to his family’s house for Thanksgiving, and I would go to my Grandma’s house. I had a lovely time at Grandma’s house, even with the talk of diets and the dry dry turkey and the taste of cigarretes, and it was nice to see my family, as I was living in San Francisco now, and saw them mainly on the holidays. But as time went on, Ted and I decided we wanted to spend our Thanksgivings together. So, one year, I invited Ted to Thanksgiving at my Grandma’s house. I think he was in…
-
Thursday 13 ~ Thank God for Showers
The other day when I was climbing into my nice steamy hot shower, I was reminded of Maya donating money to Unicef to bring clean water to children elsewhere. Then I thought of the book I had just finished, March, and how they didn’t have hot steamy showers, either. Pretty much, for the length of human history, no hot steamy showers. Want to take a bath? If you’re lucky enough to have access to a well, you can heat up water on your stove and use that. Otherwise, it’s the creek or river. No fun. And yet, that’s how it’s been for hundreds of thousands of years, and how it…
-
Why I Heart This American Life…
You may or may not know that I like to download podcasts of a few of my favorite NPR programs, which I then listen to on my beloved iPod while walking Genevieve in the morning. I download three shows from NPR. The first is Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me, which makes the people walking past me think I’m insane, because I just start laughing out loud to myself, seemingly at nothing. The second is To The Best of Our Knowledge, which I’ll admit is last in my queue, and sometimes I get to it, and love it, and other times it falls by the wayside. The third show I download…
-
Happy Labor Day
Summer repeats…this is a post from last Labor Day. Enjoy your long weekend, and take a moment to thank those who worked so hard to get you the day off. 😉 Who Put the Labor in Labor Day? We did, that’s who. When I think of labor day, my mind first thinks of the end of summer…the crisp fall weather on the horizon, the cool weather clothes, school starting up again, the return of the good TV shows… Then there are the Labor Day celebrations…one last bbq of summer, maybe a trip to the beach, the lake, or the shore… For some people it is a chance to get caught…
-
Friday Update
 Hi Bloggy Friends, I’m in Colorado, coming home today. YAY. It’s been a very short, intense business trip. Short, because I flew in on Wednesday for a meeting on Thursday, and I’m flying home today. Intense, because on Wednesday, while I was flying in, some of my coworkers were in a helecopter crash. Thank goodness, everyone is OK, and the very shaken up folks who were in the crash left early, and are already safely home. But needless to say, everyone here is reflecting on how much worse things could have gone for our tiny company, for the families involved, and we’re very thankful that all are unharmed. And it…
-
Birth Order & IQ
A study came out a few weeks ago, claiming that firstborn children are smarter than their younger siblings, by an average of 2 to 3 IQ points. One factor, the study’s authors concluded, was that firstborn children (and only children) tend to receive more of their parents’ attention. When siblings come into the equation, the amount of time and attention that is available is divided, and therefore, the less attention each individual child receives. So an eldest child that is an only for awhile has more of an advantage than an eldest child whose younger sibling follows closely. And an only child has the benefit of never having to share…
-
Miscellany
OK, first things first. Chrissy, Scarlett, and Curiosity Killer have all decided that I’m a Rockin’ Girl Blogger! Tres cool! I think that I am now supposed to pick 5 rockin’ girl bloggers, and nominate them myself. Or award them, to be more precise with my language skills. But here’s the rub…how do I decide, from my many female blogging friends, which ones are rockin’ girl bloggers? How do I say to some, ‘hey, you’re a rockin’ girl blogger’, and not others, who are equally rockin’ in my book? So I’m breaking the rules. No paying this one forward. I suck like that. But you know what? If you are…
-
What a Weekend!
Our weekend started on Friday, when we went into San Francisco to attend an Ivy League mixer at a club bordering North Beach. We found pretty good parking on a quiet street just three blocks away, and we set off looking for a place to have dinner. There was a fancy looking restaurant right on our street, Myth, and since I was hungry enough that the golden arches were starting to look pretty good, and Ted says no WAY he’s driving into San Francisco and eating THAT crap, we decided to see if we could get a table. Well, all of their tables were booked, but they had room at…
-
Get Outta Town and Don’t Come Back Until You Have $5!*
First I found out that Ms. Mamma nominated me for several Best Blogger awards, for which I would kiss her if only she didn’t live so far away, but now, on top of that, Gina told me I won a Top 100 Mom Blog Award, something I didn’t even know existed! Color me thrilled! I’m all atwitter! Pardon me, while I go find a needle or something, because my head is swollen WAY out of proportion, like a big conceited balloon or something, and it clearly needs a little popping! Thanks to whomever nominated me for this one! *I know you’re thinking, “Huh, what does THAT mean?” That’s just something…
-
Wordless Wednesday
-
Learning About Brain Fever
One great thing about having a child Maya’s age is showing her the books that I loved as a girl, and seeing if she enjoys them as much as I did, or not. Recently I went through my bookshelf and found a few she might enjoy: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. This book was HUGE when I was in the 5th and 6th grades. I think I got it from the bookmobile that used to come to our neighborhood. If you’re a man, or a woman who spent too much time living under rocks, so you don’t know this book, it’s about a girl named Margaret, who is…
-
Genevieve (Friday Dog Blogging)
A few weeks ago, I was petting Genevieve’s pretty face, and I noticed that she had a large bump on her jaw. What’s that? I wondered. It didn’t seem to cause her a lot of discomfort, though she did pull her head away from it when I pressed on it. That was a Saturday. Monday, I took her to the vet. The vet wasn’t sure what it was, but was pretty sure there was going to be surgery involved. They still needed to do a biopsy, before surgery, because if the lump is cancerous, they remove much more of the area surrounding the lump, so it is much more invasive.…
-
Perfect Start to a Weekend…
…lunch with a Republican. Gosh, I never thought I would say those words! HA! But honestly, some of my best friends are Republicans. One such friend is Janet, who lives in NYC. Janet and I met at San Joaquin Delta College in Stockton, CA, and became good friends. She is a truly loyal and wonderful friend, though not without her faults, including: Spoiling my daughter. It was she that started Maya’s American Girl obsession. Maya now has 4 of the things. Janet only bought her one, so it’s not ALL her fault. Waiting until the last minute to call me and let me know she’s in town. I received a…