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Happy New Year!
(image found here) It’s Rosh Hashanah, (unless you’re Ted, and then it’s Rush Hashanah), which is the New Year according to the Jewish Calendar. I’ve made the impulsive decision to make my New Year’s resolution now rather than in January, because there are a couple of things I need to work on, and there’s no time like the present, right? I don’t generally go in for New Year’s Resolutions, actually, but this year, I feel the need. So. Here goes. 1. Floss. I know, I should have been doing this all along, but I haven’t been. I don’t enjoy flossing, and I don’t get much tartar on my teeth, so…
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Back to Work
Autumn’s Mom did a guest appearance over at The Mommy Diaries last week, and this morning I thought I’d see what else was going on over there. Well, another guest blogger had stopped by, DC Urban Dad, and he wrote a post about being thankful for his wonderful wife. In that post, he mentioned that his wife has been home with their baby for these last several months, but that time is coming to an end, and she’ll be back at work soon. It was a nice post, but really, what it triggered for me was memories, memories of my first day back at work after having Maya. Maya was…
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Sloppy Mess of Yum
Yesterday, I woke up and did the usual weekday thing…walk the dog 45 minutes (she’s coming with me less and less often, actually, because I need to get my heart rate up, and she’s 10 years old, and really slows me down…but I brought her yesterday, which she loved), come home, work out to an exercise show I like on FitTV, get Maya’s breakfast ready, and while Ted takes her to school, I sit down to my breakfast. My plan is usually to have Cheerios and fruit (especially good with a really ripe peach or raspberries), but sometimes, by the time I finish my walk, I’m starting to think of…
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R.I.P., WaMu
When we first moved back to California from Philly, we went in search of a bank, and ended up at Great Western, a bank that we knew, and that had the advantage of being smaller, not a huge B of A or Wells Fargo. We liked Great Western, liked the friendly employees, liked the neighborhood feel of it, liked that they didn’t charge us to use other people’s ATMs, that kind of thing. Then, a few years later, WaMu came to town. They bought two banks in our area, Great Western and American Savings. We thought of moving to another bank, but at the smaller bank I looked at, they…
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Wordless Wednesday ~ For Connor
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Wordless Wednesday
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Lack of Relief
(picture found here) Back when my mom was sick, I was feeling overwhelmed and frustrated because it didn’t matter who I called, met with, faxed, emailed, whatever, she was still clearly not getting better, was clearly in a serious decline, and it was scary as hell. I spoke to her on the phone every day, and every day, she sounded worse. Every day, I tried to find some way to encourage her to try physical therapy, to do things like go outside, get dressed, watch TV, anything that might lift the burden of depression that was overtaking her. And nothing was working. Not the meds the doctors gave her, not…
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Potpourri
(image found here) This is going to be one of those random blog posts, just kind of blah blah blah about what’s going on in my life. Some more serious than the rest. It’s Saturday afternoon, and we just got back from breakfast/lunch at Denny’s. Denny’s has changed a bit…they put a weird booth in where the counter used to be, and they took out the bar and the big screen TV. I never went to the bar, but I thought it was interesting that our Denny’s had one. The big screen TV, I’m thrilled to see that go. After Denny’s, we went to the Farmers’ Market and got some…
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WTF???
This is totally not going to be an in depth examination of California’s ongoing budget crisis. No one outside of California cares, and it’s Friday, so no one is reading anyway. Besides, the country’s economic issues are so serious, and we’re all so screwed for this next little while (how long? Oh, just long enough to lose your savings if you have one, just long enough to lose your house if you have one, just long enough to realize you’re how screwed you are if you have nothing), that probably the 90% of my readers who don’t live in California have bigger fish to fry. But if you live in…
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HPV for Boys
We’ve all seen the commercials, right? The ones that say, “I want to be one less”, the girls who don’t want to become a statistic, to get cervical cancer. The HPV vaccine prevents a few varieties of the virus that causes cervical cancer, so while it isn’t a cure, it could be a step in the right direction. Well, Maya is 12 now, and not really acting interested in boys. We’ve been deciding whether to vaccinate her now or later. It’s not a matter of whether to vaccinate her or not…if we can protect her from the possibility of dying from cancer, wouldn’t we want to do so? And HPV…
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Back to School
The other night was ‘back to school night’ at Maya’s middle school. The evening started with speeches with the Principal, the Superintendent of the district, and the head of the PTA. They talked about how lucky we are to have such wonderful kids, how our district is in the top 95% of the state in test scores, and how parent involvement and dedicated parents help to make this the case. They talked about how raising healthy, happy children was about much more than these test scores, but still, yay test scores! Then we went and sat in each of the classrooms that our child attends for 10 minutes each, and…
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Creamy Corn Soup
Ever since I read this post over at Fancy Toast, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make a meal out of crab cakes. They’re not cheap to make, even with canned crab, and even less cheap when you buy them like I do, pre-made. So to have enough to fill everyone up would be difficult. But I could buy us one each without breaking the bank. Last Saturday, I went to the Farmers’ Market in Pleasant Hill, and there was a booth there for a new restaurant in the neighborhood that sounds pretty yummy, Nibblers. (I only ate four or five of the little samples they had sitting…
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We Get the Government We Deserve
As I was laughing hysterically at the comic above (this is just one panel…click here to read the whole thing…I love Bad Reporter) in today’s paper, Ted was reading about how Obama’s poor choice of analogies is pushing voters over towards McCain/Palin. I will admit, when I heard Obama’s comment, I thought, “That was not a smart comment to make. Even though McCain made the SAME COMMENT about Clinton and her policies last year, in this charged environment, and so soon after Palin’s folksy joke about Hockey Moms and pit bulls with lipstick, it did appear that he was calling her a pig. Not wise. But clearly, people are getting…
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Friday Dog Blogging
Bounce Bounce Doggy Bounce… Genevieve is guest posting on Ted’s blog today. Show her some love and check it out!
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September 11, Again
This is the third time I’ve posted this. Part of me thinks I should publish something new on this, but part of me thinks I said everything I had to say back then. I’m tempted to get political this year and ask if you feel safer this year, and if Osama bin Ladin has been caught “Dead or Alive”, like we were promised…or if the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq look close to being over. I’m tempted…but I won’t. Wait. I just did. Sorry. Edelmiro Abad of Brooklyn at a wedding with his close-knit family: his wife, Lorraine, and in white from left, daughters Serena, 19, Rebecca, 26, and Jennifer,…