You will be happy, Dear Reader, to know that my nephew Devon made it through his surgery with flying colors and his prognosis is excellent. He is a strong, muscular little guy (with his father, how could he not be? My brother is 6'7"-- and no, I'm not kidding).
You will be happy also, Dear Reader, to know that I think the Christmas shopping is almost done. Except for the Daschke men. That, I'm puzzling over. But the shopping for Dereck's mom is *almost* done, and the shopping for the little Hatala boys is done, except maybe for one more thing for Christian, probably bug or dinosaur related. The other two can be made content with Star Wars and legos (oh THANK you, E-bay!), but not Christian. He is persnickety.
You will also be happy, Dear Reader, to know that this weekend there is no soccer to go to, so I can sleep in* tomorrow, unfettered (except for the inevitable early morning weekend phone call that always befalls us, for some reason).
You may or may not be happy to know that I am sleeping this week. Almost every morning, I wake up and Dereck's side of the bed is empty, because he is not sleeping. And that makes me feel bad, helpless, shallow, etc. I wish I could help him sleep, or at least be awake with him. And yet, there I sleep. I am angry and frustrated about the election, too, but like Karl, I seem to be able to sleep in most circumstances.
And I am sure you are all as happy as I am that it is Friday.
This weekend my plans go like this:
Friday: make challah on my lunch hour. Write grants in between blogging today. Have a nice Shabbat dinner. Go out to hear a band our friend is bringing in tonight.
Saturday: sleep in* (see above), have coffee and breakfast with Dereck, walk dog, sit around, go to the gym with Liza, shower, go to office and work on consulting, work on memoir, possibly go to Mass with Carol at 5:30, have Allison over for brisket, maybe go see Alfie tomorrow night.
Sunday: sleep in*, have coffee and breakfast with Dereck, walk dog, sit around, listen to NPR, shower, work on memoir, take a nap, have dinner, watch TV (Arrested Development!), sit around, read a little, go to bed.
Doesn't that sound exciting?
I imagine that more sitting around and less working will occur than I have noted, and that one or more trips to the coffee shop will also occur.
And I don't even mind.
What does your weekend look like?
11/04/2004
Sigh.
Yesterday, I made a bold pronouncement on my memoir blog that I was finished with my first draft. Pfffft. Not hardly.
I was talking to Liza about it yesterday and she pointed out something it needed and she was absolutely right: it needs a heart and a soul. It has a skeleton and some guts.
And thankfully, I had a flash of inspiration about how to get those two important elements in there-- but now I have thirty more pages with chapter headings waiting to be written-- and it will no doubt end up being more than thirty pages that is eventually written.
And I am actually excited about writing it.
But I have no time to write it til this weekend. And that is driving me nuts.
But it is so exciting to be engaged in a fulfilling writing project. When I was trying to hide, ostrich-like, from the horrors of the election this week, the memoir was truly a godsend.
Today my thoughts and heart are in Denver with my wee nephew.
God protect you, Devon.
I was talking to Liza about it yesterday and she pointed out something it needed and she was absolutely right: it needs a heart and a soul. It has a skeleton and some guts.
And thankfully, I had a flash of inspiration about how to get those two important elements in there-- but now I have thirty more pages with chapter headings waiting to be written-- and it will no doubt end up being more than thirty pages that is eventually written.
And I am actually excited about writing it.
But I have no time to write it til this weekend. And that is driving me nuts.
But it is so exciting to be engaged in a fulfilling writing project. When I was trying to hide, ostrich-like, from the horrors of the election this week, the memoir was truly a godsend.
Today my thoughts and heart are in Denver with my wee nephew.
God protect you, Devon.
11/03/2004
11/02/2004
4:00 p.m.
I cannot concentrate. I have concentrated enough. I need a break. And I need to know what is happening with this country, I need to know what is happening with the voters. I need to know if we are going to have a new President, as I want more than I have wanted anything for awhile. I don't even know if I knew I wanted it this desperately.
I have an invitation to a book club I would like to join-- but I am not going to be able to go today because our freaking guidelines finally came out, and I have to stay and sit here and read them.
And to make matters worse, my memoir keeps poking its head out and looking at me, so I will be reading an article for work, and using my red pen to scribble notes in my notebook, and all I want is a couple of uninterrupted hours to work on that.
Tonight we are going to a memorial service for the woman we knew, who died on the plane crash two weeks ago. Before that, I have to pick up kids andscrape together order dinner for us because Dereck teaches until 6:00 p.m. and then we have an hour and a half to hang out, get the dog walked, supervise homework, sit, etc., until the memorial service.
After that, we have our karaoke sitter, so we can either go to karaoke and sing (ha, right!) or go find someplace warm and cheery to watch the election results with friends. I am rather inclined just to go home except that I want to be with others to yell at the screen, and sneer at the commentators. We will watch Jon Stewart, of course, but he will only be on for an hour, and if we have our election results by 10:00 p.m., I'll eat my hat.
I look like a telephone operator right now. I have headphones with a microphone attached to it in my office for this NetMeeting training I am doing, and I figured out that rather than crawling under my desk every day to unplug them and plug in my speakers, which I have to keep turned down, if I keep the headphones on, I can listen to my music at a decent volume.
I am sure everyone is laughing at me in my switchboard operator costume (think Lily Tomlin on Sesame Street), but I'm happy-- except for the times my ears start to hurt.
I have an invitation to a book club I would like to join-- but I am not going to be able to go today because our freaking guidelines finally came out, and I have to stay and sit here and read them.
And to make matters worse, my memoir keeps poking its head out and looking at me, so I will be reading an article for work, and using my red pen to scribble notes in my notebook, and all I want is a couple of uninterrupted hours to work on that.
Tonight we are going to a memorial service for the woman we knew, who died on the plane crash two weeks ago. Before that, I have to pick up kids and
After that, we have our karaoke sitter, so we can either go to karaoke and sing (ha, right!) or go find someplace warm and cheery to watch the election results with friends. I am rather inclined just to go home except that I want to be with others to yell at the screen, and sneer at the commentators. We will watch Jon Stewart, of course, but he will only be on for an hour, and if we have our election results by 10:00 p.m., I'll eat my hat.
I look like a telephone operator right now. I have headphones with a microphone attached to it in my office for this NetMeeting training I am doing, and I figured out that rather than crawling under my desk every day to unplug them and plug in my speakers, which I have to keep turned down, if I keep the headphones on, I can listen to my music at a decent volume.
I am sure everyone is laughing at me in my switchboard operator costume (think Lily Tomlin on Sesame Street), but I'm happy-- except for the times my ears start to hurt.
Happy Birthday, DAD!
Today is my father's birthday (I'll call you later, Daddy), and all he wants for his birthday is a new president.
Well, Dad, I'm doing my best.
This morning, I realized that I have a meeting (well, it's training for a NetMeeting program, that I have for two hours a morning every day this week! Argh-- I hope I can get other stuff done during it, because that cuts into my time a little too much) this morning from 10-12, putting a damper on the whole voting/lunch plans.
So, we got the kids dressed and went and voted and then took them to breakfast at Hardees. They let me take the kids into my little booth for me, and each kid got to actually push the pin through for a candidate.
Don't worry: I handled the presidential vote myself.
Before we went, I gathered them in the living room for just a wee mini talk about how important this is and how lucky we are to live in a country where we have the right to vote.
Christian grew obstinate this morning and loudly declared his support for Bush as we left the voting place. Thanks, Chris.
Liza was right-- there were lines this morning! And the best part about that was that the majority of people there this morning were college students. So, the lines didn't bother me a bit.
My children, ah bless them. They were noisily declaring as we voted, "Now, you voted for Kerry, right?"
Good thing we don't live in Ohio, or I might have gotten thrown out.
Well, Dad, I'm doing my best.
This morning, I realized that I have a meeting (well, it's training for a NetMeeting program, that I have for two hours a morning every day this week! Argh-- I hope I can get other stuff done during it, because that cuts into my time a little too much) this morning from 10-12, putting a damper on the whole voting/lunch plans.
So, we got the kids dressed and went and voted and then took them to breakfast at Hardees. They let me take the kids into my little booth for me, and each kid got to actually push the pin through for a candidate.
Don't worry: I handled the presidential vote myself.
Before we went, I gathered them in the living room for just a wee mini talk about how important this is and how lucky we are to live in a country where we have the right to vote.
Christian grew obstinate this morning and loudly declared his support for Bush as we left the voting place. Thanks, Chris.
Liza was right-- there were lines this morning! And the best part about that was that the majority of people there this morning were college students. So, the lines didn't bother me a bit.
My children, ah bless them. They were noisily declaring as we voted, "Now, you voted for Kerry, right?"
Good thing we don't live in Ohio, or I might have gotten thrown out.
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