Adios, January February 03, 2010

January was a weird. I'm just going to go ahead and say it. It was WEIRD. And it felt really long. This morning Gabe and I were marveling at just how long it felt. "Did we really just move into our new house, a month ago?" Centuries have lapsed. Landscapes have transformed.  Species have migrated. Oceans have swelled and receded. Or, so it seems....

In reality, we've just been adjusting and transforming and navigating this new life of ours. Picking up hammers and making lists. There were many, many, highlights in January. And stinky times too. I've compiled them in list form.

The Great
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1. Moved into beautiful, fabulous, new house, at last!
2. Incredibly busy with work projects (two book projects due in the next six months, and a mountain of half baked ideas to pitch, lots of stores and galleries to ship stuff to.....)
3. VERY relaxing mountain weekend with two friends from my younger years.
4. Experiencing our new neighborhood (ahhh, to be in walking distance of pizza, and good coffee shops and restaurants. Heaven. Also, we now live within walking distance of many, many good friends. So fun to just pop in on people, and be popped in on, too. Is that a real term? 'Popped in on' ? Sounds gross.)
5. Swimming at neighborhood public pool that is only FIVE blocks from our house.  I love to swim, but really, the best part about this is that I get to stumble down there in my pajamas.
6. Lots of readings at  book events, and fun times with kids book people and kids of all ages. (Thanks Aimee, Jennifer from Green Bean, and Vicki, for the pictures, above!) Fun times.
7. Handyman Gabe! He's a champ. Same goes for the great folks who have loaned us their skills, and tools and time to help us out these last few weeks. Our kitchen is now the color of butter, with a little curry colored breakfast nook. Perfecto. The bathroom is on its way to becoming a tiled masterpiece.
8. Avatar.
9. Our friends just had a new little baby, and we got to visit her in the hospital! Teeny tiny goodness.
10. Recorded some tunes with friends and played a really fun show.

Not So Great
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1. Struggling with middle grade novel I've been working on forever. And thinking that maybe I need to throw out the first hundred pages and start again. THE FIRST HUNDRED PAGES. That's a lot, considering that some middle grade novels are only 100 pages, TOTAL.
2. Read an article about a giant massive earthquake that is supposed to hit Portland in the near future. This, coupled with the horror of what happened in Haiti (which, of course, deserves to be on a list that is a million miles from my measly and whiny not-so-great list...) has sparked some serious 'natural disaster related insomnia' in my brain.
3. Major water basement leakage that had Gabe and I scooping water with garbage cans with the fervor of  Olympic athletes. It SHOULD be an Olympic event. We would rule.
4. Hot water heater on the fritz. Showering in general, at a minimum while tiles are being put in. The sting of this has lessened, now that I have the to-the-pool-in-my-pajamas thing figured out.
5. My back went out. Not terribly, but painfully, like it used to long ago when I first moved to Brooklyn. I know that it is pretty much ENTIRELY stress related, but still not fun to have an ice pack down your pants most of the day. Or is it? For some, perhaps.

Ok, that's it. My whole brain dump. February is here!.