Best of 2009 Blog Challenge

Here we go, all in one post, 31 days' worth of the Best of 2009.

December 1 Trip

So many to choose from! Do I have to pick just one? Yes? Okay. I'll pick visiting family and attending Good Vibrations in San Diego in September.

December 2 Restaurant moment

Frank talked about our hot date at Ruth's Chris, so I'll pick a more routine but no less special kind of night. The four of us regularly dine together at Romio's in downtown Everett. We feel comfortable there, which makes for a relaxed and chatty family meal. Blissfully ordinary.

December 3 Article

Another tough choice, but the one that wins by virtue of coming to mind first is Why Don't Students Like School? Well, Duhhhh..." by Peter Gray.

December 4 Book

Fiction: "The School of Essential Ingredients" by Erica Bauermeister. I reviewed it here.

Nonfiction: "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach.

December 5 Night out

Partying with Beth and Dana and Shonna and Jacinta and Robin at Casa Que Pasa. In memory, the night is one long laugh.

December 6 Workshop or conference

LIFE is Good, Vancouver, WA, May 2009. It was an exceptional weekend. MJ said, "It was as fun as camp!" High praise indeed.

December 7 Blog find of the year

Linda Hessel's "navel gazing" blog, Cottonwood. I am thrilled to have another place to read Linda's thoughts.

December 8 Moment of peace.

The class I took in Vipassana meditation. The sessions were themselves calm and interesting and soothing, but the tools I learned there have provided many hundreds of peaceful moments, during and since, and many thousands more to come.

December 9 Challenge

Being laid off threw me for an emotional loop. Getting hired again has done it again. The whole unemployment cycle has been the proverbial growth experience.

December 10 Album of the year

No album (yet?), but it's The Greybeards that have really rocked my world. Making music with my friends is FUN.

Note: If you really want some album recommendations, check out Craig's Top 28 Moments in Music :: 2009.

December 11 The best place

Where the unschoolers are.

December 12 New food

I can't think of one.

December 13 Change you made to the place you live

We converted the homeschool room (itself formerly known as the diningroom) into a music room where the keyboard and guitars and amps can be in a constant state of readiness.

December 14 Rush

The whole frickin' year was a rush, let me tell you. But if I'm picking one specific rush, it would have to be learning to shoot a bow and arrow and actually hitting the target. I can tell that there will come a time when archery is a passion of mine, but for this year I just had the appetizer.

December 15 Best packaging

???

Oh, I know! The conference bag for Good Vibrations was mega-cool.

December 16 Tea of the year

The fruity stuff Gillian kept me supplied with while I was at her house earlier this month. Tea cozy!

December 17 Word or phrase

You probably know the old curse/blessing: May you live in interesting times. Well, I do.

December 18 Shop

Everett Optometry Clinic. I got new glasses! With this slick little sunglasses attachment! And trial hypoallergenic contact lenses!

It's been a long time without all of these things.

December 19 Car ride

I'd have to say it's the ones I don't have to take now that MJ is driving herself around. We are all loving her new independence.

December 20 New person

Nope, I can't choose just one, so I'll just give a shoutout to all the new babies in my world, especially Gabriella, Rudy, Jackson, Ryan, and Connor.

December 21 Project

Three-way tie here:

1. The Maier Family Cookbook, 2009 Reunion Edition. Sonya gets primary credit on this, but I'm proud of my desktop publishing contribution. I also ran the reunion Web site and organized lodging for the Marty Maier branch, all while preparing...

2. My "RATS in the House" talk for LIFE is Good. (RATS stands for Respect, Acceptance, Trust, and Support.)

3. The Greybeards performance at Good Vibrations.

December 22 Startup

Guadalupe's Coffee Roaster! (I'm the startup in this case; Dana has been selling her fine coffees for a long time.)

December 23 Web tool

Facebook. By all means, Facebook. It has filled a need I didn't know I had.

December 24 Learning experience

Life.

December 25 Gift

Friendship.

December 26 Insight or aha! moment

There were many. I'll go with Chloe's return to school and the chance it provided me to see what a mostly positive experience school can be when the student is there by choice and without pressure.

But I'm glad she's home again. :-)

December 27 Social web moment

Exchanging double entendres on Facebook was really fun.

December 28 Stationery

I love paper, but the only kind I use anymore is printer paper and notebook paper and sticky notes and the backs of envelopes. The Internet is my real stationery.

December 29 Laugh

Giggling with my girls. This happens with some regularity, so I can't pick just one time.

December 30 Ad

I hate commercials. But, okay, I like the one where the guys rent puppies to help them pick up girls. "Ohhhhhh, he's so cute!"

December 31 Resolution you wish you'd stuck with

Ahem. See here. It's not that I didn't stick with them, but my consistent application of these new habits is spotty.

False false prophets

A gift of "could this get any more ridiculous?"

"The 1,073 e-mails examined by the [Associated Press] show that [University of East Anglia] scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions." [emphasis mine]

E-mails stolen from climate scientists show pettiness, not fraud

Friday fill-in

Another gift of fill-ins



1. Good times: helping Effie and Fergus make reindeer and sheep poop.

2. Welcome to my home. Pardon the mess: it's the maid's lifetime off.

3. Sleigh bells ring somewhere, but it's not a sound we hear much in the Puget Sound area.

4. You may not know this about me, but I enjoy spending time with kids. Yes, really. Just a little.

5. Once more unto the breach, dear friends. I will probably return to work before the end of the year.

6. Am I happy to have paychecks in my future? Indeed. Am I happy my dedicated family time is coming to an end? Not so much.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to catching up with Frank and Chloe, tomorrow my plans include a Minshull family Christmas gathering, and Sunday, I want to wing it!

Linky linky

A gift of jumps

I'd prefer a female driver, thanks
"...males were involved in roughly 6.1 million crashes in 2007, of which more than 40,000 were fatal. By comparison, females were involved in about 4.4 million crashes and logged about 14,000 fatal car accidents."

Insecurity at the airport
"We have asked TSA to find the tools terrorists use and prevent both from boarding a passenger plane. We have unintentionally created an agency that now seeks efficiency and compliance more than any weapon or explosive."

Fun, it is
"Convert your English into Yoda-speak."

And speaking of Star Wars
"If they had Facebook in Star Wars..."

You can just rock me tae sleep tonight
"So as you curl up in bed tonight, think about the trillion tiny, thriving, vigorous bugs that are nestling with you all over your skin. They're there to help you. Really."

Wordless Wednesday

A gift of sneaking one in
(yes, I posted this late)

Engage

A gift of boldly going

Virgin Galactic unveils the VSS Enterprise:

Photo credit: Robyn Beck

The continuing mission

Phone home

A gift of insight

I caught a tiny bit of some self-improvement show on PBS last night, a woman talking about different emotional types. She was describing her "empath" type, which, hmm, sounded rather familiar, as did her "intellectual" type. (As a Gemini, I would be shocked if I ever fit into only one type.) Anyway, at one point she said, "Empaths always want to go home."

Well, that struck a chord. For years and years my reaction to a particular type of sadness (despair? discouragement? feeling like I can't be good enough?) has been a strong desire to go home. I say "I want to go home" out loud with some regularity, even whilst sitting in my own livingroom. This definitely does not refer to my childhood home. Instead, I think it's a desire for internal peace.

Abort... maybe...

A gift of wimping out

I started NaBloPoMo because I was in the mood to blog. Then it went away. Unless the writing mood returns tomorrow, I am calling it quits.

It's a good thing I'm blogging without obligation or I'd feel really lame right about now.

Okay fine

A gift of obligation

I don't feel like blogging, but I'll only "win" NaBloPoMo if I post every day.

There. Done.

P.S. Frank has put more effort into his post for today. Go see.

Friday fill-in

A gift of fill-ins



1. You get what you need. You just might find. If you try sometimes.

2. It's only right to be kind.

3. It's cheer-and-stress time.

4. My fear of dentistry is slightly ridiculous!

5. I feel more optimistic than I did the other day.

6. Here's your moment of Zen...goodnight!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to having my dental cleaning over with, and the series finale of Monk (*sniff*), tomorrow my plans include odds and ends, and Sunday, I want to watch the Seahawks win without freezing!

F-e-m-a-l-e power! F-e-m-a-l-e power!

A gift of girls

We saw some friends today. They have two daughters, 4 and 8. It was so fun! We spent a long time playing in the kids' area at the downtown REI, and then we spent some more time playing in the lobby of their hotel.

On Tuesday, MJ and Chloe and I went up to Bellingham to get acquainted with some people in the Bellingham Radical Unschoolers group (BRU-Ha-Ha). There were three little girls there, 5 and 4 and 18 months. We built with Kapla blocks and ran around the house, and MJ let the 4yo listen to her iPod. (Rudy was there, too, but I'll save him as a gift for another day.)

On Thanksgiving, we were at my mom's and got to spend time with three of my six local nieces (for a total of eight granddaughters for my mom). These three nieces are 10 and 6 and 3. We drank Martinelli's and ate fudge (among other things) and watched a movie.

We have for several years been surrounded by little girls. I love it! This is not to in any way disparage little boys, because I love hanging out with them, too. But I suppose because I have daughters, there is just something amazing about having so many girls in our sphere, some essentially female chemistry that gets going when we get so many of them together in one place or, as with this week, have visits with so many in quick succession.

Frank is perpetually outnumbered. I don't think he minds it too much.

A long day on the set of Castle

A gift of goofiness

Wordless Wednesday

Blessings and commandments

A gift of choices
The theme for National Blog Posting Month in December is mitzvah. Not being terribly knowledgeable about Judaism, I started by researching the word itself. According to Wikipedia, it has in more recent times come to mean an act of kindness. (Wikipedia actually says "act of human kindness," but I think we can assume the "human" part is understood.)

Traditionally, though, a mitzvah is a commandment of Jewish law. The plural is mitzvot, and the plural is appropriate because there are a lot of them.

So. If I am to participate in NaBloPoMo, I can write about gifts or rules. Hmm, let me think... ;-)

Actually, I don't find either theme terribly inspiring, so I'm not sure this is going to be my month for NaBloPoMo. But if I proceed, with 31 days to account for, I'll probably hit on both over the course of the month.

I might also loop in some posts using the prompts here. The prompt for today is Best Trip of 2009. I don't have to do that one because Frank took care of it. I'll just add that we also had a few impromptu drives to Oregon and British Columbia that were really fun and added a lot to our Joy Quotient for the year.

Friends who let you sleep over are a blessing indeed.