Well, I left of last time awaiting the outcome of elections, and I’m happy to say that the GOP was shown the way OUT. Being from the west and much more liberal than many of my fellow Virginians, I don’t often feel very connected with the majority around here, but I am very proud to be known as a Virginian these days. Hopefully we can start to undo some of the damage caused in the last six years.

On to lighter topics…the visit with my family was amazing. We had such a great time. There were four generations of Rasmussen women in the same room and it was very cool. My grandma, world traveler at the tender age of 89, is my hero. I’m so lucky that she came all the way from Washington. I loved watching my mom, dad, brothers, and Grandma hold my baby girl. It was also very cool to see Alex continue building his relationship with my family.

My in-laws are next. They arrive tomorrow and will spend Thanksgiving with us and be here for Alex’s fifth birthday. Man oh man, does having a five year old make ME sound old or what? I just had a birthday also, so that probably has something to do with it. I don’t have the energy to go all morose right now, though. A good friend of mine is in the hospital tonight with her baby girl, a week older than Greta, she will be fine, just getting over a bad respiratory infection, but it reminded me to be thankful for heath. It’s very easy to take that one for granted.

I haven’t had a chance to figure out how to link Acrobat files, thus no fiction to share as of yet, but once I’m done with the semester in a couple of weeks I’ll try to play around a bit more.

Greta has her first cold. A baby with a stuffy nose is the saddest thing in the world. There's not a thing she or I can do, but suffer through the congestion. Yesterday was a little grumpy, but she's still a the happiest baby I've ever been around, even on her bad days.

I just got back from voting. Crossing my fingers that today the citizens of the Unites States will attempt to make up for the disgrace of re-electing Bush and vote some democrats into the House and Senate to temper the damage he can do before his time is up. A democracy is an extention of it's citizens and after Bush was re-elected I worried that the majority of the U.S. was too stupid, scared, brain-washed, lazy, whatever, to be awarded the priviledge of having a vote. One thing the Bush administration has taught us is that our government has the ability to do great harm (to the environment, humanity, world peace, the national budget, take your pick.) Perhaps we will see some sense come through at last. If not, I may have to move out of the country. Too bad Canada is so cold!

My mom, dad, grandma, and two of my younger (no longer little) brothers are coming for a visit in two days. Instead of writing here I should be cleaning my house. It's only fair to the poor structure to dust it off every other month. (Wish I was kidding.) I manage to stay on top of Swiftering the floors, because if I didn't the dog hair would literally bury us in less than two weeks. I keep the dishes moving in a nice, orderly fashion from the dishwasher to the cubboard and back. And I can plow through four or five loads of laundry a week. But, heaven help the bathrooms in this house. I feel like I need to shower after I get out of the shower. So, I'm going to fold up the laptop, ignore the Book section from Sunday's paper for one more day and start to scrub!

Wendy & Brigette
Many moons ago
Before we had kids
We were kids

A few days ago I found out that Wendy, one of my oldest and best friends, passed away suddenly from an accidental overdose. I've been staying away from my notebook because writing it down seems too real. I thought typing would be easier than setting it down in ink. I've spent the past few days feeling heart-broken, angry, confused, lucky (then nervous) and that's all within the course of any given hour. Mostly I feel like not wasting anymore time saying "someday I want to..."

As a writer, I've felt that starting a blog would be a natural extension of what I attempt on paper and a way to share my work, but as a mom of two, college student, yoga teacher, wife...it's hard to find time to do anything more than tread water. Sounds like a pretty lame excuse all of the sudden. Wendy was one of the biggest champions of my writing. She always wanted to read my stories, novel, screenplay, whatever I'd hand over. She encouraged me and asked for more, but mostly she wanted to know when she was going to be able to buy my book. I can't promise that I'll publish a book for her because those decisions are up to too many other people, but I can commit to doing more with the minutes of my day.

I'm not sure what I have in mind for this page. I'll probably post stories, mini essays, and complain a lot about the challenges of raising a four-month-old and four-year-old. Give me a few days to play around...