Oh, my darlings, I do miss you

I've been pretty blogging behind lately, but there is relief in sight. This Saturday is our regional Odyssey of the Mind competition. I have a darling team, and I hope they'll do well despite a mess of a dress rehearsal yesterday. Bad dress rehearsal, good performance, right? I'm hopeful. But it is a busy, busy week, so I hope you'll forgive me if I skip a few days.

So soccer begins this week. The weather has been stunning. I'm glad for the kids to be back on the field. Woo hoo! All four of them are playing this season. That should make for some full week-ends, eh?

I'm about to begin editing the novel I finished a few weeks ago. I'm chomping at the bit to do it, but I'm kind of nervous about getting out the scalpel. This novel might be my most autobiographical yet. Hmmmm...but nothing juicy and personal, just adolescent angst stuff. Maybe that's why I love my protag so much. ha

Last night my 6YO (Yes, I said 6YO--my 5YO turned 6 last Saturday! Can you believe it? Now that's a whole 'nother blog--not to mention the Chuck E. Cheese party-ugh-but he thought it was grand) Anyway, last might my 6YO climbed up onto the bed and said to me, "Now I take really good care of my body." He proceeded to show me how well he'd scrubbed his toes in the bathtub, used his nail brush on his fingernails, cleaned behind his ears and brushed his teeth. "Now that I'm 6, I have to take good care of my body." Hmmmm... maybe now that I'm nearly 40, I should start taking better care of my body. Certainly gave me pause.

Oh, and this week's NYTimes had a really interesting article about the characteristics of kids who grew up in the depression and drew a parallel to kids--our kids---who will grow up in this recession (that's really a depression but everyone's afraid to call it that). It was very interesting to see the pattern of kids getting back to their roots with less lofty goals than, say, the Gilded Age or the dotcom crowd. I have to say that this financial crunch has brought many difficulties to many people I know, but it has also brought many good and positive changes in families and communities. People are getting back to basics, living closer to the bone, and being more thoughtful about their purchases and financial decisions. It's definitely affected us that way, and it's a better way to live, truly. We'd become so nauseatingly consumerist as a culture.

Even hot new innovations like the Kindle 2 may seem like a huge luxury, but it will actually save so much paper--not just on the books but on shipping and all other kinds of paperwork that goes into transporting and selling books. I'm just interested to see how it all shakes out. I wish Dell would make one. Now that my shares of Dell are down to $8 a share..

Well, folks, I'm off. Have a wonderful day, and support your local Odyssey of the Mind team. djk