It was a very meaningful Christmas this year. This is the "zone" for excitement in the girls (4 and almost 2). We opened presents at 7am and then headed south to Margo and Greg's to cook for the extended family (as we did with Thanksgiving). My focus was pretty much exclusively on not fucking up the 18 lb. Prime Rib and keeping the other eye on the Pack clinching the #1 seed against the hated Chicago Bears. And K whipped up a storm with Pork Loin Wellington with Sake sauce, some crab, brussels spouts, luscious
mashed potatoes, quinoa, fresh beet salad and more...

Since I won a Kindle Fire at the company Christmas party this year, that made my main gift to k somewhat of a no-brainier: a dodo case for the kindle fire. Made here in SF. A real book with bamboo inlay that is really elegantly designed. K's gift to me was an extension to the Kitchen Aid mixer I got for her so many years ago when we lived in El Cerrito. She had wanted a blender. And back then I couldn't even cook a proper spaghetti. The extension includes a meat grinder and a mechanism for making sausage. Hello? "Sausage!"

The big reason why this Christmas was so meaningful was the heart and soul K put into the gifts for the extended family. Instead if buying gifts this year, she made them. Hats, leggings, and embroiled bookmarks based on Olivia's drawings. I will be putting together a little scrapbook of this soon.

Love to all, b

Today is Olivia's 4th birthday! Time has flown by. When she was born we were still living in Santa Clara, not sure where we were headed next. The sleepless nights, pumping for extra milk, worries about jaundice, bewilderment about how our lives had just changed, excitement for the future...it was pretty overwhelming. Mostly, that sense of being overwhelmed was in a good way - we wanted this. And then, when Livie was about 2, we were beginning to think: Hey, we've GOT this! And then Brenna came along.

Now Livie has a pretty well established identity, a fiery, independent spirit who is a challenge at times, but also who has a sweet, caring and empathetic disposition. She's very articulate verbally, almost to the point where we sometimes forget that she's just turned 4! She and Brenna are playing well together these days and she's beginning to show signs of the big sister looking after her younger one. Brenna is a little parrot of Livie right now, everything Livie's been saying, Brenna tries to repeat. It really is the main reason we decided to have two kids, so they could grow together, share together, laugh (and inevitably of course lock horns) together.

Most of all, (knock on wood) we are grateful to have two healthy, happy little girls and we're doing the best that we can at this parenting thing.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately - the time since Beulah called it a day has almost been as long as we were a functioning band (this doesn't count the two years or so where MK and I noodled together HWS), and though musical forays have been few and far between, I've managed to cobble together a living to be able to help provide for two happy and healthy girls. It doesn't make much for copy but I'm glad for the way life has gone. Do I miss touring, making records, the excitement from our fans at our shows? Sometimes - of course! But better to have given it a go, right? K & I are lucky that we were able to establish our individuality, whatever you want to call it, and a semblance of a career and/or artistic direction before settling down and having our kids. Not everyone is able to do that, and we count our blessings every day!

Happy birthday, sweet Livie!

 

Approaching the weekend where K and some of her pals go north to Calistoga and I wrangle the girls. We have plans. First, music class for Livie at Acme House of Music...love that shop and Annette is an awesome teacher. She's so patient with those tots, and Livie is not easy to keep still. Then I'm debating whether or not to take them to a District 4 townhall meeting...I may not. It may be too much to bring a 3 1/2 and 1 yr old. Then, perhaps, Farmers' market at Lakeshore. Hmmm, what to do in the afternoon?

Another in the multimedia series called "Post significant events that happened in your life before the proliferation of digital content..." or something like that.

Better late than never, right? With all of the things that have happened since that gorgeous summer's day in 2001, the most notable is that digital cameras really proliferated shortly after that. Thanks to K's mom for having these old negatives finally processed, almost ten years later.

 

Happy 2011 from a dwindling repository of posts. I don't come here much anymore. It seems my thoughts have been truncated to 140 characters a pop. Well, I have good reasons I suppose (see prev post).

Predictions? Don't want to jinx it, especially Packer/Bear bowl followed (hopefully) by the second Superbowl in as many weeks. Goals? Get them in order. Maintaining is fine but where am I headed? It's an important question that needs sorting. I'm approaching my five year mark at my current gig, which is a record. I do note, however, that the previous couple of places we lived both were about 3 years apiece, which seemed to shatter our previous records of where we rented before that. We're approaching year 2 of home ownership (itself a first), so longevity is something that is likely to be more frequent. Then again, in this country in its current state, who knows? We must always plan for change, advancement, improvement, redirection. There are no sure things anymore, even if you hold all the cards.

But how's this for longetivity? K & I will have been married 10 years this July. I have been in the Bay Area for 18 years straight. This is longer than any other place I've lived by 3 years now. So records are being broken. Doesn't mean I'll be a broken record...