Chill

What a wonderful, restful Saturday. Low-key errands and household straightening, Turkey Trot skippage, and round after round of great food since 5 p.m. -- Amanda's onion rings, Christy's cheesy potatoes, grilled pork tenderloin and keylime pie. Also lots of TV bumming -- more of "The Prisoner," what we hadn't watched of the NBC Thursday night lineup, and an "Arrested Development" disk. I am so relaxed right now.

I complain about the cold but I love this time of year, the Thanksgiving-through-New Year's weeks. Breaks from work or school, extended time with family and friends, good-food overload ... so great. Matt's birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks and I think we're going to go to the beach for a weekend to celebrate that too. (Although, as I've already mentioned, we don't have to leave town to skip working out, overeat and generally be lazy.)

I've been talking about joining Meg's book club forever and December's going to be the month I finally do it. They're reading "Olive Kitteridge," which I read this summer and liked a lot. (So much that I then read two of Elizabeth Strout's previous novels, but they weren't as good.) I also want to read their November selection, "The Help."

Meg usually keeps me informed of what the group's reading and they don't always strike my fancy (unabridged "Les Miserables") but I guess part of the point of book clubs is to read books you wouldn't have otherwise but will be glad you did. Although I will always maintain that not all classics deserve to be classics ("Moby Dick"). "In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others." - Andre Maurois

OK, off to bed we go.

15 minutes to spare

This will be only marginally better than yesterday's post. The day is dwindling and I've unexpectedly gotten caught up in "The Prisoner" and it has at least half of my attention at the moment.

This morning I woke up with a low-grade fever and still not feeling great so I had to miss breakfast with Mom and lunch with Brooke. Claire humored me by dozing with me until about 8:30 a.m. Once the day got going I started to feel better, and now I feel pretty good except that my nose is drippy. I think I just have a cold combined with not enough sleep.

"The Prisoner" is too riveting. This blog is shutting down for the night.

It counts

Blogging from a phone. Have a sore throat. Panthers suck. Baby is asleep. I want to be too. Worst post ever. NaBloPoMo 2009 is still alive.

Elevenish too many

Maybe a year ago I blogged about having too many blogs. At the time it was, I think, seven (mostly inactive). That was nuts.

Just now, as I was logging in to write, I realized that the current count is TWELVE. What the what?! (As Liz Lemon would say.)

- this blog
- baby blog (merged with this blog)
- round 1 of small-group blog (before I decided to use Blogger instead)
- round 2 of small-group blog (before I abandoned it for email updates)
- short-lived NaNovWriMo 2008 attempt
- one at jenniferdarekirby.blogspot.com that I just started, I guess, to claim the name. I've never posted to it.
- Dad's retirement party blog
- classified
- CouplesCourt.com
- journalism portfolio
- 2009 photo blog (fell by the wayside)
- blog I semi-started one day when I thought it would be fun to sell furniture I painted online

I could easily add at least three more -- a running journal, a recipe blog and a blog focused on my 101-things list -- if I were less lazy and didn't already spend too much time on the computer.

This should clear up any lingering confusion about whether I'm a dork.

Shout out

Today I would just like to express my gratitude for the people in our lives who are willing to lovingly care for a baby with a set of lungs you wouldn't believe so Matt and I can go running, meet a friend for a glass of wine, have a date night, make money, fold laundry or hit up the grocery store without a stroller. Claire's grandparents -- Grandma and Grandpa, Nana and Papa Dan, and RonRon -- you are AWESOME and we owe huge chunks of our sanity to you. Thank you for all you do!

Priceless

AAA membership renewal ... $42
Passport fees to State Department ... $134.85
USPS fees ... $17.50
Certified copy of Claire's birth certificate ... $10
Front-and-back copies of my driver's license at post office ... $.30
Claire's passport photo ... $6 (waived)*
Keeping Claire happy while waiting one hour as brand-new AAA employee did her first membership renewal and child's passport ... $30 (conservatively)*
Being able to travel internationally, even with Claire ... priceless

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* The AAA experience was something else. I had a bad feeling when the new employee told me Claire didn't need a passport photo; luckily, I knew that was wrong since Riley got a passport at about the same age.

It was interesting to watch her progress from initially trying to downplay her inexperience ("Mondays are always busy here, but we love it") to admitting she'd been in training all last week ("but we didn't learn about passports"). At least three times she commented with a bright smile, "Oh, that's another thing I didn't know!"

The kicker was when she called me at home three hours later to say she'd punched my credit card number in wrong and it hadn't gone through and could I please give it to her again. First days suck.

Halfway point

For a while now I've been meaning to look into getting Claire a passport. Matt's dad spends about half his time in the Caribbean, and we want to be ready to leave at a moment's notice should he decide he can't go another day without seeing the grandbabies, who thankfully can't get there without their parents.

I'm hoping the AAA place will help me even though I'm not a member anymore. I even stopped by there one afternoon last week, armed with Claire, her birth certificate and her Social Security card, but it was one of the really tropical stormy days and as soon as I got out of the car I decided it could wait another few days.

We had another unscheduled house showing today. Actually, we had a tiny bit of notice -- the agent called Matt while we were in the car between church and lunch with friends. We took a 10-minute detour to run home and do a double-team version of the frantic straightening I did on Wednesday -- made our bed, hid piles of coupons in my bedside table, opened the blinds and, yes, made sure the toilets were flushed. I am not going to complain. I'm glad we're getting showings.

The games aren't over yet, but there's a chance I'm going to beat Matt in fantasy football this week. He's No. 1, and I'm dead last, so that would be especially sweet! Claire is wearing her "I cheer for The Arsenal [Matt] (unless they're playing The Adrenaline [me])" onesie under her pajamas tonight. Wahaha ...