Postcards from a changing season

Ten days ago we were having a glorious Indian summer, a last hurrah. Summer is surely gone now, it’s leaving goodbye notes everywhere.

This morning I went to tip water out of Small Boy’s wheelbarrow and a thin layer of ice slipped off.

We had our first hot chocolates of the season; I love steamed milk.

At the zoo Boychen’s hands were red and cold

We bought Small Boy’s snow suit today

Hockey camp starts on Saturday

Too much on my mind

Poet Mom recently asked how much social networking is too much? I guess the answer is going to be different for each of us, but for me it seems to be “when I forget my SheWrites login two days after creating the account.” Thanks to the kind people at Ning who helped me find myself again.

Painting the studio is on hold for a few days. For some strange reason, my husband doesn’t want me inhaling paint fumes two days after discovering I have pulmonary emboli. I think he’s being unreasonable, but you know loved ones, what are you going to do?

Since I’m not painting, I’m trying to get other things done. I donated two bags of clothes today and sorted out where to donate several large bags of books before the move.

Many journals, journals associated with colleges and universities, don’t read over the summer. A whole bunch of journals I’m interested in are about to start reading again and I haven’t finished all the revisions I wanted to make. I should be doing that right now, I suppose, instead of bloging. 

And yet I blog.

My family, see also Apocolypse, four horsemen of

We are sick. Oh, yes, we are sick. Small Boy, Husband and I all have bronchitis and are all taking antibiotics. (Hey, we hit the trifecta!) Boychen, miraculously, was proclaimed bronchially fit but with a red inflamed – “not an infection, yet” – inner ear. The left ear, for the curious. He’s got ear-drops and nose-drops and cough syrup. A part of me is wondering if we shouldn’t just throw him on antibiotics anyway because, really, like he’s going to get out of this without deveoping bronchitis, too? Seriously, you think? Most of me, however, is cautious about using antibiotics, as is our pediatrician Dr. Norwegian (which is one of the many things I really like about him). But really. Seems to me like the poor boy is doomed.

Talk to me, oh Writers of the Internets

So it’s not just my hard-drive. My computer, the actual box and wires, is dead. It was an IBM ThinkPad and it was good to me. We had a good run. But it’s dead now and I need a new computer and the field is wide open.

So talk to me, writers and poets and bloggers of the Internets. What do you use and why. Pluses, minuses, regrets, love-affairs. Has anybody out there switched from a PC to a Mac and how did that work for you?

Looks like I’m going to have to get used to the idea of doing real work on R’s loaner. This could take a while.

Randomness and the odd attachment to a machine

It’s official. My hard-drive is fried and R has given up working on it and has gone ahead and ordered me a new one. It should arrive by the weekend and early next week I’ll have my old computer back. I’m looking forward to it. I didn’t lose anything because of our backup system and I haven’t been left without a computer – and a laptop at that – but I’ve had a hard time working on this machine and not just because the European keyboard keeps me backtracking and searching for the apostrophe. I have a hard time doing thoughtful work on this loaner because it’s a loaner. It all feels so strange and temporary and unreal. I’m using notebooks for my poetry but I’ve been reluctant to blog from this computer. How strange that a hunk of wire and sturdy plastic has become a comforting item.

Disconcerting, too, and a wake-up call not to get attached to the tools.

* * *

R is taking a little getaway to recover after writing his master’s thesis while holding down a full-time job and never once shirking on the homefront.

* * *

R and I recently decided that we should each get at least one solo vacation a year. I’m thinking Prague. Talk to me, readers, about Prague. (Especially you.)

* * *

A journal that passed on a poem seven months ago emailed me out of the blue and said they’d like to use it in an upcoming themed edition. Seven months. An editor remembered a poem of mine for seven months. There is a wrinkle I need to smooth out, but at any rate it’s flattering.

* * *

I hope to get out of the short snippets mode soon, I really do.

Rest

We’re off for a week vacation in my favorite place in Switzerland. Don’t know if I’ll be posting or not (probaby not), but stories and pictures when we get back.

Keeping pace

I love when my poem for the week comes to me on a Monday. Not that I can’t write poems every day of the year, of course, but the fact of the matter is with two small boys running around the house playing fireman I’m not very likey to. I’ve set a goal of fifty-two poems this year – that works out to one a week. I know there will be dry weeks and I know there will be times when the river is rushing but still, it works out to one poem a week and I wrote a decent first draft yesterday and that sends me off into the week with a certain peace of mind. I also did the recycling – we only have curb-side pick up for paper and cardboard so we have to bring the glass and aluminium to a collection station; there are two within five minutes so it’s not that hard, it’s just a matter of actually thinking to do it – and made a double-batch of bolognese sauce. Yum!

Happy thanksgiving

Happy thanksgiving to everybody stateside. We’ll be doing our expats’ Thanksgiving on Saturday because so many of us – most importantly our friend who scored the turkey – are working.

Administrative placeholder *updated*

Something’s gone wonky with my sidebar and it’s slipped all the way to the bottom of the page. I think I know what the problem is but have neither the energy or the time to fix it until…hm, until my husband/tech support gets back.

I could write about the melt-down Small Boy had this afternoon or how early Boychen woke or how, without fail, twelve minutes after pancakes Small Boy is running around the apartment all hopped up on maple syrup but I’m tired. Really really tired.

One week down , one to go.

And on that note, the most pathetic post ever to keep my NaBloPoMo hopes alive.

UPDATED on Friday night to add: Ohmygod I fixed my sidebar problem myself. It involved code. Wow.

Passwords

Every now and then I’m going to put up a password protected post. If I know you and you know me and you’re interested in what’s behind the curtain (it’s poetry that has advanced beyond the thinking out-loud stage and is approaching the Hey, I should find a market for this stage) you can click the “contact me” link at the top of the page and send me an email asking for the password.