let's caucus

I normally shrug off New Year's and resolutions and reflection, but it wasn't until I wrote it all down that I realized how much I have accomplished this year. This page has the good, the bad, the great and the ugly (can you make out "gained weight"?) but it really was a spectacular exercise.

So many things happened, huge hurtling changes. Most of it good. Much of it stressful but worth it. My husband was helpful to pipe in about my "freakouts" along the way. Thanks, dear. Yes, I did break out in a mysterious rash on my shins and fracture my foot a month before my wedding but I managed to get there, golfcarted in like a queen.

As to not completely ignore the Iowa goings-on - I am scared of the Huckabee people. Yes, the only thing typical urban smartypants, believing in evolution and all, has to say. As the results are called and counties are filled in, and they are calling it for Barack Obama - I am a little amazed. I know I am not alone. Maybe people really do think he is the harbinger of change. I admit, he sounds the most like it. But my friend Gayle makes the sticking point - can he play with the Beltway crowd? I am wont to think Hillary will know how to play the game, osmosis is a very powerful thing, especially in a place like the capital. Idealists have not fared well in recent memory. Hey, I was a mobile volunteer Deaniac in 2003. The standard is that no "candidate" can really get anything done in D.C. ... or can they? I would love to see someone prove me wrong.

And now, my own consumption and adding to the problem - Christmas presents! I will preface this by saying we took it easy this year, even if it didn't seem like it. We saw What Would Jesus Buy? a few weeks before Christmas. All my wrapping was recycled from other gifts, and by getting married, we actually got to consolidate gifts. Instead of a gift for, say, his mom from each of us, she got one from both of us. In fact, both his mom and dad got the same gift! Aren't we brilliant!?

In addition to the Gocco PG5, which I am terrified to use as I will then need to buy more lightbulbs express mailed from Japan, I received The Power Broker, which I have wanted to read for a while, and the gift du jour, a Diana+ camera.

I have the first roll sitting in my bag until I find a place that does 120 prints.




And this? This is just a gratuitous shot of Gen. Biscuits and Gravy. Paul got her for me (in June) at the Animal Care and Control (where they kill puppies and kittens. Please don't buy your animals!) in New Lots, proving once and for all just how much he loves me. They said she was given up, but I don't believe it. She's sweet.