Zo-wii

My father bought us a Wii for Hanukkah this year. Needless to say this gift has been a big hit with Zoe. She's becoming quite the boxer and bowler -- at least in the land of Wii. I have to say I think the Wii is pretty fun myself. I don't get much chance to play, but I do enjoy it. So the other day when Dad was over the house I suggested he try it out and maybe go a few rounds in the ring with Zoe. I don't think he had any idea what it would be like, but he sure got into it quickly.

This picture of the two of them boxing really cracks me up:


But what cracked me up even more was when my Dad asked me for the instructions. I told him you don't need them, you just figure it out. Apparently that was not a satisfactory answer because the very next time I saw him he handed me a half inch stack of paper on which he had printed out the complete instructions for all the Wii Sports games. Classic my father, I loved it. It reminded me of the clipped articles he used to mail me when I was in college. I gave the instructions to Zoe who promptly asked me what we needed them for.

Habits

Dinner conversation tonight:

Zoe: Mom, what's a habit?

Me: A habit? It's a behavior you do without thinking about it.

Zoe: Like what? What's your habit?

Me: Ummm... I eat too much candy.

Zoe: What about Daddy?

Me: Daddy has a habit of falling asleep on the couch.

Zoe: Isn't a good habit like a hobby?

Me: Ummm no.


It's always entertaining at our table.

Say it backwards

Lately Zoe has been obsessed with backwards words. Things like stressed backwards is desserts and dog is god, etc.

Even more fun are the words that are jibberish backwards which we've decided means the opposite of their meaning. For example at bedtime we've started saying "doog gninrom". That's good morning, of course.

Now I think I'll have introduce Zoe to palindromes. I think she'll get a real kick out of "racecar" and "a man, a plan, a canal, panama."

Location:Hurd St,Fairfield,United States

Evolutions of Birthday Greetings

As some of you may know, I recently celebrated my 39th birthday. Doesn't that sound like such a grown-up age? Fortunately I don't feel any more grown up than I did last week.

In my house when cards come for birthdays or other occasions we usually display them in the kitchen on our island. Yesterday I realized that I only got 4 cards. One from my mother, one from my father, one from Rob, and one from Heather. All great cards that I was happy to receive. But 4 seemed like a small number. Thinking that made me feel like maybe I was being greedy and I didn't feel like anyone "forgot" my birthday or anything like that. Then I remembered all the birthday greetings that poured in over Facebook, Twitter, and email. I was honestly overwhelmed by that. I heard from people who never would have sent me a card, but since it is so easy on FB, Twitter or email, I got tons of greetings. No one had to buy a card or find a stamp or my address or anything. And yet that really was a treat. Chalk that up to reason # 5,999 why I love the internet.

Of course this all got me thinking that the greeting card business probably isn't booming these days. Being that I work in book publishing, I gotta say, I can relate! Not sure what will happen with greeting cards in the coming years. It is still special to get a card or a physical invitation (non evite), maybe even more special now. But will places like the Hallmark Store evolve or die out? At the same time will that make more or less room for the independent card maker? And then I wondered...will Zoe send out actual paper invitations to her wedding? (Should she choose to have a wedding, and all that, of course.) Funny to watch the small things change, isn't it?

Zoe's room

My mother bought Zoe a desk for Christmas. She's been wanting a desk (and a computer, but that has to wait) so it was a great gift for her. The weekend after Christmas, Rob, who has a PhD in Ikea-ology, put the desk together and then we spent about 3 hours moving furniture around until we found just the right arrangement. That's a pretty good work out, actually.

All of a sudden it was a completely new bedroom which of course meant that Zoe needed new bedding. Rainbows just weren't going to cut it in this new "grown up" girl room. So, we went to Target (where else?) to check out their collection of bedding. At first Zoe was attracted to the iCarly bedding, then the zebra stripes caught her eye, but after some serious contemplation she ultimately decided on the "Rock Star" bed-in-a-bag set.


They are not pictured here, but the set also came with fuzzy throw pillows. Pretty cool.

Am I sad that we've gone from rainbows to rock star? A little.

But I do appreciate her desire to update her room and make it a place she likes. And since the re-do she has been spending a lot more time in her room which does please me. I remember how important my room was to me as a kid. It was my refuge really.

The only problem now is that she wants to paint her walls too -- lime green and sky blue. Luckily I still get the final edit.

First lines meme

I saw this over at Musings from the Sofa and thought it looked like fun...

The rules are easy: post the first line of the first post of each month [from last year].

January: Here is the list of all 50 books I read in 2008.

February: Tomorrow around noon I will be boarding a plane for California.

March: We're just home from Puerto Rico one day late as Mother Nature thoughtfully provided us with a snow storm on Monday and forcing us to prolong our stay.

April: I haven't gotten out my soap box in awhile so I thought it was time I dusted it off.

May: Any discussion of head lice will cause my own head to itch -- one hour for every minute of conversation.

June: Have you seen the blog Photoshop Disasters?

July: I just read this post from traciedesigns and I had to share it too because I think it is a great idea.

August: If you're a fan of teh show Mad Men then you've got to give this a try. On the AMC site you can "Mad Men" yourself!

September: It is definitely that time.

October: I love Mad Men, but I have loved Sesame Street even longer...

November: Because Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, I decided to make a little party out of it.

December: How on Earth did it get to be December 10th already?


I'm not sure what this says about my blog or me except that I like Mad Men, but it is an interesting snapshot of the year that was.

2010 Resolutions

OK, it's a new year, time for some new resolutions.

1. Make a budget. Stick to budget. This is the big one for the year. The big one and the hard one. It is sad, but true that we have no household budget and it is past due that we get one together. We certainly need to save more and make better spending decisions. Oh and there's that little thing called college tuition looming out there... My goal is to have the initial budget created by end of first quarter and start sticking to it by end of third. I know it shouldn't take this long, but I feel like I need to time to get it right.
2. Blog more. The last few months have been really busy ones for me and I've really let my blogging slip. I have not been good about keeping up with writing or reading the blogs I follow and I miss it -- both the writing and the keeping up with my blogging friends. I have a goal of a minimum of writing 2 posts and 2 blog reading sessions per week. That's not huge, but at least it gets me back into the habit of blogging regularly.
3. See more movies. I love movies and I hardly saw any this year. (Kids' movies don't count.) I am going to start keeping a list of movies seen on my blog similar to the list of books read. This will be both movies rented and movies seen in the theater. I prefer to go to the theater, but its just not always easy. I've already put together a short list of movies I want to rent and I made a very good jump start over Christmas week when I saw 3 movies in the theater and rented one.
   
4. Do some different stuff. Is that vague enough for you? OK, here's what I mean...For my birthday my mother is giving me a trip to a museum in Pennsylvania (not sure which one) and it got me thinking about how I never go to art museums anymore. I can't even remember the last time. I can't believe I haven't taken Zoe, my aspiring artist, to the Met or the MOMA. I've been wanting to go skiing for 2 years and haven't been yet. I love ice skating, there is a rink 15 minutes from me and I've only been twice in the last year. That kind of thing. It is time to shake things up a bit and be open to new adventures.

See you in 12 months for the wrap up report.