Today is the last full day of our Christmas vacation. We're flying back tomorrow, armed with suitcases packed to the gills with extra stuff, and we're looking forward to our own bed. I'm unlikely to be able to post again until after the new year so I'll say Happy New Year now, from beautiful snowy Kansas. As always, while we're eager to get back home, leaving our true home is bittersweet. Here's to a peaceful and happy 2008. We'll take a cup of kindness yet, for auld lang syne.

This was the scene outside our bed and breakfast this morning. The snowfall has accumulated much more now, hours later.

While I didn't widely publicize it (except to Amy, who is probably sick of hearing about it), John was out of town for my birthday. When we found out a few weeks ago that he'd have to be away, I was completely bummed and I worried that I'd be sitting in my house, alone, sobbing into tissues while I turned 30. But here's what I found out: birthdays rock, no matter who's around! Yesterday was a great day just because it was my birthday. And to top it off, when John comes home we're going to celebrate again. It's funny how sometimes something you'd been dreading turns into something pretty damned cool.

Today is my thirtieth birthday. And I have to say, I'm not too fussed about turning thirty. When I was little, I cried every night before my birthday. I sobbed and mourned the passing of every year that meant that my childhood was slipping away. And I think getting all that out of my system at an early age really helped a lot! So, Happy Birthday to me, Jane Austen, and Beethoven! Of course, they're both dead, so I'll just eat their share of the apple pie.

I don't count myself among the fashion elite. When you have a standard uniform, you can't be the one to point fingers. But can someone explain to me why, suddenly, the velour jumpsuit is back? Everywhere I turn, I see women (and, yes, men) wearing these godawful things. Didn't we burn all the velour after the 70s? Didn't we learn that jumpsuits are not flattering, not on any form? Didn't we learn our lesson? Then why, why is the velour jumpsuit back?

"Scientists discover how pregnant women keep from tipping over."

John and I drove past a church sign the other day that said "We're too blessed to be depressed," to which John wondered aloud if they were also too legit to quit and too sexy for their shirt.

The first year that John and I started dating, we got a Christmas tree together and set it up in my apartment. Being poor college students, we didn't have a lot of money to spend on ornaments, so we improvised. We went to a craft store and bought a bunch of winter-themed wooden shapes and some paint. After we painted them John drilled a small hole at the top of each, through which we threaded string. They were never meant to be fancy, but every year when we hang them on the tree, I'm reminded of how long we've been together, and how much fun we had making our first ornaments.

I'm flummoxed. Off and on for several years now, I've found myself compelled to contact an old friend of mine from childhood. Not to reestablish some lasting friendship, just to see how she's doing. But somehow I can't bring myself to. For a long time, it would have been a matter of first tracking down her parents and then getting her information, and somehow that seemed like a lot of effort. But now, thanks to Facebook, I know exactly how to find her. It would just be a matter of sending her a quick message, along the lines of, "Hi! It's me! Is it you?" But now, even knowing how easy it would be, I'm hesitating. I've, in fact, been hesitating for a couple months. What if my message is rebuffed? What if she'd rather be left alone? Because here's the thing: of the two of us, I'm MUCH easier to find. My maiden name is uncommon; hers is quite common. So if she were interested in being found, wouldn't she have found me already? Clearly I've over-thought this whole thing...

John [on his laptop]: Oh, crap.

Me: What's wrong?

John: This thing has been stuck for 45 minutes and it hasn't even mounted Fatter Ass yet.

Me: ...

I took Amos to the vet a couple weeks ago and, while she was poking and prodding him, the vet oh-so casually mentioned that Amos needs dental work. Specifically, she said, "Amos has stage two dental disease. I'll work up an estimate for you." She then proceeded to hand me a baseline estimate of $310. $310?!?!? I can't think of the last time I spent that much money on MYSELF, much less on a cat! Oh, no wait, I can: it was in January, when I cut a check for over a thousand dollars when Edgar allegedly got hit by a car while we were on Christmas vacation and wound up with a broken jaw. But I'm not bitter or anything.

Whew! Okay, so I took a couple of days off from blogging after the NaBloPoMo extravaganza and now that I have some distance, I've had a chance to think about the experience. While I thought that blogging every day for 30 days was going to be an enormous pain and that I'd be running out of ideas midway, I really enjoyed it and I found that the more I blogged the more things I had to blog about. I liken it to staying in touch with people: the more you talk, the more you have to say. But the less you talk and the more the distance grows, the less you have to say. It's like you don't want to burden the other person with the minute details of your life, when the reality is that it's those details that make up life. So keep blogging! It makes you loquacious and it clears up your skin. The NaBloPoMo exercise also got me thinking about why I blog. I started this blog to stay in touch with friends and family. Over time, though, it's really transformed into a great creative outlet for me. And it's put me in touch with new bloggy friends, like Tiffany over at the Would-Be Writer's Guild. So keep blogging! You'll meet new and interesting people, and you'll learn what loquacious means.