Busy bee

Longtime student Risa, who returned to Japan last week :-(

This year has flown by... and I won't write too much here as I hope (hope!) to write a summary of the year as a sort of e-card for friends and family. I won't put the link up here, but if you'd like one and haven't heard from me by, say, the 24th of December, please send me a quick email or leave a comment here on the blog. I will've lost lots of addresses earlier this year when I reinstalled the operating system on my computer and forgot to back up my address book first.

I'm still working from home (mostly) and watching Molly except for the 2 days a week she has at nursery school. She goes to 2 different ones, and I can tell that she likes one of them more than she likes the other one. I like that one better, too, I must admit.

When we are both home together, we usually have some kind of outing in the morning, then home for lunch and a nap, then are home for the remainder of the afternoon. She still is sleeping like a champ, going down at 7pm and sleeping until 7am, sometimes 8, sometimes even (oh heaven!) 9am. The lunchtime nap is still a couple of hours most days, which gives me a nice break to get some work done. I also work after she goes to bed at night, but not for too long, and then D and I have some time to make dinner in peace and maybe watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, or a movie if we're up to it. We've really got a nice little thing going on.

D has been very busy applying for jobs all over the world. He hopes to finish his DPhil this spring, and by September, we should be off on a new adventure. Or possibly staying right here, if he gets something here. Sigh. I like Oxford, but the weather situation can be pretty grim. He's applied for several in Southern California. I like the sound of that (as I stare into my light box here at my desk with the icy wind blowing outside...).

I've also been doing some editing and trying to get my writing workshops going. It'd be nice if they actually made a profit. I just don't have the time to invest in the marketing. I wish I could outsource that part without going into debt to do it. I've been doing a little work for OUP--work which actually found me as a result of the workshops website, so I guess it's resulted in something more than achieving its actual intended purpose.

Apart from that, things are as usual. We still miss the dog terribly... not least when we have to pick up all the bits off the floor after Molly finishes a meal, a job which used to be fait accompli in the dog days of yore. But sometimes I still pull up to the house on my bike and think I see the flash of his white chest through the glass door. He used to wait by the door for us to come home, and even though he was deaf as a post, he'd be watching for our bikes and would stand up as soon as we pulled up. I was really glad that in his last days, I was home so often with Molly, so that between Dave and myself, he was hardly ever home on his own for more than an hour or so. I've been slowly letting go of some of that guilt and regret that I guess inevitably comes with losing a pet... but I think I feel it more keenly than most as I have a tendency to beat up on myself for some reason. But more and more lately, I've been able to remember the good things about his life, and when I look back at photos of him now, I realize how really old he had gotten. I truly believe now that he was ready to go. I think that might be one reason why he went so calmly and peacefully.

Well enough of my pseudo-spiritual nonsense. Time to get started on this holiday e-card. I am glad that this year, all Americans have something to be truly thankful for in the election results. I'm no hero worshipper, but I do have high hopes for Obama. I'll be very curious to see what he chooses to do with the mess that he's handed in January 2009...