I think we can all agree that this site is mostly a means for my family and friends and friends of my family and family of my friends to check-in periodically.  Of course, some of you cheat a bit and check-in on me without letting me know what’s going on with you, so I look forward to YOUR updates to appear in my email over the next week or so.  Now if you feel like I’m talking directly to you, then I probably am unless your name happens to be DeAnne and she gets a special shout-out for sending regular emails.  In other words, if your name didn’t just appear on the list of “DeAnne”, I’m talking to you.  In fact, you should stop reading right now and start typing a nice little “hello” followed with some bits about what you’re up to.  Yes, I know you’re the busiest little monkey at the zoo, but you’re wasting valuable writing time trying to work out how you’d prefer to be a panther, an ocelot or some other cuter, sleeker, or even nobler zoo creature and taking exception to the monkey remark.  Although, now that your brain is spinning that’s not a half bad start to your email.  “Dear Beth, I feel I’m more of a Chilean Flamingo than a generic monkey – suited more for lawn decoration than swinging from trees.”   

Back to the updates – here we go:   

My First Reversible Skirt (looks very stylish over jeans & with better lighting)

Sewing: I took another sewing class.  This one was the reversible wrap skirt.  My biggest achievement: remaining upright the entire class (no spills on the floor) and therefore no histrionics on my part.  I would add “my skirt” to that list, but we’ll just have to write it off as a learning experience.  Fortunately, the bits that I had to fix after many quality moments with a seam ripper, will hide beneath a blouse (at least that’s how I plan to wear it).  A couple of the gals in class were thinking ahead and figured out that they could use the same pattern to make cute aprons.  I’m sorry guys, I’m not a cutesy apron kind of girl.  I wasn’t raised by June Cleaver.  I think pearls are over the top.  Therefore, none of you will be receiving cute aprons for Christmas.  I’m sorry.  I also want to re-state for the record that I find rick-rack abhorrent; it horrifies me.   

Toastmasters: I joined.  Well, I was followed by the club’s president who said it was his mission to add me to the ranks of his club and talked about my easy-going nature so I gave him a check.  (I’m a serious sucker for flattery.) I’m still trying to convince myself this is a great idea.  The folks in the group are really great – they talk about how it’s a supportive family, but I’m trying to decide if it feels like “my” family.  Right now, I feel like the weird guest brought along by some well-intentioned dorm mate – the one whose dysfunctional family didn’t have plans for the holidays.  I nearly had a stroke last week when I saw on the schedule that I was supposed to make a speech in two weeks.  Thankfully, that’s now been postponed and I just have to give an invocation at that time.  Jay suggested I could get up and invoke the right to remain silent.  I like the way he thinks.  On the positive side, my mentor said, “Beth, if you go up there for your first speech, stare at everyone, nod and run away, that’s ok.  We just want you to get up there.”  WHEW! I can do all of that.   

Improv:  Improv starts next weekend!  I’m hoping something in improv will help me not fall apart in Toastmasters come speech time.   

Writing: I finally wrote my first piece of fiction for the writing group (as noted by Jay, it was not Hemmingway’s A Farewell to Arms – I’ve been beating him soundly for days after his “Beth lamenting her work” impersonation).  I wasn’t at the last meeting for feedback, so I’m going to pretend that for a first effort it received a hearty and sincere round of applause.  Big thanks to DeAnne for reviewing it, especially since it was a first piece, and for making very helpful suggestions.   

Sam:  Sam had a few milestones this week.  Sam’s stitches were removed, the bell collar came off and she went back to canine rehabilitation where she walked on the underwater treadmill, did a few leg exercises and got a back massage.  Overall, Sam’s recovery on this leg is going a lot more smoothly, but it helps that she’s eight pounds lighter.   

Movies:  We just saw “Inception” – handsdown the best movie I’ve seen all year – solid SciFi adventure.   

Randomness:  Apparently, the AP Style Guide now says there should be only ONE space after a punctuation mark and the next sentence or after a colon.  This is all thanks to proportional fonts.  (Basically the letter “i” or the punctuation mark “.”  no longer take up the same amount of space say an “M” these days.  Thanks, Anna!)  Since my high school typing teacher (don’t ask how I ended up in that class) was more frightening (and nasty) than the AP Style Guide will ever be, I’ll be sticking to the double space between sentences, thank you.   (Side note: If you work with Anna, she has been trying to break all of you teachers of double-space habit for over 13 years now.  Please, do not the double-space in her presence.  Unless, of course, you also had my high school typing teacher who is still way more scary than Anna.  Not that Anna is scary.)  

That’s about it.  If you’re still reading then you’ve been wasting valuable writing time and should spend the next five minutes sending me a note and letting me know what’s going on with you.