As you can tell by how I referred to distance in terms of time, I’m not originally from here. I’m a California transplant, one of the most-loathed imports in this area for reasons inscrutable to me. I’ve lived here for twelve years, so I’m hardly fresh off the airplane anymore so I doubt anyone can tell I’m not a WA original.

Anyway, one of the things I’ve learned since moving here is that Washington is a state of extremes. If you have six inches of snow in a few hours one winter, you’ll probably get bupkes in terms of snow the next year. If you have one summer that’s blistering hot, with endless days sans rain or clouds, the next summer will probably be cloudy, humid, and blah.

Last year’s winter was mild, with hardly any snow worth mentioning, which means, of course, that this year was the SNOWPACALYPSE.

Snow in Washington is treacherous, which means that when it starts sticking to the roads you should probably hunker down and leave your car (or SUV) in the garage unless you absolutely have to leave.

Why? Because of HILLS! We have hills! Everywhere! Huge hills! Icy hills! Bobsled-run grade hills!

And ice! And other bad drivers (hi, fellow Californians!), and did I mention the hills that people slide off of?

It’s a mess.

Add to that a power outage thanks to snow-laden, frozen tree branches crashing down on power lines and you have a huge mess. A power outage is challenging enough as it is, but when it’s twenty-something degrees outside it can get downright perilous.

The one nice thing about the snow though? Refrigeration! Did you know that if you take all the food out of your fridge and bury it in the snow, it won’t go bad? The more you know.

Still, chilled food aside, the low outside temperatures can be a big problem. When our house’s temperature dropped down to 61 degrees after eight hours without power, Wes and I packed up Aidan and braved the mile-long drive to Wes’s parents’ house. They have two gas fireplaces that keep their place nice and toasty.

Plus, they have people to talk to there. After eight hours without power, Wes and I were starting to run out of stuff to talk about. And did you know that you can’t shoot zombies on your Wii without power? LAME!

Snow and utility woes be darned, we survived last week. Not only did we survive, we had a lot of fun. We played catch with Aidan in the snow, we played our guitar and clarinet for Aidan, and Wes gave our son his first snow driving lesson.

The biggest takeaway I got from that lesson? Don’t drive in the snow. It’s dangerous, and cars in the snow = death traps. I’m from California, you won’t convince me otherwise. I’d feel much more comfortable taking a dog sledding team to the grocery store.

I doubt the dogs would enjoy schlepping me and my groceries around, though. Too bad! I shall pay them with sirloin and all will yet be well!

Can you tell I haven’t left the house much lately?

I’d like to amend that to say: If you want to help your children learn adorable sabotage, make plans.

There are very few plans I’ve made in the two years since Aidan joined our family that he hasn’t tried to derail in some way. Like, for example, the day he was born.

He was born on his due date, which happened to be a Wednesday. I figured he had a really small chance of being born on his due date (like, only a 5% chance) so I made some plans. I was on maternity leave and figured it was the one day I could count on him to not be born, so why not make plans to meet my friend for lunch?

And then BAM! I woke up that morning at 3:30 am with contractions. NO LUNCH FOR ME.

Another example is the writer’s conference I went to. It was the first time in his whole 1.5 years of life that I was planning to be away for a couple days. I made plans to have family members take care of him, and then I eagerly anticipated getting to mingle and network and learn and feed only myself.

Sure enough, the day before the conference Aidan threw up all over the patio. It later turned out he was just fine, but I still stayed home from the conference the next day because a sick baby needs his mama.

Or, for yet another example, the vacation Wes and I took last year. It was the first vacation we’d taken in two years and we knew it was likely the last chance we’d have to get away for another couple years.

Wouldn’t you know it? Aidan got sick the day before we left, and got me sick too to boot. Wes’s poor mom had the dubious pleasure of caring for our sick baby, and I had the dubious pleasure of sneezing my way through Victoria, BC.

And now we have Tiny Baby, the latest addition to the Mitchell family. Tiny Baby has decided to differentiate him/herself from Aidan by making my pregnancy chock full of thrills and mysteries. One of these mysteries necessitates me having to take it easy for the rest of my pregnancy, which means yet another change in plans: No exercising.

I’d been planning to keep walking on the treadmill throughout my pregnancy, and maybe start reincorporating some weight training once I got through the first trimester, but no dice.

This’ll just make it even more satisfying to lose the baby weight, right? It’s always more fun to have even more work to do, right?

Sigh. Still, I have cute babies so it’s worth it. And soon I’ll have all kinds of cute baby weight to lose, too!

It gave us both pause. I mean, in order to establish whether or not you agree with that statement you have to think over the events of an entire year. Obviously no year is going to be entirely devoid of problems, but can you really say even years have fewer of them?

For us, 2011 was a pretty banner year. Wes started working as lead developer doing work he loves, lost 20 pounds, made it into the diamond league at Starcraft, and developed a new coding technique that his company’s clients are going crazy for. I wrote a book, got published, went to my first writer’s conference, lost 40 pounds, and got pregnant. Aidan learned to walk, started talking, discovered a deep and abiding love for Thomas the Train, and got even cuter (we didn’t think that was going to be possible, but somehow he managed anyway).

We celebrated Aidan’s first birthday, went to the Opera, took a couple little vacations, and made tons of memories with friends, families, and strangers. Yeah, there were problems along the way, but very few of them were big enough for me to remember their specifics.

As for us, I’m not sure the odd years = bad, even years = good rule applies. I mean, unless 2012 is going to be even more exciting than 2011 was. Hard to believe, but an enticing prospect nonetheless.

Here are my hopes for 2012:

• A healthy, happy little baby in July.
• Finishing my zombie apocalypse novel.
• Signing an agent to represent my accountant novel.
• Losing at least half my baby weight by the end of the year.
• Getting good enough at playing Resident Evil on the Wii that I can reliably outrank my husband.
• Getting a good haircut, and then mastering styling said haircut.
• Teaching my son to swim.
• Making more time to blog.
• Writing another short story.

How about you? What are your hopes for 2012? Do you fall under the odd years = bad, even years = good rule?

What a weekend! We hosted two Christmas dinners and two Christmas brunches, with all the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and dishes that implies. Our very house feels exhausted, as though it simply cannot fathom the idea of welcoming one more person into it.

Still, it was worth it. I realized one night, after the dishes were done and I was sleep-walking my way through washing my hair, that if you have enough friends and family to celebrate Christmas with that you feel exhausted by the end of it, you are a very blessed person. If all those people effectively exhaust your toddler too so he sleeps well, then that’s just bonus blessing.

In case you’re curious about some of the food we made this weekend, here are some highlights I recommend:

• Vegetable Tarte Tatin This dish stole the show! It’s a bit tricky to make but so worth it, the combination of flavors is lovely and it’s so pretty to serve.
• Smashed Potato Gratin Maybe we smashed the potatoes a little too much, but this dish seemed to us to be just really fancy mashed potatoes. That said, they’re absolutely scrumptious fancy mashed potatoes.
• Baked French Toast Casserole I made this for brunch on Christmas Eve, and served it with eggs and bacon. So tasty! The bread turns custardy overnight and the praline topping rounds it off nicely. Plus, you make this the night before so there’s less prep time in the morning.

Still, knowing the risk, we decided to give it a whirl. We knew we’d be paying far less in rent than we’d ever be able to pay for the mortgage of a comparable house, plus, renting has a lot of appeal.

For example, repairs. When the heat exchanger on our furnace broke and it was a $1200 repair, guess who didn’t have to pay for it! And when the motor seal on the garbage disposal broke and the disposal had to be replaced? Guess who was really happy to not have to pony up the funds to do so!

I’ll admit, it’s lovely not having to pay for that stuff. We get to live in a house that’s gorgeous, in a neighborhood we love, and we don’t have to worry about any of the headaches that accompany that privilege.

Equity? Whatever. Roof maintenance? Meh. HOA dues? Not my problem.

The only fly in the lovely rental ointment is our lease renewal. Our lease is up in January and we’ve been discussing lease renewal with our landlord for a couple months. He made it no secret that he wanted to charge us more in rent per month, but had yet to land on a definitive number.

Until Wednesday. When he sent us an email saying he wanted to charge us a lot more per month. Like, an 18% increase on our existing rent. Too much!

Wes came to our rescue and talked our landlord down to a rent we can all agree on. It’s still more than we’ve been paying, but not such an increase that it makes me choke on my Cheerios.

So, all’s well. For another year. When we might well have to do this whole rigamarole all over again.

Still, when I think about paying for maintenance crap, I still think renting is awesome. And when I think about not having to move for another year? I like it even more!

A 7.5 foot tall Wesley pine tree, lush and full and dark green forever because it’s fake but the fakeitude is only obvious if you get too close to it. Looping across the width of the tree are strands of colored lights, glowing bright (but not too bright, because they’re not LEDs) in tandem with strands of silver and gold garland beads.

Dangling off the ends of the branches are red, silver, and white ornaments festooned with silver and gold glitter. Poking through these ornaments are family and heirloom ornaments, every one of which has a story, and for some extra flavor there are red and white candy canes here, there, and everywhere.

At the top, there’s a beautiful white star that lights up and shows off the gold swirls that are painted onto it.

This was before. It looked nice, really nice if I do say so.

And then Aidan got to it.

Now, the garlands are diagonal and uneven, the ornaments are grouped in weird places, and the lights are no longer strung straight but are, rather, pulled into random loops by tiny toddler fists.

I got sick of policing my freaking tree, so this morning I moved all the ornaments and garlands up high enough to keep them beyond Aidan’s reach. The tree looks half-finished, but it’s better than constantly telling Aidan not to touch the shiny, pretty things we placed so cruelly at eye level.

Even when we had a puppy, I can say with perfect certainty that Christmas has never been such a pain. My goodness, Christmas decorations are toddler magnets! And none of them are durable enough to be played with by my wrecking ball of a child.

I mean, unless I got rubber ornaments I doubt any decorations would be strong enough to withstand Aidan’s loving attention.

I look forward to future Christmases when my children are big enough to help me decorate the tree and are old enough to look with their eyes. While I understand Aidan’s pathos to experience Christmas, I wonder how many ornaments will survive it…

You see, I had pretty pictures on my camera after the opera, but I only download pictures to my computer about once a month, so the pictures stayed there long after they were relevant. I didn’t really want to write a post about going to the opera without including a picture, so I waited.

And then a week passed.

And then two weeks passed.

When three weeks had passed and my pictures were finally on my computer but too old to be any good to me, I decided to just wait a month and call it good.

So, that’s what I did. Or, rather, what I am doing.

Let me take you back. At the beginning of October, Wes said to me, out of the blue, “Anticipation.”

“Uh, what?” was my response.

He repeated himself, without any explanation save telling me he had a surprise for me but wouldn’t tell me what it was.

He really should have known better.

Picture a fly trapped in a jar. Ok, now give that fly a sugar high. And a full bladder that he’s unwilling to relieve in the confines of the jar.

That was me. I was FREAKING OUT trying to figure out what the surprise was. I LOVE surprises in that I hate them. I like surprises so long as I know what they are. All Wes would tell me was that he was planning a special evening for us, but that was it.

INFURIATING.

After three days of literally losing sleep over the whole thing, I gave up. I decided to try acting like an adult and just let me husband surprise me. Which was, of course, when he decided to relent and tell me.

He bought us opera tickets. To go see Carmen.

Carmen by Georges Bizet is my all-time favorite opera. It’s a dark story but my GOODNESS the music is incredible. I could listen to the music all day every day and if you have the right woman playing Carmen? PERFECTION.

Going to see it live has been on my bucket list for years. Wes, knowing that, heard that the Seattle Opera would be performing it and scooped up tickets for the show, with which he then surprised me.

He had the whole evening planned. First? Dinner at Benihana (I saw the restaurant on Mad Men and wanted to try it).

(Those are sampler glasses of Sake, for the record. Not photographic proof of how wasted I got. I didn’t get wasted.)

Next stop? The opera!

My sister in law straightened my hair for me, which is why I look like an entirely different person. I wore really high heels and a classic little black dress and I painted my nails and looked Oh So Stylish.

Though in Seattle you almost shouldn’t bother because no matter how classic your styling may be, odds are pretty good you’ll get seated next to some smart-aleck drama student who came to the opera dressed as a frigging bird. True story.

In sum, the opera was absolutely transcendent. The music was flawless, the acting and singing superb, and it was everything I’d always dreamed it would be. A night well worth waiting for.

Wes and I were strolling through Target yesterday and it took every scrap of self-discipline I had not to buy ALL THE THINGS.

Ornaments, tinsel, Christmas lights. They’re all amazing and they all belong in my house! Right now!

The reason I love Christmas decorations so much is that I’m not normally very big on decorating my house. My house looks nice (in my opinion, at least) but decor is pretty low on my list of priorities.

Except on Christmas.

On Christmas, we have a tree, and trimmings, and lights, and sparkly things, and there’s color everywhere! Everywhere!

This probably doesn’t seem like a big deal to you, but here in Seattle it gets dark at 4 pm during the winter and you start feeling like maybe there isn’t any color left in the whole world. Like the world is swamped with shades of darkness and shadow, swabbed with a patina of frost.

But at Christmas? The frost is pretty. And the cold outside makes the Christmas lights shine brighter. And the world is all glitter, and gold, and firesides, and treats, and it’s all just the nicest way to celebrate Jesus, in my opinion.

So that’s why this week I’m all about Friday. Because turkey is awesome and all, but it’s nowhere near sparkly enough.

And that? Is just about how my day has been going. Just one big brain cloud that follows me around wherever I go.

It’s not my fault, really. This has already been an incredible month, and it’s only half over. It started out with a project that I thought would preclude me from doing NaNoWriMo. Then, I finished that project early and started NaNo two days late. I was coasting along, really gaining momentum when BAM! ANOTHER PROJECT, this one even bigger than the first one and with little to no warning.

To add stress to projects, I hosted Thanksgiving at my house last weekend for my side of the family. Just me, a 19 lb turkey, 14 hungry mouths, and a small mountain of bread dough. It went really well (and by really well I mean the food was all hot and finished at the same time, everyone had enough to eat, and everyone got along) but I think I only sat down twice the whole evening.

In the midst of this maelstrom of cholesterol, my poor NaNo novel has been sitting on my hard drive, abandoned and stuck at a perpetual 14,843 words. I had finally caught up to where my word count was supposed to be when I got derailed by my GIGANTIC PROJECT.

I haven’t touched it in a week. As prolific as I can sometimes be, I doubt that even I can finish NaNo with a nine day deficit. It’s okay, this novel will get finished in December maybe. Or January. Heck, let’s go crazy and say maybe even February!

In the meantime, I’ll be over in the corner trying to console myself that I’m not a failure just because I didn’t finish NaNo this year. And yes, “console myself” is just code for eating chocolate. Talk therapy is cool and all, but chocolate is way cheaper.

The blanket is entirely my fault, the eyelids aren’t. My weekend was 100-miles-a-minute busy, and even though it was busy in a good way it was still busy and I fervently wish I had a weekend to recover from my weekend.

This is what my table looked like at the signing!

On Saturday I had my first book signing and I’d say it went swimmingly. I’d consider it a huge success, because I sold one book to someone I don’t know, and sold whole heaping bunches to friends and family members who came out to support me.

I’ve gotta say, there’s absolutely nothing in the whole world that makes a writer feel more loved than when someone takes time out from their weekend to stop by their book signing. I was positively beaming by the time I got home, even though I was hobbled by sore feet thanks to my unwise decision to wear high-heeled boots to said signing.

Then on Sunday I volunteered to watch a passel of toddlers in the Sunday school class for kids slightly older than my son, which meant I spent an hour and a half holding kids, breaking up squabbles, rousting trouble-makers, and changing diapers/taking children to the bathroom. After that, I helped set up for a baby shower, attended the shower, and then helped clean up afterward.

I. Am. So. Freaking. Tired.

It was a weekend filled with all things that are good, but I’m still exhausted from all the Being Nice and Chatting With People and Setting Up/Taking Down. I dream of a spa day, quiet and serene, where no one’s allowed to talk and my only job is to sit there and relax while people make my skin and nails happy.

My Monday so far is exactly like that if you consider chastising Aidan for ripping pages out of books to be quiet and serene, vacuuming the house to be sitting there and relaxing, and editing my book and answering emails the same as having people make my skin and nails happy.

Gosh, wouldn’t that just be the worst spa of all time?!