birthday fairies

Thanks to all my birthday fairies who sent notes, cards, emails, presents, warm thoughts, blog poems and calls my way to celebrate my personal holiday. Makes a gal feel nice. And maybe stave off the grumpy old woman status for another year.

39 is the new 39.

birthday eve

Spent the birthday eve at the Imagination Workshop with the girls- Louise, Pauline, Janet and Sharon. Painting and gluing and playing. A perfect antithesis to any birthday aging nonsense. Plus I made a pretty treasure box.

ode to 38

It never feels like what you'd imagine
if only you imagined this far
but usually my brain only went until about now
but now I stop and pause and see what it is
this year I've done
come and gone
surprising where I've found ground and where I've lost my feet
how simple things are hard and the hard oddly easy
I've not done it all with grace and light
Scrappy and scrapy
but job done
Beyond getting by I want the flow
It is the up and it is the awake
And the map I am drawing
Mustn't lose the pencil
In order to go I have to be there
Here
I am
Awake

passed

my Theory test! (33 of 35 correct!)
whahooooo
Now onto a driving lesson to see how good (or bad) I am at driving here and book my behind the wheel test.

new words

Spaeggie (a Shetland word only) – the feeling in your muscles the day after you work out
Stookie – a cast (like when you break your arm)

These must be Scottish only as Mark never heard of either!

virtue

I just made an NHS dentist appointment.
Not only hard to find, but true to the spirit of clean living.
And one of the only real resolutions I attempted to announce for 2007.
Not bad for day 9.

in theory

I take my UK theory driving test here on Thursday morning and should really be studying my street signs and roundabout structures and calculating how many meters away from the car in front of me I must be.

Honestly, after almost 23 years of driving, it seems way way boring. Things are just the same enough to be deadly dull and different enough that I really do need to read the 4 library books on the test and the Highway Code.

Then the fun begins and I get to start worrying about my practical test -- where I have to reverse AROUND a corner! Um, can anyone do that?

Sometimes I hate goals. said the cheery life coach

babies

I'd like to publicly welcome 2 new humans into the world with congratulations and happiness showered on the good people who are their parents.

Right- Andy and his brood including new Nick, Anna and Sam

Left- Long awaited Sam Jaffe and proud Mary (Note - this just in -- this child, too , is Nick! Not the baby Sam! I've just been informed. Now to get the real Sam on film. But mostly, Mary looks so damn good with an infant on her arm)

tasteless

I've had the mack daddy of all colds since Boxing Day (that's Dec 26 for all Americans).

And I have totally lost my sense of smell. And taste.

All of my special post Christmas meals have been lost on me. The scent of the Scotch pine Christmas tree... missing. The world feels bland without it. My sense of hunger is weird. I am not craving anything. Nothing is exciting to me. But the wet wool smell of the bus or Mark's feet is no longer offending either.

It is strange to have 2 such powerful senses removed. And being a girl driven by nice smells and flavours, I don't quite feel myself.

new year crew

Visiting Canadian & Dutch contingent for Hogmany eve!