(Photo by Steve Rawley)

“That’s Not It” has been available on Kindle since October, and now you can purchase a genuine printed copy. Alternately, you can buy it on Amazon.

Please buy a copy, or multiple ones if you’re in a gift-giving mood, if it is in the budget. Send me an e-mail if you’d like a free bookmark to go with it. Include your address and I’ll mail it to you. Thanks for your support of this crazy-ass endeavor of mine. (PS I will be updating my author site soon, so bookmark it if you are so inclined.)

So. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I know I am. Aren’t some days just a little too frickin’ much? I was getting ready to start the holiday baking (casseroles, cookies, breads, and assorted everything). Thought I would start by cleaning the oven. Bad call. I broke the oven. (Let this be a lesson to you.) Now we’re in the middle of picking out a new one, and will be converting from electric to gas, only the ovens (ovens!!! finally getting the convection oven I’ve wanted my entire life) will be electric, and ps they don’t make the right kind of gas stove to fit into the drop-in slot the current stove is in and hello, carpenter, bye-bye, countertop and cabinet, we need more wiggle room.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you know how Steve and I are: Why clean the bathroom when you can grow mushrooms in there instead? We do it nice cuz we do it frickin’ complicated. (That particular remodel took the contractors four fun-filled months.)

Today I need to:

* make cooky dough and freeze it, in anticipation of someday having a stove again
* work on my new book (ideas/dialogue that need to be written down before they go away)
* finish Granny’s memoir… still inputting recipes and kinda not into it
* clean the house
* work out
* update calendar
* help the kids with homework
* fix dinner (waffles? soup in the microwave? again? bake bread in breadmaker?)
* work on publicity for “That’s Not It” — reading? book signing? order copies to sell, finish press release, update author site, and the list goes on…
* avoid Facebook/Twitter/politics/the mayor of Portland
* figure out what to get Steve, the kids, and the rest of our family for Christmas
* finish mailing out holiday cards
* oh, right. buy more holiday cards

Honestly, all I want to do is climb into a hot bath and stay there ’til January. Please advise, dear readers: What do you do to rein in the schedule?

xo,

WM

edited on Thursday to say: I baked cinnamon swirl bread in the breadmaker — delicious with butter, and not as sweet as a cinnamon roll. (I can’t find the recipe online — it was from the cookbook that came with the machine. But it baked in the breadmaker — no turn out, extra rising, etc.)

I’m baking whole wheat bread right now. I mixed up and froze dough for Mexican Wedding Cakes and chocolate chip cookies (semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips — my secret ingredients) and Spritz are next. Tonight? Burritos in the microwave (not to be confused with microwave burritos, although we have some of those in the freezer ;) and… salad. Last night was waffles. Good thing I mainly survive on protein shakes (blender! also not broken!) and soup. The kids seem to be fine with pre-made mac and cheese, cereal, toast, peanut butter sandwiches, granola bars and… more waffles? Damn. Missing the oven. We can always send out for pizza. It’s not like we don’t do that once a week, anyway.

(Photo by Steve Rawley)

we have raspberries in the yard that are trying to ripen. i love December in Oregon.

— wm

“Let’s begin with a new segment. We base it on the fact that no one has yet been held accountable for the 2008 financial crisis. It’s a new segment we call: ‘How the F#@k Is It That Martha Stewart Went to Jail?'” — Jon Stewart, “The Daily Show” 12/1/11

…for friends, for family, for hope. and that… is all i’ve got.

but it’s a lot.

— wm

those are words i never in a million years thought i would have to write. Rob Ingram passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack yesterday, Nov. 27th, 2011. Peace and prayers to Rob’s beautiful wife and five amazing kids. He got more done in less than four decades than most people accomplish in a lifetime. This is a huge loss to all of us, but to his family most of all. Rob, thank you for all the work you did.

this is an interview Steve recorded with Rob, September of 2009. i love the picture — was so psyched when Steve showed me the photos he’d taken. Hard to get a bad pic of the man, but I thought this one was really nice.

not finding much to be thankful about today, so i guess i will have to say, thankful he was with us for the short while we had him. Here is what OPB had to say.

— wm

“I do what I do because I’m accustomed to accomplishment CONSISTENTLY!” — Rob Ingram, from Twitter 10/12/11

yesterday, i was grateful cuz we all went to see the Muppets movie (soooo funny) and my sis and her husband, Red-Headed Guy from Texas, went, too. I was going to fix dinner for us, but she said, No, we have to go out for Indian food. So we did! giving me not 1 but 3 things to be grateful for: the Muppets, time w/ family, and Indian food. oh gosh it was good, i’m just saying…

Today? Today i am extra-grateful cuz Steve did the grocery shopping, and now he’s hanging up the Christmas lights. wow. what a dude, huh?

oh yeah also he sent the final (final?) (final!) (cuss plz let this be the final) draft of my book + the bio + the cover to the publishers for the hard copy y’all have been so impatiently waiting for.

so check the website and we will have links up within the next couple weeks.

i promise.

thank you for your support. ps my bookmarks for “That’s Not It” arrived this week, too. If you would like a personalized bookmark, plz leave a note in comments or send me an e and i will mail one to you!! They’re very pretty and shiny.

this is messed up.

grateful for the sunshine. off to work in the yard! won’t be long now until we’re planting spring peas. i’m really enjoying our herb garden, which looks like it may survive winter. parsley, sage, rosemary and two kinds of thyme! (pineapple and standard. get it? standard thyme? ha! ha! yeah i love a bad pun.) we also have lemon balm and oregano in pots. we have some ornamental oregano, too — v. pretty.

some of the herbs are in the ground, some are in pots. wasn’t sure if I was going to want to move them around or not, so we tried to stay flexible last year. I have a long rock wall with a few spots to fill in, up above. (here’s the picture from last summer. the area I need to deal w/ is to the left, above the strawberries.) the raspberries are taking over, the apple trees are a mess and may need to come down. (diseased fruit, diseased leaves — we keep treating with copper sulfate, but this could take awhile, or not be a success story at all.)

my mom is giving us a couple more hydrangeas and another snowball bush, too. now where to plant everything?

happy friday, y’all.

— wm

grateful for critters and nature.

“Teaching a child not to step on a caterpillar is as valuable to the child as it is to the caterpillar.” — Bradley Miller, activist (b. 1956)

grateful today because i feel optimistic. i feel wildly, uncontrollably, ridiculously optimistic. the economy is lousy, the wars are still raging, there are still way too many people going hungry and homeless and without jobs. but i have hope that someday things are going to get a little better, or at least ease up, a bit. and maybe, after that, things will get a lot better.

why do i feel this way? i have no idea, but i’m going with it.

grateful and hopeful and yearning for a better world for my kids and everyone else’s to grow up in.

peace, and peace and love and happiness.

yours,

wm