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Between on placement test last Saturday, another coming up this Saturday, Link’s class selection meeting next week, and talking with three neighbors about their kids’ educations, my brain is much full of kid stuff.

It is also fighting off the illness which has run rampant through our family in the last week. The day has been good, but my writing brain abdicated for the day. I hope it will be back tomorrow.

I am a second or third adopter. I have my Kindle because someone else gave it to me. This makes me demographically different from someone who really wants a Kindle in advance of receiving it. I’m glad to have it. I figured I would get one some day, but the truth is that I probably would never have gotten around to buying it for myself before someone gave me one. Facing the actually device and contemplating using it, my feelings toward it are oddly ambivalent. It is as if a part of my brain is afraid that once I become accustomed to reading on a Kindle I will love it and abandon paper books. I may have to change how I define my love of books. I’m not sure I want to do that, but I’ve heard really good things about reading on a Kindle.

Of the current electronic reading platforms, I was most attracted by the Kindle. I’m not sure why.

As with any new gadget there was a learning curve as I figured out how to adjust settings and to use it. There were some moments of frustration during this process. There are probably still some yet to come. The most persistent one is that my subconscious believes that the buttons on the right should page forward while the buttons on the left page back. Both sides have page forward and page back buttons, but it creates momentary confusion when I accidentally page forward when I meant to page backward. This is already fading as I retrain my brain.

The Kindle feels small in my hands. I kind of want a cover for it to give it more heft. I’m a little afraid that I’ll break it somehow. One of my habitual reading times is while I am eating. I’m concerned about splatters and spills.

The page refresh is mildly distracting right now, but I suspect that I will learn to tune it out in the same way that I tune out the turning of a page.

The biggest ongoing resistance that I have to the device is that it is electronic. Somewhere deep in my brain, I expect to be able to check twitter or email. I keep staring at it, and being distracted from absorbed reading. I suspect this will fade as my brain learns what to expect from this device.

I have yet to buy a book for it. I’m testing the waters with free books. I find I have an aversion to spending money for an electronic book. In theory I know why e-book pricing is where it is. In theory I support those prices. But I’m resisting plunking down money for something I can’t really touch. It is an interesting mental block this attachment to a physical object. I’ll take the leap at some point. It is probable that the mental block has more to do with the spending of money than the purchasing of e-books.

I can visualize how this Kindle will be useful. There are books I want to read, but I don’t want to have cluttering the house. I’m looking forward to taking it on trips loaded with books. I don’t have any trips before August, so we’ll see how my habits shake out between now and then.

It will be interesting to look back on this entry in a month to see how much my attitudes have changed.

It was 10:30 pm and 26 degrees outside when our cat began lingering suggestively by the door. She wanted to go out. Which was odd, because sub-freezing temperatures usually send her fleeing the other direction. I let her out, but then I was stuck. If I went to bed, she would be outside in the cold all night. She’d survive. We have a heated pet bed for her. She’s been outdoors in worse weather before she was officially ours. But now that she’s ours, I didn’t want to leave her out in the cold. So I waited, like a mother on prom night, for her to show up at the door.

As I waited, I happened to check twitter. John Scalzi had noted that both of his cats had just asked to go out despite the epic ice storm they’re having in Ohio. I snickered to myself and replied with a joke about a secret global cat meeting. Our cat returned and I went to bed. In the morning several other friends tweeted that their cats had all wanted out too. So now I am wondering what was so important outside last night. Our cat isn’t telling.

This was a morning full of thinky business emails, preceded by a weekend full of thinky parenting. None of it is completely resolved. Many emails and tasks are waiting until I no longer feel like my brain is mush. I remember when the receipt of email filled me with a child-like delight. I still enjoy getting email, particularly happy email filled with possibilities. My brain just gets tired and I have a hard time keeping up some days. Still, I’m doing pretty well for a Monday. The accounting is done and I’ve got the packages out the door. The children will be home in 45 minutes, which will bring chaos, joy, and conflict to my quiet house.

I’ve been sort of afraid to say it out loud, for fear of jinxing it, but January has been … pleasant. I was not aware that this was a possible condition to enjoy during the darkest/coldest month of the year. The goals and mental shifts I made back in December seem to be bearing good fruit. I shall examine it no more and instead just try to keep it up. Some things stop working if you think about them too much.

It took all day, but I set up my new computer. I even did it mostly by myself, which gives me a sense of ownership and accomplishment. More important, this machine is actually tuned and capable for all the graphic design work that I do. I’m itching to try some book layout on this. I’m excited that I won’t have to run use Howard’s machine to use photoshop because my old machine couldn’t handle it. The screen is big enough to hold full page spreads without side-scrolling. I had other things on my list of stuff to do today, but I feel pretty good about getting this done.

Today felt like I want the majority of the next few months to feel. It was not a day free from strife or conflict, but I feel good about the responses I chose for those conflicts. I spent time on a project that is just for me. I even made the house orderly so that I enjoy being here more. This last is important since we are embarking on our third week of sub-freezing temperatures which prevents the kids from playing outdoors for very long.

Snippets from the day:

Kiki has been reading Little Women for her history class and loving it. I’ve been watching with interest as Kiki reacts to all the various developments in the lives of the March family.

I had a conversation with a friend several weeks ago in which we discussed the necessity of cutting back on social interactions to avoid over load. This is particularly true in venues where one needs to appear professional and competent rather than being able to relax. The conversation made me look around at the places where I spend time both in person and online. I realized that while I don’t need to eliminate any, I definitely needed to re-frame how I was thinking about them. The result is more enjoyment and less pressure.

The cold temperatures have driven our outdoor cat almost entirely indoors. I am not dying of allergies which is completely astonishing to me. I believed that the choice to own a cat was to choose being permanently ill. At least in this case, for this cat, I was wrong. I still feel cautious about the whole thing, but also glad.

As of yesterday morning, my shipping process is back into working shape. Stamps.com took all the information I provided them in the 75 minute service call and within 24 hours they’d released a patch that fixed the problem. This is all in place just in time for the January shipping lull.

The project I worked on today is my annual print version of my blog. This year I decided not to simply use LJbook.com to pull the entries for me. That works, but because it is automated it creates odd formatting around photographs and the dates take some deciphering. This year I decided to use my layout tools and make the pages of my book pretty. Then I’ll do something for the cover as well. This process is definitely taking longer, but I’m enjoying it.

And now it is time for me to make bedtime happen.

The week between Christmas and New Years is always a sort of limbo. All the big events of the holiday season are complete, but we can’t yet return to normal because the kids are still out of school. Add to that the fact that the holiday provided me with space to unpack and reorganize all my thoughts. I now have plans I want to implement, but they need to be built into “normal” and so must wait for normal to arrive before I can fully see if they will work.

Despite being in limbo, today was a good day. It was not as focused as I’d hoped it would be, but I still got all of the necessary tasks done. The kids played more video games than I probably should have allowed. Perhaps tomorrow I will require more cleaning.

I gave up on trying to work when I snapped awake to discover that I’d laid my head down on my desk and fallen asleep while waiting for my computer to process. Since the process in question took less than a minute, I’m guessing sleep hit as soon as my head was down. I’ve been on a roll all week long, moving steadily and shorting myself on sleep. I guess my body decided to call in the sleep debt. Which is fine. I’m not exactly on vacation, but we’re definitely in a vacation rhythm around here. So this weekend will have extra sleeping in it. Then next week can have extra organizing and cleaning. Then there will be Christmas.

On Monday I wrote about how my life was slowing down just when most people are speeding up for the holidays. I was mistaken. I worked calmly and steadily through Monday and Tuesday. They were good days and I was able to feel happy about my life and the things that are in it. By Wednesday it became apparent that while “calm and steady” is a good emotional state, it was not keeping up with the deluge of tasks.

I gave last week to the Church Christmas party. This week was supposed to be about finding my balance and setting the house back in order. Instead the week was about hundreds of small things that had become urgent when I wasn’t looking. It was also about tripping over stuff and shoving it into odd corners so that I could pay attention to the task at hand. The result is all jumbled up. My office and work room are in such a state that I’m constantly having to move boxes (or papers, or packaging) in order to get to the books (or papers, or packaging) that I need. I need to do a thorough reorganization, but I’ve been too busy chasing urgent tasks.

Adding to the mix, my two daughters are each having a rough time this week. They each need my full attention to help them sort through and find solutions. And I have little energy or attention to spare.

We’ll sort it all out. I just wanted it to be sorted this week instead of next. I’m constantly hoping that a big effort today will allow me to relax in the future. I’m chasing a mirage, and I haven’t yet figured out how to stop. At least Howard met his achievement goals for the week. The buffer is healthy again.

Kiki’s teacher expects a lot more than Kiki thought on the major project of the year. There was panic.

When Kiki’s work on the major project is assembled, she has more than enough. Now she just has to fill in the gaps.

Having $1000 lay out and design tools is a major help for history projects.

Toasted London broil roast beef sandwiches dipped in broth are really yummy.

Our cat will pounce on dice if we roll them along the floor. Much giggling.

Gleek’s little fuzzy caterpillar on a string toy is a perfect cat toy.

Gleek loves her little fuzzy caterpillar on a string and has a really hard time sharing it with her brothers.

I need to stay focused on the kids before school rather than getting distracted by hauling boxes of books from the car.