Wind, books, and dogs!

What do these three things have in common? They're all driving me crazy!

The wind has been gusting somewhere between 50 and 100 miles per hour for the last few days. Sometimes it's kind of funny, like when the wind blew me along the corridor to the front door of the club today. It was like effortless jogging!

But when you can't even set you garbage can out for pickup because it blows away, or when thick drifts of leftover snow get packed into the road or your driveway, or your power goes out for hours and hours, that's not fun at all. I really hate it when it sucks my breath away and takes me a few moments to inhale again. I feel like I'm suffocating.

I haven't touched the 100 book list yet this year, though I have read a novel of Redwall and Ella Enchanted so far this year. I think I'll need to get a library card to accomplish this reading task I've set myself. And my own novel is still inching along at a glacial speed. I may be able to finish it sometime in the next geological age.

My dog Bruno decided to take a jaunt through the neighborhood with his new canine pals. A lot of people in this area let their dogs run around loose, which doesn't bother me too much as long as they don't start fights with mine or damage our things. Since I was working on digging out the drift that has blocked my husband's truck in the driveway, I let the dogs have a little fun and run in the yard.

Uffda was a good girl. When Bruno left the yard, I didn't see him, but she did. I could tell she badly wanted to follow him but she came back to me when I called her. I gave her love and brought her inside for a cookie.

I went back out to call for Bruno. I was sure he couldn't hear me thanks to the dratted wind, so I had to go back inside to thaw a bit before I could search for him. I grabbed a leash while I was in there.

I walked along the road (or trudged, since I was wearing heavy boots.) I passed the next door neighbor and reached the duplex on the other side before i saw him. Sure enough, he was running around with two or three other dogs. When I called him, he pulled up short. One of his friends ran right up to me, stumpy tail wagging, so I petted him. Then I called Bruno again.

He took as long as he possibly could have, moving like a snail because he knew he was in trouble and was in no hurry to reap it. But he came straight to me. Since he came when I called and sat when I told him, I merely put the leash on him and said, "Say goodbye to your friends." He walked calmly beside me, not pulling as he usually wants to do. All the way to the house. No cookie for him today.

I can't wait until spring.

Flashbacks

After the last post, I was struck with the sudden desire to look back on my other New Year's posts. There were only two others since I started this blog. Here's a very brief recap of what was going on:

In January 2008, we hung out with one of our coworkers and shot off fireworks in his backyard. We had also adopted Bruno right around that time. We were working, eating, and sleeping and that was pretty much it (though we did squeeze in a drive to Talkeetna and saw our first moose after three months of living in Alaska.)

In 2009, things had quite dramatically changed. I helped my new writerly friends make a video to enter in a contest and we got second place. I'm still very proud of that video and I remember how much fun we had making it (and how cold it was, too!)

But the really big thing last January was "The Spitfire Grill." I was reading about the opening, watching the Youtube videos, and even read all the way through February and the last show. I still get tears in my eyes when I think about that night.

See why I added theatre to my list of resolutions this year?

Christmas, New Years, and the future!

Christmas brought great relief to our tiny Whittington household. Both of us working in retail diminishes the specialness of the holiday season, but we still had something to be grateful for on Christmas day: we both had the day off! We were so stoked when we got home from work Christmas Eve that we opened all our presents that night. My husband totally floored me with his gift: The complete MASH series, plus the movie, plus a bunch of really cool extras, all compiled into this neat green fatigue box. It is without a doubt the coolest collection I now own. As soon as we're done watching Lost, that's going into the DVD player next.

We spent Christmas Day mostly at home, then went to Logan's former boss's house for dinner. Got to meet Morgan and Jake's new baby, Payton. So cute! No, I did not hold her because I was positive I would drop her, she was so tiny!

New Years Eve also passed quietly. Well, quietly for us, if not the town. Lots of fireworks going off in the area, but we couldn't really see too many. The main attraction of the night was the glorious full moon. If it weren't so freaking cold out that night, I probably would have stood out there looking at that moon for hours. But we hustled back inside after a few minutes to watch the ball drop on "Dick Clark's New Years Rocking Eve," or whatever it's called.

We had chosen to stay in for the night after Logan came to pick me up at work. (I bet I was scheduled to work New Years Eve and Day because they knew I wouldn't call in "sick!") He had passed two police "incidents," one of which happened at the Brown Jug Liquor store down the street. Four cops all pointing guns at a guy coming out of his car with his hands up. And it wasn't even dark yet! Good night to stay home.

So here I am, wondering what I'm going to resolve to do this year. Two are repeat resolutions from last year, but I've got a couple new ones to add:

1) Stop biting my nails. (I know, I know. EVERY year the same thing. I'll do it for good one day.)
2) Finish working on my novel Sparkless and start shopping it around as I move on to revise Summerland's Savior.
3) Read as many books from that list of 100 books everyone should read. At least I'll try to get to the classics.
4) Perform in at least ONE show this year!

It's been a year almost to the date when I last opened a show. It's killing me to watch all my friends perform and not being able to take part myself. I realize that resolution has a lot of parts to it (for instance, my job will need to be changed or dropped altogether for this to happen), but it must happen. Or I'll shrivel up and die. Well, maybe not die. But it won't be pretty, I'm sure.

Anyway, I think that's good enough for this year. Heck, it may be good enough for this whole decade, the way my progress on writing has been going. Sheesh.

Many blessings to you and yours in 2010!