round here

At work and at home, the high-stress level continues apace. On a daily basis, I’ve been anxious, angry, depressed, and overwhelmed—not myself (happy, organized, invested). I fear that the boys have suffered as a result but I hope to ameliorate their pain with lots of fun-sized chocolate bars. October has been an extraordinarily long, busy month. But some nice things happened, including turning 40 without incident. Here are the highlights:

~awesome birthday trip to San Francisco and Napa Valley

~a long-overdue visit from my brother Jeff (we last saw him four years ago)
Jeff and our younger brother Nik spent the night with us before driving to South Dakota for the pheasant opener. In a wonderful coincidence, they arrived on Simon’s birthday so we were able to have a little celebration with homemade pizzas and chocolate cupcakes that my mother made. Simon and Winston had a blast palling around with their uncles. Because their visit was way too brief, we all vowed to head south this coming winter and pick up where we left off. Uncle Jeff, a former golf pro who lives in the greater Phoenix area, would like to put golf clubs in the boys’ hands. Simon and Winston would be so lucky—I can’t think of better teacher.

~Simon turned eight
He deserves his own post celebrating the occasion, and I hope to give him one soon. We’re having a party for him on Saturday, hoping to keep it low key with just a few friends and a cake and (possibly) an outing to see The Bee Movie.

~I hosted a quiet cocktail party with a few friends
We ate polpetti (tiny meatballs), great cheese (a creamy, stinky taleggio-style cheese from Virginia and a goat-milk tomme), warm spicy-sweet cashews, and a tasty slab of country pate with vinegary-tart cornichons. And, we drank a ton of wine, including a 1999 Karl Lawrence cab and a 2004 Domaine Lafond lirac.

~We hired reinforcements
At the office, that is, we hired another editor to replace one who left almost three months ago. I hope we can quickly get her up to speed so that she may help us dig out from under (how many cliches can I use in one sentence? would you know that I'm a writer/editor?). She (Ginny) starts on November 7.

Since I am generally optimistic, I feel it's safe to safe that things will get better soon!