Okay - how geeky is this? Gary, Rowan, and I are all on our computers right now. Yes, we each have one. This is the first time we've done a three-way computing session (ugh, I'm just picturing the search engine hits I'm going to get from that sentence)! I'm about to ruin it to go off and cook dinner, but I just wish the webcam could scan the whole room at once (then again, I look like cr@p today, and this is one of the rooms yet to be hit by the decluttering urge, so, um, maybe not!).

So, we're in the midst of a big decluttering bug. Well, I'm in the midst, Gary is being dragged in kicking and screaming, and Rowan only notices if I try to get rid of something she suddenly fancies (which means most Rowan-decluttering occurs during preschool hours!). Right now in the middle of the kitchen are 5 bags of outgrown clothes of hers (and some hasn't-been-worn-since-before-she-was-born stuff of mine) to go to Goodwill. And a Chess game for good measure (we had a cheap plastic set, then went on vacation and bought a cheap plastic game set that included all the equipment for checkers, backgammon, and chess - so cheap plastic set #1 goes to Goodwill, too). Because I'm just not quite Chessy enough to be doing that playing two games at the same time against two people thing. At least in the house. What is especially exciting to me is that there's ROOM in the kitchen to have 5 (very full) garbage bags full of clothes. A week ago, that was not possible. A week ago, half our Christmas boxes were there, a bag of empty cans and bottle (we have to pay a deposit on our cans/bottles of carbonated stuff, and then return it for the 5 cents back. Which is wonderful for the environment [would be better if they updated this to include the fact that in the 20 years since the Bottle Bill was passed, many more non-carbonated things are put in plastic bottles or aluminum cans], but not so great for an orderly house. AT least not when said house consumes Coke products in numbers that would send shivers down the spines of anyone who's done that "sticking [some body part] of a [some animal] in a glass of coke for a week and seeing what happens" thing in school. There was at least one full bag of garbage there, too. Shoes. Some errant clothing. Lots of cat hair. Basically, it was a total disaster. The type that wouldn't just cause Martha Stewart heart failure - the type that would send Erma Bombeck screaming for the hills. And this continued throughout the house. In the past year I've been working, things have gotten worse (and we were NEVER a model of organization around here!) - I can't imagine what would happen if I worked full time. We'd lose Rowan in a pile somewhere (or to the department of social services for the living conditions). So, now I'm trying to fix 4.5 years' worth of cluttering... and actually making progress one can see. The living room is looking lovely. The kitchen is okay - still needs some stuff put away from the counter and table, but it's clean and useable (oh, well, once those 5 bags are out - and they're only there until Gary gets home this afternoon). I could actually have someone in the house (providing the bedroom doors were closed and they didn't look in the sunroom!) without twitching. The sunroom is my current project. I hate to imagine what I may find. If you don't hear from me in months, make sure I'm not caught in something sticky or anything!

So, I'm 28 today. Don't feel much different, but 28 sure does sound a lot closer to 30 than 27 did! Feel free to send presents. ;)

I am so full of nostalgia today I might pop. I have '80s music in my head; I read a book that reminded me of an old friend/crush; I just spent an hour online talking to an old 'net friend I haven't seen in a while; I watched Little House on the Prairie and Remington Steele today and both remind me of being in the new stages of double-digited ages... I can't quite explain it, but sometimes I wish life had a rewind button - I don't want to go back and change anything, and I don't want to relive it all, but there are some moments, some experiences, where the feelings of just remembering are so intense it makes my chest physically ache, be it good or bad, that I would just like to go back and experience again. To know how much of what I remember is real and how much is altered in my mind, as well as just for the experience itself. I certainly don't want to BE 12 or 15 or 20 again, but to revisit it in full glory would suffice. I have a wonderful present, and hopefully an even better future... but sometimes that yearning for a small part of the past just takes over my ability to focus on that.

Well, I guess I'm officially fully horrendous - I have not had a chance to even think about an AIDS day entry. And it's now been a month. I admit it, I suck. As does AIDS. There... does that count? (Why do I sense things being thrown at the screen about now?) Part of the problem is I don't know how to convey what I want to get across. What it feels like to grow up as part of my generation - where we missed out on all that reckless abandon of those before ours... growing up in the age of Just Say No to drugs, moving on to the Just Say No (or at the very least Just Say Condom!) to sex hoopla. Is it any wonder our generation was so immensely drawn to nostalgia at such an early age... 70s music; watching cartoons; hording out of date computer equiptment (okay, maybe that's limited to my more geeky companions...)? Drugs would kill; sex would kill; alcohol would kill. At least we had television and arcade games to use as an escape - pity the teens today coming of age where television and video games are also on the lethal list. Anyhow... that's the beginning of the gist of what I wanted to say, so I guess I can go back to being only half horrendous. So, in other news. I'm getting a zillion hits (well, okay, not a zillion, but a high percentage of my search engine hits the past month have been) for "Heather Renee." Now, this of course perplexed me from the start. I know of two other Heather Renee's - Heather Renee Alexander (who may well have a different last name these days - to explain the relationship would sound something like a Springer episode - she is the grandaughter of my (now deceased) great-aunt's male (now deceased) longtime companion for lack of a better word - who I only met when we both ended up visiting their joint abode at the same time) and Heather Renee French (who I don't know personally, but sure knew of when everyone who knows my full name thought it great fun to point out that Miss America had the same name as me - she was the deaf one, I think). Aaaaaaaaaanyway. All these "Heather Renee" hits had me intrigued, so I did some searching of my own. From what I can tell, there's a somewhat famous (don't ask me how - I can't say I'm a big part of these circles) cross dressing (why am I blanking on the more accepted these days term right now?) man who when in womanly form goes by the name Heather Renee. I just feel bad that then they come to my site and are like "wait, this is a REAL chick!" Or even worse, perhaps they DON'T realize that at first. But if you're one of those people who stumbles here by accident looking for that other Heather Renee - could you answer a question? How is (s)he so famous? Why since November have hundreds of people been searching for her out of the blue? Please, I'm curious - sign my guestbook w/ the answer or email me, or something! :) Now this has gotten huge - what happens when I get typing after a month's hiatus - so I won't go into the details of our exciting Christmas and New Years' (hint on the second: we were asleep by 11pm). You've officially been spared.