Monday, January 19, 2009

Happy Inauguration!

Whatever your feelings about the outcome of the recent election, I'm sure we can all agree that our new president and our nation could use our prayers and best wishes over the next four years. Here's to Hope!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Photo Montage

So, I've been tagged. Granted, Kristie put out the challenge 3 or 4 months ago, and, also granted, I don't really believe in playing tag (OK, it's more like I'm agnostic towards online games of tag), but it looked like fun and so I did it. Here is the challenge:

The rules of the game:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker. (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php) Then upload or copy the completed mosiac to your blog.
d. If you're reading this, you may consider yourself tagged (but only if you think it would be fun).

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? Margaret
2. What is your favorite food? Raspberries
3. What high school did you go to? Kahuku (and, yes, I was in the marching band!)
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? George Clooney
6. Favorite drink? Right now it's hot mint tea
7. Dream vacation? Today, I'm thinking London
8. Favorite dessert? Chocolate!
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Happy (I wish I knew what profession I wanted to be when I grew up)
10. What do you love most in life? My Family
11. One Word to describe you. Friendly
12. Your Flickr name (or other online name) Markie!



Photo credits:
1. Margaret "Wyld Meg" Ogg, Feral Child of Lochloorach, 2. Drop a Raspberry, 3. Kahuku, 4. Blue ice cave at the Jostedalsbreen glacier, 5. George Clooney, 6. Green mint tea, 7. The Day of the Storm in London Covent Garden..., 8. Put Chocolate Pudding on the Top Shelf !!, 9. don't worry be happy new year, 10. My family portrait, 11. "you've got a friend", 12. Markie Blitz Super Hero 2

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

What's in a name?

I don't really regret changing my name when I got married, but I have been missing my maiden name lately. My (nuclear and extended) family is really cool and I like having that visible connection to them. Of course, if I could, I'd share a name with all of my mom's side of the family too - you can see how that would get very messy, very fast. And, of course, there's the feminist side of me that says, "Why should I be the one to give up half of my identity just because I'm a woman?"

My old name was hard to spell, constantly butchered in pronunciation, and is way too close to a swear word, but it was ME. My new name (OK, not really new since we've been married for more than 11 years, but you know what I mean) is common, easy to spell, easy to say, and it actually has become me. But, I wish there was a non-clunky way to have both. Hyphenating is not for me (my signature is already 17 letters long!), and I like that we all have a common name for our family. I think the Chinese way is my favorite. In Chinese I would be 'Markie Oldname' but we would be the 'Newname' family and I would be 'Mrs. Newname'. Who's with me on adopting the Chinese way?

Saturday, January 3, 2009

The bed's too small

The first year and a half of our marriage, Erik and I had a full-sized bed. It worked, but, as mattress stores love to point out, if there are two people on a full-sized bed, each one has less total acreage than a crib mattress. It can start to feel a little cramped. On the other hand, while it's great fun to stay in a hotel, the King-sized bed just feels lonely. So, we're generally pretty happy with our Queen-sized bed. It's not too big, not too small, not too hard, not too soft - even Goldilocks would approve. It's even big enough for the occasional visit from our sweet 3-year old. Until last night, that is. Go-go's best friend Becca is staying with us for a week while her mom is in Utah. Last night, Becca had a bad dream, so we brought her into bed with us to snuggle. About a half-hour later, Go-go came in to snuggle too. With his usual snuggle-spot occupied, Go-go improvised throughout the night - using my shins, stomach, feet, or hip as a pillow; lying perpendicularly across our ankles; snuggling around my head like a cat; and just lying in his regular spot despite the fact that Becca was already there underneath him. Despite all of this, the kids seemed to get plenty of sleep. The adults? Not so much. I think that we're going to be in big trouble when Mui-mui gets big enough to climb out of her bed and into ours.