Happy New Year!

I just ventured into Google to find out where I'm popping up these days (as my maiden name - the married version pulls up too many hits), and was sorely disappointed not to see Sarebear's Sentral Spot appearing anymore. So, I dug up the old account and password, which, embarrassingly enough, is the same password I use today with some variation, and I updated the index page. So all you crazy stalkers out there who have been looking for me all these years via Googling, HERE I AM! You found me! I'm much less brilliant than I was a decade ago.

The proof of this brilliantlessness is the fact that I have two children who will be awake in seven hours and I am not sleeping, but instead blinking rapidly in order to find moisture for my dehydrated contact lenses while typing about my pathetic website created during high school. This is the best I can do on a Friday night with the husband in Florida. What can I say?

In other news, we went to the rainforest exhibit at the zoo this afternoon, which was great. I hesitate to add the following point because it almost negates the previous sentence and certainly adds a flair of sarcasm to it, but I think it is a valid comment. So, they pay a woman to sell me tickets to get into the rainforest/zoo approximately 200 feet from the rainforest entrance, AND they pay a nice young lady to sit at the door of the rainforest and collect said tickets into 80-degree rainforest building, but they do NOT pay a nice young lady to tell me that there are coat racks for my fourteen-layered children who will sweat and strip their layers to be handed to me to carry for the duration of the trip. No, they most certainly left out that item on the job description list.

So I lugged three large winter coats around an humid building which also broadcasts fake squawking noises apparently like what you'd hear in a crowded rainforest in December. It was hot. And loud. BUT we really did have a great time, especially at the orangutan exhibit. And Elvis said "fsh fsh fsh fsh fsh fsh" about ten thousand times at the two glass aquariums, which was So. Cute.

We (meaning me and the kids) are staying at my parents' house for the remainder of the weekend while Brandon drives his 85 year old grandmother to Florida, the poor soul. All that warm weather. God save him. And us up here bathing in the anemic rays of the January '09 sun. It's really a pity he isn't here.

Note: Yes, it is now past 11, and my kids will still wake up in less than seven hours, and I am indeed continuing to type ridiculous, unimportant yet mildly entertaining blather.

Christmas and New Years have been delightful, though - so much good times to be had and old friends to see and funny junk to trade in white elephant parties. We have spent every day since December 20 with family, and that is a good thing. I do miss being so close (though an hour and a half really isn't that far, in the grand scheme of global relocation), especially now that my brother is engaged to a very, very nice girl who I am thrilled to have as a soon-to-be sister-in-law. Family becomes increasingly important to me. I don't think I would be so opposed to a Great Depression-esque situation that would force extended families to move in under the same roof and start farming again. Yes, I am a sick, sick 21st century female. I'd even opt in for making many babies and canning tomatoes. Though I'd need to learn how. To can tomatoes.

Happy new year, 2009! I hope all of your recession dreams come true!