April 7 , 2004

I can't believe it's been 3 months since I did an update. Time flies!

Our biggest news is getting approval from the City of Millbrae for the addition to our house. It was a 3-month process that involved submitting plans, revising them based on input from the planning department, 2 meetings to present the designs to our neighbors, 2 study sessions and 1 public hearing in front of the Planning Commission, having various experts provide reports, and many meetings with our architect. Now it's on to the building department for permits.

However, we're looking at the whole project again given estimates from builders. It's going to cost a lot more than we thought it would, so we have some work to do. Stay tuned.

The kids are doing well. Katelyn just got her second report card of the year and is at the level she needs to be at the end of the year in almost all of her subjects. She's really getting into reading now. Periodically I walk in her reading to Haley. I love that! She's very self-sufficient now in a lot of ways, growing up way too fast, though. For those of you who know Katelyn intimately, she had the mole on her butt removed on February 26. It was a bit traumatic, but it's healed up well and now won't be bothering her so much.

As I reported last month, Katelyn's birthday party was a bit disrupted by our bad case of poison oak. We made up for it by having some of her friends over for a cookie-baking party on January 17. It was just two days after we had the fence put in around the back part of our property. At the same time we had them tear down the gate into the back area, effectively making it completely accessible. It was wonderful to watch the kids run around back there, playing "adventure". It was *exactly* why we love this piece of land. My step-dog Tommy loves it too - it's his playground back there.

Haley continues to be our "destructo baby", into everything and fiercely independent. Our big issue with her is getting her to stay in bed at night. Sometimes she's up and down for 2 hours after bedtime! It's exhausting. But she's a sweetheart just enough so I just want to hug her a lot more than she'll sit still for.

Val continues to work at Triton as the Network Services Manager, working many hours with lots of responsibility.

I've now been at Oracle 10 years! My job is incredibly busy - not enough resources, never enough time. But I really love doing it, designing good "user experiences" for our customers. I have a lot of responsibility and get to exercise both my left and right brain most days.

I had a walk down memory lane on March 28. Big Moves asked the Fat Lip Reader's Theater to do a benefit performance. I was a long-time member of this group, which disbanded 7 years ago. A description of what we do/did: "Combining analysis, drama, and a keen sense of the absurd, Fat Lip Reader's Theater, a feminist collective, has been combating fat-phobia from the stage since 1981." We perform prose, poetry, and song. I hope to have some video clips available here soon. Rehearsals for this event took up my Sunday afternoons for a few months, but it was definitely worth it. I need to do theater again!

Let's see, what else have we been up to?