Our beautiful baby girl was born Saturday, March 27th at 9:41 am. She was 6 lbs 1 oz and 18.5 inches long. We are healthy and doing well (but could use a lot more sleep!).

Today is an international day of blogging to celebrate women in technology and science. Lord Byron’s daughter, Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, wrote the first computer programs for Charles Babbage’s Analytical Engine. (Are visions of steampunk dancing in your head yet?) Today we celebrate her accomplishments and those of countless other women scientists who get far less name recognition than they deserve.

My hubby informed me of this day, with the email subject line “for our daughter.” How cute is that? Hopefully she will grow up in a more equal world.

I’ve pledged to blog about women in science and tech that I admire. I’ll start with my mother, a doctor, who saves people’s lives during the day and comes home each night to be a domestic goddess. She started medical school when I was two and had my little brother during it. Her patients love her. Move over, Martha Stewart.

Famous woman I admire: Elizabeth Blackwell, first woman doctor, (1821-1910). Tenacity, thy name is Elizabeth. She began studying medicine privately before searching for a medical school that would admit her. Rejection after rejection followed. Geneva Medical College in New York eventually accepted her. She fought ostracism and prejudice to graduate first in her class in 1849, becoming the first woman to graduate from medical school. Faced more ostracism and prejudice to set up a practice, but she kept on trucking. She later went on to found a Women’s Medical College.

So here’s a toast to women everywhere who strive to make the world a better place, who innovate despite opposition, and who don’t give a darn what society thinks about them. Cheers!

Six years ago today I married my Prince Charming!

May you have a very happy New Year filled with love!

Warm wishes and god jul to you and your kin!

We celebrated the holidays in Seattle for the first time in four years. Our semi-annual caroling party with friends was a success, though we missed a number of people who got snowed in on the East Coast. After stuffing ourselves with good food and drink, we caroled in four part harmony along Candy Cane Lane in Ravenna. My mom made our secret family Swedish Glögg recipe (which, consisting mostly of port and whiskey, I could only sniff wistfully this year).

Today we rocked around the Christmas tree with my large extended family. The jultompten brought books on babies, breastfeeding, and birthing. (Not a secret baby in sight! ) Mr. Wonderful and I bought ourselves a fancy new camera to take photos of our little bundle of joy. Three months to figure out how to use all the bells and whistles–we can do it!

On a non-baby-book-related note: December’s book club book was Nalini Singh’s SLAVE TO SENSATION, which everyone loved. I’ve got her latest Psy-Changeling book in my hand as I relax on the couch, digesting my extra helpings of fruit cake. If you haven’t tried Ms. Singh yet, I thoroughly recommend her.

We’re looking for a good historical paranormal for our next pick. Any suggestions?

May 2010 bring you and your family good health, peace and joy!

I have so much to be thankful for this year–the most wonderful husband, an adorable furbaby, great friends, supportive family, bountiful travel opportunities, time to pursue writing and art, living in the most beautiful place in the world…. This year we have exciting news to be thankful for: the Scottish playboy and I are expecting our very own secret baby! We found out this week that we are having a little girl, and now visions of sugarplums, tea parties and fairy princess dresses are dancing in our heads. Our little bundle of joy is due April 5th.

Name suggestions??? We’re looking for something not too popular, but not too weird, that will fit our heroine-in-training.

I hope everyone had a fabulous thanksgiving and that your holiday season is merry and joyful. May you read many good books!

It’s my favorite time of year: Halloween! Why? you might ask. Not for the candy, which I used to collect but never eat. Not for the ghost stories, which give me nightmares. Not for the pranks. When it comes to fun, I’m all about the costumes. This year I worked on five costumes for an Alice in Wonderland themed pub crawl before I was laid low by the flu. Fortunately the costumes are finished (see me as the Cheshire Cat at right). Unfortunately I’ll have to live the pub crawl vicariously through pictures. I also love pumpkin carving, and although I made it out to a pick-your-own-pumpkin patch, I didn’t get around to carving the darn things.

My favorite Halloween things:

Favorite Halloween Costume: Whatever I’m working on at the moment

Favorite Halloween Activity: Pumpkin Carving, costume making

Favorite Halloween Food: Hot spiced cider and hot gingerbread

Favorite Halloween Candy: mini mars bars

Favorite Halloween Movie: Disney’s Hocus Pocus, starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker

Favorite Halloween Song: “This is Halloween” from Disney’s The Nightmare Before Christmas

Favorite Halloween Story: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Necessary Halloween Items: A raincoat, scarf, warm gloves and a costume that fits over or under said raincoat. It always rains on Halloween here.

What are your favorite parts of this holiday? What are you (or your kids) dressing up as?

Another year has flashed by. I’ve read a lot of books, written a lot of words and traveled a lot of places. I’ve said goodbye to some dear friends and family members, and celebrated weddings and births. A year full of adventures: showshoeing in Japan, sailing the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, and trekking the rainbow-filled mountains of New Zealand. A year of firsts: attended my first national RWA Conference, finished my first manuscript and biked in my first triathlon. I achieved PRO membership in RWA. I started a second manuscript and am ALMOST DONE WITH THE ROUGH DRAFT!!!

I hope you are all having a fabulous summer!

Last night two friends and I ran our first 5K of the year in the Fremont 5K and Briefcase Relay. Maybe next year we’ll do the relay part. The course ran along the Ship Canal from the Fremont Bridge/Adobe Plaza, past Gasworks Park, and turned around before we got to the UW Campus. It was pretty flat and we had great weather. Our colorful costumes were a hit. My next scheduled race is the Danskin Triathlon, where I’ll be riding the biking portion with Team Brady Babes.

Mr. Wonderful and I just got back from seeing Disney/Pixar’s movie Up. We both quite recommend it. So cute! Bring your tissues. I’m not sure how kids view it (we were some of the only childless people in the theater), but for adults it had an important message about life’s little adventures.

As a kid, Carl Fredrickson dreams of flying to South America to visit the land that time forgot just like his hero. He meets a little girl with the same dream, grows up, gets married and lives a really cute life of montages. They still dream of that trip, but life keeps getting in the way. At age 78, Carl’s wife dies, and Carl is left alone in their little house with the city closing in around him and life passing him by. Contractors and businessmen are knocking on his door trying to get him to sell his house so they can tear it down and build something big (like Trader Joe’s/LA Fitness). He decides enough is enough, ties a million balloons to the top of his house and flies UP to adventure.

Unfortunately an 8-year-old hitchhiker tags along. Russell is one merit badge short of graduating to senior wilderness explorer, the “helping the elderly” badge, and he is determined to get it. They fly to South America and land on the mountain where Carl’s childhood hero was last seen trying to find a mythic tall, colorful bird. They meet a pack of dogs, cue comic relief, and go toe-to-toe with the inhabitants of a very strange lost jungle. Carl want to move his house to the falls to fulfill his and his wife’s dream adventure. Life might have other plans.

In my neck of the woods, we have our very own little house that defied the encroachment of the city. Edith refused $1 million to sell her house near the Ballard Bridge to developers, even though the rest of the block was bought up. The developers built the five-story building around her. You can read the fascinating story here, or get your very own tattoo.

Edith’s house in Ballard (surrounded by LA Fitness & Trader Joe’s)

Carl’s house in Disney’s Up

GREASE, the musical, has come to town with American Idol 5 star Taylor Hicks as Teen Angel. Mr. Wonderful and I caught the action last night, which included a ’50′s sing-a-long before the curtain rose, a packed audience that sometimes sang along during the show, and a special performance by Hicks of his latest hit single after the last bow. Grease has everything you need for a hit musical – sex, drugs, rock ‘n roll, great stick-in-your-head tunes, fun dance moves, costumes that I’d like to own – but it always leaves me conflicted.

Grease is the word, but peer pressure is the theme.

Plot:

Goodie-two-shoes Sandy and Bad-boy Danny meet over high school summer vacation at the beach. They hold hands. They pledge undying love. They return to school in the fall and–surprise!–Sandy is at Danny’s school Rydell High. Danny is caught between wanting to be with Sandy and to impress his friends. (Liking a girl who doesn’t put out is not de mode.) Sandy doesn’t understand why her beau is suddenly too cool to talk to her. She gets taken in, and made fun of, by a group of girls called the Pink Ladies, who hang out with Danny’s T-Birds. Danny makes an attempt to be more like Sandy by joining the track team, but quits because the coach wants him to cut his hair (ie change who he is–a greaser). After Rizzo has a pregnancy scare, Sandy realizes that she doesn’t want to be a goodie-two-shoes anymore. She wants to have pregnancy scares too! So she changes, becoming a tight leather pant wearing, smoking, drinking, bundle of fun. She is now cool enough for Danny’s friends. They kiss. They dance. They live happily ever after.

Discussion:

What happens when Sandy decides she’s tired of pretending to be someone she’s not? Just like Danny when he finally quit the track team. Rather than meeting in the middle, Sandy changes everything about herself to be with the man she loves. Gee, what a model of a healthy relationship!

The music/costumes/choreography make this a great musical, but the ending disappoints me every time. I saw a high school production once where they changed the ending. Is that cheating? Should musicals be updated for modern sensibilities, or should they be preserved as originally envisioned? The nature of theater is constant change. Every new performer and director lends their own artistic bent to a piece.

What do you think about Grease? Love it? Hate it? Is it really timeless as proponents claim?