Today is No Interruptions Day.

Yeah, like that's gonna happen.

Before anything else...
Let me just embarrass my husband no end by announcing that Dean will be celebrating his birthday this Sunday, January 2. So please don't forget to greet him because (a) it will prevent me from becoming cross with you, and (b) even multi-awarded, internationally-published, good-looking writers who run their own businesses and have fabulous wives and children need love and attention, too.

We haven't really decided how we'll be celebrating the big day yet. I offered to throw him a Disney Princesses birthday party at McDonald's, but inexplicably, he declined. I dunno, Sage would've been thrilled...

old year's resolution
My big resolution for 2004 was to start learning at least one new skill every year. I realized that, as a 31-year-old working at home, I simply wasn't getting as much external stimulus as I used to at school or in a regular nine-to-five job. So, in keeping with my belief that you have to keep learning or you turn into one of those frumpy matrons who can't even operate a DVD player, I decided to set my own reasonable goals for continued growth.

I'm happy to say that I fulfilled my quota this year by picking up some HTML and CSS skills. For next year, I've decided to start by trying my hand at learning Spanish. Or relearning Spanish, actually, because I'm told that I once spoke it fluently as a child but somehow lost it along the way. (Damn standardized education!) I was tempted to learn French or Russian in keeping with my spy-girl fantasies; but I figure, living in the Philippines, I have a reasonable shot of actually finding people to converse with in Spanish. (Chinese would probably work out better in this respect, but I don't think I'm up to learning an entire new writing system just yet.)

Anyway, in case y'all want to learn a thing or two with me, I'm starting a new ongoing section here on the blog where I'll be posting some bits and pieces of Spanish vocabulary. Salud!

Aprendamos el Espanol!

Great!/Excellent! = Estupendo! (es-too-pen-doh)
okay = vale (ba-leh)
That's right = Esso es (ess-soh-ess)