Merry Christmas

2010 had it's rough spots -- I miss you every day, Grandaddy -- but overall it has been a wonderful year, and 2011 is looking to even better. 

Enjoy your family, your friends and all the blessings in your life.  Carry these good things with you every day, keep your chin up, and keep moving forward.  See you in the new year.

Women and their bags ...

I have recently switched to a massive purse.  I have always been more of the "small purse" girl.  Carrying huge bags only invite you to stash more stuff in them and then they weigh 10 pounds.  The thing is, though, I am absolutely over carrying a diaper bag and a purse.  Well, that's a lie, actually.  During the week, I would carry a purse because the diaper bag was unnecessary.  On weekends, I would then move appropriate items from my purse to the diaper bag.  This is weekly event is what I got tired of. 

So, I got a giant purse.  Now I can just throw in some wipes, diapers, snacks and I'm ready to go out with the little man (and yes, it already weighs about eight pounds - whatever).

This recent change made this brilliant observation by the always great James Lileks even funnier ...

The need for a backpack is ancient and engrained, and it’s taking me a long time to shake it. In college my backpack would contain everything I needed if I was stuck in a small room for two days – books, magazines, newspapers, a journal, a People’s Pen, refills, matches, emergency quarters should there be pinball. Last year when I was getting up early and heading off to be Ted Baxter in the video department, I stocked my bag with every possible thing I might need, from a small tripod to extra memory cards, peanuts, moist towelettes, hand sanitizer, and so on. Never used any of it. But I was a shivering hermit in a loincloth compared to what my wife schleps around. It’s one of the things that mystified men: the quantity of things women carry. I goggle sometimes at the quantity of items in my wife’s bag, and then I stand abashed when I realize the bag is merely a conveyance for the purse, which itself contains the clutch. It would be like me taping my iPhone to my laptop, taping the laptop to the Mac Pro, putting the Pro on a wheeled cart and dragging it along wherever I went.