From The Notebook

A much-overdue update on all things YD...

The girls are back in school after a nice two-week break. The first day back was hard - with many of them barely able to get out of bed at 6:30 a.m. One said their teacher asked the class how many of them would rather be sleeping and every hand shot up.

A last-day-of-break house cleaning blitz left the kitchen, dining room and living room in good shape. No progress on the computer (family) room, the "down-down-down" or the garage. But we did put out seven bags of recyclables on trash day after Christmas.

The Christmas letter (now titled, "New Year's letter") is still a work in progress. The plan is to finish it this weekend and get it mailed out Monday. Two sticking points: it is hard to "sum up" the year when nearly everything is documented week-to-week on the YD Cafe; Our mailing list was on our former iMac, which has a hard drive that will not boot.

Emily has started a new hobby: writing down interesting license plate numbers (or words) while we drive around town. She also sometimes makes notes about their vehicles: "PUV192 back window covered in duck tape."

Veronica has also taken on something new: the habit of taking off her clothes. Not just some items of clothing. Everything. We think it starts when she wets her diaper. Off come the pants, then the shirt, then the diaper and finally the socks. It's not something we want her to continue (even after she reaches "legal" age). Potty-training was on the "to-do" list for Christmas break and it didn't get done.

Emily's basketball team made a nice run at the holiday tournament championship by winning only its second game of the year in the opening contest (by two points). It followed up that victory with a last-second layup for a win. But a momentary lapse on defense in the title game cost the Ice a chance at scoring the upset and her team lost by two points in overtime. Still, Emily played her best game of the season in that game, so there's a lot of momentum heading into Saturday's game for St. Mary's (Dad's team).