Sunday, I’m having a birthday party.

And game night.

And Grammy Awards watch party.

Luckily, it’s just one event.

But I’ll be celebrating birthday #11(x3) next week, so I think multi-tasking is part of the deal for the modern pre-teen.

Click here to see a few more winter shots.

After yesterday morning’s battle with spammers, the blog is feeling much better. I’ve upgraded a couple of things and added a couple of things at Rudi‘s suggestion, so now we should be back to normal.

We spent yesterday afternoon out in Virginia, which, as you know by now, means I spent a lot of money. But I bought some cute clothes and some cute shoes (pictures to come later in the week), so I guess that’s good. We also stopped by Panera Bread for lupper where, in addition to getting to sit next to a fireplace, I also had the most beautiful cup of cocoa. It was served in a giant cappuccino mug and topped with a mountain of whipped cream with a trail of chocolate sauce leading to the summit. Exquisite.

Today we slept in, wandered to the farmers’ market, and got to chat with our friend, Erik. Then Rudi went out for a bike ride (crazy!) while I played with Dance Dance Revolution. We finished the night with a trip to our friends Pat and Heidi’s to watch the Super Bowl with them, their three darling kids, and our other friends, Jerry and Dan.

I’m really not ready for the weekend to be over. But I guess all good things must come to an end, right? And if Monday never came, neither would Monday night, which offers the best tv of the week.

Please hold your comments for the moment as I’m being comment-bombed today and am receiving about a comment a minute. That’s a little too high-maintenance for me, so I’ve turned commenting off until these spammers take their toys and go bother someone else’s blog (hopefully not yours).

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

The winter can be hard for me. Between work, subterranean dwelling, and late-moving habits, I don’t see enough sunlight. Instead I tend to skulk through the first few months of the year in the dark (both literally and metaphorically), a child of the moonlight.

It was a rare weekday early in the month where I found myself with a day off and time to head out on the town to wander around during a sunny, 70 degree afternoon. But walking home from Georgetown at twilight, I was reminded of the proper scheme of things when I sighted this moonrise over the eastern bank of Rock Creek.

But even as the moon reminds me of nocturnal habits and melancholy, a full moon also seems full of promise and potential, representative of the first month of the year when everything seems new and possible again.

This is appropriate in a couple of ways because it marks an opportunity to set up my new Flickr account (which contains just the one photo right now) and to take part in a new photo-along that Stephanie and Margene decided to launch — 007: Snap a Dozen Days. Stephanie explains the concept:

You post one or more pictures once a month, any time during the month. The pictures should express the meaning of the month to you. You can post about a person, a place, a thing – whatever you want. Then you write a blog post in conjunction with the pictures to explain the meaning of the month.

I look forward to breaking out (but not breaking) the camera more in 2007 and continuing to play along over the year.

This afternoon marked the first meeting of The Ladies who Lunch. Okay, perhaps the moniker is all mine, but nonetheless, some female friends and I gathered in the Burrow this afternoon for a midday meal, so it seems appropriate pending a better name…

Unfortunately, we started the afternoon down a quarter of the group. Julia is in Texas where her mom is in the hospital recuperating from surgery on her brain. But since we couldn’t make her mom better by postponing our lunch, we decided to carry on with our plans anyway.

So Sarah and Susan came over to share some food with me, which meant Rudi and I had to do a winter cleaning of the apartment, which is always a good thing.

I whipped up a broccoli quiche (one of two or three entrées I’m capable of making) and a salad and bought some sourdough bread, which combined nicely with Susan’s French mushrooms. Sarah is noted for her yummy desserts, so when she volunteered to make one for lunch, I jumped at the opportunity. She made fantastic chocolate cupcakes based on her grandmother’s recipe (and was generous enough to bring two for each of us!). (Thanks, Sarah!)

We ate, we laughed, we talked books and politics, we traded doctors’ and dentists’ names… (I explained to Rudi this is why he wasn’t allowed to stay; he had no uterus and therefore was unable to contribute to the discussion on pelvic exams…) In general, it was a lovely afternoon, darkened only by Julia’s absence.

Julia, we missed you and hope your mom is on the road to recovery. I know she is all the better for having you in Texas, rather than here. (Btw, Susan ate your slice of quiche and I had your cupcake. They were delicious, if we do say so ourselves.)