It was a beautiful day for a birthday. 78° looking south over Lake Union from one of Adirondack chairs at Seattle’s Westward Restaurant. What a great place to hang out on a deliciously warm afternoon in October. She who must be obeyed was very happy.

Birthdays weren’t important celebrations when I was growing up. It wasn’t that my parents didn’t mark them. They did, but I was born a week before Christmas so my birthday was celebrated quietly. After all, the big event was looming just a week away. read more

I mentioned in the first of these 30/30 posts (October 1) that they are my contributions to a project called the 30/30 Challenge. It’s a fundraising campaign to support Richard Hugo House in Seattle. I donated $50 to enter the Challenge and committed to write at least 30 minutes every day for 30 days through the month of October. Others participating in the Challenge are raising money by asking friends to support their participation, and while I support their effort I’m choosing to keep it personal and use the Challenge as a prompt for my own writing. I’m taking a yearlong manuscript course memoir and I’m using 30/30 as a way to exercise some of my writing muscles. read more