Update on 2009 so far

Well the first week of the new year is over, and so far it's going along pretty well. I've contacted a publisher for my book (the one I've been working on for 8 years), and they seem interested. I've given them the overall summary of it, but they have to read it and give me feedback. Luckily they do that for free! So we'll see how it goes. There may be some legal snafu's, but hopefully it'll work out in my favor, since I've got an email giving permission to use the postcards. I don't know if I mentioned this book to anyone in my family, or to my friends, yet... that is probably because I never thought it would actually get to a publisher. No point in getting everybody's hopes up if it doesn't even come to fruition, right?

See, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, where I worked for nearly 6 years, encourages kids to write or draw on a postcard so they can "send it to Daniel," (a fictional boy who narrates an age-appropriate story of before, during & after the Holocaust in an exhibition entitled "Daniel's Story: Remember the Children"), and there is even a mailbox at the end of the exhibition...but here's the thing: the Museum does absolutely NOTHING with these postcards, they just THROW THEM AWAY---which is like, the hugest and LAMEST irony I've ever seen in my life........(I can't even DESCRIBE how disgusted this makes me feel)......

I mean think about it, how can they sit there and tell kids to remember those 1.5 million children who perished during the Holocaust, then encourage them to pour out their guts full of emotion, when they deliberately IGNORE these kids of TODAY who are WITNESSING this fact every day by visiting the Museum? I'd like to smack every person in power upside the head at that Museum for that. I really would. Working there had many bizarre ironies, not just this one. But this one motivated me to gather those postcards and store them in a huge box under my desk, reading them one by one. I took them home and kept them in a closet for a long time, not sure what to do with them, but then one day I thought, "I wonder if other kids would like to read some of these..." so it bloomed over the years into a book. Anyway so I'll keep you all posted on that publishing prospect. I sent a first draft to Miep Gies, (the woman who hid Anne Frank's family & found her diary), who has been my penpal/friend since 1994, and who also gave me a grant for my web site project http://www.tolerance4kids.com/, and she LOVED IT...she suggested I contact Carol Matas, the author of the book "Daniel's Story," which the exhibition is based on, to get her feedback about it too, so I am working on that. It may be a huge legal snafu every way I turn, but I'm gonna try.

In other news, Pete and I are looking to move from the house we currently live in, it's really like 2 separate apartments inside one house, (he & Nate live upstairs, I live downstairs with Sassy), so we want an actual HOUSE to rent now, in a better neighborhood. I think I found one that I love, but we have to go check it out. We'll see how that goes. We hope to be moved by March or April. Of course I'll send you all the new address once we do move. For now, we just go back and forth between apartments. It was the perfect "baby step" for me to move here, having lived alone all my life, unsure of how we'd get along if we were in each other's face 24/7.....but I think we get along most of the time about most things, so the next step is to shack up in a real house!

But, another possible thing is that Pete mentioned to his boss recently that he would like to be considered to work on a special project (he works at Apple as a computer programmer), and if his boss says yes, we may be moving out to San Francisco for 6 months. I don't know if this is going to happen or not, but we're waiting for the boss to say yes or no. I've never been to SF so it might be fun, even if I'm the fattest chick in CA. I told Pete I'd still take my fat carcass to the beach, I don't care if all those skinny snobby CA people stare at me! Let 'em! So nyahhh!!

Don't go gettin' all spazzy about this San Francisco thing ya'll, it's just a possibility. There is another guy in Pete's office who also said he would go, so nothing is decided yet and odds are we won't be the ones going. Will keep you posted on that too. Of course you all KNOW who lives out in San Francisco, right?! I may have to bake some cookies and hand deliver them to Steve Perry, just to say, "GOD YOU'RE GORGEOUS TAKE ME NOW YOU SEXY BEAST, HAVE A COOKIE AND THEN GET NAKED!" hehehehehehehehehehehe ......Ahem....*regaining composure.* Nice to dream though.

Anyway, so that's the scoop from my world of poop. Hope you've all had a good first week of 2009!

Love, Becky & Pete