(Bay) Bridge to the 21st century

Instead of living more of a “drawing room life” (as I’ve been calling time spent reading and talking and playing music — maybe cards, too) I’ve taken a turn towards the technological.

This past weekend I attended the Bay to Ocean Writer’s Conference, a conference I’ve never been to before.

It felt great to cross the Chesapeake Bay, which was grey and choppy and all churned up — the way I felt as I headed away from mommydom and into something brainy and new.  It’s been awhile since I’ve attended a conference, and I was looking forward to

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Drawing room evenings

I wish we had a piano.

If we had a piano I feel like I could skip watching TV and have Jane-Austen, George-Eliot, Downton-Abbey kinds of evenings.  My husband and I would sit around, listen to one of us play music, read books, play cards, gossip about our neighbors and relations, and take periodic turns about the room.

For someone who thinks she’s against TV, I watch rather a lot of it.  Not even close to the national average of 4+ hours a day*, but still — more than I’d care to admit.  But at the end of the day, after taking care of lovely but often wild eleven-month-old twins, and trying to cram writing and blogging and household chores into their nap times, I’m often too tired to do much else — at least on weekdays.  Maybe I can have drawing room evenings on the weekends …

The twins don’t watch TV.  We’ve had PBS on only rarely.  One twin got deeply into

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