My house smells great this afternoon. I’ve discovered my crock pot! I hope it’s a good discovery; we haven’t eaten yet. But really, dumping all the ingredients in a pot and opening it up hours later to a ready meal is pretty smart. The only problem is that I fail at crock-potting already because it’s hard to leave it alone! I am a person who needs to stir, poke and otherwise be very actively involved with my food. Letting it sit is not as easy as it sounds. At least not for me. All I can really do is keep touching the outside of the pot to make sure it’s working, and then I get burnt.

If you have a favorite crock pot recipe, please share! If this turns out well, I’m going to need lots to try because I think making dinner in the morning is fabulous. Max doesn’t do so well without attention in the evenings.

PS I am still mentally on hiatus, blog-sabbatical, off at my Walden Pond. But when things come up that just should be shared - like feeling loved after you hang up the phone on a Sunday evening - then they’ll be here.

PPS I keep remembering this and it makes my week every time!

Met a new friend. Had a surprisingly great conversation with a recent friend. Got a package from an old friend. Got a phone call from another old friend. Took a walk in gorgeous weather to a party with a few current friends and ate some cantaloupe.

I’ve been needing friends. I feel good.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my life. I didn’t plan to do it, at least not until it kept happening enough that I figured it might be worth paying attention. It hasn’t been so much a sit-down-and-get-it-done think as it has been a series of thinks that just pop up every day, those short moments where you get this completely clear understanding of, well, everything, and then it’s gone. But you know it was there, so you keep thinking about it. And you keep putting “sit down and think about this until you have a plan” on your to-do list every single day, but every single day it gets carried over to the next day… you only make time for the things you truly want to make time for, and this one seems a little too intimidating to make time for it. Projects I can’t be sure of completing perfectly have a hard time even getting off the ground around here. I should change that. I’m a shame on the world of perfectionists; I’m such an extremist that I can’t even bother to try…

I started blogging four years ago. Part of me wants to stop. Everybody else is just starting, and I’m done, which is silly. Part of me knows that stopping would be bad for me. I can’t handle letting a good idea go to waste, and sometimes those good ideas are not tangible things needing to be created but just words that need to be put out there. Without a blog, where would I put them? Not a journal; the two are completely different (and I really think the illusion that one can replace the other can cause a lot of regret down the road. Journals, blogs, and scrapbooks are all very different entities.) I need a blog. But the thing with blogging is that you have to have something really good to say, and you have to have the time to say it [at least almost] every day. Blogging is a very timely sport. Heaven knows I’ve got a lot in mind to say, but whether or not it’s the best use of my time to try to say it on time is another story. Shouldn’t I be living, instead of spending time writing about living? Too often my half-baked effort at devoting time to blogging turns posts into a bunch of nothingness that shouldn’t even have been published in the first place. Maybe I should stop making myself feel the responsibility to record things, because while they wait for the time to be done justice they are quickly stacking up in my mind and driving me over the edge. But writing about living is almost what makes living wonderful, because you can go back and live it again. Or in my case, actually experience it in full because you missed understanding it the first time.

While I recognize the impact of and have most certainly been a frequent part of the family blogging movement, and while I am glad for the place that it has in the blogosphere (helping people to keep in touch within their own social circles), I’ve always been a believer that the real purpose of the blog is to be a venue for material that is universally applicable. Not a “this is what I did today” log but something people can relate to and be inspired by, something that sparks blog posts of their own and is food for thought. That’s the kind of blog that I want. Those are the kind of posts flying around in my head, waiting for a spot to land. I want a 100% blog or no blog. This is not it. If I choose the 100% route, I’m starting anew.

But I’m still choosing. I’ve had these vague feelings of rebellion against the blogging world lately. Why? Why do I spend time with page after page of people I don’t even know and this web of materialism? So many blogs that I used to enjoy for their heart and soul have become nothing but perpetual wish lists. They connected me to Etsy - which I’m now also having a love-hate relationship with - and they gave me lots of good inspiration that I liked. But now I feel like I’m in these networks enough to see right through them, and I don’t like how they all just try to be each other. I’m kind of disenchanted with it all.

I think that I could walk away from all of that right now, and be leaving with all that I needed anyway: the opportunity to learn some things about myself and to do something about them; a jump-start. I’ve got that, and call it turning your back on the one that got you there, but now I want to be my own.

Which brings me back to my starting point, of how I’ve been thinking. About what I really want to be. Quarter-life crisis? I have this unreasonably strong need to not settle, unreasonable to the extent that it is keeping me from being anything at all. My mind is so ambitious but I just sit here. I feel like the lists of things to think and learn and write and say and do and be are literally eating me up on the inside, and Trevor thinks that is just me being dramatic but, since it’s been a pretty steady feeling for a few months, I beg to differ. I don’t want to start (start what? I don’t know. life?) unless it’s awesome, and by awesome I mean narrowed, defined and integrated into everything about who I am so that I can actually achieve it. I don’t feel like I’ve ever done that. There was only one time in my life where I was 100% deeply absorbed by a pursuit, and it wasn’t a good thing and I have never since been able to harness that type of motivation again. But I need to, but it needs to be in moderation. Sometimes you just can’t be awesome at everything. Choices, planning, focus are in order. I have to learn to focus. When I packed up and left for college, my ability to focus moved out too but to a separate destination; I need to go find it and bring it back. I need to decide what I’m going to do and then do it 100%. I’m not sure if blogging is a part of that. I’m thinking I’d rather live well than try to blog well about living mediocre. Cause then I have a mediocre life AND a mediocre blog. But maybe I can do both. I don’t know. I certainly might be even worse off without a blog.

So what do I want to be? I’ve been keeping a mental list. I need to write it all down; I’ve tried but haven’t finished, and I think it will be pages of paragraphs long. But I need to know what I’m going to work for. One thing I’ve come to realize (with some help from the hubby) is that I love change, I thrive on it. I had no idea, I never would have guessed, but it’s true. Who would have thought? I crave change. I feel like I can make decisions better now that I know. Husbands have this way of discovering yourself for you, and then you feel all liberated and ready to rock and roll.

Anyway, I’m still deciding. I’m sorry that I always change my plans and change my blog. But it’s kind of exciting, don’t you think? Maybe I should change my hair too.

It’s SNOWING! In Houston. I can’t believe it! It’s just been coming and coming, in fat flakes that aren’t sticking but are oh so most definitely there. I keep wanting to pause it and rewind it and make sure it lasts for as long as I want it to last… but then I remember that there is no DVR for the weather :) (I must be watching too much tv.)

If only Max would wake up from his nap so I could take him outside! It would be like the bubbles that he loves so much, only better - the flakes might stick around on his curious little hands for a few seconds longer!

Update: It’s sticking! We got back from a church activity around 9pm, and there were kids throwing snowballs and neighbors taking pictures. The last time it snowed here was Christmas Eve 2004. Here’s a picture of the snow, and one you can imagine would have made a good Christmas card picture if it weren’t so fuzzy!

[six weeks, and still too small for his newborn clothes]

As most of you know, Max was born fairly early and without much warning. I’m not sure if it was the speed or the drugs, but the only word to describe it was surreal. I felt so mentally unprepared for having a baby on that particular day, almost a whole month before I’d planned, that I felt a little removed from the situation - it was five hours of okay, well, I guess this is what we’re doing today! Happy Monday, honey! I called about the visiting teaching appointments I would miss and about the apple pie and mashed potatoes I would no longer be contributing to Thanksgiving dinner. When your body doesn’t bother to tell you that you’re in labor, it’s hard to believe that it’s true. Trevor went and bought sheets for Max and socks for me, but that was just fake, right? And then he was born, and it still felt unreal. You do what you have to do to get through something so sudden, and you don’t have time to stop and think about it until later.

That “later” came for me when I was being wheeled to my room, and they stopped the stretcher next to the nursery so I could see him. A nurse was holding him near the window while she cleaned him, but I was really tired at that point and not quite sure why we were stopping; Trevor had to point him out to me. But as soon as my eyes found him, well, we connected and I loved him. I was amazed that he was ours. There he was, naked and crying and almost clean. It felt like he was crying out for me, but he was also determined to save himself! And then, for just a couple of seconds, I saw him - the real him, his whole self who had been waiting to come to us for so long. All of who he is suddenly seemed apparent to me in that one moment. There are no specific words to define it, but that was when I cried. I instinctively reached out my hand to touch him, forgetting that he was behind glass. And then they wheeled me away, and I missed him. But I knew him.

He has stayed very true to that person that I saw. I hope I can always help him to be his best him, because I loved who I saw. He is so important. I’m so proud of all the things he has learned in one year! It was only 366 days, one after the other, from then until now. I was with him on all of those days, but every day there was something new. Those tiny new things add up, and somehow we’ve ended up here - with a not-so-tiny family member we can truly call our friend. We really really like him!

I feel like my experience that day at the hospital was a small-scale version of what his whole life has been: mostly a surreal blur, where I do what needs to be done and then fall exhausted into bed… But then there’s those times where it is all clear, and I remember that I’m here. He’s here. I’m his mother. Trevor is his father and we’re a family. It seems distant, but we lived those days of no sleep, we lived those days of having to carry him everywhere and we lived watching him learn to eat, laugh and walk. He’s not a baby anymore. I’m so thankful that we gave him a body, and I’m so thankful that he loves to be in it. He loves his little life. It’s full of big responsibilities for such a little guy - like vroom vrooming with his cars, babbling mamama all day long, running to find me when we play hide and seek, wrestling with his Daddy, trying to hold still while I change his diaper, and trying to eat rocks.

Such is the life of my Max. I hope it will continue to expand in joys for him.

[eleven months and handsome as can be]

Some (and by some I mean 16) pretty nifty ways to live in a disaster! But I’m guessing these are probably not available to the general public.

[Via weburbanist.com, an interesting new blog in my world of too many blog subscriptions...]

Also, as long as we’re on the subject of shelter: a completely different version of portable housing - with a completely different price tag.

As a little follow-up to one of my last posts, I wanted to share and say I’m thankful today for this.

Today is a running day! Good thing, because we went to a birthday party last night and somebody thought it was necessary that I come home with leftover cake. Oh, the scrumptiousness of the frosting! Oh, my expanding waistline!

Thanks to everyone for your thoughts on Santa. Don’t worry, I was never seriously considering going the non-Santa route. That would be sad. (And probably sad for his friends, as well!) But I got lots of good tips on perspectives to approach it from, which are things that I am going to need, now that I think about it. So, thank you! You’re all so helpful; good thing I have you.

And as long as we’re on the topic of how many good things you all know, I’d now like to hear your combined knowledge on cooking a turkey! Cause we’re having Thanksgiving here… with company… eek. I hear frying is the new baking, in turkeyville. Sounds totally unhealthy though. Thoughts?

It’s raining.

Looks like we’re in for a long day!

Thanks to a friend who brought this to my attention, I finally read an article today about the protests in LA. I’d been looking for details but hadn’t been able to find any in the mainstream news.

It’s had me out of sorts all day. I know that I shouldn’t let it get to me, and tomorrow I will do as I should - just be hopeful and optimistic - but tonight it feels like something that just needs to run its course in me. Like it deserves my attention for a little while.
I know that there’s been a lot of terrible things happening in the world for a long time, but my news-conscious life has really only spanned about 8 years. I am still shocked on a regular basis at the state of things; when Obama first announced his candidacy and there were news reports speculating that America was in no way ready for an African-American president, I was very surprised anybody would even deem that an issue to consider, because I thought we were past that. And today I am just beyond words [except I'm dragging them out of me to write this post]. This issue is really getting to me… like I just told my brother, I feel kind of like Obi Wan in Star Wars when he knows that Tatooine was just blown up because he can just feel all of the sadness and evil? It’s a little like that. I feel literally weighed down, in both my spirit and my body. A quick survey of my friends’ status’ list seems to hint that I and this feeling are not alone.

I was raised in a very “blue” place, and while this left me in the minority with regards to my religion, I also felt lucky. I found most people to be quite open-minded, rational and unprejudiced. They may have disagreed with me but they also recognized my right to choose my beliefs, and they did not usually view it as a deterrent to our friendship. (It was actually a little strange for me to move to Texas and realize that I might really meet people who, due to misinformation, actively hate my church.) I, also, was raised to know that everyone has the right to believe and to worship as they choose. We do in fact have a same-sex couple living right next door to us here and we are on friendly terms with them. A rational look at the facts says there is no excuse for the extent of this protest. The LDS church’s involvement with Prop 8 was fully constitutional, and the church does not promote hatred or negative behavior towards any group of people.

It does, however, have a right to speak out on moral issues. It did, and the people of California voted: democracy in action. And now the members in LA are being denied their [unarguably stated constitutional right] to worship as they choose. They cannot safely get to the temple, and their other property and in some cases very lives are being threatened. And so tonight I am wondering, and I believe I’m backed up by that policeman in the article - Where is the government on this? Why is the media spending their time talking about Michelle Obama’s dress, instead of this?

I know it doesn’t make any difference in the large scheme of things to try to reason with people about these social issues; opinions are just too polarized. But I’m so sad, that people can arrive at this state of blindness - and I’m not even referring to their stance on same-sex marriage but rather just the hypocrisy in how they go about it. These protestors feel themselves so progressive and democratic, demanding rights for all, yet their actions embody the complete opposite of these ideals. What is there to be proud of in verbal and physical violence? Threats, disrespect and a complete lack of self-control? How is that supposed to make anyone desire to or feel it a smart idea to adopt their agenda? I feel like what used to be the positive aspects of the liberal movement - what I enjoyed about living in a blue state - is now being overlooked as extreme groups act like they are more important than tolerance, and too modern to be bothered with respect. It’s a sad world that we live in.

But it’s also a happy one, and now that I’ve gotten all of that out, I feel much better. When the bad gets worse, the good also gets better. Soon I will post lots of things to love, to balance this out.

Happy weekend!