It seems like everyone has a focal point on which they exert a lot of energy each day. Some days it changes from one thing to another, sometimes someone gets so fixed on one thing that nothing else is clear to them until they can shift their attention.

I haven't been focusing very much on this blog lately. And I apologize to the few of you who have paid attention to it. But visit my/our other blog (it is an invite-needed blog, so if you haven't been invited, you're welcome and invited to leave your email address and I'll invite you in) where I have been focusing more of my attention these days. That blog is more family oriented.....which is why I have been focusing a lot on it. My family is my focus these days, especially since we are less than a month away from adding a new member to it.

And when that happens, I'm sure my own focus will change. But as for now, come visit the other blog...

I have never responded well to people who feel like they need to tell me what to do and how to do it. Ever.

But I do a pretty good job at telling myself what to do--in fact, I can't go to bed at night without my neatly-written list of TO DO's for the next day beside my bed. I even like to write things and cross them off as I do them (there's a phsycoanalytic term for that, I'm sure), which keeps me fairly busy and fairly on-the-move each and every day.

Today, however, my TO DO list was unusually short (due to getting more than usual done day previous to this one) and, for the first time in a long time, I don't really have too much else to do while my babeh naps. If I were my mother I could easily sit down and read a famous novel for the remainder 2 hours I have of "nap time." If I were my father, I would find some great sporting event on the TV and put my feet up. And if I were my husband, I would pull out a challenging Sudoku or crossword puzzle and lose myself in numbers. But I'm none of those people, so none of those things sounds very appetizing.

So I guess I'll sit here for a few more minutes, replaying a few of the dances from SYTYCD on Youtube, and try to decide how my few moments of solitude should be dealt with. It should be relaxing to have nothing to do...but for some reason, its unnerving.

How silly of me.

READ ME A STORY, eh?

Sure seems appropriate for some of my babeh's jammies to say. We love reading and I've recently discovered a new love for the library. Friends around me have told of their adventuresome visits there and though I grew up frequenting the great palaces of books, my adult life somehow associates them with endless study groups, late night cramming, and worst of all, testing centers...so I have somehow forgotten the fact that libraries are actually filled with fun collections of stories that my babeh and I can explore together before and after naptimes and bedtimes.

I'll happily read him stories.

He doesn't need jammies to ask me...

...even though we LOVE these jamms from his Gramms...

A splash of thoughts today:

We've had some of our favorite guests stay at our house for the past week living within the walls of our study where our computer also resides, so I've let my attention go toward the living than the linking. The house is empty for now, other than my babeh napping in the adjacent room, so I thought I'd revisit my computer and a few of my internet interests (aka hotmail, blogger, gmail, etc.) and let my brain just talk through my fingers for a bit. Here goes:

The other night at The Ball Game an obviously overweight woman leaned over to her dad who had just commented on her candy arrangement on her lap and said, "Well, Dad, I figure candy is my birth control. The bigger I get, the less anyone will want to have sex with me." I just about burst out laughing. Why would someone brag about something like getting bigger and bigger (besides a woman who is pregnant)? We love going to ball games--but it always amazes us to watch so many fat people (sorry to not have much political correctness here) eating such loads of fattening food and watch already drunk people march down the isles with two filled-to-the-brim cups of beer not spill an ounce on themselves. Its the best people watching I know of (other than parades...)

Sometimes I check people's blogs just to see if what I HOPE I'll see or what I FEAR will see on their blogs finally happens...a pregnancy announcement, a birth, a breakup, an instance I was there to see, an instance I wanted to be there to see...And sometimes I retire blogs that I used to look at because they are too full of pictures or too picture-less. Some people I thought highly of until I found out that they have no eloquence in their writing and others I have gained much respect for because I've discovered their brains are much more intricate than I ever knew. This blogging world has opened my eyes to so much.

Everyone has to wait for something at some time just about every day. Whether it be at the grocery story check out line, for 40 weeks to pass during pregnancy, for someone to call/text them back or for their engine to turn over, for the curling iron/waffle iron/clothing iron to heat up properly, everyone has to wait. Aren't we told that practice makes perfect? Shouldn't we all be good at it, then? Well, I'm awful at it. Waiting is NOT something I'm good at. God knows it. He's constantly putting opportunities in front of me to teach me patience and if I could just master it, I'm sure I could move on to the next life lesson I need to learn in this life.

There is a mystical silence that comes over our community between the hours of about noon to three o'clock. Its the time when most ladies have their babies down for naps--and we're all busily getting things done inside our homes. The pool is less crowded, the mailboxes aren't visited, and if you knock on anyone's door, most women will poke their heads out with a whispered look to them. I like this time of day-not because I like the break from my motherly duties, but because I feel like the overall silence is pretty cool.

More thoughts later...My babeh is waking up...

You know the saying, "It's the best invention since sliced bread!"? Even though I can't say that I think sliced bread is the GREATEST invention of all time (I actually like cutting my own slices from fresh loaves of bread best), I often take notice of what GREAT inventions we have out there.

Like the Twin Pop Popcycle. Genius!

Not only do you feel like you get TWO juicy treats in one, but you also have the option of saving one for later or sharing one with a friend! And the flavors?! You can't get much better than the banana or rootbeer ones...and the blue ones aren't all that bad either. It seems like they'd become old hat after all these years, but every year I look forward to them more and more.

Ah, twin pops. Best invention since...fresh baked bread that you can cut into yourself. :)

Last night I dreamt, for the second time this weekend, that some incredible, incurable rage came over me.

In bed last night, I dreamt that over and over again on the way home from somewhere we ran into bad guys who kept bullying us until I learned that the only solution to the frustrations we encountered on our way home was puff myself into a huge, awful, hulk-like being. In order to to this, I had to forcefully focus all of my energy into a glob of anger in order to *POW* and *WHAM* the bad guys out of our path. YUCK.
It wasn't fun to wake myself up from such feelings.

I'm quite certain I'm NOT an inately angry person. As a matter of fact, I hate contention or even feeling like things aren't "cool" between me and someone else. I like to believe that no one really enjoys contention and feeling hulk-sized anger. Its scary to hear of so many scary stories where people really ARE that angry and will do things that are hideous and freakishly mean.

Typically, dreams are incredible. But man, its crazy to feel some feelings and experience some things you'd never want to feel while awake... What would a dream reader say about THESE dreams?

Along with all the other crazy changes that come to my body during pregnancy, my hips are changing enough so that my feet are blistering to accomidate the change in pressure my feet are getting while trying to adjust to a new gait on my morning walks (that was a WORDY sentence, wasn't it?).

So I've started apply bandaids to my toes and heels before I slip on my walkin' shoes each morning in protest. I love walking much more than I hate blisters and sore hips. Found tucked in a tiny pocket of an old purse, I found this quote written on a little piece of paper...

"Above all, do not lose your desire to WALK: Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it...but by sitting still and the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill...thus, if one keeps on walking, everything will be alright."
--Soren Kierkegaard 1847

I love it. I love walking. Come along if you want.

I'm being chased by subliminal messages everywhere.

Maybe they aren't so subliminal.

Around our home I have spotted three, count them, THREE pairs of wayward panties/big boy pants crumpled in the parking lot, under a tree, or near the swimming pool. Since when did tiny-people underwear start wandering off? Socks, I can understand. But underwear?!

We are determined to not have two kids in diapers and though the months are somehow zipping by, my son's determination/willingness/interest/desire to be potty trained comes and goes as quickly as the robins outside our window. One day he's nearly potty-pro and the next day he's anything but pro-potty. Sigh.

I have to wonder if perhaps these wayward underpants I keep seeing aren't pairs that belong to little ones such as my son who think they are meant to be thrown OUT like diapers. Isn't it obvious that they aren't since they don't have sticky tabs? Hmm.

Needless to say, big boy pants and potty trips are certainly on my mind.

There are three main places that I receive personal revelation (not the spiritual kind, folks, I'm talking the revealing of personal ah-ha's that clarify things going through my head...although, come to think of it, these places have also been very spiritually clarifying places, too). These places are 1: Beneath the heated flow of my shower head, 2: On a good, long walk/run, and 3: During pillow talk late at night with my eternal cuddle companion.

The other night, as we lay in bed discussing our daily insight and adventures, we started talking about how GOSSIP means different things to different people. I've grown up with the understanding that gossiping was (as the picture above suggests) a way for little snippits of mean information about someone else to be spread to other people/groups who wouldn't otherwise learn the information. The key words for me always were MEAN and SPREADING---like nasty tar that makes you and everyone else feel icky around it. If the information is common knowledge and just NEWS (ie. "So and So is having a baby boy!" or "They are moving at the end of the month"), I haven't felt it was "gossip."

But as my hubb and I discussed it, we realized that some people were taught that any talk about anyone, good or bad, news or rumor, true or false, is considered gossip and shouldn't be messed with at all. The Wikipedia definition suggests that gossip is "idle talk or rumour, especially about the personal or private affairs of others. It forms one of the oldest and most common means of sharing (unproven) facts and views, but also has a reputation for the introduction of errors and other variations into the information transmitted." Hmmm. Yes, true.

My hubb and I then discussed how most people talk about other people and what's going on with those around them within most every day conversation. It isn't necessarily degrading or spiteful, just making light conversation and comparing opinion and facts...at least in our case. As we lay there, our "revelation" came as we realized that not everyone was raised with this tar-in-hands picture in their mind when it came to gossip (what a strange concept), that not everyone could agree that light-hearted "news sharing" is harmless, and that the safest bet is to avoid being the initiators and contributors to any kind of negative or uncommon information about anyone we knew to anyone.

We laughed as we snuggled closer listing all the other things we could initiate conversations about...the weather, athletic techniques, types of clothing we like, spiritual insight, economical issues...all things that may start and end a conversation much quicker than talk about people we know...

There are very few television shows that I just can't miss. Sure, American Idol is unnervingly addicting, and if I have the right set of ladies to accompany me, The Bachelor/ette is pretty fun to gauk at, but for the most part, the tube isn't my favorite place to fling my attention. I seem to be a reality TV fan, don't I? I guess I don't get out much when it comes to TV shows...

However, So You Think You Can Dance has started up again...and I feel nearly obsessed. Even my dreams are letting me know that my subconsious is just as hooked as I am in my conscious state. I love discovering new music, discovering how much I miss dancing, discovering how untalented I was even at my peak, and how awe inspiring it is to see people so dedicated and passionate about dance. This show moves me--even though I can't move from the TV while it is on!

We got pulled over today.

But we weren't driving. No, we were WALKING. Our city isn't known for an endowment of sidewalks, so we "Walking Girls" just tread along the side of the road faithfully each morning doing our best to stay away from the 8-12 cars that pass us over the span of about 90 minutes.

Today, however, some kind citizen of the driving sort (possibly one of the 12) felt that the police needed to let us know that we could be in danger of getting hit by someone who wasn't watching for us. I actually really appreciate the concern because I certainly would hate to see my son attached safely to his stroller flying through the air after being hit by some driver who happened to somehow miss us 9 women with 9 strollers walking down the road. Its good to be reminded to hug the curb a little closer...

What I don't understand is why are the police more concerned about us, though, when there are people out driving around who aren't capable of seeing such a group on the road who could possibly manage to actually run us over?! It seems like they would be more of a danger...

Oh well, its just more incentive for us to head up for a good walk up the canyon a few days a week...At least we didn't get a ticket.

While gathering my week's supply of fruit and veggies in the produce section of the grocery store the other day, a bustling produce worker approached me and asked what I was looking for in an apple (almost as if he were asking what I looked for in a man).

I laughed, "Well, I guess I like crisp, sweet apples."

He proceeded to share his wealth of apple knowledge describing to me the characteristics of each Fuji, Gala, Cameo, Granny Smith, Red & Golden Delicious, Braeburn, and all others that were out on display.

"I've always been a fan of the Fuji," I said.

"Well, if you like the Fuji, come back in a month or two and we'll have one that's so big, and so sweet, you'll have to hold it with two hands and eat it with your husband in front of the TV with a block of cheese."

I laughed again, "Oh! Sounds so romantic!" I was serious...sharing a nice apple with my sweet hubby & cutting up nice little slices and enjoying the evening together sounds romantic to me! The produce manager gave me a look that suggested I was nuts for thinking an apple could ilicit any romance at all. Perhaps our ideas of romance differ as much as our idea of a good apple may differ...maybe he likes sour, mushy apples. Sigh. I'll have to go back in a month or two and try it out, I guess. Maybe report back to him...

In the mean time, I'll just continue to watch how every apple my babeh holds seems to be as big for him as I anticipate the early summer apples to be for me...

No, this is not me with Sir Shamu of Sea World. But in the next few days we will be knee deep in Sea World Magic where we'll actually get to SEE Shamu in person. (Hasn't there been a Shamu since forever ago? Do you think they'll tell us if this is Shamu the 5th or 12th? Surely Killer Whales grow old...) We'll also visit The San Diego Zoo (don't know if the THE should be capitalized, but it seems appropriate), the beach, and the new Wild Animal Adventure Park.

I'm honest when I say this trip really isn't for me--nor my hubby. Really. Though we've all needed a bit of a family vacation for a while--and our trip just happens to fall over Mother's Day and the month before my hubby's busy summer work--the trip, in my mind, is really for my little Babeh and not at all for us grown-ups. He'll be two this month which means three things (well, it means MANY things, but for these purposes, THREE):

First: He understands, knows, and LOVES animals
Second: If we wait another month we'd have to buy him a plane ticket
and Third: If we wait too many more months, I'll be as monstrous as Shamu and all the other visitors of these great parks will think -I- am the whale or elephant that should be looked at.

This is our window to travel. This is our window to shower my little one in animal delight. This is our window to make some serious memories before the summer blows in knocking us into the pool and out of our normal routine. This will be the start of a whole new collection of memories! Yay!

Other than being terrified that the plane will crash (this irrational fear is rediculous and I wish I could just hypnotize it out of my bones), I'm just as giddy as a school girl to see my babeh dance around in excitement this weekend.

I think my hubby might do the same. He makes me just as giddy...

Every day opening lines to a Taming The Tangents blog entry run through my head and every day I jot them down on my mental canvas and hope to be able to expand on them when I have more time and energy. I haven't been very good at finding more of either lately, so putting off actually writing them down (online) has been just as easy as thinking of new first lines...

...so I've decided to just blurt out a few of them to get them off my chest and imagine that the rest of my entire thought is subscripted for my 3 readers (I love all of you) to enjoy. Here they are in no particular order:
*When looking at people who are old, I often try to imagine what they looked like in their youth---and I try to do the same for younglings as for when they are elderlings. I'm starting to look at my own son in the same way. Suddenly he is looking more and more grown up to me and I'm finding myself imagining what he'll be like, both in looks and personality, in 10,20, and 30 years from now. It kind of rattles my bones---but at the same time gives me great satisfaction that I think he'll be just as cute and sweet then as he is now.

*I have a guilty pleasure of ordering things online, waiting anxiously for them to be delivered by the seemingly shy UPS driver (who usually rings the doorbell and runs as fast as they can to avoid being caught---as if I'm going to to say anything but THANKS to them), and then deciding whether or not I should keep it. Sure, its a pain to take it back to the store if I deem it unworthy of keep, but if I got free shipping anyway, why is it so bad to have an excuse to get out of the house?

*If I could choose my morning alarm clock, I would easily choose the spring birdies chirping through my window as they have been lately. Even though they think wake up time is 6:00 am, I don't mind their sweet tweets drawing me away from dreamland. And if I could choose a lullaby to put me to sleep every night, it would hands down be the sound of a warm rainstorm and a little wind. Its so lovely. I love Spring.

*For the first time in my life, I think I'm starting to prefer skirts over shorts. It may be a skirt summer for me---which might be interesting---I've never had a skirt tan line before.

*About a week ago we committed to a heavy purchase that was going to be much more than we should ever pay for something---oodles for gorgeous, healthy conscious pots and pans. Laughing. My car isn't even worth what we committed to pay for these delux cheffery tools. But I couldn't sleep for 3 nights thinking about it and all I could think about was how guilty I felt (especially since my hubby left it up to me to decide whether or not to buy in--which was brilliant of him) so I cancelled the order at the last minute that I could. Its funny because now I feel like I have that much MORE money than I had before. I didn't feel one ounce of guilt saying that I didn't feel like cooking on my own set of pans that night and committed to going to Costa Vida for dinner instead.

*Being barefoot is one of my favorite, favorite things about summer. I can't remember a single day with shoes on (in the summer) growing up---well, maybe one pair of pink jelly shoes that I loved. I don't mind having tough feet and I don't mind having to swipe off a rock or thorn once in a while. I love being barefoot. So so much.

*Throughout my whole life everything seems to be blamed on me. I'm quite certain its safe to say that I'm the one who gets the beating most of the time---whether it be in my family, with friends, at work, or in the neighborhood. I have done a good bit of analyzing my behavior as I've tried to figure out this strange phenomena (in hopes to fix something within myself to avoid it happening so often) but no matter how hard I try to say the right thing or fix the broken edge, I still get the slap on the wrist. What hurts most is that even when it ISN'T my fault and I WAS in the right, I'm always the one who has to apologize. Why can't someone else just say they are sorry? And why can't someone say they are sorry to ME. Urgh. Its hard to always feel like I have to be the bigger person when I've been made to feel so small.

*People may think that I am a picky eater but my choice of food has much more to do with how the food makes me feel than how the food tastes. I quite like cheese, and ice cream is to-die-for...but it gives me a superbly bloated stomach with a side of tummy ache the rest of the day, so I choose not to eat it. I think a bite of a big, fat, juicy hamburger is actually very delicious...but I feel so heavy and full after eating a whole burger that I'm just miserable afterward, so I choose not to eat it. Rice makes me feel the same way, so I prefer to negate it from a third of my dinner plate. The diet I choose has much more to do with how I feel after I eat it than what I think it will do to my waisteline. It can be frustrating when people don't understand the menu I try live by. Oh, and by the way, brownie mix eaten right out of the bowl really does make me feel good. :)

*This week I am willingly putting myself at risk for a deadly disease and a small chance of dying. I have been laying awake at night thinking of how foolish it is to submit myself to the Swine Flu and a possible plane crash on the way to San Diego, but I'm putting my babeh's and hubby's enjoyment of marine and zoo animals ahead of my own fears. I do my best to be unselfish... :)

Boy, does that feel good to finally have all those thoughts out of my head. :)

It always amazes me to see angry drivers on the road. You know, the ones who give you "The Glare" as either you pass them or they pass you, or the ones who honk half a millisecond after the light turns green if you haven't sped through the intersection already, or the ones who feel justified in cutting you or someone else off because they have little patience or little courtesy?! And how about those middle fingers?! I wish there was a hand signal for, "Really!? You're going to let it bug you THAT much?!"

I think "The Glare" is justifiable if a car nearly kills you (like one did this morning on our walk), and a nice tap on the horn can be allowed if someone is blindly backing into you or has clearly fallen asleep at some uncommonly long light. And I even think whipping around someone who isn't paying attention or is going 20 mph under the speed limit is just fine. But most of the time, the rage on the road is getting too far out of hand.

If I were in charge of road sign archecture, I think I'd design one that was a nice calming blue that would read: CALM DOWN. In smaller letters I'd have it say, "We are all trying to get somewhere and at the next light you're going to be sitting next to this person anyway, so relax a little." Really. Getting somewhere 20 seconds faster isn't going to make that big of a difference (unless your baby is crowning or you can't hold your pee in any longer...).

Henry David Thoreau once said

"For an impenetrable shield

Stand inside yourself"

As I've come to get to know such a variety of people over my lifetime, I'm coming to the conclusion that the strongest people are those who known themselves best and who work endlessly toward making their person as strong as they can be. They literally have the power to shield themselves from anything that could penetrate them.

I still have much to learn about myself, as I think most of us do, since we are very complex beings whose power and strength has only slightly been tested. But I realize that working toward my strongest self is some of the most important work I can do.

What I've also concluded is that the strongest people I know surround themselves with other strong people--ones who don't need to be constantly bouyed up or who continually have to carry someone else's weight. They are people who give a little and take a little, but need no crutch to carry them day in and day out.

As my hubby and I went through our "life goals" together last night, I was encouraged to discover that not only were our goals fairly individual, but they were also fairly similar. We want each other to be involved in each goal and we need each other's support and strength to get there. Its nice to know that my hubby and I are both strong people who could probably manage on our own pretty well--but who still feel the need for each other in enough ways that our biggest life goal is to stay a happy, healthy family who can be a source of strength for other families, too.

So, yes, Mr. Thoreau, I agree: Stand Inside Yourself. But may I suggest that we also stand beside people who, too, know themselves and will make our stances stronger.

I don't know what I did wrong.

We had a good three-week stretch where I was SURE my babeh was nearly all the way potty-trained. He would tell me when he needed to "go" and he happily sat on the toilet whenever I offered him the chance--and he'd actually "GO."

Now, though all he wants to wear are his "big boy pants," he suddenly hates the toilet and screams if I put him near it. He says "uh oh!" moments before he wets/messes his pants but has absolutely no desire or will to do it the way he's done it for nearly a month.

Is this normal? Should I just keep putting him in big-boy-pants or revert back to the diaper? Should I force toilet time or just let him warm up to it again?

Urgh. I have no clue. Help.

If I don't wake up hungry, I know I didn't eat right the night before. I'm one of those people who would much rather feel a little hungry than a little full, so to me, waking up HUNGRY and ready to eat is a lovely feeling.

Lately, its TANGELOS that I crave. My babeh and I have been going through oodles of these outie-belly-buttoned oranges lately and I have yet to get sick of them. Did you know that a tangelo is the result of an accidental hybrid of a tangerine and a grapefruit?

Yum. Delish. And Costco has them in bulk right now. We're in one juicy heaven.

I woke up crying this morning.
It had been a hard, sleepless night with my sick, coughing-up-his-tiny-lungs-non-stop babeh in bed with me (and my hubby NOT--he's on a boys trip this weekend). The room was too hot (as it always seems to be in my case), especially so since I had to close the window to shut out the yelping maniacs who seem to need to shout at each other in the hot tub at 2 in the morning. When I'm too hot at night, I dream awful things, and last night, the awful things hurt my feelings more than they scared my psyche.

Its hard for me, as it is, to sleep without my hubby by my side, and though my babeh next to me is still sweet company, nothing compares to being able to nuzzle inside my sweetheart's shoulder nook and hear him dreaming. Sometimes he dreams that he's a bear and instead of dreaming, I hear him speak SNORE, but that's a tangent I will choose not to go off on.

So when I woke up crying (the big, sobbing tears of a hormonal, half-asleep tiredling) it was especially hard to calm myself down. My babeh stirred a little from my whimpering and I wasn't quite ready to soothe HIM back to sleep when it was ME who needed the soothing right then. I laid there thinking, "I lived by myself and in on my own for nearly 5 years before taking on a co-sleeper. Why can't I just go back to sleep!?"

Apparently my subconsious needs my hubby as much as my consciousness does. I hope he comes home before bedtime tonight.

There are many things that some people LOVE and others just don't. For me, one of those LOVE things is having my hair played with. Having it brushed or fingers run through it, getting it washed by the stylist or scalp-scratched by a fellow movie watcher, I don't care how its done, I just LOVE getting "groomed."

Recently, in a book I'm currently reading, I learned that one of the reasons that cats love to groom and be groomed is because (according to studies done) both the giver and receiver have significantly increased levels of serotonin, the feel-good-energizing-stress-reducing-chemical that the body produces during happy moments (as well as any moments where repetitive physical movements are made--like exercising--a subject for another day).

Its no wonder cats spend so much time grooming and why I like being groomed so much (as well as exercising). It makes ME feel good, energized, loved, less stressed out, etc. So, the next time someone asks WHY you want to have your hair brushed, your back scratched, or to go out on a nice long walk...its chemically important to your body!

You learn something new every day!

Today we celebrate the birthday of two of our closest (in proximity and relationship, coincidentally) neighbors. My babeh has a not-so-secret crush on both of these little ladies, so going to visit them today is going to be candy (not so much Chicken Soup) to his soul.

Tangent: I've always wondered what people who really don't like Chicken Soup (assuming there are such people) think of those Chicken Soup For the Soul books. I'm sure they can't quite get the concept the same way that those of us who love the soup do...

The other day he heard one of these above mentioned neighbors coming home and rushed to our front door calling her name as well as her son's. So I opened our front door (seeing as our doors are 3 feet apart in this condo complex we live in) so that he could have a quick neighborly visit and, alas, they were already gone. Without even blinking an eye, he ran to the pantry, carried his stool to their door, and rang their doorbell until they came to greet him.

Smart boy. Smart boy. He loves his ladies. Happy Birthday to them from him (and me)!

Yesterday I did the unthinkable. I went to Walmart.

I realize that some, if not many, of you don't have anything against Walmart and would think it rediculous that I am so opposed to stepping foot into the greeter-filled, lowest priced everything, get-everything-you-could-ever-need-in-one-stop warehouse of a supermarket. And I don't think any less of those of you who love the place. I love Target, so what would I have against Walmart?

Well, I was born with blood that supports small businesses that are local, personable, and classy. I was taught that sometimes spending a few extra pennies and making a few extra stops to keep people we know and love afloat is well worth the time and trouble. So, the thought of the Walmart Empire sucking people's businesses OUT of business (like FOX books did to The Little Shop Around The Corner in You've Got Mail) makes me not only sad, but almost physically sick.

I also have found that when I've made my way into Walmart, I most often feel dirty, cheap, and lazy. But, it was nearly naptime, I knew there was a mechanical horse that would entice my babeh to be happy, and I knew I could get everything I needed in one stop, so I chose Walmart. Yuck.

But what I found made me almost as sick as I had felt about going there. I found that produce was half the price of my local grocery store's produce and just as fresh. I found that the frame I had had my eye on at a local shop was a quarter of the price. I found all kinds of random non-edible grocery items that I needed to be next to half the price of what I normally pay, and my heavens, I even found a new ceramic pot for my soon-to-be-growing-tomato-plants without having to run to the local nursery. Sigh. I almost feel guily for spending so much time and money elsewhere...I'm afraid I might want to go back.

But my blood says I shouldn't. I refuse to become a regular Walmart Shopper...but I may stop in now and then when I want something for nothing again...

My brain seems to always be tirelessly at work. It tries to solve the problems of the day or come up with a clear (and hopefully clever) way of explaining what's going on in there, or its processing all the new information that has come in.

That's why I set up this other place to write something--to get it all out so that I could sleep at night. But I still can't sleep. And lately, something inside me is slowing my ability to get what I want to write OUT. It may have to do with the cold we've been fighting or maybe with the fact that we've been stuck inside all week without anything new to discover and think about.

I don't know. And I apologize to the three people who check into the things I write. Hopefully the weather will shape up, my brain with turn back on, and this will be an interesting place to look again. Sorry.

One of my dearest friends asked me why I think some people always seem to pick the short straw while others always seem to sail through life.

I've thought about this all week in hopes to give my clearest of answers. So here goes:

Point One: At church the other week someone stood up and said something to the effect of, "Satan just wants us to be miserable." I had to hold my own arm down and my mouth closed as I refrained from shouting a huge rebuttle. In my opinion, Satan wants us to be HAPPY but in doing things that are stalling our progression to our ultimate goal (put specific religion aside and focus on ultimate life-and-afterlife goals). C.S. Lewis supports this concept (or maybe I support the his thoughts on this concept...) in his brilliant book The Screwtape Letters. When we find ourselves joyful in doing things that are actually hindering our true happiness/goals, THEN he is doing his job successfully.

Point Two: I have a hard time believing that we all sat around in Pre-Earth Life and made lists of the things we could and couldn't handle and made up a blue print of what exactly we'd go through. BUT, I LIKE to believe that God recognizes our physical, emotional, spiritual, and cognitive abilities, strengths, and weaknesses and sees that one trial or another may be more suitable to teach us something than another. When I watch my babeh run around the house and come to a place where he's stumped, I can tell straight away if I should say, "Keep trying" or run to his aid. I think the same goes with our Heavenly Parents (if you should believe we have them.)

Point Three: The fact of the matter is that EVERYONE has some kind of struggle going on in their lives all the time, serious or just troubling, internal or obvious. The examples are endless, but my point is that no one is at all times care/worry/pain free. "Pain is inevitable, Misery is optional, but Joy is a choice." We all get to draw the short straw in some form or another, but we all just choose to bare the burdens differently.

So, my conclusion is this: We all suffer in some way or another. We all have burdens that seem too heavy to bare at times in our life. And we all have a choice in how to deal with them. We, nor God, in my opinion, necessarily CHOSE what murky waters we'd have to wade through to learn the lessons we need to in life, but we GET TO choose if we are going to find goodness in the experiences and keep on our track to our ultimate goals...or if we are going to let ourselves be stalled or led off track and let ourselves find joy in the attention and the pitty and the woah-is-me-s or even *in the little things that aren't going to be useful in getting us to our ultimate goals in the long run. The trickiest part of this whole life experience is learning how to buck up and keep moving. My sister in law always says, "Cry a river, build a bridge, and get over it, would you!?" Its hard to get over and through struggles. But it isn't impossible.

Its so much easier to say than do, I realize. And its even easier to just say you've drawn a short straw and hope for someone to save you. But I think our parents (both here and Heavenly) and our friends can see when to say, "KEEP TRYING!" and will do all they can when they know we need a little more than just encouragement. Nobody just sails through life...no one that I know, at least. We all just have to not look at the other straws in the handful and just learn to believe that what you've got infront of you is for your good no matter what happens. Again, easier said that done...but saying it is a good mantra...

Any other opinions out there?

*There is nothing wrong with making lemonade out of lemons. My heavens, we MUST make a huge amount of lemonade in order to stay sane in this life. But in The Screwtape Letters we see that sometimes finding joy in the things that aren't useful to us and aren't helping us and allowing ourselves to stay in the hole that we've found ourselves in (rather than finding a way out), THAT is when the Devil has his sneaky grip around our little necks. Brilliant book. EVERYONE should read it.

Just like Mother Nature so sickly outside

The three of us woke with a nose at high tide

Our throats are a ticklin', we're sneezing a storm

We can't seem to get our poor bodies to warm

We're coughing and sniffling and rubbing our eyes

And sucking on sweet cures all colors and size

The trash cans are stacked full of crumpled up tissue

And we've warn out the saying, "Oh, honey! God Bless You!"

We're keeping the couch feeling loved all day long
As we snuggle with blankets watching movies with song

I guess its a good thing the weather is poor

'Cuz today, sad but true, we won't leave our front door!

Yesterday, when I left my babeh at his favorite-place-other-than-home while I went to work, I walked away feeling relieved that he didn't cry as I closed the door behind me and also a little confused at why my bag was so light.

It was then that I realized how much stuff we tote around all day every day to ensure his (our) well being should any circumstance arrise: Diapers and Wipers for a dirty bum, juice or milk in a sippy, a truck or two or maybe a ball, some goldfishies, fruit leather, or pretzels, one or two binkies, a book or two, and somehow an extra pair of shoes always turns up at the bottom of the bag. All that stuff adds up to several good pounds...not to mention MY daily necessities...and when left with a sitter, well, the bag becomes a lot lighter.

I tried to do the traditional "Diaper Bag" thing for a while but learned quickly that carrying a baby, a diaper bag, a purse, and probably a blankie-and-toy wasn't very logical or appealing to onlookers. So, I opted for a not-so-trendy but VERY spacious and VERY useful Hobo bag. I love it. I love how I have to reach in up to my shoulders to find something at the very bottom--the way Mary Poppins did and I love that if we were stranded on a desert island together for an entire day with nothing but my bag, we'd both be perfectly happy.

Its amazing how happy you can be with just a small bag of things useful to you...

My first "real" boyfriend called me Princess. Looking back on that whole "first love" experience I might be willing to admit that one of the reasons I feel so head-over-heals for him was because he called me Princess (and because he was was a killer kisser---although, I had never kissed anyone before him, so how would I know?).

I've always held the title of Princess close to my heart because of that boy, so when people say we wives or we mothers should be Queen of our household, I kind of take a step back and wonder if being Princess of a household is a lesser ordination. I'd rather be Princess of anything than Queen, I've decided. Princesses get to wear gorgeous dresses with glass slippers and dance with handsome, dreamy eyed Princes. Heavens, I even think of my hubub as a Prince---a dreamy-eyed one at that. The king, to me, is my dad and the Queen is my mother; kind of like when someone calls me Sister ______ at church. "That's my mother-in-law, thank you. Call me by my Princess name, please."

It may be good to be Queen, but for now, I'm perfectly happy being the Princess of my home...although, what do you then call the children of a prince and princess? Prince once removed???

We've been doing a lot of looking out the window over the past few days. It's amazing how we made it through several long, hard inside months and with just two weeks of warmness teasing us, we can't seem to digest the pit in our stomachs as we watch the flag stick straight out from the wind (as if it were standing at attention to Mother Nature) and every last flurry of tiny snowflakes dancing outside our window screaming NANNY-HA-HA! SPRING HASN'T SPRUNG YET!

Spring HAS sprung. I know it has. I can feel it in my bones. So can the rest of my family. We've even turned off our heater. Good thing we have plenty of inviting warm blankets...

I've decided I need to stop talking. Not only do I leave most situations thinking that my mouth said WAY TOO MUCH, I also feel like the #1 reason I get into trouble these days is because I opened my mouth when I should have just kept it zipped.

Don't get me wrong. I'm actually a very good listener. And If I am asked to, I can keep any secret for as long as requested. But often I just talk and talk--sometimes just to make someone else feel like they don't need to talk if they seem uncomfortable, sometimes because I just have to vomit out my ever-coming thoughts. But man, my ongoing opinions, theories, and tangents seem to leave me redfaced with that foot-in-mouth syndrom more often than not.

From now on, I'm mute. Or at least until my babeh needs his story time.

Hard boiled eggs are surely the most indicitive sign that Easter is drawing near. I happened to have 18 EXTRA eggs just chillin' (pun intended) in my fridge this week, so we decided that instead of overwhelming ourselves with eggs for every meal, we'd boil them all hard and treat ourselves to eggs when we felt the need for a snack.

The best part of the whole harded (is that a word) egg is the process of smashing it against the counter and rolling the crispness out of the shell until peeling it off the whites is easy. Its almost a liberating motion in and of itself. And then sprinkling salt, pepper, and maybe paprika over each half of the split snack just tops off one of the best non-sweet sweetnesses of spring. I can't wait to dye another batch of 18 eggs with my babeh and hubub in a week or two.

I love hard boiled eggs. Heavens, I love spring. So so much.

If I were deemed Queen of anything, I think many could agree that a crown would be worthy for my ability to go off on tangents. Stories that should take only second to tell somehow turn into a scenic route of random details and thoughts that are always intended to give "my point" a more solid foundation...but sometimes just make me sound like an absent-minded professor. I can assure you I'm not absent-minded and I'm not a professor. I'm just someone who might think more than necessary--if that's possible.

So, having had to turn my online ramblings into an invitation-only quarry for my family's life, I have decided (after sweet encouragement from some of my favorite people) to tame all my silly tangents here, in public, for those who might care to read my thought processes without having to LOG IN or EVEN KNOW ME. We'll see how it goes. Encourage me with comments or help me realize my tangents really aren't all that interesting (by NOT commenting) and we'll see how effective this idea really is.

As for now, I'm here to

Tame The Tangents

in my life and just have another

somewhere to write something...