Justin and Lily at Deb’s House in San Antonio
March 2006

Someone posted this quote on Justin’s MySpace blog:

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

-W.H. Auden

I like this thought.  For some reason, the idea that “the one who loves more is the loser” is the thought that is perpetuated in our society.  “Nice guys finish last.” “The person who loves more in the relationship is the one without the power.” “Guard your feelings so you don’t get hurt.”  These are the things we are told over and over, and we assimilate these ideas without even thinking about them because they are presented to us at such a young age and so repetitively.

I didn’t even think about reversing the accepted norm until I read this quote on Justy’s blog.  It’s such a better way to think!  It’s such a better philosophy to base your actions and your life upon.

“If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.”  That is the idea that I am going to perpetuate. 🙂

I stole this from Lindsey’s MySpace page.
Isn’t it an absolutely gorgeous picture of Sean and Kelsey?
What’s even sweeter is Lindsey had it posted under “My Heroes.”
My heart just melted. I hope my two children will be as close.
August 2006

Lily is fast asleep, and I am sitting at my desk with 44 ounces of iced tea and two Krispy Kreme donuts. The caffeine will be used to fend off the sugar crash for as long as possible, but, of course, when both the sugar and caffeine wear off, I will be useless.

Sugar and caffeine are actually trouble, even though they are fun. A lot of fun things are trouble. If they weren’t so much fun they wouldn’t be so hard to give up. But if they weren’t trouble, then we wouldn’t be constantly trying to give them up.  I want to give up both sugar and caffeine, and… well, you see how well I have accomplished that so far. 🙂

Being pregnant I am extremely sensitive to emotions.  For example, two days ago I put on our new Yanni DVD.  The morning was a perfect temperature with a lovely breeze, and all the windows in the house were open.  Lily was dancing with her baby doll to the Yanni DVD (track #3), and I just started crying because I was so happy and the moment was so perfect.

It’s interesting being pregnant and being in this state because you get to feel everything much more intensely.  Had I not been pregnant, I still would have been happy at that moment and felt like the world was perfect, but I wouldn’t have felt it to the extreme degree that I did.  It’s interesting being hyper-sensitive because you can’t ignore anything.  The emotions are so intense that they demand to be noticed.

Sometimes it’s entertaining and sometimes it’s annoying, but overall I’ve been enjoying the experience.  Although I think it’s been hard on Matt at times having such an emotional wife.  As always, he’s been amazing through the whole thing.  If I start crying suddenly or a fight breaks out simply because my emotions are in control of me, he’s been kind, gentle and loving no matter what.  I really do have a perfect husband.

With perseverance and hard work, Lani and the two beagles next door
finally busted a hole in the fence.
10 September 2006

The mistakes I’ve made so far while sewing these Halloween jammie pants:

1. Cut out two left legs, so I had to go to the store to get more fabric to make two right legs.
2. Tried three different ways to mark the bias of the cloth before finally discovering one that worked.
3. Sewed the binding on backwards so had to remove the entire binding with the seam ripper, cut a new bias strip for binding, and sew it on.
4. While pressing the binding, I melted it with the iron, so had to remove it with the seam ripper, cut a new bias strip for binding, and sew it on.
5. When I put the jammie pants on after sewing the legs and crotch, discovered they were one size too small. They fit too snug across the bottom.

Sure, I’m learning how to cut, pin, sew, and press, but what I am really learning is patience.  I’m having to pull out an industrial-strength patience from deep within me so I don’t scream and then burst into tears.

I am so frustrated.  This is why so few people become adept at hobbies.  You have to really suck when you first begin a hobby…. I mean, really suck.  Sometimes it’s hard to get through that stage.

Lily arranging Baby and Teddy.
30 July 2006

A very accurate description of Dell:

Dell is a nasty machine that uses people like a lubricant, grinding them up and cleaning them out when they get messy or inconvenient.

I got this quote from here.  Whoever wrote that must have worked at Dell.  That feels like an insider’s sentiment — it’s certainly how we felt.

Lily putting diapies on all of her stuffed animals.
16 September 2006

I don’t have a lot to say this morning really. It’s a lovely autumn morning, the cat is purring next to me, and I have a really cute picture to post.  You don’t really need words when you have all that. 🙂

I fell off the sugar wagon after only three days.  I’ve been trying to get the sugar monkey off my back for years!  Years!  F***ing addiction.

*sigh* But I’m going to try again tomorrow.  Surely one day… one day I can leave sugar behind… one day… surely…

(It’s so hard — harder than I can describe with words. 🙁 )

On a happier note, it’s raining!  Central Texans love rain… love love love.  We don’t get it very often, living on the edge of a desert and all.  So when rain finally comes our way, it’s like a gift falling from the sky.  The sound, the smell, the saturated wet air.  It’s all wonderful.

I regularly keep up with the blogs of my friends and family, but I also read the blog of a person who I have never met, Andrea Scher.  She has a wonderful outlook on life and is very talented at telling stories.

Recently, she was having difficulty becoming pregnant.  Matt and I went through that pain.  And I thought that what we went through was awful (and it was — very emotionally painful), but, in the end, it turns out that we were among the lucky ones.  I finally got pregnant with Lily after only two years of trying, and we were also lucky enough to become pregnant naturally; we didn’t go through any invasive medical procedures or medications.  And I became pregnant with Baby #2 after being off birth control for a year.

So, we don’t become pregnant fast, but we do eventually get pregnant.  Given all the fertility issues my generation is having, that definitely makes us lucky.  And I’m grateful for that every day.

Andrea Scher just wrote the story of her journey to pregnancy on her journal.  It’s a touching and heartfelt story, so I’ve decided to link it.  She really is talented at telling stories. 🙂

The first part of the story.
The second part of the story.

Beautiful picture of Lily in the back garden taken by Matt.
12 August 2006

So what did I do last night with my spare two hours? Did I sew? Did I write?  Did I clean? Did I work on any of my current projects?

Now that would have been entirely too practical for someone like me, don’t you think?

I uploaded a new digital toy of course!  A calendar actually.  (I added a link to it along the sidebar.)  It’s very silly, and I don’t know how long my new digital toy will amuse me, but it’s fun right now. 🙂

Golly, what’s Angel doing today?  Why, let me look at her calendar… she has a doctor’s appointment today.

It’s very silly, but hey, silliness is to life as cinnamon is to apple pie — without it, it’s just not as good. 🙂

Baby G raiding the fridge.
(Matt loves this photo.  This is a very common sight in our house.)
01 September 2006

I would like to distribute this Halloween WordPress theme, but that would be Yet Another Project to complete before Baby #2 arrives at Christmas.  Actually, I would want to complete this project by October 1st so folks could download the theme in time for Halloween.

I did a quick and dirty job on the theme.  It’s not even close to being clean enough for public consumption.  First, I would have to read all the WordPress documentation, and then I would have to clean everything up.  It wouldn’t be a quick project.

But I think I would really enjoy it.  But I also feel like I abandon projects all the time and leave them half-finished.  I haven’t finished my jammie pants.  I haven’t finished Donna’s logo.  I haven’t finished Mary’s webpage.  The house is really due for a cleaning.  And my poor book… it’s like the prize-winning bastard stepchild of all almost-written books ever.  I’ve been writing that poor thing for years!  And what am I up to?  Chapter 3.

I want to rewrite a part of Ch 1 that I feel is very harsh and jolting.  Hmmm…. where shall I find time for writing between sewing, creating, cleaning, and being with my family?

See the problem.

But that’s life, isn’t it?  It flows and moves like the wind — sometimes a gentle breeze, sometimes a torrential hurricane, but always moving and changing and carrying you along.  There’s no sense in fighting the very nature of life.  Things will get finished when they get finished.  And some things won’t get finished.

And that’s why I don’t want to die anytime soon.  I have so many things I’m enjoying and I want to see the finished products.

Heh heh, so it seems I have Yet Another Project.  How hard could it be to create an elegant and clean WordPress theme anyway? 😉

I was feeling guilty about slamming the webpages on MySpace in the last entry.  I think it’s great that people are creating and owning a little piece of real estate on the internet.  And no one should ever feel bad about creating bad design.  We certainly didn’t “back in the day.”  And even now I don’t.  I can’t sing worth beans either, but I still do.

It’s just that MySpace annoys me, and I have no idea why.  I feel like it shouldn’t even be on my radar – that I shouldn’t be bothered by something so nonrelevant to my life.  I try to tell myself that it’s a great place for the kids, like Deviant Art or Lolita Snap which I totally adore and surf all the time.  I think that what the kids are doing on those sites is creative and brilliant!  But, for some reason, I find MySpace… what’s the right word… … just annoying.  It’s my personal black hole on the internet.

One day I am going to have to explore this dislike.  Although I think a fair bit of it is the webpage format that the MySpace engine forces people to use.  I find those pages so… ugh! just practically impossible to read.  MySpace is this massive website filled with page after page after page of jumbled, busy, badly-designed, difficult-to-read webpages.

I thought of a real life metaphor for the the MySpace webpages.  This is what my computer room once looked like:

The Woodings’ Computer Room
January 2006

Would you be able to find anything? Is it pleasing to look at?  It’s unorganized and a mess.  It’s practically nonfunctional.  This is what I see when I look at MySpace pages.  This is why they annoy the heck out of me.

ps. My silly, Halloween mouse-over effect still makes me laugh. :)  Silliness is a good thing.