Lindsey with my children during our week in Conroe with the Pipkins:

Lindsey is only 16-years-old, and she is amazing with children.
She has a raw natural talent to understand and love children.
I love seeing someone’s raw talent shine through them
like a sun shining through glass.

What if you were exactly the person you wanted to be?  What if, at every moment, you acted like you felt you should act and not follow the path of least resistance?  Would you find the new you boring and predictable, living a life with no accidental detours?  Or would you like this you who was responsible and reliable, heading towards your planned dreams because you always acted in accordance with them?  Would you become insufferable and judgmental because you never give into the ice cream and deep fried foods like other, weaker-willed, people do?

I actually don’t know the answers to these questions because I don’t have the sustained willpower required to be this sort of person.  I bend towards temptation with a natural ease: I eat the nine cookies one after another; I surf the web when I should be cleaning; I take the children to McDonald’s instead of cooking them a healthy breakfast.  I don’t head towards my dreams and my goals with single-minded determination.

Sometimes I wish I did.  But then I wonder, would I like that version of me?  I’m pretty fond of myself as I am.  What about that version of me?  Would I still be me — quirky and slightly chaotic?

It would be a fun experiment.  What would I be like?  Is it possible to be quirky and slightly chaotic as well as reliable and determined?  The funny thing is: I don’t think I have the willpower to run the experiment for even a few days. 🙂

It would be fun to try though…

We’ve been to Dad and Donna’s lakehouse in Conroe twice recently, and both times we had so much fun.  There are two things I like about Dad and Donna’s lakehouse: 1) A house on the water is very calming.  When I nurse my son, my whole body relaxes, the world disappears, and the universe is just me and him snuggled together on the bed, sharing a moment of love.  I get a similar feeling when I’m in a house where all the windows look out onto water.  My whole body relaxes and everything resolves into peace.

And: 2) The jetskis are a lot of fun.  I don’t hotdog around or anything.  I just put-put along with Lily, and we enjoy the ride.  Everybody in the family seems to really enjoy the jetskis, whether they are zooming or put-putting.

So I was on realtor.com, fantasizing.  I was surfing waterfront properties in Austin.  The prices, of course, were exorbitant… way beyond anything Matt and I can afford.  That is what made it fantasizing, dreaming about the future and what could be.

And then, while I was surfing waterfront homes, this picture showed up on my Google Desktop Photos gadget:

Damian
22 February 2007

And in an instant, I realized that I already have everything that I want in this house right now. I realized that what is most important to me — what makes me happy and grateful to be alive — is being with the people I love.  And if we happen to be at a lakehouse together, well… that’s just a nice perk. 🙂

(I still hope to have a lakehouse one day though.  Dreams are the seeds of the future.)

Daddy and Lily playing with her hat at Denny’s this morning.
23 June 2007

Only two weeks and three days (that’s seventeen days) until my mom visits. She is flying into Austin on Tuesday night, July 10th.

In layman terms, that means I have seventeen days to clean my house. That’s not a lot of time when you are a procrastinator who hates to clean and has two small children… not much time at all.

Deb, Lily and I on the jet skis.
16 June 2007

I was surfing cafe press this evening — looking at the neat things that people have created — and I became exasperated with my own timidness. I’m done with being creatively timid. What a waste of time.

I like creating — writing, drawing, sewing, beading — I like creating a lot.

I like creating a lot.

Damian watched the Spurs @ Cleveland game (game three) with Uncle Bruce and Aunt Deb:

12 June 2007

I’m with the Pipkins at my dad’s lake house in Conroe this week.  Dad and Donna are in Mexico, and we’re house-sitting for them.

Some piccies:

While we were packing to leave, Lily took one of the bags
and began putting toys and books in it. Then she
put her shampoo in a bag (because she saw me put
shampoo in a bag), put on her hat, picked up Baby,
and told us she was “Ready to go!”
10 June 2007

Everybody loves Lindsey.
11 June 2007

Lounging on the porch.
(Lily is, of course, ready should a cocktail party spontaneously begin.)
11 June 2007

We’re having an excellent time. I’m sure Dad and Donna are having an excellent time in Mexico as well. 🙂

Lily making lunch for her horses and her yellow dog.
29 May 2007

So I played around with my microphone yesterday and recorded a bit of my work.  And, let me tell you, I felt goofy.  I felt ridiculous.

So I have to push through this feeling.  I have to just hope that the end product is something enjoyable, something worthy.  Of course, I think that all creative projects are worthy, no matter the final quality.  Just the fact that someone is creating and living gives it worth.

But let’s not get sidetracked in feel-good philosophy, shall we?  Let’s stay focused on the fact that I felt goofy.  In fact, when I just playback the clip and listen to myself, the overwhelming feeling of goofiness washes over me again.

Maybe it’s my feel-good philosophy that will help me get past this bump in the road.  Maybe it is only by realizing the intrinsic value of all creative work that I will be able to actually see this idea through to completion.

This seems like a very good spot for a quote from the inimitable Andrea Scher:

“The first few years were difficult financially and there were times when I felt really lonely and afraid. Every day I had to recommit to my work and my dream. It was tempting to give in to the voices that said, “This is NEVER going to work! Are you crazy?” I felt like quitting a lot of the time… Looking back, I SO honor myself and the courage I had at that time to keep going in the face of very little money and success. It is one of the things I am most proud of.” [The emphasis is mine.]

Now that I have created a test mp3, the next step is to understand RSS.  Here’s the test I created yesterday (you have to click the play button twice):

Daddy covered in kids.
29 April 2007

My house is asleep… everyone is asleep except for me and the cat.

My brain is buzzing.  I’m excited about all the possibilities, all the could-be’s and may-be’s and wanna-be’s.  I’m excited about now and the future and all the happiness that is in my life.

I love having big dreams; it makes for a big life.  Even if you don’t realize all your dreams, having big dreams still creates a big life. 🙂

Damian turned five-months-old yesterday.
We put him in his highchair for the first time
and attempted to feed him rice cereal.
He had nothing to do with the cereal,
but he enjoyed his highchair very much.
03 June 2007

I felt very surburban this weekend. We spent the whole weekend working on our backyard. Mowed, cleaned, trimmed trees, borrowed tools from our neighbors, hung out in the cul-de-sac chatting with our neighbors. The backyard looks absolutely beautiful now. In fact, let me go take a photo.

Woodings Back Garden
04 June 2007

The photos don’t begin to do it justice — how peaceful it is right now to sit on the swing and listen to the birds. And the weird part: we really enjoyed working in the garden this weekend. Truly enjoyed it.

In my late-20s, I told my then-boyfriend, Larry, that if I ever moved to the suburbs, I was going to get a giant tattoo of an eagle to cover my entire back so that everyone knew that even though I lived in the suburbs, I wasn’t of the suburbs. And when we moved out to Round Rock three years ago, it was due to financial constraints. We couldn’t afford a house in Austin, so we had to move to the suburbs. But, in my mind, it was always a temporary thing. We were here only until we could afford to move back into Austin.

But now, I’m starting to like the suburbs, Round Rock in particular. It is still quite conservative for my liberal ways, but I like the way the city is choosing to grow; I like my neighbors; I like my house; I like my quiet street. I like the suburbs.

I really am getting old. 🙂

Papa and Nan bought Lily
her newest Fabulous Outfit.
Lily liked it very much;
she wore it for three days straight
after she received it.
Memorial Weekend in Conroe
26 May 2007

I don’t have a lot to write about (thus the recent lack of posts), but I have lots of cute pictures.  I haven’t sent out a family email recently either.  Lack of time and lack of energy are the culprits.  I’ve not been “on” this week.

David O., the very nice personal trainer at Lifetime Fitness who did our body assessment, keeps asking for me to write a book about a good marriage.  He commented that Matt and I have a really good relationship after six years of marriage and he wanted to know the secret.

So that will be my first podcast effort — the book that David O. requested.  It won’t be nonfiction.  I don’t have the credentials to write a nonfiction book on marital bliss, nor do I have the experience.  Maybe after fifty years of marriage I will feel that I have the qualified experience, but not after only six years.  But I can write a short, sweet, hopefully entertaining fictional story.  It will be a fun writing exercise.

Two chronological life notes: 1) We had a lovely time over Memorial Weekend at my dad’s house.  It had been awhile since we were all together — we hadn’t seen Dad, Donna, Ben or Shelly since Christmas — so we really enjoyed being with the family. 2) Deb and her crew are stopping by today.  We didn’t manage to clean the whole house, but it is partially clean. 🙂

I hope I’m on again soon.  I don’t manage very well when I’m feeling antisocial and irritable.