Lily having a tea party with Jasmine.
25 March 2008

I have a secret which only my husband knows, but I am willing to share as long as you promise to not think of me too badly afterwards:  I was not very fond of The Incredibles.  There.  I’ve said it.

Since our society loves Pixar, I’m sure I’ll be a pariah after this entry, but it needed to be said.  Someone had to come forth and be counted.  The Ayn Rand Objectivist subtext in The Incredibles was annoying.

But to be fair, I must admit a prejudice.  My first boyfriend was an Objectivist, and I found his “I’m better than you and it’s okay because I have an entire philosophical movement to back my opinion” attitude both irritating and cruel (he treated other people very badly and this was his justification).  So to see his sentiments mirrored in a Pixar movie really did put me off the movie.

But the secret is out now.  I hope you still respect me in the morning.

Ps. I googled “The Incredibles Ayn Rand” and I was definitely not the only one that picked up on that annoying philosophy weaving its way throughout the movie.  In case you haven’t met any real-life Objectivists, let me clue you in.  Theoretical “rational self-interest” very often translates into real world “asshole.”  The theory does not translate well into reality.

Okay, I’m done ranting now… I f*ckin’ hate that philosophy… no, really, I’m done ranting…

Lily in her newest Disney princess dress.
22 March 2008

Kids are wonderfully transparent.  By the time we are adults, we have learned to hide or disguise our emotions.  And all of our hidden emotions cook inside of us and eventually bubble up, sometimes in unpleasant ways.

But not children.  Angry, sad, happy, scared… it’s all right there in your lap.  It makes it much easier to work with them.

And sometimes, like in the picture above, their transparent emotions will make you smile and smile.  Lily had been asking for the Geselle dress for awhile, but I told her that we would wait until it went to the sale rack.  Well, I soon realized that it would not make it to the sale rack.  In fact, by the time I agreed to buy it for her (it was still at full price, but the dresses were not staying on the shelves), there were none left locally and we had to drive to the Disney store at the San Marcos outlet mall (an hour drive) as it was the only store that still had a dress in her size.

But when she put it on…  and Matt photographed her beautifully happy expression when she wore her dress… it was definitely worth the trip.  She felt so special.  I do not have a single dress that makes me feel that special, that encourages the expression that she has.  And, sadly, if I did have a dress that made me feel like that, I would probably feel embarrassed and hide the emotion.

In many ways, we would do well to emulate children.

Ps. That dress was $50, not counting the money spent on fuel to get it.  When Matt watched her happily float around the house in her new dress which is the bridal dress from Enchanted, Matt said, “I’ve just had a vision of my future.  She is going to want a really expensive wedding.” 😉

Mommy vision again. 🙂
19 March 2008

I met the other Democrat who lives in Williamson County.  The house down the street has an “Obama 2008” sign outside their house, and I say “Good for them!” to have the balls to come out of the Democratic closet.  The peer pressure to appear conservative is quite strong simply because everyone around you is conservative.  You start to feel like some crazy liberal interloper and you find yourself thinking things like, “Maybe gun control is a bad thing.”

It has to be a little tough on the current conservative Round Rock residents though.  The housing prices in Austin have become so high, many Austinites, like Matt and myself, have been forced to move to the suburbs in order to have a nice house which is big enough for our growing families.  That means more and more liberals with their tiny liberal hybrid cars and their cactus-covered xeriscaped liberal yards will be moving here.  But who knows, maybe the local Round Rock population will think the liberals with their tinkertoy cars and cacti are amusing.  Or maybe they’ll think, “Well, there goes the neighborhood” and move to Hutto.  Like the 70s computer-simulation, Life, this cell will eventually stabilize into a new pattern.

Damian playing with the water fountain.
19 March 2008

Matt, or as I like to call him, Super Amazing Perfect Husband upgraded my computer.  He upgrades my computer about once each year — a faster hard drive or faster RAM or a nicer monitor.  This year I got a new motherboard, CPU (dual!) and RAM.  He also wiped my drive and installed Windows Vista.  And say what you will about Vista, but it is pretty.

My computer is sweet now.  And after this most current upgrade, I have two bits of advice to pass on:

1. Never underestimate what a nice screensaver can do for your business. I originally wanted Vista just for the bubble screensaver.  Those bubbles are so cool.

2. If you are single and you have the choice between a Brad Pitt look-alike, a fireman, an astronaut, and a computer nerd, always take the computer nerd.  You will have the sweetest machine in the city, and it’s true what they say about computer nerds in bed (wink wink nudge nudge).

Daddy and the kids on the swing.
15 March 2008

I’ve read many books on productivity and organization.  It is one of my favorite nonfiction genres.  But I have never been able to follow a system — any system — successfully.  The other day, as I was trying to feed both Damian and Lily while cleaning the house and doing the laundry, it dawned on me why I have failed so miserably:

Productivity books are written by professional men for professional men.

The productivity guru sequesters himself in his home office for nine hours while his wife is left cooking, cleaning, paying the bills, doing the laundry, grocery shopping, and caring for the children (notice that I did not even mention any hobbies that she may be trying to pursue for herself).  “But, honey,” he says as she desperately asks for help, “my work brings in the money and puts the food on the table.”  And off he goes into his office, away from his hectic family, to publish his solution to the world’s productivity problems.

Yeah.  Whatever.

I’m waiting for the book written by the housewife.  Not only does a housewife have too many things to do in too little time, but the priorities are constantly shifting – I mean, truly constantly in flux like water on paper.  And a housewife has a very difficult time following a set schedule because children are variables which cannot be quantified.

Short of getting up at 4am (which is what I did this morning), I cannot find the time for anything but housework and childcare.  And even the housework falls behind.  (Childcare is the primary duty, so it never falls behind; it takes precedence over everything.)

Maybe someday I will discover an industrial-strength productivity system — one that even a housewife can use.  I’ve been searching, but I have not been successful yet.  But as always, I have hope. 🙂

The children playing in the backyard at sunset.
15 March 2008

I don’t gamble; I have never gambled.  Gambling is a losing proposition.  You know that the odds are in favor of the house.  Why give away your money?

Yet, with all my education and savvy — with all of my self-righteous attitude — I still got involved with credit cards… icky, horrible credit cards.  Talk about giving your money away.  I should just go to Discover Card and write them a check for several thousand dollars — why bother with the thinly-disguised middle man of 22% APR.

I hate credit cards, and yet I have never evolved the self-discipline to get out from under their thumb of financial slavery.  Was the Illustrator book worth it?  Was the plushie Belle doll worth it?  Are any of our transitory consumer trinkets worth indenturing our future and the future of our family?

I read this article on credit card rates increasing even though the Federal Reserve is cutting rates, and I got so upset with myself for ever getting involved with these legalized loan sharks in the first place.

Five years ago, when we got that first credit card to pay for Savannah’s vet bills, my only knowledge was: “Credit cards are bad.”  Now I understand so much more.  I understand how the whole debt trap works — the interplay of the minimum payment, exorbitant APRs, and outrageous fees.  You combine these with our consumer culture and the human desire for immediate gratification, and you have a money-making machine for the banks.

But I guess, like I’ve said before, out of adversity comes knowledge and experience.  I’ve read many personal finance books and understood them on a theoretical level.  But now that I have personally lived the chapter on “Consumer Debt,” I understand it intimately.  So let me pass my knowledge onto any young people that might be reading this entry:  “Credit cards are bad.  Stay away from them.  If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.”

Sean stayed up all night playing World of Warcraft and
chatting online. As he slept through the afternoon the following day
on Aunt Deb’s bed, my children took their naps with him.
(I remember those days fondly… before children…
playing EverQuest until all hours of the morning with Matt… *sigh*…
maybe when the children are older we can abuse MMORPGs again.
Or is it like Senior Prom or Spring Break in Fort Launderdale — you have
a window in which to enjoy those things, but then you grow
past them? I don’t know. We’ll find out if we still enjoy MMORPGs
when the children allow us the time to explore that question.
Anyways, I completely digress; here’s the cute piccies: )
12 March 2008

When Joseph Campbell described the Japanese aesthetic, it turns out he also described my dream house: “You can’t tell where nature ends and art begins.”  In my dream house, you wouldn’t be able to tell where the outside ends and the inside begins.  I want lots of plants and windows, light and soft colors, outdoor rooms as well as indoor rooms…

Of course, my dream house has many – many – more details, but that would just translate into a long, boring entry, so I will just stop here.

Men have dream cars; women have dream houses. 🙂

Damian pushing his toy car out the back door.
08 March 2008

I’m sure you have heard the saying, “If it’s too loud, then you’re too old.”  Well, it’s been too loud for many years now.  I hate loud music and loud movies — it hurts my ears and annoys me… a lot.  And I listen to “soft rock.”  It’s true; I do.  And I’m not ashamed to admit it.

So how do I know that I’m not too old?  Because I still find this Call of Duty 4 review funny.  It has lots of cussing and crude sexual humor.  The day that I find things like this more crude than humorous is the day that I am officially “old.”

Of course, that day may be coming soon.  I found 95% of Knocked Up crude, annoying, and a complete waste of time.  However, the remaining 5% was laugh-out-loud funny.  But is it worth 126 minutes of my life for those 7 minutes of laughter?  I don’t think so.  I think I’ll stick with Colin Firth and Jane Austen.

Super Daddy, snuggled under his pile of pink Hello Kitty blankets,
is able to entertain two small children without leaving his cocoon.

08 March 2008

I’ve decided that I’m a Planning Nerd.  Now here’s a secret for all the non-nerds out there:  nerds like — very much, mind you — being nerds of whatever chosen hobby fascinates them.  There are music nerds, computer nerds, history nerds, anime nerds, the list goes on.  And, it turns out, there are Planning Nerds (we get capitalized because I’m a Planning Nerd, therefore we’re special 😉 ).

Last night, I made a new list — beautifully organized with fancy bullets and a pretty font — and then I surfed the DIY Planner template directory (which I surf regularly) and found another great planning tool, this one for planning your entire year on a single page!  How cool is that?!

My new list with its fancy bullets and pretty font is a list of things (hobbies, activities, etc) that are most important to me now.  It’s so easy to lose sight of what I’m trying to accomplish underneath the laundry and the bills, the shopping and the cleaning.  The minutiae and logistics of day-to-day living become my focal point, and then, suddenly, a year has passed and I’m thinking to myself, “Wasn’t I going to learn how to sew this year?” or “Wasn’t I going to start podcasting this year?”

So, you see, I like being a Planning Nerd.  It helps me remain “Angel” and not “the lady who does the laundry and cleans the kitchen.”

Damian laughing at the world.
06 March 2008

I turn 40-years-old in less than four months.  I’m just not ready to be 40-years-old yet.  It’s not that I mind getting older.  As everyone says, you actually find peace with yourself and the world as you get older.  It’s just… well, there are clothes that I haven’t worn yet; shoes that I haven’t tried yet; experimentation that is waiting for me.  Sure, I might be a mom, but I’m not ready to be matronly yet.

I had heard “40 is the new 30,” and I have decided that will be the theme for my birthday, and may well be the theme for the next decade of my life.  It’s all in the mind anyway, isn’t it?  And I’m just not ready to be matronly.  I’m sure one day I’ll be ready for that stage of my life… just not yet. 😉