Ben and Lindsey

Me and Kelsey
I haven’t taken any pictures recently, so I decided to post some of my favorite pictures
from the past until I get some new piccies. These are pictures from Lindsey’s birthday party
from more than 10 years ago. Lindsey is 16-years-old now and Kelsey is 18-years-old,
just to give you an idea of how long ago these pictures were taken.

Everyone is gone.  It’s just my little family again, and it feels so nice.  We have been out-of-routine for almost two months now.  I’m ready to get back into a routine.  When we are out-of-routine, we don’t keep up with our money plan thus we overspend; we don’t keep up with our health plan thus we eat badly; I personally don’t get to work on any of my hobbies which fulfill and sustain me.

I like it when my family visits, and I like visiting family, but I am now ready to just be with our family for a little while.  I’m happy things have calmed down.

Now, to balance the check register and untangle the money mess we created…

Lily put cat ears on Damian.
Oddly enough, they really suit him.
05 July 2007

If someone had come up to me and said, “Gym showers are one of the happiest places you can find,” I would have thought, “What a bizarre and quite probably untrue statement.  Gym showers?  I imagine they smell like feet.”

And yet, it is true!  They don’t smell like feet; they smell lovely!  They smell like soap, fragrant shampoo, clean bodies, and happy people!  Two days ago, while I was showering after my workout, a young woman was just singing away in her shower stall.  And even though she had just a normal singing voice, her song and her general happiness lit up the whole shower area.

Why so much happiness in such an unlikely space?  I think it’s because gym showers are full of people who have just finished their workouts.  I’m told that the happiness you are feeling after a workout is caused by endorphins, but whatever it is, it makes gym showers a very happy place.

By the way, the ladies’ locker room at Lifetime Fitness, in general, smells very nice.  Matt said that the mens’ locker room does smell like feet, but in the ladies’ locker room, all the women put on such nice-smelling perfumes or body splashes or (as in my case) powder after they get out of the shower.  I don’t know if this statement is true across other gyms, but it’s true for my gym.

I’m going to make a potpourri sachet for my gym bag to keep it from smelling like sweat, and asked Matt if he would like one for his gym bag, and he said “Only if it smells manly.”  And I asked, “Do you mean like patchouli?  No lavender or rose?”  And he answered, “Yes.”  And that, my friends, is why the ladies’ locker room smells so much nicer than the mens’ locker room.

The kids and I on the swing
01 August 2007

It’s very commonplace to hear about the “culture of the workplace”: what a particular workplace culture nurtures and what it destroys.  But no one discusses the culture that a family creates in its own home.

I was thinking about this because the culture in our home was not strong enough to hold up against the addition of an eleven-year-old and his video games and fast food.  Cody joined our family for a week, and instead of him being incorporated into our family culture, our family life morphed around him.

Our routine and our habits have no strength, and I think that’s because they are in their infancy.  We, as a family, are trying to get away from fast food so when someone comes in that regularly eats fast food, it’s easy to fall back into old habits.

We’re still evolving the culture in our home, and, in time, when people visit our home, they will walk into the world that we created with our children.  Hopefully  it will be filled with kindness and laughter… and healthy food. 😉

Lily
Lincoln, England
17 July 2007

Today was hard… very hard.  Today was hard because of children.  I’ve had Cody for the past week, so I’ve had three children for a week, but you must combine the three children with a week’s worth of junk food and video games.  Today I hit my breaking point.  Today was… well, not a happy day.

My mom will keep no living thing, not even a plant.  She wants nothing to be dependent on her.  Now that I have two children, I completely understand this.  No more pets after our current three.  I have reached the limit of how many things I can care for and still be able to care for myself.

And I’m not fond of video games, or junk food for that matter.  Both of these things, used habitually, make you ill.

Today was hard.

Cody and Damian on the swing
01 August 2007

So G. and D. (to use their nomenclature) made a wager — they both must write a blog entry so many times each week for one year or lose some nominal amount of money.  I like the wager because I get a tiny update on their life almost every day — a little note (sometimes just a small paragraph, sometimes an essay) tacked on the web bulletin board saying “hey, this is what happened today” or “this is what I was thinking today.”

And of course the wager — the idea of posting almost daily by requirement — made me start thinking about posting daily and not just when the muse comes calling.  Sometimes my posts are very mundane (“Matt and I went to HEB today.  We ran into Sarah Q.”) and sometimes I try to write something a little more poetic or meaningful — something that creates feelings or ideas.

What if I was required to post daily?  What if I had to force creativity?  Thousands of writers do that daily as their career.  But could I?  Would it be enjoyable to read or would the posts soon become dull and banal?

And, finally, is this the worry of every writer and would-be writer?  If I’m forced to create, will it be dishwater?

Lily
Lincoln, England
20 July 2007

I have been meaning — wanting… desiring — to write a blog entry and to start working on my podcasting idea, but I am constantly derailed by children and a messy house.  I’m always playing catch-up in my own life, but never actually catching-up.

What have I been desiring to blog about, you ask?  Why, the evanescent quality of coffee, of course!  Matt really likes Donna’s coffee when we visit Conroe, and I have tried to recreate that coffee here at home, always coming close but never quite succeeding.  And I figured out why the other day.  It’s because we are away from home, relaxing at a lakehouse, and someone is making Matt coffee.  So there is a mood — an ambience — brewed into the coffee which I cannot recreate at home.

Coffee commercials try to sell this ambience.  The actors are always in the mountains or in front of a cozy fire as they sip their coffee.  It doesn’t show them corralling children as they dash out the door, trying not to spill their coffee all over themselves.  So when you bring your Folgers home, it doesn’t quite feel the same as you felt when you watched the commercial.  But, of course, you can say that about most commercials.  Are they selling a product or a feeling?

Hmmm… my paragraphs are long in this entry.  We were taught in journalism to keep your paragraphs short.  I’m not quite sure why, but I assume it is for readability.  It might be due to short attention span as well.  I don’t actually know why they have that rule.

Hah!  I posted!  And the children aren’t even awake yet.  Now to just start working on the romance podcasts…

Matt and the children with his two brothers, Ben and Sam,
and his grandparents
Lincoln, England
20 July 2007

For the past month, my little family and I have not been settled.  For two or three weeks before we left for England, we worked really hard cleaning the house and clearing all the baby clutter out.  We also fixed up Lily’s room (it looks soooo pretty now; I just go in there and sit on the bed because it’s such a cute little girl’s room filled with toys and cute pink lamps and plushies).  While we were working so hard, we quit going to the gym (Lily also had ringworm and was not allowed in the child center until the ringworm was gone) and we ate out so we could stay focused on the work.

Then we went to England for ten days.  We had an amazing time.  Matt was rejuvenated by his visit to the homeland and seeing his brothers who he hadn’t seen in two years.  Lots of chocolate and fish and chips, no gym.

We returned with a feverish desire to get back into our normal routine.  But we were thwarted by severe jetlag and impending family visits.  More eating out, no gym.

By Thursday of last week, my stomach could not take another greasy meal.  I was feeling really ill.  So, for the first time in a month, we made a meal at home.  Matt cooked bangers and mash with broccoli and green beans.  Never have vegetables tasted so good.  And we’ve been eating meals at home since then, but still with lots of cookies and chocolate.

So here it is, Monday morning.  The fresh start of a fresh week.  We’ve already reserved a spot in the infant area of the child center at the gym for Damian.  We’re ready!  I’m ready!

I’m ready to feel better.  I’m feeling really run down from all that terrible food.  But on the upside, the house is clean and we had an amazing visit with both Matt’s family in England and my family before my mom left back for Kentucky.  But I am definitely ready to get back into a familiar daily family routine.

Matt and the kids with Matt’s two brothers, Ben and Sam
Lincoln, England
20 July 2007

We’re having a large family lunch here today — 14 people. This is mom’s last day in Texas; she flies home to Kentucky tomorrow. She’s been here for a month, and I’ve only seen her one day. We picked her up from the airport the day before we left for England. And the day we came home from England, she had just left for Fredricksburg to help my grandmother move. So she’ll be here sometime this morning, and I’ll see her today and some of tomorrow, and then I drop her off at the airport tomorrow evening. I’m really sad I didn’t get to see her, but that’s how it works out sometimes. Our schedules were just too conflicting during this visit.

The whole house is clean for the lunch party except for my computer room. My desk is currently not visible. I keep putting this chore off, but now it’s time. It’ll be nice to have my desk back even though I’m not looking forward to the chore itself.

Me, Matt, Uncle Sam, Jo, and the kids in the hot tub.
Lincoln, England
19 July 2007

My new favorite quote:

I am not bound to win, I am bound to be true.
I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light that I have.
— Abraham Lincoln

And I covered my Book of Dreams a couple of days ago. It was just a black three-ring binder, so I covered it in pretty fabric and ribbons. It was my first time to cover a book in fabric, and I did a rush job because I have children and, when you have children, many things become rush jobs, but here is the final product:

Fabric-covered Book of Dreams
27 July 2007

I know it’s not a very polished final product, but I think I did a good job for being my first time to do something like this.  As the quote goes: “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly at first.”  The pages are printed from the templates on this DIY Planner site (a very fun site to surf if you are completely into lists and office supplies like I am).  I used the Classic 2-up templates.

By the way, I apologize for the completely unrelated, random title to the post. It’s just a thought that has been running through my head for the past couple of days.

Damian (6-months-old) with Auntie Lily (90-years-old)
(Auntie Lily is Lily and Damian’s great-great-aunt,
and Lily is her namesake.)
18 July 2007

The sun is up, and I’m in a much better mood. So I decided to add a post that is a bit more upbeat.

Random happy things:

• Lily’s curls.

• Damian will sing in tiny, soft baby coos as you dance with him.

• Matt is conscientious, kind, generous, responsible, reliable, honorable, honest, hard-working… basically the perfect father and husband, and the children and I were lucky enough to be the ones given him.

• Lily and Damian make us laugh… a lot.

• My mom, Deb, and Lindsey are coming for a visit, and I’m really looking forward to it.

• People send me greeting cards in the mail, sometimes with money. 🙂

• Matt really enjoys his work.

• I really enjoy Matt’s family.

• I really enjoy my family…

• … and my friends although I am not very good at keeping in touch with them. Their presence in this world makes it a better place.

• Ultimately, most people believe in good although they sometimes make bad decisions.

• The world is full of creative people.

• The sky is blue and the grass is green.

• …and I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”

Hmmm… a much better way to start the day.