Secretos....

First off, I would like to state that I love my Mother-in-Law mucho.

But I had to share this piece of art from another blog, http://postsecret.blogspot.com/, I laughed and laughed and then thought of my dear pseudo-Swedish friend Yasmiene and 5 pounds of bacon and then I laughed some more....my Mother-In-Law has a very keen sense of humor, so I think that she will laugh and laugh also.

JMB

Saying grace....

So, I am wondering how "Grace" before dinner goes at other people's houses.

At our house, for at least the last few weeks (maybe months, since summer) it has gone thus:

Mommy: I am thankful for----(insert different item here daily)

Daddy: I am thankful for---(insert some equally nice thing here)

Eldest son: Me and [my baby brother] are thankful for a

wonderful brother,

wonderful day,

wonderful meal,

that we will never die for a long long time,

and

for mothteetoes (mosquitoes)

All: Amen, Grace

Seriously, day upon day, so it goes.... a love of life and a fear of death, ahh, to be three.

What is it like at yours?

JMB

A short word of wisdom from an unexpected place...

I was listening to an Utne podcast about "How violent video game are making us smarter." I know that a lot of people want to comment on that, but I think that it was just the hook, something to get you to listen, but not the meat of the "story". It was about blah blah blah, gaming, blah blah blah.....

BUT

then there was a sweet small idea that some researcher got from these gamers that went on to become very successful.......

WAIT FOR IT,

You have to fail a lot to have great success.

Of course they went on to talk about other things, but first made the point that in order to gain mastery in these video games you have to try and fail A LOT. These researchers postulated that perhaps that willingness to risk failure enabled them to succeed in their career fields.

I think that a discussion could go many ways from here....but I think that I am going to just take the short sweet message of "failing a lot leads to success".

Ok.....let's go and risk some failure!

JMB

Complete-ness

About my word..... COMPLETE

I have forgotten it a few times this week. I think it was due to the fact that it is written HUGE right by my computer, but no where else in the house. So, this week, since Oldest Child thinks that going "nap-less" is very "in" this year, I have not been looking at my word, nor meditating on my word.

BUT, after I was prompted, I found this quote that I liked:

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

Dr. Wayne Dyer

(side note: I am going to look up this Dyer dude to make sure he is not some sort of psycho.)

This is something that I really need to learn in my heart...not just in my head, because I think that it is already there. That I am a complete and whole person, not an apprentice. I think it is all to easy to think that about yourself, you know "I can do something different, what I really want....next year."

This is a lie, I don't know when I even first started believing it. I may have told it to myself to just try to get through uncomfortable times, dangerous, numbing. Eventually, it just becomes a way of "living". "Living" meaning that you are getting by, you look really good, you can say the right things, but you are really small inside, you are scared, you are living a small life. Not risking joy, because you are afraid of failure....and you don't even really look at what failure is, but it is what you are living when you are living the life of an apprentice person.

And now I have found that I am not "on the way to someplace else" I am here, where I want to be. I need to get living.

So, I am off to risk some joy....
See you soon!

JMB

New Year.....

What to write about this year, 2007??

I don't know yet.

We are embarking upon some home repairs and updating. I think that we finally decided that we are NOT going to move for the next couple of years and so maybe we should have a home that is more functional and comfortable for our growing family.

I have lived here for 7 years, very monumental for me....I was always the "new girl" in school, I think that the longest I had ever lived in one place was 3.5 years. (Can you still think of yourself that way when you are approaching your mid-mid-thirties? I haven't even been in school for almost 10 years....time to update the ol' self image I guess.) So, yes, 7 YEARS!!!! A long time and I am still staring at the holes in the crown moulding that my lover (oooo la la, I just totally heated up this rather pedestrian blog) and I installed the first year we moved in here.

Well, I am tired of my unfinished projects. I deserve to finish them. I deserve to enjoy the feeling of accomplishment. It is a rare thing around here...what might it actually feel like??
A sigh of relief?
The sweet, sweet release of the ever-growing lists of things that I have started and need to get done?

Yes, I will take one of those this year.

I would like to thank a good friend of mine for showing me the error of my ways. She will be known by her hipster name ALITHA. This summer we were working on a quilt together for a friend's wedding. The wedding was in a week and we still had a long way to go.

I was really in the mode of "finish it late, 'Biscuits and Gravy' will be so busy on her wedding day, she will never notice."

But that ALITHA, she said to me "Why wouldn't we just want to get it done, B&G will really love seeing it, it will be so special."

So, I was a bit annoyed,
How was it going to get done? Blah, blah, blah, my usual chorus for putting off for tomorrow what can be done today. And of course the only bad thing that I could think about ALITHA was....

Eeeeww, you finisher, you.

That is when I thought about all of the projects she gets done, finished, COMPLETED! We both started a log cabin quilt at the same time, like....9 YEARS AGO. Hers has been on her bed for years now, I think that she actually wants to update it......where is mine?? Oh yeah, cut up in strips, in a box, hidden from view.

Long story short, we finished the quilt and the look on B&G's face as she opened the quilt was so sweet. She loved it. It was finished. There were no loose ends, the project was off my list. A discrete check mark, one less thing to worry over or feel small about.

Thanks ALITHA!! You, finisher you.

So 2007, what about that?

Originally, I picked "CREATE" as THE word for my new year. After writing this, I realize that I am good at the "creating thing", I struggle with what comes next. And so in recognition of things that I would like to have as my own in this new year, I am re-choosing (I can do that, I am the boss of me) COMPLETE.

Because I am, and I can!

(thanks em, I needed to write.)
JMB

Why sometimes it is better to have someone pamper you, or Yuck, what is that?

So, the other night I was noticing some very glaring gray roots. I have been noticing them MORE, both more of them and within a shorter time after dying. (Please bear with me, this is going to be such a vanity post.)

So, I have a LOT of gray, that has been established, I also am a non-paid working woman, i.e. a mom and so "for the team" I have decided to forgo visiting my dear Gloria and I attempt to beautify alone. This hasn't really been that large of an issue. I don't really feel like I have been deprived, but this month I think that I may have learned my lesson.

For those of you who also are chemically dependant (to Clairol....take your pick) you know that there is the "coloring" step and then the "conditioning" step. Long story short, during the "conditioning" step, I dropped the lid to the conditioner and it went down the drain.
Lost.... gone.... forever....

I was so upset about the plumbing ramifications that I stuck my finger down there too,
Slime....yuck, what is that?

I told my dear husband about our plight and he looked at me with probably the most irritation that I think I have seen our whole marriage and said,

"Why don't you use the screen thing to cover the drain?"

"Well, it was full of hair, which is so gross and my scalp was burning!"

It now seems like a pretty weak reply.

It was decided that I would call a plumber.

The first plumber arrived the next morning and "worked" on the pipe for what seemed an eternity....I say worked because I didn't actually see him do anything, but there was noise coming from the bathroom??? So work? He emerged about an hour later, head hung low and informed me that he could be of no more service to me. He said that he would have to call a guy that could go under the house. At this point, all I can see are dollar signs, but this is our only bathtub...and we need to bathe, right?

So, he calls the "super" plumber (why he couldn't go under the house and fix it is a mystery to me?) and Mr. S.P. can't come until the next day. I couldn't handle it, my bathroom now smelled like machine oil and ground metal, and my tub was full of black-sludgy water. I was supposed to wait longer?

NO, no, no, I don't care if this was supposed to be my punishment for moving the hair screen, I had to think fast....YES, I will call another plumber.....what is another bill? I need to bathe!

Finally at about 3:45 in the afternoon a lone Plumber arrived on a gleaming white steed. (OK, it was a van, a large van, and just white.) He not only could talk to me in a kind voice about my pipes, but he assured me that the problem would not involving going under the house and then I knew we might still be able to afford summer camp for the kiddies.

He was done in 20 minutes, just like that. There was a hair ball the size of our dog now on the side of the tub, but water was flowing. He was a wonderful man, our plumber.

After I thanked him profusely, he handed me the bill. I looked at it and thought....
This is exactly what I pay Gloria and she even blows my hair dry and fixes it real pretty.

So, to end (FINALLY) thank you lone Plumber, you were good to my family. Gloria, I will be seeing you next month!

"Wordplay" or "Nerds on Parade"

I love documentaries about people and their obsessions. I think that if you dig deep enough you can uncover the inner nerd in anyone, truly. Someone might look totally "put together" and "hip" and then you might mention something like "Hello Kitty". Then that formerly cool and collected individual might start mouth-breathing and telling you that the latest incarnation of Hello Kitty is far inferior to the collection circa 1982, but I digress.....

I just love that. People are nerds, I, myself, am a nerd. (I also like to use commas improperly.)

So, my latest indulgence was a wonderful movie called "Wordplay". I am a S.A.H.M, so of course I watched it last night in the comfort of my own nerdom on DVD. (JMB and MPB, formerly "a cute couple" do not see first-run movies anymore.) It was wonderful. Sometimes documentaries of obsessed people are a bit slow, but this flick had wonderful pacing and people that you just fell in love with. By the end of the movie you were cheering them on as they competed in their "crossword puzzle-off". Wait, I am getting ahead of myself.

This movie is about people and their obsession with crossword puzzles, more specifically The New York Times puzzle. It has interviews with all sorts of celebrity types and how they fell in love with the puzzle, and then more importantly it follows the highs and lows of being a Crossword Puzzle Celebrity. To give away anymore would be a crime, everyone needs a bit of crossword puzzle drama in their lives.

I bet you thought that I wasn't going to mention the most exciting celebrity featured in this movie.....Puzzlemaster Will Shortz (Google does NOT capitalize this title, but I think that it is appropriate.) He is better to see in person (ok, on DVD) and WAY nerdier than he is on the radio.

I am, right now, speechless, I loved this movie so much.

See it people!

PS
Other Grrrrreat ones are:
Fast, Cheap and Out of control
Mad Hot Ballroom
Supersize Me
---I know of more, but can I bring them up from the useless info recesses of my brain?
We will see....more to follow