Monthly Archives: December 2009

I wonder if scrapbooking has lessened due to the advent of social media and all it’s myriad of tools to catalog one’s daily lives.  Has Flickr replaced photo albums?  Do digital images remain forever on our high-tech cameras and hard drives with the promise to be printed?  Do people still buy bound journals when typing is faster and oftentimes more coherent at capturing our thoughts than putting pen to paper?  I know I have only completed one notebook journal in all my life.  Doogie Howser, how far we have come. 

Technology is moving at a rapid whip-lash speed.  Will the world be recognizable to me 20 years from now?  How will my children fare?  I know the world I grew up in is unrecognizable to my children already.  The Jetsons, come meet your new neighbors.

I wonder what of my children’s childhood will they remember?  What will they forget or rewrite through time’s fuzzy vision?  I wonder if the moments I tag as important for them will even register 20-30 years from now?  How can I ensure the accuracy of their remembrances?  Will the time I lost my temper and disallowed my son from playing with an electronic toy be a bad memory or one that he will recognize as necessary parental discipline?  I hope the latter as I meant the latter.  But what we mean and what becomes are much different things.  I doubt my own parents would ever have foreseen how I now see my childhood to be.  This is all new territory for me and the hubby.  We each did not have -that- pleasant of childhoods to begin with.  He got off better than I did, for sure.  It feels so so bizarre how vastly different mine is to my children’s.  Despite my firm belief that I am doing right by them, most of the time I still feel terrified at flying blind.  I can’t model my parenting skills after what I witnessed firsthand.  No, that would not do.  Emotional, mental, physical abuse is definitely not to be recreated in this generation that I am raising.  So how to teach without the methods my father used?  How to show love without the manipulation and guilt-laying my mother did?  How to address property rights when I had none growing up?  I don’t have models for appropriate parenting.  I’m flying blind and it is terrifying and it’s all I’ve got.  I’m thankful for having the courage for my children’s sake to do it anyways.

As I worry about the future and our ever-changing plans, I keep falling down the rabbit-hole of past memories.  Flashbacks assault me throughout the day.  Not just images, but actual sensations that I had in those moments when I had them.  The time period changes–they come and go in phases.  Right now I’m being haunted by my high school years when I’m awake and at night I relive my 20’s.  Then I snap back to the present in my 30’s.  The inevitable happens and I pick up a childhood relic of mine and instantly I’m transported to sitting on my Daddy’s lap playing computer games as he tells me how proud he is of me.  Love love that memory.  A picture of Robie Sr. is the background on my iPhone.  On my desk lies the 4 1980’s Sierra Adventure Games DH got me for Christmas.  Too sensitive just yet to be installed by me.  On my living room bookshelf sits my Dad’s old Glass Electricity Globe Light thing.  I wonder if it still works or will it explode after it is turned on for more than an hour?  It would suck to be electricuted by something that is 25 years old.  Is this because New Year’s is looming its head around the corner?  Is this because I still so fully, wholly, and painfully miss my Dad?  Is this because I’ve recently found some old friends, faces from the past that I came upon on facebook and google?  Or just because I’m between being rooted and being lost?  I think all of it.  Why not?  When has life ever been simple?   I’m hopeful for the future no matter how painful the past nor how uncertain the present.  I’m grateful for that.

Insomnia is stalking me yet again.  I can’t sleep.  Surprise surprise, right?  Methinks this is how 99.9% of blogs probably get started.  The remaining .1% is for the sake of vanity, I’m sure.  Heh.  Anywho…  Can you believe that I’m 32 yrs old?  Jeez.  30’s is the new middle-age.  Well, it is because I say so.  And yes, this only applies to me in my head.  I was elated, estatic I tell you–when I turned 30 many moons ago.  I felt that I finally had credibility.  No more of the “You’re-Just-a-Kid” looks anymore from those of the Over 30 Set.  Loved the credit.  Then 31 felt strange.  It felt stranger for feeling strange at all.  Didn’t know how to be.  When I retreat to my thoughts, my mental image was of me as a teenageish-twenty-somethingish girl.  But peek into a mirror and the image reasserts itself and reality says hello.  Not that I looked much older but it’s just different I guess.  Now 32 and I’m feeling time pressing on me finally.  Mortality is now imminent!  Egads, what’s that?!  No, I don’t feel akin to any senior citizens yet but now I sympathize.  At 32, I’ve suddenly realized that time does not go backwards nor stand still.  It is rolling along!  Will it soon roll ahead of me? 

What fun would life be if there were no limits?  Would the middle be as valuable if there was no end?  I don’t know.  But I would like to think so.  Maybe 32 is here to remind me that I need to savor this life.  Savor it for all the juice and don’t mind the pulp; as best as I can.  I feel myself standing on the hill.  It is impossible to fall backwards except in my dreams at night and my memories during the day.  So I start to tilt forward.  There is fear of the unknown but also relief at the inevitability.  No control = no responsibility.  No responsibility = do the best you can because there is nothing else you can do or be asked to do.  My mortality makes facing my mortality okay. 

Not exactly joy but I’m okay with that.  32, you are okay.

I did the dishes; over and over and over again.  Not fun but I still chock this one up as a good thing.  Love the results of cleaning but can’t stand the process to get there. 

I cooked grilled cheese sandwiches for the kids for dinner.  Served with veggie juice and apple slices.  I grilled some steaks and brocolli for Mommy and Daddy for dinner.  I also made brown rice although I forgot to plate it and so we didn’t eat it.  But I still count it as being made! 🙂  … DH said the meal was excellent.  I even did the final round of dishes and the kitchen and the Griddler Gourmet are clean.  Yay me!

Sure there are many more on Mommy’s never ending To-Do List.  But alas… let us measure success one act at a time. 

After dinner we had another great Family Movie Night.  We finally felt that #1 was ready to watch The Goonies for the first time.  How amazing is that?  Can I tell you how much fun it is to watch your child enjoy a movie you’ve enjoyed as a child yourself?  Too too awesome.  He was scared and laughed at all the same parts I did.  The Goonies rock.  And yes, I still want to move to wherever the heck that movie takes place in.  Purdy purdy.  He ran over to us after it ended and thanked us for showing the movie to him.  He wrapped us both in a big gigantic hug.  He was so passionate and grateful and told us how much he loved us for it.  (Sniffle, sniffle)  The Goonies may rock but my son rocks harder, man.  Love is such a small word for how I feel about him.  And my #2 as well.  Heck, toss in the ol’ DH too.  Why not? 😉

Thank you universe for another joyful night.

1.  Hubby left work early on Xmas Eve! Woohoo! It’s always so very thrilling to get to see and be near him more. Well, not always but this weekend has been extremely lovely.  Why can’t he get paid the same but work half the time?! Well, all I can say is that I can’t wait for retirement.  Hubby, Me 24/7!  I’ll take his good and his bad baby.  He just better continue being worth it! 😉

2.  We spent a very lazy weekend just spending time together and yet we did get to accomplish some household chores.  For all you young hipsters, you may not know this yet but yes, at a certain point in your life you will find much joy when all the dirty dishes are done!

3.  Some of the boys’ Christmas toys actually got assembled by the DH! #2 is loving his new plastic car.

4.  Almost every night this past weekend was family movie night!  Cuddles and cinema on the couch = happy happy joy joy.  The movies we watched at home were:  Home Alone, Nightmare Before Christmas, and The Pagemaster.  We even got to go out for Christmas Dinner and a movie; The Chipmunks the Squeakquel.  Mediocre movie for adults but much fun for my 6 yr old. 

5. Oh and I almost forgot the compulsory list of presents I received!  Let’s see, 4  nostalgic computer games that DH sourced out and bought for me.  They were vastly important in shaping my personality as I played them from the age of 4 on my Dad’s 1st IBM PC.  That would place the oldest game at 28 years ago! Yikes, I know but life would not be as much fun without aging right?  We’ll do that discussion on a later date, I’m sure.  Hehe.  2 Care Bears DVD with cartoons from the original Care Bears Cartoon Series I watched as a kid.  And how can any Christmas be complete without some Hermes Orange Boxes under the tree?  Lucky me I got two!

6.  On Christmas Day DH called his father after almost 10 years of estrangement.  It was emotional.  It was required.  I’m grateful for the connection. 

7.  My new wedding band arrived just in time for Christmas! Oh how I have been on pins and needles for the last two plus weeks waiting for it and it arrives serendipitously on Christmas Eve.  Love it!  Thought sleep would come easier now that I have it on my finger.. well hhmmpft.  I found out the hard way that it just isn’t so.  I woke up several times the last couple of nights just to stare at it. I am in lurve with this little engraved platinum band.  Sigh of contentment. 

8.  I highly enjoy quiet Christmases.  They are lovely.  Now to my soft silk-encased down comforter I go.  A Martinelli’s Apple Cider toast to a beautiful long weekend.

Ahhh.. life, it can be such a mixed bag. So many things are bittersweet. Sometimes you taste more of the bitter and sometimes more of the sweet. I’d like to try to dedicate this blog to the things that make me happy in hopes that I will better appreciate, celebrate, and revel in the good and the beautiful in my life. Precious Happy, this is what it’s all about.

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“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:”
John Keats, Endymion 1818