If You Had To Describe Your Kids In Two Words....

Jacob: pensive and imaginative.

Samuel: Bold and independent

What would you say about yours?

Have You Seen This?

Oh my goodness. This may be the best thing since clap on clap off lights! Granted I would never feel comfortable using it on my front door, but holly crap! If Matt ever gets around to building a hideout for our boys, I am TOTALLY buying this thing! And if it's not for sale, well by golly, I'll knock my knuckles til they're bloody to get into this guys apartment and steal it! Probably won't be too hard. I'll just make up some crazy beat from a Lord of the Rings movie and walk in on him and his friends wearing long capes and elf ears. How do you say "can I borrow this?" in Elvish?

What Are Your Thoughts On This Quote?

This has always been one of my most favorite quotes. I've used it before on here but I'd like to bring it up again on it's own to hear some of your thoughts or personal experiences related to what C.S. Lewis is expressing.

“You can not in your present state understand eternity. But you can get some likeness of it if you say that both good and evil when they are full-grown become retrospective. All this earthly past will have been heaven to those who are saved and all their life on earth too will then be seen by the damned to have been hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering ‘no future bliss can make up for it.’ Not knowing that heaven once attained will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And they say of some sinful pleasure let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences, little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take in the quality of heaven and the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why at the end of all things when the sun rises here and twilight turns to blackness down there, the blessed will say we have never lived anywhere but in heaven. And the lost will say we were always in hell….and both will be right.”

Lets Start The Week Off Right...

...and what better way to do that than with a little Brian?



and of course, some of my favorite classics...

Talk About Your Easy Convenience...

Oh yes, that's a tub...and a toilet on this person's front porch. I snapped this picture coming home from a family bonfire at the lake. I just wonder, what kind of front porch sitt'n can we expect here? I wanna go back and put a magazine rack by the toilet.

Really?

About a year ago I went out to check the mail. In between the bills and the classifieds I found this little postcard from the Mayor of Helena explaining to the citizens that in the near future there would be a roundabout put in on the south side of town. On the postcard was an explanation of what a roundabout was and even a colored diagram of how to use it! I couldn’t believe it! I mean first off, I remember seeing my first roundabout in action when I was like 7 and now at age 26 my fellow citizens are opening up their mailboxes and discovering for the first time just what a roundabout even IS? I can just see the majority now…mouths agape…scratching their heads whilst they study it…maybe even taping it to their dashboard for quick future reference. Hilarious. I wanted to frame it, but I settled for putting it on my fridge. It’s wonderful, like reading the comics every time I reach in for my cereal milk.

I was interested to see how this was going to be accepted considering the fact that if there is something Montanans don’t do well… it’s change. I haven’t heard of any accidents yet but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of a large reduction in traffic heading into the south side of town.

Anyway, last week they finally finished some retarded construction on the main street close to my house. I say retarded because the past two times they have done major construction on this road (which needs to be widened into a 4 lane road in a bad way) it always ends up looking the exact same way it was before they dug it all up. Just as I was beginning to suspect that 1.) the government must be desperate to put these people to work, tearing things up only to put things right back or 2.) no one knew what the hell they were doing, I suddenly realized that this time something WAS different! They had created a turning lane!

This is actually a very good and smart thing to have done. I was overjoyed because I have to cross eastbound traffic to go westbound towards Jake’s school every morning. Traffic is always terrible in the mornings so I was really ecstatic to put this turning lane to good use. But then again…..

The time came to use it. I pulled up to the road and when I could see that the oncoming traffic was easing up I crossed over and merged easily into the turning lane. Now all I had to do was wait for the opposite traffic to ease a little so I could merge right in! …… obviously not so easy. Apparently this is new for Helenans too because the westbound traffic suddenly SLAMMED on their brakes thinking I was a total crazy for moving out into the middle of the road!!! Not only did the lead lady slam on her brakes but she stopped COMPLETELY almost causing a 5-car pile up. Luckily everyone must have had their coffee that morning cause no one crashed but as I stubbornly stayed in the turning lane every car that passed by me HONKED at me!!! To which I screamed back “IT’S A TURNING LANE PEOPLE!!!” I couldn’t believe it! That Helena would be so far behind in the times that grown people would not even know how to use a turning lane. I thought maybe I just need to keep using it so that people get the general idea of what it’s for. Nope. Just more ignorant honking. Obviously Mayor Smith, we are going to need another colored postcard here. ASAP!

Simplify

I just want to say how much I have recently enjoyed focusing on the people in my life that are right here, right now. And I know I know that last week I was on the complete opposite end of the spectrum about loving people in general. Right now half of you are thinking…How did she get from “mommy wants Vodka” to “all things bright and beautiful?” …Did she actually get the Vodka?

But really, with so much to distract us from the present, it’s hard to stay attuned to the people actually around us sometimes. It’s almost a struggle these days to do that. Wait….it’s not LIKE a struggle…it IS a struggle!

Besides the fact that there are so many ways to stay in touch without ever speaking a word, it’s like just one more stick gets put on the camel’s back when they started inventing things like myspace, facebook and twitter. As if I don’t have enough trouble keeping in touch with my family, now I gotta stay up to speed with dear old Sally who was my best friend in kindergarten but moved away at the beginning of first grade!?? I really don’t care that she just got a new puppy and can’t get him house trained!

So a few years ago I stopped. I stopped doing anything that had to do with a computer and it literally felt like turning off a T.V. that was playing a bunch of loud static. All the sudden I could hear the doorbell ring! I could listen to my son talking to me….and actually HEAR what he had to say! Birds were chirping outside!!! It actually makes me think of that Carpenters song Close To You… “Why do birds suddenly appeeeear?”

I’m not saying that it’s bad to stay connected. Obviously I’m back on the computer now and I keep up two blogs, but I learned a long time ago, that was my limit as far as technology goes. I don’t do “connection sites,” I check my e-mail MAYBE once a week, I don’t have T.V., and I don’t play video games. They don’t interest me as much as real people do.

Some people can do it. Some people are amazingly talented and can be intensely connected to technology and it works for them. Like Bill Gates. Obviously he’s a millionaire from it. …And if I wanted to have a bad hair cut and wear plaid shirts under an Armani suit then I would try to be more like him.

I’ve learned whats best for me is the face to face, but I have to practically force myself to do it. I love to hear the sound of voice inflection and see facial expression. I love walking with people, crying with them, lol ing WITH them, hugging them! And when technology gets in the way of that I find myself not only becoming disconnected from the tangible reality, but not even liking the tangible reality! Because technology is easy. It’s easier to send an email than it is to call someone on the phone. It’s easier to wish your friend happy birthday on their facebook than it is to come to their house and give them a gift. And the saddest part of it all, is I would totally be the person who breaks up with someone via text if I let myself, why? Because it’s easier than having the courage to tell them to their face “it’s not me….it’s you.”

So I guess what I’m saying is, I can’t do it all and if something gotta to give….it’s gonna be Sally. Sorry Sally, but I free up so much time when I’m not reading about your puppy woes. I’ve decided that it’s ok NOT to be connected to everyone and only in touch with the people we can actually see everyday (plus family). Last week, one of my most favorite things was taking a whole hour to think, while I was getting ready for the day, about what I wanted to tell my friend in her birthday card that I was taking over to her that afternoon. I LOVED that. Knowing she’d get something in my own personal penmanship with a lot of thought behind it. It made me feel so CONNECTED to her.

You see and meet new people everyday. I am just really liking the idea that I am apart and involved with them so long as I can see them face to face at least once a month. Otherwise, my good memories and love for them remain, but I let them move on to the next people bound to touch their lives. And I release myself from any guilt for not knowing every detail of their current life.

It’s my way of internally simplifying. What are some of your ways?