Computers, video streaming, etc.

We bought a new laptop computer, and Michael and I have traded so that I am now using the new Dell laptop, while he has taken over the less new Acer.  This seems to work out well for the both of us as he needs the wider screen for web design, and I need the better speakers for what I do, watch a lot of tv.  Actually I have less time for tv lately, which is a good thing. 

I like the smaller screen, smaller keypad, and lighter weight of the Dell, which makes it ever the slightly more portable.  I might take this one with me to the coffee shop, if I ever decided it was worthwhile to write there. I like that it doesn't have any crud under the buttons yet.  And I like that it's cover is blue.  It helps too, since we now need an additional laptop, we already own this one.

Michael bought the Dell laptop almost by mistake.  We were trying to decide whether or not to send it back, when the window of opportunity for that possibility closed.  We thought about selling it on ebay. Now we have a reason to keep it. 

[Parker is momentarily standing in the hallway at 9:15 p.m. trying to convince Michael that he couldn't possibly sleep in his own room tonight.  It would be cuter if he hadn't already been in bed for over an hour and a half.]

As far as the television is concerned, I am practically run over now that the networks have picked up their Fall seasons.  The ability to time-shift viewing patterns is wonderful.  The way the interesting television shows begin to pile up in my Hulu queue is less wonderful.  Because I'm one of those people who actually like television.  Not everyone who watches it does, you know.  Not only do I like it, but I am also usually (if not always) an active viewer of television.  I like movies too.  My mom points out that I don't have to watch them, but don't I?  Is it enough to pretend that I won't pick up any new ones?  Who am I kidding?

Isaac's Antics, No Surprises

Things Isaac threw into the bathtub while I was taking a shower this morning:

my pajamas
several dried out wash cloths that hadn't yet made it to the laundry basket
an almost full bottle of shampoo

I'm glad he didn't notice my Timex watch, which was sitting out on the back of the toilet right within his reach.  We can't close the door to the bathroom just now, can't even jam it shut with out placing a heavy object in front of it, and Isaac has an epic love for throwing things into the toilet, the tub, and the fireplace, I've decided.

Repair Bear, We Hope

A few days ago I posted on facebook that Isaac had thrown his bear into the toilet.  This morning, from a seated position on the floor, in my husband's lap, Isaac lobbed his brother's bear across the room and into the toilet.  Yes, it's true that the bear now smells of pee, but I can't just throw it in the washing machine and here's the reason why.

A few days ago Parker's bear began hemmoraging filling beads from a hole in it's lower back.  This bear is so loved that he has been stitched up numerous times already, and there are runs like you'd get in panty hose all over his back.  His fur is long gone, as is the brown neck ribbon that Parker used to pull at with is teeth.  My husband is now attempting to restuff the bear with filling beads using a drinking straw, which works much better than the paper funnel he originally fashioned.

My son cannot sleep all night without his bear.  He's done it exactly once.  The second time we tried it he woke up in the night looking for his bear.  We are not ready to try the experiment again so soon.  When he finishes the refilling, we'll sew up the hole using travel sewing kit thread.  Then I'll stick him in a lingerie bag and throw him in the washing machine using Tide with Bleach (because that is what I have) and cold water.  I plan to repair the bear with a scrap of fabric held on with semi-permenant fabric glue.  I'm not exactly the patch and mend type, which is why Michael is doing the sewing, and I'll be using whatever fabric I can scavenge.  I'll have to figure out a way to cut the fabric in whatever odd shape is required for fit, keep the fabric from unravelling, and convince Parker not to pull the fabric away with his fingers.  My genius idea for repairing the bear on Thursday was with masking tape.  We really seem to know what we're doing here, don't we?

Kelly LOVES Books

I used to read this blog called Amy Loves Books until the author really started irritating me.  It was a personality issue I think.  But though I decided I didn't like her personally, I admit that I really enjoyed, and was inspired by, her writing.  She must have had something to do with my starting my very own blog.  She was the first ever blogger who I ever followed regularly.  She had an excellent set of posts describing her experience with post-partum depression.

I once commented to her that I thought it was much more interesting to read about what people actually were reading rather than what they would recommend for other to read.  I enjoy reading the occasional trashy novel myself, and I think that fact should humanize me somewhat for those who might be tempted to think I am too serious.  Not that I've read any trashy novels in a while.

I'll tell you what I am reading now, and someday I'll even share what else is on my bookshelf.

I have this awful tendancy to be reading three or four books at once, while simultaneously thinking of six or seven other books I would like to read.  This creates plenty of problems for me.  A typical problem is that I lose track of what in fact I am supposedly reading.

Right now I am reading:

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodges Burnette.  I read this book when I was young (whatever that means), and I knew that I loved it, but I certainly didn't remember why.  I wondered what sort of power such a book might have now that I'm an adult.  The answer is that it is a wonderful, glorious, inspiring book.  It makes me want to have a garden of my own.  It makes me want to spend lots and lots of time outside.  I am troubled slightly by the racism of the period, but I have to lay that aside, because the rest of the book is spledid.  It makes you want to jump rope, and live an exceedingly healthy life.  Perhaps it romanticizes the purity and power of children to make the grown-up world right, but if it does, while I am reading it, I simply do not care.  I ordered the Norton Critical Edition because I wanted access to the historical information, as well as the critical essays, but I cannot promise that I'll read them before my neighbor's book club meets.

(And of course I wonder what we'll read next.  I have The Brothers Karamzov on my shelf, waiting to be read, but I've also borrowed some Walker Percy fiction from Patrick and Alina, and the latest Diana Gabaldon from my neighbor who has the book club.  I want to read Moby Dick eventually.  I'm less into fiction than usual at the moment, however.)

Studies in Words by C.S. Lewis.  This book is pure linguistics, and I think I've been working on it for a month already.  Honestly it's a bit beyond my comprehension, but it is an enjoyable experience reading some of Lewis's non-religious critical work.  The book is all about the meanings of words, and the ways that they have been used over time.  There's a difference between a word's meaning sometimes and the authorial meaning.  Lewis also indicates something he calls the dangerous meaning of a word, which is a meaning recognized by current readers that was unlikely to exist in the author's time, and the meaning with which a word is most likely to be misimbued. (This sort of writing perhaps makes me sound like an overeducated snob, but it is true that I am interested in such things, and reading this book has awakened me to the treachery of redefining words according to their accepted meanings.  It also makes me realize that I don't always truly know what a word means,even if I have used it a hundred times.)

(I have to go on facebook to see what else I am meant to be reading just now.  And this is one of the reasons why I keep a record on Visual Bookshelf.)

Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard.  This is a wonderful book and I am absolutely in love with it.  Kierkegaard looks at the story of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac in the book of Genesis from every possible angle, and in this book he discusses the nature of faith.  I picked the book up because I have this question about what the scriptures mean when they refer to fear of the Lord.  I don't know whether Fear and Trembling will answer that question or not, but it does talk about what it means to live this life in faith, a subject with which I happen to be confronted immediately.  I have a question now, which I asked my husband just the other night.  Does appropriate fear of the Lord preclude fearing His works, or actions?  If anyone reading this has an answer to this question I would be grateful.

Esther: It's Tough Being a Woman, which is a Bible Study by Beth Moore. I've never before done a Beth Moore Bible study, so this is quite a  new experience for me.  A friend invited me to participate in one being held at First United Methodist downtown, and I agreed for several reasons. I like how Beth Moore takes an inductive study method, and breaks it down (or slows it down) into manageable parts for the lay reader.  This far (in week 1) I have enjoyed doing the study immensely, though I have never yet attended a Bible Study meeting at First United Methodist, for reasons of children's health, and even though I don't always agree with Moore's points of emphasis.  I borrowed an Esther commentary from my brother-in-law Wednesday night to supplement the study.

Unofficially I am also reading How to Study Your Bible by Kay Arthur, God Calling by "the two listeners" and publised by A.T. Russell, and I'm studying Esther and Hebrews (for Sunday School) on my own using The Inductive International Study Bible, in which the guiding materials were provided by Kay Arthur.  I've been doing lots and lots of spiritual reading and study recently, and today I found out one of the reasons why, which I may share with my readers ("if any," to quote one of my son Isaac's favorite movies, "The Wizard of Oz.") eventually.  Besides this I am trying to finish my reading of the Bible, and re-read the New Testament by the end of the year.

This is not like me normally, I swear.  There is so much I want to learn, which is a subject I will embark upon at a later date.  For now, Michael is waiting for me to watch a particular program with him before bed.

A Bit of Metablogging to Jumpstart the Process

This is what I call "metablogging." It's basically writing about blogging, and the only way that I've ever been able to get started. When I first started this blog, back in the October after my now four year old son was born, I started with metablogging. I talked about how hard it was to get started, how hard it was to figure out what I should be writing about. Well, here I am, almost three years later, wondering how to get started. I've hardly been able to write at all since before my 21 month old son was born.
 I keep telling people: It's been hard to write even a basic email for months and months and months. My friend Alina assures me that it's the left-over hormones from pregnancy and breastfeeding that have done this to me. Ever since she told me that, I suppose I've used it as an excuse for not getting started. I've tried posting to the blog on numerous occasions, but I've been tired, or sleep-deprived, or maybe only too easily frustrated to get in there and do it.

I've tried writing things that weren't meant for publication. I've tried taking down my thoughts as they came to me. One morning I typed up a report of sorts concerning an experiment in prayer I was undertaking, but it all came to nothing.

A few days ago, my cousin, who is a successful freelance writer, posted something about a website where you can to post 750 words of freewriting. It's a tool for writers to sort of warm themselves up for the real work that is supposed to fill their day. I'm unwilling to subscribe to the service, because I have some unanswered questions about it, but the idea is imminently sound, and at some point I will probably succumb. It's the same sort of thing Peter Elbow promotes. Peter Elbow, whose book Everyone Can Write: Essays Toward a Hopeful Theory of Writing and Teaching Writing, I recently read, is a major advocate of the freewriting exercise, the premise being that successful writers need to do lots and lots of writing, not all of it anxiety ridden. He also argues that college students need low stakes outlets for writing, so that it becomes an habit and not merely an exercise in requirement. There are some lovely quotes from Elbow which I shared on facebook. Maybe I should go back and repost them here, where they can be read and remembered.

Note:  If you look back over my older posts you'll notice that the metablogging is always done in italics.  Something about that just makes me feel good.

Friends Help

A friend gave me a book and some verses yesterday, because I had asked her to help me memorize some things that would help with some difficulties I have been experiencing lately.  The first one really hit me, probably because I had never read it in quite that form before (or maybe I had only never noticed it at all, or applied it, etc.)

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  II Corinthians 4:16-17.

My Life Today

I'm sitting at the dining room table, trying, somewhat unsuccessfully, to ignore the mess around me.  Here's a strategy.  If the mess is so hard to ignore, I could a) clean it all up before proceeding, b) absorb the mess so that it become something useful instead of a distraction, or c) describe and/or explain it.

There's a dying evergreen in the corner.  I can't actually tell by looking at it that it is dying.  It still look good from here, even if it is set in a plastic pot covered in Chrismas foil.  I say that it is dying because I know I haven't watered it in at least a week and a half.  It stands in line with a nebulizer that should have been returned to my friend Linda two or three weeks ago, three bananas that are quickly ripening and that I hope I won't have to throw away, and a wooden bowl, filled with nectarines and oranges.  The bowl has been dropped and broken more than once.  This last time we didn't even bother to try and glue it back together.  The broken piece has been reinserted, but will not stay.

Isaac is sleeping in the Pack N Play in my bedroom, and Parker has come to the dining room table to beg for Cinnamon Roll flavored oatmeal, and dried fruit.  Now he whines because the pantry is locked and he can't open it.  He has refused my offer of banana or raisins.  He doesn't want the peanut butter crackers I expect he will gladly accept later.  The dryer is running and I know that when it stops Isaac will wake up, which in this case is good, because I have to go to a bible study this morning if mostly for the sake of getting out of the house and spending some time with adults who have more finely tuned critical skills than this amazingly articulate three year old boy who I adore.

I have to get the words out and that is why I have chosen to write this way on a Thursday morning.

My valentines and birthday roses has wilted in their vases so I threw them away this morning.  There is still a vase of flowers in the middle of this table because the daisys in particular still look lovely.  I wish that I could have fresh flowers in the house all the time, but even if I had the money I probably wouldn't often spend it that way.  What this woman needs is a flower garden.  Though the idea appeals to me while I sit here dreaming about it with dearth of knowledge, every time I start to plan something tangible I become discouraged.  The last time my mom bought flowers for me to plan in front of my house, I waited until they had become sparse and leggy before asking Michael to plant them for me.  The sun baked them; they went unnourished by the willful application of water, and so they never were quite pretty and then they died.  My little rosemary plant died in the freezing winter cold.  The only flowers I have in my yard were planted by a previous owner, and have gone untended.  I got out there and did some weeding once, but the effort was short lived.  It occured to me last year that what I need is for someone to come to my house, tell me exactly what to plant and where, stand over me while I do it, and then train me in the care of specific flowers and shrubs.  My yard could be so pretty if only I felt sure that I knew what to do and how.

The rest of the things that surround me in this room are cereal bowles and toys, compact discs and receipts, trash I meant to throw away yesterday and my church's telphone directory.  There are books on the floor because Isaac enjoys pulling them from the shelves.  There are crayons and coloring pages because Parker has enjoyed doing a lot of coloring just lately.  There are things here that have been here far to long and really should be put away.  Sometimes I wonder if I am making any progress at all, but hey, I'm sitting here and I'm writing.  I've described the confusion of only one room in my house.

Parker is now working his way through the bonus features on the Book of Pooh DVD while he sits on the sofa in the living room.  Isaac is still sleeping, and I am writing.  Me writing anything, anything at all, is progress.

I have not reread this and it is probably full of errors and omissions, but I am publishing it anyway, because "publish or perish" is taking on a completely different meaning for me these days.

Actors: Job Acceptance and the Possible Alienation of the Fanbase

It's such a random thing to write about when I haven't published anything in months, but I've been thinking about Orlando Bloom the last few days.  It came up because when Michael was recovering from the stomach bug, he tried to watch *Pirates of the Carribean* (whatever the first one was called) with Parker while resting on the couch.  I was passing through the room and I commented, "I don't really like Orlando Bloom anymore."  Why?  I don't know.  I know nothing about him apart from the few movies I've seen.  I liked him okay when I had only ever seen him in *Lord of the Rings,* although at the time I thought he was a little too blonde, and perfect looking.

I think it was while watching *Elizabethtown* that I decided he was more annoying than attractive.  Though that may have only been his character.  I enjoyed the film well enough over all.  So I wonder...

Do you think that an actor takes an acceptable risk when agreeing to play an unlikeable character?  Is it likely to do harm to their career in any way?  My case in point is Orlando Bloom as Paris in the movie *Troy.* Paris is a completely and irredeemably unlikeable character, but someone has to play him.  Someone has to wreak the havoc and through their own ridiculously unreflective actions bring about the destruction of the city, right?  I wonder if my dislike of his work as an actor is actually colored by my experience of him in this one movie.  I also wonder if he deserves my respect for the fact that he was willing to take such a risk.

A Movie Review. Sorry if the Tone's a Little...Snarky?

So tired.  Will I ever blog, or even free write, again?  After a very long day yesterday (one involving needles, and x-rays, and considerate strangers), I found an interesting looking movie on Netflix and decided to watch.  The movie was three hours long, and totally worth it.

Lost in Austen is about a 21st century London girl who becomes trapped in a version of Pride and Prejudice from which Elizabeth Bennet has removed herself.  The dialogue was impressively good, the casting was stunning.  The movie was almost a cross between Bridget Jones's Diary and the BBC's Pride and Prejudice, which might qualify as ironic considering that Bridget Jones's Diary is based on the BBC's Pride and Predjudice, or may be it's just poetic. (I have trouble with irony as a concept, which has been further complicated by comments made on ABC's Castle recently.)

I totally dispised the American Pride and Prejudice starring Kiera Knightly that came out several years ago.  Not enough attention paid to dialogue or Jane Austen's mastery of what I'll call sitting room satire.  I should have realized that Britain was practically guaranteed rearrange Austen better.  They mock, but they do so with style.

Many a Trip to the Library

This may be a waste of everyone's time except for mine, but since I've been complaining about having nothing to say, and since I haven't posted anything in almost a month, I'm just going to start writing and see what comes out, almost like a Peter Elbow exercise. 

I'll start with books.  I've been getting in a lot of reading over the last several months.  When I go to the library, if I visit the stacks at all it rarely takes me long to come up with authors and titles I simply must begin reading immediately.  I visit the online catalogue on a semi-regular basis.  If you aren't a big reader (you probably aren't wasting your time on my blog, but if you aren't a big reader), you may wonder who we come up with those titles and authors.  The answer is that they come from everywhere, e.g, memory, previous reading, television and radio (if your paying that sort of attention), friends, family members, etc.  [By the way, I've been practicing use of i.e. and e.g. after reading about them in Grammar Girl's Fast and Dirty Tricks for Better Writing.  The abreviation i.e. can loosely be translated into something like "in other words," and e.g. means something like "for example."  Before reading Grammar Girl I had some idea of what they meant, but not their specificity.]  I'll give you an example.  I met my friend Lisa's Dad a couple of weeks ago, and got to join him and his wife, and Lisa, for dinner.  Lisa's Dad reads a lot of mystery fiction.  While I've enjoyed mystery fiction since highschool, it's been years since I read it with any sort of regularity.  When he mentioned the top 100, that was my [completely personal and arbitrary] cue to make a point of reading mystery fiction.  Any conversation can fuel a literary expedition.

Right now I'm reading Dorothy Sayer's Gaudy Night, Middlemarch by George Elliot, and Strong Women Eat Well by Mirian Nelson (with a bunch of letters after her name).

Unfortunately this is all I have time to write since the babies are not napping like I expected them to.

Photos of the Babies

I haven't posted any photos in a while and the boys are constantly changing.  Here are just a couple.  I still can't figure out how photo formatting is supposed to work.

About Writing: The Painfully Practical

I used to journal a lot.  In college my journals were always handwritten, often on these pads of paper that were multi-colored, which I could get cheaply from the Dollar store.  Often these were angry or heart-broken letters about my boyfriend/ex-boyfriend, the same person over the course of several years.  Other times they were about what I wanted to do or be.  More often than that I think that these were prayers.  The point of all this sentimental history is that I used to hand write things A LOT.

This morning I decided to do another one of those ten minute freewriting sessions.  The first time I did this last night I started out on the computer.  The computer didn't work in my favor, however, because when I am typing I cannot keep myself for going back and correcting typos and other careless errors.  I find that I have to do this exercise with pen and paper. 

When you're freewriting according to Peter Elbow's method, you don't pause to edit, or search for spellings, or think ahead to what you are going to say next.  The exercise is about clearing the mind, intensifying focus, getting the words out there.  (Though you may not know it, I am paraphrasing the first chapter of Writing Without Teachers while simultaneously referencing an episode of Wonderfalls.  This just goes to show what I've been putting in my head lately.)

The problem now is that I am out of practice.  It's almost as though I've forgotten how to write things manually.  I pulled a bound journal off the shelf a couple of weeks ago and my hand got tired writing after about half a page.  When I do the Peter Elbow exercise my had gets really tired.  I wonder is the problem only that I'm out of practice or is there something else going on.  Could there be arthritis in my future?

I don't actually think so.  I think it really is a matter of finding the right pen, the right position, and getting back in the habit of handwriting things on a daily basis.  The lists I've been making for years, and the many envelopes I've addressed in the past three months haven't done the trick.  It's almost like I have to relearn how to write.

(I may need to relearn how to type as well, but that is another story.)

Exercises come in many different kinds

For the past several months I have become semi-absorbed by the need for formal exercise.  It's strange in a way because I never really cared about exercise before.  It was something I knew I needed, but it seemed more like a chore than an enjoyable past time.  I knew that exercise would give me more energy, which I sorely needed, but the idea held no appeal for me.   After Isaac was born things changed.

I'm thirty-two years old, and eleven months ago I had my second child.  Isaac was accidentally born naturally, which was a revelatory experience, but even though recovery from the process of delivery was easy, recovery from the process of carrying Isaac was not.  I don't mean to imply that carrying Isaac did any permanent damage to me medically, but aesthetically, and as I tried to transition back into my old clothes, some damage had been done. Suddenly I wanted to strengthen my abdominal muscles.  Suddenly I was not longer satisfied to feel worn out by the time Michael came home from work in the afternoon.  Suddenly I was not satisfied to become tired so quickly while chasing Parker around in the front yard.

Not long after Isaac was born I started trying to walk 30 minutes every day.  Often this walking would occur early in the morning as I had many waking hours accompanied by trouble sleeping.  Often this walking would occur right after Michael came home from work, while he and Parker started eating dinner without me.  It was much too inconvenient and difficult to schedule, so it didn't last long.

Months later I saw on Facebook that my friend Amy's usual walking partner was out of town and that she was looking for someone else to join her.  I saw this as an opportunity to get a few walks in and to spend some time with an adult friend, so with Michael's help I took advantage of the chance.  We started to walk twice a week around the quad, weather permitting, but there were often weeks at a time when the weather didn't permit.

My mom started receiving a subscription to Health Magazine which I immediately co-opted.  Though I suspect this magazine does not contain the highest quality healthy lifestyle information, I enjoy reading it, and through it I found a Pilates video I thought might work for me, which, by the way, it does.  Then I noticed while watching the first season of Desperate Housewives on Hulu (yes, it's mostly trash, but it's very diverting trash) that Gabby and Edie were often to be seen jogging, which started me thinking that maybe I could somehow build my walking up to a respectable run.

So now I'm on this track.  My routines are still very much a muddle, and I am currently undergoing a setback as I've somehow injured my back, but I'm definitely on a track.  It's different, it's exciting, but it also opens up for me some other possibilities.

I now can rake the front yard longer and more efficiently than I could before.  Sometimes now on a Saturday when I think it might be nice to take a walk, I actually do it.  Then I realized just today that I really can set a timer for ten minutes every day and get in some writing, publishable or not.  It's amazing what a little exercise can do.

Habit Formation: A Beginning

Marla Cilley of Flylady.com says it takes 28 days to establish a habit.  Though I've been reading her thoughts on the matter for years, I have never quite believed her.  How many times over the years have I done the exact same thing day after day, for a month or two (and sometimes more) only magically one day to stop: Scripture reading, taking a 30 minute walk before dinner, posting notes to my blog, taking a shower before bed, straightening the house for the morning, rocking Isaac in the living room following his first feeding of the day, taking a multi-vitamin after brushing my teeth?  Even after much repetition, not one of these things has formed a solid habit.  I was relieved then to read the other day on webmdhealth that "most of us go through relapse seven times before we change our behavior."  This makes sense to me, as does the notion that habit formation takes commitment.  You have to be willing to work through the relapse, and guilt hinders your ability to do so.


I would be interested, if anyone were willing to share, in reading about victories or failures you've experienced in this area of habit formation.  Any time I ask about such personal details, however, I am reminded of a script I heard months ago on "A Prairie Home Companion."

I'm a private eye. A proud profession that died a long time ago, kid. Back in the Age of Privacy, you had to work to find out stuff about people, follow them around, sneak up behind trees, plant microphones in cocktails. Now you can find it all out on Facebook.

Start and start and start again, and if I do it enough times maybe eventually it will stick

Wow, August 18 was the last time I posted anything.  You've got to wonder whether I have abandoned the effort entirely, like I've abandoned most of the housework this week, like I've abandoned my book club dream...except that you don't get to wonder about any of those things, because I've told you nothing (or next to nothing) about them.  I've gone so far as to change the name of my blog twice, but never far enough to write anything more than four lines long.


At this very moment, Parker is supposed to be napping, but isn't (he just started calling my name), and Isaac is crying because he doesn't care to take a nap today.  It's difficult to do anything under the circumstances that requires mindfulness or attention, and I'm surrounded by detritus, and that doesn't help.

I have five hobbies.  They are reading, writing, cross-stitch, exercise, and story viewing.  In most cases I can't do one and still find time for another.  Reading and exercise and viewing have recently taken up the majority of my free time.  I live in constant awareness that when I choose to spend my time on one thing I also choose not to spend my time on another.  Maybe someday after many trials, I will discover how to make it all work, but not today.