Right now Corinne is stirring a little bit in her carseat, but she REALLY wants to stay asleep. I can tell by the way she's keeping her eyes shut. So, Steve and I have decided we're going to take a little break from our day while she's asleep, and as soon as she wakes up...Bam! We'll be right back at the day like contestants on Supermarket Sweep.

As soon as she wakes up, my plan is to feed her, play, and then when she falls asleep again I'm going to do laundry.

Steve is going to go to the gym and run around town a little bit for some errands.

Tomorrow he's taking a half day, so he'll be with her all afternoon. 

I'm so jealous.

But, they are going to have so much fun, I know it. 

I just checked my email really quickly....I had written about a writing festival, to get a catalog....they wrote back, saying "It would be great if you could send us your address."

It made me laugh....at least if your mind is a little bit gone, there are people in the universe who will remind you what you need to do...at least sometimes.

Corinne slept through the night again last night! She did for a few days, then she didn't for a few days, then she did again...so we'll see what happens tonight. She is my dear.

I've been writing letters to her. I can't stop. I love to write to her. I talk to her all the time, but I like to write to her too. I write so that I can be closer to people....and I write all the time for her, because I love her to pieces.

Anyway....I'm listening to Gillian Welch right now on Spotify....and she's still sleeping. She loves music. 

Just a little side-note....I've noticed that every time I listen to a song on Spotify it shows up on Facebook under Steve's name....so it is posted over and over again all of the musicals I've been listening to and other random music....I wonder what his friends think about that. If you were wondering about that: it was me all along. I'm the weird one....well, at least in this instance. 

I still can't believe Steve surprised me with a Kindle. 

I think I'm going to buy "The Hunger Games" if I can't borrow it from someone. And there is a new Tom Perrota novel I'm thinking about getting. If you have book suggestions, please let me know.

Along with my ideas book that I keep, and my blog, and my letters and whatever else I write, I love to read (especially to get more ideas for writing)....I'm getting better and better at squeezing in time for reading and writing and working out and whatever else I really want to do....it just means I'm doing these things at obscure times...which I think is a lot like taking your life and pressing pause and opening up a hole into a space and crawling inside of it and just doing what you need to do for a little while then crawling back out of that invisible hole and re-starting your life up.

I wonder if that made sense to anyone else but me.

The only ramifications of that which I can find is I may be a little tired the next day, like if I am doing something I've been meaning to do for whatever reason at 3 a.m.  But, I am sure people who use time machines if those people ever exist get tired too. It's just the name of the game.

I did wake up at 3am the other morning to feed Corinne and it was just before Christmas and I panicked because the kitchen sink was still full of dishes and so I stayed up until 5 am doing chores, fell back asleep and then got up for work shortly after. So that was kind of like what I just described.

ANYWAY

If time machines did exist (or if it were commonly available to use one) I would so not use one by the way. I am terrified of time travel other than forward like I have been doing my whole life. The very idea of going back in time is terrifying to me: what if you get trapped? what if you have to meet someone you know at a whole other stage of their life and you hate what you see? what if you get trapped? what if you alter history forever and you didn't mean to and a really bad domino chain happens? what if you get trapped?

These are the questions that ran through my mind before I saw Back to the Future. 

I was terrified of those movies until one day around this time last year I faced my fears and watched them.

They are AWESOME.

Except I don't really like Jennifer's character she's a bit one-dimensional and doesn't ask any of the right questions ever. She's like a little robot if you ask me.

But really they are very good. Even though technically I never saw the last ten minutes of the third one and to me Jennifer is trapped in the wrong time somewhere still and that is EXACTLY what I was so terrified for so long and still am. Oh my God that is ironic I didn't even think of that until I was writing this down.

I'll have to rent it and abolish that fear as soon as I can. 

Maybe I'll do that at 3 am.

Merry Christmas everybody!!! 

I love Christmas for so many reasons. 

Right now I'm writing this under a blanket on the couch, and Corinne is asleep and Stevie is playing a video game.

Christmas I feel at peace.

I stare at the tree for as long as is humanly possible. Preferably while some form of Christmas music is playing. I did this at my parent's house, while I was home. I just held Corinne in my arms, and stared at the tree, and her (I switched on and off). 

I thought about how people have to work together to get that tree up. They talk about the ornaments and they can't do it with a cell phone in their hands. They could silently decorate the tree, too, which is fine. But...they do it together. And I like that a lot.

I thought about people who need help, and they need help all year, and not just Christmas. 

I want to help them. I'm going to write to Dr. Drew's Lifechangers for a couple of different families I've been praying for. I think that people ultimately want to help each other, and maybe if I can explain the cases of these families clearly enough, maybe they can be helped by that show, because it has the resources to help them.

At least I could try.

I also was thinking about how I really want to give Corinne a good example and show her how important it is to volunteer and help others. I hope that I can show her that example all the time - how to help other people no matter what.

I was looking forward to giving gifts this Christmas. I wasn't even expecting anything back. Even when I was involved in Secret Santas, I was thinking "If they can't do it this year, I'm fine with it." I don't know - things happen. But, they all gave us gifts. We got way more than I expected, and I feel like I won the lottery. I feel like that all the time, though. I feel like that when I wake up in the morning. I look forward to things. I read once that even if you try to look at chores as an event that you could look forward to, like "I get to work out! I get to do the laundry! I get to do those dishes!" You actually start to enjoy life more. And it really does work. Perception is reality...and why not try to make all of those things that suck up so much time...a little bit more welcome and nice, in your life? I don't know...I just like doing that.

So anyway - I was so happy just to see my family and friends. Getting gifts was a bonus, and an absolutely amazing one. 

Stevie surprised me with a Kindle!!!!!!! I was so so so so happy about it. I still am. I took "Bridget Jones's Diary" out of the library with it and will be reading it tonight after this.

What's that you say, I have time to read tonight??? 

I actually think I do! Corinne has slept through the night 3 times in a row! 3 times!!! I can't believe my eyes as I type this, but it is true. I've had 8 full hours of sleep three nights in a row. 

This was a great Christmas Gift from our little girlie!! She is two months now, by the way. 10 pounds, 8 ounces. She wore a little tu-tu outfit today. She wore red overalls yesterday (Christmas Eve and her two month birthday) with a white top and a collar. I couldn't put her down all weekend. All I want to do is snuggle her all the time. My time is precious with her, it goes away so fast and then I have to go to work and I can't see her.

I do love my job, but I love her so much, I need to snuggle her and be with her every moment that I do see her just to make up for lost time!!! 

She smiled and laughed so much this Christmas. I think she loves it, too, like her mama. 

I've been writing her letters, so she can read them when she's older. She's my baby and I want her to know that she's always on my mind and her daddy and I love her with all our hearts. I also thought it'd be fun for her just to read through them and see some of the things we did when she was small.

Well, I really should go, especially if I want to read some Bridget Jones! That is such a funny book I can't wait to read it again - and I NEVER re-read books! 

If I do have to get up at 3 am this morning I'm cool with that, for the record. I just hope it doesn't happen because I am even cooler with sleeping for eight hours in a row.

OK before I really go, I do want to show you some of my novel I've been writing. 

So, if you want, you can read the start to it.......I finally have the guts to post a little bit of it here.


Night fell on the world with a clumsy splatter of stars spackled onto the sky.
Emma Baxter wore thick black eyeliner, a black raincoat and an ivory dress that hung to her knees.
The top of her boots just touched her dress, while she leaned forward in a spell of concentration.
Her brown eyes squinted and her brow furrowed deeply as she stared at that freckled sky.
Her dirty-blonde hair reflected the starlight and she was staring patiently into a very large telescope.
She had pulled her hair into a loose ponytail, then drew back, craned her neck and looked upward with
her naked eyes. The wind breathed a damp, low howl through neighboring willow trees; the sound
lingered in the air until it resounded into a whisper, tickling Emma's ears. She shivered, then expressed
her thoughts out loud in a low, pondering tone of voice, "I wish I knew where they're hiding."

Her pensive mood seemed to purpurt her pulse faster and faster, and Emma suddenly grew very silent.
That is, for the time being.

I.

Sunlight reached through the windowpane and kissed Emma square on the mouth.

Six o'clock in the morning is early for many people, but not for Emma Louise Baxter. She had a close relationship
with the sun, it seemed. Every morning, without fail, she knew when to shed her heavy cocoon of blankets and,
every day, without fail, she felt her mood shift slightly as the sun would grumpily shift positions in the somber sky.
Emma herself was not a grumpy person, it is worthwhile to note. She was, however, usually on the move in some way
or another, and sometimes that can initiate some form of grumpiness in a person. That's an understandable notion. At least Emma
thought so.

Regardless of all of this, Emma lived alone (for the time being). Her history resides with a sizeable family of five
children, she herself being the fourth-born, and one of two girls and three boys. She was relatively close
with the others but she preferred to be independent, choosing to live in an apartment in town and pursuing a
Pilot's degree  at the local college.
Emma lived in a place very similar to this place we call Earth. The sky was a deep blue on the nice days and turned dark grays and blacks and deep oranges on the stormy nights, very close to the colors we are used to, here. In fact, most of the languages were also remarkably similar. There were people on this world, and creatures and places that are very much like what and who we know. But there were some things we might not be used to that was on this earth. There were giants and creatures that people here might have only seen wandering about in their minds, while the moonlight is still touching their windowpanes outside, and the wind whispers softly through the tree branches.

                                                                     

 It is a world called Lifing, and in it were rules very similar to rules we have on Earth. Emma was a young woman, who, like everyone in her cultural hemisphere called Cana, had to make a decision at 18. She had two choices before her. Choice one was to stay at home and work at a small job making small earnings and coming face to face with economic woe, hardship and social disdain. Choice two was to go to Aviation School, and become a pilot.

In her mid-twenties, she was often speculating something, and this speculation quickly grew to a deep and
downright analyzation as well as investigation as she developed any thought. For example, the subject of her current
scrutiny was her morning toast, and how it was not as enjoyable as a morning english muffin, because, to her,
the spaces known as "knooks and crannies" in fact did make a difference in the breakfast experience. The holes
in the muffin provided for several delicious pockets of homemade marmelade jam to invade her taste buds and
surrender them no questions asked in a matter of seconds.

Click.

The radio was switched on. Also a part of the morning ritual, Emma began humming and stepping to music. It did not
matter what type of music, it just had to be music. She had to hear it every morning. She was not a "creature" of
habit, as some might say, but she did enjoy a habit or two such as this.



That's all for now! 

Merry Merry Merry Christmas to everybody !!!!! Please - if you read this and want to let me know anything about the novel excerpt, if you liked it or would want to read more - please let me know  - if you could send me an email or text or facebook message or something - I know that this blog itself is difficult to comment on...but that would be great if you could let me know! If not it's ok too - either way hope you enjoyed it at least a little bit.





 

I've decided I'm going to post a "My Favorite Things" list in honor of the holiday season and also Oprah.

But, I do not want to be a total copier of Oprah, especially if she got mad at me and decided to sue me because I copied her. She would definitely win in court. Not only does everybody love Oprah, but she also came up with the "My Favorite Things" list first.

And so, I will call my list "My fun things". These are things that make me really really happy and I recommend.

This is in no particular order, and is in honor of peace and love and happiness and the holiday season. 

1. Bridget Jones books- both the first and second are so funny I fell off the bed laughing. In fact, I think I want to read them again sometime. They are positively delightful. Also everyone I've ever known who has read them has also fallen off their beds laughing. That is a pretty heavy duty track record of delight.

2. Journals and Notebooks - if I don't have my "Ideas books" all of my ideas would just float away into nothingness - and that is a sad idea indeed.

3. Cookies, Pie, and cupcakes. I think pie is everyone's favorite though. Not everyone talks about it, but I think we all feel it. At least a little bit. Pie is the superior one in that little group.

4.  Taking a walk in the night or early morning, when everything seems very peaceful, and snow is falling, and there isn't much sound at all - it makes you wonder why people get angry ever.

5. Constellations. Those things are so cool. It's like a giant light bright that's been hanging around....and you don't have to hurt your fingers trying to push in the little things to make the pictures. You can just talk about them and talk about how long they've been up there.

6. Vibrating chairs for babies - I would like one for myself. And a giant swing, like for babies. These things look like so much fun. It would be nice to rest in after a long day's work.

7. Food, food, food. What would the world be like without it? What would we ever do? How would we gather? What? Why?

8. Sleep, sleep, sleep. I love it, even if I only have two minutes of it a day. I don't even care. Sleep is so great. Especially if you have lots of blankets. Also a house.

9. Cirque de Soleil - I would love to just do those moves around the house when I'm bored. Or if there was nothing left to talk about while I'm entertaining guests. "Hey, did you see this new move I just taught myself the other day?"

10. Dancing to music while getting ready for the day and running around the house, with pacifiers flying in the air, and bottles being shuffled from hand to hand, and I'm feeding the dog, and cleaning up a trail of tiny clothes strewn across the floor, and my eyes waking up to the day.

This is the song I'm listening to right now. I just got home a little while ago, and walked the dog, and am about to wrap some Christmas presents....there's always room for music. 

 

Drinking tea tonight...snuggled up, watching Christmas movies....and we see Hook on the netflix options...

Definitely no time to write tonight :)

Tonight I took the dog for a walk around the neighborhood. It was a nice night. I realized 3 things:

1. The neighbors probably think we are Jehovah's witness because we are pretty much the only house without Christmas lights out. I still think it will happen...not becoming Jehovah's witness, but lights going on the house. I think it is just a matter of time. Can't rush these things.

2. At some point there has to be SOMEONE in a household that insists on getting more Christmas lights. Kind of like more cow bell. Maybe. I imagine the conversation to go a little like this: "Honey, the house looks great...where are you going?" "To Home Depot. Gotta get more lights." "What do you mean more lights? We have lights." "We need more. It looks too bare over to the left there." "Where?" "To the left."

And then the other person in the conversation hears a car start and 20 minutes later they have a winter wonderland and no one can see the house anymore.

I really wonder what those conversations are like...as you can tell from what I just wrote.

3. I really like Christmas lights. They really do make the night time brighter, and the winter warmer. Maybe it's just nostalgia, or maybe it's just my natural gravitation to shiny bright things....but I really do like them, and I like that people put them up and some of them go crazy putting up a million of them at once. It's just....pretty great.

OK I'd better go....someone I know is making some noises in her sleep....she might be waking up soon....

Today at lunch I went with a group of people from work and sang Christmas carols at Roswell Hospital. 

It felt so good to be a part of something really positive like that- singing songs in a place where a lot of people are really scared and uncertain. There is always room for hope.

I am not a great singer, but I think the eleven of us sounded pretty good - and we had a great piano player.

I don't know, I have so much to do tonight still...but I really wanted to mention this.

Tonight we decorate the Christmas tree. 

First Steve has to run a few errands, and I've got to make a dent on the laundry.

So, hopefully tonight we decorate the Christmas tree.

Actually, I should probably get to work......this stuff isn't going to do itself!

I did want to say, though: I did it again! I went to the gym this morning. Hopefully I can keep this up!!!

I did make a quick goal list-- this is what I am trying to do each day in a nutshell (with Steve's help of course-this list would be very difficult on my own!)  :

-Gym
-Work
-Dinner
-Clean
-Walk the dog
 (And of course give Corinne all of my love :) )




I feel very blessed. I feel blessed to be able to do everything on that list. I am very thankful for my life.  I hope life is treating you all well, too!

Today we have plans to bake some cookies over at Kathy's house (my Mom in Law). 

Baking cookies is one of my favorite activities of all time, so I'm pretty excited. 

This morning I was able to go to the gym, so I have no guilty conscience about eating a little bit of dough. My God I love cookie dough. I am so glad it exists.

Speaking of the gym - that was my third time this week going! I am so so happy about that. Thursday and Friday I was able to go before work - I was on the elliptical by 5:55 a.m. If I were another person talking to me and I found out that I had done such a thing, I'd say, "Damn, girl." 

I want to make a habit out of this. I like going in the morning because it gives me a boost of energy for the day and actually makes me really look forward to the day, too. It makes me feel well-rounded, and...happy. It makes me feel strong and healthy and alive and I just really recommend it. I actually sat in my car waiting for the gym to open twice this week. It was like those people who camp out for I-pads, only it was me waiting to work out, and I was able to sit in a nice warm car.

I was up at 5 feeding Corinne and thought, "Why not? I should just do this." So I got ready and I left-two days in a row. Now I've been at the gym 3 days in a row. I'm trying to think of it as mandatory, like I think of going to work. I am trying to think of it as a meeting for work, so that I'll keep doing it. I wouldn't want to miss a meeting at work and it helps me to get paid...so I wouldn't want to miss working out because it helps me not to get the Diabetes and lose a foot. SO I think of it as part of my work day and it has really been helping.

I also have been drinking coffee more (because I now can without being worried about anything - at least I can have two to three cups a day which is more than enough!) So between working out and coffee and my naturally roundabout personality, I become a pretty bouncy person. 

I heard that you're supposed to walk 10,000 steps a day to be very healthy. That's five miles a day. I get to about 2 and a half on the elliptical before I have to go and get ready for the day....and then I guess in my day I probably walk about two miles...so I feel like it's close enough. 

I've been realizing so much recently. I am very much a "big picture" sort of person.  A person who gets ideas, and likes to make plans. I am learning, though, how beautiful it is to focus on details as well. My work life really has helped me to do this more and more, and I love it- it is actually helping me in my personal life to focus on details more, which is extremely important for raising a baby (at least that is how I feel). I have been noticing so many little details about Corinne (how when she's satisfied after she eats she gets this beautiful look on her face and she stretches her arms out as far as they will go)...and I have been remembering more and more details all the time just to function on a daily basis (like 'did I remember the diaper bag? are there diapers in the bag? onesies? extra clothes? burp cloths? do I have socks on?')  for example. 


Anyway - at this rate I'm hoping I'm combatting alzheimers in my own small way! I heard puzzles help with that anyway- exercising your mind. My whole life has become a puzzle, so I think I'm covered with that whole thing. Hopefully.

Anyway I've also been more deliberate about absolutely everything I do. And it has helped me to live in the moment. Every minute of my waking hours, I am thinking about how my actions not only affect myself, but my husband, of course my baby, and also my pets - and then I go on and think about work, family, friends. I don't obsess about it though -like for example, when I go to eat something, I think about it first now. "What's in it? Do I really want this? Will it help me to be healthy?" And I still eat candy bars or cookies, but I even do that deliberately - so I can still taste delicious things because that is a part of living life the best I can. I just don't go overboard with that. 

I don't know. I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've been trying to think a lot more about everything I do - and I like how it is making me feel, so I will keep doing it. 


Also, I just wanted to say, I came up with a really fun playlist for anything from working out to doing the dishes (I tried it on both and it was so fun if I do say so myself.) 


So, below, I am going to show you a "how-to". 


"How to go to the gym or wash dishes and want to shake your booty even if your booty is the size of Massachusetts or a glacier underneath the water."

Now, due to a time crunch, I usually am off the elliptical by the time the rapping starts in "Black or White" and I'm in my car during "Under Pressure" by Queen but doing the dishes can easily get me through the whole playlist (Especially if my booty starts dancing around - I just can't stop that crazy train once it starts)....but I really do recommend this playlist. I hope you listen to it, too sometime!


OK I think that's all for today. Have a good weekend, people!

I asked Steve if he would maybe make music on the guitar for this song I wrote for Corinne....

Even if he doesn't, this song is for her :)

She was born with blue eyes as moving as the sea
and her hair touched by sunlight; touched by stars
She was born with a smile as pretty as can be
and her beauty: unmatched in any art

She was born with a knowing light that rolls through the deep
of the ocean and the mountains and the skies
she was born with a mystery impossible to meet
impossible to understand or keep anywhere but your heart

She's the picture in your locket
and the movement in your step
she's the summer to your winter
and all of what's ever left

She's your baby
she's your baby
Corinne

I do a lot of my thinking in the shower.

Hmm. Do I want to erase that sentence? 

I do a lot of my thinking outside of the shower, too. I just feel like I do really spectacular thinking in the shower.

I take really hot showers, so maybe this means I should just sit in a jacuzzi all day long to be fully functional and always have spectacular thoughts.

Oh, and I could get pizza delivered to my jacuzzi, because I usually get pretty good ideas when I am eating, too.

Well, that is halfway true. I mostly just like eating and while I eat I'm thinking about how much I like eating. So really I just would want to eat pizza while I'm hanging out in the jacuzzi. 

I'm really getting away from my original intended thought for this blog entry.

Did anyone notice that I discovered how to change the font to "Georgia"? 

That was not my original thought for this blog entry, either, but I really am impressed that I was able to make that happen.

And I thought about it just now because I was about to write what I was originally going to write for this blog entry, which is this:

I have discovered a little tool that tells me how "heavy the traffic" is on my blog. It does not tell me who looks at it of course because that must violate some form of HIPPA for the internet world or something but it does tell me how many "hits" I get and let me tell you I feel like a celebrity!

I never thought so many people might be reading! So then in the shower today I thought - wow - my audience is slightly bigger than I previously thought (mainly myself and my husband and maybe some person on the internet who randomly got to my website after searching for the word "life" on google and ended up on page 67 or something and somehow my blog came up and then he or she said "Hmm, maybe I will check this thing out again, this chick really gets it.") 

Anyway I just wanted to mention that I really appreciate you guys - whoever you are - who are actually reading this! 

That all being said I want to say just one or two things I've had on my mind:

I have to go back to work on Monday. It is looming over my head like a really large person sitting on a swing that has really tiny thread and there's an invisible person sitting next to the swing with an invisible pair of scissors (I have to admit I am an excellent speller but scissors just took me a very long time to figure out - that one and exercise get me every time).

I am looking forward to seeing everyone at work. I really missed everybody.

I am a little apprehensive about the following things, however:
1. Saying goodbye to Corinne - if only she could come too. She would be great! A little noisy at times, but who isn't? Right?
2. Just getting used to work again - that seems like it should be a big shift from the skill set I have been used to the past few weeks!
3. None of my clothes fit correctly. I look like a warrior princess, only not in a good way. 
4. I'm going to go through Roseanne withdrawal. I really like Netflixing that!
5. I will also miss Dr. Drew's Lifechangers and those ridiculous court shows that I never used to like but they really grew on me - I was in awe of my fellow man and I just wanted to give all the contestants books to read and I wanted to know what they thought of them. I will also forever regret not knowing the schedule of when Bob Ross's show was on PBS. I only caught it once the whole time I was out, and didn't see it again. I could watch that guy paint happy trees all day long. It is so relaxing!
6. I'm sure I'm apprehensive about more things - this is a very lifechanging event happening on Monday - but at least I don't have to go into labor this Monday! Hmm. I guess with anything I could say "At least I'm not going into labor!" That really does have a slightly calming effect. I am just realizing this. As in: "Man, I really don't want to take the garbage out tonight.....but at least I'm not going into labor!" I guess it kind of works. I like it. 


OK I think that's all for now. I just....had to write again. I have to give the people what they want, after all ;)