I have the potential to not suck at life

In four very short months, I will be thirty-two. Part of me wants to freak out because that's what I did with twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty and thirty-one. However, there's another part of me that's looking thirty-two in the face, and she's peaceful about this milestone, so peaceful, in fact, the rest of my psyche is actually listening.

Freaking out: I'm two years into my thirties and I've done nothing!

Peaceful: Thirty-two isn't old. I have my whole life still ahead of me.

Freaking out: Look at the last ten/ twelve years; what in the name of all that's grammatically correct have I been doing? Have I honestly spent ten/ twelve years sitting on my butt eating chips and surfing the internet? Will I never get my act together?

Peaceful: This is an opportunity. Every day is an opportunity. So the question should be "what will I be doing now?"

If I feel I've been wasting the years, if that's the worst of my issues, then the solution is to waste no more of the time granted to me. I don't believe I can change the world; I just want to know that I've done what I can with my very small part of this world. I may not ripple history, but I am definitely capable of affecting those around me. I have potential; that is one quality I am sure of. I am intelligent, over-educated, loving, creative and moderately talented. Truth be told, that's a lot to work with.

So, this is my goal for the next four months: Make every day an opportunity to do and be more so that by my birthday, I can not only be peaceful about the number of my years but, what's more, proud of who I am at thirty-two years old.

This is a pretty exciting objective, don't you think?

An Open Letter

Dear Microsoft,

You don't know me. I'm just one more wife-to-a-geek, and I have had no reason to address you before this point. You see, I'm not a techno-yuppie. I simply don't care about  having the latest and greatest... stuff. I was way behind the curve in procuring a cell phone, and even when I did, I made it clear that it just needed to take calls. Why would I need a phone that takes pictures? That's just crazy talk. Though I did not realize how an mp3 player would change my life, I still maintain that -- other than my mp3 capable cellphone (archaic as it may be) -- I simply do not covet technology. It's too changeable. Too fickle. Too expensive.

However, concerning the rumored Courier: I want. Bad. Muy muy malo.

I want an infinite journal, and I know you understand (see attached photo). I want to cut & paste & flick information from the Internet into my journal. I want to use a stylus to write; I love to write.

I realize that this particular item is still in development, i.e. incubation. Whatever. I'm in. I only ask that you please include e-reader technology because I've been stubborn about the Kindle, and I'm putting my faith in your little beauty to fulfill my need for hundreds of books at my fingertips (I also love to read). Also, if you could make it play mp3s, I would be eternally yours.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Punk

I am pathetic

I've alluded in past posts that Bryan & I live far from our families. This is true: a thousand miles worth of distance. Over the years, we've discussed the fact that we've always lived at least three hours from our parents & siblings, and I believe that this is a situation that has served us well. Our marriage relationship has grown and developed so that we depend on each other as the nucleus. We had to be independent as a young couple, and this is healthy. On the downside, we've missed having grandparents close for our boys to have relationships with. When someone in either family could have used a hand, mine were tied. When my grandmother died, I wasn't there; I grieve that fact.

My family is close knit, or, we were while growing up, at least, and I miss being able to hang out with my brother and sister and their spouses. I regret that I'm missing seeing my neices and nephew grow. I've never lived with any of my six youngest siblings, and that's saddens me.

Over the years, the distance was eased with a lot of phone calls. Bethany and I would talk a couple hours a week, and my mother and I would talk a couple hours a week, sometimes every day. However, at the moment, my uncle, aunt and two cousins are living with my parents and six siblings. It's a madhouse. There's no downtime, no quiet moments. My mother and I have gone from speaking several times a week to once every two or three weeks.

I'm very disconnected from my extended family, and I feel it like a punch to the solar plexus.

To my family, to my mother and father, mother-in-law, father-in-law, all five sisters, three brothers, three brothers-in-law, two sisters-in-law, nieces and nephew, grandfathers and grandmother: I love you all.

... I need a hug.

Bored bored bored

Bethany hates when I apologize, but I feel compelled, because, you see, I'm both boring and bored. You know that horrible feeling when you're doing nothing and don't want to do anything? The most adolescent boredom ever invented? Yeah, that's where I've been these last couple of days. So forgive me for having nothing new to post.

Here's what I'm listening to tonight. Consider it my apology cookie.

Does anyone remember...

I was going to ask if anyone remembers records, but they're coming back into style, so the question becomes ironic but in the way that makes me look oblivious, not cool.

Speaking of records, I had the "Annie" soundtrack when I was a wee punk.

I don't think I'd seen the movie at that point, but I owned the record. It was mine, and I loved it, then loved it again and even more once I had seen the movie.

Speaking of "Annie," my younger sister (I have five younger sisters) posts this as her Facebook status yesterday:

"Your never fully dressed without a SMILE!!!!! :)"

... That's a direct quote. Ahem.

So, I, being who I am, must quote back another line from "Annie," and, in order to do so properly, make sure to check the lyrics online first. Checking lyrics reminds me how much I loved this movie twenty-five years ago. This reminder sends me to Youtube. Youtube teases me with clips. Which leads us here, now, at this moment.

You know the delight -- and sometimes horror -- of watching and listening to something as an adult that thrilled you as a child? You know the feeling of finally understanding something that eluded you all those years ago? The jokes that you didn't get? The boring plot lines that you couldn't grasp why they were so funny to other people?

Friends, Loved Ones, Internet Strangers, being an adult takes "Annie" to a whole new level. A reeeeeally good one. I get it. I catch the nuances and subtleties. The boring parts are precious. I get it.

Like this. I thought this sequence was barely tolerable as a six year old. Now? I want to dance like this. all.the.time.

Now, to be fair to my kindergarten self, my love for Tim Curry began with "Annie," and even at such a young age, I knew enough to appreciate Carol Burnett. But Bernadette Peters!

This is the last one, I swear. It's just... I get it now!

Dude, being a grown-up rocks.

Coming to confess...

I'm sorry my last post was freakishly long. Forgive me. This one will be more brief. Even my sentences will be more brief. I hope this will appease you.

Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.

• I am not Catholic, have never been Catholic, have never researched Catholicism and don't know anyone who's a practicing Catholic. I only know the above line from TV and movies. I'm not even entirely sure I got it right.
• I am incapable of writing short sentences.
• I made cookies for no good reason, just to bake. I didn't even want cookies.
• Then I ate five cookies even though I knew with every bite that I didn't really want the cookies and will always be a dumpy hausfrau.
• My cookies had dairy and eggs. I am a bad, bad vegan, as in not one at all.
• There is 2% milk in my fridge, left over from when my mom and Beth and their crew were here, and no one will touch it. I'm going to have to dump half a gallon of perfectly fine 2% milk down the drain simply because it's dairy and none of us will touch it.
• That 2% milk is one of four cartons of various milks in my fridge. The others are Silk vanilla almond milk, Trader Joe's soymilk (for Bryan's tea, should he choose to have any), and Trader Joe's rice milk which is what we use for cereal and cooking and baking. We are beyond weird about milk over here.

...Cookie?

In Lieu of Coherency: a pointless story

At some point yesterday afternoon, I began to feel an insane headache coming on. I don't get many headaches, and what few I do are mostly ignorable. I hate to medicate. However, this one was affecting my eyes and stomach and didn't feel like my usual "Lord, I'm getting old" sinus headache. I believe it was in reaction to my decision to clean the apartment. A defense mechanism, if you will.

Rather than medicate, I bought new sunglasses, we came home ,and I laid down for a while. Got up and turned on music, made dinner and fed my family. Sat down to my laptop and decided that of course! Tonight was the night for Avatar!

I am an idiot.

I ran from the apartment, as the online description assured me that the movie started at 7:30 and it was then 7:15. Ten minutes to get to the theater from here -- hoping and praying it's the right one as there are two theaters on the same stretch of road within a quarter mile of each other, and I always go to the wrong one, the one NOT showing the movie I want to see -- only to find out that the movie begins at 8:00.

Oh. Okay. Excellent.

Ticket, 3D glasses and a half hour wait outside of their one 3D screening room while the various workers cleaned from the last show which was still letting out when I and a handful of my compatriots arrived. I stood in the corridor and tweeted and texted Bryan and fantasized about having a phone that not only played all of my music as my Sony Ericsson w580i does beautifully -- I'm very loyal -- but also texts with ease and has other fun features that could keep me occupied for half an hour as I wait for a movie. However, as much as I adore my practically old-fashioned phone, it's not terribly entertaining when not acting as my mp3 player, so I contented myself with listening to the other would-be movie-goers while pretending not to be paying any attention. This is what I learned: somewhere in Georgia there is snowboarding. I have never been snowboarding, but the mere fact that this opportunity exists excites me. I also learned that high-schoolers can be inappropriately affectionate in public. I also learned that yesterday, Avatar had been released exactly one month before.

The overall lesson is this: people are interesting.

The theater opened, newly cleaned. We poured in, like new wine. The snowboarders sat exactly in the row & position that I would have chosen -- durnit -- so I ended up in the row ahead of them, a mite too near the screen for comfort, but whatever; the seats are like recliners, so I just snuggled back as much as I could to make viewing less nauseating. I listened to the people around me and tweeted about it, wishing I knew how to dim the screen on my phone so I could tweet during the movie because I hate not having someone to talk to during a movie; Bryan and Bethany can both attest to this. I like to make comments and share snickers. (When I went to see Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe several years ago with my extended family, I actually ran up the aisle during the preview for Curious George so I could point out to my parents, seated further back, that the name of the ship was the H.A. Rey. You know, the author of the Curious George books? Yeah, my parents didn't care either.) Previews began. Screen froze. Guys behind me commented about loading icons, depending on the operating system that the theater is using. Previews began again. Guys behind me commented on how these previews are in 3D, no, wait, they aren't? No, they aren't. But they're orange if you wear the glasses. I was loving the annoying talking behind me.

The movie began. The movie was awesome. The movie was beautiful and lush and fun. I laughed inappropriately when no one else was laughing which is totally normal, so I knew I wasn't dead from the headache just yet. That's right, still nursing that headache, and, unsurprisingly, the headache worsened, more and more as the movie went on. I routinely dropped the 3D glasses practically to my chin so I could clamp my hands over my eyes and temples. Never for very long, though; I didn't want to miss any visuals. By the time the movie ended, I was as good as blind. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but I. Hurt. I'm glad we live so close to the theater, because I can drive home with my eyes open and brain on auto-pilot, and I did.

I don't medicate headaches if I can help it, but when I do, I have the verybesteverIloveitsomuch medicine, Advil Cold & Sinus, which is actually Bryan's drug of choice for his insane and inexplicable headaches. I have to buy it from the pharmacy because it contains the evil pseudoephedrine, but that evil pseudoephedrine is my illicit lover. I suspect the day will come when I leave Bryan and run away with pseudoephedrine to live on a beach somewhere.

Forty minutes after the movie, my killer headache was numb and I was again functioning. I went to bed, where I dozed and reveled in my lack of murderous headache and fantasized about Avatar. By the time I finally fell asleep, I'd decided I need to watch it again, this time without the headache from Sheol.

I want to be able to give Jake Sully my full attention.

Yum.

Lookie! Lookie!

I totally made Beth's list of her ten favorite blogs. She told me she was putting me on it, and I in turn asked if this was because she actually likes my blog or because she felt she must out of some not-entirely-misguided sense of loyalty. She said that's it's both, and I accept that.

Apparently it is customary -- perhaps even considered good blogging courtesy -- to accept this honor by then blogging about my own favorite blogs. My response to this? Okie dokie!

Firstly, were it not creating an infinite loop, hers would be top on my own list. Forget that she's my sister; she's hilarious and unpredictable and irreverent, and she loves her life. I'd read her even if she were an Internet Stranger. As it is, however, I was the first to read her blog, the first to comment, and I visit it as often as she does to read the comments. I'm her blogging sidekick. However, I'm not going to put her on my list, so go ahead and forget I ever mentioned http://www.nobodylistenstothegirl.blogspot.com/.

Ahem. Moving on.

10 Blogs I Love

1. This Is Reverb

Pastor Ryan is an Internet Stranger, but I would like Bryan and myself to be best friends with him and his wife in actual, person-to-person real life. Unfortunately, Bryan is shy (read: antisocial), and I think they live a long way from here. I content myself with reading his blog.

2. Confessions From A Mormon Bachelor Pad

Bethany already listed them, but I don't care. As much as I don't want to be counted among their far-too-many fangirls (it's really only a matter of time before there's a cutesy nickname for their avid followers), or the fact that I can't seem to bring myself to commit and comment, I adore these boys. I would wax long-winded on the whys of that, but I'll spare you. Justify yourself with these words if you must: guilty pleasure.

3. Sam Nanti's Thoughts and Ravings

I'm not entire sure how I "found" Sam, maybe through MBP (see above), but I thoroughly enjoy his blog. He's intelligent, thoughtful, well-spoken/ written and amusing. He's also one of my few Twitter associates who actually replies to the odd things I tweet. He makes me laugh. Read him.

4. Driven & 5. The Owens Family

Blogs of Adam Owens and his wife Karen. They recently lost their three year old son Gavin after a long, difficult struggle with Mitochondrial Disease. Both of their blogs are outstanding testaments to their faith through and after Gavin's sickness and subsequent death. They are amazing people, and I am humbled and honored to be their sister in Christ.

6. Redeemed

This particular blog is written by one of my best friends from college, and I actually didn't know about it until I tried to find her address on Facebook so I could send her Pioneer Woman's cookbook for Christmas.

Jackie and I haven't been in touch for nearly the ten years since college, and her blog pretty much proves that she's become a successful grown-up.

Gosh, I miss college...

Actually, it's funny but lately I've noticed how many college-aged bloggers I follow, so I'm wondering more than ever if I ever matured past then. I think so... Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Moving on...

7. Shelby Lou's Blog

I stumbled upon Shelby Lou's blog on Twitter, and it would take too long to explain how I managed that. Suffice it to say, I love Twitter, and Shelby Lou is one of the cutest things I've ever stumbled across. Her blog is very much about her personal journey into adulthood, her faith and steps toward independence. Her's is one of those blogs that I have to remind myself that I'm the Internet Stranger, not her sister, and to not be all stalkery and creepy.

8. Busy Bee Lauren

Yeah, this is another blog I have to remind myself not to be the weird stalker. She has a huge following thanks to her association with MBP, so it's easy to keep my sisterly tendencies to myself.

Love her for her photography, adorable husband, sense of humor and propensity for goofy faces.

9. Argh Ink

NYT Bestseller Jennifer Crusie blogs. *snicker*

I don't stalk her all creepy-vampire like, so I don't have a lot of insight, but I love her writing style.

10. Killing A Fly With A Ukelele

Today, I spent an inordinate amount of time clicking links. I clicked links from Bethany's list o' faves through to someone else's list o' faves and somehow (I couldn't recreate the experience if you put a gun to my head) came upon this little gem. Yes, today. I am now following her, official-like, and I look forward to reading more and getting to know Miss Givinya de Elba better.

In recap, I do indeed read these blogs. I do indeed recommend you do as well. However, it was incredibly difficult to make a list that wasn't a duplicate of Bethany's. We follow a lot of the same blogs (so we can then talk about them, you know, like a book club).

I don't apologize for duplicated MBP. I couldn't help myself.

My sister is a blogger

Who: Bethany

Where: my closet

What: I think you know

Why: She loves her readers, and I'm not even kidding

Screaming in Otherwise Nonscreamy Music

I've already divulged (here) that there are certain elements that simply make me grin like an idiot. And after unintentionally titling my last post after this song, I must share. I cannot not share.

My introduction to the song was via the video which also makes me want to giggle like a lunatic. I highly recommend giving yourself a giggle.

It's so quiet...

They've gone.

The shoes in the hallway...

The backpacks along the coffee table...

The blankets piled on the chair...




The toothbrushes and toiletries scattered along the bathroom counter...

All of this packed and gone, along with the seven people we adore and will now miss.

I hope you enjoyed the rest and relaxion of our mellow lifestyle and surprisingly cold state. Thanks for the quotable conversations, photo opportunities and multiple movie nights.

It was really good having you here.

Love you.

Negotiations

My mother, Bethany and various children arrived to our home late Wednesday night, January 6th. We have spent a delightful weekend/ week together, and their plan is to leave either Wednesday (the 13th) and travel two days home or Thursday (the 14th) and drive straight through.

These plans are heavily debated on all sides.

Bethany: Mom, Matt said he'd give you five dollars if you come home Wednesday.

Mom: Dad said he'd give me ten bucks if we come home Tuesday.

Me: That right there is a third of a new pair of shoes.

Bryan: If you stay until Thursday, I'll buy you Moe's.

Mom: Buddy!

Hey, I found a loophole for inappropriate stories!

I was brought up very well. Some might say that I had a fairly idyllic childhood: two parents who (still) adore each other, one sister, one brother, all close in age, all of us best friends. We weren't just raised in the "church" but with prayer and the Word. Homeschooled, protected from evils, loved like crazy.

All this begs the question, where did I go wrong? No, wait: Where did Beth go worse? Do you know how much she likes to say "penis" and blog about penises? I mean, really. I'm not one to nickname a significant part of my sons' anatomies, so the word penis is mentioned around here (usually with something having to do with potties), but Beth is... worse.

The thing is, when Bethany's at home, we're on IM for hours every evening while she blogs, and we say these things to each other that we don't (I don't) say to other people, like, you know, in public. Turns out that this is a practice that's rather difficult to uncondition. Ahem. We say things that make our mother blush. No, seriously. Apparently she actually blushed in the diner the other morning when Beth said something (I didn't hear, unfortunately) about, of all things, vaginas. Poor Mom. I actually feel bad for her.

Case in point: as the kids (between our three families, we have about 125) were bedding down for the evening, we were biding time by watching "Knight Rider." Bryan was watching it; we were sitting there mocking it. I'm pretty sure that's what you're supposed to do, anyway. So, there's this shot in the scene of some wacked, random implement in the middle of the garage, just beyond KITT, and Bethany goes, "Wow, that was random." The scene cuts to the bad guys lowering identical wacked implement into their wacked implement thingy, and, ah, that explains that random shot.

My mouth opens and this pops out: "Scary phallic bomb."
Mom: "I'm going to work on my (Facebook) farm." She all but runs to her computer.
Bryan (laughing): "That's what they call a weapon of mass destruction."
Bethany: "That's what she said."

Bryan and I laughed so hard, I expect our neighbors filed noise complaints. I'm pretty sure Beth's only saving grace here is that Mom may not understand the joke. I'm hoping.

So anyway, kids, remember that no matter how good your upbringing, you can still go wrong if you spend too much time on that evil place they call "The Net." Also pray that I bite my tongue in time so I stop driving my mother from the room. Thanks.

This is my life

Certain members of my family are visiting at the moment, and by members I don't mean appendages of any kind but the persons to which they're attached. Which is nonsense, I realize, but I have good reason to be writing with only a third of my good sense and that good reason is this person:



He's three. He's three, and he is the bane of my sleep, has been since the very first hour of his life, nay, since the sixth month of his gestation.

This child is a vampire. He is the vampire to end all vampires and by this I mean he doesn't sleep, and by that I mean he's got me beat. With a very large stick.

So, as I mentioned, my mother and sister are visiting with various offspring. Asher, the vampire mentioned above, is thrilled. Various offspring! Friends! Come play Castle Crashers and swords and ninja turtles! Let's wrestle and hug and share Goldfish and never sleep again!

I'm fairly certain all of these thoughts either ran through his mind or from his tongue at some point during the day. Actually, I'm convinced they were still running through his mind during the night as well because this child went to bed at 7:30, woke up at 10:15 and didn't go back to sleep until 6:30. I know because I was awake the entire time, begging and threatening and putting him back on the pillow over and over and over and over while I held back tears and violence.

The last straw, which I believe was sometime before 6:30 when (apparently) my nephew decided it was morning, was when Asher complained that he didn't want the bugs to bite him. I threw my hands in the air and swore there were no bugs (it's January and snowing!), and would you pleeeeeeease go. to. sleep?! Two minutes later, I kid you not, he said, aloud and with great vehemence, "Go away!" I got up again to shush him only to see that he's lying flat on the floor (of our room in his sleeping bag, which is my version of a desperate measure), staring at the nothing that's above him. Then, "Stop it!"

I officially freaked out, picked him up, cradled him and sat in my bed while he zoned with his head on my chest.

It still took him another hour before he really fell asleep, which means I didn't actually fall asleep until Bryan's alarm went off.

I love my kid, but the vampire's life is a hard one to row, particularly when I'm living it for both of us. Just saying.

Happy, eh?

I'm in a bad, bad mood. Every time I turn my mind to blogging, I feel like bursting into tears. Whenever I begin an introspective train of thought, it leads to moroseness and depression.

In this case, since whining is unattractive and Lord knows I have enough strikes against me, here's what makes me happy:

• Snow.

Georgia is freakishly cold right now, but there is no snow. I shake my fist at the environment as a whole.

• New Music

• Diagramming

I once diagrammed a tongue twister. For fun.

I'm giddy to start diagramming with Elijah.

There may be something wrong with me.

Yes, I am aware of this.

• New Music

Did I mention that Bryan told everyone who asked to just get me iTunes cards for Christmas? Or that Amazon rewarded me for using a gift card (on music) by giving me credits for more music?

I got a lot of new music for Christmas.

I'm going to go listen to it now because that's safer than continuing to type in a box that will eventually make my words viewable by the public.

Fun fact: All three bands featured in today's post are Canadian. Sweet, eh?

Two in the morning

Punk and her mister scramble into a bed layered with blankets. The sheet is cold, and the mister grumbles and curls into a fetal position. Punk squinches her numb feet between his calves.

Punk: You know what we should have?

Mister: Sex?

Punk: ...Okay. No, what I was going to say was that it would be great if we had one of those old-fashioned heat iron thingies, like from Little House on the Prairie. It would warm up the bed before we have to get in it.

Mister: No. Maybe an electric blanket?

Punk (shuddering at the thought): Uh, which would get used like five nights of the year? Not to mention how I would be sweating at three in the morning, and then there would be anger and fighting in the middle of the night.

Mister (considering the fighting and anger in the middle of the night): ...Yeah. It probably wouldn't be very good for us. I guess not.

Punk: And by "good for us," you mean our marriage as a whole, right?

Mister: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

Punk: Chahead.

Challenge

Our pastor (the coolest pastor ever, and I've known quite a few pretty awesome pastors) challenged the congregation to take time to consider our neediness before a sovereign, loving God, and decide on one request we would place before God for this upcoming year.

The jolting part of this exhortation is that this is weirdly similar to an idea I had around Christmas, that we -- Bryan, Elijah (maybe Asher), and I -- should write a prayer request down and pack it away with the Christmas stuff so that next year when we unpack it, we can review those requests and see how God has worked in our lives.

The boys didn't like my idea. Whatever. I'm taking our pastor up on his challenge.

Now, this isn't a list of resolutions that I'm making and then putting into prayer form; that would be my self-sufficiency masquerading as humility and submission. This also isn't a wish list (I hope) of stuff I want. Finally, this was terrifically difficult to come up with, probably more than you would imagine:

My heart's desire is for my family to center itself around the person and Godhead of Christ.
I'd like to see Bryan be baptized, a public demonstration of his faith, and I firmly believe that this one step would guide Elijah closer to baptism.
I want my own heart to thirst and seek hard after God, because in doing so I believe I could stop focusing so much on myself and how I fall short.

I have resolutions and I have goals and I have wishlists for the year and my life, but that is my prayer. That is what I lay at the foot of the throne of Grace and say, Take it. I am unable. You are able. Do as You will.

How I learned to overtell a story

This is a story of three humans who have affected my life and led all of us here.

My very first class of my very first day at the local community college was -- no surprise -- English 101, Lit & Comp, with a very old, very skinny Jewish woman named Keonig. I adored her. She was brusque and classy and no nonsense. Throw the least ambitious of last years' seniors from the local (read: backwoods) high schools into an early morning English class with a little old Jewish woman and you don't expect greatness. She didn't care what you expected. You were in her classroom, you played by her rules, and you did the work, durnit. She intimidated me, and I adored her.

The first lesson she hammered home was brevity. We didn't write ten page essays; ours were three pages, max. More than three and she stopped reading and your paper was useless. This was a surprisingly difficult lesson. You'd think less is more, yay for less work, but I had stuff to say. Still, an excellent lesson, particularly for a young woman who thinks she has stuff to say. She learns to hold her pretty little tongue and say what needs to be said, no more.

Fast forward -- let's see -- four years and enter a twenty year old Mister. This is a boy who wants you to tell him directly what you're thinking, no pussy-footing around a thing, and he wants the details, not just the main point. Where were you? Who with? What did she say? What did you do about it? What are they going to do now? Even still, half of his question, I just shake my head and say, "I don't know." As you might imagine, a girl with stuff to say meets boy who wants every little detail and you get long-winded-ness.

Are you wondering who the third person might be? He's the one who started this madness: my dad. My father is a poet, a reader, a writer, a romantic. He has a way with words, and he throws around & coins phrases that make the rest of us snicker and scratch our heads and say, "Omigosh, I love Dad." I will no doubt reference much of my Dad's phraseology in the future. He's the one who will give me an "Are you kidding me?" face and say, "Yeah, so to make a short story long, huh, Punk?"

I want to be brief, for, as foolish Polonious said, "Brevity is the soul of wit." Lord knows I'd love to believe myself witty, not to mention that I think people respond well to a blurb or an anecdote. However, years of telling my inane thought-stories to a detail-oriented man has retrained me. I'm trying. I'm mostly failing, but I am trying.

Like anyone cares...

I agonize over comments. We've covered that. The tidbit I didn't divulge is that when I finally bit the bullet and set up this blog, it was with the thought that I would simply spew my responses to other blogs without having to actually post a comment where it will either a) not be seen, b) not be responded to, c) reveal me as an idiot/ know-it-all/ jerk, or d) all of the above.

Today's the first time I've found myself needing the outlet.

I love Mormon Bachelor Pad. Go ahead and roll your eyes; I get it. I'm neither Mormon nor single -- not to mention how I don't really want to be counted among the fangirls -- but I absolutely love those guys. I really like reading a guy's perspective, and I find their escapades appalling and humiliating (I embarrass on other people's behalfs, which is weird), but I want to know what's going to happen with these boys, because, let's be honest, they're young. They're very young, a bit immature, definitely inexperienced and lacking in actual wisdom. But they're growing, and those are the posts that keep me going back (and back and back).

Today's post is the one that has had me clenching my teeth all day. Read it. Report back here.

Here's the thing: what am I missing? I knew without a doubt (and was correct in assuming) that the hangers-upon would writhe and foam at the mouth, scrabbling over each other to congratulate Jake. BUT... he's not engaged. As far as I see it, he and his Sanders have simply entered into the realm of "serious relationship" and to that I say, "Welcome! Congrats! Good luck!" Because I think that as an exclusive, serious couple with the thought of marriage already between them, discussed, they're just now beginning to get to the place where they're going to know each other. Now they're going to realize how much they really want to be with the other forever.

I'm not saying that they're going to have to get their heads out of the clouds and go at it from a reasonable, sensible perspective. Lord knows Bryan and I didn't. However, when you/ they/ we are in a serious relationship, thinking of marriage, either you/ they/ we become exceedingly excited by the idea of being with this person for the rest of your life, or you freak out and bail.

Now, I'm a romantic. Learn this early and believe it, because I love romance, am a softie for happy relationships, and, believe you me, I am rooting for them. As far as Jake has described Sanders thus far, I like her. She seems down to earth but not crude, responsible as well as romantic. I could be friends with her (as far as I know her, which is in a semi-fictional, third-person manner, which is to say, not at all). I'm intrigued to see where their relationship will go from here, and I hope for the best, but from Jake's depictions of himself, I'm holding back too much hope. The optimist in me is hoping, but the part of me that has been married for ten years and is (approximately) ten years older than Jake... hesitates.

And all of this is why I couldn't comment. I might still. I have to think about it a little longer.

Commence further input, i.e. gossiping, while I think. Unless you're above gossip, which is excellent. Gossip is a sin. Feel free to berate me in the comments for even suggesting it.

Beauty, eh?

Okay, can I say that this was one of my favorite New Year's Eves? I cleaned (almost) the entire apartment, fed my family, bathed both kids and put one to bed, then went and put on make-up and jewelry and a silk shirt so we could gorge ourselves silly on things that I shall now restrict myself from and watch Timeline with Elijah (knights, you know... he's obsessed). The acting is lame, but Gerard Butler saves the day.

Mmm, baby, Gerard Butler.

Right. Sorry.

But the movie finished at nine or nine-thirty, and we were ticking through other movies available through Netflix-via-Xbox and we came across Bob & Doug McKenzie, i.e. a little something called "Strange Brew." It's the Canadian version of "Up in Smoke," which I didn't enjoy. This I did. It's goofy and weirdly innocent, considering it's a movie about beer, which I also don't enjoy. This I did.

Seriously, Bryan and I are going to be tossing Canadian stereotyped quips at each other for days, I know it.

Sure wish I was Canadian, eh? Yes, yes, I do.