Thursday, September 29, 2011

Ughinspired

That is an annoying combination of 'ugh' and 'uninspired.'

It's ugly.

There is something wrong with my head right now. Mainly, I'm discontent. Recently, my bffs for life and I did a Bible study entirely on contentment, so I've got the tools, but for some reason? It's unattainable right now. Which, from what I've learned, is totally by choice.

See, I could choose to be content. But, I don't. It's the same as this: I could choose not to eat ice cream EVERY SINGLE DAY. But, I don't. (I'm calcium deficient. Don't judge me).

This discontentment creates several problems for me: a poor attitude, a monotonous daily schedule of doom, and a hopeless outlook on the future. Major bummer.

So, inspiration? Laughable. I can barely get through my task list let alone do any extras like 'play with Daphne' or 'be creative on my blog.' (Well, I'm joking on that first one. I only ignore her like 15% of the day).

But, I know me. And, if I don't write something, I will completely give up on my blog (because it's not PERFECT and for some reason, I've convinced myself that means it's worthless). So, even if I think my blog is crappy, I do still hold fast to the reasons I started writing here.

I NEED a creative outlet and I want to document my daughter's early life because I already forget so much.

Here's what I can remember right now:

She copies Jon and me all the time. He rubs his head, she rubs hers (and laughs hysterically).

She started calling her dad Jon. Yeah, he hates it. He gets a slight hysterical twinge in his voice when he says, "No! I'm Dada! Daddy!" He looks at my frantically and says, "Don't even call me by my name, call me Daddy so she gets it!" It makes me laugh so much that I continually call him Jon. Heh.

She fed her dolly some cereal the other day without any prompting. Freaking the cutest.

She is a tank. She runs into tables, falls off furniture, does somersaults and crashes and never cries.

She has 12 teeth right now. Craziness.

She points to everything and says, "That." or at least that's what I think she's saying. As in, "What's that?" This leads to a a lot of grocery store stares. "That's frozen pizza. Those are peaches. That's toilet cleaner." I'm trying to increase her vocabulary, people.

She loves her sock monkey and calls it MoMo. She constantly brings it to either Jon or me so we will make him talk to her in a silly voice.

She still doesn't sleep through the night. Any suggestions? I'm pretty tired, yo.

If you ask her to tell you where her eyes, ears, nose or any other body part is? She will point to her belly button. Every.Time. and say, "Bey but."

We have a lot of fun in the 85% of the time that I'm not ignoring her. Probably soon I'll get used to being poor and bored, and then the contentment will ease in. I mean, she is really darn cute, so that should help.


Friday, September 16, 2011

Friday, ya'll!

 
 
 Thanks again to Lauren at *the little things we do*  for coming up with these fun posts! I hope everyone has a spectacular weekend!
 
1.   You should always take time to     fix your hair. It sounds shallow, but I know I always feel better about facing the world when I've even just blow-dried mine .

2. Kittens and puppies    make(s) the world a happier place to be.

3.  I can hardly wait for the day when I sleep eight hours straight. Surely Daphne will sleep through the night at some point in the near future, right?!

4.   Monday    is my favorite day of the week. Because of Jon's schedule, Monday is like our Saturday.

5.  Something totally dumb and ridiculous that I love is  television. It's sad but true.

6.  If I could, I would  help a lot more people fix all their problems.

7.  I rather like   this episode of My Drunk Kitchen, but the language is totally inappropriate, just to warn ya. Still? Pretty funny.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Oh, Peeta ... I love you more than I do Edward

So. I am kinda obsessed with "The Hunger Games."

If you haven't read the trilogy and you like getting absorbed in fast-paced stories, you may like them. I read the books in about two days each and if I didn't have a toddling baby, I probably would have read them in one sitting. I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out the conclusion.

That being said... they aren't spectacularly written. They are comparable to the Twilight books (however, much better than the obscenely horrible Twilight movies) in that the characters are relatable and the story engrossing but lacking sophistication and depth. It is Young Adult fiction, so you know, maybe author Suzanne Collins was trying to make it appeal to that audience and didn't want to reach further than what she did.

Though it's YA, "The Hunger Games" (and the other trilogy books "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay") deal with extremely disturbing subject matter. I don't want to give anything away, because I hope you will read these books, but I can say this: After I read them, I told Jon, "Dear God, I hope they don't make these into movies. I would have to watch them but I think I'd have nightmares for weeks."

Of course... they are making the first movie right now.

I loved reading these books the same way some people love looking at disturbing art. They were fascinating but utterly troubling. I'm certain that was Collins' intention, and I can't help but feel the very people she satirizes are those who will enjoy watching these films.

and... I'm one of them. Maybe that's the most disturbing thing of all to me....

Friday, September 9, 2011

Fill in the blank Friday!

Yay! We got family pictures taken, and I'm pretty excited about them. Daphne? Pretty much the cutest baby of all time and now it's proven in print. Also, I haven't done a Fill in the Blank Friday in forever, so I'm excited to see what blanks Lauren at *the little things we do* has come up with this week!


1.   Somewhere someone is   falling in love. That makes me smile.

2.  Music     is/are my muse. It definitely moves me to be more creative.

3.  It would suck if   chocolate was no more because  Jon and I would then have nothing in common. (Currently, our chocolate addiction is holding our marriage together ;).

4.    The weather   is/are my favorite thing about today. It is rainy and overcast and cool.

5.  Life is kind of like   a movie. No, wait. Usually it's nothing like a movie. This is a deep question for FITBF.

6.  If I could have anything I wanted I would want  a house. Right. Now. Please.

7.  A funny thing happened the other day...   Before dinner every night, I take Daphne's clothes off so she doesn't get them all grimy. The other day, I took her clothes off and she ran to her high chair and started banging on it like, "Yay! I know it's time to eat now!!"


Fun blanks! Thank you, Lauren!

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Daphne turned one. You know, like a while ago.

But.... I do want to post some pictures here. It was a super fun day. My sweet friends Rebecca and Missy helped me make some insanely delicious snacks and helped set up early as well. 
(Credit where credit is due fo sho.)

Ridiculously cute birthday girl.
Awesome banner that I made. I get to brag on myself because I'm not generally crafty.




Pretzel fairy wands were a main feature of the spread.
 
I'm telling you. They were whimsical and delicious.
This delicious punch that Missy made included fun flower ice cubes.

I adore these edible fairies found on this etsy page. They made the party for me.
 
I wasn't going to give Daphne a "smash cake" because she had never before had any sweets. I thought a cupcake would do. However, we had enough batter left over and it turned out so cute.

She seemed to love the attention all day, but when everyone started singing to her? Oh, man. She was the cutest. She looked somewhat surprised, puzzled and seriously happy.

This is about as much smashing as she did. She totally wasn't into it.
Daphne had so many friends come celebrate her including special guest: Lily! My lovely niece.

Grandpa and Grandma Smith
Ogden, who my grandparents completely fell in love with.


Baby Eilee!

Kai!

Matix!  

Hattie! 

and more.


Also? Lots of presents. :)

Yay!

It was a very special day and I think it was perfect.

On writing

Last week (or maybe it was two weeks ago?), our modem broke, so we were without internet for a while.  I had two Project Runways to catch up on, so it may have been two weeks, but it felt like I'd gone a week without water. I'm seriously addicted to not only the internet but also tv. During the time off, I spent a lot more time playing with Daphne and also getting out of the house, so you know, it was probably good for me, for us. I have some noble friends that can abstain from such media, however, I'm not willing or possibly able to give up my stories.

I thought about how I needed to update this blog, which I will, for posterity. I mean, I want Daphne to read it when she's a teenager and all kinds of angry with me and see, "Oh. My mom was totally obsessed with me." Then I want guilt to torment her until she agrees that dating is really for people in their 30s and that she would actually prefer not to go away to college but instead decide that I'm her BFF and we'll run a homestyle bakery. From home. Many factors (including me learning how to bake) will have to precede this decision, but I'm really counting on that guilt to act as catalyst.

Anyway. As I thought about her tears falling as she happened upon pictures of her first birthday party, I realized I have to post those and tell a bit about that party even though it was weeks ago. Then I started to think about how writing this blog is really lacking in creative release for me. Then I realized the truth which is that I'm just not that creative anymore.

I used to write. In third grade, I wrote a pretty emotional and serious story about a girl who decided to have an abortion. The abortion was "botched" and the baby survived and this 15 year old girl and her child lived happily ever after, but it was precocious and I got a lot of positive attention for it. I always knew I would write. and I did. In college, I even decided to heck with the teaching certificate, I'll just make a living as a writer. Heheheh. Whoops. I did make money writing for a few years as a reporter for a small newspaper, and I enjoyed that. But, when I say I used to write what I'm really referring to is nights spent hunched over blue lined notebook pages, words spilling out of me, beautiful sentences, ugly sentences, words rising like bread, like Braille. I wrote like I breathed. I had to. I would read later what I wrote and be somewhat surprised by my syntax, by the way I captured exactly what I had felt.

I'm certain I had a knack for it. I was creative and vulnerable and skilled. I wrote for no audience and it's true that only few have ever read anything I wrote during those times.

I'm not sure when I stopped. Well. That's not true. I know exactly when I stopped, but it's complicated inside me. I stopped writing when I met Jon. This also means: I stopped writing when I stopped using drugs. I stopped writing when I became a Christian. I stopped writing when I stopped being depressed.

Again, I'm not certain what it was... Did I write because I was unstable? Did I write because it helped me in a therapeutic way? Was I writing because I was high all the time?

I don't know. Maybe a combination? All I know is this. Now, I do not write.

This blog then is unsatisfactory to me not because of the medium. I don't necessarily need blue lined notebook pages (I've tried those too to no avail). It's unsatisfactory because I'm unsatisfactory. I feel that everything I say has been said in the same way. Cliche after cliche. I know that I'm writing about my daughter, about my life, in a way that's personal to me, but I know that these are well-worn feelings, nothing unique is being described here. It's somewhat irritating, but I see no way out.

It's not like I'm going to trip on acid and see what happens. ;)

Instead... I'll keep writing here, capturing what I feel about my daughter, my family, my life, and hope that I learn to create something of value, something that I enjoy reading. Perhaps it's the audience that stays me from being creative, but the three people reading this shouldn't cause me to write so perfunctorily.

I don't know. While this is unsatisfactory it's not unsatisfying. I do enjoy having these thoughts preserved here, it's simply my clumsy methods that annoy. I'll keep trying and hopefully will have something great rise again.