Okay, stole the title from DesMama, but I think she is on to something.
This week I realized something very powerful. It is a lesson that working full time has actually taught me. The last 18 months have been so busy that I've really had to strip away what is not essential and focus on what matters the most.
When we lived in a home, I spent a lot of time (and sometimes money) finding ways to "improve" it--pictures, paint, curtains, decor, etc. I think I did this sometimes for me, but probably more often for the approval of others. And while this stuff is fun and, to a degree, rewarding, I have realized that my happiness level is no different now than it was then. I live in an apartment with no dishwasher that I am grateful to have moderately clean one day in seven. My couches were purchased at a garage sale 7 years ago. My kitchen table was originally in a box at K-mart. Our bedroom furniture is from the classified ads, purchased before my marriage. I'll spare you any more details than this, but you are probably getting the picture.
But my kids are adorable and mostly really happy. I am thrilled for the hours I do get to spend with them each day and love watching them grow. I have a husband who is getting excellent grades and is a wonderful dad. He helps around the house without asking and never categorizes jobs as yours and mine. I never go to bed without a kiss and a cuddle. I love this faith-baby so much growing inside of me that at times I think I will burst for joy. I get along great with both my side and his side of the family; there is very little discord on that front.
I guess that this week I am most grateful for having learned to seperate the wheat from the chaff. Life is definitely not easy, and we are certainly dealing with our own set of trials (who isn't?), but I hope that I always remember the lessons learned from this difficult time in our lives. I hope I can always seperate as clearly as I have this holiday season relevance from irrelevance.
Monday, November 27, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
Kids Say the Darndest Things
Saturday morning, Man Cub and the Poopy Pirate pulled all the blankets off the top bunk in their bedroom (which are there in lieu of a matress) and made a huge pile on the floor. Man Cub showed his brother how to jump off the coffee table into the pile yet. Not being two yet was no deterrent for the Poopy Pirate. He followed his brother right off the edge every time.
After about 10 minutes, Man Cub grew tired of the first game and organized the blankets into an "airplane." He, of course, was the pilot, but he commanded (he is really bossy) his brother to climb in behind him. Because he does everything the big brother tells him to do, the Poopy Pirate sat right behind him. Man Cub turns around and says, "Now, fasten your seat belt." Then, he pointed his finger right in his little brother's face and said, "And no smoking!"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I nearly fell off the couch laughing! Man Cub has had a lot of flight experience in his young life, but it has been a long time since he's gone anywhere. I couldn't think of any movies or books about airplanes that he has had exposure to recently. Nor have we talked about the Word of Wisdom really.
Fifteen seconds later, the Poopy Pirate bails out of the airplane to the screams of Man Cub who thought he would die. I turned to Plantboy and said, "Well, I guess he wasn't crazy about the non-smoking policy."
Don't even get me started on the extra verses we made to Follow the Prophet last night.
After about 10 minutes, Man Cub grew tired of the first game and organized the blankets into an "airplane." He, of course, was the pilot, but he commanded (he is really bossy) his brother to climb in behind him. Because he does everything the big brother tells him to do, the Poopy Pirate sat right behind him. Man Cub turns around and says, "Now, fasten your seat belt." Then, he pointed his finger right in his little brother's face and said, "And no smoking!"
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I nearly fell off the couch laughing! Man Cub has had a lot of flight experience in his young life, but it has been a long time since he's gone anywhere. I couldn't think of any movies or books about airplanes that he has had exposure to recently. Nor have we talked about the Word of Wisdom really.
Fifteen seconds later, the Poopy Pirate bails out of the airplane to the screams of Man Cub who thought he would die. I turned to Plantboy and said, "Well, I guess he wasn't crazy about the non-smoking policy."
Don't even get me started on the extra verses we made to Follow the Prophet last night.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
Letter to NG From a Concerned Reader
The whole point of the true evolutionary perspective is that evolution has no goal or object. There is no "intended" outcome. It is merely a series of random mutations that very occasionally produce advantageous results. Over millions of years complexity may result, but only if complexity presents clear survival advantages over being less complex.
In the first two pages of his article Zimmer once refers to nature as "thrifty" and then to evolution as "tinkering" with genes. A scientist quoted in the artricle refers to evolution as an "improviser." It may be a literary technique to endow non-human ideas with human characteristics, but it is not good evolutionary science. Only something intelligent has the capacity to be thrifty or the know-how to tinker or improvise.
In an effort to convince people that evolution is "so elegant, so beautiful, so simple," authors, and occasionally scientists alike, assign creator-like attributes to an idea. Maybe it is a deficiency in our language that causes this. Maybe it is an attempt to demystify science by robbing it of its precise language. Or maybe, just maybe, there is something deeper in us that cannot be explained by genetic markers and neurotransmitters. Maybe this essence of what it means to be human, this soul, is hungering for the simplest explanation of all. That there is indeed incredible Intelligence somewhere in this vast universe that did have a goal in mind.
Maybe it is this faith that will always warm and humanize us when science cannot.
In the first two pages of his article Zimmer once refers to nature as "thrifty" and then to evolution as "tinkering" with genes. A scientist quoted in the artricle refers to evolution as an "improviser." It may be a literary technique to endow non-human ideas with human characteristics, but it is not good evolutionary science. Only something intelligent has the capacity to be thrifty or the know-how to tinker or improvise.
In an effort to convince people that evolution is "so elegant, so beautiful, so simple," authors, and occasionally scientists alike, assign creator-like attributes to an idea. Maybe it is a deficiency in our language that causes this. Maybe it is an attempt to demystify science by robbing it of its precise language. Or maybe, just maybe, there is something deeper in us that cannot be explained by genetic markers and neurotransmitters. Maybe this essence of what it means to be human, this soul, is hungering for the simplest explanation of all. That there is indeed incredible Intelligence somewhere in this vast universe that did have a goal in mind.
Maybe it is this faith that will always warm and humanize us when science cannot.
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