A baby is a selfish being.  It is true.  It aims to punish those who do not bend to his every wish or who cannot surmise what she wants with crying, a tantrum.  I pity those who are in the company of an inconsolable child, but I pity even more those who are in the company of an inconsolable adult.  One can deal with an inconsolable baby because they love them, and they know that a baby does not know any better.  There will be time for correction later, when the baby's consciousness grows and it can analyze its actions and determine what is the morally correct action.  To an adult that has not learned this, woe to his or her company, if they should have any!  To a baby, it is imperative that they have company, for they cannot take care of themselves.  To an adult who can take care of him or herself, no company is necessary, and they will surely drive out anyone who stops to listen to them complain!  It is not simply complaining, though, but the incessant, inconsolable tantrums produced in adulthood that are ridiculous and should not be tolerated.  I heard someone say once that you get what you tolerate.  You teach people the way you should be treated.  Some people abuse this and throw a tantrum the minute their every wish or intention is not met, but this is utterly childish and causes the blood pressures of everyone around to rise in such a way that it is simply not worthwhile to entertain such company.  It is bad for one's health to be with such a person, and we all have the freedom of will to decide who we will allow in our company.  It works both ways, the way we treat people will determine how we are treated.  It is easier for a person with low intelligence but good people skills to be successful and well taken care of than it is for a highly intelligent person who treats people poorly.  We somehow fail to remember that no man is an island, that the most unlikely of connections you abuse now may come back and hurt you later.  It's called karma, and it is so deliciously appropriate.  I hope that you all receive the karma you deserve, and that you keep in mind this simple principle when dealing with the people in your life.

Thoreau's "Conclusion"

"Why would we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises?  If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.  It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or an oak.  Shall he turn spring into summer?  If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute?  We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality.  Shall we with pains erect a heaven of blue glass over ourselves, though when it is done we shall be sure to gaze still at the true ethereal heaven far above, as if the former were not?"

-Thoreau, from "Conclusion"

Lazy Sundays

Today is a lazy Sunday.  This is the final week of us staying with Andy's sister, Stephanie.  It has been fun and trying.  The simple logistics of trying to fit two families (7 people, 8 when his mom was staying with us to help out) into a two bedroom house presents challenges.

Andy and I have found a cute little apartment in an area of Dallas known as "The Villages."  It's trademark is, "A city within a city," as it has 15 apartment complexes all connected and owned by the same company.  It has a country club that we are very excited about as it has concerts every Sunday with a restaurant, a 24 hour gym, tennis courts and tennis lessons, and adult intramural sports.  The complex that we are in, the Lakes, is right next to the club so that we can walk there for Thursday fajita night (yay!), Wednesday movie night, or whatever event they are having.  What is also nice about this complex is that they are connected to a series of lakes with giant koi fish and birds, including egrets, ducks, pigeons, and more.  Emma and Lizzie love feeding the ducks and the fish, and there is a 2.5 mile jogging lane that goes around the entire complex.  There are pecan trees that people pick from (we just saw a family doing it yesterday, the wife was looking up as the husband threw up sticks to try to get the pecans to fall down).  Everyone seems very friendly, and we met a mounted police the other day that Emma got to pet.  Lizzie wanted to pet it, but would get scared every time her hand got close.  I think we will try again next time. :)

I am currently trying to decide if I should quit school until the girls are a little older.  When I first had Emma, school was a breeze as she was a baby and slept most of the time.  By the time she became a toddler, this shifted and created a bit of a challenge, but I pushed through.  Then I had Lizzie, and even though it was a little difficult, it was still doable.  Now that both of them are toddlers, though, I find that the only way I can get my school work done is if I put Lizzie in her play pen (which I hate doing) and put them in front of the TV.  I love Tuesdays and Wednesdays (my "weekends" from school) where I devote all of my time to the girls and we go out and do fun things.  These are the days that I actually feel like a good mom.  These are key years that I feel I am neglecting because I have to do schoolwork.  The amount of reading for this class alone has left me cooped up in a room to be left alone for days at a time.  These last two years of classes are significantly more difficult than my classes at AXIA and I feel like I am only able to give 50% to both and I am failing.  I need to learn how to cook, I need to keep the house clean and orderly and I need to keep my children's brains active.  This cannot be done while I am pursuing a degree.
I have already ordered my textbook for the next course, but I think that will be my last.  I can always start it back up again, but this presents another problem I have.  I don't know if I am majoring in the correct subject.  I am not certain that this is the path I want to take.  I have been trudging along because it is my goal to have a bachelor's degree and I know that it will help me to get jobs, but as I look at the jobs I want to get, I cannot help but feel that I am pushing myself into a niche market with an English degree.  I think that I need to grow and really think about what it is that I want to do before I tie myself off to other opportunities.

Our new apartment will be small, but it will be worth it to have the gorgeous grounds to walk with Emma, Lizzie, and Andy.  It will be the first time that we will be a family, just the four of us.  I cannot wait to see our stuff back from storage and to decorate the way we want.  Emma and Lizzie will have their own room again and Andy and I will have our own room!  It is funny how the little things start to mean something when you haven't had them for a while.  I knew that change was coming when Andy was getting ready to get out of the Navy, but if you would have told me then everything that was in store for us, I really don't know what I would have done!

Back to reading Paradise Lost!  :)

What Would You Attempt to Do if You Knew You Could Not Fail?

What would I attempt to do if I knew I could not fail?

I would write a book that could change the world.  I would start my own company that would make people happy.  I would run a marathon no, scratch that, a triathlon.  I would call back all the people I ever hurt.  I would be me.  The idea of self is not a concrete idea, but an ever-changing one.  It is dependent on what you let inside of you, what you allow to stick, and what you feed yourself.  In the end you decide who you are.  We are all born with personalities (or are they learned?) and talents (do we lose those if they are not fostered?) and we choose certain people to be our role models.  We choose our role models and begin to fashion ourselves after them.  In the beginning, it is neither bad nor good.  The blob of clay before it is crafted is neither good nor bad, just raw potential.  It is human, teenage pride that thinks it is something before it has even tried.  The audacity to think that they can do better, until they try and are met with a thousand impediments put in place by adults who have already tried and failed and wish for everyone to be met with the same defeat.  This is placed under the guise of self-defense.  There are some who have amassed wealth and wish to protect it, thereby making it impossible for others to amass wealth themselves.  Because I don't care what you say, WEALTH IS NOT CREATED, IT IS REDISTRIBUTED.  Anyone with a brain can figure that out.  There are a limited amount of resources in the universe, therefore there is a limited amount of value to those resources, therefore there is a limited amount of currency that can be attributed to those resources.  The "creation" of wealth is merely a result of a short-term view.   If you had a sandpit and a child started creating a castle, he or she would have to dig up sand from one place to pile it up in another.  Money is no different.  It is easy to amass wealth when you are unaware of the global impact your actions may take, but when you see that the creation of your wealth means the crippling of other countries to support you, and that it is moving at such a rate that it could never sustain itself, you see that you are simply draining other countries of their resources (forests being a major one) and that soon they will have no resources.  But that doesn't mean anything to most people, because the company who is producing your paper will just move to another country and set up production facilities there, while the other country is now treeless, impoverished and has no way to support itself.  There is no such thing as the "creation" of anything, we are not God.  Everything that man makes is simply a reassembly of pieces that are already created.