This is part of a series of post where I try to take a fresh look at a variety of topics. You can see more about the idea for the series, and links to the other topics here. This week’s topic is “The golden rule” (and yes, I’m a couple of days late…)

So. I have mixed feelings about this one.  I mean, the golden rule is kind of a universal truth across most religions.  And it’s in the Bible, a couple of places, so sure, I absolutely believe it should be followed. As a guideline. Generally, treat people the way you would like to be treated, and if everyone does it, the world will be a happier place.

But here’s the thing – it’s not exactly a law of nature or anything. So you have to go about your life keeping that in mind. Just because you don’t lie to people, doesn’t mean that they won’t lie to you.  People are, well, human.  Does that mean you should lie? Absolutely not. But be realistic in your expectations of others, and don’t go around being nice to people just because you think it will reap you some kind of karmic reward.

Inversely, though, the rule does seem to hold more true – if you treat people badly, generally you’ll be treated badly by others, too.  Not always true, but more so (at least in my mind).  Good things are not always returned in kind, bad things are much more likely so. It sucks, but that’s fundamental human nature, I suppose.

I guess the biggest problem I have with the concept of the Golden Rule is that some people take it too far. When you spend so much time “doing unto others” that you really have no time to do anything for you… I see this more often than not in women (although I’m sure it happens to men, too), and I’m know I’ve been guilty of it at times (especially now, as a wife and mother). You can’t be expected to do everything, do it well, and not take any time for yourself – you wouldn’t expect that from your family or friends, so don’t expect it from yourself.

So, if I were in charge of re-writing the golden rule, this is how I would write it:

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, realizing and accepting that they may not return the favor, or even notice at all (this is, in fact, not the point).  And do unto yourself as you would do unto others – because you are worth taking care of just as much as they are.

This is part of a series of post where I try to take a fresh look at a variety of topics. You can see more about the idea for the series, and links to the other topics here. This week’s topic is “Temptation”

Yikes. Maybe I’ll skip this topic… I mean really, who wants to lay bare their thoughts on temptation, potentially with personal examples, for all the world to see? I know, right?

But as tempted as I am to skip it (see what I did there?), in the interest of honesty and completeness, here goes nothing.

Um yeah, so temptation is something I face every day, in varying forms. And resist with varying degrees of success, depending on the topic/day/minute.  Sometimes, it’s something that I rationalize myself into.

For example, this year I’m really focusing on being more intentional in a lot of areas of my life – one of them being my spending.  I’m often tempted to stop and get Starbucks while I’m at Target or the grocery store – and I rationalize that I deserve it.  I mean, really, I’m taking care of a toddler, I’m pregnant, I totally need a treat, right? And it’s not that bad for me.  It has water in it, and pregnant women need water.  And milk! which has protein, and sugar calcium! And really, it’s only $5. Not much at all.  I am the queen of rationalizing.

And chances are, if I give in, it feels really great! Until I balance my checkbook/look at my spending, and I’ve spent way too much on little treats and such, and I have to pay the consequences (in this case, a tighter budget later and also looking at the scale at the doctor’s office).

Other times, it’s something I just do automatically.  I don’t usually consider myself to be “tempted” to say snarky passive-aggressive things about people who annoy me – it just kind of happens.  Which means I’ve done it so much that it’s a habit.  Which means I need to be more intentional about what I say (and think), until it isn’t a habit any more.  Until I reach that point where I am tempted to say something, and I can choose to not do it.

Obviously, I’m tempted in ways other than spending money on fluffy drinks or making snide comments. But those examples, I think, illustrate my point well enough without leaving me too exposed to the world

1. I think Brianna may be cutting a new tooth.  Or two.  Or more. She’s bee tired and grumpy for the last couple days, and I think I can see little bumps where teeth might be – but I could be wrong. I have been before, about her teeth. Bless her heart, though, she needs something – she’s only got two.
2. The insurance people are coming to look at my car on Monday, so hopefully we’ll get all that resolved fairly quickly. I’m still okay, as far as I know, just tired and sore (but that could just be from, you know, life).
3. I’m hoping the weather is nice this weekend, because I would like to spend some time outside. In the front yard, most likely, as the back yard is full of contractor stuff while they finish replacing the windows on the back of the house (almost done! yay!). And also, the backyard is the dog’s territory, and so there’s more danger of stepping in something not fun.
4. I will not be spending all my time outside, though, as my housekeeping as of late has been somewhat lacking nonexistent. So I’ll be cleaning house. Which is all kinds of fun, let me tell ya.
5. I fee like this a lot these days… Brianna burned her hands on the oven a while back, and Chad and I both felt bad – no way to make it better, really, it’s just a lesson learned I guess.  Other links that I liked this week – this (about loud children and sweet moments), and this (about hugs).
6. I miss being at church… my efforts to improve attendance this year have been mixed, really, but do to a ton of things (you know, sleep schedules, car accidents, vacations, etc),I feel like I’ve missed more than I’ve gone.  Hopefully, this will start to pick up soon, as my travel schedule winds down.
7. To round out my seven: One of the random vacation memories that didn’t make it into my summary post: if you are pregnant, and have not ridden a bicycle in a very long time – you might reconsider trying this particular activity until after your center of gravity returns to something resembling normal. (I did not actually fall, but let’s just say my balance was a little off. Chad thought it was funny.)

For more quick takes, check out Jen @ Conversion Diary.

This is part of a series of post where I try to take a fresh look at a variety of topics. You can see more about the idea for the series, and links to the other topics here. This is a catch-up post for a previous week’s topic – “Single Mothers”

I don’t think I every really put much thought into single mothers until maybe a year or two ago.  I mean, I knew a couple, sure.  There was a girl in my church who had a baby at, I don’t know, 15 or 16 or something.  But then again, she married the father, so I’m not sure she was really a “single mom”.  My mom went to nursing school with a couple of single moms.  And I guess they kind of had it rough, but it seemed like everyone there did, or really, why would they be going back to school? So honestly, I never really thought about it. Because it never touched my life.

But now – now that I am a mother myself, now it touches my life a bit more.  Also, my cousin married a single mother (making her not a single mother, I suppose), bringing it a little closer to home.  And my sister-in-law is now a single mother.  And I have friends who have been/are/will soon be single parents, for a variety of reasons.  So I’ve done a lot more thinking lately about single mothers, and the challenges and such that they must face all the time…

When I was pregnant with Brianna, especially towards the end when I was huge and pregnant and grumpy, I began to fret more about being so far away from family and their help and advice (or in some cases, their well-meaning but sadly unhelpful attempts to help and give advice). And I couldn’t imagine, even then, trying to go through any of it without Chad.

At the hospital, Chad was with me almost every moment – and I really could not have made it as far as I did through labor without him.  I know that most women in labor, even single moms, must have someone with them, be it the baby’s father, their mother, a friend – but I wonder sometimes now, about the women who go through that process with no one but the nurses.  And how sad and scary and horrible that must be for them.

And the first two weeks or so with a newborn? For single moms that don’t live with someone else? How do they make it through? I know I couldn’t have – I was doing good to make it with Chad’s help, and my mom, and his mom.

I do the “single parent” thing from time to time, when Chad has to work odd hours or whatever. And let me tell you – it sucks. The worst was when he did flight following for 20-A – basically, a week and a half of just me and Brianna, and by the end of it I was ready to die.  I was so exhausted from being on call every second, with no break, and no opportunity to do things I had totally taken for granted like go to the bathroom by myself.

So I have a new-found respect for single mothers. I am not entirely sure that I could pull off being a decent mother, much less a good one, without Chad to help me out. Some days, I’m not sure how well I do even with Chad to help me out.

This. Not everything has to be perfect to be, well, perfect. A lesson I learn over and over… Because, yeah, I should just give up on perfect.  Really.

So yesterday I was rear-ended by a Comcast van. With Brianna in the car. And oh yeah, I’m 4ish months pregnant, in case anyone forgot. And to cap it all off, the dude who hit me because he was, I don’t know, talking on his cell phone or adjusting his radio or whatever? Yelled at me and made me cry. In the middle of the street. In front of Brianna’s daycare. It was Comcastic.

Dear AT&T:  Please bring U-verse to my area. I will love you forever, I’m so sick of Comcast that it makes me want to cry. Kthxbye.

Brianna, baby and I are all fine – I cried on the phone with the police dispatch and they had someone out there in like, two minutes.  And I was a little freaked and had the police get me some EMTs to check me out – they said as long as I wasn’t in pain or leaking any body fluids, my vitals looked good, and to follow up with my OB.  And that Brianna looked fine. A couple hours later, I felt the baby move (movements are still few and far between at this point, it’s early), so that made me feel better, too.

But yeah, so it kind of made all of yesterday suck.  And today, my back/neck hurts, which is not unexpected, but also sucks.

Today, at least so far, has been an improvement.  Here’s hoping it stays that way.

This is part of a series of post where I try to take a fresh look at a variety of topics. You can see more about the idea for the series, and links to the other topics here. This week’s topic is “Your Dreams”

I’m not sure what types of dreams this should cover – Dreams when you sleep? Dreams/hopes/plans for the future? I’ll try to cover both, I guess.

I dream. Vividly. Often. Almost every time I sleep.  Which would be a little unbelievable, unless you think about the fact that I haven’t finished a REM cycle in about 2 years. (I exaggerate. A little).

I have been known to be annoyed at Chad for the better part of a day for something that he did in on of my dreams, which causes him a great deal of confusion and is terribly unfair.  I dreamed constantly of baby girls when I was pregnant with Brianna, except for the time I dreamed that I gave birth to a turtle.  My dreams are often bizarre – but for some reason this does not make them seem any less real.

The oddest dream I ever had didn’t have much to do with the dream itself, but with the fact that I apparently shared it with Chad.  One night, I dreamed (apparently) that there was a giant spider coming down from the ceiling onto the bed (spider nightmares are not that odd for me, actually).  I woke Chad up screaming – and he (apparently) hallucinated the very same spider. Now, I know this spider wasn’t real, because a) it would have been the size of our cat. Pretty sure no spiders that size are indigenous to our part of the country. b) it was nowhere to be found after I woke up. and c) I dream about spiders often enough that this makes sense to me. So I got up, got a drink of water, and went back to bed.

Chad, however, spent a good five or ten minutes looking for the spider, and couldn’t sleep the rest of the night – because what are the odds that we both imagined the same thing, right? And it still freaks him out. Ask him about it sometime.

Now to a more serious type topic, I suppose – Dreams for the future.

I have a lot of dreams.  And they have changed drastically over the last 10 years or so. Ten years ago  – I just wanted to meet a nice guy who wasn’t a jerk and settle down some where and teach elementary school. But honestly, finishing college was going to be a big step, and was kind of in the way of all that.

A few months later Chad and I started dating. My dreams changed to be – finish my engineering degree (like that transition? yeah) – marry Chad – get a job in Colorado – have kids at some point in the future.

Chad moved back from Boulder early, before we got married. My dreams changed again – finish my computer science degree, get a job wherever Chad decided to go to grad school. For a few months, I considered going to grad school myself, but wasn’t sure that would happen.  Kids were still a kind of a distant dream, but I wanted to actually live somewhere at some point, not bounce around between apartments.

I got married. Kids were tentatively put on the five year plan, lol. I started grad school at MSU – which worked out well. My dreams were finishing school, getting a job for a few years, and moving into a house. Before we had kids, hopefully.

Chad unexpectedly got a job in Houston as I was finishing my degree. We rented a house.  My dreams then? Find a job. Buy a house. Kids. I applied to Rice on a whim. I was accepted! Dream shift again – suddenly, I had a ton of options. The most appealing, to me? Finish out a PhD, get a position at MSU.  And live in Starkville. Because I miss it there. Kids would fall into place at some point, I hoped.

Rice wasn’t for me. And it took me a year to figure that out. But I fell into a good job, making good money, and all was well.  We bought a house. And then… it was time for kid. Just one, of course. Not all at once, right?

Brianna was born.  My dreams then? To be a good mommy. Some days I manage. Some days, not so much. Suddenly, though, I really had no long term dreams – we had a house, a child, jobs, really what else do we need?

So I started planning for kid #2. Far off, future planning. Like in a couple of years planning. But then – surprise! baby #2 is on the way! And Chad and I are very happy. But again, I really have no long term plans/dreams. (other than vacations. Boy, can I dream about some vacations…)

We’ve talked about moving – to Denver, Memphis, Huntsville, Starkville, … But in that hazy way you talk about dreams that are still fuzzy and unformed and not real yet. Yes, at some point in the future, when Chad’s job is not awesome – we will move. And I’ve mentioned some things I’d like in our “next” house, like a bigger tub and shower, and other silly things.

Right now, we’re dreaming about some different vacation ideas – an Alaskan cruise maybe 2011 or 2012, at some point taking a Mediterranean cruise, a northern European cruise, or leaving the little ones with Grandma to take a cruise (can you tell we like cruises?).  And our new vacation dream?  Taking the kids on one of those Disney Adventures vacations to Egypt or Israel or down the Amazon or something.  When they are older.  Like, in 10 or 15 years or something.  So yeah, we dream big sometimes.  It’s fun.  But it’s still far enough away to be mostly undefined, in kind of a happy, hazy, this-might-be-nice kind of a way.

And for now – I’m okay with that fuzzy, abstract kind of dreaming. In five years? I’m sure whatever I dream now will seem silly, and will have been replaced by new dreams.  And that’s okay, too.

So I’ve been reading along as my friend David goes through this set of writing prompts – designed to make you think through what you actually think about given topics, one for each week of the year. The original idea comes from here.

I have a ton of essays floating around in my head, and amazingly some of the topics line up. So maybe this is the kick in the booty that I need to get my words on paper in pixels.  My plan is to jump in where everyone is right now… and write some of the previous topics as I can.

Here are the topics (these will be links as I write the articles):

Heroes
Sermons
The Holy Spirit
Your spouse
Your house
Octogenarians
Single mothers
Singing
Saying grace over dinner
Your dreams
Temptation
The golden rule
Your parents
Foreign missionaries
The rite of communion
People who beg for money
Tithing
Signs of spring
Signs of autumn
Your children
Children in general
The poetry of King David
The sayings of King Jesus
Teachers
Being your brother’s keeper
Newborn babies
Self-sacrifice
Your elected leaders
Love
Sex
Your taste buds
Your waistline
Pets
The leaders of your church
Your neighbors
Heaven
Hell
Prayer
The sun
Gardening
Forests
The rite of baptism
The night sky
Jails and prisons
Death
The origin of the universe
Smiling
Enemies
Your sense of humor
Fashion
Leisure time
History

So we took our first real family vacation – er, second, maybe, if you count the shuttle launch trip, which I suppose kind of counts.

At any rate, the trip was a huge success. We took a Disney cruise, out of Florida, to the Bahamas (Nassau and Castaway Cay).  It was cold in Florida – only 41 when we touched down Thursday morning!  But it warmed up enough as we traveled south for us to enjoy the sun an sand (although not quite enough for us to enjoy the water).

Brianna loved the boat.  She loved the shows.  She loved the food. And she loved the attention she got from everyone, lol.  Most of all, she loved Mickey Mouse. She went crazy when he came out on stage in teh first show, and pointed him out everywhere after that – on the boat, in the airport, everywhere we went.  She was unsure about the sand on the beach at first, but warmed up to it after a bit and had some fun.

She napped really well the whole trip – because we wore her out in between! and did her usual up-every-couple-of-hours thing at night (a little worse, as we were out of routine a bit).  But overall, she was amazingly well behaved, and I even snuck in a couple of naps (yay me!).

So today was back to the real world, work, and traffic, and meetings, and email, and not having time for lunch. Which is sad… I miss my vacation already

So yeah, pricing cruises next year… maybe a Disney 7-night Alaskan cruise? Summer of 2011 or 2012? Anyone interested in coming? Don’t know how we’ll do chasing two little ones around the boat, but we seemed to have rocked the vacation with one, so…. we’ll see

“Working mothers are guinea pigs in a scientific experiment to show that sleep is not necessary to human life.”
-Author Unknown

So,  I could have totally used an extra 1.26 microseconds in my day (I mean, hey, I’ll take what I can get, right?)  But instead, I apparently now we’ve lost 1.26 microseconds.  I mean, really.  There goes my naptime, right? 

And I could so use a couple of naps these days. It was a good weekend, but rough, sleep-wise.  The pregnancy insomnia has set in, and between that and Brianna’s night wakings…. yeah, I could use way more sleep. 

The good news? Vacation starts Thursday.  While I can’t guarentee I’ll get a nap…. it should be pretty relaxing, anyway