In a funk...

I'm not sure why, but I am really in a funk today. I am generally a very happy, smiley person, but not today. I can't say that things are going badly, thereby causing the funk, because they aren't. And I am still taking my happy pills so it isn't that either. I guess some of it is that I am not especially happy with myself right now. I feel like there are so many things in my life that I could be doing so much better at, but I can't muster up the motivation to put forth the effort required. I am my own worst enemy. I hold myself back so I don't fail or get hurt, but then I just ending up hurting myself because it makes me feel this way. Then I feel like a failure. It's a no win situation. I know some of the things that cause me to act the way I do, but it doesn't seem to help me from repeating the same pattern. I feel like I need to do something drastic to start any change, but the thought of that scares me. I feel stuck. Maybe that's just the funk talking, and maybe tomorrow I will be back to my happy self... at least I hope I will.

"That's a pyramid"

That is what my 2 year old said when she looked at the dollar bill that her grandpa gave her today. I knew she knew her basic shapes, you know, a circle, square, triangle, and maybe even a rectangle. But a pyramid??? Not sure at all where she picked that up.

Must be perfect...

Some of you who have seen my house on a normal day may not believe this, but I am a perfectionist. The problem with my kind of perfectionism is that if I don't think I can get it totally PERFECT then I generally just don't try at all. This is something that has happened my whole life. When I was in school, I got by without studying much and made decent grades. Could I have made better grades if I tried? Probably, but then there was also the chance that I could put forth all that effort and still not get any better grades. Now, as I have grown up, this same mentality seems to prevail when it comes to maintaining my house, or pretty much anything to be quite honest. I think I worry so much that all of the effort would be in vain that I just decide not to try. It affects everything and everyone in my life and cause some significant problems in my relationships. Now, I am pretty good at getting things done in a pinch at the last minute, which makes me a procrastinator as well, but I end up staying up all night to do something that could be done in just a few minutes everyday. That is what I am going to start trying to do. I am going to start with babysteps, and hopefully I can get my home and my head more organized so that I can better enjoy my life. I certainly don't want to pass along my bad habits to my daughter, and so for her and myself I definitely want to make this work and get past some of my problems with perfectionism.

Belief and Faith

In my blog reading over the past week there have been a lot of posts and comments about having faith or not when thinking about all the bad things that happen to good people. This is something that I have thought about a lot but have no answer for. Growing up, I was very active in the church I attended until my senior year of high school. I went to college and studied religions as my second major. It really made me look at things more critically without taking into account faith. I know a lot of highly intelligent people who despite being knowledgeable about history and science still have very strong faith and are very religious. I myself have not really been able to reconcile the two. I would consider myself at this point in my life to be more spiritual than religious, and I do believe that there is something beyond just this world. I guess that is what gets me through a lot of days when this life just seems so hard to deal with. It isn't really rational, but I guess that is what having faith is all about. Not looking at the rational, and instead just going with your gut and sometimes just believing in whatever gets you through your days.

I sometimes wonder if I am doing my daughter a disservice by not taking her to church. Just because I have a problem with most organized religions, should I impose that prejudice on her. I want her to make her own choices in life and find her own faith, but how easy will that be without some religious foundation. My mother brought my sister and I to Sunday School at a Lutheran church when we were yougn, although she herself did not attend. Should I do something like that for Lanie? I do miss the community and fellowship that you find in a church, but think it would be hypocritical for me to attend just for those things. It is something that I really have no idea about what I should do, but it weighs heavily on me that I may not be doing the best thing for my daughter.

This post has kind of rambled on and not really answered anything, but instead posed more questions for me to ponder. That's OK because questioning things kees us thinking and moving forward in what hopefully will be a positive direction.

I wish I could sleep for 12 hours

So, yesterday when I picked up my daughter from my parents house, she was asleep on the couchand had been since about 5:30 when she finally conked out after refusing to nap all afternoon. Moving her to the car did not wake her up. Maving her from the car into the house did not wake her up. I even attempted to put her down because she seemed half awake, and she merely walked over the nearest couch and crawled up and went back to sleep. Me moving her to yet another couch and then up into bed did not wake her. She slept until 5:30 this morning! She kind of woke up very briefly in the middle of the night once, and went immediately back to sleep after I remedied the blanket issue she was having. I know she doesn't get this ability to sleep that long from me, so it must come from her father who could sleep for days if I let him. I love watching her sleep, but after being at work all day I cherish the few hours I have to play with her and hang out with her BEFORE she goes to sleep! Oh well, it was just one night, and today she was back to taking her nap as usual.

Going to the State Fair!

Since I have today off, and we were given free tickets at school, I am taking Lanie and my parents to the fair today! I can already smell the Fletcher's Corny Dogs!

Who Are You?

I was looking through the hits on my blog and came across one that has my curiosity peaked. I like to look at the referrals page to see how people find my blog. I'm always amazed at what word combinations will lead someone to get to me with a google search. Well, yesterday someone found my blog by searching on the words "Kellie", "Dallas", and "Democrat." For those that don't know me, I was very involved in Democratic politics in Dallas back in the early 90s, so it would seem someone might have actually been looking for me. If so, and you come back to my blog, let me know who you are. I love catching up with old friends and think its great that my blog might lead someone to find me!

Computer Woes

So, a couple of weeks ago, I started having trouble with my eMac. It spontaneously shut down, and acted like it was going to restart and then wouldn't get to the login screen. It has not worked since. My darling husband is a master computer geek, so he finally got down to trying to fix it yesterday and has had little success. Fortunately he was able to get all of my pictures and documents off of it before he wiped the hard drive, but even doing that has not remedied the issue. He even braved Fry's yesterday because it looked like it might be a problem with the memory, but no go with that either. So now I have to bring it in to the Apple Store and see if they can diagnose the problem without us having to spend an arm and a leg. If it can't be fixed I WILL be getting a laptop! Right now, I am having to use his eMac to check e-mail, read blogs, etc., but I really want my own computer back! Hopefully when mine is fixed or I get a new one, I will be able to post some of the pictures I have been meaning to post.

Well, I am off to watch some football... GO COWBOYS!!!!!!

Blogger beta! Finally!

So here is my blog now in the beta Blogger! The invitation to switch it over appeared on my dashboard this morning and I transferred it over when I got home this evening. I haven't really looked at all the new features but look forward to playing around with it sometime soon! So for those that complained about not being able to comment because I was on the old blogger, here it is... comment away!

My daughter amazes me in so many ways....

Right now, the way that she is amazing me the most is how well she is swimming. The last 2 weeks of June, I put Lanie in swim lessons, just to start getting her to know some of the basics and for safety reasons. With us having our own pool in the backyard, I was so worried about her being safe around it and in it. Now, she swims like a fish... and s probably better in the water than I am. I have some extreme phobias of putting my head underwater, so the only way I swim is with my head above water. Not Lanie though, she dives in on one side of the pool, swims across to the beach entry with her head underwater the whole time and then gets herself out! It amazes me and pretty much everyone who sees her swimming. I am so happy that she is so comfortable in the water. We went swimming yesterday, and the water was a bit chillier than it had been over the summer. I had to get in slowly, but Lanie just jumped right in. She is definitely a little water baby. She wants to go swimming all the time. Every day she will ask us at least once if we will go swimming with her. Now that it is getting cooler, I wonder how she is going to handle not being able to swim all the time. We have a spa as part of our pool, so there is a heater connected to the whole system, and we have actually considered heating the pool every so often through the off season, so we can all go swimming, but especially for Lanie. I need to find a place around here with an indoor pool, but the only one I know of around here is sooo expensive! Would probably be worth it though!