When I was a teenage (late teens) I occasionally watched Ally McBeal, not the greatest show, but some really good moments. So, I remember in one episode that Ally was going to a therapist (don't remember why) and the therapist suggested choosing a theme song for her life. I don't even remember what song she chose, but the idea of a theme song, one that you want to represent you and be played behind the montage that would play on the opening credits of your life "show" really stuck with me. What song would I pick? Why? Since then I've had several theme songs. I can't remember the first, it might have been (gasp) depressing, but since then I've worked towards a happier life and feel I have chosen very upbeat songs. To become a theme song it has to fit where I want my life to go or something I very strongly identify with at the time. It has to give me chills and be something I can sing to. I don't always have a theme song, but usually I do. The first one I remember choosing is:
Then I met Juan and this became my new theme song:
I had a short time period where this was my theme song:
Most recently this has become my theme song, I love it:
Now from this list you might think that I'm a huge Dave Matthews fan, while I do like his music, he just happens to have lyrics and a sound that I apparently identify with (certainly not true of all of his songs). So do you have a theme song? Care to share it?
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Thursday, July 8, 2010
30
I turned the big 3-0 on Saturday. What does that mean? I don't know. Do I feel older? Not particularly. Juan is older than me, 6.5 years older than me so everytime I get older I just look at him and feel young. I know he's been there, done that for a while and he's doing great so I'm sure I'll do great too. It's a nice security blanket except for the fact that statistically speaking, he will die before me and I will have to live the last years of my life alone.
Anyway, I remember as a kid my parents saying that as you get older you didn't really feel any different than when you were a kid. I also remeber totally not believing them. OF COURSE, you felt older than when you were a kid. As a parent you were OLD, you had responsibilities, you were DIFFERENT. Now, as a parent, I totally know what they were talking about. No matter how old we are we stay pretty much the same. Sure we grow, hopefully increase in wisdom, certainly we increase in experience, our bodies eventually break down, but who we are, our souls, are ageless. It really makes me look at people differently than I used to, age is truely just a number, not very important at all.
Anyway, I remember as a kid my parents saying that as you get older you didn't really feel any different than when you were a kid. I also remeber totally not believing them. OF COURSE, you felt older than when you were a kid. As a parent you were OLD, you had responsibilities, you were DIFFERENT. Now, as a parent, I totally know what they were talking about. No matter how old we are we stay pretty much the same. Sure we grow, hopefully increase in wisdom, certainly we increase in experience, our bodies eventually break down, but who we are, our souls, are ageless. It really makes me look at people differently than I used to, age is truely just a number, not very important at all.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Achievement
I am no good at starting jobs that feel like they will take forever. When I clean upstairs i clean every room before I start on Jovi's room because even with her helping it is always the messiest room. I have had fabric cut out and ready to piece together for a quilt for Jovi for like 3 months because a whole quilt feels like such a big project and I keep putting smaller, "easier" projects in front of it. And then there was my email inbox. I started a new email account when I got married 6 1/2 years ago. I went from RachelHirschy at yahoo to RachelElizabethFlores at yahoo for obvious reasons. Anyway, I am much more likely to keep emails than throw them away and for the first few years I didn't even think about organizing my inbox and then by the time that I realized it would be very useful to have a lot of folders and an empty inbox it had turned into a job that felt like it would take forever to finish. I even started organizing it several times throughout the years, but after a few hours I would loose focus or be interrupted. As of a few days ago I had 1000 unread emails (these were mainly company coupons that I left just in case i might want to use it) and over 6500 emails. I had emails from 2004-2010, from friends, businesses and a whole bunch from my year long stint volunteering for a nonprofit. After a few days and about six hours I am happy to report that I have an empty inbox and I still kept the important emails in my now fairly comprehensive collection of folders. It may seem like a small achievement to many people, but it was a big one for me. With this success I think I'm ready to start that quilt and maybe even tackle Jovi's closet.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Would you rather...
Growing up I loved this children's book; Would You Rather... Apparently it is not in print anymore, but if your library has it I suggest checking it out. You get to choose between a bunch of gross options, some scary options and some really cool options. It was a favorite read aloud at our house and we would all get to say what we would rather doing and why. Lots of games and new books, some of them VERY adult (too adult for me) are on the market that let you do the same thing, but Juan isn't a fan of choosing between all good or all bad options unless he's forced into it so no games for us and I didn't really even know about the books until I did this search. Anyway, I like would you rather stuff and hope some of you do too. Here is a little list to think about and my personal answers, please comment if you would choose something different :).
1.Would you rather be blind or deaf?
Deaf, a loss of any sense is hard, but I am SUCH a visual person I think sight would be the hardest sense for me to loose.
2.Would you rather loose and arm or a leg?
A leg because a prosthetic leg is a better replacement that a prosthetic arm.
3. Would you rather be beautiful, but dumb or ugly, but smart?
This depends on degrees for me, as long a your are smart enough to live independently I would choose beautiful, but dumb because I think it offers a greater chance for happiness than ugly but smart. If you were so disabled you couldn't live independently I'd choose ugly, but smart.
4. Would you rather be more rich or more attractive?
If the "new me" started now I would choose rich because although I am decidedly average looking, Juan likes how I look and money would be more useful. If I were single I might choose differently. If this was starting when I was born I would choose more rich because money issues can cause SO much stress in a family, more rich benefits far more people than one person being more attractive.
5. Would you rather it be winter forever or summer forever?
I would take a nice northern style or tropical summer forever any day, but I do like changing seasons. I think I'd choose having a Texas winter over a Texas summer all the time, but I don't know, neither are my ideal weather.
What are some other good would you rather questions?
1.Would you rather be blind or deaf?
Deaf, a loss of any sense is hard, but I am SUCH a visual person I think sight would be the hardest sense for me to loose.
2.Would you rather loose and arm or a leg?
A leg because a prosthetic leg is a better replacement that a prosthetic arm.
3. Would you rather be beautiful, but dumb or ugly, but smart?
This depends on degrees for me, as long a your are smart enough to live independently I would choose beautiful, but dumb because I think it offers a greater chance for happiness than ugly but smart. If you were so disabled you couldn't live independently I'd choose ugly, but smart.
4. Would you rather be more rich or more attractive?
If the "new me" started now I would choose rich because although I am decidedly average looking, Juan likes how I look and money would be more useful. If I were single I might choose differently. If this was starting when I was born I would choose more rich because money issues can cause SO much stress in a family, more rich benefits far more people than one person being more attractive.
5. Would you rather it be winter forever or summer forever?
I would take a nice northern style or tropical summer forever any day, but I do like changing seasons. I think I'd choose having a Texas winter over a Texas summer all the time, but I don't know, neither are my ideal weather.
What are some other good would you rather questions?
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
The more I experience...
The more I experience the less I know. Isn't that the beginning of wisdom or something? Well, I sure don't feel wise, just...lost. I was a psychology major. I did fairly well in my classes. I thought it was fascinating trying to discover motivation for actions. Why do people...? was always a fascinating question that I could usually come up with an answer to. I now understand that most of my reasoning was the arrogance of youth. When I was young I thought I knew the why of what people did most of the time. I was sure that it could be known even if I didn't know. Now I'm not sure. I can *think* I know why someone did or chose something, but I've been proven wrong so many times I have no confidence in my conclusions. I strongly suspect that the motivation for many actions can never be known, sometimes not even by the person who does them. What it comes down to is that I don't understand people. I *think* I understand my people, my family and close friends, but I could even be wrong about them. I certainly don't understand anyone else. It's like functioning in a perpetual fog, but I guess it's better to know I'm in fog than to think I can see clearly when I can't.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Books
I love books. I've always loved books. Even before I could read, having books read to me was my favorite activity. My mom said I would sit and listen for hours, which now that I'm a mom and have kids who have trouble sitting for more than two books in a row, I find amazing. Growing up my mom cursed me with the mom curse, "I hope one day you have kids just like you.", because I would read to the exclusion of all else. Chores, playing, eating, even occasionally sleeping all were second to reading a good book. Other kids might have daydreamed about living at an amusement park, or traveling with the circus, or, like this favorite children's book, living in a museum, but not me. I daydreamed about living in a library. Yep, I really am that nerdy. I had it all planned out, I'd collect change that fell from people's pockets and use it to buy food from the vending machines and sleep on the comfortable arm chairs each night. Ah, yes, it was a well thought out plan *sarcasm*.
Anyway, most people think this is odd, but I like to reread books, a lot. There is a reason for this though. The more I like a book, the faster I will read it, but if I read a book quickly I don't remember it very well. So, anywhere between a month to a year after reading something quickly I can read it again with almost the same enjoyment as the first time. And, after thinking about it I just have a really bad memory, because even after reading a book slowly or even several times if I then wait 5-10 years I will only have a vague idea of the plot and so I can enjoyably read it yet again. There is a series of books that I bought, read, then sold to half price books sure that I would not want to read it yet again and I think I've done that three times now for this same series. Yes, that is crazy.
I love being drawn into a book, being able to experience things I will never be exposed to in real life, learning about characters and their motivations, exploring new lands and worlds. I find it all fascinating. My favorite type of fiction is fantasy, but I like it all. Here are some of my favorites or at least the ones I can think of right now:
Regular Fiction
1.Welcome To The Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut is a collection of his short stories. I'm not a fan of short stories, but I'm a fan of his short stories. I also love Cat's Cradle and most of his other books too.
2.Catch-22, one of those "school" books that I read on my own and loved. Joseph Heller is a master of irony. One of the only war books I've ever liked.
3. Jane Austen, any of her books. I think my favorite is Persuasion, but Pride and Prejudice is a very close second.
Fantasy
1. The Belgariad series by David Eddings. I can't even tell you how many times I've read these books. They are my comfort food of books, when things aren't going right in my life I read these books.
2. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Only read these if you like to read A LOT. Every book is thick and there will be 14 books when it done. Jordan really knows his craft, he has the most fully realized fantasy world with likable characters I've ever read. I am currently rereading it for the 4th? time. I read it first when I was a young teenager and then I kept rereading them as new books in the series came out because the plot was so complex I had to remind myself what was happening to follow all the tiny details. Then I got really tired of him taking so long to write new books so I took an eight year break. Now, the end is truly in site. The last book will come out October 2011 and rereading them makes me remember why I liked them so much in the first place. The fourth book is when the series really gets good, I mean really really good.
3.Ok, this is embarrassing, but I'll fess up to it I am a closet Stephanie Myers fan. I am blushing in embarrassment right now. I do NOT like the movies, but I do like the twilight books. I don't really like the characters even, although I like Edward more now that I read Edward's version of the story in the unfinished book Midnight Sun. Anyway, it's not the characters that draw me and the story is only good, not great, but the books are just so,... so, gosh darn readable. I can't put them down and then I want to read them again, it's crazy. I liked The Host too. I did like the main character in that one and thought the story was better too. I'm not as embarrassed about liking The Host.
Nonfiction Finance
1. One of my favorite finance authors is David Bach. He has a book for everyone but they seriously overlap in advice so don't expect totally new information if you read more than one. I like Smart Couples Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire best.
2. I love The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind. They are just SUCH interesting books. They really make you understand the difference between living rich and being rich.
3. I recommend every couple read The Two Income Trap. It is a great book that explains why EVERYONE should have their fixed costs based on one income.
Cookbooks
1.The Joy of Cooking, apparently I need to get this new version. I have the 1997 version and still like it. I read it straight through when I was 17 and learned a TON about food in general along with how to cook it.
2. When I was a senior in high school I worked at a bookstore (shocking I know) and was in charge of special orders. That is where I was first introduced to Pam Anderson because someone ordered her cookbook, The Perfect Recipe. It was amazing, she goes through each recipe and tells you what she tried to make it perfect, what went wrong, what went right and how she ended up with the final recipe. So much information, so interesting, so AWESOME. I also have her How to Cook Without a Book and use it for all my stir fry and stir fry sauces, but it has lots of other great recipes too.
3. My interest in knowing WHY a recipe was good lead me to a love of the PBS cooking show America's Test Kitchen. They have a book of ALL their recipes and information about why they make them that way. I have yet to have a recipe from this book turn out bad.
I'd list other nonfiction, but I don't really read other nonfiction.
Kids Books
1. I'm a huge Dr. Seuss. I love The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham and The Sneetches. The rhyming is just so addicting.
2. The Monster at the End of This Book has got to be one of the funnest read aloud books ever. If you like a little drama you will love this book.
3. The Very Hungary Caterpillar is a classic I love. My favorite part has always been turning the little pages of food that he eats.
I love lots of other books too, but this post is WAY to long already. I'm sure I will talk about books again.
Anyway, most people think this is odd, but I like to reread books, a lot. There is a reason for this though. The more I like a book, the faster I will read it, but if I read a book quickly I don't remember it very well. So, anywhere between a month to a year after reading something quickly I can read it again with almost the same enjoyment as the first time. And, after thinking about it I just have a really bad memory, because even after reading a book slowly or even several times if I then wait 5-10 years I will only have a vague idea of the plot and so I can enjoyably read it yet again. There is a series of books that I bought, read, then sold to half price books sure that I would not want to read it yet again and I think I've done that three times now for this same series. Yes, that is crazy.
I love being drawn into a book, being able to experience things I will never be exposed to in real life, learning about characters and their motivations, exploring new lands and worlds. I find it all fascinating. My favorite type of fiction is fantasy, but I like it all. Here are some of my favorites or at least the ones I can think of right now:
Regular Fiction
1.Welcome To The Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut is a collection of his short stories. I'm not a fan of short stories, but I'm a fan of his short stories. I also love Cat's Cradle and most of his other books too.
2.Catch-22, one of those "school" books that I read on my own and loved. Joseph Heller is a master of irony. One of the only war books I've ever liked.
3. Jane Austen, any of her books. I think my favorite is Persuasion, but Pride and Prejudice is a very close second.
Fantasy
1. The Belgariad series by David Eddings. I can't even tell you how many times I've read these books. They are my comfort food of books, when things aren't going right in my life I read these books.
2. Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Only read these if you like to read A LOT. Every book is thick and there will be 14 books when it done. Jordan really knows his craft, he has the most fully realized fantasy world with likable characters I've ever read. I am currently rereading it for the 4th? time. I read it first when I was a young teenager and then I kept rereading them as new books in the series came out because the plot was so complex I had to remind myself what was happening to follow all the tiny details. Then I got really tired of him taking so long to write new books so I took an eight year break. Now, the end is truly in site. The last book will come out October 2011 and rereading them makes me remember why I liked them so much in the first place. The fourth book is when the series really gets good, I mean really really good.
3.Ok, this is embarrassing, but I'll fess up to it I am a closet Stephanie Myers fan. I am blushing in embarrassment right now. I do NOT like the movies, but I do like the twilight books. I don't really like the characters even, although I like Edward more now that I read Edward's version of the story in the unfinished book Midnight Sun. Anyway, it's not the characters that draw me and the story is only good, not great, but the books are just so,... so, gosh darn readable. I can't put them down and then I want to read them again, it's crazy. I liked The Host too. I did like the main character in that one and thought the story was better too. I'm not as embarrassed about liking The Host.
Nonfiction Finance
1. One of my favorite finance authors is David Bach. He has a book for everyone but they seriously overlap in advice so don't expect totally new information if you read more than one. I like Smart Couples Finish Rich and The Automatic Millionaire best.
2. I love The Millionaire Next Door and The Millionaire Mind. They are just SUCH interesting books. They really make you understand the difference between living rich and being rich.
3. I recommend every couple read The Two Income Trap. It is a great book that explains why EVERYONE should have their fixed costs based on one income.
Cookbooks
1.The Joy of Cooking, apparently I need to get this new version. I have the 1997 version and still like it. I read it straight through when I was 17 and learned a TON about food in general along with how to cook it.
2. When I was a senior in high school I worked at a bookstore (shocking I know) and was in charge of special orders. That is where I was first introduced to Pam Anderson because someone ordered her cookbook, The Perfect Recipe. It was amazing, she goes through each recipe and tells you what she tried to make it perfect, what went wrong, what went right and how she ended up with the final recipe. So much information, so interesting, so AWESOME. I also have her How to Cook Without a Book and use it for all my stir fry and stir fry sauces, but it has lots of other great recipes too.
3. My interest in knowing WHY a recipe was good lead me to a love of the PBS cooking show America's Test Kitchen. They have a book of ALL their recipes and information about why they make them that way. I have yet to have a recipe from this book turn out bad.
I'd list other nonfiction, but I don't really read other nonfiction.
Kids Books
1. I'm a huge Dr. Seuss. I love The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham and The Sneetches. The rhyming is just so addicting.
2. The Monster at the End of This Book has got to be one of the funnest read aloud books ever. If you like a little drama you will love this book.
3. The Very Hungary Caterpillar is a classic I love. My favorite part has always been turning the little pages of food that he eats.
I love lots of other books too, but this post is WAY to long already. I'm sure I will talk about books again.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Being Sick
Growing up I was a sickly kid. I was always out of school for some sickness, in elementary school I had constant strep throat till they took my tonsils out, then I had appendicitis and in between I had stuff mostly relating to asthma, allergies or some complication of them. Me and my sisters got some really weird stuff too just to make things interesting. I went to doctors' offices so often that I tested out of high school health with only one day of studying. All my prior studying of the many charts and models that the doctors always had in the examination rooms really paid off.
Anyway, most of the time I wasn't contagious, sometimes I didn't even have symptoms, I just "felt bad". My mom did what she thought was best and let me stay home from school and rest. I did not have the best school career socially speaking and often took advantage of that and acted worse than I felt just to avoid school. In high school, after my freshman year, I decided that I was missing out on life due to being so sick. I decided that being sick was not a good way to avoid things I'd rather not deal with, so I said I would not miss another day of school unless I was showing signs of contagion; throwing up, fever, green snot, that kind of stuff. And overall I stuck to that for the rest of high school.
In fact, I've tried to stick to that as a general rule, life shouldn't stop even if you are sick, unless you are contagious and then you should stay away from people for their own protection. It has been a hard thing to follow this past year since we've moved. As a family, we have been sicker this year than any other year. I don't know if it is the stress of moving, perhaps the house, since it wasn't new already had allergens, or maybe it was the crazy winter, most likely it's a combination of them all. I don't think we've gone more than a month since last July without someone being contagiously sick at our house and last month we all took turns every week. This week it is apparently my turn with a cough and sore throat. I am just plain tired of it. I want to live my life as a healthy person with healthy children and a healthy husband. There is nothing I can think of to do to help it though short of shutting us in a bubble. Of course that isn't exactly practical. I hate telling my kids I can't do something because I feel bad. It's even worse when the kids feel bad. It's just so, so...IRRITATING being sick all the time. I try to keep to our usual routine and believe me, I know how fortunate I am that no one is debilitating sick or truly chronically sick, I grew up with that. But I just wish that we'd get over all this and stay well for a few months together. Ok, gripe over.
**EDITED**
Just so you don't think I'm some sort of super lady (I'm far from it) who can do everything even when I'm sick, I only aspire to not putting my life on hold when sickness happens. My house is a MESS right now, my kids watch embarrassing amounts of tv every day and we've eaten fast food too many times to count this month. I'm really tired of that too.
Anyway, most of the time I wasn't contagious, sometimes I didn't even have symptoms, I just "felt bad". My mom did what she thought was best and let me stay home from school and rest. I did not have the best school career socially speaking and often took advantage of that and acted worse than I felt just to avoid school. In high school, after my freshman year, I decided that I was missing out on life due to being so sick. I decided that being sick was not a good way to avoid things I'd rather not deal with, so I said I would not miss another day of school unless I was showing signs of contagion; throwing up, fever, green snot, that kind of stuff. And overall I stuck to that for the rest of high school.
In fact, I've tried to stick to that as a general rule, life shouldn't stop even if you are sick, unless you are contagious and then you should stay away from people for their own protection. It has been a hard thing to follow this past year since we've moved. As a family, we have been sicker this year than any other year. I don't know if it is the stress of moving, perhaps the house, since it wasn't new already had allergens, or maybe it was the crazy winter, most likely it's a combination of them all. I don't think we've gone more than a month since last July without someone being contagiously sick at our house and last month we all took turns every week. This week it is apparently my turn with a cough and sore throat. I am just plain tired of it. I want to live my life as a healthy person with healthy children and a healthy husband. There is nothing I can think of to do to help it though short of shutting us in a bubble. Of course that isn't exactly practical. I hate telling my kids I can't do something because I feel bad. It's even worse when the kids feel bad. It's just so, so...IRRITATING being sick all the time. I try to keep to our usual routine and believe me, I know how fortunate I am that no one is debilitating sick or truly chronically sick, I grew up with that. But I just wish that we'd get over all this and stay well for a few months together. Ok, gripe over.
**EDITED**
Just so you don't think I'm some sort of super lady (I'm far from it) who can do everything even when I'm sick, I only aspire to not putting my life on hold when sickness happens. My house is a MESS right now, my kids watch embarrassing amounts of tv every day and we've eaten fast food too many times to count this month. I'm really tired of that too.
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