a new painting

This is one of my mom's newer ones. I am a poopy photographer, and it is washed out from reflections etc. But I still wanted to try to share it. I like it. :) I love my mom's work. She has done some really amazing stuff over the years.

your muscles are talking

I have always been fascinated with physiognomy. I watch people (yes, be paranoid) and how their muscles move, how their expressions are formed, affects, etc. It often is telling for self-consciousness, nervousness, pride, and others. Very interesting to me.

My favourite, however, is a baby. They are so perfectly natural. No affects yet. No mimicry. No self-consciousness. I love it. No weirdness. Totally genuine and pure.

Today is the 3rd day in a row that Niamh has taken a one hour nap in her crib. Why is this newsworthy? She hasn't slept more than 10 minutes in her crib for the last 2 months. So yes, I am excited, and I am hoping and believing that this is the beginning of a new era in independent sleeping. She is 11 months now, so we're all good and ready for some normalized sleep habits.

She is also walking exclusively. I haven't seen her crawl at all in a week now.

I was talking to Anna about likes and dislikes, and how everyone has different ones. She said, "I like three things. My baby, Niamh Eileen, Nanny, and Santa. And presents."
I didn't bother telling her that was four. I was very glad that Niamh was included her in list of likes though! Yay! I hope and pray it will always be that way.

false assumption

heard last night at a 50th birthday party:
scene:
someone hands me a Bailey's and I make an unsure expression.
"OH go ahead!" another female attendee encourages me.
"Your baby is 10 months! It's not like you're nursing!"
*laughter erupts*

uhmm... nope. Not at the moment that is. If Niamh had been there, the likelihood that I would be nursing at that moment would be pretty good though. I had to laugh at the assumption that of course one is not still nursing at 10 months.

flushing diamonds with dung

Many posts are simmering. I will complain in this one about how youth is wasted on the young.

I have been SOO discouraged from encounters with teens lately. One was complaining about how school is useless and boring, how it is so ridiculous that they are learning about World War II. "It's over," she argued with annoyed indignance. "It's done, it's in the past. It isn't happening now, so why would we need to learn it? " *rolls eyes*

I was so blown away I was speechless to even argue with her. Why? Goodness sakes, where do I begin? There are so many reasons. The utter disrespect and cluelessness as to the pain and suffering of so many people, and the people who put themselves in the line of fire for someone else so she could be leading this comfortable affluent life. The self-absorbed world of these teens, while I will likely get comments saying, oh they all are that way, you were too, or whatever, is making me nuts. Ya, Girl, you're right. Who needs education. Pffh.

I talked to another guy who recently became active, we shall say, with his girlfriend, and was kinda proud of it. His cocky demeanor nearly made me vomit. HE was not spared the earful of my first individual. He was willingly oblivious to emotional and spiritual impact on either of them or any potential physical repercussions. Throwing away precious gifts of purity. A completely topsy turvy value system to my perspective. No no, this short term physical thing is TOTALLY worth potential parenthood, disease, emotional disability and spiritual corruption! Sure, why not! Sounds great. Who needs God, who needs health or wholeness.

Then there is the plethora of little people (who am I to talk, I know :P) I see on Facebook, people I know in our community here, who play with sin. Walk the tightrope, dabble in this or that, and then come and play church. I am not even sure if they know what they are doing. I feel certain they don't understand severity or implications of their actions. SO much is bound up inside me when I see this. I am successfully containing all manner of screams, running over and shaking them and falling on the floor with tears, begging them to heed wisdom. That's what I'm doing on the inside.

I've also had more MS activity lately, which very effectively drives the point home to me of the tremendous value of the strength and energy (and TIME) in youth. That it is cluelessly taken for granted and wasted on video games and flirting with sin is just bringing me to the edge of psychosis.

so, waddya wanna know?

I have a lot of questions about what is appropriate to actually be including on this globally public format. (unless you happen to live in a restricted access country)

The issue of information availability is seeing increasing attention as it becomess increasingly problemmatic .

I have friends who hide pretty well nothing in their blogs and/or online profiles, save bedroom details, and some who don't even disclose the names of their children, assigning them a letter or fake name. They keep things pretty anonymous.

I just realized in thinking about it, that if one wanted, they could follow the link trail and learn:
all about my daily life and schedule,
religious beliefs, church affiliations,
how much and what supplements I take,
how and when I've had any MS exacerbations
what books I read, have read, plan on reading and what I thought about them,
mine and all my family member's names, birthdates and ages,
plenty of pictures of me and my family and some of my house,
most all my likes, dislikes and hobbies,
favourite games and hobbies of my children and family,
my group of friends and associates,
you name it.

The only thing that was not right out there was my phone number and address which one sec: yes, I checked, they are available on Canada 411. Everything but the street address.

That's kinda freaky. I love being able to share all my intimate thoughts with my friends who are not local to my area, (that would be, uh, pretty much ALL of you), and just venting my feelings in general. However, I'm starting to have a little paranoia about the readily available nature of it all, to anyone less friendly. Not just blogging, although it discloses a lot, but also on social network site profiles. Hmph. What to do.

love/hate relationship

with these 2 websites.

Play Blogger is a real-time slideshow of whatever photos people upload to their blogs. So it can be anything. At all. Sometimes it is boring, but other times it is riveting. I find myself living vicariously through other people's lives, their travels and trip pictures, restaurant plates, you name it.

Irish KC is as it sounds kinda. It is the blog of a Dubliner who lived in KC for 8 years, and wrote humorously about the differences between the 2 places. Having a connection on both ends, I find it riotously funny. And stupidly time consuming. I know I am setting myself up for everyone to say, "well, Jenni, you are clearly spending too much time online," after my last post.

Ya, well, shut up.

Poor Niamh is a little confused. Although toilet sounds like toy, it is indeed, not. *Sigh* so for now I will scrub the thing every day, at least, with touch ups in between. For those times when I or someone else forgets to close the bathroom door.