It goes like this...

Life today....

-slept in an extra hour to make up for not sleeping last night due to a cold.
-very busy crazy day at work.
-didn't leave for lunch due to both above comments.
-took cold medicine and then started receiving comments about loopy behavior
-miraculously completed all necessary tasks by 5:45pm
-went home
-sat on the couch
-debated what should be done about dinner with Trevor for 2 hours
-debated whether it is legal for the IRS to charge us with income tax intermittently with dinner discussion
-decided to order curry coconut chicken from local Thai restaurant in the hopes of clearing sinuses
-(still haven't left couch)
-wonderful husband picked up cold medicine and said curry chicken (plus Pad Thai for him)
-currently eating dinner, blogging and have not yet left the couch.

that's my life...today. Don't worry i have big hopes to shower and drink tea tonight, and that will be a successful day.

Typical Taylors

I just thought this picture was funny. This was taken at Trevor's company christmas dinner. Can you tell I"m having fun?

What is even funnier is that Trevor is actually smiling in a picture and I look like a complete dufus....sigh. Well the quest continues for a picture where we both look like normal happy people. Don't hold your breath.

Growing Up.

It's funny to me to look back on my life and think about how my perspective has changed.

The other day Heidi was telling me about how she got an egg yolk separator thing for Christmas and how excited she was. I started thinking about how i got a sewing machine and poor Bethany got hand towels. With the exception of Bethany we were really excited about these "grown up/ mom" type gifts. Weird. When did i stop liking Amy Grant t-shirts? (don't worry i still like almost everything else about her).

My perspective has also changed in how I now relate more to the perspective of being a parent then a child (no, this does not mean i'm pregnant...just closer to that age group).


Lately i've been thinking about what all i do want to accomplish before i have kids...after reading Becky's Blog I feel better about that upcoming (i stress this is upcoming as in NOT near future) event. Like every good girl i do want to have kids someday and look forward to the joys of being a mom, but I also don't want to give up "the good life". I love my job, ok with the exception of this week. I love it just being Trevor and our dogs in the house. I love having time to read (looking for a great book?--check out the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers...oh so good). I love having time to paint, sew, and various other "art". I love "me" time.

Plus i feel like i have to get all of the things that i want to accomplish done before we have kids. I want to travel more. I want to become a famous (in relative terms) painter. I want to further my career and explore aspects that are interesting to me. I want to learn to speak French, did i mention travel? I want to.... ok so that list can go on for a bit.

The point i was trying to make (yes, i had one) is that I don't know what the change will be like when we have kids so i'm scared of what i'll have to give up. (mom--this is where you insert your, "Someday you'll know little caterpillar," comment.)

Things i know:
-"Your life will completely change." --I find this vague and unhelpful
-"It's the hardest thing and the best thing" ---um, is that good?
-"It will keep you from being selfish."---yea that one worries me, i like my "selfish time"...ok so it will be good for me, yea, yea, yea.
-"Don't rush into having kids." also known as "Plenty of time for that later." or "You don't need to be in any rush."----these comments make me wonder what they aren't saying---like there is some code "don't tell them how bad it is or they won't do it" or something like that....sketchy.


Things i do know:
Yea no experience here. So i observe ALL (with 1 or 2 exceptions) my friends with their kids and think back on my childhood and wonder what it will really be like.

Ok blog word, here are my thoughts. Once again check out Becky's blog which gave me hope (of course technically she has NO real experience with this yet either...for another couple months at least).

Things change. I hate change.
That's the thing about life...change is inevitable. Just have to trust God that it's for the best....though it sure would be nice to know what we were getting into sometimes.

Someday you'll know little caterpillar.....someday you'll know.

Artsy...

Here are my paintings. Not sure how to introduce them.... some of them have stories, some of them were painted with people or events in mind and some of them are just paint...ok well they all are but you know...














This last one is my favorite.

Golden Compass....

Ok, I'm intrigued by the new movie coming out The Golden Compass. I've been having converstations with a couple people who are either watching the movie or reading the book and have brought up the conservative's condemnation of the books/movies, from a standpoint of how ludacris it is that they have a problem with the story. Not being familiar with the books, movie or the author i've done a little investigating.




Author: Philip Pullman



First to explain the conflict (from my understanding) certain conservatives have a problem with the series called "His Dark Materials", the first book/movie being "The Golden Compass", saying that the author, Philip Pullman wrote it agains the church and it is filled with anti-God anti-Christian rhetoric. I've also heard that it was written as the antithesis of The Chronicles of Narnia.





I have just gotten the first book and will read that before I make comments on what is or isn't in it. I have also gone on Philip Pulman's website and clicked on a couple links with interesting interviews. Here are a couple exerpts...


(Interviewer) PTC: How would you characterize your own beliefs? Atheistic, agnostic, materialist, etc.? A friend of mine who is both an atheist and a committed materialist told me she didn't understand why His Dark Materials was being touted as an "atheist" trilogy, because the Dust seemed very "spiritual" and "mystical" and unnecessary to her. Tony Watkins has also written that the Dust makes the books more "dualist" than materialist. Do you think there is something "spiritual" about your books, and does this coincide with anything "spiritual" in your own outlook, or are people perhaps reading too much into a handy and very effective plot device? If your own views are more at the materialistic end of things, why do you think your books have pointed in a seemingly opposite direction?


(Philip Pullman) PP: Deep waters here. Those who are committed materialists (as I claim to be myself) have to account for the existence of consciousness, or else, like the behaviourists such as Watson and Skinner, deny that it exists at all. There are various ways of explaining consciousness, many of which seem to take the line that it's an emergent phenomenon that only begins to exist when a sufficient degree of complexity is achieved. Another way of dealing with the question is to assume that consciousness, like mass, is a normal and universal property of matter (this is known as panpsychism), so that human beings, dogs, carrots, stones, and atoms are all conscious, though in different degrees. This is the line I take myself, in the company of poets such as Wordsworth and Blake.As for 'spirit', 'spiritual', 'spirituality' - these are words I never use, because I can see nothing real that seems to correspond with them: they have no meaning. I would never begin to talk of a person's spiritual life, or refer to someone's profound spirituality, or anything of that sort, because it doesn't make sense to me. When other people talk about spirituality I can see nothing in it, in reality, except a sense of vague uplift combined at one end with genuine goodness and modesty, and at the other with self-righteousness and pride. That's what they're displaying. That's what seems to be on offer when they interact with the world. And to my mind it's easier, clearer, and more truthful just to talk about the goodness and modesty, or about the self-righteousness and pride, without going into the other stuff at all. So the good qualities that the word 'spiritual' implies can be perfectly well covered, and more honestly covered, it seems to me, by other positive words, and we don't need 'spiritual' at all. But in fact my reaction to the word 'spiritual' is even a little more strongly felt than that; I even feel a slight revulsion. I'm thinking of those portraits of saints and martyrs by painters of the Baroque period and the Counter-Reformation: horrible grubby-looking old men with rotten teeth wearing dark dusty robes and gazing upwards with an expression of fanatical fervour, or beautiful young women in sumptuous clothes with wide eyes and parted lips gazing upwards with an expression of fanatical fervour, or martyrs having the flesh ripped from their bones as they gaze upwards with an expression of fanatical fervour - gazing at the Virgin Mary, or a vision of the Cross, or something else that's hovering in the air just above them. And you know that what they're seeing isn't really there; that if you were there in front of them, you wouldn't see the Virgin sitting on a little cloud six feet above the floor; all you'd see would be the rotten teeth or the sumptuous clothes or the torn flesh and the expression of fanatical fervour. They're seeing things. They're deluded, in fact.So the word 'spiritual', for me, has overtones that are entirely negative. It seems to me that whenever anyone uses the word, it's a sign that either they're deluding themselves, or they're pulling the wool over the eyes of others. And when I hear it, or see it in print, my reaction is one of immediate scepticism.


(skipped a bit...)


PTC: Hmmm, could you tease this out a bit more? I can understand Dust as a metaphor within a work of literature, but in what sense is God a metaphor? (I assume both you and Dawkins are referring to God as he is perceived in the real world and not in a work of fiction -- and certainly the people Dawkins takes issue with would see God as more than metaphorical.)





PP: I don't expect Christians to see God as a metaphor, but that's what he is. Perhaps it might be clearer to call him a character in fiction, and a very interesting one too: one of the greatest and most complex villains of all - savage, petty, boastful and jealous, and yet capable of moments of tenderness and extremes of arbitrary affection - for David, for example. But he's not real, any more than Hamlet or Mr Pickwick are real. They are real in the context of their stories, but you won't find them in the phone book.




In regards to Narnia....


PP: Simply that I was asked to judge the Guardian Children's Fiction Award, and it was on the shortlist.As for Narnia - I've expressed my detestation for that series on several occasions and at length, so I won't say very much about it here, except to note something that some commentators miss when lumping Lewis and Tolkien together, which is this: that Tolkien was a Catholic, for whom the basic issues of life were not in question, because the Church had all the answers. So nowhere in 'The Lord of the Rings' is there a moment's doubt about those big questions. No-one is in any doubt about what's good or bad; everyone knows where the good is, and what to do about the bad. Enormous as it is, TLOTR is consequently trivial. Narnia, on the other hand, is the work of a Protestant - and an Ulster Protestant at that, for whom the individual interaction with the Bible and with God was a matter of daily struggle and endless moral questioning. That's the Protestant tradition. So in Narnia the big questions are urgent and compelling and vital: is there a God? Who is it? How can I recognise him? What must I do to be good? I profoundly disagree with the answers that Lewis offers - in fact, as I say, I detest them - but Narnia is a work of serious religious engagement in a way that TLOTR could never be.




Ok, so that was a long exerpt, but i think that it's good for us to know where he's coming from and what the motivations are behind what he writes. I will post some more thoughts when i'm done with the books but for now I want to hear your thoughts....


again, here is the total interview
http://filmchatblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/philip-pullman-extended-e-mail.html

On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

Two turtle doves...

ok no doves here, but still check out this picture!


I was planning on doing odd things for each day, but found this and lost interest...

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me :
Partridge in a Pear Tree:$104.99 ($15.00 Partridge, $89.99 Pear Tree)
Two Turtle Doves: $40.00 ($20.00 each)
Three Frensh Hens: $45.00 ($15.00 each)
Four Calling Birds: $399.96 ($99.99 each)
Five Golden Rings: $325.00 ($65.00 each)
Six Geese-a-Laying: $300.00 ($50.00 each)
Seven Swans a Swimming: $4,200.00 ($600.00 each)
Eight Maids a Milking: $41.20 ($5.15 each)
Nine Ladies Dancing: $4,576.14 ($508.46 each)
Ten Lords a Leaping: $4,039.08 ($403.91 each)
Eleven Pipers Piping: $2,053.20 ($186.66 each)
Twelve Drummers Drumming: $2,224.30 ($185.36 each)
Total Christmas Price Index: $18,348.87"Core" index, excluding swans: $14,148.87

True cost of Christmas in song: $72,608.02 (including 364 total gifts)

I don't know how accurate this is, but i found it mildly entertaining all the same. Don't worry, i'm not expecting anything so extravagant from you all.

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me...

A Partridge and a Monkey...