Daydream Believer

Does anyone else out there decorate their dream home in their minds? I find myself doing this a lot lately. A lot. I've always been a daydreamer (this is mainly what fuels my creative writing projects, though lately my dreams at night have been fascinating story ideas), but lately, probably because of the weather, I've been daydreaming a lot more about all kinds of things. These are what I entertain myself with while I try to fall asleep:

This is the bedroom I'm currently daydreaming about. When I saw this on the Real Simple Web site, I sat and stared at it a good 5 minutes before realizing that that's our bed frame! So recreating this actual room is somewhat possible! The only thing I don't really care for is the bed spread, which the caption says is really the whole point of this design. In this room, I'd opt for a bed spread that was plain, and go for a piece of art that drew attention. I love the flowers on the night stand for a splash of color. And decorating with books is ALWAYS beautiful. I read an article in their magazine once that showed you how to use fun, vintage books to make-what else?-a book shelf.

This is where we spent our honeymoon. In a word, perfect. I'm pretty sure I have thought about this place every day since we got home almost 3 years ago! We're thinking of Oahu for grad school, so let's all keep our fingers crossed, eh? Mahalo.

Last but not least, this. Lots and lots of yarn to open an Etsy shop, and I LOVE knitting with cotton, as well as bamboo and merino-cashmere blends. Baby blankets, washcloths. MAYBE hats. MAYBE scarves for adults. And once I'm a little more refined in my sewing skills, cute applique tote bags as well. Things that are simple, essential and everyday. Function, meet beauty and elegance. That's my vision in a nutshell.

Walk On, Walking Man

My little boy is taking steps. This is from last week, and since then he's only grown more confident. He can take several, albeit awkward, steps in a row before plopping down. He's naturally pretty cautious, so the walking so far has actually been less traumatic than the cruising. I'm so excited for him to be running around. People say, "But when he's walking, then he'll be in to EVERYTHING!" Which is a moot point, since this kid is already in to everything he could be into if he were walking anyway. Walking child=Mom without back pain.

I'm just so excited with every bit of progress he makes, and he's starting to become our little mimic and it's too funny. He "pops popcorn" when we sing the "Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree;" sings and jumps to his own version of "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam;" and just tonight he threw up his arms triumphantly when we sang, "Hurrah, hurrah!" in "The Ants Go Marching." He's definitely understanding language a lot better, and it's fun to hear him try to say things. He definitely says, "Yes!" and nods, which is surprising, considering how much he hears, "No!" Although today, when Chris asked him if he was from Mars, and Will emphatically nodded and replied, "Yes," I realized that, while he is definitely agreeing to something, it's obvious he's not always sure what. It's interesting how much your tone and intonation communicate without any words at all. When we carry him around places, he points to things, and asks, "What's this? What's this?" He also says, "that."

Belly Laughs

This video is actually from several weeks ago, but I'm just loving it. Chris plays this funny game with him where he pretends to walk away, then turns around really quickly and 'scares' Will, who knows it's coming. They're a charming pair.



Not a whole lot going around the Tingey house lately. I could REALLY use some more fair weather and this gray gloomy business that started up today has got to go. We'd better end up someplace temperate!

Are personal blogs bad places to talk about strong personal/political opinions? I don't know. I always admire my friends when they have the conviction to write what they have to say, but mostly I feel inhibited about it. This week I learned about HB 12 here in UT that would make it a crime to engage in reckless behavior to intentionally cause a miscarriage. The bill was proposed because a couple years ago a 17-year-old girl hired a man to kick her repeatedly in the stomach when she was 7 months pregnant, because she didn't want her baby. I watched a debate on CNN between the politician sponsoring the bill, and a pro-choice advocate. The whole business was disgusting. IF there's anything more disgusting than a girl hiring someone to kill her unborn child, it's people who defend her "constitutional right" to do so. The pro-choice woman was actually defending abortion of all forms, including the taking of illegal drugs to cause an abortion. It seems pretty plain that if something dies or was killed, then it had to be alive in the first place. I don't see how there's any getting around that. Now, to be clear, the LDS church does say abortions may be acceptable in certain situations, and I agree with their policy entirely. But abortion as a means of birth control actually makes me sick to my stomach. Partial-birth abortions just infuriate me. If you're going to carry the baby for that long anyway, why not just give it up for adoption? Why does the baby have to die? So there you go. Taboo or not, I really just wanted to put that out there. And I'll leave you with a bit of poetry as well, to get us all thinking about the value of human life:

This Life
by Grace Paley

My friend tells me
a man in my house jumped off the roof
the roof is the eighth floor of this building
the roof door was locked how did he manage?
his girlfriend had said goodbye I'm leaving
he was 22
his mother and father were hurrying
at that very moment
from upstate to help him move out of Brooklyn
they had heard about the girl

the people who usually look up
and call jump jump did not see him
the life savers who creep around the back staircases
and reach the roof's edge just in time
never got their chance he meant it he wanted
only one person to know

did he imagine that she would grieve
all her young life away tell everyone
this boy I kind of lived with last year
he died on account of me

my friend was not interested he said you're always
inventing stuff what I want to know how could he throw
his life away how do these guys do it
just like that and here I am fighting this
ferocious insane vindictive virus day and
night day and night and for what? for only
one thing this life this life