You gotta do what you love

Several months ago I recorded the movie Julie & Julia on my DVR.  I tried to watch it while it was recording, but LG was on a wild toddler-needing-attention-play-rampage, and The Rookie was also trying to get his sports fix before his shift, so I was out-voted and forced to wait to watch it until the next day.

...Which I did, in short increments, until LG finally went down for a nap.  I loved it, really loved it.  And as soon as it was finished, I watched it again. Right then. (I had to, before LG woke up, or who knows when, or if I would ever see it again.)

This is one of the luxuries of being married to a Firefighter, when he is at work, I can watch whatever I want as many times as I want.  But then I sleep alone.  (Not entirely alone, I do have my gun, and my can of mace, and my huge dog, and of course the police officer who lives next door, who can hear every noise through the thin walls in this place.  But without my husband anyway.) Don't forget the alternative though, that when he is home, it's all about Sports Center, Gas Monkey Garage, Gold Rush, and The Bachelor. (Wait, that isn't a Man's Show? Someone should probably tell him.) So...heartwarming thoughtful and/or artistic movies and television (and of course all the other crap TV I watch) are much more few and far between.

And now, Back to our story;

My takeaway from the movie was this, find what you love, and do that, and don't let anything stop you. I thought about what I really love, and how I could make that my thing?

I love my Grandfather.  Maybe I could visit him every tuesday and then write a book about it.

A cute day for Grampa, not a cute day for LG.

Oh wait, that has been done. Sorry Grampa.

I love being in the ocean, and going to the beach, probably as much as a fat kid loves cake.

Photo by Lisa Wurtz Photography...I think

But it's not like you can write about that. "Hey, I went to the beach today...it was amazing...uh so thats all for now." That's pretty much what twitter is for, (which is why I don't really get why we are all so addicted to it).

But there are things that I do love, that it feels natural to write about...

I love talking around my kitchen table

...with friends and family about our opinions on current events, our lives, our experiences, and tons of crazy stuff. It seems like everything always comes out around my kitchen table.

This is my actual kitchen table, with my actual child chewing on it.

So I write Kitchen Table Talk, the things I actually talk to my actual girlfriends and sister, and mom about, around my actual kitchen table. Sometimes they are ridiculous, sometimes they are sentimental, and a lot of times they are controversial, but that's what I talk about around my kitchen table.

I love being a Mother.

Even the ups and downs of pregnancy, and the discipline, and the potty training. Especially the fun moments of watching my Little Giant trying to sing along to the radio, or feeling his little hand hold onto mine, (OK his giant little hand) or watching him do things for the first time and love them.

This was his first Baseball game, he loved it.

So I write Momalogues, as a way to discuss the musings of being a mother. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

I love getting frustrated

...with a situation, and then afterwards building up an entire speech about it in my head, which I would say, if I ever came face to face with the person who caused my frustration. Sometimes that speech turns into a letter, and sometimes those letters get sent. (If they are constructive enough to help said person, and thus prevent further frustration for others in the future.)

But mostly they are just a way for me to freak out on someone without consequences. I used to get in fights when I was younger, when people frustrated me, but apparently now that I am a legal adult, with young children in tow and what not, punching someone in the face (no matter how much they deserve it,) is frowned upon.

So instead, I write Letters of Concern. My real feelings addressed in letter form, to people or companies who need a good verbal punch in the face.

I love putting my foot in my mouth.

Well actually I don't love it, I hate it. But it's like an addiction that I just can't control, a disease really. And the people who still remain in my life today, are the ones who have learned to forgive me for the stupid things I have accidently said to them (time and time again) over the years.

As a way to share these experiences, and allow others a bit of enjoyment, thus humiliating myself and reopening the wounds of those I have obliterated with insulting comments, I write Word Vomit. A collection of stories about the worst things I have ever said to people, with all the cringe-worthy uncomfortable details.

I love my husband.

We are very different, and we have a feisty, high energy relationship. He thinks I should be a model 1950's housewife, who loves pregnancy, and never complains. I think he should put WD40 on the freaking (he hates when I say freaking) bathroom door hinges already.

Photo by Kara Rush Photography

But fortunately we fell in love with each-other, just the way we are. Each of us trying to be better, because we want to be our best selves for one another. (Wow, that sounds sappy and pretentious) This however is reeeeeeeeeeeeally tough for me. Because I am more of a free spirited, thick headed, Irish, Punk Rocker, and it is not easy for me to clip my wings and be the perfect-arm-candy-wife that my hot Fireman husband deserves. But I do try.

Me at some show, with some amazing band,

and my friend Kara (the photographer of that last photo) 

So I write the Trophy Wife Diaries. My experiences with this conflict of becoming my Husband's Trophy Wife while trying to understand and love him exactly as he is. With the occasional post about the things I do to annoy the crap out of him, which he thoroughly deserves occasionally.

I have been writing posts on this blog, about each of these things for months, just waiting for the courage to publish them, and honestly it has been from writing about the things I love, that I remembered how much I love writing.

I should have known I would love it. I have been writing recreationally since I can remember. I have journals and journals filled with my random musings, some dating back to the early nineties. (By the way, what are we going to call the early years of 2000? The turn of the century? The thousands? Can someone decide already and coin the phrase, so I can refer to my college/young adult years as a decade? Thanks. I would do it, but I feel that it is a little out of my jurisdiction at the moment. But mark my words, that if I ever become a world leader, or a celebrity, or a published author, you better believe that will be the first way that I use my celebrity for my own political agenda.)

I have a random collection of stories, song lyrics, essays poetry, old love letters (to and from The Rookie) and everything else a girl could write. I even considered going back to school a few years ago, to study literature and writing.

(But why would I go to school to study something that I love, I mean look what that did for my love of sewing. Well technically you can't look cause I haven't written about it, so suffice it to say that I am totally burnt out on sewing because of all of the nights I spent up trying to sew projects in Design School. And now my former talent is being utterly wasted. I even pay my Mom to hem my pants for me, thats how over it I am.)

I would much rather just cuddle my naked baby

than sew things for him to wear.

Photo by Tegyn Friedman Photography

OK, enough back stories and tangents. I have found the things that I love, and I am writing about them, as random and crazy a collection they are, and with my unformally-educated writing style, this is my blog.

It is more of a therapy session for me rather than a blog. A way to discuss all the things on my mind with the entire world, so that I don't become clinically insane, or drive my husband crazy, or bore my friends with the same stories and jokes over and over. Instead, I share them with you.

Thank you Julie & Julia, for inspiring me to write about what I love. My apologies to those who will be subjected to it.

Oh and thanks for reading this entire ridiculously long Blog post...Mom.