Brevity

I don't mean to be morbid, but if you ever forget how fragile and short life really is, read the obituaries in your local online news. Most likely, 85% of the people will have been in their 80's or 90's, dying simply from old age. But every now and then, you run across that 60 year old, that 50 year old, that 40 year old -- getting too close for comfort?

I read a few of those obituaries tonight. I read about a man who had served in WWII even though, as a man of Japanese heritage though fully American, he'd been persecuted in Japanese internment camps. He went on to win a purple heart and a bronze star, volunteered throughout his life, and gave of his own food and work to less fortunate people.

I also read about a woman who was only 60. After getting pregnant in high school but keeping the baby, she went on to become an attorney to help abused women and children.

I stumbled upon these obituaries because I had been reading about the death of a three year old who had been playing at preschool one morning when he happened to swallow a push pin.

All these things sobered me. Life is so short. At any moment, my heart could give out, I could be diagnosed with cancer, I could get into a car accident. I'm not saying I should live my life in fear, but these things are a reality. What am I doing with my time now? As I think back on this summer, I can only remember a few of the stupid tv episodes I watched, scrapbooking, and the handful of times I went to the gym. Not enough of it was spent laughing over a game with Paul, or at my sister's house making lunch with her and playing with her kids. Not enough of it was spent enjoying the day at the beach, or volunteering at the hospital like I've been planning to do. Not enough of it was spent praying or even thinking about Christ and what He's done for me.

What about you? If you were to die tomorrow, what would your obituary say? Would it say that you were a wonderful friend, someone who'd given your all for everyone, who'd worked hard to overcome your past and be all that you could be? Or would it be a short paragraph about how no one really knew you, and no one really knew what you were doing?

Brevity.

Carpe Diem.

A Different Kind of Family History

Some of my friends and family are really into family history and lineage. My cousin's wife in Minnesota has been working hard with ancestry lately, and has gotten back a couple hundred years. Another friend of mine knows someone who has their family history traced back to the 800's (if you can believe it.)

I have to be honest that family lineage doesn't interest me much. While of course I'd love to know whether or not I was related to Marie Antoinette, I'm just not interested in doing the time and research required to find out these stories. I am however, interested in preserving a piece of my and Paul's life for my children, grandchildren, and so on.

I posted a few months ago on Facebook about my Recipe Scrapbook I've been working on. My mother-in-law gave me a scrapbooking kit she'd found on Amazon, and I've LOVED working on it. The biggest challenge has been finding stickers and decals that go along with recipe/kitchen scrapbooking, since it isn't, surprisingly, a very popular topic. After months of searching (even online and at a scrapbooking store in MN), I finally found some cute recipe stickers at Michaels! Yay! Back on track!

I've already done 28 recipes in the book and have come across a new challenge -- what to scrapbook next? I'm running out of ideas because I don't want to scrapbook something unless I know it's something we like well enough to make again; I'm not scrapbooking things I've never tried. I am, however, putting in simple meal ideas as well as tips for quicker healthy eating (such as my fruity tip article posted on A Healthy Wait) because I know even those things will be (and already are!) valuable to me later on when I can't think of what to cook in a pinch.

I think what I love most about scrapbooking these recipes is it's such a window into our life. As the years go by, it's a journal of our favorite foods and tastes. I'm able to add little tidbits and tips from me, but also from my sister, my grandma, my mom, and many of my friends, that my children can someday pass on to their own children, hopefully after having added their own input and recipes.

One tip I'd like to share with scrapbooking is that you MUST have cute fonts (unless you're planning on handwriting everything, but if you're like me, you probably don't like your own handwriting enough to look at it for years to come!) I get free, adorable fonts here, and they are easy to download and install. Just find your favorite one, click download, then unzip the file and drag it into your font book. (Of course, these are instructions for a Mac, so it might be slightly different on a PC, although I'm sure it is explained at the site.) The cute fonts are a must because... well, Times New Roman just gets boring sometimes, and I am sick of the common fonts on Microsoft Word! Also, you can make your own cute decals and sayings by looking up the quote and printing them out in cute colors!

I thought I would share a few of my favorite pages and the basic look of it (The non-recipe pages that denote the following type of recipe came with the scrapbooking kit, as did the blank page in the front: about 15 kitchen/recipe pages as well as 2-3 pages of stickers/decals come with the kit. Please note I only posted one picture of the separator pages and no pictures of any of the stickers that came with the kit) as well as post the link to where you can get your own recipe scrapbook kit. Enjoy!

(**Note: Please click on pictures to view full-size)

Want your own?

The Hard Part

Blogging is fun; it's easy. I like designing the templates and figuring out the fonts. I like picking new colors, I like picking new gadgets. I like the writing part too, as an outlet, if I can think of a topic.

The hard part is picking a name. I easily spent fifteen minutes thinking of cheesy things I could call the blog.

Just a Few Thoughts From Me

Thoughts of a Lonely Girl

My New Adventure

Alternatives to Facebook

Random Thoughts

Meandering Thoughts

I could go on. But let's be honest. Some of these sound like they're thought up by a fourteen year old!

I decided on Thought Renaissance for a few reasons. First of all, as I explained in my original post, Unfriending Facebook, I'm taking some time to reevaluate the time and energy I spend on social networks. (As a sidenote, I actually don't consider this a 'social network' because, though the same people can read what I'm writing, I happen to know from experience that people generally don't care what you have to say if it's more than a few sentences long.) In that reevaluation, I'm doing a Renaissance of sorts to help me a) remember what it was like to write non-school essays with capital letters and full sentences, b) to help me be interested in other outlets, creative and otherwise, that are not necessarily self-esteem driven (I rarely if ever, get comments on my blogs), and c) writing in short random thoughts have not helped me really define, interpret, and enumerate my goals as well as I have done in the past. 

The second reason has to do with the fact that I am a history major and the definition of Renaissance is

A revival or renewed interest in something. 

Rebirth, reawakening, renewal, resurrection.

Renaissance has long meant a time of creativity and intelligence that surged in the people to allow new interest in arts, education, politics, and religion. All of these things are things we all could use more of in our lives. Besides that, I like the idea of starting over, of fresh beginnings.

Anyway, though this certainly may have been another pointless post, at least I took the time to write creatively with a little more thought than a one line status on Facebook:

I need to spend more time figuring out my goals.

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What can you do to be creative today?

Unfriending Facebook

Do you remember those days of MySpace when you'd unknowingly be friends with some guy named 'Tom'? You know, that guy that supposedly owned the company but that you had to be friends with? I unfriended that guy. Or unliked ... or whatever it was called on MySpace.

Yesterday I unfriended Facebook.

It's a lot less dramatic than it sounds. Or maybe it's more dramatic. I could say that (temporarily) deleting my Facebook account is so I can learn to be more productive or be on the computer less frequently -- but that's hardly it. I wish it was. Those are admirable reasons ... and they are partly true. I really should be spending less time online and a little more time with my friends and frenemies, Treadmill, Homework, Beach, and Sun. But the truth is, I've been online just about as much, just not on Facebook.

The real reason is, I've just become a little too sensitive. I've always been oversensitive. I have always had a hard time controlling my negative thoughts towards others, and I constantly overanalyze what others probably aren't thinking about or saying to me. This was exponentially increased on Facebook. (I've actually noticed I am less stressed in the 30 hours or so since I unfriended Facebook.) I've noticed more and more that snarky comments and miscommunication is an epidemic on Facebook, and something in which I get far too involved, enough to let it ruin my day sometimes.

The other half of the reason is my over-transparency. While I think it's fun to share random things like, "Ugh I hate doing the dishes," too many of my more personal thoughts have been shared in a flippant, hit-and-run kind of way (part of which can be solved with a blog). I also, since coming off from Facebook, have thought of random things and start to reach for my phone to post a new status... and when that obviously doesn't happen, I realize how mundane and silly my new 'status' would have been anyway.

I thought I'd try a thought experiment. I haven't really decided how long it will last, but here's my general idea. I'm starting to keep a journal of things I would have posted on Facebook. Then, I'll let the thoughts marinate in the pages of rationality for a while and decide if it really was something worthy of letting over 300 people in on (let's be honest - most of us probably consistently talk to 10% or fewer of those on our friends list).

I'm also going to, in the meantime, spend a little bit of time in the real world remembering what it was like when communication was easier to decipher -- you know, when people used facial expressions, real smiles, and sarcasm and jokes were heard and not read with black text on white background in already hostile territory.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only one who has this oversensitivity, over-sharing, overanalyzing, obsessive problem. I doubt it. I'm not asking you to delete your Facebook too... but, if you are willing to admit you're even a bit like me, maybe you can try the journal/thought experiment too. I'm actually excited about it. It will be interesting to reexamine my thoughts before posting them permanently on the internet. You may also try writing your about-to-be snarky comments down too before posting them ;)

Now you may be wondering, "Why is blogging any different? It's just as public." Yes. It is. But I've blogged before, and while I could get 10 comments in ten minutes on a status on Facebook that said, "I got my hair trimmed today," my blogs were commented on only by those who actually cared to brave their way through several paragraphs. I also like that blogging takes time. There's no such thing as a quick 8 paragraph essay, but there sure are a lot of quickly posted big-time-mistake 8 word statuses ("I think people who like [politician] are stupid.") It also gives the writer an opportunity to explain what they mean, and the reader a little more time to think about what they're commenting, since you generally have to go to another page, type out the comment, sign into google or some other various network, type out the word in the captcha, then actually click 'POST'... as opposed to typing, 'I think you're an idiot' then accidentally pressing the enter on our keyboard before we have deleted what we never meant to actually post! Ok, perhaps that was a little bit of an exaggeration, but I digress :)

Anyway, please know that I don't feel superior to anyone for having taken myself off of Facebook. I actually do see the merit in using Facebook, as it allowed me to be connected with my grandma, aunts, cousins, and random friends from my old hometown that I may otherwise have not been connected with. It also helped keep me up-to-date on campaigns and news. But I know that for me, at this time, Facebook isn't for me. And I'll stress that this is temporary, but I just don't know how temporary. It may be a week, or it might be much, much longer. Given the relief from stress I've felt shows just how unhealthily emotionally invested I was ... and I may require a longer break than some of you (I know a day or two is good enough for most people!)

All right, I apologize for the long post. If anyone reads this, let me know if you've accepted the journal challenge, and your progress. Good luck!


Just as a point of interest, here's an essay I found with a few other, supporting reasons not to be on Facebook ...

"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold."