This Week in Etsy...

I have been on a slight Etsy break, mainly because we are trying to save for a down payment on a house, therefore buying random things from the internet has been frowned upon by J.But I sold a few patterns and decided to treat myself to something pretty.

Lavender and Earl Grey scented heaven

I have been eyeballing this for a long time. I mean, I like lavender and Earl Grey Tea but the idea of buying a perfume on the internet that I have never smelled was scary. I decided to take the leap though and couldn't be more pleased. The Etsy store is called Madame Scodioli and she has lots of interesting scent combinations, but I wouldn't call a single one of them normal. I have already ordered her sampler pack to see what other scents I may like, in addition to her Restorative Lip Balm. As for how I would describe the scent? I think it smells like an antique book store run by sweet old ladies, which is more appealing than it sounds.

I have a thing for sharks. I wouldn't say I am "in to" sharks, but I enjoy Shark Week, and Jaws. I think they are fascinating because they are basically the same as they were when the dinosaurs walked the earth, and goodness knows I like dinosaurs. Anyway, I digress. I have been wanting a shark tooth necklace since I saw Mila Kunis wear one in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. But I could never find one that fit my criteria of being dainty, silver, and what I would consider a "cool" shark. Then I discovered The Shark Tooth Shop and found exactly what I wanted. I got a Bull Shark tooth pendent and added it to a silver chain I already had and I haven't taken it off since. Why a Bull Shark, because I am a nerd and I know that a probably rogue Bull Shark was eating people in New Jersey in 1911 which became the inspiration for Jaws.

In my never ending attempt to add even more odd plants to my house I ran across a Marimo Moss Ball Terrium. I got this one at Eclectic Zen, but I must admit, I wouldn't call it "Giant". It sort of makes me want to order a small one just to be able to compare it. I'd say it's about the size of a golf ball, maybe slightly smaller. Still, I have it sitting on the kitchen window sill and I change it's water every week, and every other week I have been putting a drop of plant food in it's water, even though I'm sure our water probably has enough bugs in it to feed the thing.

Five things I Know About a Good Marriage…

Trust me, I have years of experience. Well, I have 5 years of experience, but let’s be honest; lots and lots of married people don’t make it to the five year mark, so at least I have one up on them. And aside from the endless drudgery of being working parents with little to no money, we seem to still like each other. Hell, we even had sex twice yesterday. I haven’t the faintest idea how people stay married for ten years, or fifteen, but I know exactly how we successfully stayed married for five.

1.     1.   No Secrets: I define “secrets” as anything you feel like you should keep from your spouse. If you are going to have to hide something you did indefinitely (meaning surprise birthday parties and what not), then you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. This can range from how much that TARDIS shaped cookie jar really cost to cheating. J and I tell each other fucking everything. Even things the other person doesn’t want to know anything about.  I cannot even begin to describe how often I have stared, glassy eyed as J went on and on about some sports crap that I have absolutely zero interest, much like when I go off about the new study I read stating that spanking your child will turn them into a serial killer (besides, we all know formula does that so Delilah is already screwed).

2.       2. Nothing is “Off-Limits”: There is no such thing as a taboo subject in my house. We talk about anything and everything. There is not a damn thing we don’t know about each other, from how we take our coffee to when and where we lost our virginity (actually, I kind of wish I didn’t know the “where” since we are about to buy that house and our daughter will grow up in the very room that her father sweated on some girl that was not her mother). We had a very extensive conversation about things J wants me to try for the next blow job he gets last night while catching up on the Walking Dead (Which started with me saying “I would suck the white trash right off of Daryl”). Seriously, talk about anything.

3.       3. Fight: I mean it, get in fights. Don’t hold things that really bother you in. If you feel strongly about it, then fight it out. You may not agree on the outcome, but at least you are no longer holding it in and your spouse knows too. Fighting also leads to compromise. 

4.       4. Have Sex: I like to call it Marriage Bed-Death. With work, kids, pets, being social it hard to fit in sex, and before you know it you haven’t done the nasty in weeks. But having sex is one of the reasons you are in a couple. And let’s be honest, it can turn out to be the best sex of your life because you have the time and hopefully the motivation to figure out exactly what each other’s special places are and how to stroke them just the right way. Try new things, experiment, because you have got to keep your sex life interesting. Buy some toys (we have a big ass box under the bed which has “Don’t open this box!!! Seriously, once you see what’s in it you can’t un-see it”), dress up in costumes, whatever. The great thing about having a great marriage is that what happens between the two of you in the bedroom stays between the two of you, unless you are like me and have a tendency to over-share after taking shots of SinFire.

5.       5. Be Best Friends: J is my very best friend. I honestly like spending time with him. He makes me laugh and when he is gone I miss him terribly. We text each other all day, sending pictures we think are funny, or sending a quick “I love you”. We have a date night every week where we take turns picking out a movie, and the other person is not allowed to veto it, and both of us look forward to Tuesday nights all week. Last week I picked Jaws, the week before he picked The Sandlot. 

Dear Delilah…

Dear Delilah,

                Oh my God!!! You just turned two!!!! Where the hell has the time gone? Seriously, yesterday you asked me for chocolate milk and I wondered where my drooling, slug-baby went. Your favorite words right now are “no” and “why” and you use them to exhaustion. I will say things like “Delilah, let’s put your shoes on” and you will scream “NO!!” and run away. I swear it happened at the exact moment you turned two. Honestly at 5:20am on March 7, 2013 you learned that you should say “no” or “why” whenever I ask you to do anything, ever. You said “no” to daddy for the first time last night and I thought the top of his head was going to blow off. Since he is not the hyper-researcher that I am, he hasn’t heard all about the stages of development and all that other crap, so after you want to bed I had to explain the whole thing to him and how you are just going through a stage that should end somewhere around the time you have children of your own and they tell you “no” for the first time.

                You are also still pretty fucking destructive. You laugh with glee every time you knock something down, spill something, chew on something, etc. The other kids at daycare have started calling you “Beast Mode” and “Godzilla”. And you are such a daredevil! My God, you scare the shit out of me all the time by diving off of things and assuming Daddy or I will catch you. To our benefit, we have yet to drop you on the floor but I, for one, am getting tired of having a heart attack 57 times a day. Don’t even get me started on taking you to the pool. It’s like you have absolutely no concept that you don’t know how to swim. Seriously, you try to swim away from us the entire time and you thrash around like an orangutan on crystal meth! So I had to buy you a goofy looking floating swimming suit so at least when you leapt out of my arms you didn’t immediately sink to the bottom. Also, I basically had to football tackle you in the grocery store parking lot the other day when you decided to run into traffic.

                Oh, and the shoes! You love shoes and think they are the greatest things since feet. Currently you have formed a strange relationship with some pink cowboy boots and some kid high-heels that your Aunt Erin sent you. I can’t get you to take them off, and when I do finally hold you down and pull them from your feet, you act like I have just poured acid on you.

However, you seem to be surviving pretty well, even though Daddy and I still feel like we have no idea what we are doing.

I love you more than Diet Pepsi Cadburry Eggs,

Mommy

A Godless Parent in a God Fearing World…

I am an Atheist. I put no other labels on myself other than I do not believe that the universe was created by a “god”. I believe that we exist by pure chance and an amazing thing called evolution. And honestly, I am pretty fucking happy with that. I don’t have to get up early on weekend mornings to go to church, or mass, or temple, or prayers, etc. I believe that this life is the only one we will ever have and you should do your best to make it a good one. I am not afraid of growing old and dying. I don’t fret about if my life will be considered up-to-snuff by some omnipresent being that will judge me based on the decisions I have made. Besides, what kind of a dick move would that be on “god’s” part to have people be born into situations outside of their control and then punish them for it for all of eternity?

The only person in my family who seems to be particularly religious is my father, who converted to Catholicism when he wanted to get re-married (a story which could take up a novel if I were to write it out). Besides him, no one in my immediate family goes to church on any sort of regular basis, though every one of them would claim to be “Christian” if you put a gun to their head. They all know I’m an Atheist, even though a few may tell me I don’t “really mean in”, but I am happy with my choices and the lot in life they have led me to, with no help from an angelic overlord.

However, when I became a parent, something strange happened. It didn’t happen to me; it seemed to happen to everyone else around me. Suddenly everyone in my immediate and extended family wanted to know when the christening was going to be, who her godparents were, and where she was going to attend Sunday School. My aunts and cousins are all staunch Southern Baptists, and are no doubt horrified by my godless ways, and when I told them that there would be no christening, therefore it was not necessary to send me the family, heirloom christening dress (since I would probably just frame it under archival glass and put it on my wall as an art piece). You would have thought I had run through the family reunion naked, with sparklers coming out of my hoo-ha. Suddenly I was a bad person and my daughter was obviously going to grow up to be a Bangkok Hooker.

So, in the past 2 years I have had a lot of time to think about how I would raise my daughter to be an open-minded, free-thinker. In my opinion, morality has nothing to do with religion and if someone is a good person only because they will be rewarded for it in the end, then they probably aren’t actually that good. I donate money to charity, even religious charities. I help my family, neighbors, friends and even strangers. I love my family, friends and pets with all my heart and basically, if you are nice to me, then I will be nice to you. There are very few people that I wouldn’t pee on if they were on fire, and in my opinion, they deserve to get extra crispy anyway. I don’t care what race you are, what your sexual orientation is, or if you like to smear your face in peanut butter and have twelve kittens lick it off. You can do whatever you want as long as everyone involved is a consenting adult and innocent bystanders are not hurt, either physically or mentally. And in all honesty, is that a bad way to be? Am I making the world a worse place because I don’t use God to guide me, and instead make the best choices I can with the information I am given? And how is that a bad thing to teach Delilah? I want her to help when she can, to love those who love her, and to love herself because she is the pinnacle of millions of years of evolution and natural selection. And if she gets to piss off smug religious zealots, then that is just a happy bonus.