Monday, March 14, 2011

Music

OK, so we just watched an episode of Mad Men, which I love, and it ended with Peter Paul and Mary's version of Early In The Morning...and I caught myself singing along. Here's the problem. I love me some hippie music.  And some old blues.  Not to mention all the Requiems, Passions and choral classical in my collection. And there's a lot of God in them there lyrics...

Do athiests/agnostics have ANY good music???

Friday, March 11, 2011

There are no athiests in a foxhole...

Hmmm, perhaps my blogging about athiesm, etc, has pissed off some higher power, as our family has been smote (am I using that word correctly?) with a cold/cough that never goes away.  Ellie started off with a cold 3 weeks ago, which lingered with runny nose and then moved into a cough. Then I got it. Then my husband got it even worse. And we're all still coughing at nighttime...sigh...so that's my excuse for the time being as to why I haven't caught up with this blog...

In other news, Eleanor is now officially a one-year old.  We chose not to do a party, as...well...as she's 1, and doesn't know any different.  Her friend, whose birthday is 1 day after hers, had a party and we just went there. All the cake, none of the work :)

I never really thought of myself, or of Trent, as non-traditional, but there seems to be such a common thread of going "keeping up with the Joneses", even when kids are this young.  I don't just get it. But I'm learning to just keep quiet, and I have a feeling this end up being a running theme throughout Ellie's life.

Judge not lest thou be judged, right? Pretty basic Christian tenant. An oldie but a goodie, and I'm fine with this premise, really.  So on the topic of birthday parties and going over the top, I think I'm going to take a page from Barbara Kingsolver. She talks about (in Animal Vegetable Miracle) how her family has the tradition of allowing the children to celebrate their birthdays with as many children/friends as their age--so a 3 year old gets to have 3 friends over for a tea party or something...a 10 year old can have 10...seems pretty reasonable to me.

I remember for my Bat Mitzvah (I was 13), it ended up being a party for about 250 people. Essentially a business party/see and be seen for my father.  I was told I could invite 30 kids.  The thing is, I was painfully shy. I didn't HAVE 30 friends. And in middle school, where everything is so important, and heaven forbid someone more popular than I was having a party the same weekend...the pressure was actually really crappy. And I didn't feel comfortable telling my parents why this was stressing me out. Who wants to tell their parents that they don't have many friends??  Especially when appearances mean so much...anyway, just food (birthday cake?)  for thought on a late Friday night.