What do you know about love?

Today I heard two songs about love.  See if you can guess which one I liked better...I'll give you a clue - one paints an absurd, unattainable, unrealistic picture of love.  The other one is real.  Here are the lyrics-

Natasha Bedingfield, "Soulmate"

"Who doesn't long for someone to hold?  

Who knows how to love you without being told.  

Somebody please tell me why I'm on my own.  

If there's a soulmate for everyone."

Alli Rogers, "Closer to the moon"

"My grandpa says commitment is the key to love.  

50 years of sometimes twilight, sometimes dawn.

He's says there were the years he wasn't sure about

But the love they chose was worth the pressing on."

Okay, in case you couldn't guess, I like the second song.  Unfortunately, I'd bet none of you have heard of it.  (I heard Alli Rogers at a concert - she was the opener.)  The first song, however, is all over the airwaves.  

The key theme for me is that LOVE IS A CHOICE.  This picture "you know what I want and need so I don't have to say it" is crap.  It's over-romanticized and sets up poor expectations.   It keeps us from actually CHOOSING love, which is what we have to do.  Choosing love looks like forgiveness, joy, pain, suffering, celebrating, etc. etc.  I guess it looks like choosing to keep going through the ups and downs, the good and bad.  I want to be making the CHOICE everyday, when it feels good and when it doesn't.

Decadence

Lately I've been doing some things that I felt in my head were "decadent."  Then, I felt like God said to me "Why don't you look it up and see what it means?"  So, I did; hold onto your cupcake...Here's what decadent means -

1.  characterized by decadence, esp. culturally or morally: a decadent life of excessive money and no sense of responsibility.  

2.  unrestrained gratification; self-indulgent.

Wow.  So then I looked up decadence - 

1.	the act or process of falling into an inferior condition or state; deterioration; decay: Some historians hold that the fall of Rome can be attributed to internal decadence.

2.	moral degeneration or decay; turpitude.

3.	unrestrained or excessive self-indulgence.

Interesting that the fall of Rome was attributed to decadence.  America better watch out...or, wait, are we too late??

Playing for change

This is sweet...watch to the end to see the Mamelodi shout out.

http://www.playingforchange.com/episodes/2/Stand_by_Me

"Super" hero?

Cincinnati has a "super" hero??  funny

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30445254

What a great Easter

We are so blessed to have such a great family. The video is one minute long, but for those who can't see videos, I thought I'd post a few pics...

A fun walk -

As an early birthday present, Kate received this red wagon from my grandma, the "rodeo flyer." It was from when Nikki and I were kids.

The egg hunt was a great success...

Kate found 2 eggs! (She had a tiny bit of help from me & Dora :

What snugglers!

Kate and Grandma love to read

Two people who love fun!

What characters we have here!

So sweet :)

Here's the one minute video..

-

Our brains are fascinating...

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Cutie pie

Look at this cutie pie with her Easter eggs :)

Thirst for life

You saw in the last video that Kate isn't a huge fan of spaghetti right now. But no one could question her love of water - look how excited she is in this video!

Adventurous

I love that Kate is so adventurous. I think that is a wonderful quality. One of the ways she shows her willingness to try new things is with food. To date, there isn't a single food we've given her that she hasn't tried. She does has preferences of course (cheese is her favorite food - she agrees with Auntie Em that everything is better with cheese.) You'll see in this video that her least favorite food so far is spaghetti...we'll see if she grows out of that.

Easter Fun

We had the best Easter.  We spent time with all of our family and friends.  I'll upload the pics soon, but I'm behind in my blogging...I will catch up, but I'm not sure when.  In the mean time, for those who want to see some of our Easter fun, copy the link below into your browser (Steven did a fantastic slide show.)

http://www.stevemanuel.net/Steven_Manuel/Photos./Pages/Easter_2009.html