Marriage is Awesome

I think I wrote a post about this back when I got married. It hasn't really changed. We've had ups and downs already, but that part, that hasn't changed. Part of it is because, when I wanted to get married for all those years (like. . . my whole life), it was because I wanted companionship. And that hasn't changed. I have my friend, my best friend. We experience life together.

I'm six months pregnant and I get nervous about how having a baby is going to change our life. It won't just be him and me experiencing life together. We'll have a little one. But there's something that I try to remind myself of - it will still be him and me. No one else will have OUR relationship. I have siblings and I have people as close as siblings - but there will never be anyone else like Zack. There won't be another person that I am close to in that way.

The other thing I try to remember is that so far, I only like/love him more since getting pregnant. Part is because fatherhood suits him. I knew it would. It was really the only reason that I wanted to actually HAVE a baby myself. Because I wanted him to be a dad in the fullest and completest meaning of the word. I wasn't too thrilled about all the bodily changes and the pain and so on and so forth. Part is because it's new. And all the wonderful things about him come out in new ways given a new venue.

Marriage is awesome. But marriage is awesome because I love my husband and my husband loves me. May God keep that from ever changing.

The Rising

I just finished my book. I named it The Rising. And I typed the last words a few minutes ago. It's a crazy feeling. 

I started it three and a half years ago - December of '08 or January of '09. I remember that because I started it after I got out of college. I came home, read this book that my brother had, and started writing. I still have those beginning hand-written pages. They're vastly different from it's current form, but some things remained as they were. 

It needs editing, I know. I'll have to read it through a few times, and I'm going to need help from people. But right now, I'm on a bit of a high. I wrote a book! I wrote a book. . . . It doesn't seem real. I've written stories - lots of stories. Star Wars stories, sci-fi stories, LotR rip-offs, knights and dragons - I've tried a lot of stuff. I even started getting good at finishing stories. But stories are not books. 

I wrote a book. It's not a NaNo Novel. It's big enough to be a REAL novel.

My family was a big help. Every one of them contributed, even if they didn't know it. Kate was the biggest help though. She didn't let me forget about it; she didn't let it get stale. She kept asking about it, kept wanting me to write more, kept wanting me to send it to her whenever I had a new word written.

I wrote a book. I don't feel like I should be able to say that.

Lesser of Two Evils

This is a hard topic. And let me say right off the bat that, while I will probably make some very dogmatic statements, I don't mean at all that I cannot be wrong on this or that I'm accusing anyone of sinning or something. This is just the conclusion that I have come to.

There seems to be one reason for voting for a candidate that you know is bad - he's not as bad as the other guy. It's not that he's good, that he has some redeeming quality. It's that he's just not as bad as the other one. I voted for McCain because of this reasoning. I regret that vote.

And thinking about that, if I had the choice of Ahab or Jeroboam, how could I vote for either one? Why do we see a difference in our situation? We have Obama - a liar, a proponent of baby-murder, and someone who's destroying our nation from the inside. Then we have Romney - at the very least a liar and someone who doesn't seem to have any solid stance whatsoever on things like abortion, gay marriage, etc. etc. For evidence of that, click Here. He's for a woman's right to choose AND working to overturn Roe vs. Wade??? Can you possibly trust that guy?

When using the phrase "lesser of two evils" most people probably don't think that the choices are actually evil. However, I think they are. Mormon or Islamic, neither of them believes in the God of the Bible and neither of them are going to follow Him. Both of them have stated that they are pro-choice (whether they "changed their mind" later or not). How can we vote for evil?

I don't know what Ron Paul's religious views are. I do know that he is very steadfastly pro-life. I absolutely do NOT know that about Romney.

I've also heard the argument that "if we split the vote, the other side will win for sure." This one makes me even more riled. Because I hear it from Christians. Guess what? I'm not worried one itty, bitty, tiny speck about what the other side wants. That does not and should not come into the equation. Are we voting to win? Or are we voting to do what's right?

I'm voting because I believe that I should. God has put me in a country where it is my privilege to express an opinion on who I believe is most in line with His morals. That's why I vote. And WHO I vote for should be based on the same thing. Is this who GOD wants me to vote for? Not, "Is this who the party wants me to vote for?" Or, "is this who the other side doesn't want me to vote for?" Not, "Does he/she have a chance of winning?" Is this who GOD wants me to vote for?

When I stand before Jesus and recall all my deeds in life, am I going to look back and say I voted for someone because I thought he had the best chance of winning? Is my reason going to be so that the other side wouldn't win? Am I voting for someone because I'm afraid of what Obama might do in another four years? Is fear of man my motivator? Will I stand before God and say, "But the other guy was worse"? Is that going to be my excuse for not thinking FIRST about what God wants?

Politics get so separated from Christianity. We're supposed to be Christians FIRST. So when we talk about candidates and what their qualifications are, maybe we should start talking about how they line up Biblically before anything else comes up.

I Just Want A Phone

I'm a weird person when it comes to technology. I like special effects on movies, but I can't stand a lot of computer generated stuff - like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I like crazy camera stuff like the circle around Trinity when she's about to kick that guy in the face and the jumping/glitching thing that they do on Burn Notice, and noticing the different amounts of color they allow (Payback is almost entirely on a gray scale). I like HDTV, but I can't stand enormous screens. I don't want to feel like I'm in a theatre; I want to be in my pajamas in my house with a bowl of ice cream.

I like quality sound, not surround sound. I don't like feeling like I'm in the middle of the movie - I like WATCHING the movie. I don't want it to feel more realistic - that's why I'm watching a MOVIE. I don't want to be there; I just want to relax and enjoy seeing/hearing it.

This goes for phones, too. Bigger is not better. I like pushing buttons. (As do the vast majority of small children, I might add. There's just something fun about pushing buttons. It's why I learned to type.) Touch screens are disgusting and seem to be impossible to keep clean - like the sliding glass door in a house full of toddlers. Also, you have to lock your phone to keep from pocket calling people. I don't like to have to unlock my phone, and I don't like to have to push a button before I can say, "Hello?" I like the old way. You pick up the phone and the other person is there.

I like the old stuff. Flip phones; SNES video game graphics; old, normal-size TVs. And I am spectacularly happy that my husband is good with going with what I like for most shared stuff. He can have his 22-inch computer monitor and I'll keep my 15-inch laptop. Once we have a house, we'll probably plug the subwoofer back in as a compromise - I can deal with some WOOF if I don't have to hear it from every corner of the house.

I like simplicity. I like less cords and less mess. I like a phone that doesn't need to have security measures on it to prevent me from accidentally calling people. I like when things that are obviously NOT going to look realistic (like video game graphics) don't bother trying so hard. In the end, I don't want an iphone or a droid and I definitely don't want a touch screen. And it's kind of annoying when it's so hard to find something simple because everyone else is so enamored with having MORE.