2019 Birthday CD

It's still happening. Here are the tracks on my sister's 2019 birthday CD:

1) Feel It Still: Portugal. The Man--the hook has the same tune as "Hey there, wait a minute Mr. Postman" from the song by the Marvelettes 
2) Let Me Love You (feat. Justin Bieber): DJ Snake
3) You Know It Doesn't Matter Anymore: Hall & Oates--my new all-time favorite of theirs
4) Southern Nights: Glen Campbell
5) My House: Flo Rida--I first heard this on the day of my uncle's funeral when it was performed by my cousin's animatronic Brigham Young. Someone had to distract us.
6) God's Plan: Drake
7) On Our Own: Bobby Brown--"Too hot to handle, too cold to hold." Probably my favorite song this year. Credit to my husband
8) Supercut: Lorde--credit to my husband
9) Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show: Neil Diamond--I still keep a CD player in the kitchen and listen to old CDs when I'm making dinner, and this track jumped out a few months ago. I like the gospel singers in the background.
10) Amie: Pure Prarie League--heard when I watched the fantastic Freaks & Geeks TV show 
11) Ride Wit Me: Nelly
12) 7 Days: Craig David--they were playing this on the music-go-round ride at the Boardwalk and I was like, "Whaaaat?!"
13) Alone Too Long: Hall & Oates
14) Wham Bam Shang-a-Lang: Silver
15) You've Got It (The Right Stuff): New Kids on the Block-- The Internet just told me it's a Weird Al song that says, "I love the white stuff, baby, in the middle of an Oreo." Oh! They played that on radio Disney growing up.  
16) Rhinestone Eyes: Gorillaz--credit to my husband
17) Walnut Tree: Keane--credit to my husband
18) New Attitude: Patti LaBelle--Dr. Laura used to use this song on her radio show
19) Happy Hour (Lefti Remix): Weezer
20) Rhiannon, lullaby version: Rockabye Baby--the same cousin that made me aware of My House was playing lullaby versions of famous songs in the background at a party he had. There are tons of them, and they are interesting.
21) Cry Me a River, lullaby version: Rockabye Baby

Picky eater

Sister is a picky eater. She just is. At her current age of 6, she eats:

-Whole milk with a couple scoops of chocolate Quik powder
-Cereal bars from Trader Joe's (NOT any other brand like Nutri Grain, etc.!)
-Dinosaur chicken nuggets (ONLY the same brand they carry at Costco!)
-Trader Joe's Tomato Basil, Cilantro-Jalepano, or plain hummus
-Tortilla chips with melted ORANGE cheddar cheese, i.e., nachos
-Some cold cereal with milk: Honey Bunches of Oats, Honey Nut Os, Gorilla Munch
-Most crackers--Wheat Thins, Ritz, graham crackers
-Fruit leathers and fruit snacks
-Strawberries, a couple kinds of apples, dried blueberries
-Sometimes a baby carrot
-Eating out: french fries, chips, milk
-Treats: ice cream, chocolate chips, ice cream sandwiches, most gummy candies, a nibble of a cookie maybe

No bread, noodles, hamburgers, pizza, lunch meat, donuts, or cake!, although she does usually lick the frosting off a cupcake.

The thing she likes best is "chocolate milk and cereal bar," which is limited to 3 per day. 2nd Brother recently noticed the large container of Quik powder we keep on the kitchen counter says in fine print, "Consider limiting weekly intake to three to five 1-cup (8-fluid ounce) servings." Then he said, "[Sister] has 21 servings per week!!" Hmmm, yeah; no more about that, please.

I haven't been too worried because she is physically healthy and bright and learning like she should, but we're always attempting to get her to try new things. For awhile we put a small bit of something on a toothpick at dinner that she only had to touch with her tongue, but we usually didn't force her to do that. I REALLY don't want to give her traumatic food memories that last a lifetime!!

When she turned 6, I told her she had to actually eat the bite for a fuzzy/to choose a new toy from the stash my neighbor gave us/to earn screen time the next day/snuggles with me before bed. (A lot of parents seem to love this, but I am usually ALL DONE, and it's not part of our regular routine). We've had some rough times, like when she tried a piece of grilled cheese and got herself so freaked out that she gagged till she threw up. The same thing happened with a piece of mac 'n' cheese. She would go for long periods without trying anything, and some nights we wouldn't give her a bite to try because it was easier not to deal with it. She recently has claimed she's a vegetarian because she loves animals, but so far she's still eating chicken nuggets.

On the plus side, she has "kind of" liked guacamole and pancakes, but not enough to eat them regularly, and after repeated exposure, she'll eat small pieces of bread or rolls without a fuss. There has been some real hope lately because she likes to help me cook and is often more open to trying the thing she helped make, like this French toast:

or this chocolate bundt cake: 

She actually ate a real portion of French toast the other night--hooray! She didn't like the chocolate cake, but ate a whole mini cupcake made of yellow cake (no frosting!), and said she liked it! Maybe things will work themselves out after all.

Quotes from 2016-18

In 2016, I started recording interesting quotes and thoughts I came across in a note on my phone. It's something I HIGHLY recommend; I would have forgotten 98% of this stuff if I hadn't written it down, and I feel newly inspired when I read over it again. The ones below are some favorites from the time I started until the end of 2018. At that point, I decided to start a "Quotes 2019" note and break the quotes down by year as there were too many of them.

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." --Ralph Waldo Emerson via Jamie

"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young." -Oscar Wilde

"Among the best things we can give each other are good memories." -Henry Nouwen

"Don't let perfect be the enemy of good"

"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing wings on the way down."-Kurt Vonnegut via Pepper on FB

Small things often -Gottman Institute motto

Jerry Seinfeld wants his tombstone to read, “Whatever.”

"I think that little by little I'll be able to solve my problems and survive" -Frida Kahlo

"Feelings are just visitors; let them come and go." -Mooji

"It’s hard to hate someone up close." -Brene Brown

"Do it now; the conditions are always impossible." -quote on Sherel's fridge

"Sometimes the only way to go is to just go on." -from the TV show Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

"Life keeps life-ing you."

"It goes against the American story telling grain to have someone in a situation he cannot get out of, but I think this is very usual in life...and it strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that a man can always solve his problems. There is an implication that if you just have a little more energy, a little more fight, the problem can always be solved. That is so untrue it makes me want to cry—or laugh." -Kurt Vonnegut, via Pepper on Facebook

"Nobody really knew anything, and the whole situation was absurd." -Stanley Kubrick about the Cold War (works for life in general)

I don’t know what falling in love means...but I do remember having a very clear sense that I wanted this to continue –Joan Didion on her marriage 

"Movies are like a machine that generates empathy." -Roger Ebert

"The rocks in the water don't know how the rocks in the sun feel." -Haitian proverb

"I have a real take-all-give-nothing attitude this year." -Andy Warhol

"Go to bed, you'll feel better in the morning" is the human equivalent of 'did you turn it off and back on again?' " -Shower thought on Facebook

"Failure is part of living a full life." -George W. Bush at the funeral of his father, George H.W. Bush

Bumper sticker: "If you’re not in awe you’re not paying attention."

Bumper sticker: "Don’t believe everything you think."

"Those who crusade not for God in themselves but against the devil in others, never succeed in leaving the world better, but leave it as it was or sometimes even perceptibly worse than it was before the crusade began."  -Aldous Huxley

"Forgiveness came not with the fanfare of epiphany but with pain gathering up its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.” -Khaled Hosseini

"Even his griefs are a joy long after to one who remembers all that he wrought and endured." Homer from The Odyssey

"Our mind is devouring itself because it doesn’t have the distraction of sweating and toiling. -Adam Carolla from the book President Me

"My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had someone to live for, someone I must not disappoint." -Thomas Edison

"I want to give my kids just enough so they feel they could do anything but not so much they feel like doing nothing." -Warren Buffet

Progress = happiness -Tony Robbins via the Professor Blastoff podcast

"The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power." -Mary Pickford

"A year from now you'll wish you had started today." 

"I prefer the pain of discipline to the pain of regret." -Jake Gyllenhaal

"Trust is a confident relationship to the unknown." -Rachel Botsman

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased." -Ralph Waldo Emerson 

"This time, like all times, is a very good one if we but know what to do with it" -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"If I am killed I can die but once, but to live in constant dread is to die over and over again" -Abraham Lincoln

"Great leaders use group consensus in data gathering, but not in decision making. Leaders aren’t in the group; leadership is often lonely and creates legions of critics. Leadership is known by the enemies it makes” -Abraham Lincoln

Via The Armstrong and Getty Show radio show and podcast:

"Problems shared dissipate; problems kept secret grow."

"Luck favors the prepared."

"Habits are hard to break, good ones too"

"Most lives extend in a curve. There is a rise of ambition, a rounded peak of maturity, a gentle downward slope of disillusion, and last a flattened grade of waiting for death." -from the book Pastures of Heaven by John Steinbeck

"Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -William Shakespeare from Macbeth

"What can't be cured must be endured." - from the book The Shipping News

"Luxury will only deaden your perceptions, numb your soul." -grandpa in the book Unorthodox 

"Trouble comes cheap and leaves expensive." -from the book Rock Springs by Richard Ford

"Of course individuals can make a difference, but the fact is that evil has had the whip hand in this world ever since Cain. Evil is not going to be vanquished. Our job is to resist it, and to plant the seeds of further resistance so that goodness never entirely vanishes from the universe." -from the book Little Bee by Chris Cleave

"How small we humans are. All our scrambling around trying to buttress ourselves against death. All our efforts to insulate ourselves against uncertainty with codes of behavior and meaningless busyness." -from the book Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

"Her irritation with the world had dampened into a cushion of soft melancholy that went with her everywhere." -from the book The Burgess Boys by Elizabeth Strout

"I tend to think of human beings as huge rubbery test tubes with chemical reactions seething inside...it is a big temptation to me when I create a character to say he is what he is because of faulty wiring or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day -Kurt Vonnegut in the forward to the book Breakfast of Champions

Oneida report after 40 years of communal living when they needed a new leader: "Our members are no longer industrious. They see no object in hard work while the earnings and profits are controlled by others. Without an entrepreneurial steak in advancing the company's earnings, members simply relax into living comfortably off the fat of the community."

Three myths people cling to that make it hard for them to spring back from adversity: 1) they're responsible for what happened to them 2) sadness must carpet their lives wall to wall 3) they will never feel any better. That adversity is personal, pervasive and permanent. -Sheryl Sandburg, FB COO who suddenly and unexpectedly lost her husband on vacation.

From the book Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson:

"Enjoy the non-shitty things now because shitty things are coming."

"My primary thoughts during the holidays are, 'Stab. Stab. Stab. Run away'."

From a college commencement address by Will Ferrell:

"My fear of failure never approached in magnitude my fear of ‘what if ’: What if I never tried at all?”

“After my first show [on Saturday Night Live], one review referred to me as ‘the most annoying newcomer of the new cast.’ Someone showed this to me and I promptly put it on the wall of my office, reminding myself that, to some people, I will be annoying. Some people will not think I’m funny. And that’s OK.”

(To those who don’t know what they want to do with their life): “Enjoy the process of your search without succumbing to the pressure of results. Trust your gut. Keep throwing darts at the dartboard.”

From the book My Life As An Experiment by A.J. Jacobs:

"Sometimes you can pay too much attention."

"Our society overvalues authenticity, the notion that we have to be true to ourselves. When I'm true to my basic instincts, I am a jerk--that's the easy road. The hard part is trying to stand up straight, refrain from injurous words, refuse to be glad at the misfortune of others, and remain skeptical of flying rumors." (from the essay about George Washington and referring to an idea from Richard Brookhiser)

"Don't go to sleep angry? Are you kidding? That's the best thing we ever figured out to do. It's like hitting a reset button. She wakes up fresh, I wake up calm, and we can talk about the argument or not talk about it--that works too."

"It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting."

From the book Tribe by Sebastian Junger:

"Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary."

"Humans need three things to feel content: feel competent at what they do, feel authentic in their lives, feel connected to others."

"The beauty and the tragedy of the modern world is that it eliminates many situations that require people to demonstrate a commitment to the collective good." (because we are protected by police and fire departments, moral behavior is codified into laws and penalties)

"Whatever the technological advances of modern society, the individualized lifestyles that those technologies spawn seem to be deeply brutalizing to the human spirit."

"Because modern society has almost completely eliminated trauma and violence from everyday life, anyone who does suffer those things is deemed to be extraordinarily unfortunate." (can create an identity of victimhood that can delay recovery)

Mom Mary Ann from the book The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe:

"I think parents should do their best not to be unhappy. That's the worst thing for children--to have unhappy parents. If you want to work outside the home, you should. If you can afford not to and you don't want to, then you shouldn't."

"It's almost taken for granted now that people should be encouraged to create. But mom was also content not to make things but just enjoy them. 'Everyone doesn't have to do everything. People forget you can also express yourself by what you choose to admire and support.' "

From the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson:

"Say 'I don’t' instead of 'I can’t' so it becomes part of your identity. I don’t drink, I don't miss a workout instead of I can’t drink or I can't miss a workout."

"If you’ve got a problem, chances are millions of other people of had it in the past, have it now, and are going to have it in the future."

"Your actions actually don’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things and the vast majority of your life will be boring and not noteworthy and that’s OK."

"[Modern culture implies] you need to be great to be accepted in a world that broadcasts only the extraordinary."

"Constant positivity is a form of avoidance, not a valid solution to life‘s problems."

"We don’t actually know what a positive or negative experience is. Some of the most difficult and stressful moments also end up being the most formative and motivating. Some of the best and most gratifying experiences are also the most distracting and demotivating. Don’t trust your conception of positive and negative experiences."

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." -Aristotle

"Don’t just sit there, do something, and the answers will follow. Action isn’t just the effect of motivation; it’s also the cause of it."

"We’re all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by life’s trivialities; we are eaten up by nothing.” -Charles Bukowski:

From the book Daddy Long Legs by Jean Webster:

"It isn’t the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis or face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit."

"The feeling often comes over me that I am not at all remarkable...in all probability, I shan’t turn out a bit different from any other ordinary person."

From the book The Birth of the Pill by Jonathan Eig:

Margaret Sanger was "easily annoyed by the petty rivalries of her children" and kept them at a predictable distance.

"A successful man or woman is one who toiling, rejoicing, sorrowing onward through life goes with a clear conscience and a big heart." -Gregory Pincus

From the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson:

-There's a lot under the surface of life...a lot of malice and dread and guilt, and so much loneliness, where you wouldn't really expect to find it, either

-Writing felt like praying...you feel you are with someone

-Man would say, "I am confident I will find great blessing in it" about bad situations

-I got pretty good at pretending I understood more than I did, a skill which has served me through life

-When people asked pastor how God could allow (x), he thought "what would the Lord have to do to tell us he DIDNT allow something?"

-To be useful was the best thing the old men ever hoped for themselves, and to be aimless was their worst fear

-There is no earthly solution to the problems that confront me

-It makes young men happy to do a kindness so perilous and exotic in nature (rigging up antennae in roof for his TV)

-"Grant me on earth what seems Thee best, till death and heaven reveal the rest" (Isaac Watts)

-Age has a tendency to make one's sense of oneself harder to maintain, less robust in some ways

-Augustine says the Lord loves each of us as an only child

From the article "Learning to Love Criticism" from The New York Times:

"All substantive work brings both praise and criticism. Many women carry the unconscious belief that good work will be met mostly — if not exclusively — with praise. Yet in our careers, the terrain is very different: Distinctive work, innovative thinking and controversial decisions garner supporters and critics, especially for women. We need to retrain our minds to expect and accept this."

"Women can also benefit from interpreting feedback as providing information about the preferences and point of view of the person giving the feedback, rather than information about themselves."

From the book The State of Affairs by Esther Perel:

"Never before have our expectations of marriage taken on such epic proportions. We still want everything the traditional family was meant to provide—security, children, property, and respectability—but now we also want our partner to love us, to desire us, to be interested in us. We should be best friends, trusted confidants, and passionate lovers to boot. (We want everything) for the long haul, with one person. And the long haul keeps getting longer.”

"Not only do we have endless demands, but on top of it all we want to be happy. That was once reserved for the afterlife. Now happiness is no longer just a pursuit, but a mandate. We expect one person to give us what once an entire village used to provide, and we live twice as long. It’s a tall order for a party of two."

"Expectations are resentments waiting to happen."

Robert Johnson says romantic love has “supplanted religion as the arena in which men and women seek meaning, transcendence, wholeness, and ecstasy.”

From "Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person," by Alain de Botton in The New York Times:

"Marriage ends up as a hopeful, generous, infinitely kind gamble taken by two people who don’t know yet who they are or who the other might be."

"We mustn’t abandon him or her, only the founding Romantic idea upon which the Western understanding of marriage has been based the last 250 years: that a perfect being exists who can meet all our needs and satisfy our every yearning."

"We need to swap the Romantic view for a tragic (and at points comedic) awareness that every human will frustrate, anger, annoy, madden and disappoint us — and we will (without any malice) do the same to them." 

"This philosophy of pessimism offers a solution to a lot of distress and agitation around marriage. It might sound odd, but pessimism relieves the excessive imaginative pressure that our romantic culture places upon marriage. The failure of one particular partner to save us from our grief and melancholy is not an argument against that person and no sign that a union deserves to fail or be upgraded."

"Romanticism has been unhelpful to us; it is a harsh philosophy. It has made a lot of what we go through in marriage seem exceptional and appalling. We end up lonely and convinced that our union, with its imperfections, is not normal."