Dillon

Another baby, but this time its a boy!! Duet Farm's Dillon born on 4/3/09. Check out daddy @ www.clearheartconnemaras.com

EverClear

Evie was born on Friday April 4th a beautiful healthy long-legged baby girl! Check out dad @ www.clearheartconnemaras.com

it is communication

Last night I watch Lars and the Real Girl. For those of you who have not watched this film I highly recommend it and encourage you to run and pick it up to watch with dinner tonight. Much of this movie dealt with communication or lack there of in our daily lives and how we can be affected by it. It made me think of how often we have communication errors with loved one and we don't realize that the error has been made and it could be years later when we realize how that small misstep altered our future. Something like 90% or more off all communication is body language, inflection, tone and expression. Here lately though there is less and less verbal communication with e-mail and texting and fax and typed letter. So it begs the question are we communicating properly if the reader is only able to grasp 10% of what we are trying to say? The Oxford English Dictionary says that there are approximately 250,000 words in the English language and about 20% of those words are not in use. That mean while we are using so much of the written word in current communication we are not using approximately 50,000 available words to get our point across. On late night TV last night they were making a spoof about Merriam-Webster Dictionary changing proper use of words, ie; the word literally is now to be expressly used in any context except when something is literal. Example my head literally exploded with information. Funny but true unfortunately. There are so many words that we use that mean entirely different things than the context that we are using them. Take awful for example. Awful technically means full of awe, awe is something inspiring, large, magnificent yet we use it as something that is horrid, wretched, disgusting (ie; That egg smells awful). The word extraordinary if taken apart means exceptionally plain yet we use it as something exceptionally out of the ordinary. I guess what I am attempting to convey is this, watch what you say, type, express or write. Understanding communication amongst ourselves is every important and we should not take it forgranted, we should not be lazy in our speech and we should use as much of the human language as we possibly can and as properly as possible.

it is the way we forget

I drove past a stone pillar today surrounded by highway. It was old, probably at one point marking a farm entrance, it stood solitary and strong watching the world move and change around it. The farm was gone, the land eaten by concrete. The farm house was no where to been seen, probably fallen or torn down after neglect. The cattle, the horses, the sheep, buggies and people all gone yet this stone monument standing the test of time, almost forgotten by the rest of the world. It caused me to think about all that has gone on before me. How much of the world has lived, how much has been forgotten, lost for the rest of civilization. I am a person who loves history, I love knowing what has happened in the past, it fascinates me to watch people run the same cycles over and over again. It amazes me how easy it is for so many people to disregard the past and think that it will not effect their future. I find it shockingly horrid that so many of my peers don't know the history of the subject of their major at school, their parents history, let alone their forefathers history and especially not their country. The mortifying lack of responsibility by the elders in this country to teach the young generation about their lives, their fathers' lives and their ancestors lives is wretched. In my family for example I know that my mother's parents came on a boat from Italy but I know nothing of their lives in Italy or their families in Italy. This is not my mother's fault, nor is it her mother's fault but however my mother's mother's fault for refusing to tell stories of the old country to her children. I am grateful to my both of my parents for having an interest themselves in our history and for telling me stories of their childhood. I hope that everyone will not try to forget their past, that they will hold onto it, even the hard parts. That way at least they can learn from their own lives and maybe their children will learn from it as well.

it is polite propriety

You could classify me as a "good girl" a "nice girl" or any other sweet adjective. Working in customer service I am nice, sweet or good to many people in a day. In my past friendships I have been on the giver, or better put the used one in the relationships. As I was watching Brothers and Sisters Sunday night the end one of the Characters puts aside what she wants to be doing in order to be polite to another and I couldn't help but seeing my present and past in this act. How many times a day to I talk to someone a little longer than I wanted to let someone use my cell phone when I don't necessarily want them too. Much of this is my job, and I understand that and its fine. But I do still struggle with getting a person to stop talking and when I finally do get them to stop I feel like a total heel. Once I was actually just short with a salesperson who came in to sell me credit card processing. Once he left my mother reprimanded me for being rude, it made me feel worse than I had already. The point I am trying to make is that well I just don't know how to be in control, in charge, direct, assertive without feeling or apparently coming across a total B*. And unfortunately many times the the act of the smiling face always caring even though someone has had the same problems for the 3 years of them coming in here and dumping on me, breaks down while I'm among my family and friends and I take the pent up angst on them in shortness, arguments etc. I feel horrid when this eruption occurs because it's not their fault I've been burying my emotions all day. I hope someday I'll be able to put into practice that in my future the most important person is me and I have to do what is best for me, no matter how selfish I feel, sometimes I have to look out for number one. And hopefully when I have mastered this my family and friends will suffer less, the last people I want to hurt.

it is friendship

Today I had to work a healthy 7 and a half hours on my day off. Oh joy. As I was running around in my shortened free time attempting to get all the necessities of the day done a lot of emotions ran through my head. I am not a person who accepts change very well, which is why I think I am so concerned about the future, I like to have things planned out and as few unknowns as possible. But that is beside the point. The point is that today I had to deal with the fact that all my plans had been canceled and I had to do something I didn’t have any desire to be doing at the moment. In my last few seconds of freedom I got a text from one of my nearest and dearest friends and all it said was “miss you :- )”. And that brought a smile to my face. As we planned a get together when she will be in town next and talked about my little sisters grad school auditions and how her semester was going, all of the sudden I felt like I had a huge pillow of comfort cushioning my loneliness that I felt earlier in the day. I since I know all my friends check on here to see what is going through my brain I wanted to give them a shout out and tell them how much I love them and how truly lucky I am to have each one of them in my life.

it is my answer to my question

A couple of weeks ago I was making a coffee run on a beautiful spring day (in January) to a small retreat center behind this pond (that they call a lake). This retreat center is owned by a local church organization that has kindof taken over our town. They are not bad people and without them economically our town would have died a long time ago. Though I do often find myself disagreeing with their doctrine and theology. Thousands of people flock to this organization from all around the world. Which is cool because I get to meet people from all around the world. I have always wondered though what this "church" has that others don't. Its not really their theology, most non-denominational evangelical churches have many the same views. Its not their "colleges" unaccredited and taught by non PhD wielding smart-pantses. Its not their "prayer rooms" because really anyone can pray anywhere in the universe at any point in time. So what is it? Throughout recent history the Judea-Christian religion has always had some sort or "movement" running through it. And they always come in like the tide and go out the same way. But again my question has been why? Why the Jesus movement in the 60's and 70's, revival tents in the 30's and 40's (and then some)? As I was driving to the little house on the pond it hit me. A sense of belonging. That is why these people flock to this establishment. They are welcome as long as they fit into their click. There were neighbors talking having heated religious debate, joggers praying, a lady walking and reading her Bible. And that was it, these people were longing for a sense of belonging, that someone else is like them and that they know where that person is coming from, that they share their pain. We all as humans are constantly trying to fit in with people, since we were very little. As soon as are parents shoved us out into the great big world of play dates, day care, preschool etc we have tried to find friends, fit in with the crowd. In high school it is painfully evident, the clicks, the popular kids vs the outcasts, drama vs music. Hopefully as we get older we establish our own list of beliefs values morals etc. But there is still that need to not be alone. Say I believe that all paper should be pale yellow while the rest of the world seems to think white is the answer to all professional uses of paper. OK so I am at a paper convention and everyone is talking about how great paper is and how beautiful and crisp white a new package of xerox is, I'm not going to step out and say hey, wouldn't it be great if all paper was a tad yellow. No, bad example. I guess what I am trying to say is I get it, I finally get it. I understand why these people follow blindly after their leader, why they flock to one location to sit and wait for further guidance. Its because they feel like in this little corner of the world they belong, they have a purpose in something bigger than themselves, they feel like they have a community around them that will support them throughout the rest of their lives here on earth. And really who can blame them because don't we all do that in our own lives, even if in very small ways?

it is a sad portrayal

I went last night to go see He's Just Not that into you with my girlfriends and it was a terrible film I don't recommend anyone go and see it. Every single man in this film was an unmitigated ass. They tied much of their relationships around sex whether or not he or she was sleeping with you and at what point in the dating relationship should you have sex with a person and if that was not happening then you should probably get out of said relationship because that mean he/she doesn't like you. And why were these girls having groping make out sessions on the first meeting? Not even date but random meetings in bars. Don't they know that that is how most women are raped murdered beaten and dumped in central park? As a whole it made you want to swear off men feeling that all of them would eventually cheat on you, lie to you, turn into couch potatoes and not care about you and that all men were basically horny beasts. If I were a man I would be furious to be portrayed in such a light. As a single female I felt very happy to be single and not have to deal with their view of the dating scene. The single girls in this movie had such a lack of confidence in themselves they were pathetic. Every single one of them tied their identities into whether or not they had a man. Is that really what single-dom is about? I thought we where empowered women who don't need a man. Where we can fight for equal rights in the work place, that we did not need a man to tell us we are great, we are on our own. That our relationships were relationships of equals. Well apparently i was horridly mistaken.

it is a two person dance

A not so frequent flier came in the other day and when I asked how she was she stated that she had left her husband. When I asked if she thinks that the issues were something that could be worked through she said she had given him the ultimatum to get help or not so she was waiting to see. And then she states, and you know my boyfriend has been giving me grief too... OK so does anyone else see the problem here? I knew a couple several years ago who were getting a divorce because they were too good friends. They never fought the wife said. And he made enough money so all she had to do was run around and do her pet projects. In my mind an excellent marriage, but the wife was bored so she moved out, he was crushed. Another customer has said to me that her husband is not as attentive as she would want him to be. And another has stated that her husband of 11 years has been dictating her life. The thing is I think that if these people would really just stop and think about both sides of the relationship they would see that the other party is not entirely to blame. Somewhere in the Bible it says pull the log out of your own eye before you try to pull the speck from your brothers. I am not sure people pay enough attention to this piece of knowledge. The first customer I mentioned said that she has been waiting 9 years for him to change but they have only been married 7 so that would imply that he had these problems before they wed. The wife who feels her husband doesn't show enough affection? He was that way when they got married and in fact she is well aware of that. The best friends? I will bet you $100 that they got married because they were best friends and that friendship had blossomed into something deeper. The wife who feels her husband is controlling I know for a fact married him for that reason. The point I am trying to make is maybe we are too quick to judge the faults of others than to lay part of that blame on ourselves. A psychology teacher of mine once said, 'Men marry women and want them to stay the same, women marry men planning on changing them.'