Monday, August 31, 2009

blog overboard

is what happens when i'm buzzed.

anyway my friend over at stuff christian culture likes posted this on her facebook and i'm kind of obsessed with it.

check it out.

i'm in love with lesbians.

i kind of have a huge crush on rachel maddow. i have for a long time.

i dont even know what's going on in this video. i just really like to watch her talk in all her butchness and awkward sarcasm.

one more try

alright guys... i love you all to death, well i don't know if that's really true, but i at least am glad you read and sometimes respond... anyway, point is, despite that love or gladness your book suggestions weren't the most helpful. i have been bookless for a little over two weeks and its been hell. i've tried atlas shrugged, i've tried anna karenina, i've tried the secret history, and its all too much.

a few people i know have been reading these 'sookie stackhouse' novels... and at first i thought they just seemed super lame. (i'm not saying i've changed my mind) but.... that's the exact thought i had about twilight and look at me now, still in love after a year,with no one and no book making as big of an impression. so... i'm starting.

i hope theres enough superficial shit, drama and sex to keep me going. because that's what i like in a good read. unless i'm looking for religion or science.

mustard yellow.

while shopping at urban outfitters this weekend i had an idea....

i feel like all mustard yellow clothing should be taken out of stores and confined to one single store. then everyone should be screened and the people who can pull this color off could get some sort of special ID. then only the people with those IDs could shop in the mustard yellow store, because there aren't many people who can pull this color off, i mean really there's like 5 in the U.S. alone, yet there are a lot of people who think they can. i just think this would be helpful for everyone.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Most beautiful baby


This is the prettiest picture i've ever seen. Ever.


Tuesday, August 25, 2009

sorry

another thing i saw in time that i thought was super interesting, that i'm in love with.

why do other developed countries seem to be so much more conscious, respectful and willing to make changes to their own lives for the greater good than this country? sometimes i just want to move to a country like that, but even more i wish we could just become a country like that. i wish we could stop acting like we are all in it for ourselves. we float together or sink together, when will we really understand this?

p.s. not sorry at all.

blah blah blah

i know, i've been posting a lot of articles lately, but there's stuff i want you guys to read besides my own blog ;)

this article was in time this week and i'm just soooooooo happy that this is something that's becoming an issue that has attention and is actually being really talked about. its soooooo important. i still really really want to see food inc but seth and i can't ever find anyone to watch our kids so we can go see movies. hahahahahahahah... seriously.

i know its a long article but its just SO informative and SO interesting. please please read it!

Monday, August 24, 2009

long lost love

a long time ago a friend showed me the most wonderful man, i mean eternal child, i would ever encounter. i have tried to find him again for years and although it seems like an easy find, it wasn't. polly has been staying with us and we remembered peter, she knew just how to find him.... and he has found a wife since back then which can only mean one thing... god must be real and sovereign.

a lot of you will hate me



so this picture was on the today show and women were going wild over it, so happy that there is a model who looks like them....

i think its great that this lady is a model and that's shes confident in her own skin.

but this lead to a conversation on the today show about where model sizes are headed... and i for one am not in favor of them getting much larger. i dont want models dropping dead on the runway or anything but i want to look at people who look better in clothes than most people do. if i see a model that is unattractive to me the clothes she's wearing are less attractive to me than if they are on someone who looks really really good in them. i want to have something to aspire to... super skinny models to look up to, to want to be as skinny as.... maybe there should be more plus sized models around and stuff... but hopefully this doesn't mean the end of the strikingly skinny model i so dearly love. if i looked at that lady and it looked like me i wouldn't be happy that someone else's stomach looked as bad as mine, if i did it would only be because someone could share in my misery. if i looked at her and felt like we looked the same, i'd just get bummed about my stomach and then wish i was looking at someone with a nice stomach that i wanted to work towards having.

maybe i'm a bitch, but i like my women, and myself, skinny.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

no offense to hairstylists

but i find it really hard to justify spending almost $200 on my hair just as a regular person, but especially as a mother.

at the same time i find it REALLY hard to justify being brunette.

so i decided i would do my own hair. it cost me less than $10 and it looks rull great.

i could need some blue malva, but its hard to even tell and if i do thats a SUPER easy slash cheap remedy.

i can't really explain how difficult it is to get an accurate picture of hair color, especially on roots, but here's the best i could do....





p.s. these pictures are like the least flattering ever, i know ok?

sad

i just think this is SO outrageous.

Gender row athlete Caster Semenya wanted to boycott medal ceremony
Shy Semenya persuaded to accept gold medal
International scrutiny takes toll on teenager

The teenage athlete at the centre of global speculation about her sex wanted to boycott her medal ceremony in protest, an official said today.

Caster Semenya's victory in the women's world championship 800 metres has been overshadowed by a "gender verification test" ordered by athletics officials amid claims that she is actually a man.

The international scrutiny is apparently taking its toll on the shy 18-year-old South African, who grew up in a small village. Leonard Chuene, president of Athletics South Africa, said: "She is not rejoicing. She [didn't] want the medal."

He told the country's Times newspaper: "She said she did not want to go on the podium, but I told her she must. I [was] trying to help her, saying, 'You are not wrong. We love you. The country loves you'."

Semenya changed her mind at the last moment and smiled as she accepted the gold medal, presented by Chuene. But he said she was regretting taking part in the competition in Berlin. "She told me: 'No one has ever said I was not a girl, but here I am not. I am not a boy. Why did you bring me here? You should have left me in my village at home.'"

Chuene expressed outrage at the gender test and the way it had been handled. He said Semenya had been "humiliated" and treated like a "leper".

Psychologists warned of the damaging implications of gender suddenly being questioned. Professor Malcolm Collins, of the UCT/MRC research unit for exercise science and sports medicine, told The Star newspaper: "You can destroy someone's life like this." To grow up believing you are one sex, only to discover you are another, would be "terrifying", he added. "But none of these tests is foolproof, not one of them, and you can cause a lot of damage to the athlete."

Semenya's father, Jacob, told the Times: "We won't accept her having to undergo those tests, and we agree – she should [have] rather rejected the medal. We won't allow our daughter to be disgraced."

Her mother, Dorcus, showed the Guardian a birth certificate saying she is female. Her grandmother, Maphuti Sekgala, 80, said she had helped raise the girl to believe in herself and ignore sniping from others. Sitting in the yard of a simple homestead accessible by a dirt road, she said: "Some people teased her and said, 'This is a man.' I told her don't worry, it's part of life. I told her not to feel pain about it, because she's a girl. She won't be too upset because she knows she's a girl. She has nothing to worry about."

Family and friends in the athlete's home village in northern Limpopo province expressed sympathy for the local sporting heroine. They said that although she wore trousers and played football with boys, Semenya had never faced the humiliating attention she was now experiencing.

Eric Modiba, the principal of her old school, Nthema secondary school in Fairlie, said: "This may demoralise her because I used to accompany her to competitions and it was very rare for people to tease her. She never got angry when she heard them.

"She's a human being and the whole country is angry on her behalf. This girl has been in a lot of competitions, so why such noise today? But I think she's a grown up and, the way I know her, I think she's going to take it cool."

Other villagers, most of whom live off subsistence farming and have only recently acquired electricity, expressed indignation at the doubts over Semenya's sex and promised to celebrate her success when she returned. Groups supporting her have formed on Facebook and the African National Congress has urged South Africans to rally round "our golden girl".

The International Association of Athletics Federation ordered Semenya to take the tests after she made remarkable improvements in her performances in recent months.

The IAAF stresses it does not suspect her of deliberately cheating but questions whether she may have a rare medical condition that gives her an unfair advantage. Nick Davis, an IAAF spokesman, said: "The process was started after Semenya made her startling breakthroughs – a 25-second improvement at 1500m and eight seconds at 800m, just some weeks ago."The ANC's Women's League last night attacked Semenya's critics. It said: "We view these chauvinistic reports and rumours of a 'sex verification process' as a vicious attack on the dignity of Caster Semenya and all women athletes because they suggest that women can only perform to a certain level and that those who exceed this level should be men.

"These deplorable chauvinistic reports and gender stereotypes undermine the iconic resolve and determination of women's quest for equality in all facets of life, including sport."

It urged its members to turn out in support of Semenya when she returns to South Africa on Tuesday morning.

Friday, August 21, 2009

a new outlook

its all over.

all the bad things are done.

the stuff i mentioned that i had been going through the past couple weeks, the stuff that was making want to stay in my bed all day, its all over. i'm so much better. i feel back to myself and so thankful its all over. im sure its annoying that i can't explain, but i just wanted all of you to know that i'm ok, i'm completely better and i dont want to stay under the covers.

life has been so crazy the past 7 months, i mean beyond crazy, and its finally all ending. i feel like everything has been worked through in a sense and the work we have to do from here on out is very do-able and not overwhelming. i'm so thankful to be out of the baby stage with nola because i know that made EVERYTHING crazy.

it might be hard for moms who love being moms to understand, or moms who haven't had post partum depression, but seriously having ppd made me a different person. getting pregnant when you DONT want to at all and when you feel so comepletely not ready is beyond intense, especially when you have a one year old you JUST stopped nursing. for me nursing arabella was crazy, my hormones made me so different and i just wanted to be myself again and right when i got to that point i felt like it was ripped away again by being pregnant with nola. so from the point where i found out i was pregnant with her, i think is when everything slowly started going downhill. i'm so so so thankful for nola and since i know her i can't not love her.... i'm very glad i have her. but that was just my limit and i really was pushed by life over my edge. really over.

i feel like this last event was the very bottom of that deep deep valley that i was pushed into and i've come out. i can feel myself climbing and the incline is mild and steady.

i'm really excited for the new way i feel that seth and i are making our life together. for the time we've been together we've always just 'let things work out'... got married fast and thought 'well it'll just work out'... we had kids fast and young and thought it would 'just work out'... we were making the decisions but acting like we weren't. we were chosing how our lives would look but maybe not the best way we could have and thinking more along the lines of it working out than thinking about how we could make it the best possible... how we could make it really truly what we wanted and how we wanted. i dont like how people put their lives in the hands of someone else (or so to speak because truly its still in your hands). when we do that its like we're making huge decisions, hoping it will work out and blaming the outcome on someone or something else. i'm so excited that we have started to make decisions for our life because we KNOW what we want, we know what we want for ourselves, our children and our future and we will act accordingly. no more letting things happen and hoping they 'work out' no more making foolish decisions or hasty decisions and talking about how even though its maybe not the best it will be ok. sure its ok, its all turned out ok... but there has been A LOT of work and A LOT of heartache that could have been avoided with a little wisdom and responsibility. anyway all this is just to say that i'm super excited about the new outlook i feel like we both have on this life we are creating together. i'm excited because it feels like we are on the same page and it feels like there is hope. it feels good to truly know that we can create the life we want, we dont have to just take life as it comes... we are the ones making it... we are the ones defining it.

Monday, August 17, 2009

rex

so i got an email from one of my readers that said a lot of sweet things and also this...

I was wondering if you could help my husband and I out. We entered our puppy, Rex, into the "Cutest Dog Competition" and really want to win so we can donate our reward to the IRC (International Rescue Committee). The IRC is a great organzation that works on the front lines in the Congo, Sudan, Colombia and other war torn nations. We are trying to get as many votes as we can. It honestly just takes two seconds to vote. Just one click. I know that A LOT of people read your blog, and if you could help us out by posting this link and asking people to vote, and book mark the page, and vote everyday (until Saturday) for a good cause, I would forever be grateful.



i would love if all of you, at least the people who read that are my friends in real life, would participate. i'm going to vote every day and it'd be cool if you all did also. i'd be SUPER excited if not only the people i know in real life voted but all my readers that i dont know did too. i'm posting this because it means a lot when people read my blog and it means a lot when they relate to me, learn from me or are encouraged by me... thats why i write. so if i can do something to help one of my readers, i will. also this dog is really cute, and i dont even like dogs. plus its name is rex, and i once dated a guy named rex so it must be a sign.. haha. alright welp.... hopefully you'll all help her out!
thanks

i made the entire quote a link just so its THAT MUCH easier for you all to vote ;)

Friday, August 14, 2009

damn healthcare

ok, so i haven't heard one legitimate reason why people are upset about health care reform. the only complaints i've heard have been things that have been shown to be lies... so any of my friends or even people who read that i dont know personally who are rational, calm, intelligent people that disagree with health care reform or with all that's going on with this health bill or plan etc... i'd like to know the reasons. reasons that haven't been exposed as lies. i'm seriously asking, because i dont get it. is it just that you dont want governemnt involved? if that's it then before you tell me i have to ask you to think about how the government controls the postal service, or the fire department... do you want those to become private businesses? if so why?

secondly i keep hearing people talk about how canada's health care system is terrible and the same with the UK. the only people i've heard this from are right wing americans. i'd like to hear what ANYONE from those places has to say about their healthcare. i know that a couple hundred of you from both the UK and Canada read ... so i'd like you to speak up. if you'd rather email me that's cool too (ibloomblaum@hotmail.com). i've never heard anything bad about your systems from anyone i know living in those places, so if theres bad, i'd like to hear it from you. if you love it, i'd like to hear that too. i'm just sick of people acting like you all hate your healthcare and its the worst when not only does your care rank above ours, you also have lower infant mortality rates, amazing coverage for mothers, no one dies because they cant get healthcare, and you all, on average, live longer. so please, let me hear from you. i'm begging you. please. i'd also love to hear your perspective on our country and our healthcare system as much as you know about it. .... ok... thanks! please write!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

ugh

wait, did you quit so you could spend more time doing this? i mean... is this why you didn't quit....?

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

learn from my baby

i've been thinking about how i've been viewing myself lately and i don't like it.

a lot of you may get the impression that i am my biggest fan, and that's true, but i'm also very hard on myself. only in one specific way ;) i've become the kind of person that looks at myself as more dysfunctional than the people around me. i think this is something i'm sensitive to feeling and have taken on from others who feel this way about me. i have NEVER EVER used my past as my crutch. EVER. i have only the past couple years even started to admit to the fact that whether i like it or not my past affects me. i dont think it makes me who i am, but it affects me and i have to decide how, how i let it. anyway, because i have been surrounded mostly by people who would be considered the social norm... (i know nothing is truly normal but i think you all can understand what i mean, grew up in a family oriented home, parents still together, grew up being taught right and wrong, etc.) i have started to see myself as not normal and like there is something wrong with me. i have started to see the things i want to get better at and overcome as dysfunction and things these people don't deal with. i've gotten into the position with some people where i feel like the "bad" one and they are holding out hope that i'll get "better".. they're trying not to give up on me because i'm hard to "deal" with etc.... but today i realized that thats horrible! and ridiculous. i am NOT a dysfunctional person. i came from a dysfunctional home, but i am very functional, strong, smart, funny, motivated, determined and loving (yep i said it, loving). i'm a good mother, a good wife, and a good friend. i know these things about myself. i have made mistakes, but i have let those mistakes overshadow who i really am, in my mind. i've beat myself up inside and felt like i'm the worse one, the bad one, that im not as good as the other people in my life because they dont make those same bad decisions. but they just make other "bad" decisions, and if they haven't yet they will at some point, because that's what people do. we make bad decisions sometimes, and then we learn from them and don't make those same decisions next time. i'm not worse because at this time in my life i made some bad decisions, and i'm not dysfunctional. i'm just a person. besides that i have a million things about me that are really great and i may have strengths where those others have weaknesses.

i dont want to feel like i'm hanging by someones friendship thread anymore, and i'm not going to. i'm worth more than that. i'm not a hard person to deal with for everyone, just some people. i could take a lesson from my daughter here and realize that some people dont think i'm great but a lot of people do think i'm great. i want to be around the people who think i'm great and i want to be around people who i think are great! that's just where it works, where there's love, unconditional love. everyone has faults and everyone makes mistakes, i know i'll learn as i go how to make less of them, as will you, but in the mean time i want to be around people who dont feel like giving up on me because i make a mistake. i dont feel like giving up on my friends when they make mistakes and i dont want to feel like giving up on myself when i make mistakes. if i feel like giving up on a friendship its usually because i dont care about that person very much, so really we probably shouldn't be friends in the first place.... i want to be friends with myself and treat me how i would treat my friends. i also want to surround myself with people who treat me the same way. i want to be around people who really see me and appreciate who i am no matter what mistakes i make, and i want to do that for them. hanging out with people who think you are great just as you are is what makes you want to live up to that and beyond. hanging out with people who are waiting on you to change or get better only makes you feel like shit. same with what you think about yourself.

i know there have been very specific things weighing my heart down, but i think part of all that has to do with how i've been looking at myself the past couple weeks. and i'm done. i'm going to take this opportunity to remember who i am and be that person. i am sorry for my mistakes, but they are over, i have to let them go. i have to move on and keep being myself now with a little more learning and life under my belt. make better decisions in the future and be good at loving the people i love, which is who i am and something i am good at... despite how i've felt lately.

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

have a glass of wine

and then chill the fuck out.

ok, first of all i'm SO sick of people calling each other "un-american"... i mean can you really call another american unamerican? for things like shouting? no.... for things like torture that go against our constitution, i'll give you that nancy, but shouting... lets chill out.

that being said... can the shouting stop? and can you stop acting like you dont have freedom of speech because the opposing side would like you to debate and ask questions like an educated adult? i mean really. lets grow up.

the only other thing i'd like to say about what im hearing about this health care debate is that if you are pro-life and you think its crazy that you could end up paying for other peoples abortions under a government plan, realize that you ALREADY do through your private insurance and then get a grip. i dont want to pay for women to have elected c-sections they dont need, i dont want to pay for people to have 5 damn kids when i think they should stick to 1 or 2... but those are my opinions and that is their right... so i pay and in return i receive the care i want and have the right to, including the right to have an abortion that is covered by my insurance.

oh and i guess one more thing.... if you are going to flip about about something, make sure its true first. its super annoying and just makes you look like an uneducated ass when you dont know what the hell you're talking about.

i'm not saying i'm for this health bill, i'm just saying stop listening to fox, cause their insane idiots making wild untrue accusations (i think they have a quota for how many people or groups of people that they have to call 'Nazis' every year), then have legitimate arguments and bring them to the table like mature adults.

Monday, August 10, 2009

just some pictures.

best friends. how's noah's diap? haha poor saggy babe.



ara "sleeping" on her pool floatie.


the face clover makes ALL the time now. i LOVE it.


arabella is so pretty these days. its crazy.


lola and her long eyelashes.




ara asked me to take a picture of her and her "donkey".





and my pretty little tan family.





i'm so thankful for this family. lately every night after ara goes to bed i just cry because i miss her. i've needed her face SO badly lately. she's the only thing that's been able to really make me feel happy and ok. tonight is the first night in almost a week i haven't crawled into my bed and cried after she's asleep.

some people dont. but a lot of people do.

today arabella was going to the bathroom and i was sitting on the couch waiting for her, she had the door open and was talking to me. she started to tell me a story about how some 'big kid girls' told her she wasn't a big girl and she wasn't great at school today. the first time she told me the story it was the saddest slash cutest thing i have ever heard. she said they told her she wasn't big and wasn't great and she said that she was. she said (while she shrugged her shoulders and put her hands up as if to say "oh well") "some people dont think i'm great, but a lot of people do think i'm great." i had her tell me the story again so i could make a video of it. its so adorable. my sweet baby, how sad that anyone would EVER tell her she's not great! if you've met her you know how ridiculous that is... and that's not just cause she's mine... i would think it even if i just met her. she's beyond great.

*dont mind the part where she breaks away and talks about her vagina... she was going to the bathroom still so she just got side tracked.. .they do that.

Sunday, August 9, 2009

burrow

i am undoubtedly going through the hardest thing i have ever gone through in my life to date, i never could have imagined that this would be so incredibly hard and heartbreaking and painful. i feel so tired. so, so tired. i'm thankful that seth and i are as close as we are and i am so thankful to have him to lean on when i am weak beyond words. these days i have to fight everyday to pull the covers off, put my feet on the floor and stand up. i can't explain what i'm going through, i can't let anyone in on this one because as part of my growing up i have realized there is a time that my life needs its space, needs its privacy. but i feel i have to express the pain i'm in or its going to overcome me. my heart feelings have translated into physical pain, the tiredness of my emotions have made me tired in my everday life. i ache all over, my eyes feel exhausted, my bones feel tense. there's no 'being strong' through this one. this is the one where i have to just release myself, feel the pain, feel the brokenness, feel the frustration at myself and let it work its way through somehow.

i have never felt life be so completely overwhelming before. i have reached my capacity and i'm hanging by a thread willing myself not to fall. i know i will get through this, i will manage, i will be ok. that's what i do. but this place is heartache, heartache like i've never experienced. foreign. that's it, its so foreign. i feel pain but pain like nothing i've felt and i dont understand how to cope. its hard to cope when i dont recognize the intruder, and its hard to find a way when all my mechanisms have been put to shame. i'm so thankful for my darling girls. for their sweet smiles and amazing hearts, they are the reason i get out of bed everyday, they are the reason i grow at all, they are the reason i love. they are keeping me alive. when you're a mother its very hard to find the balance in letting whats going on in life have its place and keeping those things from touching your children in any sort of hurtful way. i strive to always, in spite of anything i may ever go through or feel, make this home a home for my babies and surround them with all i have to give.

i wish i was so small, a small small animal that could dig itself a burrow and crawl deep inside, curl up and sleep. sleep, sleep, sleep.

Friday, August 7, 2009

gross

so yesterday i tried to just go back to a normal blogger template because i have needed seth to fix some things on my blog for QUITE a while and was getting tired of the unfriendly navigation on my blog. when i did it i somehow ruined everything and then couldn't put my code back in because i had updated something... weird. so anyway that's why my blog looks mediocre and why its all weird... also if you happened to see the pregnancy ticker that popped up for a couple hours without me knowing yesterday, that was code left over from when i was pregnant with nola. (my sister texted me asking if i was pregnant, which is how i knew it was up) anyway, i dont know if anyone else saw it, but it was from nola.

so sorry my blog is ugly right now. i'm hoping in the VERY near future seth will help me out.

also in the midst i ruined my analytics so if you feel like stalking me, go ahead, i won't know ;)

money really can buy you anything.

i heard this on npr this morning and i thought it was interesting. i'm not one of those people who thinks money is the root of all evil. i love money, and i think you have to love money and treat it with respect in order to have a good relationship with it. if you think of money as something that will bring you down, it will. if you think of money as just a necessity, that's what it will be. money is to us what we make it. so to me, i really enjoy that money relieves pain and brings a sense of strength. as with anything dont let this make you think that i support obession with money, everything in balance and moderation.

Study: Your Brain Thinks Money Is A Drug

If you've ever thought of money as a drug, you may be more right than you know. New research shows that counting money — just handling the bills — can make things less painful.

"It is surprising," says Kathleen Vohs, a professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management who participated in the research. "It still surprises me."

The experiments were conducted by a colleague of Vohs' in China. Students came into the lab and were told they would be participating in a test of finger dexterity. One group was given a pile of Chinese currency to count. Another group was given blank pieces of paper to count.

Then, some of the students were asked to put their fingers in bowls of water heated to 122 degrees Fahrenheit and rate how uncomfortable it felt.

"The subjects who had earlier been counting money and had their hands in the painfully hot water reported that the water didn't feel so hot to them, compared to people who had counted slips of paper," Vohs says.

How hot is 122 degrees Fahrenheit? Not hot enough to do lasting damage, but hotter than the Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends setting your home water heater. I heated some water in the microwave and used a thermometer to make sure I'd hit the mark — I can testify that 122 degrees is uncomfortable. "Like a hot hot tub?" Vohs asked during our interview. Yes. "Good, OK," she said, then confessed, "Boy, you know I never did that."

Money As A Substitute For Love

The experiment and related ones are described in a research paper titled The Symbolic Power of Money, published in the journal Psychological Science. Combined with earlier work, it maps out a curious connection. As far as your brain's concerned, money can act as a substitute for social acceptance, reducing social discomfort and, by extension, physical discomfort and even pain.

Researcher Xinyue Zhou, of the department of psychology at Sun Yat-Sen University in China, puts it in very human terms. "We think money works as a substitute for another pain buffer — love."

Past research has shown that a social relationship can make things hurt less. "If you dip your hand in hot water, if someone is standing there beside you, then you feel less pain," Zhou says. "That was a classic experiment."

Money as a substitute for social acceptance and love? Zhou laughs and admits that it's kind of sad. "All substitutes are sad."

Vohs found the results of the money-handling experiment especially surprising because the effects last so long. Sometimes a full 10 minutes had elapsed between the time students handled the money and the instant they put their fingers in the water.

The researchers had them fill out surveys as they waited. The responses offered some clues as to what was going on in the brain. The students were asked a litany of questions: Did they feel happier after counting the money, or sadder? What stood out, Vohs says, was a feeling of strength. "When subjects had been reminded of money, 10 minutes later they said inexplicably they just felt stronger," Vohs says.

The Power Of 'Priming'

The experiment could prove groundbreaking. "It's a substantial finding," says Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business. The research "has the potential to be something of a discovery, which we don't always have all that often in psychology."

Epley says the long-lasting connection between being reminded of money and feeling less pain appears to be an elaborate example of something psychologists call priming, in which thinking about one thing can subconsciously trigger a related response.

Epley cites another experiment where subjects were primed to think about old people. "It turns out that if you make people think about old people, lo and behold, they walk more slowly!"

Economists have studied money for ages — how prices, for instance, can efficiently direct the flow of resources. But meanwhile, in our brains, money has become a curious force, in this case behaving a bit like aspirin.

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

you have a new fan.

my hair looks fierce and champagne.

tested

i have been on this journey of finding what i believe, who i believe god is, what i believe life is and what it is meant for, for the past 4 years and just in the last year i have finally come to some foundations for myself. i will never say again that what i believe to be truth IS the absolute and i will never say its for everyone, but aside from doing that i can still have core beliefs that i hold for myself. i have gotten to the place where i have defined what those things are in my life and said out loud that i believe them and choose them as something i want to implement in my life. up until now i have not had them tested, by life. i have not had anything stare me in the face and say "do you believe this enough to act on it? do you really stand by what you have said you believe about who god is?", until now. i have some things starring me in the face, testing me, questioning all that i've built up in my foundation, asking me to stand by what i've chosen, and you know what? i do. i stand by what i have finally found to be true about god, to be true about life. its hard to be tested, its hard to have to live core beliefs out in a big way but at the same time its good for me to be able to really see myself hold to something i find to be true. its been a long time.

i know i will always grow, and always move forward, with that comes change. change will come in my life again, in my religious views, in my beliefs about life, but i believe i have found very important foundations for all the rest to build upon. however hard it was to go through these past four years and however hard it is to go through my present i'm thankful for all of it. i'm thankful that all of it has brought me peace with god, peace with life, peace with death and mostly peace with myself.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

alls we have to do

keep it light

well this is what i look like while i'm writing this post, so dont take it tooooooo seriously.

i was watching everybody loves raymond, and a commercial came on for house. it was a commercial for a rerun i think, i dont know because i dont watch that show, it looks crazy boring to me.

anyway the commercial was about an episode where there's a man who is dying that is in prison for killing four people and they're debating whether to save him or not. immediately it made me think about what i would do, what "should" be done etc. i thought of all this mainly because seth has actually brought this kind of thing up recently a couple times. i know he's had some conversations with some of his friends lately about when killing is 'right' or if it ever is.

i'm sure most of you know that i fully support abortion being legal and if i found myself in a position where i felt that was my best option, wouldn't be opposed to going that route. first of all i have to say this just so the argument doesn't end up about abortion, because that's not really what we've been discussing and there are two things i need to say about abortion just to make clear why its not really something i'm interested in talking about... one is that to me its not necessarily killing someone, the jury is still out on that one for me, and two is that i dont necessarily think its 'right' per say.. im just not opposed to doing things i think are 'wrong' or could be considered wrong by others or even myself if the situation calls for it.

ok so moving on... i dont agree with there being a death penalty. it seems strange to me to dispose of people because they made choices that hurt others. i certainly believe that people should be punished for doing horrific things, but death seems very drastic. so hopeless. like once you've done something all of us decide we can't forgive, we're done with you, we decide that you have no hope and nothing left to offer anyone. its a weird idea for me because on one hand i totally understand the argument seth puts forward, which is that killing is wrong in any situation. across the board. never ever right. ever. killing for what you determine is justice does not make killing right. so on one hand i agree, i feel like i get that point and even if you feel justice when you kill because that person has wronged so terribly not only does that not make the action of taking someone else's life ok, but who are you to determine what justice is? there are people who want to kill others because they believe god told them to, that their god wants them to. in their minds, this is justice. to us it is terrorism. if a man killed your child and you killed him to you it is justice, to his family or ones who loved him it is still wrong despite his wrongs. this doesn't mean seth doesn't understand the idea that people kill for 'justice', he just believes it doesn't make it right.

now at the same time i have a hard time agreeing completely because it is SOOOOOO ridiculously hard for me to even decide that something is 'wrong'. using the words wrong and right is one of the hardest things to do for me. in my mind there are choices that are better for you than others, but not necessarily right or wrong... and even when i believe something is wrong, that doesn't make it wrong. that just makes it my own conviction. we have decided as a society that killing is 'wrong', but really what we are saying is that its not best for us, in certain arenas. it doesn't make things any better, it usually makes things worse, not just for the people who's families get someone ripped out of them but for the ones who kill and find something cold inside of them that will never go away.

again, at the same time as thinking of all of this i think about how i, myself, believe that oppressing another persons rights is wrong.... haha... seriously though.... so oppressing someones rights to the same things you decide you have rights to in my mind is wrong. its injustice. its not just not whats best for both parties but i feel that it is actually injustice. me believing this doesn't make it true. to me there's not much that i believe is right or wrong. i define righ and wrong like this: there is only what is better for me, what will make me grow, move forward, be a better person and love better. there is only what is better for our society, what will make us grow, move forward, be a better people and teach us to love each other better. but even then i am deciding what i think will make me or my society better, and a thousand other people will see it the opposite way. we have decided collectively that we believe killing is wrong.... at the same time, we have decided it is very acceptable and very necessary. i'm certainly a person who believes in government, rule and order. which is very contradictory to my own nature, because i dont see in black and white. is the only answer that things that are wrong are just sometimes necessary?

i want to know what people's views are on this. obviously i think myself back and forth and i have a stance, but my stance leaves me with no true black and white... which is exactly where i usually am.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Oxycontin

i was staying at lane and erins house. erin was reading some new book from the twilight series that doesn't exist in real life... she kept telling me there was this character in it that she knew was my soul mate.. that he had long black hair (grooooossssss) and was just like our friend jake (but in my dream it was not jacob black). i was like "uhhhhh what?! then why would he be my soulmate!?"... then we were all sitting in the living room and her and lane were telling me that our friend jake was in love with me. i was like 'no, that's really weird and no, no, no, no... he would never be that way to me, that's super weird.' and they were just CONVINCED he was... they were telling me how whenever they watch videos of me at their house (uh.... this does NOT happen in real life) that they could tell he was super obsessed with me so i needed to be careful with him... i was like 'well, i dont ever talk to him, so i think we're good...' then erin had to leave to take food and cake she had made for this youth group to an event... the whole time she was gone i hung out with all our girlfriends and was explaining why girls dont like me, uh except for all of them. she was gone for a super long time and called me on her way back. right when she was going to get home seth was going to be there to pick me up. she said she had gotten lost and it had taken her 7 hours to get there. in my dream they lived in kentucky. she told me that everyone liked her cake but said it didn't taste like carrot cake, it tasted like Oxycontin. i was like 'why do people at that youth group know what Oxycontin tastes like!?' she brought it home and sure enough, it tasted just like Oxycontin, which somehow i knew in my dream.