A Mindful Life

I received an email this morning announcing a study. I participated. Here’s the information:
ATTENTION BLOGGERS!
I am a doctoral student in Communication Studies at Kent State University. For my doctoral dissertation, I am studying bloggers. Would you be willing to participate in my survey?
This online survey should only take about 15 minutes to complete, and it [...]

The good:

We paid off our car loan and the title arrived today.
Claire discovered the delight of knocking a tower of cloth blocks over. Repeatedly. And she laughed each time.
I repurposed a basket that came with a floral arrangement when Claire was born, converting it into her Easter basket. Not that she’s old enough yet for [...]

We want to provide Claire with a variety of musical exposure. The Music Together songs are an excellent start. We listen to a classical music radio station sometimes. And we have a huge collection of music on CD which is stored also on our computers. (Ain’t technology grand?) So I made seven CDs of music [...]

Ingredients:
1 nearly five-month old baby
Pet store
Parakeets in a big cage
Yourself
Take the baby into the pet store and push the stroller in front of the parakeet cage. Tap gently on the cage containing about 12 blue, green, and yellow parakeets. Say the baby’s name to get her attention and encourage her to gaze toward the cage. [...]

Eden tagged me, and I haven’t played a meme in awhile, and so why not?
A Texan’s (and yes, we still consider ourselves as such) diet must include some of this:

Good with carrots and other veggies:

This stuff really is better than boullion. It’s not as good as stock from scratch, but it serves well:

Husband eats the [...]

In my last post I mentioned Husband and I felt woozy, which prompted a comment of concern by Laurel. She didn’t specify her concern, but I imagine she was thinking about carbon monoxide poisoning. However, there were four reassuring reasons this was not the case: Grandma was feeling fine, the baby was doing better from [...]

Our household has a new digital camera (though technically it’s Husband’s gift to me this year, since I use it 99% of the time). It’s a Canon Powershot A720 IS. I haven’t had time to play with it much yet, but so far I like it!
On a different topic, while I am not a believer [...]

Update: New photos of Claire on Flickr!
One year ago today I learned I was pregnant. For those who haven’t been reading my blog long (or who might have forgotten), here’s the back story. After two miscarriages in 2005, we tried in 2006. I became nervous about the lack of progress, and Husband and I decided [...]

We think the formula change from hypo-allergenic to normal isn’t working. She’s been increasingly fussy the past few days. It could also be that she’s not getting enough day sleep, and Grandma is here, and the world is full of lights, and she’s just growing. But we’re switching back, for the sake of her comfort [...]

For Christmahanakwanzayule, I want:

to be freed of fear;
to be freed of limitation;
to be freed of doubt;
to be freed of denial;
to be freed of loneliness;
to be freed of anger;
to be freed of pain;
to be freed of suffering;

in other words, not to be bound by my ego anymore. And:

I want to take the love that comes my [...]