New Blog.

I've got a new blog called The Story. It's a shared story I'm doing with one other writer (so far). Check it out, part one is up.

Happiness.

I've found in life it ain't easy becoming happy. I have severe depression which makes it even harder for me to obtain happiness. I don't know why I have this depression but one thing I do know: For most of us, happiness is a choice. Even me.

Wait, don't I have severe depression? Yep. Then how am I, someone whose brain chemistry may be screwy, responsible for my own happiness? Simple. If indeed you do have clinical depression it is your responsibility to get help whether it is medication, counseling or whatever.

I'm responsible for my own happiness.

Baby steps.

My baby boy--ten months old now--is walking. Not consistently and usually with some encouragement (i.e. standing him up and pointing him toward Mommy or Grandma) but it still counts. I write this down to remember his baby days because he won't be a baby much longer.

His countenance is still what it has been since he was a month old: He's a happy little guy with an easy smile. This combined with his long, dark eyelashes (a blessing from Mom) gives him a striking appearance that melts my heart every time I look at him. I'm blessed.

Sibling name generator.

Continuing with my ongoing fascination with names, I found a website that specializes in potential sibling names, www.nymbler.com. Simple, really, you type in your current childrens' names and, shazam!, out pops a bunch of suggestions based upon your entries. So I tried it for my kids.

So I entered Robert, Mary, and Elliot. Bam! It popped out fifteen suggestions including Edward, Elizabeth, Ava, Charles, Raymond, Alexander, and Amelia among others. Okay, they are all traditional names (of course) and I must say I like most of the names suggested even though I'd never name one of my kids Ava or Raymond. If you are an Ava or Raymond, my apologies. Out of the fifteen suggestions, there were "only" three I would truly consider for future children: The aforementioned Edward, and Charlotte and Benjamin. Three solid suggestions. So it works. But what if you give your kids unusual or nontraditional names?

My brother has two boys, Cade and Jace, and a girl, Saffron (don't ask). Let's see what happens we we throw those names into the sibling name generator! Jett (boy)? Rance (boy)? Trey? Okaaaay (interesting to note Ava was suggested for both my entries and my brother's). Funny that Blake was suggested since my sis-in-law's bro is named Blake. I guess the sibling name generator works. Next time (if there is a next time) my bro and his wife are expecting a boy, I'll suggest Rance. Heh.

Shared story anyone?

Anyone out there interested in writing a shared story? That is, a story which one of us will start (just a paragraph is necessary) and the next person takes up the next paragraph and so on. This is a fun exercise and it can be challenging.

I'll tell you guys straight up, I've done these shared stories in the past and it has always been a blast. The best thing about it is if you can only contribute a sentence or two once a week, that's fine. But if you like writing a couple paragraphs every day, that works in this format as well. When I've done this in the past, there were three or four folks (like me) who wrote a few paragraphs every day while there were three or four other writers who "only" contributed a few sentences or a paragraph once a week (and then there was that guy who only wrote on Sunday but, boy, his contribution was always HUGE . . .).

If anyone is interested, let me know. I say we need at least four people to contribute otherwise it really isn't worth doing. And there will be a few guidelines/suggestions drawn up if this goes through. And this shared story thingie will have it's own blog. C'mon, I know you want to!

Baby!

Big Baby Boy--otherwise known as Elliot--is six months old.

He's a cute little guy. He's chubby (I call him Chubba Bubba), drools constantly, and smiles all the time. It's nice having a baby who is generally content and very happy. Everyone says he looks like me (no, no, he's not sporting a beard . . . yet) and I agree but he also looks like his older brother did when bro was a baby. He's healthy though he may have eyesight problems in the future since he's inherited a rare disorder from pops (me) that makes the world blurry. His variation of my disorder (a form of cornea dystrophy) may be new to science (great). Glasses (or contacts) are in his future but driving may not be.

I write this to remember what he's like as a baby. It ain't bragging; all babies are equally special. This is only a note to my future self because it's surprisingly easy to forget things about your children as they grow older.