thewhitelily | (no subject)

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I'm told that the accumulation of material possessions cannot make me happy.

Hmmm. Let's count.

Things currently making me outrageously, deliriously happy include:
• My awesome, awesome house. It's spacious, it's beautiful, and it's increased in value by about a third since we bought it. Three years later and I still walk in every day, look around and say: "Yeah. Win."
• My roomba vacuum robot, which putters around cleaning my awesome, awesome house while I'm at work or asleep or victoriously watching it and imagining building a robot army to TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!!
• My new Toyota Prius (well, second hand, and five months old even to me, but from 2007 which is years newer than I've ever had) which is shiny and white and has brakes that work and which we actually put a steering wheel lock on rather than, as we did with its predecessor the '95 Festiva Trio, leaving it unlocked on the kerb with a sign saying "please take me".
• My Taekwondo trophy, with its shiny little gold-painted figure kicking arse on top.
• My manuscript of Futureproof, currently standing five scenes shy of complete second draft.
• My investment unit, which settled two weeks ago and, despite being highly negatively geared and currently scarily untenanted, I have great confidence was a fabulous deal chiefly thanks to my awesome negotiation skills and ability to be a super-bitch to a real estate agent.
• My new Westpac financial accounts, which through a combination of lesser fees, lower interest rate, and better rewards, will save me approximately $1,800 per year over the Commonwealth, as well as providing me with a significantly more convenient account structure.

And then there's...

Although I will admit that perhaps the happiness associated with that doesn't quite count as a material possession.

We made our official announcement this last weekend at the family/company late-Christmas/fifteen year anniversary party. We usually do a song every year, but this one had a bit of a twist at the end. :) Unless you're particularly enamoured of Hubby's and my singing, you can skip through the first three minutes and ten seconds of boring-to-outsiders company history and in-jokes, to where we're essentially moved a full tone sharper from stress. And my choral conductor claimed it was impossible to sing sharp. :P

Of particular interest are the reactions of Hubby's parents/Teh Bosses, for whom this is a much-anticipated and very long-awaited event. I only wish the cameras could have caught Hubby's parents reactions – I’ve never actually seen anyone’s jaws physically drop before – one of the other people there thought we might have actually induced his dad to a heart attack, which was not an outcome we’d planned for!

So, what else? Um... I'm currently at eight weeks - due on November 11th. So much for NaNoWriMo! Baby has been codenamed Agatha after Agatha Heterodyne: Girl Genius - no pressure, of course. :P She's already had her first Taekwondo grading last Saturday, although we weren't allowed to take part in the sparring, because it wouldn't be fair given our two-to-one advantage.

I've been feeling queasy, but not unmanageably so, which is awesome, because that makes me about the best morning sickness story I know. Hopefully it's for the right reasons. *is totally a freaking out first time mother already* Oddly enough, since for years I've tended to feel sick when I haven't eaten for too long, I've trained my body to eat whenever I start feeling sick, so I've been eating pretty much constantly for the past week or two. I think it's helping. Eating for two, yay!

In any case, I hope it continues to help, because tomorrow (well, this morning, it looks like, since I'm a slow typer of LJ posts) Hubby and I are off on another trip to the US, this time to California, Nevada, and Arizona. Mostly national parks so, if it turns out that the experience is only just beginning, at least I’ll have something to take my mind of it and, if necessary, can look at the pretty view as I vomit into a pretty bush. I’m sure Hubby will be glad of the opportunity to add a little authenticity to otherwise generic picture-postcard photographs. :)

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...w-wait, so soon there will be little Lilies running around?

p.s. Roombas are amazing. It's oddly comforting when you sit on the floor while they vacuum around you.

Definitely a scary thought, isn't it?

I KNOW! They're awesome, but oddly hypnotic, especially with their little tickly side brush. That's why I'm so suspicious of them.

I THINK IT'S AN EXCITING THOUGHT

Why be suspicious? They're like a dog that doesn't need its crap picked up because it picks up your crap for you.

Well, that too. :)

You don't think that at some point they're going to tire of their life of servitude, band together and rise up to overthrow their oppressors? And that perhaps their hypnotic powers might not seem so benign then? Ah well, perhaps I just live in hope.

Maybe I should turn off anonymous comments so that when LJ inexplicably signs me out it TELLS ME rather than just posting my replies anonymously. :P In any case, that was me.

It's alright, I found some: http://www.gynpages.com/ACOL/california.html ;)

Congrats again! Everyone knows it's nor really official until it's on LJ.

((And by that I of course mean congrats on the Roomba!))

Mozzie!! Play nice with your sister! Don't make me come down there and tell you again.

And thanks, the Roomba's definitely pretty cool. :)

Well, maybe when Albus/Luna qualifies as a human, I will! Until then, s/he is just a potential threat to my monopoly on your attention. :)

SKEEEEEEEET WHAT ARE YOU DOING FUCK YOUR MONOPOLY WE ARE GETTING A FREE DRESS-UP DOLL

You *say* "free", but siblings have this little-known side-effect of dividing your parents' wealth.

Better for parents to spend some of their wealth on the new sibling, than for our sibling to get to play with OUR toys. S/he'll just break them.

NO SHIT SHERLOCK. LILY IS BUYING THE DRESS-UP CLOTHES, SO WE GET THOSE FREE TOO.

Congratulations, Lily! I'm so happy for you!! I hope you have a nice, smooth, easy pregnancy and delivery. :-) I can't wait to hear more!

Thanks so much! Those are exactly the things I hope for. :) And I'm sure you'll scarcely be able to avoid hearing more. ;)

Oh, wow. Best of luck!

Talking with Native Americans is the best thing about the SW - it's a completely different way of looking at the world, one that bothers the rationalist inside of me, but is fascinating nonetheless. There's a very deep sort of beauty about it that extends beyond arbitrary spirits and such. If you have time, try to go out and have a sit down somewhere - Navajo reservation is good for that, but Guadaloupe (Yaqui area within Phoenix) is a bit more accessible. There will be loads of Navajo & Hopi selling stuff alongside the roads too. The terms they use to describe the worldview in English takes a bit of getting used to, but once you get the hang of it... really, really worth it. ~~I wouldn't recommend the peyote, however, given your current state.~~

That, and the most delicious food ever - frybread and cinnamon beans and giantass beaf ribs for the win!

Try to hit Tucson, too. I'm told the ocotillo is beginning to bloom. :-)

Going to one of the border towns would be good. I don't know how your street smarts are, but Nogales and Tijuana are both fascinating places to explore a bit, even within the boundaries of the places designated safe for tourists. Gives you some serious perspective.

I'm assuming you don't speak Spanish It's wicked useful in the SW. People are going to be talking about you a lot without you knowing what the hell is going on.

Also, random, I'll most likely be in San Jose for a conference April 15-18th. I have no idea if this remotely corresponds to your travel plans, but it'd be cool to meet up again.

Again, best of luck. :-)

Thanks heaps!

And hey, cool - thanks for the advice, we'll try to see what we can fit in - it's pretty full on already, thankfully mostly national parks etc. Pretty sure we won't get down to Mexico - we don't really go even close to the border. Will certainly try to chat world view with a Native American, though! And frybread and cinnamon beans?

As for San Jose - ah, nuts! That's right when we're booked in for our conference, and then when we're finishing up with our prebooked package to the Grand Canyon, so I'm afraid we won't be able to coordinate. Ah well, twould have been lovely to meet up again, but I'm afraid it's not to be!

Thanks again. :)

unbelievably tasty. Everything's homemade and amazing.

This isn't in restaurants btw, but a family setting up a big grill on intersections or by gas stations or vistapoints or the like. You'll definitely be stumbling across these places ear national parks, because naturally where they'll be able to make their money. Grand Canyon especially, the highways into that place are just bloated with Navajo and Hopi trying to make a few bucks selling trinkets and beads. The stuff in the reservations is tastier, because they're cooking it for their neighbors and not for tourists, but, still tasty. Everything's cash, too. Really homey, good way to meet people. :-)

Though, with worldview-exchange stuff, a lot of them are really jaded and upset about westerners and about feeling like they have to prostitute their way of life to survive in the system that "white man" has imposed upon them. So, if you get a bit of nastiness for being a curious tourist... well. =P In all fairness they get a lot of shit, though, both historically and then from a lot of new age people who take them to be OH SO COOL DUDE GIVE ME PEYOTE and then neocons who blame theme for all their problems and tell them that they need to suck it up. So... yeah. There's a lot of bitterness right under the skin so don't be surprised about asking questions. It might be a good job to brush up on tribes and politics and stuff if you're going to be asking questions, just so you don't insult people on accident. I remember in a conversation once I dropped reference to how I had a Cherokee ancestor from an orphan adoption by white family and the Apache man I was talking to had a bitchfest about Cherokee intellectual arrogance and how his tribe had gotten lawyered out of their holdings by those damn literate Cherokees in Spanish Texas and then told me that Cherokees weren't real Native Americans and that they had prostituted their souls and that I was a perfect example of this because I was the distant result of an adoption and *then* an intermarriage and was only talking to Natives out of superficial attempt to mimic true Native spirituality and that I was going to be a spiritually empty individual for my entire life because it was impossible for anyone raised in a white man's environment to be spiritually fulfilled... etc. Point being, there's fair bit of animosity between rural versus urban and then East versus West natives in general and you can really get slammed if you say anything about anything because somehow it strikes some sort of sensitive nerve... Not everyone is so hypersensitive, a lot are just really deeply sad, but... it's there. At any rate. It's good stuff to talk about, just be careful. There's such a huge convoluted history behind all this that varies a lot by tribe, beyond the prevailing theme of white-man-fucked-us-over, and citing ignorance isn't going to get a lot of sympathy because many view it as a badge of white man's lies, sheer ignorance. Not that you're expected to know all the nuances of all the tribes here, but just to give you a bit of warning. It's totally worth it and most are incredibly kind and compassionate people, it's just... the 10% who are incredibly bitter and try to make everyone white man develop a guilt complex. Which we sorta deserve, since we really do fuck them over royally even in the present day, but anyway.

Sorry about the ramble, this is just something I get really excited about. :-)

Whoops, c&p messed up. Beginning of message:

Frybread is... frybread. It's something that's common to all the NA tribes that I've ever visited. It varies substantially, but the idea is a sweet fluffy dough that gets... fried? And then covered in something delicious.

All the beans I've ever gotten on Navajo reservations have been slightly sweet and have had cinnamon in them. So

I'm incredibly happy for you. :)

Thanks! I am too. :)

Congratulations!

Thanks!

CONGRATS LILY! =)

THANKS! :)

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