Typos

I love finding typos or grammatical mistakes. And it's not too difficult, if you just keep a watchful eye. I found one at the doctor's office last week. I suppose I find it gratifying. Here's one I found this morning one World Market.com .

Disclaimer: Just because I enjoy finding typos doesn't mean I never make them!

Money for Trisomy 18

You've probably heard of the Pepsi Refresh campaign, donating $1.3 million to different causes. Where the money is donated is up to us: each cause must be voted in to the top ten.

I'm supporting a cause created by a mom in Kentucky whose child was diagnosed with Trisomy 13. As a result, they were unable to find a doctor willing to help them. This story hit close to home for me, not only because of the Trisomy 13 - which similar to Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 21 (Downs Syndrome) - but because we also had a difficult time finding a doctor that would not only support our decision to carry, but also support us in finding surgeons who would operate. We were told that no doctor would operate on Noah because of his Trisomy.

No parent should not have that option. With $50,000, this grant would create an online referral system that would help parents find supportive doctors. Well worth the 2 minutes it take to sign up and vote. You can vote up to three times each day.

Hurry, voting closes on August 31.

Learn more: $50K: Care for children with Trisomy 13 and 18

Vote: Using the widget on the Right, or through the link above.

Scary Movies

Dave and I were talking last night about scary movies. I used to love scary movies. When I was in grade school, my friend, Stephanie, and I watched all six of the "Children of the Corn" thrillers. Of course, they were late 80s or early 90s scary movies - can't really be compared to the gore of modern scary movies.  My parents even went to see Blair Witch Project to see if I could see it. I saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre on opening night in college. And now I won't even watch the previews.  So what changed? I used to love having the pants scared off me.  Here's my theory.

Up through college life was very care free, I still had my parents to fall back on if I needed them. My biggest fear was getting a low GPA and failing a final. Post-college I got married and had something to lose. Moving away from my family, having my husband deploy, living in a completely foreign culture: all of this was much scarier than Children of the Corn or Blair Witch.

Life's a lot scarier when it's real. I don't need to be a thrill seeker or an adrenaline junkie and watch scary movies to get a buzz. Real life is much, much scarier than whatever Hollywood can make.

Horror films over-do the blood, guts, and gore to make it scary - to prove a point. But emotional films do the same thing. Think about any movie that makes you cry. Like the Notebook. Both the Notebook and Texas Chainsaw over-embellish to evoke emotion. They just evoke different types of emotion. I can't watch super emotional movies any more either. It used to be that my roommates and I would watch Legends of the Fall once a semester, to get the emotional catharsis that accompanies the viewing. Now I don't need to watch movies to feel something because once again life has proven to be much more emotionally draining than I could have anticipated in my care-free college days.

Baggage

I've thought what I'd want my return-to-the-blog post to be about. But the truth is, I can't organize my thoughts enough to create something that's worthy of remembering Noah, not yet.

So instead I"m just jumping back in with my latest news: I've deactivated my facebook account.

{{gasp}}

I know, I know. It's kind of a big deal. There were several factors going into this. In December and March, when we found and announced we were pregnant, we didn't put it on facebook. In April, when we found out about Noah's condition, we didn't put that on facebook either. And I'm not about to put Noah's death on facebook either. The recent months have made me consider how much I share, and more importantly, to whom I'm sharing with. So that's reason one - Not everyone need to know about my life, my real life. Second reason, thinking back to what I would share on facebook, no one should care if I'm going to Fresno today, having coffee in the morning, or excited about some tv show. In light of everything that's happened to us, these just seem mundane. And my final and third reason for closing my facebook profile - information overload of people I am no longer connected with: seeing people's names come up with information about their lives then makes me carry around that knowledge.

    Baggage. I need to lose the baggage.

People I went to college with are especially special. I had good times with so many people and they were important at some part of my life, and now they aren't not because I stopped liking them or don't want to be friends with them but rather that our lives have taken us different directions. I'm keeping up with those people a) because facebook decides who comes up in my news feed and b) because of the relationship we no longer have.

This is kind of coming out wrong, I'm not exactly sure how to word it all. There are still many people I care about on facebook. I'm just going to move our relationship off of facebook. After all, we are friends in real life not just cyber life.

Relatedly, I can't watch everyone who got pregnant after or at the same time as me have their babies. Selfish, possibly, but protecting myself, yes.

So yes. It's gone. At least for now. It's kind of experimental. It is similar to me quitting coffee cold turkey. It's part of my morning routine and my killing-time routine. We'll see what happens.