I don’t actually expect to get anything for Christmas.  I am writing it anyway so that a) my husband can stumble upon it and surprise me, and b) so I remember everything I want to splurge on when I win the lottery.

01. A laptop, in pink.
02. All four Post Secret books.
03. Army Wives: The Complete First Season DVD set.
04. A cupcake carrying case. This or this would do nicely.
05. A book signed by Jodi Picoult. Maybe my copy of Nineteen Minutes, with the signature in memory of my mama, who passed in May. (She even tells you how, if you scroll all the way down!)
06. A cupcake beanie for winter.

I’ll probably add to this later, but for now, it’s a good start.

What do you do when you finally realize you’ve outgrown MTV? And not even because you want to.  While watching a marathon of America’s Next Top Model (cycle 10, if you must know) on MTV, and commercials during each break advertised a new reality show, like The X Effect or Parental Control.  While those shows are perfectly fine for anyone who wants to indulge in mindlessness for half an hour, the commercials depressed me tremendously.

Although I am married, although I am ridiculously in love with my husband, and although I love the life I’m in and the decisions I’ve made for myself, I came to a sudden and horrifying realization:

In eight months, I will be too old to audition for anything played on MTV.

Where do I go from here? Am I forced to shop at Kohl’s in the Women’s section instead of Forever 21? Do I have to put my flip-flops away for shoes with straps and velcro? Can I still put my hair in pigtails?

This definitely calls for a beer.

So if I’ve never said so before, I’ve decided to try my hand at some creative writing.  Plot lines and characters seem to come out of nowhere and start swimming in my head until I drain the pool into my keyboard.  It’s certainly not been easy, but I think something good may come of it.  And if not, it’s an outlet that I’m okay with.

I still haven’t made a new layout for Will’s MySpace.  I keep trying, but everything just seems too damned generic to suit him, and I am not comfortable with putting out something that will make him say, “eh.”  I’m working on that next, though.  I just need to be inspired.

When August bleeds into September the entire world erupts, I think.  Suddenly there are a thousand practice dates and open houses and game nights and appointments and commitments to write on schedules, a hundred errands to be run, seventy pencils to be bought, loose leaf paper floating around like snowflakes, and general chaos everyone.  I know it will settle into a routine that we’re all comfortable with before too long, but for now, I just have a headache.

I am in desperate need of a laptop.

I’ve been complimented throughout my life on my writing style.  I don’t speak in the same tone I write, and I don’t generally blog with it, but when I’m loading the dishwasher or washing my hair in the shower, a thought will form.  Just one, like a bubble, about anything at all - I think about snow in August, or why we use the words we do.  I think about my husband, solid and strong, and how I’d love to let words flow through my fingers about him for days.  My daughter, at the fart-jokes-and-burps stage in life, and how she can still retain the pink-polished blonde inside who still screams at the sight of ants.

I wish I could just open a notebook computer and go.  To let the words come out like I did in third grade, but bind them with a front and back cover instead of string through holes punched down the left of my paper.

I’m usually far too self-concious to allow others to read what I write.  I don’t often let just anyone read my emotions, and I take neither praise nor criticism well.  Publishing my thoughts on the internet for anyone to read in a blog that hardly anyone does is frigtening enough - the guise of a new website, maybe?

Look for something soon.