Life thoughts

Watching The Bachelor finale yesterday, and the shocker that was his dramatic change of heart, I was reminded of one of my all time favorite books, "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", by Milan Kundera. In this novel, Tomas is agonizing over the decision to whether be with a girl he barely knows or not... Here is one of my favorite excerpts:

"He remained annoyed with himself until he realized that not knowing what he wanted was actually quite natural.

We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.

Was it better to be with Tereza or to remain alone?

There is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison. We live everything as it comes , without warning, like an actor going on cold. And what can life be worth if the first rehearsal for life is life itself? That is why life is always like a sketch. No, "sketch" is not quite the word, because a sketch is an outline of something, the groundwork for a picture, whereas the sketch that is our life is a sketch for nothing, an outline with no picture.

Einmal ist keinmal, says Tomas to himself. What happens but once, says the German adage, might as well not have happened at all. If we have only one life to live, we might as well not have lived at all."

Last weekend I took my girls to see Slumdog Millionaire (even my ten year old...). One of the best movies I have ever seen... I wanted my daughters to see how truly priviledged they are... I hope the message got through, somehow! They, too, loved the movie and even asked me if they could buy it when it comes out. My 13 year old asked me if people really live like that.... There are those movies you leave at the movie theater, and then there are the ones, like this one, that you take home with you...

On a lighter note, I wanted to tell you about a great blog I have recently come across! O Mundo de Zaphia is a blog by Sofia, a fellow portuguese who posts about her hobby, creating miniature houses!!! Her work is breathtaking, see for yourself!! The blog is in portuguese but has an english translation feature.

Right now she is working on a miniature reproduction of a room featured on "Marie Antoinette", it is absolutely amazing!!!

Sofia and I have also been emailing each other about our struggles with weight loss... Have you noticed that I removed my weight loss ticker from the sidebar? That's because I am extremely frustrated!! As I told you before, my big comfort food was ice cream, I had to have a little bit every day, so with my decision to lose weight came the painful decision to exclude ice cream from my life. I have not had ice cream since January 1st. In addition I have been exercising more frequently. When I weighted myself after one month not only had I not lost weight, I had gained 3 pounds!!! I am sure I am doing a lot of things wrong, and I am slowly becoming aware and correcting them one by one, but I obviously have a looooooong way to go!! Thanks for listening!!!