Quote du Jour

"Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance."

Quoted from the end of a round-robin email posted on my friend, Missy's page: http://cherokeemis.multiply.com/journal/item/81

Snow in Driveway Photo I promised some of you

You know it's a small world, when Cherei can throw an internet snowball at me from Texas, and it lands smack in my driveway!

I am 5 ft 6-1/2 inches, wearing about 2 inch heels on my boots ... so how high is this snow bank?  The large white blotches in front of the camera are the snow falling when my neighbor took the picture for me last night.

Happy Christmas Eve to all of you.  This is going to be a busy day.  I got up early, and I think I have answered all your comments from my last blog.  (It took me about 3 hours!  Oh my!  But you are ALL worth it.)

Blessings to each of you.  E you later, Rani

All Over the Place

The people I admire the most on Multiply are so "out there."  Each of you is different from me, and yet each of you hold an attraction to my soul.

It's a blog I read tonight that made me sad.  This one: http://lindao6.multiply.com/journal/item/523/We_Need_Each_Other._._._

Because we ought to be connected, I want to be connected, I imagine myself connected, maybe I am connected, but I don't FEEL connected.

And some of you feel smothered by your connectedness.

And I'm a great listener, advice-giver, someone who knows how to find "the quiet center."  And yet, there is not a soul that I would trust with mine.  Not really.  ...

That was a great blog on Linda's page, and I really like what I know of Linda, and I wanted to leave a comment.  But I was too dang sad.  Because my roots don't seem to intertwine, although I try to tangle them.  They've just been chopped too many times!

My parents moved us around every time I got my bearings when I was growing up.

The first man I married was never contented with a blasted thing in life, and he kept changing everything constantly.  On top of which, he rather wanted to be a hermit.

Church connections are supposed to be good ones, but to really be connected at a particular congregation (any of them) you're supposed to bad-mouth the ones that aren't your kind.  I worship, and have raised my youngest son, where the liturgy and the sermons do me the most good.  And he's connected there, having gone to parochial school there "all his life," but I don't really fit.

I'm a church secretary at a different kind of church.  I don't want to worship there.  They don't meet my deepest needs as "my own" church does.  But they are "inclusive" almost to a fault, and I need that.

The friends I've chosen on Multiply (and those who've chosen me) are extremely diverse, from down-home Baptist to Catholic to Pagan or Agnostic ... and I guess that if truth be told, I am a little bit of all those things myself.  (I'm a Lutheran, if you want to know -- Missouri Synod -- with a few unfortunate Baptist and Jewish tendencies, and the occasional respectful irreverence and willingness to dance at the winter solstice.)

Some of my friends are way more sensual than I'd ever care to be.  Some are searching for meaning in life, some are just trying to hold their grip, and some think they've got it all figured out.  Some could care less.

The friends here that I admire most are those who have an opinion -- their own point of view.  Whether they bitch about their mother-in-law, or gripe about bad weather, or try to make everything funny, or just tool around posting glitter graphics, or try to capture the most exquisite moment in words or photography.  Whether they flaunt their intelligence, or only their silliness.

I am a little bit like all of you ... and nothing like any of you.  And I do not share myself completely with anyone but God.  So if He does not exist, then apparently I do not share myself completely with anyone but myself.

"My own counsel will I keep." -- Yoda, from one of the Star Wars movies.

But damn, I sure do wish I really felt as connected, rooted, and intertwined, as my head believes we all are.  Because in my thought life, with my reason, from my world-view, I am convinced of the truth of the blog that set me tip-toeing through melancholy tonight.  I honestly think that, believe it or not, even when we don't speak the same language, we are ALL connected, in the eternal sense of things.

There.  That's as close to revealing as I am able to be.  For what it's worth.

'Nother One Joke du Jour

Dar's picture in my comment box inspired me to search high and low for this one my cousin emailed to me a few years ago.

Are you ready, Dar?  (Maybe you have seen this before ... but your shoveling photo made me think of this one.)

It is called "If Men Vacuumed"

 

 

And since the topic is snow, this is another one the same cousin sent.  I've posted this here before, I think, but it bears repeating:

This one is called, "Happy Hour in Michigan":

 

Joke du Jour

Looking for something else in old emails from one of my cousins, I found this just now:

A 7 year old and a 4 year old are upstairs in their bedroom.

"You know what?" says the 7 year old, "I think it's about time we started swearing."

The 4 year old nods his head in approval.

"When we go downstairs for breakfast I'm gonna swear first, then you swear after me, ok?"

"Ok" the 4 year old agrees with enthusiasm.

The mother walks into the kitchen and asks the 7 year old what he wants for breakfast.

"Oh, S**t mum, I guess I'll have some Coco Pops".

WHACK!! He flew out of his chair, tumbled across the kitchen floor, got up, and ran upstairs crying his eyes out.

She looked at the 4 year old and asked with a stern voice, "And what do YOU want for breakfast, young man?

"I don't know," he blubbers, "but it won't be f**king Coco Pops".

C'est le soule chose que je peux faire

The woman in the white Ford van
Is aching for a song ...
She turns on a country station,
But the ones they play are wrong.
She flips to a gospel station --
A commercial is on the air.
She parks the van,
Walks to the back,
And kneels herself in prayer.

She wants pain set to music,

Deliverance set to rhyme,

The questions, without answers, rolling 'round time after time.

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

Je Revien Tristesse

Another language perhaps,
But one that isn't mine,
Could with joy express the grief
Of the lands I leave behind;
Could with peace express the pain
Of the days and prayers and tears
That within this shell of clay
Laugh and boldly face the years;
Of Tomorrow when it comes
Oh, it has no power on me!
I am beaten, I am worn,
I am ended, I am free.
I'm created,
I create,
I live on eternally;
I am dying, I will die,
It's a bitter birth indeed!
As in labour for a child
As in gasping in a dream
Like a drowning man needs water do I need this year I've seen!
Twirl around and face tomorrow
Take away what wasn't mine
Am I healed and understanding?
If you ask, I'll say I'm fine
Oh, this language cannot tell you
(There's a word, I'm sure, Some Where)
... Might be "man" It might be "woman"
But for God's sake! It's a prayer.
Pack my boxes. I am moving.
Will not cry. I cannot stay.
Won't wear pain upon my shoulder,
I will leave it packed away.
When you see that I am hopeful
It won't be a lie you see --
For both sides of death and living are compatible in me.
And the love that I can give you
Won't begrudge your error or pain;
For a sword has pierced my own heart,
Yet I live, to breed again.

 

-- Poem by Rani Kaye, all rights reserved

My Grandma's Christmas Cookies

2 cups sugar 
1 cup shortening
3 eggs 
1 cup sour milk 
1 teaspoon vanilla  
2 teaspoons baking powder 
1 teaspoon baking soda 
5 cups flour 
1 1/4 teaspoons nutmeg   

Combine sugar, shortening, and eggs.  Add sour milk, and vanilla.  Sift in flour, baking soda, baking powder, and nutmeg.  Chill overnight. 

 

Roll out on well-floured surface and cut with cookie cutter. 

For filled cookies, use 1 teaspoon filling between 2 cookies (see recipes below), and seal edges with warm water before placing on ungreased cookie sheet.  For unfilled cookies, just bake on ungreased cookie sheet, and then decorate cooled cookies with icing (see below).  Bake at 350. 

Raisin Filling:  Combine 1 pound raisins with 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon mace, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, and 1 cup water.  Bring to boil and thicken with a little cornstarch.                                                                         

Date Filling:  Combine 1 pound chopped dates with 1/2 cup sugar and 1 cup water.  Bring to boil.                                                                           

Icing:  Beat 1/4 pound butter with 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla, 3 cups confectioners sugar, and approximately 1/2 cup milk.  Put into separate little dishes and add different color of food coloring to each dish to decorate cooled, unfilled cookies.

 

 

My grandma made these cookies every year when I was a child, and I have made them every year since I have been grown.

Balloon head-gear is optional.

 

 

 

 

Napping while the dough chills is optional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Burning your arm when removing the cookies from the oven is optional.

 

 

 

 

 

Flouring the dog is optional.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Men and boys will definitely paint cookies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because they taste EXACTLY like Christmas!

I Suppose This Could be WHY we own so many books ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A typical date night for Michael and Rani

 

 

My grandpa managed the local IGA food store when I was a wee tot.  They featured "Little Golden Books" and my grandpa bought me a book about once a week.  I've already blogged before about pestering my parents to let me go on Romper Room when I was 3, because I thought it was a real school and they would teach me to read.  I spent most of my free time in high school in the school library.  I spent most of my lunch hours as a young adult at the G.R. public library one block from the building where I worked downtown.

Michael grew up in a small community without a library in rural Wisconsin.  When he came to G.R. to go to college, he started buying books like a kid in a candy store.  By the time I met him, he needed to marry a woman who owned a bigger house than his, because he could barely walk in his house for all the books.  (I do not exxagerate.)

So where do we go for fun?

 

http://ranikaye.multiply.com/photos/album/12/I_Live_in_a_Library

 

 

 

 

Snow Event Number One

I think we got 12 inches.  Here's some photos.

This was taken Friday morning, because the dog, of course, had to go out.

 

 

 

 

 

And then she came in:

 

Then Josh went out to dig:

 

The snow stopped falling in mid afternoon.  In the next photo, you can see what we dug out just to get out the back door, the portion of the driveway he had cleared mid-morning and how deep the snow fell over where he had shovelled., and also how deep it became where he had not removed the snow right next to the car when he had shovelled in the morning.

Okay, so that was yesterday (Friday).  Today we had to dig out again, but the sun shone off and on all day, and it hasn't snowed at all.  Here Josh is hacking at the snow where the plows filled our driveway near the street. 

This afternoon we watched our neighbors digging out their cars that you see in the next photo:

 

The sun was shining when we did our digging.  Here's how pleasant my front porch was in the sunlight (and if you want to see more of our books, I also just posted a photo album of some of our family library http://ranikaye.multiply.com/photos/album/12/I_Live_in_a_Library)

 

The reason I call this blog "Snow Event Number One" is because Snow Event Number Two is scheduled to begin tonight (Saturday) in about another 30 minutes ... and continue until 10 o'clock Monday morning, with possibly another 12 inches, and the bonus feature of blowing and drifting.  So stay tuned!

The sky is NOT falling

Listen up, kids.  I have suffered under self-proclaimed prophets.  I have lived through a number of losses of various sorts.  I fed a family of five, plus 2 dogs, on $30 a week in the late 1980s.  I have been promoted beyond my wildest dreams, then had the whole office closed in a corporate restructuring.  I have gone from well-paid management to learning how to make donuts at minimum wage, and then back up again to corporate accountant, and then laid off by a whole new company.  I have built my own house with my family, and then lost both the house and the family in a divorce.  There's more, and I ain't gonna tell you.  But the sky is NOT falling.

I am not a pollyanna.  I am realistic.  People can survive without a lot of things.  A LOT of things.  Some things matter a lot.  And some things just don't really matter much at all, even though they take up a lot of time and energy.

If you have a particular gripe with religion, or even with God himself -- get over it.  You've probably bought a line of bull.  Prayer is a GOOD thing.  You should try it.  You don't like the way it's gone for you before, or you don't like the way some people who have preached to you in the past have done their preaching or their teaching or whatever -- get over it.  You WOULD be better at coping with all this latest nonsense on earth if you knew it was okay for you to talk to God as if you mattered to him.

Give it a try.

I've got other practical advice I'd be willing to hand out free for nothing.  But the thing you need to know most is what I just told you.  God made you.  God does care how it goes for you.  Have a word with him, even if you start out by yelling.

Building the Log House

            I was really disappointed when my husband capped the well to our pitcher pump.  We owned 15 wooded acres.  The first thing we did after purchasing the land was witch for water and drive a well.  My mother-in-law knew how to witch for water, and the water she found was good.  We drilled the well ourselves.  This was in the late 1980s.  You could still rent the tools to drive your own well then.  I don’t know if you can anymore.  You could still buy a “point” and the pipe for the well, and you could still buy a pitcher pump.  A couple of men and half-grown boys can drive a well.  I have photos, somewhere, I think, of driving the well.  I am certain I have circa-1994 photos of the pitcher pump.

 

            The second thing we did after purchasing the land was construct an outhouse, a good distance from our water source.  I think the outhouse may still be standing, but I don’t think it has been used since about 1996.  My now 18-year-old son was “potty trained” using the outhouse while we were living in “the little trailer” and building the log house.  I know I have photos of that.  In case you don’t know this, the way you keep an outhouse sanitary is by pouring lime into the hole from time to time.

 

            Having water and an outhouse, we used our land for camping for several years.  We bought “the little trailer” and set it up on the property.  That was a big luxury after rainstorms when we camped in the tent.

            Over the course of several years, we marked out trees that were tall and straight, and these eventually became our log house.  We felled the trees with chain saws, dragged them with chains, and stacked them to dry for several years.  My brother-in-law had learned blacksmithing, and he designed and made for us the tools to peel the logs.  I may have pictures of peeling logs.  If I don’t have them, my ex-husband does.  Half-grown boys are good at peeling logs, and they even think it is fun to do.

            About a year before we constructed the log house, we had electricity brought out to our land.  The electric company put in a pole, and brought the power to a “box” on the pole.  We ran temporary lines from that box to “the little trailer” and then we could use electric space heaters in the little trailer.  We could watch TV.  We could cook with small electric appliances like a crock pot, and electric frying pan.  Before we brought in the electricity, we cooked over a campfire or used a propane canister camp stove to cook when we camped.

 

            The year we constructed the log house, we pretty much “moved into” the little trailer for several months.  In other words, we were camping all the time.  I would drive back to our house in the city about once a week to do the laundry.

            We drew our own plans for the building inspector, and the county advised us on all the specifications for building our home, but we built it ourselves.  We had purchased an old tractor to drag logs, and an old high-low to lift them.  We bought prebuilt trusses for the roof, and put them up with some rented equipment.  We purchased plywood to cover the trusses and put on our own shingles.  We hired a bulldozer to dig the foundation, but we laid our own cement block, and put in all the rebar and metal flashings ourselves.

 

            I was the “brains” of the outfit, and my husband and boys were the brawn.  It was my job to do the research and find out how to build a house.  It was their job to do the grunt work.

 

            We purchased a portable saw mill, and milled our own floor joists from logs.  We purchased plywood to cover them.

 

            Altogether, the cost to build the log house was about $30,000, not counting the cost of the land which contained all the trees.  We didn’t build the house until we had the money.  That $30,000 also included the cost to have a deeper well drilled by a professional, and the purchase of an electric pump.  We also had a professional install a septic system.  And we paid someone else to do the plumbing and electrical work on the log house.  It was rustic, but modern, and completely up to building codes.

 

            The first winter that we lived in our log home, we heated only with wood.  We had purchased a good-quality brand new wood stove.  I learned to be very good at banking a fire for the night so the house stayed warm and the coals were ready to re-ignite come morning.

            We had propane gas for the modern kitchen right from the start, but we didn’t add a propane furnace until the second winter.

            After the new well and electric pump and septic system were complete, my husband capped the well to the pitcher pump.  When he did that, I was sad, because I knew that we could never be so self-sufficient again.

 

Thanks for sharing, Bill

This movie is amazing:

http://danceinsilence.multiply.com/journal/item/716/Movie_Mania_The_Miracle_Maker_..._Life_of_Jesus_Christ

23 Years in Six Lines

The First Marriage (Dec. 1972 to Feb. 1996)

There was a young woman who lived in a house;
And she wanted children more than did her spouse.

Her spouse had repented of vows he had made,
To God, and to her, and to bills marked "unpaid."

He did give her children, because she demanded,
And they and she both left his home empty-handed.

-- Poem by Rani Kaye 12/4/2008
All Rights Reserved

Never Argue with a Woman who reads

I just received this from my sister in a round-robin email:

One morning the husband returns after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap.
Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out. She motors out
a short distance, anchors, and reads her book.

Along comes a Game Warden in his boat. He pulls up alongside the woman and says,
'Good morning, Ma'am. What are you doing?'
'Reading a book,' she replies, (thinking, 'Isn't that obvious?')
'You're in a Restricted Fishing Area,' he informs her
'I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading'
'Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment.
I'll have to take you in and write you up.'
'For reading a book,' she replies,
'You're in a Restricted Fishing Area,' he informs her again,
'I'm sorry, officer, but I'm not fishing. I'm reading'
'Yes, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment.
I'll have to take you in and write you up.'
'If you do that, I'll have to charge you with Sexual assault,' says the woman.
'But I haven't even touched you,' says the game warden.
'That's true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment.'
'Have a nice day ma'am,' and he left.

MORAL :
Never argue with a woman who reads. It's likely she can also think.
Send this to four women who are thinkers. If you receive this, you know you're intelligent.

Prayer for the first three

"Hear, O heavens!
Listen, O earth!
       For the LORD has spoken:
       'I reared children and brought them up,
       but they have rebelled against me.'" 

-- Isaiah 1:2 NIV

 

 

 

Before my youngest son was born, I adopted and raised three others:

 

Jamie was born in 1973, but I did not meet him until 1982.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scott was born in 1978, but I did not meet him until 1983.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Michael was born in 1975, but I did not meet him until 1984.

 

From The Lutheran Book of Prayer:

"Lord Jesus, You came into the world to seek and to save those who were separated from Your love.  It is with a heavy and aching heart that I come to You, the Savior of sinners, imploring You to restore to saving faith my erring children.  O Lord, my heart is breaking as I realize that my sons are following the way of unrepentant sinners, which always leads to condemnation.  Save them, O Lord, save them.  You have, in Your vast mercy performed many wonders, and I pray that You would lead back all the erring lambs who have wandered away from Your fold.

"O Lord, if by any fault or neglect of my own I have caused them to have strayed from You, I beg of Your mercy that you would forgive me.  Guide me by Your Holy Word, and show me how to share Your love, mercy, and forgiveness.  Draw all of us closer to You in faith.  If it be Your will, let these erring children be returned so that our hearts are filled again with Your peace and Your joy.  Unite us with You in faith, and abide in our hearts both now and forevermore as our loving, compassionate, and forgiving Savior.  In Your holy name I pray.  Amen."

 

Saved PM

The poem you asked to see ....

Dec 3, '08 8:52 AM by Sumax for users ranikaye and sumaxmail

sumaxmail

AMEN ARMEGEDDON My world is filled with empty rooms, Through which I roam. I walk a lonely road. My mind is but an empty space, With cluttered thoughts, Wherein frustration reigns. My heart contains an empty ache For something lost. And yet, I know not what. My dreams are empty echoes now Of your warm voice And promises you made. My soul recalls a covenant, Still unfulfilled, Made long before I was. Yet, notwithstanding all my doubts, One thought persists … All’s well … you will return.

Writers Forum Find Your Muse #10 - Holiday Disaster

For this week's Writers Forum I am again attempting to hone my skills at writing fiction:

 

Saturday, December 16, 1972

Dear Carole,

          I have so much to tell you!  Every day I ask God why you had to move away just when school is getting good.  We aren’t the shrimpy little 7^th graders any more.  Yay!   The boys at school are so dumb but I met a freshman from the high school yesterday and he is so cool.  I hope he asks me out.  Of course, Mom and Dad probably won’t let me go out until I’m 20 years old or something.  I don’t care.  He is soooo dreamy, and his name is Nate, and I am sure that some day I will marry him.

          Oh!  I suppose you want to know how I met Nate?  Well, Mr. Harquin, my English teacher, asked me to take a note over to the high school office yesterday morning.  I had to wait for Mrs. Shoreby to get off the phone when I got there.  This very cute boy was waiting right in front of me, and he smiled at me, and he even talked to me.  I am just in heaven ever since.  I hope he sees me again and asks me for my phone number.

          Last night we had to go to Rita’s dumb wedding.  I didn’t tell you she was getting married, did I?  Ha ha.  I know I didn’t tell you because nobody in the family even knew about it until Monday!  How dumb is that?  Rita just met this guy, and he is really strange, if you know what I mean.

          Rita still thinks her name is Gracie.  Rita used to be so cool when she first went to MSU, but ever since she thinks she found Jesus or something, she is like a zombie from the Twilight Zone.  Remember when my mom and grandma took us to Lansing last spring to see Rita?  She was still Rita then, but she was already talking kind of weird, don’t you think?

          If you wouldn’t have moved away in August, you would be able to see what I mean.  I didn’t get any letters from her for a long time.  Maybe I did, but Mom and Dad hid them.  They say Rita is “subversive.”  Isn’t that romantic?

          Well anyway, she came home all of a sudden in September, but then she’s no sooner home and Mom tells her she had better go stay with Grandma so she won’t be a bad influence on little Judy.  Mom heard Rita telling Judy some of her strange “end of the world” ideas, is why she sent her to Grandma’s house.

          Oh!  Speaking of Mom, she is calling me to set the table for supper, so I will be right back.

          Well, I’m back.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, Rita/Grace.  They made her pick a new name in that group she lived with.  Mom made us watch a show on channel 8 about cults so we would understand.  Rita’s biggest worry from what I could tell was that America was going to end on Election Day.  Rita was staying with Grandma, and she could have voted for the first time this year, but she didn’t even vote.  She was too worried about the end of the world.

          When the world didn’t end, she went and found a new group of people in downtown G.R. to live with.  She likes communes, I guess.  Maybe that’s romantic too.  I don’t know.

          Anyway, she moved there just before Thanksgiving, and she handed out food to poor people on Thanksgiving and didn’t even come to Grandma’s house.  I think Grandma told her not to come, because my mom gets so irate every time she sees Rita.

          Well last Monday out of the blue Rita calls home from her new church place, and she wants to come over, and we missed Glen Campbell on TV to meet this guy God told her to marry.  I think he was a hippy out in California before he found Jesus.  I think he still smokes loco weed.  He has creepy eyes.  He looks like he is lost in space, if you ask me.

          Well, they got married last night, and it was a weird wedding, and now they are off on a honeymoon in a car somebody loaned them.

          So that brings you up to date on life here in Wyoming.  J.V. basketball starts in a few more weeks, and I think I will go to all the games just in case Nate is on the team.

          Don’t forget to play Daydream Believer every night before you go to bed, and remember me.  I am pining away for next summer when I can come and see you or you can come and see me.

          Rita and her new husband will be home from the honeymoon in time to come here for Christmas, and that is going to be a disaster – I just know it.

          Write me back as soon as you get this.  Maybe I will send you a picture of Rita and the creep, as soon as Dad develops the film.  Ta ta for now!

Love,

 Sherri

Something for you to read while I write

Yipes!  I'm under a deadline and I didn't realize!  Gotta write for Writer's Forum because tomorrow they post a new challenge already.

I was browsing through my old blogs (hoping to be able to cheat).

Lots of my old stuff was uploaded from Yahoo 360, and nobody here has read it.

This is one I like, and maybe you will too.  (Just in case you want something to read while I go try to write something new.)  It is called

"Giraffes in the Keyholes":

Do you remember being so young that you didn't know all the words?

I remember sitting on the floor in the living room ... playing with my toys ... My mom was stuffing cotton in the keyhole of our front door.

I asked her why she was doing that.

I thought she said, "To keep out the giraffes."

"How could giraffes get in through there?" said I.

"No ... not giraffes -- cold air -- the word is drafts," said Mom.

... Fifty years later, on a cold, winter's night ... I think about giraffes in the keyholes ... and how it felt to be so very young.

http://ranikaye.multiply.com/journal/item/38

Romper Room

"Romper, bomper, stomper, boo,
Tell me, tell me, tell me true.
Magic Mirror, tell me today,
Did our friends have fun with us at play?"

Miss Jean, 1955, WOOD TV, Grand Rapids, Michigan

 

I wanted to be on "Romper Room" in the worst way!  On the morning of my 3rd birthday, I ran to my parents' bedroom to wake them up and inform them I was now old enough to be on Romper Room.  (The reason, of course, was because it was a "school" ... and I wanted very badly to go to school.  Because I wanted to learn to read.)

I've had fun "playing" on Multiply today!  And I finished my laundry.  And my son DID get his hair cut.

Now it's time to say my prayers and go to bed.  It's back to work tomorrow after a 4-day weekend.  (Unless we get a Snow Day -- which is slightly possible and I know of probably 300 children who are praying for it LOL)

Goodnight, friends.  Sweet dreams.

If I Stand

There’s more that rises in the morning than the sun,

And more that shines in the night than just the moon.

There’s more than just this fire, here, that keeps me warm,

And a shelter that is larger than this room.

There’s a loyalty that’s deeper than mere sentiment,

And a music higher than the songs that I can sing.

The stuff of earth competes for the allegiance

That I owe only to the Giver of all good things

So if I stand, let me stand on the promise

That You will pull me through;

And if I can’t, then let me fall

On the grace that first brought me to You.

 

Rich Mullins

 

 

 

 

Quondam Quote du Noir

"This life here and now was never intended to be fair.  In fact, the frustrations of this life are intended to make you long for something more."

Pastor Bob Coy

Writers Block #52: The Agnostic Shepherd

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is dismal.  Some have heard angels sing.  Some say that star leads to a faraway hope.  My feet are wet, and I have no idea why it has to snow again tonight.  I am looking for a lamb that wandered off at sunset.  Perhaps we’ll both be dead by dawn. 

 

Centuries from now, people will hate and kill each other, because of differing interpretations of what was seen and heard tonight.  If, indeed, anything remarkable has happened tonight at all.

 

If God was real, and he was going to save us, you would think he could just start over, and get it right this time.  What could be so important to him about my wretched life?

 

And where on earth did that lamb of mine go? 

15 Years Ago

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This will be under his car someday soon, I hope

Instead of on his bedroom floor!

The above photo was taken Monday, the day UPS delivered the new "performance" exhaust system for my son's car.

Yesterday he ordered the headers and the catalytic converter.  Hopefully, they will arrive this week.  And hopefully, somebody will be home when they arrive.

In the meantime -- he is away this afternoon (getting that haircut, I still hope) and the car parts are no longer in the living room, but are on the floor of his bedroom.  The bedroom door was shut, the lights were out, the sun has gone down, Mom is going into his room to put away his clothes that I just washed.

DANG!  I forgot about the car parts on the floor.  And they GOT me!

 

How to Get Your Life to be the Way You Want it to Be

Okay, first you have to realize that other people's lives intersect with yours, and you are not going to be able to change anything about them.

 

But if you want to tweak a few things about how your own days go, here are some suggestions of what has worked for me.

1.)  Best advice my mother ever gave me is this: Depression is to be avoided at all costs!

Writers, artists, musicians, photographers, etc. tend to be blessed with a streak of melancholy.  Keep that melancholy in line!  You grab it -- don't let it grab you.  Nobody can do this for you.  Friends might try to remind you.  Listen, when they do.  But only you can do it.

When you look deep into that hole, do not be charmed by it, do not think it is your tragic destiny, do not rationalize about the creative beauty it can evoke.  That's a bunch of crap!  YOU are the creative person -- not the ethereal sense that wraps around you.

I repeat:  Depression is to be avoided at all costs!

2.)  If you feel overwhelmed, just grab the task in front of you and do it.  No task invites you?  Then wash your kitchen counter.  Or mop a floor.  On your hands and knees if you don't have arthritis too bad for that.*  Polish your bathroom mirror.  Little stuff like this is easy to do.  Do some more little stuff like this.

Don't feel as though you have to dive 100% into spring cleaning or self-improvement.  Just do some little thing.  You don't have to feel like it.  Just do it.  It's little.  It looks nice when you're done.  Smile at it.

3.)  Do this first -- but it's no big deal:  Pray.  Doesn't matter if you don't believe God will help you, or even that He exists.  Ask Him to help you anyway.  What harm could that do?

*Note about the kitchen floor on hands & knees -- I don't haul out a bucket and scrub brush any more.  I grab a spray bottle of Mr. Clean or some other brand.  I grab the roll of paper towels.  I do it like that.  Pretty easy.  Not a big drawn out affair.  Looks good.  Smells good.  Makes me feel so dang "righteous" when the floor is shining after just a couple minutes worth of scooting around.