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 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
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| Last summer we had a silent auction at our church to begin a scholarship fund for graduating seniors. Bill offered three half hour flights around the area. We almost won, and agreed with the winner to split, a dinner for eight at the beautiful home of a couple from our church who are excellent cooks. Thursday night we went to our auction dinner and such a good time. We began with Greek caviar, which is smooth and pink, rather creamy and mild in flavor. The entree was a succulent pork roast with an herbed center, very tender, accompanied by rice with hot peppers and a fruit salad. I'm sure there was a green vegetable too, but I can't remember it. The wine was a fine Seven Hills merlot, and the glass was never empty. Saturday night was the church's annual Octoberfest, a benefit dinner for the Christian Aid Center, the local mission. Bill was the emcee, and that made it fun. Otherwise, it was pleasant but unremarkable, in contrast to many fine dinners with excellent talent we've had in the past. Today we sang our stewardship song at the 8 o'clock and 10:30 services. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over. We sang a parody I wrote called, "Does Your Pledge Card Lose Its Flavor on the Pew Rack Overnight?" The point of it was to remind people who may have forgotten to turn in their pledges. This afternoon we took the pump out of the fish pond, dipped out the rest of the leaves that have blown in, and covered it with a rack of PVC pipe supporting chicken wire to keep more leaves out. Then we suspended the heater from the middle. The poor, cold fish didn't even move when I netted leaves from beneath them. As the heater began to warm the water, they swam to the center to cluster in the 'spa.' It really wasn't that I was too busy to blog. I haven't felt much like writing lately. Our priest's wife gave me her blog address on blogspot, and that of her sister and a friend. I found one from the priest there too, plus several others I've enjoyed and have now linked on my own page. I don't know why that reading would put a damper on my own writing, but it seems to have. For one thing, they all had beautiful pictures and layouts, and I don't know how to do all that. This blog serves another purpose for me. I need to remind myself of that, rather than make unfavorable comparisons with my own. |
| We're headed out for dinner, and I know I won't be back in time to blog. The only thing I've had on my free-floating mind this evening are the parodies we're supposed to come up with for the pledge drive at church. In past years, I've had a lot of fun writing those and then singing with Bill as he plays his guitar. I don't know what we'll decide on, but the words that are currently careening through my head are Did your pledge card lose its flavor on the pew rack over night? and Hey, look me over. Think and talk and pray. I am your pledge card; fill me out today.... |
I found this link in a blog on another site and thought you all might enjoy it. As you can see by the URL, it has tarot cards in it. So, if you're afraid that this sort of thing is evil, don't click here. Otherwise, I hope you too will think it's fun.  http://www.flarn.com/~warlock/tarot/ I am The Hierophant (Heavenly Master) Divine Wisdom. Manifestation. Explanation. Teaching. All things relating to education, patience, help from superiors.The Hierophant is often considered to be a Guardian Angel. The Hierophant's purpose is to bring the spiritual down to Earth. Where the High Priestess between her two pillars deals with realms beyond this Earth, the Hierophant (or High Priest) deals with worldly problems. He is well suited to do this because he strives to create harmony and peace in the midst of a crisis. The Hierophant's only problem is that he can be stubborn and hidebound. At his best, he is wise and soothing, at his worst, he is an unbending traditionalist. |
| Today was Bud’s funeral, and it fit him perfectly. His pastor said Bud would have been embarrassed to have so much attention, and I think that is true. At least thirty people were standing in the small church, which was missing a back pew because Bud had unscrewed it and removed it a few months ago. He’d noticed that there was no good space for people in wheel chairs; they had to sit behind everybody or in the aisle until he made a place for them. He paid attention to things like that. Bud and his family did more for me than I did for them, and it was such a simple thing they did. They were glad to see me. You may think that isn’t much, but it doesn’t happen all the time. When people are dying, they don’t usually have a lot of energy; and they don’t have a lot of reason to want to spend what they have getting to know strangers. That’s a fact. Bud made the effort, and so did his family, even though their pastor came frequently as well. It was as if life was a banquet to Bud, and he didn’t want to leave any dish untried. His nurse came back to the office a few weeks ago with chocolate peanut clusters he had made. She told me to try to get his recipe. When I asked him, he offered me a box of the clusters too. The pastor said today that Bud never gave out the recipe to anyone, and he supposed God was trying to get it out of him now. In the eyes of the world, Bud was not an important man. He lived in a modest house filled with many tables and book cases he had made. He loved to work with wood. He held several different jobs, and I’m sure he did them all with honesty and fairness. He managed to get an AA degree, and wanted to finish four years of college, but hadn’t been able to. He had children to educate by then. Those children asked him recently how he could give up his dream like that, wasn’t he sorry. He looked at each of them and said, “You are my dream.” There’s a saying that goes something like this: Your life may be the only Bible some people read. I’m glad a lot of people ‘read’ Bud's life. |
Click on these pictures to see them larger.       Sorting through the pictures has taken me a while. Maybe I'll post some more another day, but now I need to go study, and, if I have time, do some catching up with you all. Happy Monday. |
| If I get to my Yellowstone pictures later, I'll get them up here. First, he had to download the ones we took at the Episcopal church convention this weekend so we could send them to the church newspaper editor. Her deadline is Tuesday. Here's one of my favorites, one of Bill on the dance floor sometime in the first hour. He was indefatigable! I was worn out watching after 90 minutes; I only danced a few times with him, then went for a swim. He was having a great time, and so were all the folks who don't have dancing partners. Last year at convention the youth were having a dance, and whoever planned it had very dull music. So Bill popped out his iPod and danced with them to the Bohemian Rhapsody and the Macarena, and a lot of things like that that I thought they'd hate. They loved it, and they loved him. This year they all remembered him and high-fived him. He was in seventh heaven. Imagine, teenagers thinking an old guy in his 50s was cool! |
| Sorry, but I still can't get to the pictures to post. Bill got both cameras downloaded onto a CD, but a lot of good that does me. He's hogging the computer I need, and listening to funky music. He seemed to think that it was important to listen to You Can't Roller Skate in a Buffalo Herd while looking at bison pictures!  |
| Since I don't have enough time to get any Yellowstone pictures organized for tonight's blog, I'll go with this tag thing. The gist of it seems to be to disclose eight things about yourself that you don't normally write about. 1. I’m a messy person. I stack things, like books and magazines, all over my desk and table tops and window seat. The stacks aren’t very straight either. 2. If I put things away-- really away, like on the top shelf-- that I don’t use often, chances are I’ll forget I even have them. When I accidentally discover them again though, I’m always surprised and happy. 3. I have big feet, size 11. Because it’s hard to find big shoes in a small town, I buy them on-line. I have more shoes than fit in my shoe racks. 4. I’m a fairly good shot with a pistol, but have never tried shooting a rifle or shotgun. 5. If I didn’t have to cook dinner for Bill and eat sensibly, there would be some days I’d eat nothing but ice cream. 6. When I was in college, I made extra money modeling in the art department. My roommate, who was an art major and got me into the job, was a Twiggy type. I was Rubenesque. 7. I try to spend a few minutes each day making a mental list of things I'm thankful for. One of them is electricity. Another is having clean laundry. 8. Back in the 70's, I went to a party where people were passing around a joint and smoking it. The idea of sharing was a turn-off to me, more than the idea of trying one. So the host rolled me two and sent them home with my husband to give me later. The first one did absolutely nothing for me, and so the second stayed in my freezer for months. Since I took a quick peek at some blogs before posting this, I discovered that nearly everyone on my tentative tag list has been tagged. If you haven't been already, please consider yourself tagged! Thanks for tagging me, Deelyte- Chillin'  and twinkledee ♥'s you ! It was fun.(These are Twink's good, clear directions.) The Tagging Game! The rules are as follows: Link to your tagger and post these rules. List eight (8) random facts about yourself. Tag eight people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them). Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving them a comment on their blogs. |
| We've been driving, driving, driving-- at least Bill has. I've been staring out the windows hunting for wild animals and fall foliage to photograph. I'll try to post a few pictures tomorrow. This whirlwind trip began Friday afternoon. We made it almost to Butte, Montana, to spend the night. Can't remember the town but the motel was called Rockers and had several comments on line about it, half of which gave it five stars. It was certainly worth every penny of $43. I haven't seen a motel that cheap in a while, but then I don't usually look in the middle of nowhere. It was freshly carpeted and painted, very clean and neat, and we were tired. We reached West Yellowstone campground by Saturday noon-ish, but John and Karen had not yet arrived. So we drove up the road a bit, walked around the paint pots, as that bubbling geyser area is called, and returned to find them setting up camp. That's the first time we've seen Karen since she's been pregnant, and she looks great. While I was getting something out of the car, I looked up and saw an elk about fifteen feet away, munching her way through the campground. After she ambled away, we went down to the river with our new custom-made gifts, fly rods in monogrammed cases for each of us. Bill bought a license; I opted to wait and try mine out at home, having very little helpful experience with a fly rod. They're much trickier to use than an ordinary casting rod, and I knew I would be happier practicing without an audience. I think Bill felt the same way, but of course he couldn't get out of it. John was really excited to have such terrific gifts for us, and he was happy trying mine out. Bill did quite well at getting the line out, but we didn't have any flies that attracted those trout; and it got cold quite quickly, so we didn't stay at it for more than an hour or so. In the meantime, a herd of elk came down to the other end of the park, a few down to the river, and so there was plenty to enjoy watching. On the way to the park Saturday we'd been stopped by two cattle drives coming down the road. One cowboy told us to just keep driving, just go slow, and the cattle would part around us, and so they did. Sunday we were stopped several times in the park by elk and buffalo, and even though the buffalo brushed the car as they walked past, we sat very still. Someone in the back seat wanted Karen to reach out and touch one. I could just see that massive head swinging around to investigate and putting a horn through the window. One female had a horn covered in fresh blood, and that was awful. We couldn't decide if it was hers, another bison's, or some human who didn't take the park signs to heart. Came home Monday through the Craters of the Moon, a huge volcanic area that looks like a great place to mine asphalt. We took a side trip up to Sun Valley, since we'd never been there and were less than 40 miles away. The aspens were beautiful, and worth the trip just to see their bright leaves against the brown mountains. |
| Here I am, going about stewing over Lorna, and about my Renovare group; about my daughter, who didn't get back to me re her Thanksgiving plans so I could make some of my own; and my son, who didn't want to go with his dad and new family to the beach for Thanksgiving, along with his sister and hers; and where am I going to get reservations for us at this late date? While I've been stewing, I've been distressed and tearful. Tonight I didn't want to go with Bill to the airport to pick up something and then take something to somebody's house, and something else to somebody else's house-- and so he went away mad. I actually had a pretty good day today too, until I got busy enough to worry. On my buffet I just uncovered a handout from a national conference on spiritual/psychosocial aspects of hospice care. It says, to wit: WHEN I FEEL RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHERS... I fix, protect, rescue, control, carry their feelings, don't listen. I feel tired, anxious, fearful, liable. (labile, too.) I am concerned about the solution, answers, circumstances, being right, details, performance. I am a manipulator. I expect the person to live up to my expectations. WHEN I FEEL RESPONSIBLE TO OTHERS... I show empathy; I encourage, share, confront, level, listen, am sensitive. I feel relaxed, free, aware, high self-esteem. I am concerned about relating person-to-person, feelings, the person, the other person making it on his/her own. I am a helper, a guide. I expect the person to be responsible for him/herself and his/her own decisions and actions. I can trust and let go. Good advice. I'd better take it. |
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