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So There Was This Pencil On The Floor…..

24 Mar

I have been busy! I have several pictures to show you of the bias tape being ironed out from that lo-o-o-ong piece of material I made a few days ago. I am having a few technical difficulties posting my pics, so please bear with me if the placement seems awkward.

My biased point of view

I started out with a 4 inch wide strip of cloth I described a few days ago. You fold each side in to meet in the middle and iron flat, with the wrong sides of the material to the inside of the fold. So that is the picture you see here.

The long of it...

It was a lot of material as I said, and it was very difficult to iron it all correctly. It wanted to pile up in the floor off of the ironing board, so I resorted to pinning one end down to my board while I continued folding and pressing towards the other end. When you have this step completed, you then fold the tape in half and iron again to bring it down to about a 1 inch width. It took a little time, but a few steam burns later I had finished my bias tape! Yay!

Next I will begin sewing this long piece of tape to my daughter’s apron….we are getting closer and closer to a finished product! I can hardly wait!!!

Now, you are asking…..what does all this have to do with a pencil? Well, a few years ago I lived in an apartment in Upstate SC. Working on this bias tape has reminded of an apartment story I would like to share. It was a large, nice basement apartment. It was very open and well lit with high ceilings, didn’t feel like a basement at all. I was out in the country too. It really was a nice apartment.

One day I decided to take my bath in the early afternoon, I had been outside working in my yard and needed to bathe very badly. I am near sighted as well, but of course don’t wear my glasses while in the tub. At the time of this story I didn’t wear contacts either, just glasses. This is an important point. I started my water, stripped off my dirty clothes and of course laid my glasses on the counter to climb in my tub. Only I forgot I had the tea kettle on, and when it started whistling at me, I jumped out to turn it off. Turned the stove off, moved the kettle, problem solved. Back to that bath, yay!

Walking back to the bathroom, I thought I caught a glimpse of something move at the edge of the bathroom door. I started stepping into the room, but suddenly stopped. Why? Because the pencil I thought I saw in the floor started moving away from me….very quickly! I jumped back as well, not sure what in the world I was going to do completely naked and half blind! I squinted around, thankfully knowing where most things were in my small bathroom, at this point including the snake. I reached over as far as I could and grabbed my toilet brush, and then reached under the sink for a trash can I had there. I threw the trash in the sink, and again reached out pinning the little critter to the wall as best I could with the toilet brush, and scooping the offender inside the trash can, I quickly carried can and snake out my front door into the yard.

I look down into the can, I guess checking that I hadn’t lost the baby king snake in my short walk down the hall. Yep, he was still there. I could see his tiny little tongue whipping out tasting the air every few seconds. I ran all the way across the yard. I decided it was time for a new trash can anyway, and then threw the can and snake into my woods. Then I remembered…… I was naked! I had just jumped out of my tub a few minutes ago…..ooooooooooppss!

As I said earlier, I lived in the country. As far as I know no one but Mother Nature saw me in my Birthday Suit. Unfortunately though, it wasn’t the end of my adventure. Over the next 6 days I had 7, count ‘em, 7 baby king snakes slithering around with me in that apartment, some in my pantry, some in my kitchen, some in my living room. Thankfully none of them ever made it into my bedroom, as far as I know. Le sigh. Let’s just say that I’m very glad I don’t live in that apartment anymore. I like my new house just fine.

Grandma’s Briefs had a fine story of unwanted critters that prompted my remembrance of today’s story. They got to play with scorpions, yikes! So far everyone is ok. So, what about you? What strange and crazy creatures have you happened upon? Any bug stories to share? I bet there are some real creepy crawlies in somebody’s history! I can’t wait to hear. Now be warned, my next picture might disturb you a little bit…..

My Days as a Snake Handler...

What am I doing with this picture you ask? Well, several years before my king snake adventure I worked at a zoo. I led educational shows for the visitors and this is a picture of me with one of the python’s. No, that’s a boa constrictor. I didn’t like my king snake visitors, they were inside my house and uninvited. But I did like working with the big snakes at the zoo. More importantly, I was wearing my glasses….and my CLOTHES! These snakes never paid me any visits inside my home, or I wouldn’t have been as fond of them either.

Hope you have a lovely uneventful weekend! I promise, no more snake pictures. Not even bias tape snakes…..Angela

8 Comments

Posted in memories, OMG! Really?, sewing

Don’t Let it Change You in Your Soul…

22 Mar

Don’t let it turn you, the thing that changed your soul. It has the capacity to render you incapacitated. Heard this in a TV show. That sentence seems funny to me… capacity… incapacitated…. both in the same sentence meaning something totally different. Words that are similar but different. Don’t know why I laughed, but I did. My grandmother’s last name was laughter, but someone changed the way it was pronounced so it became Law-ter. Seems strange to me, but that’s what happened. I wonder if when whomever decided to change it had suffered a changing of their soul.

I feel fragmented. I feel like I’m in pieces instead of whole. I am drowning in my life and I’m not sure I can keep kicking to swim. Do I want to keep kicking? I think so. I don’t want to not be here. I just feel so very very tired a lot of the time. It’s not a fun feeling. Have you ever had a thing happen to you that broke part of you? Something that hurt you so bad you couldn’t really recover from it? I have recovered from several soul wrenching things. But this time I feel weird, like it’s broke and I can’t fix it. I am disillusioned by church, by some friends, by ex husbands, by former bosses. But I don’t have to focus on these things, right? I can focus on better things if I will just remember to. Like the customer yesterday whom I’ve been working with for almost 2 years. He started out a belligerent man, a belligerent customer, upset with the changes in business that brought me to his office to be his agent. I worked on his policies to help if I could. I found things we could change that did help him, and I was able to help him again this year. His wife called me. She wanted to thank me for working so hard to help them. She really wanted me to know how much she appreciated me working to help them. It was a great call. Mostly I get the “why do I have to pay for insurance” kinda calls. So this one was really nice. I need to think on these things to encourage myself.

I read something earlier that I really, really liked:

Fly with those who see the power of your wings…..
4th January 2011 by melody under Everyday Brave

Fly with those who see the best in you.

Fly with those who inspire you to be better.

Fly with those who are going the direction that you want to go.

Fly with those who believe in riding the wind.

Fly with those who see the power of your wings………

It’s from brave girls club on line. Fly with those who see the power of your wings……Do I need to see it too to fly, or can I fly even in doubt? I’m not sure but I don’t think so. It sounds or reads so sappy or sad now that I am writing all this out….but that’s the way it is. My cheerleader capacity seems to be eluding me at the moment. I will ponder those things that are good in my life right now, including the good customers, instead of being stuck in a playback loop of all the junk I deal with. I can do this. And I want to.

I also want to sew my daughter’s apron this weekend, or at least get started on it. I have cut it all out, and even have the bias tape made. My next post will be all about that:). So I should be able to start sewing. We’ll see. It will be great. She is a ’50′s kinda gal and the apron is modeled after a vintage style with black and white fabrics she picked out, and they look great together. I would have gone for way more color, but the patterns are nice and it really looks fantastic all laid out. I will also be blogging about the process of sewing the apron together. At least that is my intention.

Valentine Cookie

I also want to write and share my favorite cookie recipes from Christmas. I made a kick ass giant heart cookie for Boyfriend for Valentine’s day too. He ate every bit of it. It was over half a batch of dough. I’m glad he liked it.

I hope I stop being so easily discouraged. I struggle occasionally with depression, and the situations in my workplace are feeding the discouraged side more than the encouraged part gets fed. I am there 8 hours and 45 minutes five days a week. How do people keep going to a job they despise? How do we keep working in situations we hate? I’m not really sure at this point. I am not happy in my present situation. I keep hoping I will have the next great idea that will make me wealthy enough to not need to work there. Until then, I need to be able to pay my bills. So there I am. Another day, another dollar as my grandfather use to say. Le sigh.

I feel like I’ve changed, but not for the better. At least not yet. I want to have my hope renewed, my faith strengthened, my joy increased. I will keep working towards these ends. If you have any encouraging words for me, please feel free to share them. I would love to hear from you.

In the meantime, g’nite all. Pleasant dreams……. Angela

Acknowledgements: http://bravegirlsclub.com/

10 Comments

Posted in Ponderings, sewing

Almost Spring….

18 Mar

Flowers from a friend

Spring is officially a few days away.Today is a beautiful spring like day. The trees have all started budding leaves and flowers. The flowers themselves are starting to bloom. Nice weather. Had a lot of rain, but that will help things grow. Maybe I will take a walk around the neighborhood later.

I went to see Allison Lively this week. She does Iridology & Nutritional Counseling at Creative Health. I have been seeing her for a few years. Her advice always helps me stay on track. She wants me to keep drinking green drinks and change my diet so I stop stressing my liver and kidneys. I really went cra-a-a-zy with food after my gall bladder surgery last year and I have gained over 40 extra pounds to prove it. I have noticed new problems with fatigue and the migraines are back, so I knew it was time to talk to her again. As we were talking, I had a realization.

I grew up in a poor family. Lots of people did. I have never really had to work on portion control because I only had so much food I could eat. The reason being we didn’t have enough money to buy much food. I ate what I could when I could. My realization was that I have always felt deprived of food, and never trusted it to be around for long. Money is kind of the same way. This continued into my marriage, we always struggled with money. I was truly a coupon queen for years. It really helped me feed my family, and I still like using them. However, I still have the belief that food is not going to be around long, so I must eat, eat, eat while I can. Now, with Boyfriend in my life, eating is as simple as saying, “I’m hungry! Let’s go eat!” Out the door we go and food is soon in front of me (us). Easy peasy. I will never starve dating him. He’s great like that. So, my food situation has changed, it is very available to me now. However, my attitude with it has not, so I am still eating what I can when I can, I just have so many ‘can’ opportunities now there really isn’t a deprivation problem.

I need to stop feeling this way about food. I need to stop shoving big piles of food down my throat like I’m not going to have anything to eat tomorrow. I have to stop feeding the part of me that thinks I will starve and start feeding the part of me that feels secure and happy. I don’t know why this is such a hard thing for me to do sometimes. Hmmmmmm…. I spoke about changes a few posts back, guess this is another I need to add to my to do list.

I want to do more with my life than just feed myself. But I haven’t done much else with it lately either. I am becoming a selfish person because I have felt deprived. I keep pushing myself into little tight spaces to feel like I’m in control but I’m not. The spaces I keep shoving myself into cannot contain me either. My desires and hopes and dreams are bigger than the space I am giving myself to live and work in. Other people sometimes put me in boxes for themselves and I was letting them. I thought it was just them doing this to me, but now I realize I have been letting them do this to me all this time, and now I have started doing it to myself. Lots of my job situations are like this, my marriage was like this as well. Wonder what I can do with this revelation? Looks like another hmmmmmmmm………, at least for now.

Well, more changes I need to make. Things to ponder and figure out. Spring seems to be a pretty good time for change….Will let you know if I have any further revelations. Thanks! Angela

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Posted in Food!, overcoming, Ponderings

Word Dump….

25 Feb

word dump word dump word dump That’s what this is suppose to be. Just my brain unloading on paper, er computer screen. I was anxious yesterday when I wrote according to the statistics. Today I may be toady or froggy or tired or just ready for the weekend. Nobody is suppose to read this but me but here is Boyfriend spying on me. We are lying on a bed in a bed and breakfast room in a small town waiting to hear from his sister. Or not. We will go eat somewhere eventually any way. We are here for his nephew’s first BD. He’s almost a big boy now. If we don’t get to see them tonight, we will tomorrow. It will all work out.

The sun is going down and the room is getting dark. It’s a nice room. Just very very small. And the private bath is in the hallway, not connected as Boyfriend thought, so feels a little weird. I may want to sleep in my shirt and not my pj pants tonight, but if I need to get up to pee in the middle of the night will I remember to put on my pants or wander around in my undies? Will it really matter? Will any one notice? No one else is suppose to be here. Either way it just feels weird. I’m sure it will be alright.

I am so stinkin’ hormonal right now. I can cry at anything. The room made me want to cry for a few minutes. And it doesn’t help that I’ve had headaches for most of the last 3 weeks. That’s 21 days. That’s a long time to have a headache. Thankfully my head isn’t hurting right now and I don’t wanna cry anymore, so it’s all betta now.

I hope we aren’t on the east side of the bed and breakfast. If we are, I will have the sun in my face. In the morning. At 6:00 to 6:30. When does the sun come up now any way? I will have to look that up. Oh well. I may use this as a blog post. This dump is slightly entertaining me. . Are you still reading what I’m writing honey? lol. Are you pondering what I’m pondering Brain? Yes. Yes you are. I just heard you snicker. He said he’s milky way. Snicker….milky way…. and it took 3 times for him to say it for me to get it. The candy bars? Ya know? Yeah, this is so-o-o gonna be a blog post in a few minutes…..now he says he wouldn’t skittle about. He is twix and tween a decision on dinner. M&M’s. Hmmmmm. Mustard and melons? Mexican and Mojitos? Marmalade and Mahi? Mahi Mahi? I dunno….

Ok, so, why am I writing a word dump and turning it into a blog post? You see, there is this web site called 750 words. You can use it to help get your creative juices flowing. 750 words are suppose to equal 3 hand written pages….etc, etc. Go to the site and read his description yourself and use if you would like. It’s free and I like the concept. There are also several cool statistical tools that were interesting. You can choose to let others see them or not. But you can see them, and will probably be surprised by some of them. I was. It is challenging to some degree to just write 750 words at once too, but once I get going it’s not too bad. I won’t be using them all for blog posts but this one will work.

Hippie Lights

I am wanting to get back into my sewing. I have kinda let that slip some in the last couple of months. But we rearranged my room and I have a much better area for sewing now than before. I’m sorry I forgot to take pictures, but I will try to do that next time I have a cleaning/moving/rearranging bug again. I can show you my hippie lights though. We hung up my star light I got last year for my anniversary with the other ones, and I really like how it all turned out. An extra bonus: it gives me lots of light to sew on dark and cloudy days or in the evening after work. I also fixed several things of my daughter, granddaughter, and myself once we got the table set up. So I think this will work. I am hoping to get back into alterations, and eventually have my own business doing it. I will keep you posted, my 4 whole readers, with what the plans are. I don’t really know how many people read this, but I still like writing, so, I may not blog everyday yet …. but maybe I’ll be able to word dump and get my blogging juices flowing more. We’ll see.

So, what are you gonna do for dinner? We don’t know yet. We had Japanese Thai with sushi for lunch in what looked like a hole in a wall in Newberry, but it was excellent food. Sushi was yummy too. So, I guess we’ll wander out into town in a little bit to find something for ourselves. Hope you have a good one. Want to tell me about it? That would be great! Talk to ya later, Angela

2 Comments

Posted in Ponderings, sewing

I’m Not a Bartender….

02 Feb

007

I am an insurance agent. Yes, an insurance agent. Not a really cool bond type agent, you know, like: “Bond, James Bond…” No, I’m just a plain jane good ole insurance agent. As said agent I get to work with the public on a daily basis. They call in, they need a quote for a car. Would you believe we get calls for quotes for insurance for my blue car. Blue. Car. No make, model or year. Just blue. Really, I have had that call. I don’t insure the paint per-say, so no, I can’t tell you how much it would cost to insure the blue on your car.

Yesterday was a particularly weird and strange day. We have those on occasion. Everyone that came in had to talk to us, me and the nice lady I work with. Now, we are both agents, so that means either one of us can help you with whatever you got going on insurance wise. So, I work in an insurance office, and I’m an agent. Still following me right? Ok, I’m. An. Agent. So tell me. Why did everyone, and I mean e-v-e-r-y-o-n-e … come in yesterday and immediately start telling us, both of us, their deepest, darkest problems and secrets? Not only did the ones coming in do this, even the ones calling in did this. We know all about their wife’s bladder problems, their dad’s flatulence issues. One has had a hip replacement, another replaced a knee. Two have congestive heart failure and don’t know what they are going to do about it. One has had several deaths in the family, one may have lupus, another even started talking to me about something so serious it scared me: she was molested as a child and is going through counseling for it. Ok…… At no time did I or the other agent ask them any kind of question related to any of these things. They just start talking like we’ve had a conversation going on about all this stuff. In. One. Day! OMG!!!!!!!!!

Vino

Seriously, this all happened yesterday….. Again, I will state: I am an insurance agent. Period. I am not a counselor, nor am I your neighborhood bartender. I’m very sorry you have problems, however I do not want to hear about them. I cannot help you with them. I have my own problems to deal with, and usually family and friends in crisis. So, really? You have to walk in and just start word vomiting all over me? Bleeeccchhhhh……

I do feel bad for people, but come on. And why did everyone come in or call in on one day acting like this? I don’t know which star is misaligned with which planet, but LAWD! I will be glad when it fixes itself….and for my sanity it better be soon!

So, here’s to hoping the rest of this week goes better, much better, than yesterday. Man….I need some wine. Wanna join me? Later! Angela

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Posted in humor, OMG! Really?, venting

Who’s Really In Charge?

21 Jan

For You!

You are! We are in charge of our FAB, our feelings, attitudes and behaviors. Sometimes we want to blame others for our reactions to things, but we are able to choose our response. You may have to catch yourself in mid-blurt of frustration or anger or aggravation, but we really can train ourselves to not REACT! every time we get upset. It’s learning to hold on to those good moments, those happy places and dwell on those good things that help. I know it does, I know it helps. I also know from personal experience it takes work, and you have to make yourself believe that you are WORTH putting the work and effort in for too. I know you are worth it, and I don’t even have to know your name. You have value because you exist, and I know that God loves us too. Just because we exist. Even if you want to dismiss this because it’s “God” stuff, take a moment to read it. You may be surprised.

God loves us. God loves you. He is touched by our problems and hurts with us through the hard times of life. He is there to breathe new life into the dead places of our lives. He wants us to learn how to live at rest, zenned out .

God’s Records of Me:

You have recorded my troubles. You have kept a list of my tears. Aren’t they in your records, you put them all in bottles. Psalm 56:8

God…”hurts with the hurt of my people.” Jeremiah 8:21

Lord God, when burnout singes, let us sing praise, let us go feel the wind, let You fan the embers into flames of joy.

Are you tired? Worn Out? Burned out on life and religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything ill-fitting or heavy on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly. Matthew 11: 28-30

Hope is really a positive attitude. It’s expecting that something good is going to happen in your life. Be a prisoner of hope. In other words, believe God can change whatever needs to be changed and that you can do whatever needs to be done. Zechariah 9:12: Return to your fortress, you prisoners of hope; even now I announce to you that I will restore twice as much to you.

Psalm 65:11 You crown the year with your goodness and your paths drip with abundance.

Psalm 40:6 Doing something for you, bringing something to you – that’s not what you’re asking for. You’ve opened my ears so I can listen. 7-8 So I answered, “I’m coming. I read your letter you wrote about me, and I’m coming to the party you’re throwing me.” That’s when God’s words entered my life, became part of my very being.

Hear my child, and accept my words, that the years of your life may be many. I have taught you the way of wisdom; I have led you in paths of uprightness. Proverbs 4:10-11

And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing: Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Philippians 4:8

Be encouraged! Don’t live in the valley of doubt and anger and resentment. You are hurting yourself when you choose to do that, you are not being the person you want to be. Have a question? Want to share your ideas? Please leave a comment for me to respond to. Thanks, Angela

2 Comments

Posted in overcoming, Ponderings

Where’s Your Oxygen Mask?

19 Jan

I saw a question on a blog recently that really made me stop and think. Do I treat myself like I am in a relationship with myself? Hmmmm…..What does that mean exactly? Well, I thought about relationships I am already in. Do I take good care of my friends and family, do I show Boyfriend how I care about him? Yes, according to what I observe and what my friends and family say, yes I am good to them and take care of them in many different ways. So, I know how to be in relationship, and have some skills at it. Now the question is: do I apply those same skills to myself? Again, I say “Hmmmmmm…..”

I think my answer is gonna have to be “No!” I don’t. I am always better to others than I am to myself. I have even been known to place myself in dangerous situations in the name of being good to others or helping others that I would never encourage my friends or family to be in just to ‘take care’ of someone else. I tell myself that I am being a nice caring person when in reality what I’m really doing is telling that person they have more value than me and I am willing to devalue myself in order to help them or be with them. So I will take the chance of harming myself to make sure they are happy. What I am doing is setting myself up to be taken advantage of.

By harm I don’t necessarily mean physical harm. I’m talking more about emotional harm here, but that can also open a door to neglect of self that brings the risk of physical harm. Say you are recovering from sickness or surgery, and can’t handle taking care of a loved one, yet you push yourself to do it because they are important too, and they need help. Then you realize you are having problems healing, you’re still too tired, or there are other complications for you physically. You were saying the other person had more value than you, their well being was more important than yours. Let me give you a word picture to show you what a bad idea that is.

I am on a jet plane, high altitude, flying across country with my children. Suddenly, the plane bucks and drops and the oxygen masks pop out over our heads. I reach over and start placing the mask on one of my children, trying to make sure my precious one is not injured from lack of oxygen. But….I can’t breathe! I start blacking out before I can put their mask on. I become unconscious and cannot help my child. My mistake was taking care of someone else before I took care of myself. Put your oxygen mask on first BEFORE you try to help someone else.

This next part is very simple. Love your neighbor as you love yourself. In other words, learn how to love yourself correctly to know how to love others correctly. Thinking more of others at the expense of yourself is wrong. It doesn’t prove you are a nice person, it doesn’t mean you are a good person, we are letting the world run over us and wondering why we are hurting so much. Being run over is painful. It leaves marks, and some marks leave scars.

So, even though very often we don’t want to be held accountable for our actions we need to learn to love ourselves better. Love ourselves without selfishness, because love is not about that. Love is: ⁴ … patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. (I Corinthians 13: 4-7, yes that’s in the Bible. Something good about love.)

Do you love yourself this way? I am learning these lessons, and reminding myself that I am lovable, I am worth taking care of, and I have value too. Just like you. Hope you find this helpful on this journey of life. Let me know how you rate in your relationship with yourself. Talk to you soon! Angela

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Posted in Family, Friendship, overcoming, recovery

The Whispers of Snow…

10 Jan

All is quiet as I compose myself to write this wintry night. Usually my yard is too dark at night to see out, but as I opened my door to take one last glimpse outside, the yard is reflected in low light. It’s almost as bright as the afternoon light had been. I have no outdoor lights, neither do most of my neighbors. But it is so deep in snow outside and so white that every tiny light from inside our homes and in the town a mile or so from us is being reflected. Darkness is not so dark tonight.

It is so quiet. Funny how that always seems to happen with snow. No birds chirping. No owls calling. No noise at all. As I stand and look out at the beautiful snow light, it seems to wash over me and I feel content. I love the way this feels tonight. It is so beautiful to look at. I will soak this in a little longer because real life is beckoning already. Soak in this peace so that I will be a little stronger to face reality when the snow fades and thaws, and work and traffic and life are real again.

I love how my yard looks tonight. Winter is not always a pretty season, but in the natural cycle of things she is a needed one. But isn’t she lovely tonight? Dressed in her white gown and cape, she drapes herself elegantly across the tablets of our lives, inviting us to slow down, be quiet, rest awhile. Sometimes we can join her and drift off in a peaceful sleep. Other times we have to answer the phone, drive to work and deal with the needs of the day. Even then, isn’t there some way to try and carry the peace she brought to us, carry it with us as we go? Breathe deep of her quietness, and carry that peace away with you into the rush of everyday life.

My mind will be able to hold on to this for a few days after the thaw. I can take a deep breath and remember the quiet, the snow light, the departure from the normal routine. I can hold it there, in me, for just a little while longer. Hold on to the gifts that were given to me today. Spring and Summer will come and bring their own joys and problems. Today’s gifts came wrapped in white, in quiet and repose. I’ll take my rest that has come, and run wild into the day when need be. But tonight…..tonight, we sleep.

Sweet dreams all! Always, Angela

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Posted in Ponderings, Winter

The Anxiety of Creation

07 Jan

What have you been put on this earth to do? What creative thing do you yearn to put out there but fear pulls you back from that creation, time and time again? Do creativity and artistry always lead to anguish? What can we do to keep ourselves from leeching down a dark path of destruction of doubt and fear? How can I create a safe distance from my anxiety to keep it at a bay, to keep it from choking the life out of my creation?

We can create a psychological distance to protect us from the anxiety associated with our work. Anxiety that asks: will it be good enough? Will anyone like it? Will anyone comment? So, how can we protect ourselves? First, take the pressure off and realize that whoever you are, whatever you do, you are here for a reason. You are here on purpose. What you have to say and what you think matters. You have been put here to express yourself in a loving way to the world, and to share those things that interest you as you feel led to share them. The fear that tells you that you can’t do it, you don’t matter, nobody cares what you think….who do you think you are! These are False Evidence Appearing Real, F-E-A-R. They are all lies, they are not real. You can talk to your fears and doubts and to your emotions and tell them to all shut up and stop lying to you. Why should you do this?

Because…….. you are a beautiful creation made with love and created with a purpose to shine love and light and fun and laughter in this world. Don’t follow the path to the dark alleys of fear and doubt. Just do what you were created to do: SHINE! And share you words when they come, even if you are just using the computer you probably have in your hand (your new cell phone maybe?). Write something when the fire strikes and use it for your next post, or email, or Facebook status. Then again, what about the times when inspiration comes and you don’t have the time to stop, drop and write? Then speak to the inspiration the way I told you to speak to the emotions. Remind it that it needs to show up at appropriate moments if it wants to be shared. If it wants to live, then it will begin to show up when you can craft it and work with it. Don’t sit there and tell me that will never work, at least try it a few times first to see if I wrong. Don’t be afraid to try.

Ruth Stone

I heard a lovely story about a modern American poet, Ruth Stone, who is over 90 now. She believes her poetry has a life of it’s own, and this is how she says her poems came to be. When she was working in the fields, she would feel and hear a poem coming at her, like a thunderous train of air over the land she was working on. She would feel the ground tremble and shake beneath her feet as this thing was barreling down on her! She knew she had only one thing to do: run like hell for the house! She had to find a paper and pencil fast enough to write down this thunderous thing headed her way. She had to be fast enough to capture it when it barreled through her. Sometimes, she said, she wouldn’t be fast enough and the poem would barrel on through and past her continuing across the land looking for another poet. She caught many of these thundering words and crafted them into wonderful poems. Maybe now she could talk to the thundering air and tell it to give her time to write it down. That’s what I’m gonna try.

I hope this encourages you to keep on trying. I am trying to encourage myself as well. Don’t give up because you don’t think you have anything worth creating. You have great value, and what you have to share does too. Have a great day! Angela

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Posted in overcoming, Ponderings

December…

06 Jan

Apparently, December was not the month for me to blog. My daughter’s recovery from surgery lasted 6 weeks instead of the 7-10 days the doctor told her to prepare for. We got through it, and she was finally released from the doctor’s care on December 30. It was an interesting month, plus as you are all familiar with we had the usual holiday preparations and activities. Whew! I am really glad it’s over! I do have a few favorite cookie recipes I will be sharing soon, and as in November we had another successful Turkey roast for Christmas day as well.

December Sunset

December was actually a lot of fun. My friend had a wonderful open house early on for the holidays, and it was absolutely fabulous! She and her husband have had this event for several years, and we ended the night by playing games for hours. Had a beautiful snow on Christmas day, which was a real surprise. We haven’t had a white Christmas in these parts since 1963. Got to spend lots of time with my family. One daughter and family live close enough to be with us on Christmas Day. Grandkids and presents and food, what a great combination! My son and my dad were snowed in, but I go to see them on New Year’s day. Another day of Grands and food and fun, oh my! New Year’s eve is also my birthday, and we had a blast with some close friends for that too. So there was a lot going on and we did get to enjoy a lot of December.

I also spent a good deal of time contemplating some things. I lost a friend last year right before the holidays, and since she had been in my life for more than 20 years I was thinking about her some this year. I have a wonderful friend that is in France for 1 or 2 years with her husband’s job. We use to talk every day or two, but now I leave her a message or she leaves me one, and we’ve only been able to talk twice in about 3 months. She and I touch base on Facebook and it’s nice to share their adventures that way, but I do miss talking with her. I am very happy and blessed with my friends here too, but seems we are all going through ‘stuff!’ right now. Sometimes it’s just hard to talk. I guess that’s why I didn’t blog more. It’s written talk, and I just didn’t have it in me to talk much lately.

I still have a quilt to finish, and will post pictures when I have that done too. It’s a brand new year and I’ve got lots of great plans for it! Hope you had a wonderful Holiday Season with your friends and loved ones. I also hope and pray for you to have the best year of your life in 2011! Talk to you soon, Angela

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Posted in Family, Friendship, Ponderings