jerjonji's Xanga

Dream Worship Service

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:06:39 GMT

Those of you who've read me a long time know my faith is what drives me. I don't always talk about it- but I suspect the next couple of blogs will be for my Christian brothers and sisters who've been bugging me with their behavior lately. (So if you're anti- faith, it's ok if you don't visit for a bit. I understand. We Christians aren't very likable sometimes! I apologize for that.)

Recently, when I posted a link to Jaeson Ma's Love song/sermon, someone I went to college with said that they would never show a clip of it at her church. That made me furious, very sad, and contemplative- all at the same time. Was there really no place in her Church for the message of love when it sounded different from their usual hymns? I've sat through many worship services that weren't designed for me and I began thinking... what would the perfect worship sound like if there was one created for me and not for the people who'd be offended by Jaeson Ma's sound and who are too stubborn to hear his message.

So from someone who was in a Church service less than a week after she was born......

This is my Dream Worship Service…

Enter loudly.

Hug the person next to you.

Stand up and move...

We're worshipping here today!

Prelude-

the time when we leave the world behind

Know God is God

“Made to Love”

Toby Mac

Let's begin by focusing why we are actually in worship today.

Why we are here instead doing something else- anything else!

Toby reminds us that we have an eternal purpose- to love God and to be loved by him.

The Gathering

Call to Worship- We gather together as a body to worship,

join us with a heart longing for purity and love

God Is Majestic

“Amazing”

Saylah

Saylah tells us that God is amazing and worthy of our worship.

Hymn of Faith- I Believe

“Ru Guo” (If)

Van Ness Wu

(Ok- so this isn't the video I'd choose for this song- nor is it the one Van Ness would choose, I suspect, but it's the only copy I can find on youtube)

Still... in the quietness, let's think about opening ourselves to the leading of the Holy Spirit-

only he can break down the barriers inside us.

The Word

Encountering Love through the Word

“Love”

Jaeson Ma

a sermon that changes you inside out... do you have love?

Responding to Love

“Lord I Give You My Heart”

Van Ness Wu

And how do we respond to the fact that such love can change us forever?

With the only gift we have, we return our heart to its owner.

The Changed Heart

Confession - I Have Stumbled Again

“Rescue”

Acappella

I am not worthy of your love. I sin so many times, in so many different ways.

Yet, you continue to rescue me, to show me love in action.

Communion - Convict my heart and help me purify it, Lord.

“Lose The Soul”

Toby Mac

We have choices in life, but we're called to do those things that glorify God and not ourselves.

Hymn of Hope and Forgiveness

“We’re Still Standing”

K-Drama

No matter how many times we fall down, we have hope in the forgiveness of God.

We're still standing -not because our own strength, but because God is holding us up!

Praise of Thanksgiving

"Christ In My Flow"

Saylah

No room for compromise.

Christ flows through your blood and is present in all your actions.

The Sending

Acts of Commitment- so? Did you hear God today? Whatcha' gonna do about that?

"Who Is Gonna Tell the Child?"

Acappella

The Blessing- Let's leave the house feeling soooo.... fly....

“Feeling So Fly”

Toby Mac

Are you feeling so fly now?

Thank you for letting me indulge a little in my personal worship dreams... someday... in heaven!

Ps. Toby Mac's original MV's can't be embedded, so you might want to go search for them on youtube!

The Tea Party...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 02:19:30 GMT

Some time after I was too old for tea parties, we acquired an antique child's china tea set with settings for six, including silverware. The beautiful German set became a family ritual. The tiny teapot held enough tea for six tiny cups of tea and the creamer was filled with fresh milk. The sugar bowl always needed refilling with every new pot of tea. I don't remember who suggested that the tea needed to be weak for the little ones, but the tea pot was rinsed with hot water and then a little brewed tea was poured into and hot water filled it up. A fancy plate held cheerios. Even when we had cookies or tea sandwiches left over from some event, the tea party food of choice was plain cheerios. They could be forked, scouped up on the spoon, and even halved with the bitty knife.

All battles were called to a truce during a tea party. You couldn't insult the sibling you were mad at. You had to share the cheerios with them, pour tea in their cup, and ask them to please pass the sugar or cream. A tea party was a lot of work. You had to wash all the dishes gingerly before you set a fancy table. You had to pick flowers for a centerpiece (or make them if it was winter). You had to convince every one that it was time for a tea party. And then you had to carefully clean up and put away the set for next time. We didn't do it often- once during Christmas Break, again during Spring Break, and rarely in Summer since we went opposite ways.

The last time the tea set was used was during my brother's funeral. We were together and grieving terribly when my sister, Songbird, announced, "We are having tea."

We rounded up my brother's children, a five year old and a two year old, and sat down with them to have tea. We had more people than settings so the rest of us served as waiters- refilling the cheerios plate and making more tea. We laughed with his children and told stories about how their dad always ate all the cheerios and how he cried at the table if you stared at him. We told them how much he loved to laugh and how much he loved them, all interspersed with pinky fingers held high and tiny cups of tea refilled countless times. And then, my sisters and I carefully washed the set, dried it carefully, and packed it away.

It was the next to the last time we were together, and it was the last time we laughed together.

When my father moved, he gave away pieces of our childhood to us. Songbird got the doll house and he dropped the tea set off at my house. Carefully packed away in a small brown box labeled child tea set in my father's handwriting, I moved it from house to house. It was with a bit of relief when I discovered the box after our last move, afraid that it was one of the many things lost or broken. I set it in my great grandmother's sewing cabinet and forgot about it. It's been nearly twenty years this October since we've used it.

This weekend, my younger brother's oldest was in a state band competition and his sitter for the day bailed on him. Called into to service, I panicked slightly. How does one entertain a nearly seven year old boy and his sisters (the one who will be president who is nearly five, the one who will create world peace is not yet three, and the nine month baby who smiles and dances)? The zoo? Too cold. The aquarium? Was I crazy to take four kids so young out of the house?

And then it hit me... THE TEA SET! It was time to introduce the youngest ones to a family ritual. I made sugar cookie dough ahead of time and dug out small cookie cutters.

We had some rocky times during the day and at one point the oldest daughter had a meltdown. I rubbed her back while she cried in her bed and proclaimed loudly, "This is the worst day of my life. I want my Mommy." With Mommy miles away and not due back until the next day, that wasn't happening. "This is unfair!" she said angrily while the two year old observed her sister's temper tantrum.

"Nat mad? Nat mad? Nat mad?" she asked repeatedly.

"Yeah, Nat's mad, but it's ok. She can be mad."

I reminded her that she wasn't being punished and could come downstairs whenever she wanted, but she said she was staying bed until her mother got home. I left her alone for half an hour while I put the youngest two down for a nap and then rejoined her on her bed where we read an old Wonder Woman comic with lots of words and small pictures. "When your sister wakes up from her nap, I'm going to make cookies and have a tea party," I said.

"I'm not," she said firmly.

"Up to you," I said. "I'm going down to get the sprinkles for the cookies out."

She followed me downstairs, and pulled out the containers of sprinkles- stars, hearts, chocolate jimmies, flowers, yellow sugar. Quickly she sorted out the cookie cutters as well. We spent an hour or more cutting out cookies and over decorating them with colored sugar, pink hearts, brown leaves, and white stars. While I washed the tea set and swept the floor, the cookies burned slightly.

The almost five year old couldn't decide if we should use my set or hers. It was a major dilemma and I let the decision be completely hers. Finally, she decided on my tea set and her pink tray because every tea party needed a tray. The "men" joined us- the love of my life well warned not to eat the cookies after the two year old sneezed on them in a wet, drooling sneeze while he helped her work the cookie cutter, and the seven year old because--- well--- there were cookies. They joked and arm wrestled much to the future president's dismay and she wanted to banish them from the party.

The two year old made me nervous as she poured tea until her cup overflowed. I quickly poured some out so she had room for more milk while the nearly five year old emptied her twentieth cup of tea and watched the milk swirl in the twenty-first cup.

She brought me the dishes to wash and we talked about the tea party. "I have an idea," she announced. "How about you leave the tea set with my daddy?"

But my brother had whispered a secret in my ear. He'd found the President her own antique tea set- from the fifties, china, in perfect shape, a real beauty, he said, for Christmas. It would replace the plastic set she got when she was three.

"How about I keep it," I negotiated, "and bring it to your house on special occasions. That way when you visit me, we'll be able to have tea." That satisfied her. The handle has a crack in it that must have happened during one of the moves and the art work is wearing slightly on some of the plates. I'll have my brother start looking for another set for my house and let this one become a collector's item on display.

As I left the kids with my step mother who was taking the night shift, Madame President told her, "This is the best day of my life."

Such is the power of the tea party- it can make a terrible, horrible, rotten, no good day into something special, and now she knows the family secret- when life is unfair, have a tea party!

The World Slowly Turns...

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 11:50:37 GMT

It's been a rough week here- the manga project is stalled for months- which has serious implications as far as the publishing of it- not that it's my fault. I've pushed it as far as it can pushed.

It's been one year exactly since the mysterious great illness arrived at our house and took up residence.We (by which I mean--- HE) have learned a few coping skills, but I need a job with good health benefits if it's not going away. Remember when you didn't need them? Before I started teaching in an urban school, money was tight and health benefits were cheap. For years, they've tried to take back those benefits and that generation of teachers who went without financial health fought any mention of decreases in it. They felt like they'd sold their soul to the devil when it was cheaper to give people money and reduce their benefits. Now- they don't want to give you either... but I still need a job- ASAP.

It's gray here- even when it isn't rainy. I remember October in Ohio as being crisp, bright days with weekends spent at the Apple Harvest and the Heritage Fair. I think we've had one nice fall day all season and now it's getting cold. We haven't sat outside at night in months- too buggy, too wet, too cold, too noisy (the insects are incredibly loud here!).

So while I'm experiencing a major stall in creative progress, career, and health battles, the world continues to revolve slowly. Words of encouragement and strength come from odd places- here from people I admire but don't know and twitter- of all places....

For example... Rev Run says... in his tweets this week....

If trouble comes knocking today, DONT ANSWER! period!( troubled thoughts, ppl, situations, hang up da phone!!!!!

Earrrly in da morn we must beat down, capture & eliminate enemy thoughts! Rise & grind ppl!! Lets go!

I pray you all had a good day & dont feel lost.. if u lose yall just dont lose the lesson.. Good nite great ppl!!!

Do you believe strongly in what ur selling ppl? When you believe you,, they'll believe you

If you feel like youre stuck, in many ways thats a positive sign. It means youre eager to get moving - Ralph Marston

If you tweet, you should follow him. He keeps me thinking all is not lost and he is the best doubt gremlin chaser around. Thanks RevRun!

An awesome virtual book release party for doahsdeer new book happened at his place last night! Marketing your book (once someone agrees to publish it) is a difficult task, but Xangans make it easier with their support and encouragement. Jeff is an awesome cheerleader- giving of his wisdom freely, supporting all the writers here like it's a part-time job. So... if someone on your Christmas list loves mysteries, order a copy of Jeff's book today for them.

I'm still editing away- trying to reduce this book to the required pages and not mess up the storyline. Tighten, tighten, tighten... I'd love to have it in the mail by the first of November so I could move on. Another xangan is busy doing a professional edit on it.

While we might be watching our pennies, we are wealthy beyond belief with the people God has put in our lives- both virtual and real. I was thinking that this week when a Xanga friend popped up on facebook and we were silly happy to see each other again-- while a person I know in real life but who isn't a friend isn't someone I want to see there. Every day her name and picture pops up as a potential friend, and every time I see it, I wonder why we'd be friends now when we had nothing to say to each other for the last four years. It's not that I don't like her- it's just that I don't know her... but my Xangan friend? He's been someone very special for a long time and I miss him when he's not around.

And the world keeps turning slowly.......

Party Happening...

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:06:10 GMT

here...

free buffet and good company.... Go.....

And while you're there...

Read a chapter,

Buy the book!

The party's hopping...

it's the best of the season...

so run on by and get a drink from a dead Romanian...

Oh yeah, and don't forget to order a copy of the book!!!

PJ...

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 17:54:10 GMT

When I was five, we still lived in the small town in the middle of Nebraska corn fields and they didn't have kindergarten in town. I rode the afternoon bus to a flat brick building, walked into a carpeted class, and sat at a short table with shorter chairs and colored worksheets. Color the balloon blue. Color the kite orange. Color the grass green. The balloon was always blue. The grass was always green, and I didn't understand why the kid next to me didn't know to match the word on the balloon to the word on the side of the fat crayon. The crayons smelled of school. They smelled like the way school was supposed to be- in my day dreams. In real life, it smelled cold and bitter like sassafras tea.

I had big brothers who went to school in the three story brick building on the edge of the town- the place with dried mud patties under the swings. They took their lunch to school everyday in brown paper bags with their names printed on them. My mom sat them on the table by the door and while they were still gathering up their school supplies, I stole their lunches and sat behind the sofa. Their lunch bags smelled like school too and I thought that they were magical- as if by eating them that I would be transported there. My mother started packing a third lunch and leaving it on the table.

The teacher was experienced at handling young students and she made sure we only had the pieces of equipment that we were supposed to have- the flannelboard pieces fit in a wooden box and sat on her desk next to the Bobbsey Twins book she was reading to us during nap time. I really wanted to make my own designs with all those cool shapes inside the wooden box instead of boring duck-ball-duck-ball-duck ones, but the one time I had the opportunity to finish the pattern, she got upset when I used the wrong pieces and gave my turn to another child.

PJ rode the bus with me. PJ lived down the street and he loved to double dare people into doing things, but he was a man of his word, and if you triple dared him back, he'd go first. Except the time when he made me eat dog food first, or ride my tricycle down the cement cellar steps interfering with my mom's Old Ladies Wearing Hats Meeting as they rushed out when he screamed. I remember watching their pudgy stockinged legs running toward me as I laid on the cool cement and watched the world spin. Seven stitches later, PJ and I were grounded and told we weren't allowed to dare people to do things. Not that we listened.

PJ wasn't in my class. He was in the class next door and once during nap time I heard him laughing. It made me sad that we didn't laugh in our class and I listened to the teacher drone on and on about the adventures of the twins in a world very different from mine. We fingerpainted one day- one color- one finger she said, but I had blue and the kid next to me had yellow. "I'll give you some of my blue if you give me some of your yellow," I suggested.

I knew how to make green. The year before had been the year of GREEN at our house. I found a rejected can of green paint in my travels and my mom had agreed that I could paint my belongings green. I'm sure she didn't think that would mean my baby doll, the swing set, my sister's hair, and... the cat. My can of green paint was taken away from me after the cat and my second oldest brother stuck up for me. "You said she could paint things green. If you meant she could only paint some things green, you should have told her."

I was also the child of an artist who was the child of an artist so I knew about primary colors. I knew how to make secondary colors and I knew that mixing paint was as much fun as painting the cat green. My kindergarten teacher wasn't amused. We were supposed to follow the rules and the rule was- 1 color- 1 finger.

We had a paper that had bears on it and the bears had numbers on their belly. Color the bear with the #1 brown. Color the bear with the #2 black. Color the bear with the #3 blue. But the bears were floating in space, and I knew that they needed grass to stand on, so I added grass and gave bear # 3 a yellow balloon. The little boy next to me raised his hand and told- even though he'd colored bear #1 black and bear #2 brown.

My teacher put me at a table closer to her so she could keep an eye on me. On her desk was the wooden box of colored shapes and the BOOK... the one she read a page or two out of every day. If I reached out slightly when she walked around the room drawing stars on perfect papers, I could touch it. A marker showed where she left off and I opened to that page. It had a lot of words on it and the print was smaller than I was used to, but I knew some of the words. Lost in trying to figure out the sentence, I forgot to watch out for the teacher who never smiled and who never read with expression. When she snatched the book away, I was shocked. No one had ever pulled a book out of my hands before. No one had ever told me I couldn't read a book. At my house, I could try to read anything I found- even if I didn't know the words. At my house, someone always read the words I didn't know to me when I asked- even if it annoyed them and they were busy. At my house, even when my mom was mad at me, she didn't stay mad at me. She laughed about the green cat when the neighbor asked her why the cat was green, and she laughed when she found out that the reason we were out of dog food was because PJ and I ate it for snack.

I cried on the bus home and PJ comforted me. "I'm not going back," I said to PJ.

"You have to go back," he said, confused.

"I know how to color pictures already. I can count to one hundred. I know a circle is a circle and triangle is a triangle. I can write my name. Why do I have to go?"

My mother didn't have an answer for me either. My father said I had to go because there was a lot I didn't know yet. My biggest brother said that going to school was something everyone did and that I'd be bored at home with mom and the babies. My next older brother sat with me behind the sofa and shared his lunch with me. He didn't say anything as we ate.

PJ gave me a new yellow pencil on the bus ride the next day but we weren't allowed to use our pencils in school. We had to use big clunky pencils that were hard to write with and my letters looked all shaky.

I used PJ's pencil when I got home. I took out my yellow pad from my father's old briefcase- the one I'd claimed when I was three and where I stashed the stories I was writing and other important things. I sat behind the sofa and thought a long time. But I couldn't think of what to write- the feelings deep inside me didn't have words yet. I finally wrote in BIG letters across the page. I HAT SHOL and put the note pad back in the case and latched it. My second oldest brother joined me behind the sofa. He offered me a homemade cookie and we sat in silence.

The lady in the black car came the next week and my brother carried a brown paper box out to her car, got in, and drove away. They told me he was leaving, but I thought they meant that she was taking him shopping and that he'd be back. I knew he wasn't my real brother, but he'd been there since the day I was born, and while other foster kids came and went, he was always there.

The next school day there was only two lunch bags on the table- my biggest brother's and the one my mom had gotten in the habit of making. I took my bag, put it in my briefcase, and waited for the bus to come and go before slipping out the front door. I made rounds. I stopped and visited all my friends that I hadn't seen since school started. The cookie lady gave me two windmill cookies, the train man let me stop the train, the mail man gave me a ride in his car, and I walked the entire town. PJ stopped by my house after school and my mother realized that she hadn't seen me get on the bus that afternoon.

I sat on the swings outside my brothers' school and my biggest brother found me waiting for him after the last bell. "He's not coming back," he said. "Let's go home." I walked behind him, dragging my feet. "Mom's gonna spank you for cutting class," he warned as we started up the walk. "This is the worst thing you've done since you drove the car!"

PJ waited patiently for me to get ungrounded and saved his allowance. He had enough for two peanut butter ice cream cones by the time I was free again. We swung on the swings and our feet touched the clouds. "We're moving," I said.

"Really moving or pretend moving?" PJ asked, because the last time I told everyone we were moving it was because friends had taken me to see model homes in a new subdivision and I had decided that we needed to move into them.

"Really moving," I said.

PJ paid for the ice cream and we walked along the train tracks. "Don't ever eat peanut butter ice again," PJ said fiercely.

"Cross my heart, hope to die," I promised.

All our stuff went on a truck and the house was empty and bare. My hiding spot behind the sofa was exposed and so were the empty lunch bags that had been stashed underneath it. Grandpa Mac walked through the empty house with my mother and I. He looked up at the rafters in the basement and laughed. Monopoly money peeked over the edge of the cross beam where it had fallen after I poked it through the hole in my bedroom wall. My mother glared at me while I stared at it. It had made my second oldest brother so mad that the money had disappeared and he knew I'd taken it, but they couldn't find it anywhere.

He'll never find me, I thought. I'll be lost forever like the money on the rafter. When he comes back and the house is empty and we are gone, he'll walk down here and look up and see the money and then he'll know---

"Want me to retrieve that?" Mac asked.

"NO!" I protested. My mother left it behind- as if she could read my mind.

I didn't eat peanut butter ice cream for years after that- long after the promise was forgotten. My brother leaving, school being this ugly place, and peanut butter ice were all tangled up in balled mess. I didn't like any of it, but the one thing I could do was not eat the ice cream... so I didn't.

It had to be a Swiss Cow...

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:44:10 GMT

When I was little, we lived in a small town in the middle of Nebraska- a very small town. It had a small white church that my Dad preached at, a parsonage next door with tall trees and a fence (to keep me home), a train waystation with a guy that changed the train tracks, an old lady who gave me two windmill cookies when I visited her, a volunteer fire station where my Dad worked and that got quite good at rescuing me from the tall trees in our yard, a three story brick high school with swings that had mud under them that dried into big patties, an ice cream shop, and I can't remember anything else being there.

In the summer, night never came and I was sent to bed while my big brothers played baseball in the street in front of our house. I sat at the window watching them, feeling very left out until my parents would yell at me for being out of bed. Even after the lights were out, it was too bright to sleep. During the winter, night came too soon and you could hear the coyotes howling in darkness. I was scared of coyotes. I'd been warned countless times to stay away from them because they would steal little children.

On the fourth of July, we went to the farm where we shot fireworks off, cranked homemade ice cream, and ran among the fireflies barefoot. My brother's best friend lived on the farm and I was shocked when we went there to get milk one day. They had cows- black and white milk cows! Real cows just like the picture in the Sunday paper and then it hit me. I wanted to have my picture taken standing next to a black and white Swiss milk cow. The next Sunday during Sunday school, I was asked if I wanted to pray over our cookies and grape Kool-Aid. "Dear God, I want to have my picture taken with a black and white Swiss milk cow while wearing a red dress with flowers on it. Amen."

My Sunday School Teacher told the lady next to her in church who told the old farmer next to her who laughed aloud. The old man who kept candy in his pocket for good children after church handed me a root beer barrel and said, "Cows around here aren't the kind you take pictures with, kiddo."

The train guy stopped the train and we waved at the engineer. "Cows are smelly, you know."

Gretchen and her little brother stayed with us while her mother had another baby. Every day my mom combed out Gretchen's long blond hair and braided it. "When I get hair like Gretchen, I'm gonna have my picture taken with the cow," I told my mother.

"It'll take a long time for your hair to grow that long," my mother said. She'd spend hours the week before trying to even out my hair after I cut it myself. Maybe I'll cut off Gretchen's braids and borrow hers, I thought. I didn't like Gretchen. She was older, bigger, meaner, bossier, and she took too much of my mother's time in the morning. Plus, I was sure she was never going home. She'd been there four days already.

I sat between my brothers at church the next Sunday but they were busy punching themselves while my mother played the piano. I slipped off the pew and laid on the cool floor. You could see all kinds of things under the pews. The old ladies wrinkled hose and serious shoes, the dirt on the edges of the dress shoes from where the farmers had done one last chore before driving into town for church, and unsupervised, half-open purses were sitting on the floor waiting for someone to investigate them. Sneaking carefully underneath the pews, I crept towards the front. My mother quit playing in the middle of a song, carried me out, and spanked me- the third week in a row.

"Bad girls in church will never have special things happen," she warned after telling me to quit crying and sit quietly.

The root beer barrel man snuck me a piece of candy after church.

I found a copy of the picture in Sunday's paper and tore it out. "I want this for Christmas," I announced at Sunday dinner. Everyone laughed.

"Honey, it's too cold in December to have your picture taken with a cow," the farmer's wife said gently.

"That's stupid," my biggest brother announced. ""Don't you want a doll or something?"

I thought a long time. I did want a set of silver cowboy guns with a holster and real caps, but my father said I had to be eight before I could have caps and that was a whole lifetime away- four years at least.

"Nope!" I said. "You can give me the dress for Christmas and I can have my picture taken when the snow melts." My mother sighed and claimed the paper saying that she needed it. I think she was hoping that if I didn't have the picture that I'd forget.

But I didn't. I talked about it nonstop.

I told the man scooping up Peanut butter Ice Cream.

I told the little boy next door.

I told the old lady with the windmill cookies.

I told God four times a day- once at each meal and once at bedtime.

The piano guy came and fixed the piano and brought us huge buttery cinnamon pastry called Elephant's Ears. I sat on the piano bench and described the scene to him until my mother made me leave so he could finish the piano in time for Christmas Eve.

My brothers were going to be Shepherds and I could be Baby Jesus, my mother said. My dad and some of the farmers cut out camels from huge sheets of wood and sawed and hammered until a tiny house stood in front of our Church. They brought in hay.

Cows! I thought! I could have my picture taken in the little house with the cows. It wouldn't be the same as standing in a green meadow with snow capped mountains in the distance, but it'd be real cows. I got sick and ran a fever that Christmas Eve and Grandpa Mac stayed with me while everyone else was outside. I cried and cried until he realized I thought there were cows out there and then he put my coat on and took me to the little building. It had red and green blinking lights, and a crowd of people gathered around. They were singing and Mac edged through them until we were up front. There were only wooden camels and sheep! Sheep are dumb AND they stink! And my brothers in bathrobes. No cows in sight.

There was no special red dress with pretty flowers on it under the tree. There was a set of red felt cowboy boots with tiny silver guns that went on the side from my Grandpa Mac.

Spring came and went. We gathered wild flowers for May Day and I left them on the door of the Windmill cookie lady and the train man. We rang the doorbell and rang, giggling.

The fourth of July was almost there again. My brothers talked about which fireworks to buy and my mother gathered stuff for homemade ice cream. I began my campaign in earnest. Every Sunday I sat with the farmer who owned The Cow.

"That cow is covered with mud," he said one Sunday.

"That cow is old and mean," he said the next Sunday.

"That cow has a baby," he said a bit later. "How about you come see the baby?"

Then, one Saturday my mother handed me a package. It wasn't my birthday and it wasn't Christmas and Grandpa Mac wasn't in town so I didn't understand. "They ordered this from far away," she said, "so you make sure you tell them thank you today!"

Inside the brown paper was The DRESS... a red one with pretty purple and blue flowers on it, with white lace and strings on the back. It was just like the dress in the picture.

When we drove out to the farm, a black and white Swiss Milk Cow waited in the front yard, all clean and shiny, a ring of summer flowers around her ears. She was huge. She was taller than Grandpa Mac's car. She had big ugly brown teeth. She wasn't happy about being tied to the front gate and I was suddenly not so sure I wanted my picture taken with her. She could step on me with her gigantic feet and squish me like an ant. No, my brother was right. This was a stupid idea. But no one was waiting for me to approach the cow. They scooped me up and sat me on top of the cow.

The farmer grinned. "Old lady cleaned up nicely," he said as my mother carefully framed the shot with her special "real" camera.

It was a long way to the ground and the Old Lady had never had anyone sitting on her before. She squirmed. I squirmed. She looked back and bared her teeth. I fell off and landed in a fresh cow patty. After the tears and the cleaning up process, they tried again. My mother took less time framing the shot this time and I squinted. Snap.

"Now," my mother said, "we have a little peace around here."

It wasn't even the fourth of July and we lounged on the wraparound farmhouse porch eating blackberry ice cream. The adults were talking about how many times the fire company had to rescue me and about the time I stopped the train when the train man wasn't there and other tales they thought were very funny when I realized something. "The circus is coming to town," I said. "Did you see the poster. Is an elephant bigger than a cow? Did you see that lady standing on top of the elephant in her pink dress on the poster? Wasn't she pretty?"

The adults fell silent and then laughed. "Cows, trains, and elephants," said the farmer. "At least I don't have to worry about cleaning the elephant!"

*** psst... that's not my pic- it's an internet pic. the cow pic is long gone! as are all the family photos...

and... I was told that Swiss cows are brown and white... which they are! But I remember it being black and white... maybe the farmers were Swiss and that's where the memory of the cow type came from? Plus when I googled it- I googled black and white swiss cow ads... duh... those cows ARE black and white... so for the record... I don't know what kind of cow it was! :)

Ninja Assassin...

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 14:31:37 GMT

Rainism hits again!

Coming November 25th...

Who's coming with me?

How many seats should I save?

If I were in Seoul on the 10th of this month, I'd have the hard choice of seeing him or the rest of the Kpop performers

(Big Bang, Super Junior, SHINee, Jewelry, KARA, 2ne1, 4Minute, SNSD, T-Ara, Wheesung, Park Hyo Shin, MC Mong and Chae Yeon) in a Dream Concert.

Of course, I'd see him first! I'd love to see him live someday. His concerts are always amazing.

(It'd be a harder decision if Shinhwa was performing... but only bc Shinhwa was my gateway into Kpop!)

Wonder who made a mistake and scheduled two concerts for the same night?

Anyway... have been waiting for this movie for months now... months and months! The teasers look great for it.

Less is More...

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:33:48 GMT

I can do poor... been there-done that-didn't want to do it again, but since THE illness, the MOVE, and my not working, we're being very careful with our money this year. I've learned from the best- the generation that saved the waxed paper from inside the cereal boxes to wrap sandwiches- the original "reuse it" depression babies.

Count Your Resources:

REUSE: Almost everything I needed for the new house came from a thrift store- curtains, appliances, furniture (except my DVD shelves which came from a cut-end store), clothing and books for the new grandbaby. It felt like manna- if what I needed was at the thrift store, I knew to buy it even if money was a little tight because it wouldn't be there after payday. Plus it's 25% off on Mondays- so go early. Vintage fits this little 40's house perfectly and being shabby chic with dings and dents is fine. We bought a smaller house on the edge of a bad neighborhood even though we worried about it being a bad investment. We could have gotten a nicer house in a nicer neighborhood, but we were carrying two mortages and I worried about something happening (and it did) so while the resale on this house might not go up as much when the market goes up, we haven't lost either home.

Entertainment: we cut out cable and kept the internet (which is necessary for business here). This cost us a little since we upgraded the media center (but we bought the new refurbished one from Dell- complete with a warranty that includes sending someone the NEXT day to the HOUSE to fix it). We use a free app called Zinc for internet TV and it makes TV watching perfect. We record the few network shows we want to see with the commercial skip on and an hour show becomes a 45 minute committment. Plus- the lack of commercials doesn't feed the "I need that now" bug. We try to go to the movies earlier in the day when it's cheaper. He'll leave work a little early so we can catch the early show and then work after we get home to make up the time. We're blessed that he has a job with such flexibility and count it as one of our many resources. We have internet phone which means no long distance phone bills as well.

Count your Pennies! No magazines, newspapers, etc. They aren't a lot of money, but when you add up all the little expenses they make a difference. Watching your dimes and nickels makes a difference. Save enough of them and you can buy something you really want. Save the pennies in a jar and cash them in when you want to go out to dinner. You'll be surprised at how many pennies it takes to eat at Applebee's. Use the library- it's free! You can get movies, books, magazines there for FREE-- no rental fees! We tend to forget that the library is one of our resources.

Quit eating out! I cook nearly every night and buy lunch fixings. We still eat out on weekends or when we see the kid, but we try to keep those occasions down to inexpensive locations. The important thing is the time you spend together- not the expensive food you eat! And... I buy food with marked down tags on it and put it in the freezer- bread and meat mostly. I check the packages to see the date and condition before adding it to my cart, but as my dad says... it can be a 40% saving! I shop very carefully. Coupons don't always save me money. I had a coupon for cottage cheese recently- $1 off which made it $1.50, but the store brand was on sale for $1 so I saved fifty cents by NOT using the coupon. I only stock up when something is on sale AND we have the extra money to invest in it AND it's something we use frequently. I don't buy canned things very often though. I would rather spend my extra money on fresh fruit and vegetables. Learn when the stores around you mark down their meat. They mark it down the day BEFORE it expires and that tends to be on Mondays since most people shop on the weekend.

Make conscious choices! It may be important to you to stop at Starbucks and get a latte daily or buy a soda from 7/11, but plan it! Figure out how much it cost you and give up something else you don't care about- like the boy who mows your lawn! The important thing is that you have thought about your spending and decided that something is worth it to you enough to sacrifice something else. I figure everything by the cost of a manga. One manga cost me $10 so the boy mowing the lawn cost me 2.5 mangas. I chose to give up the manga after a few months of giving up entire Saturdays to take care of the lawn. (Plus the library has some- not the ones I want- but some!) My father talks about donuts. He loved Dunkin' Donuts in the morning but they were fifty cents and that would buy a loaf of bread to make lunch for his kids to take to school. Two donuts or lunch for five kids? It wasn't a hard choice for him. Still- once in a while he had a little extra in his pocket and on those mornings, he'd stop and have coffee AND a donut. Pure joy! Ten packs of gum = $10... 100 packs of gum = $100. How many times have you NOT given the kid going on a mission trip a little extra because you didn't have it? I have a friend who gave up the Sunday paper because all those ads made her want to go shopping. If she doesn't know something is on sale, she doesn't have to have it.

Things are still tough here. I'm still job hunting and he's still working even though he's ill. But we are doing ok. We can give one of our favorite college kids the things she needed for her first apartment and a bit of gas money to come home once in a while. We can help the Kid get ready for the new baby. Money isn't the big "DEMON". Living simply isn't torture or punishment, it's just a choice. Less really is more!

Back to the "Getting Thrifty" writing prompt on Featured Grownups

Cutting...

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:39:04 GMT

Writing calls for all kinds of discipline and trying to sell/market something is part of the discipline... which means sometimes you have to do things that hurt- like cut 75+ pages from a work so that it fits within the contest guidelines. Of course, I could chose NOT to cut some of my favorite parts, but then I know that I shouldn't submit it to the contest either. I could self-publish it, but this is a major YA publishing company and the prize is a contract for the book... so slash goes the pen... or actually... delete goes the button. I have 25 more pages to go. I could reduce the font size to 10 but that doesn't save me much spacewise and makes it hard to read and I don't want that. Reject the book on it's own merit, not on how hard it is to read, judges... so I start looking to tighten up my phrasing, less description in parts, and take out a minor story line. I just have to sell one... and then I can write longer books! YA books are no longer supposed to be only 200 pages (thank you Harry Potter and Twilight!) but if the publisher is looking for one that runs that long, then I need to give them a book that fits their criteria- right? A xanga friend is editing it before I submit it so another pair of eyes will help with the cutting!

I really hate the marketing piece of writing for publishing. How about I do what I know best- which is to write... and someone else does what they know best- which is to market. Asking writers to market their stuff seems awkward- at least when movie stars pitch their movies on talk shows they are still performing- which is in their talent niche! But writing tends to be a solitary endeavor and marketing is a people thing...

BRB... still have more to cut... where's my Terry Tye Lee tracks to make the pain more bearable??

Hello Superstar...

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:07:06 GMT

Mike wants me to write about Van Ness.

I usually write about him after something of mine hits the main Xanga page- mostly because it's an opportunity to introduce one of my favorite (mostly unknown in America) super stars.

Born and raised in LA, a dancer from childhood, Taiwanese- American, the uber talented...

Van Ness Wu...

Singer, Dancer, Actor, Model...

Wu Jian Ho

His new single hit Japan last month and made it to the top 10 Oricon chart nearly instantly. (It was on the top 10 before my copy arrived in the mail.)

He has a new drama starting Sunday night. (It'll be weeks or months before I see it because the fansubbers have to love it enough to sub it for me). But his entire summer has been spent filming it- 16 hour days- counting weekends so those of you who can get TTV/SETT, turn in Sunday 22:00 - 23:30 and see how good it is. There's one scene he does in heels and it looks like lots of ice hockey time too.

He's funny, serious, workaholic, loyal to his friends and family, and dedicated to making every day count for God... and we barely know him here in his home country... which raises the big question for me consistently...

Why do we have such a talent drain in the States and no one mourns their loss? Why?

I probably know way too much about him since I spent four years writing the perfect crossover script for him that I haven't been able to convince him to read yet... (but that's a whole 'nother story!)

But... today I want to talk about someone I learned about because of Van Ness... one of his favorite song writers/ producers, one of my favorite composers to write to...

the irrasible, talented, rhyming genius Terry Tye Lee...

even fewer people know Tye Lee than know Van Ness and yet his riffs and beats linger in the brain for months after your encounter with them.

I hang out on another blog site when I'm writing and crank TTL's embedded radio and play him until my brain hurts and his words bounce around inside looking for a way out. I've listened to so much Tye Lee lately that I can hear four bars and recognize his fingerprints all over the masterpiece!

When I told him that I needed a CD- which he doesn't have- he sent me three unpublished tracks and I've listened to them nonstop. He's a humble, honest person who gives freely and doesn't think he's all that.

Tye Lee's been writing music since he was 13 and no one was making the music he wanted to hear- and besides, if he wrote his own music then he saved money. So for a kid growing up, it was a win-win. For the singers of Asia, it was a big win... and for us in the States? It was a pure wash since if it's not on our top 40 radio, we tend to ignore it.

In the dog-eat-dog, tear down anyone in your way entertainment world, I find it frustrating that Terry Tye Lee isn't better known. His sound is fresh, his beat fresher, and his heart is beautiful... like his songs.

So here's a bit of Van Ness performing one of my fav TTL's songs... (not my fav fav- that's a little thing called Green Kicks that you'll never hear unless he loans it to me with permission to upload it since he took it off his playlist). Enjoy- the best of both... Van Ness Wu performing at church a song TTL wrote ... Hello Superstar!