Donna’s Blog

This week i decided to call the Nazarene church in Lake City and see if it might be available.  I’ve never even been to that church, never met the Pastor, but figured i could call and just check it out.  Turns out Pastor Craig is a really nice guy and was more than glad for us to use his church.  The conversation went something like this:

pc:  This is Pastor Craig Henderson, i’m returning your call.

me:  oh, yes, pastor thanks for calling me back.  I’m Donna from the Nazarene church up the road in Valdosta (i thought “up the road” sounded very neighborly) and i have a sort of strange question to ask you.

pc:  okay

me:  i am a writer and my co-writer and i from Jacksonville were looking for a halfway point to meet and write and were wondering if we could use your sanctuary? (at this point i tried to explain how we really wanted to find a sanctuary to continue writing in because it just worked so well for us so he wouldn’t think i just wanted a free space!)  (i continued nervously……)  I know you don’t know me and you’re welcome to call my Pastor as a reference, and i have a website you are welcome to check out and…..

pc:  (nicely interrupting me)….oh, that’s fine.  i’m sure you’re fine.  and yes, you’re welcome to use our sanctuary to write.

me: (relieved that this is going so well), great!  well, we are actually writing tomorrow.  so, would tomorrow be good?

pc:  well, we have our last night of VBS tonight and the closing program is Sunday, which means all the stuff is set up in the sanctuary, but that should be okay.

WOW….is this Pastor great or what?  And guess what?  When we arrived at 11:00 Saturday, the church was unlocked, the air was running and the lights in the sanctuary were turned on.  AND…..they have a baby grand piano.  Nice.

So we met there and wrote for 4 1/2 hours straight………..trying to rewrite ONE song!  Yikes!

I think i told you that i sent some songs to my publisher and there is some tweaking to do.  I have to admit this is my first time at really trying to rewrite some lines and it is hard work.  In fact, i thought it was going to be much simpler than it was.  i’m still not sure i’m totally thrilled about what we re-wrote.  i’m not sure it’s any better.

This is probably going to be a totally boring blog, but i guess i’m aloud one or two of those a month right?  “You don’t say”…..

If you’ve been tuning in very much, you’ve probably seen the look of my blog change about 15 times!  I’ve been playing with different blog templates to try and get a new look to this site and for some reason several of them cute off my sentences.  That is weird.  Why would the blog set up do that?  In fact, i’ve changed templates in the past and i don’t remember that being an issue.  Maybe the blog people updated their stuff.  Isn’t funny how when a new/updated version of something comes out, it invariably causes more grief than the old one?  

I did email the blog people and asked them to check on the problem for me.  I really liked the template with the flowers on it, but that just didn’t work.  So maybe they’ll get back to me and tell me they’ve figured out a way i can talk and talk and talk and the flower template won’t cut off my sentences!

I even went back to my old template to solve the problem and guess what?  yup, it cut off my words.  So, for now we’ll go wth this look.  At least until i get brave enough to go with a whole nother blog company…..but that would be very scary.  I’ve just learn to barely navigate my way around this one, i don’t know if i could be brave enough to set up a blogger blog or a windows live blog or whatever else is out there.  “you don’t say”…….

We did sign up for ATT dsl at home, so that should be active sometime next week.  For now, i’m visiting ABC again today to enjoy their music, their sticky buns and their free wireless.  Well actually, i haven’t made a purchase yet today; i’m still so full of Nana’s homemade biscuits that i don’t think i can eat anything for a little while.  

Oh, went to Lake city to write yesterday.  I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow.  “You don’t say”……..

I recently read about a convention of bloggers.  That’s right….they are TEACHING
people how to blog.  WOW.  There are all kinds of blogs out there…..to inform,
to entertain, to minister, and on and on.  These blogs are in-flu-en-tial and have
massive amounts of readers.  And there’s a whole thing about blog traffic and blog
stats and blog this-and-that that people study.  I think some people even make money
off their blog.  So yes, a seminar on how to do it would be very helpful to them, i suppose. 

In one of these seminars, a blog professional taught on “finding your voice “.  Every blog
is unique and should “sound” like the writer.  If you read very many blogs you know what
they mean.  Some writers have a distinctive sarcasm, or wit, or dry sense of humor, or
sincerity or just plain funny tone to their blogs.  I found that very interesting to read
about and began to wonder if this blog “sounds like me”? 

THEN i read that phrase today again when i got my feedback from some songs i’ve
turned in to my publisher.  I know i’ve only been doing this songwriting thing for a
little while and so i have a lot to learn.  I was anxious to hear the critique back on
the songs i’d submitted to the listening session.  And i got lots of feedback.  Some
good (that’s always nice) and lots of areas to work on……and that’s to be expected! 
But what i found interesting was the comment about finding “my voice” when i’m writing.  

It seems that songs have a “tone” to them, or maybe a “signature” of sorts that says
 ”donna was here”.  You’d think i’d already know exactly what that voice is supposed
to sound like and i would be able to put it in every song, but i’m still learning.

As a writer, one of the most encouraging things anyone ever said to me was when i sent
a lyric to Dave and he emailed me back and told me it was the ”best one yet”.  I was so
HAPPY and then my next thought was, ”why”?  What made that lyric stand apart from
other lyrics i’d written.  When i thought about it, the only answer i could come up with
 was that i’d written it from the deepest, most vulnerable part of my soul.  It was my
truth spilled out on a piece of paper.  When i wrote it, i wasn’t wondering if anyone
else would “get it” when they heard it, i just wrote it because i had too.  Does that make
sense?

But every writer writes from that vulnerable place.  So that’s not really unique, i guess.  
Except that my vulnerable place isn’t the same as yours, because you haven’t been “exactly”
where i’ve been.  So maybe it is unique?  I don’t know.  Excuse me for thinking out loud on
this blog today.  But that’s what i’m doing.

Well, no thanks.  We can shop elsewhere you know.  There ARE other internet providers.  And customer service being what it is today, they happily said goodbye.  No, “thanks for being with earthlink for 8 years”, no, “are goal is to keep you as our happy, healthy customer, what can we do to ensure that?”, no “oh please, Ms. Norton, don’t go”…..nada!

Fine with me.  I’ve been paying a pretty price for service i’m not getting, so i’ll just be moseying (a word?) a long to find someone else.

In the meantime, i though i’d just leave everyone sleeping in bed (which is what happens during our summers….you know, they are ALL at home and I’m up in the shower!), and head out early to ABC.  I got here at 6:50 and their doors opened at 6:45.  I found that to be an interesting time.  Obviously, no one wants to get here at 6:00 or 6:30…..and customers surely want coffee before 7:00.  Or maybe not, since i’m the only one in here right now enjoying the music and free internet!

And of course when i was getting my coffee, i couldn’t help but look in that pretty window they have up front with all the yummy muffin tops, muffins and sticky buns.  That last one did me in.  I just had to order a pecan sticky bun.

   How wonderful is that?  When something is that beautiful and that good, you hate to rush through it.  I just wanted to take my time and enjoy it.  Type a little, eat a little, type a little, eat a little.  Which sounded like a good plan until i took that first bite of that oowee, goowee sticky bun and then just couldn’t stop.  I’ll think about the calories later.  Nahhhhh, probably not!

I am really loving their selection of music.  It’s all instrumental….and there’s been “country” selections (you are my sunshine played as “twangy” as i’ve ever heard it), and now there is jazz playing.  I just may have to talk to our lunch bunch about being a “breakfast bunch” once in a while!

There’s nothing quite like that big band sound, is there?  Makes me want to dress up and head to the Flamingo to cut up a rug….or something like that.  And when i say dress up, i mean that Ginger Rogers dress up where the dress just goes on for miles while your handsome partner spins you elegantly around and you never get dizzy.

One of my favorite dance scenes (from the limited dance sequences i’ve watched on film) is from White Christmas.  Bob Hope and Danny Kaye have just met the sisters (Rosemary Clooney and Vera?…oops, drawing a blank on her name).  Danny Kaye and Vera start to dance and end up dancing right off the dance floor out onto the porch and then onto a dock, and then on top of a boat and well, if you haven’t seen it, it is pretty amazing.

And it’s all so clean.  You know what i mean?  Just a lovely dance for the sake of the dance.  It doesn’t appear they can’t wait to hop in bed when it’s over…..they are just enjoying a great dance.  I don’t know why i had to throw that in, but that’s what i love about some of the old romantic movies.  You can pull them out and sit down with the entire family and watch them.  No cleavage hanging out, no filthy words to worry about and the lady usually ended up with her knight in shining armour (yep, i love that scene in White Christmas, too!).

Well, they’ve finally switched Frank off, so maybe i can focus and do some writing now.  Isn’t it funny….his voice, after all these years, is still the kind of voice that demands attention.  Can you ever ignore a Frank Sinatra tune?

….every muscle in my shoulders is hurting; can that be from swinging from that rope into the river?  or am i just old?

….i listened to a Sara Evans CD i haven’t listened to in a while.  my favorite song is track five…not sure of the title but the chorus says “i learned how to kiss on a ferris wheel and i made wishes at wishing wells and i fell into that fairy tale too.  now i know that love’s not so easy but we tried, didn’t we baby?  it’s alright.  some dreams weren’t meant to come true.  i learned that from you”.  great harmony in that song and a perfect melody line that captures every emotion of every line of the song.  i think i threw away the CD jacket, but i’d sure love to see who the songwriter was.

My two-year old daughter is horrible at hide and seek.

We’re not that worried. My wife and I feel that if we work with some specialists, by the time she is four, McRae should be hiding at a 3rd grade level and seeking at a 5th grade level, which is encouraging.

McRae’s biggest weakness is not that she regularly leaves her bright yellowed croc-covered feet sticking out of whatever blanket she is under. Her biggest problem is that she believes that if she can’t see you, you can’t see her. She thinks that if she hides her face in her mother’s dress that the instant the world goes dark for her, it also goes dark for you. I was smiling about this recently until I realized that is often how I approach God.

Sometimes my life feels like I am stuck on one side of the fence. I am looking through a hole in the fence to see what is happening on the other side. There’s a party over there. God is there, on that side, and lots of folks are just enjoying themselves, laughing and celebrating. But I am stuck on the wrong side.

(he shares his thoughts with a counselor and is told….) ”You know what the big thing is in that picture Jon? You think God is only on one side of the fence. You don’t think He’s on both.”

He’s right. All too often, I am a two-year old closing my eyes. I am a child misbehaving. I am a toddler that thinks that as soon as I mess up and my little world goes dark with sin and I feel that I can no longer see God, that He can no longer see me. The moment I make a decision that shuts Him out, He does the same to me. When I can’t see Him, He can’t see me.

Job deals with this in chapter 23, verse 9. In the midst of everything that happens to him, he admits:

When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him.

I like that. I like that Job admits that he doesn’t see God right now. Sometimes people try to make you feel guilty that you don’t “feel led” in a certain direction by God. That despite trying your best, in the north and the south you catch no glimpse of God and that is a failure. But Job knows it’s not about that. Job knows that our ability to see God is not the litmus test to prove if God is there or not. In verse 10 he says,

But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

God sees me. When I am filthy and covered with bad life decisions, He sees me. When I have dug deep pits and have stayed there so long that they have started rerouting my mail to the pit, He sees me. When I succeed and celebrate, He sees me. When I am good or bad or stuck believing that life is about being good or bad, He sees me.

  okay, so there wasn’t a mountain in the background, but you get the idea.

We went to the river with some kids after work last night.  I’d never been to that area before.  We parked the car, hiked about 1/4 of a mile in the woods and came to a clearing with a big rope swing and a perfect place to dive in.

The kids made it look so easy, i had to try the rope.  But when i climbed up to where it was, it looked a little scary.  You had to first swing out over some rocks and then out into the water.  I counted to 50 and then just did it.  I kept telling myself to just keep my legs straight and just let go and hit the water, but i think i ended up screaming and hitting the water in a not so graceful manner.  When i came up for air, i swallowed a little water, but hey!…i did it!  K. got brave enough to do it, too. 

We had a great time until just time to leave and i heard K. telling P., “I think you’ve cut your foot”.  I glanced over to where they were getting out of the water and saw blood swirling around her foot.  With every step over the rocks and out of the water, she left a big, bloody footprint.

I tried to stop the bleeding enough to do a quick look and it looked like about an 1 1/2 inch cut right in the top of her foot.  We grabbed a t-shirt to tie around it and started the hike back to the cars.  K. even put P. on her back and piggybacked her for a while out of the woods.  I was mad at myself for not thinking of having any first aid around.

Fortunately, by the time we finished the drive home, it had stopped bleeding.  I think she’s going to be o.k…..just need to check on the date of her last tetnas shot.  She’s a real trooper.