Donna’s Blog

I’m just wondering that today because yesterday i was kind of moody.  I was just feeling that way and i went with it.  Nothing went right in my morning and i just decided it was one of “those” days. 

But that’s uncharacteristic of me.  I don’t typically let the gloomies come and take over my body.  I tend to find a way to perk myself up.  I drive to Ellianos and treat myself to a Tuscony Toffee Freezer or i change up what i was going to wear and find something with lots of color and then accessorize to the hilt (yes, jewelry makes me happy!), or i email a friend a set up a lunch date.

But is all that simply my choice?  Or my nature?

I’m also wondering about that because i know people who seem to let the gloomies inhabit their body every day.  You probably know someone like that, too.  The day is never quite sunny enough, or if it is, it’s too hot.  The church service was good but it went too long.  Yes, God answered a prayer for them, but they have 20 more that are waiting.

It makes me wonder what they are really focusing on.  I mean don’t we all have (and excuse my language here) crap in our lives?  And at any given moment, we can choose to focus on that until it is ALL we see.

I’m not saying there are days when problems loom large in our lives because of sometimes devestating circumstances.  An accident, a serious illness, a death.

But i’m just wondering if there are days when we allow problems to be bigger than life because we keep staring at them.  

And somehow i got off on problems, when i guess i’m thinking of our general, overall, look on life.  You know the glass thing…..half empty, half full.  I wonder what percentage of our society is the half empty group, and what is the half full group.

Some people would say that i wear rose colored glasses because i try to look at the glass being half full.  okay, as long as the glasses have sparkly things on the side!  i’ll take them!  i try to find the best in every situation, in every person.

I’ve never been one to “size” people up; when i meet you for the first time, i like you.  and i will like you until you give me a reason not too.

I’d rather be here….

or i’d rather be doing this……
 

or i’d love to be hanging with these people and listening to them talk and talk and
talk about songwriting….

…..cause that’s the amazing Chad Cates, Sue Smith & Don Poythress….and it
was worth the ten-hour-stuck-in-traffic-Friday-night-drive to Tennessee
to get to listen to them share their stuff!

We grilled hamburgers and ate at Nana’s house (in our back yard). 

We sat around and laughed and talked. 

The girls threw their bathing suits on and jumped in the pool.

Then someone said “yard sale”.  Nana had decided this weekend would be a good weekend to get rid of some things.

So we headed out to the gargage.  Clothes had to be put on hangers and hung on racks (you can rent those to use just for your yard sale) and tables had to be set up and loaded with the “non-hang-up” items.

For some reason, i decided i could add just a little to her assortment of things and so i went into my closet to see what i could find.  I really just meant to go in and grab a few things; but the more i looked, the more i found i could really get rid of.

It’s a good feeling now to have a clean closet.  But now that i’ve organized that, it sure makes my dresser look cluttered!  None of it is yard sale material….so that’s not an option.  I just wish i knew how to put it all together so it doesn’t look so unorganized.  You know, so it looked a little more like those dressers in bedrooms you see in magazines!

Here’s what’s on my dresser right now:

jewelry box
ceramic angel that holds my wedding rings
my favorite perfume
a picture of the girls at Easter 2003
a picture of my college prayer parter, Anabela
a picture from ladies retreat in 2002
a picture on the “Revenge of the Mummy”, April, 2007
two books that still need to be read (“The Summons” and “Marley and Me”)
a candle
my watch and bracelets i wore yesterday
and last but not least, dust!  

Okay, i’ll give you that.  I’m sure it’s true. 

Right now though, i seem to be missing it.

Maybe i’m not looking hard enough at the birds in the trees.

Or the stars in the night sky.

Or the flowers by my front door.

Maybe i’m not seeing what is right in front of me.

Maybe i’m not listening enough.

Maybe i’m not tuning in to that creative vibe.  What station is that on?

Right now it feels like i am looking hard and can’t seem to see anything but a second verse that needs to be rewritten and it just won’t do it.

I write and delete.

I write and delete.

I wait for inspiration.

I look around me.  I breathe in and out.  I pray a little.  I fuss at the page and the words and my ditzy brain.

Somewhere, out there in “everywhere” are the words that will complete this song.  The words that will express exactly what needs to be said.  The words that will create that “aha” moment for the listener; that moment that says, “wow, someone else feels this way too?”

  i just can’t imagine what it’s like to be able to see all this in your mind and put it together….i’d be at a loss.  I’m sure if i tried to group different things together, it would just look like different colors that weren’t grouped together well.  It probaby wouldn’t come off as cool as say this….

  I hope you’ve enjoyed these two days of color.  I just love it!  It makes me wish i had a little more color around me right now.  Maybe i could find vibrant coffee cup or something!

How many cool parties could you have back here?  Can’t you just imagine this table filled with friends and family eating fried chicken, potato salad (like my mom makes, big cubes of potato with just the right amount of miracle whip and sugar blended together to make the best potato salad sauce) and baked beans (like Ben makes with just the right amount of brown sugar and whatever else he puts in there!) and homemade biscuits (like Joyce makes from scratch with just the right amount of buttermilk and crisco to make them yummy on the inside and crunchy on the outside) and pecan pie(just like…….well, just like I make!). 

And if you have to go indoors to eat, this room works too:

How cool is this?   I love the color on the wall.  And i think i saw that candle holder today while i was shopping at a store!

This house belongs to a lady who lives in Nashville, TN and raises five children and is a fabric designer.  She’s always loved fabrics and according to her bio, she started taking the clothes off her barbie dolls and designing her own outfits for them them when she was a little girl.  Her father was an artist and his paintings decorated the walls of her childhood home.  Her mom did a lot of sewing.  Not hard to see where she inheritied some of her talent from!

Anyway, check her out if you’d like to.  www.annamariahorner.com

  It’s not only amazing to look at, but every bit of it is edible! 

What amazed me is how they start with a big block of cake…..just plain, ordinary cake.  And then pick up their carving knives and begin to carve.  Somehow, they can look at that lump of cake and see exactly what they want it to be.

The lady who was carving the manatee (i tried to find a picture but couldn’t), said that you just “carve away everything that doesn’t look like a manatee”.  yeah, right.

I remember in junior high school we had to carve something out of a bar of soap.  Doesn’t sound to hard, right?  Soap is smooth and easy and should be pliable to the master sculptor’s plans…….except that i wasn’t a master sculptor and the plan i had didn’t work so well.  In fact, it turned out so bad, that i can’t even remember what design i ended up with because it didn’t turn out resembling much at all…..and all i can remember now is that i turned it in and i think it was the worst one in the class.

Maybe i lacked vision?  Or maybe it’s because i lack the basic artistic skills; i can’t cut a straight line with scissors.  Or maybe it really was just the vision.  I kept looking at that bar of soap and really didn’t have much belief that i could carve it into its destiny.  I think as far as i was concerned, all i could see was that it was a bar of soap.  it needed someone to believe in it.  to see it for what it could be……a dog, a boat, a house.

Have you ever been around someone who inspires your vision?  Someone who believes in you and lets you know it?  Someone who is chasing their vision and just by watching them it encourages you to do the same?

Hello!….she said my favorite word….FREE.  She said that if i registered my card online, i could get up to two hours of free wi-fi.  (of course i didn’t mention to her that the last time i was in Starbucks, i was able to access free Wendy’s wifi, but that doesn’t mean it would always work…)  So i kept listening.  

She told me i could get free refills of their regular brewed coffee and add a syrup flavor at no charge to any coffee!  Cool.  Syrup is good.

So i decided to check it out.  And sure nuff…..here’s what i get with my card:

1. beverage customization 2. free refills on brewed coffee  3. free beverage with whole bean purchase and the coolest….4.  up to two hours of free wifi every day!!! 

AND….I can use my starbucks card to order cool Starbucks stuff AND i can easily refill the balance on my card ON LINE. That’s right……with the click of a few buttons my poor, pitiful, empty, used up card, is now refilled and ready to be used once again and again and again and again!!!   

“I’m bored.”  I think i said it at least once every day during those long summer days.  It seemed like summer lasted forever when i was a kid.  I loved summer for about two weeks and then i would get tired of the endless days of trying to figure out what to do.  Mom and dad both worked, so summer days always started off with a list of chores to do before they got home from work.   Then we would try to decide what to do with the rest of our day.

On  rare occasions, the three of us would play monopoly or find something else to do that would manage to keep us occupied and getting along for a while.  But then good ole’ sibling rivalry would kick in and i’d get mad at my sister or my brother, or vica versa and we’d be ready to get out of the house and find someone else to spend time with.

(Those were the days when kids could be at home by themselves and you didn’t have to worry.  We’d roam the neighborhood and not think a thing about it.  In fact, we spent most of our time outside….playing in someone else’s yard, or playing around the apartment complex….wherever we felt like going.  Those were the days when parents didn’t have to worry if they came home and found us gone…..we were probably just around the corner at the neighbor’s house.)

But there were days i couldn’t find anyone else to hang with and i’d be so bored i couldn’t stand it.  

What happens to all that spare time?  What happens to all those endless hours of just sitting around?  What happens to all that time when i could listen to record albums and sit at the piano and pretend that i was playing along with them?  What happens to all those afternoons with hours of endless reading?

That’s what was so nice about the cruise…..it almost felt like that for a few days.  Floating on the sea with no where to go, no where to be, no expectations except to enjoy the day.  I could be “bored” all day and LOVE IT!

And now i’m looking at the calendar and realizing that school starts in two weeks!  It there was time to be bored, it’s about gone.

Where did the summer go?  It seems like the girls just got out of school; that the book bags were just put away and all thoughts of homework and getting to bed early were going to be dismissed for a LONG time.

Now, and i can hardly imagine it, but it’s almost time to start school clothes shopping again.  It’s time to find new book bags and notebooks.  New pencils and book covers.  New lunch boxes or maybe not…….i think 7th grade was about the time Karlee quit carrying one.  So maybe we’re done with packed lunches?

Yikes!  I want to enjoy at least a few more lazy Saturdays and Sundays without thinking about waking the girls early for school on Monday!  Without checking and double checking that homework has been completed.  Without nights spent studying for tests.  

Karlee has already been back to school this week as a matter of fact.  She’s leadership in the band and that means she has to attend two days of “leadership camp” at the school.  Then next week she’ll have to attend Rookie Camp since she’s a leader of the Flute section.  And the following week it’s a week of band camp ALL DAY….. and then it’s time for school!