Donna’s Blog

Nothing new

I’m not even sure why i’m blogging today.  There is absolutely nothing new going on.  What shall i bore you with?

I have been reading a new Francine Rivers novel.  I was so excited to learn, after reading “Redeeming Love”, that she has indeed written several other novels.  So i headed to the Potter’s House and picked myself up another delicious paperback to spend a few hours in!

I’ve added someone to my blogroll.  At least i hope it’s there.  It’s the “Warrior Poet” and his writing is amazing.  He is a policeman (in New York i think) and writes the most amazing things.  And when i say amazing, i mean truthful, honest writings that make you think and make you feel and make you feel like you are not alone.

In fact, if i remember correctly, i pasted some of his writings here a few weeks ago and promised to tell you who he was and why i loved his writing.  so sorry about letting that linger….

but i’ve truly enjoyed reading his posts. 

after reading someone who writes like that, it makes me even wonder why i attempt to visit this page with my thoughts…..cause some people seem so deep, they write so deep, they are so gifted at words and the words they write seem to just flow on the page….cohesive thoughts that are actually going somewhere.

oh well, the least i can do is add people like that to my blogroll!  :0)

My favorite book…

I could not put this book down.  I can’t remember the last time i devoured a novel so quickly.  I can’t remember the last time a novel made me cry.

This is a fictional story based on the book of Hosea.

if you are a reader, go get this book.

if you aren’t a reader, this would be a great time to start.

Hello last minute shoppers!

 This is where i’ll be tonight.  Hustling and bustling with the best of them.

It seems to be everyone’s favorite question this time of year…..”about to wrap up all your shopping?”….and they seem pretty surprised when i say “no, i’m still working on it!”  maybe i should just be polite and say “why, yes.  every present is neatly wrapped and safely stored under my tree”….cause i’m sure they are just making the typical holiday chit chat…..and they are just glad that they have finished crossing out their to do list! 

and after all, we don’t have any snow to talk about….so if not the weather, then what else are you going to chat about?  even the bank operater i’d called in some city i wasn’t sure of decided to ask me about my holiday shopping while she was looking through her computer screens to give me the information i’d requested!! 

so, how about you?  got it all done?  enjoying your holiday cocoa by the fire?

i’m happy for you.  really i am.

Friday ramblings

….ever met someone who helped to totally change your outlook on a situation?

….i prefer english muffins over toast.

….when is the last time you hand wrote out a love letter?

….i think coffee tastes better in china cups

….i have no wrapped presents under the tree yet

….i misplaced a one hundred dollar bill this week

….i found the one hundred dollar bill this morning!

….we may actually try to send out Christmas cards this year

….i like a Christmas tree filled with all types of ornaments; all colors, all sizes, all textures, and white lights

….i’d like to find a new perfume to wear.  it was about 8 years with Eternity and now it’s been about 8 years with Romance.  

….favorite holiday movie is a tie:  White Christmas and It’s a Wonderful Life

….favorite holiday snack that i can eat my weight in:  white chocolate covered pretzels 

One word….

I was debating about what to do.

I had been “hearing” a song in my head for quite a while.  I finally wrote some of the words down one day and stuck them in my piano bench.

I never played it for anyone or even told anyone about it.

It would take a chance meeting during the Christmas holidays with an old youth pastor to finally cause me to play it.

i don’t even know why i did.  it was just a chorus with only a sketchy idea for a verse.  but he was playing some songs that he’d written and i thought, hey, why not play my little diddy for him.

i was shocked and surprised when he asked me to play the whole song for him.  i said “that’s pretty much it.  i haven’t finished it”.  he said, “well, if you don’t, i will.”

so in January of 2002, i fnished writing my first song….”Somebody Said Pray.”

i still didn’t know what to do with it when it was done.  this is going to sound strange, but i wasn’t actually sure that it could be categorized as a “song”.  i mean did i do it right?  did i actually have it structured correctly?  i’d never taken a class on songwriting.  shoot, i didn’t even write poems or anything.  what could i possibly be thinking?

somehow i got the idea that i should play it for Karlee’s piano teacher.  he is a really good muscian and singer and he might know if it was really a song or not.

so i called him and scheduled a time to go see him.  he has a studio in his home and teaches lessons all day.  i went during my lunch hour.  i can’t tell you how nervous i was that morning.

when i got to his studio i felt way out of my comfort zone.  i explained to him that i think i had written a song and would he listen to it and tell me if it was. 

i proceeded to play.  i didn’t look up the whole time i was playing.  i just wanted to get through the song.

i finished.  i was so relieved to see encouragement on his face and he was saying, “wow, that’s really good.  that is definitely a song”.

that was all i needed to get started.  by the end of that month, i’d written five more songs.

funny.  the words of two mere acquaintances would have such an impact on my life.

but words are very powerful. 

and sometimes we just need someone to tell us that we’re on the right track, that we aren’t totally crazy and that we are doing just what we were born to do.

and then there were 11….

These are my friends Mandy and Dave.  Can you find them?  They are the ones with the biggest smiles on their faces.  Mandy and Dave have learned the joy of adoption.  They have freely taken what God has given them….His amazing love….and they are sharing it with those in need. 

When Mandy and Dave came together, they already had two daughters by natural birth.  But then they added nine more “births of the heart”.

I can’t explain to you how they hear this call that God extends to them, but Mandy says they simply desire to be obedient.  And it is unmistakably clear when He is speaking.  She says she doesn’t know how large her family will grow.  As long as she is God’s servant, she wants to be used of Him.

Mandy and i are trying to write some songs together……about adoption, about living on the edge, about the willingness to sacrifice so a child can experience love.

She sent me this picture yesterday….and if i wasn’t already inspired by the thoughts she’d been emailing to me, this beautiful picture just sent me over the edge! 

writing style….

I was reading a new blog today.  one that i stumbled on by accident…some things he said made me cry.  i’ll tell you about that later. 

i think his writing is…..well, i’ll tell you that later, too.

here’s a small sample of something he wrote.  what do you think?…..

I should have been from Seattle.

Starbucks, for starters.  And it’s not even that I love their coffee so much as the feeling I get when I’m in the store.  Shallow?  Maybe.  I guess the marketing works on me.  I walk into Starbucks and want to buy the biggest cup of hot steaming coffee they serve and stretch out on one of those brown leather couches and open a Jack London short story, or maybe Poe if it’s late fall.  I would want to be wearing this thick olive drab sweater that I have.  It’s my favorite sweater.  And the only thing that would make the scene better would be if I had a big black lab with me.  But I don’t think they let dogs into Starbucks.  Though I haven’t tried.  And I don’t have a black lab.  But if I did, his name would be Jack.

It’s also the music, lately, that makes me wish I was from Seattle.  Shawn McDonald.  I recognize something in the simple notes from his acoustic guitar and his raw voice with his raw lyrics.  There’s a familiarity in the honesty of the chords and the humility of the lines.  I like to hear his fingers slide over the strings and his voice crack when he pours his heart into that one line.  “I can-not do it all-a-lone.”   So not perfect.  But real.  I need real in my life right now.  Real is what speaks.  To me, anyway.  Man, we spend a lot of time pretending.  Pretending to be perfect.  I’m too tired to pretend.  Maybe it’s a phase.  Maybe I’ve turned a corner.

It’s also the rain, about Seattle.  Not the drowning downpour of a mid-summer thunderstorm.  That’s much too cleansing.  No, a persistent, cold, hard drizzle is what I mean.  The sky one gray, serene ceiling, hovering like a dark sheet spread over a canopy bed.  Clouds so low you feel like you might have to duck as you step outside. That kind of rain.   A rain that clings to you long after you’ve come back inside, that aches in your marrow long after your skin has dried.  A rain that stings your face; your cold, wet hands shoved deep in your pockets, and you breathe out and see your breath like a puff of smoke from an old man’s pipe, as he ponders where his days have gone.  A rain that feels like it cuts through you and you just can’t shake it.  It suits my mood recently, that kind of rain. 

There’s poetry, I think, in that kind of rain.    

Friday ramblings

…oops, i just dropped my coffee and some of it spilled on my keyboard….just little droplets but when i went to wipe it off i lost my total post for today…..hummmmm, gonna be a long day today?

….it was nothing big, just my ramblings.  let’s see where i was….

oh yeah….someone ought to write more Christmas songs.  i’m already tired of the ones i’m hearing on the radio!

….it doesn’t “feel” like Friday today.  so that’s why i stopped and got a Tuscany Toffee latte from Ellianos (yeah, the one that i just spilled.  thank goodness for lids on coffee, that only have that little slit opening to drink from. that even though it leaves a lipstick ring on the lid, it keeps your whole coffee from being lost when you drop it on your desk)

….karlee got a new yamaha flute yesterday.  the one she has had since 6th grade was pretty worn out.  you should have heard the music coming from her bedroom last night.

…read an interview from “In Style” magazine on Heidi Klum.  not only is she gorgeous on the outside, she seems to be a really cool chic on the inside too.  (did you see her interview with Oprah with her husband, Seal?….awesomeness!)  anyway, Heidi was wearing this really cool dark polish.  i’ve seen everyone wearing the dark colors, but been a little afraid to try it myself.  last night, my nail tech talked me into it.  when she painted it on she said, “see?  sexy!”  Sold!

…i don’t usually set goals (let’s not call them resolutions) for the new year.  but this year, i think i just might.  do you?

…had a conversation the other day with someone who was raised in a rough (to say the least) home life.  we talked about how much easier it is for me to view God as loving, when i was raised in a loving, warm, take-care-of-all-my-needs home.  i’ve prayed and thought about that today.  would i love and adore God if i’d never seen him at home?

….is that why Jesus tells us to be the light of the world? 

What stopped you?

i shamelessly copied this from christomason.blogspot.com.  (his blog is called one indelible moment….great reading!)  and sometimes you just need to be reminded of some things……

George Boldt, a German immigrant who worked his way up from dishwasher to proprietor of New York’s Waldorf-Astoria hotel, first visited what is now know as Heart Island with his beloved wife Louise more than a century ago.

He decided to commission an architectural firm to create a full-size castle as a tribute to their love. He envisioned it a replica of the majestic ones along the Rhine River he had seen as a boy. Boldt had engineers reshape the island so that it resembled a heart shape more closely. And the plans grew beyond the castle to an entire colony consisting of eleven additional structures to surround the castle.

Soon the finest materials began making their way to this out-of-the-way island: marble from Italy, silks and tapestries from France, rugs from the Orient. Guest rooms in the six-story, 129-room castle featured fireplaces, and massive crystal chandeliers lit the hallways and ballroom. A tower just for children to play in, Italian gardens, and a landscaped promenade — were designed.

Just as Boldt Castle was nearing completion, on January 12, 1904 its workmen were notified by telegram to “stop all construction” immediately: Louise Boldt had died suddenly.

Not another tapestry was hung nor another nail hammered. The heartbroken Boldt never returned. His romantic castle built for love and the surrounding structures were abandoned.

Boldt Castle would have been one of the largest houses in America, had it been completed. The main structure is seven stories in height and contains more than 120 rooms, with 30 bathrooms.

A question for you:

Is there something that you have a passion for that is “partially” built in your life?

Something not finished and empty? Somewhere along the way you gave up or just decided it could not be done. Maybe it died with a relationship. Maybe you got distracted or the necessity of the urgent in your life forced you to abandon your dream. You stopped dreaming or working toward your goal because you lost your passion and purpose.

You can’t go back in time but you can remember that we are designed for a purpose and that with God nothing is impossible! (Luke 1:37)

Boldt Castle will never be what George Boldt intended but it has not remained empty either. In 1977 the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority acquired Heart Island and preserved the castle for future generations to enjoy. Since the preservation, Boldt Castle has had over 5 million visitors and has hosted over 750 weddings, providing incalculable value to the local tourism industry.

Let me know how it is going. I, for one, am fascinated to see how it is going to unfold.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”(Proverbs 13:12)

T.U.

We were on the campus of Troy University on Thursday and Friday.

The Valdosta Middle School band was selected from 20 middle school bands to perform at the 8th annual Southeastern Middle School Honor Band Clinic. 

We traveled with 80 members of the 8th grade symphonic band from VMS.  Paige was one of the five 7th graders that was selected to travel with the 8th grade band.  She plays french horn and that section needed some reinforcement and Paige auditioned and made it!  She had a great time this weekend and i’m so glad that T.U. recorded the performance cause i want to listen to it over and over!

Karlee was asked to come along and play the piano on a couple of songs.  One song was “The Water is Wide.”  That is one of my all time favorites.  I actually sang that when i made all state chorus back in 1981!  I loved the way we sang it in rounds.  it created the most beautiful effect.

The band did a beautiful arrangement of it and i know that is one song i will listen too over and over!

We got back Friday night just in time for Paige to attend the Christmas dance at the middle school.

Saturday was the Christmas parade and Sunday was our dinner party to thank all the hard working managers who assisted Ben in the concession stands during the football season.

Can anyone say, “phew, it’s Monday”?!!!