mid-sentence

Best quotes from this Christmas:

-"I'm playing Mary, but my real name is {insert name here} and I'm with child." 

-In his mock angry yelling voice, "ALRIGHT! Everybody sit DOWN and have a NICE time!"

-"Flying helplessly through the air...like a piece of baloney."

-"I don't want to go. You can't MAKE me! ...I wish there WERE such a thing as super glue, so I could glue myself here."

Best moments: 

After taking captive a very amiable hostage, we spies set aside our guns to play Loot with the ransomee inside our pirate cave. We even had a candle. 

Reading a Christmas carol out loud, and doing the voices. 

Ever sketchy, always instructive and interesting lock picking lessons. 

A family Christmas pageant. We were short handed, so I was both a shepherd and wiseman. The donkey was especially brave since our family has a long established tradition of urging the donkey forward with good solid spanks.

Music time with the trumpet players. 

Trampoline time and tickle torture: standard play.

Listening to old songs being played on a harmonica, echo over the dam and down the river canyon. 

Pow-wow on grandpa's bed, with daddy, the grandkids, and the kitten, to watch old movies. 

Games: from giant checkers to banana grams and much stacked in between.

Food so good and in such abundance we set up a dozen people to hibernate for the rest of the winter. 

Prayer and Hugs each night before bed. 

Fires in a wood stove. 

Christmas songs played on the piano. 

Presents wrapped with Sunday Funnies

Presents wrapped like modern art. 

Silly pajama ..(and silly people) ...time. 

Merry Christmas Kids. 

I hope you all had fun with your families. If you need some more, come get adopted into mine. 

They say beautiful is something...

Certain things stick with us. Everyone seems to pick something different, but we've all got something we carry with us. It makes you wonder, would mom approve of what you've been putting in your pockets? What are you carrying with you, what have you left behind? Is that really where you want it to be? 

Which kids are you keeping as company, what character are you keeping as self?

Let me tell you something boys, I don't mind that you're bringing home the snakes and snails. I'm all for trouble. But maybe I need to be filling my pockets with something of a different style. 

The picture is one of my high places. I think we each need at least one. A place with personal significance. A closet to pray in. You, God, and His sunset.

Faith

I'm used to the idea that no one really reads this (except for Michelle and Amy, love you guys). It's usually just a place for me to put up random vague thoughts, or pictures that I have loved taking, but will probably never be used for anything else.
But today it's more about this: I know there is a God. A God that loves you. If you've stumbled onto the random little blog, from a rather random girl, I think you ought to know, I know He lives.

New

Fresh, curious, playful, excited, energetic. People new to this world have the best approach to life.

The Sunshine

I've been thinking about the colors. It happens more in the winter with me. I'm craving those blues and greens, yellow, oranges, purples, dark browns. Wonderful. 

Don't misunderstand, I'm looking forward to winter with all my usual vigor. Christmas keeps me cheerful all year long. But I've got summer in my soul kids. 

I think it's staggering, and a bit overwhelming, all the chances we have to find joy in life. I know it's got hardships a plenty for everyone. But I'm not about to forget my colors. 

More what I'm trying to say is, there's so much good to put into your life. Art, music, games, rhythm, laughter, flowers, fall leaves, new acquaintances, old friends, water, dance, cousins, comics,  prayer, parents.

That doesn't even scratch it. 

God places hope in your life so you can find it. don't push Him away. keep praying, Hope comes from knowing and understanding Him.

"I'm bleeding, making me the victor!"

Really kids, I've gotten essentially nothing done during the past two days. 

Yes, there was some teaching, and some learning, a little sewing, a fair amount of work. But nothing that feels concrete. And certainly not as much as I ought. You know when you have that dream where someone terrifying is chasing you down 

(like Arnold Schwarzenegger) 

and your legs feel numb, like limbs made of jell-o? Flail those jiggly legs with all your might but you can't seem to make contact with the ground, and suddenly gravity is pulling the rest of you down and try though you might you just aren't going to get anywhere until you wake up and realize you're kicking the air. 

Well this week the air-kick is my specialty move. 

"Face to fist style, how'd you like it?"

On a much better, less jell-o-ish note, my cousins rock.

They also rock at doing handstands. If it's been a while since you've enjoyed a good handstand go find the love of your life, marry her, and by golly get a little help with being steady. Everything in life is better when you know you've got someone standing behind you, there to catch your feet.

Make it good son.

I'm a river sort of person.

If it were breathable, I'd prefer water to air.

aggravat

to make it worse, more dangerous.  once described as an august wind. they're hot, full of smoke, fire, blowing those massive thunderstorms. it's the kind that start the fires. didn't think the rains could start a fire like that did you? honey you're the catalyst of conflict. but I'm only speaking to myself on this one. still you'd know that, wouldn't you. not a question.

yeah, you're in over your head. so what? you won't make it unless you learn to swim. and on a planet of this composition, well learn baby, or drown. you're more than your surface too. if you're not, don't waste the time. there is too much to a person to feel them out in five minutes... or five years.  you're not going to know what you're standing on, till it stands back up to meet you. when it does, best of luck. it's raining out kiddies, yeah, despite the glare.

Dear Michelle,
       Come Home.
              So much love,
                             holly marie
Ps. I understand that you can't. It just needed to be said.

Communication is not this hard. But I with a thousand words I'll never say it.

cents

Ahhh, change. Keep it in your pocket and your coin purse. Or do you give the cashier a "keep the change"? Or leave the penny in the parking lot? What? No, not so. Didn't your Grandmother tell you, "Find a penny, pick it up, the rest of the day you'll have good luck." Well mine sure did. So don't leave change lying on the ground, you're passing up an opportunity. Take up change. You'll find a better day and a better you, if you'll just embrace change. 

   Nah, but really. Sometimes it's time to change. It takes so much work, to embrace the good in your nature, and fight years of habit. You need forge new habits day by day. It's easy to say, and difficult to carry out. Oh avoid the adoption of the bad, and seek to remove it at it's earliest stages. Because it's like trying to fill the canyon cut by a river, and create a new course.

   But keep at it. After all, a kid named Billy built a mountain the other decade. And that looked to me to be something worth the work. Yeah, we all need help, but that's there too. And mistakes are made, repeatedly. But better to keep trying, than succumb to that mistake in permanence. So keep digging and don't give up on yourself.

disconnect

it's operating on auto pilot, no one is at the helm. the captain is not in sight. we're just hoping she didn't jump ship. oh but the other day there was singing, inspite of stormy waters. so why the change today, why the disconnect?

    for a more open explanation...I often fight battles over myself, and today I was losing. it has a great deal to do with trust, and you know I'm brilliant at hide and go seek. the plain truth of it is, for someone who values sincerity so much, I have daily struggles right now, during which I seem to say or do, not what I think or feel, but what comes easiest in the moment. I hate the auto pilot. It's a way to get by without the uncomfortableness that sincerity would bring on. But I don't like it. Bluntly, I hate/loathe/despise it. Clearly it's made a place in me because I've let it. Clearly I'm using this as some kind of coping mechanism. But it's a cage, and I need more faith to walk openly. It takes a lot of faith. And faith is a choice. Open hearts are so easy to hurt. But that is just how I'd rather be. I'd rather be honest, and sensitive, than a mask, or shell, or emulation. Deep under it all I'm living, breathing, feeling and thinking. It's easier to appear shallow, so now one tries to shove you under. There is a lot of that.  But I am not what I seem. And I'd rather not be. Really, what scares me most is the possibility that I am in fact slowly becoming what I seem to be. Aren't we defined by our actions? And every missionary knows that if there is a disparity between a person's beliefs and behavior one of them must change. Well the choice is mine and I make it.  I will be what I am, which is better than what I appear. 

No more hide and go seek. No more disconnect.

Midnight Ash On A Tuesday Night

this isn't a deja vu and the street won't carry your name

so go on, and leave while there is still a hope of escape. night time isn't so dim like this anymore. dividings and collidings and no brother at the park to make it stop. the trees have emptied out and the cops are on patrol, and here I'm standing with no place to go. hiding won't mean I won't be found out. and not being found out won't mean I'm free. no get away route and all get away soul.

up

You see, the problem is exhaustion. I need it. If I wanted to sleep tonight, I should have not taken a nap today. Sure, I only got a good five last night, about the same the night before, and the night before that? Two hours awake on a rock with a very bright gibbous moon, and 4 hours half asleep in a tent. Still, in order to be able to sleep at hours I ought to, that state of exhaustion is very important. Today, I ruined it. Can you imagine? Months of hard work down the drain. Hello 4 AM, how's the wife and kids?

    And what's worse? My brain is so full with all you kids give it to sort through, that it STILL wants to be up. What good does it do? All the thinking doesn't change anything, so why not ride the pillow to the end of the rainbow to oblivion? Because I can't stand it. Sleep is death still breathing.

    No, don't you worry. I'll make myself get to it, like eating vegetables or going running.   

Alright, you've been good...

wop diddily shwop

There are a number of things that it's silly to be good at...that I'm good at, frosting cookies, doctoring animals, taking people to the emergency room, balancing in precarious positions, hide and go seek, understanding people who try to talk to me while they brush their teeth, sleeping in unusual places...you get the point. Then there are things that would be useful to be good at that I'm not like math tests, dating, speaking english, or any other languages for that matter, or playing the piano. I still try though. And then there are silly things I'm not amazing at, but still really reallly REALLLLY enjoy. Today this list included: 

(1.) The satisfaction of putting a baby back to sleep by finding it's binki and reinserting it, (it's like magic!) I don't even mind waking up for it...but then again ... well you know me.
(2.) Baking surprise birthday cakes (especially when you know how to make a funfetti cake come out pink...and it's for your brother)
(3.) Doing other peoples dishes.

Point three leads to a new point. And you may question why I claim not to be amazing at this yet The binki thing I'm just still learning, the cake, well it's a bit crispy, but dishes? Well maybe you already knew this, you may have grown up watching the Brady Bunch. I did not. So as a warning... DO NOT use liquid dish-soap in the dishwasher. 

It will not go well. 

But if you ever need some really good midnight pancakes, you know where to go.

This is not a picture of Joe.

Some days, when I get the "mean reds" as was once so interestingly put, I edit photo's. It's a way of putting other thoughts out of my heart. Would you like to see what gave that little heart a pick me up today?

Basically what this picture shows is that my friends are about 100x cooler, 50x more photogenic, and 500,000,000,000,000,000x more fun to be with than your average Joe. My friend Joe for instance is much more interesting than average Joes, and a far better pianist than any John Doe that you've ever heard of, let alone met.  

This is actually from a short series I did a few weeks ago. If you kids are really good, play nice and eat all of your vegetables I'll post the rest for you at an ambiguous time that sounds likely to happen but leaves me uncommitted to anything.

Eat Me Memphis.

The task is at hand, and I am going to do it. But I'd really rather be doing something else. Anything else really. I've found lots of ways to procrastinate, but in the end, the proofs have to be written, or I have to do it all over again. It may be that I'll find myself doing it all over again anyway. As if that hasn't happened once or twice before. So I need to chill. Or perhaps the problem is that I'm so chill I've frosted right over and I'm about as fast as a glacier. "Don't worry Fred, I'm coming....I'll be there soon...just give me a decade or two." Anyway, this has been yet another productive practicing of procrastination. On to the maths.

I am fine

Two songs for you today: Insignificant, and Long December. Both by the counting crows. 

 ...I am Icarus falling...

...I guess the winter makes you laugh a little slower, makes you talk a little lower about the things you could not show her...

 I was thinking about Andromeda.

Care. you know, it doesn't really work when it's one sided. someone died for you. but it won't save you if you don't love Him back. And He's not the only one: 

Some have compassion, making a difference. 

It may not seem to help today, but have faith. someday it may make more of a difference than you thought, and what if you had with held the compassion that could have made a difference? never suppress a kind thought kid.  pluck up the courage to love others more than you love yourself, to put your effort into healing them, than keeping yourself from harm.sometimes we need eachother more than we let on. 

to all of you thank you for the compassion

I took this one a couple of weeks back. like it?

angry soul

generally miss is misdirected. wait a second. this is neither the place, nor the month. did you see that sky today? talk about blue.

Proof: We begin with the assumption that I am making spaghetti. Excellent. Now let there be a lighter in my pocket. By Gargamel's Theorem of Continued Grumpiness we can see that f(a) < f(b) for all a within capacity levels and all b within anger toxins. Therefore we can also assume, using the Principles of Guilt Trips item (ii) that the spectrum is Cauchy. So we know that a < b.

Q.E.D

update:

 I was singing yesterday.

sweet.

so long sweet summer...

 
  I find it remarkable. The green ones had a hole worn straight through the bottom on September 22. 

I couldn't have made it more perfect if I were magic.

...which I am...

you see what I'm getting at.

 with that in mind, I am beginning to relish in perfect moments. being who and how I am, I don't find them too frequent in my wanderings.  I wandered outside today, just to eat my cereal with the sunset. Along came a friend of mine. She stopped a moment to grab a little sunset with me and went on her merry way. A few breaths later there came along another friend. He stopped, and the exchange was pleasant in that small town sort of way. Then along came another to view the view, and as the light moved on I soon  found myself with a full set of 10 just taking the moments and sharing the enjoyment. it was a set of perfect moments friends. 

well done, and thank you.

I came here, sure there was plenty to do. and there is, but not so much as I thought. It's nice to take time to breathe a bit. 

I am going to miss the winter.

it was lovely too.

take your time but take it slowly

I enjoy breathing. not so much sleeping. but if you know me well you know the reasons I give are not the reason. not the point. was there one? yep.

 it rained. and the storms outside have always brought me hope. sometimes. climb the nearest hill, soaked though you may be, face the wind, arms stretched wide and strong, crying, you will never conquer me. and the storm is no longer your enemy. not even your ineffectual acquaintance. as is often the case, once you've fought hard and long against someone, you find in them a friend, they become catalytic for you and you become constant to them. so wander on. your storm found friend as your side, the wind at your backs will strengthen you to the brighter day of a well tomorrow. 

 really, I'm just in a blue mood. not blue as in sad. blue, as in moonlight. blue, as in the underside of your stormclouds. blue, as in clear streams. blue as in starlight. blue, as in the dark behind those stars. blue, as in that dress. blue, as in those top keys on the piano. blue, as in your sisters eyes. blue, as in ocean. blue, as in night. blue, as in cool, blue.  

  

     

that's all.

promised

I told you I would. And I'm glad I did. Sure, there were lots of other things to do, but I often remember the lesson, people are more important than things. Friend, you once looked at this and told me, isn't it amazing? God and man. Our works so small, His so big. Yet the scene is not so discomfiting  as sometimes felt. In fact, it's rather nice. Remember your words friend. You'll be needing them. Our works are nothing to compare in grace, beauty or purpose.  But He welcomes your attempts, and He will blend them into the majesty of His design only to make the whole more breathtakingly perfect. 

You were a part of the plan all along. 

fishes

I once was privy to witness two men standing over a body. That body, as everybody, was mostly fluff and stuff, and possibly a tetherball. During discussion I met a gangster, of the new york mob type persuasion, who took the time of his busy day to teach me of the fishes. 

  "Sleep with the fishes?"  impossible you say. because there are no such thing as fishes, or witches. I beg to differ as to the first party. fish, you say, is already plural. but then there are types and means and sizes. what of multiple groups of type and means and sizes? phish? nay dear dorsal, fishes. fishes in the sea. fishes in the pond. fishes in the bag outside your door, or inside... fishes, dear fishes, brave fishes, may you ever swim free.

who the devil are you?

there are days when you let the little stuff get to you. it's odd because you do your best to manage the big stuff. and you handle it, put it to one side and say I can't change it, but then someone comes by and breaks your egg and you want to wrestle them to the ground and choke them till they tap out.

it's good not to act on those feelings. 

They Call 'Em Rogues

wish for one more day, to give love.  much wasted? spoke but never thought what it might mean. so thoughtless. so careless. so frustrated. so lost.  but the sun rises dear. a hope's lost's prayer for hope. find your way. let me tell you something. you won't be able to love others if you don't love yourself. but you'll never love yourself if you don't start loving others.  

straight out and to the point I'm sick of this. I don't want to be in your business anymore. yeah, you, chuck, chucks sister, and the kids down at the pool. I don't want to ask what you don't want to tell. And you, fredericks, don't you go telling me what's not yours. It's like stealing someone else's jam. What are you doing up in their cupboard anyway. Get out of there. but I've been looking for some cups lately too, so who am I to talk? Well the point was that I'm not to talk. the point is that it's my fault, and I'm done with it. If the sun is rising for you today, then it can rise for me too...can't it?
at the end of roads, traveling fast and alone. still just another punk who's gotta learn to grow up.

Grumpits

In the study of life I have learned something, biology is an angering agent. wrath and rats and baseball bats. the virus feels left out, all because of your label maker. Oh, and now we see who's going back on what they said, just to make themselves seem right. the RNA will do what it does regardless of which way you mince the wordseys.

I hope my kids evolve to kick you off the planet, 'cept then I'd feel bad for outer space. jerks.

ob la di ob la da

life goes on. it's that darkest time of the year. there is snow, it's beautiful.

 

let me tell you something about it. 

Tranquilizer

10 10 10 8 10 9 10 pretty rough, I know. Really it makes you kind of sick. But then try 5 6 6.5 4 5.5 6 4 funny, bought oughtn't you be feeling sicker? I sure should. But alas there are none. So here's a little of what I've been working on lately, thanks be to the parent types.



Gregs are better than cookies

Gregs really are better than cookies, and Glenns beat icecream any day. It's nice, really nice to remember the things that you're good at. Most of mine are nothing to be proud of. I have no magnificent talents. Still, it's nice to find you can make the world a little better in small ways. Gregs are still better than cookies.