A.A.A.D.D.

This was on my sister-in-law Chris's family web page and I couldn't pass posting it to my sight. Several years ago I had checked out a bunch of books from the library on Home Organization. It had mentioned multi-tasking as good, unless you keep getting distracted. So if you know you are the type of person below, and you are wanting to get things done, stay put and accomplish the one thing or one room at a time. Sometimes I find it best to start a list for the next day's tasks the day or night before, so that when I wake in the morning, I don't forget what I wanted to try and get done that day.

Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder. This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left.

My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Coke I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Coke aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The Coke is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Coke, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need water.

I put the Coke on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

the car isn't washed

the bills aren't paid

there is a warm can of Coke sitting on the counter

the flowers don't have enough water,

there is still only 1 check in my check book,

I can't find the remote,

I can't find my glasses,

and I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all day, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

Dawson's rock work

Dawson has been doing rock work this week. Monte did the rock work last fall (to the right of the stairs) above the campfire area we call the amphitheater. I had planted more grass and then old wildflower seeds to cover a dirt area Monte had smoothed out with the tractor last fall (burying an old concrete cascading fall and pond Travis had made years ago that was cracking and not functioning).

Dawson and his friends have been having campfires- roasting fish, hotdogs and/or smores. I told him he needed to make steps. So he did. Now he's finishing up a rock wall in front of the house where Monte made a new parking area last fall.

The plan is to get our neighbor's tractor soon, when he's home from vacation, and finishing up the landscaping behind our house, putting in a split-rail fence, that'll be electric still, and turning last year's new parking spot into an oval circle drive around two pine trees. Then there will be more rock work to be done. Luckily our neighbor has plenty of rocks.

What a man Dawson!!!

Check out his photoblog. That's where I just stole his two rock pictures from, but he's posted pictures of his backpack trip and climbing one of Colorado's 50 14ers.

Monte's currently cleaning the front porch with the shop-vac. The pine pollen is done and we're wanting to get rid of all the yellow dust. AND we have company coming tonight. Another artists from church Show&Tell night.

Memory Lane

The summer rains have begun - "Yeah!" Monday it rained most of the day. So I took the day doing more in making Heather's old bedroom my sewing, art/craft, and now "Memory Room". Though the whole house holds memories, Heather's room now has more of my childhood memories.

I had bought and stained awhile back some shelving for the room. So the rainy day was a perfect day to put up the shelves (I still love the denim material I pasted onto her walls). I went through a barrel we moved up to Colorado with, labeled "Mom's Memories". It was fun going through it and walking down memory lane: things my grandma made me when I was a little girl, school year stuff, and on to some things I saved that I made my young kids.

So one shelf holds memorabilia from Austria, where I was born. My dad was overseas, in the military, with after war cleanup and my mom joined him. I have the beautiful scrapbook she made of that time and I recently read through her white ink writings on the black paper. During "The Sound of Music" movie she'd say, "You were there", "We were there", "I've seen that"...


Another shelf holds some of my old doll collection. My Barbie sits in the middle. My grandma made the chair from an opened tuna can - the lid is the back of the chair. It's covered in blue velvet. The Barbie is my second or third. I thought I had saved my old heads, but couldn't find them in the barrel. I had the original first ponytail Barbie they came out with - my aunt Recie bought it for me. The surrounding dolls are old. My grandma gave them to me and made tons of clothes for all my dolls, both sewed and knitted. I saved them all (or I should thank my mom that she saved them for me in the beginning - valuing what I valued).

Of my saved baby dolls, my Thumbelina has remained the best (other than my sister Kelli cutting off some of her hair) - AND it is close to 50 years old! So I went through some of the baby things my grandma had knit for me (I was the first girl grandchild) and had fun dressing Thumbelina in them and now she sits (lays) in Heather's old room, next to a cuddly patchwork dog I made from a tie-dyed sheet I did in a high-school art class.



And I hung some of my tie-dyed and batiked things from high-school. I liked to tie-dye material and see what I saw in it and then India ink details. I went through photos I did in a photography class where we got to play in the darkroom.


I was/am a saver I guess. Heather packed up a lot of her memories and is currently going through them with Bill in their new home in Texas. Since they didn't do the typical dating thing, this is helping them share their stories. And I told her to then throw a bunch of the stuff away! But she just emailed me about enjoying remembering, and even crying over some of the things she's finding.

Travis with his wife Sarah have come the past couple of years and helped us go through all the stored junk in the large space that is now Monte's new office and the garage. We wanted Travis to take whatever was important to him home. We had so much fun with all the remembering and telling stories. "Oh, I remember this ..." And Sarah would laugh over so much of the junk that was truly junk and try and help Monte think clearly and throw some stuff away (Monte's a saver too)!

Dawson will some day have to go through the same process with us. His stuff is still stored in the garage ... and bunk house ... and old ferret house ... and playhouse turned "Dawson's Natural History Museum".

Memories, like stories, are important to us. We've been giving and throwing away more and more stuff, but I'm making sure I capture the memories by taking pictures of them (LOVE this new digital camera era!).

Just a side note in connection to memories and stories - I read about people in nursing homes and the importance of memories. People, even caring family members, might just look at things as junk, but when helping move one into a nursing home care, it's important to ask them about things and see what stories are connected with them. This 'junk', with their memories, often keep the last years of living more 'alive'.

Who Am I?

I read two things this morning that got me thinking ...

A Nietzsche quote (he is so quotable, and tho he didn't understand what Jesus and his disciples was really about, he was so right-on in many of his comments on Christians and humanity) -

"We are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves ... Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in our selves we are bound to be mistaken for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto, 'Each is the farthest away from himself'--as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers."

This was in context with the subject of a book Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book - that we can learn more in ten minutes about the Crab Nebula in Taurus, which is 6,000 light-years away, than we presently know about ourself, even though we've been stuck with ourself all our life.

And I read James 1, and paraphrasing here, verses 22-24 -
"You listen, but you do not act upon what you read and hear ... Hearing and not doing is like looking at yourself in a mirror, and after walking away you immediately forget what kind of person you are ..."

I've lately been reading in both Numbers and Deuteronomy and see how ridiculous the Israelites were! So many times in frustration, God wanted to wipe them out! They 'saw' so much, and yet in the next instant would forget and grumble and live wrongly. If they, like children, had so much of God's personal attention and guidance, and saw so many miraculous things on a daily basis, can't 'grow up' into a mature faith - how can we?

They wandered the desert for 40 years, killing off a generation and growing up a new generation. Before they were to enter the new land, God did not want them to melt into the surrounding cultures. He wanted them to know who they were and not forget. How did he do that? He gave them rhythmical calendar celebrations and lots of visuals and imagery and ritual/tradition to instill into their lives so they would remember and not forget who they were/are in God.

We too can get so caught up in our current culture and learnings and not know who we are. How best to remember who we are? First: know and believe that God loves me first as I am, and that He desires a relationship with me. Then act on that!

The very nature of love means choice. Choice means I need to know something (or someone), so I can make good choices. But there's so much to know! I boil it all down to simply going about my days in love with God. The same tools God gave the Israelites, I have for my use too. I use the calendar days and all the connected stories of so many who have lived in love with God. If God was there for them in their midst, then He's going to be here for me today and tomorrow. I can know who I am, and live better ... live fully alive! live more whole.

Happenings

While I'm at it (and I do love to write ... and I was going to go to bed early tonight ...) things are happening just this moment around here. Furniture Monte and me have been waiting for came in at the store, and they're currently having a huge 4th of July sale ... so we went today ... it reminds us of why we want to keep our pick-up (just don't want it as our primary vehicle!).

Dawson just came home with some friends and they are bringing the stuff in to where it's going to belong. (He's playing in the worship band this weekend at church for the three services, and his friends will spend the night, leaving early in the morning for the next two services.)(We're making use of Dawson and his friends a lot ... soon he'll be gone ... and getting-old-Monte-and-me want things finished up around here - for us to carry-on into our next season of life.)

I saw the image above and it directed this post. Our home is SO messy right now. Maybe not so messy as dusty-dirty. I've been so busy outside - Monte was gone - and this is pine pollen time. I keep all the windows closed for several weeks. I'm waiting for rain to settle the pollen - PLEASE RAIN! We've just gotten wind and some spittle. So yellow dust is everywhere - even with just the front and back doors open. It is the one thing I'm allergic to, but I don't panic in trying to avoid it. I just have to remind myself - DON'T TOUCH or rub my eyes! It's about now that I keep a generic allergy pill handy or the allergy Visine handy - & I have a kind-of cold.

I have my famous quote (my daughter-in-love Sarah wrote my quote on our graffiti wall in the guest bathroom) - "Dust is country". We don't have a lot of dust. We don't have air-duct-work - for heating or cooling. So I don't do a lot of dusting. And with our house being a farm/country/mountain home type decor, I feel that dust is just a part of it all! But this time of the year! ...

And the characters!!! We ARE quite the characters!

Attack! Red-Winged Blackbird

I just watched a news video on a red-winged blackbird attacking some people on bikes, and I'm remembering that I've been attacked by one too!

Periodically I like to walk around Evergreen Lake - they've made a nice trail - just a bit over a mile, and I'll walk around it twice (I used to go, taking Dawson, since he wanted to fish or catch crawdads, which we ate once).

One year they started posting a sign just before you entered the boardwalk that went over a wetland area of the lake with lots of reed/plant growth. It was a warning sign about an attacking red-winged blackbird.

Defending his nearby nest, the dive-bombing daddy pecked me on the top of my head, and sometimes clawed at my hair!

Apparently they are a highly polygynous species, having up to 15 females nesting in his territory - BUT it does not mean all the young in a nest are his! being sired by other neighboring males. They sound like quite the communal bird, even throughout the year. The nesting season is primarily late May through early July.

I never imagined that the female wasn't black like him. She's just brown and striped all over. It's so interesting that females in the animal kingdom are so bland ... and then there's us humans!!! Hmmm ..........

Dawson's photography

I was just looking at my son Dawson's photoblog and saw that he captured a painted lady butterfly on a lilac flower. He's got a lot of really great photos!

Midsummer Night's Eve or St John's Eve

Tonight is Midsummer Night's Eve, tho summer solstice was the 21st. Shakespeare set his play A Midsummer Night's Dream on this night, with all its magical forest revelries. It's also called St John's Eve.

I've been to two Midsummer Night parties. One was at a friend's home and most people came in costumes or at least a face mask. The other was in a park. Beauty was everywhere: the gardens, the short rain, the breeze blowing colored scarves we hung in the trees, ducks and jumping fish in a pond, colorful table coverings and flowers in vases and candles, and then the varied extravagance of beautiful women. We ate sitting on blankets and pillows from around the world, around a ring of candles and flowers. We shared thoughts and blessings and writings and a collage.

A friend asked me awhile back to share my thoughts about nature's seasons. So I'm just now getting around to it since this solstice reminds me of it. We are actually very rhythmical creatures, though technology brings produce and flowers out of season and we can now push buttons that disassociate us from the rhythms of nature. We become a-rhythmical.

Could this disassociation also keep us from thinking there's something more encompassing than ourselves, something/Someone greater than ourselves? With technology we keep pulling the future toward us wanting everything to happen more quickly, yet we complain there's not enough time. We want instant gratification yet have let-downs of "is this all?"

We can easily tend to our physical nourishment, but what nourishes our soul? What brings healing? joy? There's a saying - "To travel hopefully is better than to arrive". Nourishment for me comes from making space in my days: anticipating life's mysteries, and God's surprises. Anticipation leads to reverence, which partners with wonder.

I love our era with all our choices of convenience. But for my soul, I do not want to neglect the needed space for Truth, goodness, and beauty - life's fundamentals. My soul breathes, taking in the world through my senses. My approach to the year's seasons or rhythms is like practicing the steps of the year's dance.

Winter is a breathing in, both externally and internally. As the natural world withdraws into the earth and we draw into the warmth of the house. Inwardly I'm very active with thinking, reading, pondering and creativity. It feels like a time of rest.

Spring and Fall equinoxes are a balance of light and dark and seem to bring more busyness. From Winter's rest Spring brings new life, warmth and color. But it has its setbacks with it's late frosts and hail, both externally and internally.

Summer Solstice is a breathing out time. Nature is the exhale of the earth. Leaf and bright colors are put on. Lots of growth and external activity. But internally? We kind of 'fall asleep' into a dreamy summer state.

Fall absorbs the summer activity back into the earth. Summer dreams are not always attainable and with fall we 'come down to earth' - reality. We wake from our dreamy state. Autumn's 'trial by fire' with its fall colors brings an inner fire, bringing a warmth for the darkness of winter ahead. The clarity of my mind restores in the fall and along with it a new vigor and freshness.

This is the harmony of nature's seasons and moods I've blended with my internal seasonal path of my soul - what I call "soul breathing". I'll be saying more about this tomorrow, John the Baptist Day, as his message to me addresses my summer dreamy state.

On my circular calendar I've tried to visually show this seasonal progression with colors of the rainbow around the circle. Winter being dark purple to blue ...

The Beatles

I knew it was Paul McCartney's birthday yesterday. Something I read got me reminiscing...

I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. I loved the Beatles and still love their songs. They were at our local Red Rocks amphitheater that same year too I think. I was looking at all the memorabilia/history of Red Rocks and the ticket prices were ridiculously cheap - like maybe $4. Today you pay more than $30-50+ depending on who's performing. We lived in Denver in those early years and could hear the music from Red Rocks when at our friends house.

I sang the song "Yesterday" alone (McCartneys most recorded song ever), in front of the whole grade school when I was in 6th grade (and Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots are made for walking" with my white go-go boots and long sweatshirt, along with other gals in our classes' music production for the school). I still have the 45 LP of the song "Yesterday" (besides their albums).

The first song I played when learning to play the guitar was "Puff the Magic Dragon"...

Organizing

I've missed posting for a few days. I've been outside most of the days, enjoying the weather and birds, and doing lots of needed things around here. With most things planted, I'm now weeding.

One minor detail too to not posting, besides being dead tired by evening, is ... our internet was down. Why? I was digging a deep hole for a plant I bought and shoveled through our phone line! It baffles us. We built our home 24 years ago and can't remember that the phone cord was buried where we found it! We thought it was elsewhere.

Every winter our garage turns into a disaster! So Dawson cleaned the messy side up yesterday. I actually had fun today being able to look at all the organized boxes of tools and stuff on the shelves! My side of the garage (freezers and food shelves and textile art stuff  remained organized! Now with Heather's stuff gone, we'll go through things again this summer, organizing and weeding out even more.

I've been looking at all the 'out' buildings and what's been stored (dumped) in them. Dawson tore down all the extended chicken runs and buildings. We're keeping the main chicken house and run up for now, but no chickens. With the kids gone and Monte traveling more, I don't know if we'll do chickens again (but who knows - but definitely no more ducks, geese or turkeys - we tried them one year, and don't need to do them again. I now know what it means to be goosed - and then there's all the chicken phrases too). So for now, we're thinking of storing the  rototiller and extra tools there - it's closest to my big veggie/fruit garden.

The 'bunk house' has a couch and desk and sleeping area. It's storing extra sleeping pads and pillows. And then there's boxes of books I wanted to give away, but Monte wants me to put them on eBay. They've been there for a couple years now under the sleeping area. Will I put them on eBay?!

The old playhouse, turned 'Dawson's museum', is now storing tons of boxes of Monte's rocks. It still has shelves of Dawson's collected skulls and bones, etc. That's where I found our front screen door stored. So I put in a new screen material today and hung it. 

The old ferret house (yes, Dawson had ferrets. They are too smelly and we finally had him build a building for them. Dawson has had most possible pets. I got to liking his lizards and snakes. We joked for awhile that the escaped python was probably living quite well between our two stories on escaped fertile gerbils. The Madagascar cockroach and Az tarantulas were my least favorite 'pets') is storing two large fish tanks. "Do we need to keep them?" I asked Dawson today, "will we ever have fish again?" I don't think so, but he might somewhere later when he moves away. Travis had them in college and now has a huge beautiful tank. But I am storing some closer to the house garden stuff in there for now.

It feels good getting things done right and in a put place - with the goal of hoping things get put back in their 'put place'. We're getting better.

Happenings

As always, the 'Happenings' = Life around our Velveteen House.

It's summer. Dawson, 19, has some varied jobs: yard work and photography and catering (besides applying for the honors program a teacher submitted him for). But, we're paying him to work around here this summer. What does that mean? I'm just finding that out!

I came home last night to guys sitting around our little amphitheater having a campfire. They then watched a movie in Dawson's room. How they all sleep in there? ... Just let me say, it's a mess, and I don't see how they sleep - not without imprints of cracker boxes and bb-s, etc on their cheeks, etc!

They feel at home here. So I guess I need to have food stuffs at their disposal, cuz I'm not always going to cook for them. I saw that they made panini sandwiches of leftover grilled pork loins I had in the fridge for lunch, before they left today.

The other day, girls and guys were tie-dying cotton things they bought (T-shirts, socks, underwear, and sheets). Dawson knew I had this tie-dye kit from long ago around, and like his social-self so often does, "Lets have a tie-dye party!" And as they wait for things to get done? They eat. They play board games (which really IS cool). I am glad that Dawson is a do-it-yourselfer, and doesn't expect me to do it all and entertain them!

On the gardening end? Tho Monte's further tractor work will create more work, I'm finishing up the veggie garden and doing things better then ever (with Dawson's hard labor!). But we'll see if this season's weather co-operates. And I'm finishing up more beds created since we've extended the electric fence.

What's beautiful now? crabapple and cherry blossoms just ended, but WOW ... the lilacs are beautiful this year (it could be the electric fence and no elk!) ... and so fragrant. The first lilac picture is out my kitchen window and the second shows the east end of the house with that upper 'shaker'-deck off our bedroom.

My one daphne (which people say I can't grow, but it has for several years now) is blooming fragrance right now too.

One Thousand White Women

What if - the government in 1854 traded 1000 white women brides for 1000 horses as a peace trade with the Cheyenne Indians. That's what the book I just finished is based on. I enjoyed the story. The author tells the story from May Dodd's journals - May Dodd, an irreverent society outcast. You get caught up in the story (I got it from the library and listened to it).

BUT...May Dodd is too progressive for 1854 - having all today's racial, gender, sexual and secular values. It tries, like the beginning of the DaVinci Code, to make you think it's historically real. It's a well written story, and entertaining, but would have been better if it stuck to 1854 voicing.

What I read last year is way better: These is My Words, and its sequel, Sarah's Quilt, by Nancy Turner. They are written from a fictional diary format too, but true - Sarah is the author's great-grandmother. I got them from the library, but they are worth owning. I really liked them because they take place at the end of the 1800's in the southern Arizona frontier, with some of it in Tucson, where I grew up. They begin with 18 year old Sarah Prine on a wagon train. Heather read them too and loved them.

My friend Marty told me there's a third book now. I'm waiting for it from the library, but it's got holds on it - meaning it's popular.

Preaching/Teaching

I helped preach this past weekend. We have three services, so I spoke once Saturday evening and two times yesterday morning. Our church celebrated Pentecost for the first time - celebrating the birthday of the Church.

I remember one of our pastors often ending prayers before he preached, "And God, help us to preach!" This may seem odd, but then that would be because our perspective of what goes on at church is odd. What we tend to think and do, is go and sit and sing and listen and hope to leave with, "that was good music and a good sermon". We tend to be an audience critiquing those in front 'on stage'.

I see God as the audience. Those in front are more like cue givers. I'm/we as congregation, parts of a whole body of Christ, are being critiqued in our worship by God. And does our worship and love of God overflow into our daily life? We preach with our daily living.

I grew up under theology that said 'women do not teach men', and especially in a church 'sanctuary' from the 'pulpit'. Let me share a couple personal experiences.

In our old church we were a part of a thriving Sunday school class. One of the class leaders/teachers knew of my 'knowledge' and giftings and asked me to co-teach a series. After he introduced the new series he had me do the introduction. I think it was at the end of that class that a guy stood and said he was offended to be taught by a woman and was going to leave the church, and they did. It was painful to lose his wife as a friend; we had just begun working together on a women's ministry team. Another male friend was terribly disappointed, as he loved what I had presented and was looking forward to more. Rather than making an issue of it I backed down from teaching.

Monte and me got accepted to participate in a national communication seminar. All the attendees were a mixture of pastors, youth leaders and other people who speak within whatever ministry they were involved with. We were assigned a group we'd be meeting with every evening for the week. Every morning was lots of teaching techniques and examples from many teachers, both men and women, pastors and speakers. Afternoons we met with our group's leader, mine was a mid-west pastor, and brainstormed through what my next 'speech' was going to be and then worked on it and presented it before my group. That was the hardest work (worse than school-I didn't work that hard!) I've ever done - a totally different 5 minute talk every night for a week! and then having the group critique you and the final night, video-taped. 

There were five guys and another gal in my group. She occasionally preaches at a church in Seattle WA. There were a couple senior pastors, a youth worker, and leader of a huge singles ministry, and then a guy from Gainsville GA, that I think worked for Larry Burkett's organization. The pastors sometimes did speeches totally out of their spiritual mode. Like a fun one on 'how to grill the perfect steak'.

At the end of the week the Georgia man had a confession to make. He said he was horrified in the beginning that he'd have to sit and listen to women. But after the week he was going home and discussing, with his wife, their theology. He said he had been totally blessed by our speeches; he learned to appreciate the feminine perspective, and really learned things from us.

As a part of one body, if one has a gifting that all can be helped by, men and women, and not just children (which is where we women are told we CAN teach), shouldn't we desire to grow together? in whatever way we can? And aren't we all created, male and female, in God's image? The feminine is a part of God! It takes both males and females together to give a 'wholeness' of what God's image looks like, to the world.

In the visual image the Bible gives us of 'the body of Christ', there are many parts and many giftings. Every part is valuable for the body's functioning. And we need to be utilizing everyone's giftings - which would begin with learning each other's giftings.

So I talked this weekend about a piece of my story that led to my understanding the background of Pentecost - living in the sandals of the disciples, in their Jewish culture of First Fruits Harvest Festivals. God chose these festivals for Resurrection Day and then the pouring out of the Holy Spirit into human hearts, Pentecost Day - so we can carry on as walking Jesus's in the here and now. 

And too, I shared my relational growth with God thru a differing approach to 'Bible Study', which is a read, think, pray and live, approach, called lectio divina by some. Not a dissecting of scripture, but entering into the wholeness of it as a story, into the context, and letting it speak to me, touching where I'm at today, and live it into my life. 

My friend Ellen, one of the pastor's wives, preached with me. For years she's studied ecclesiology - what is 'church'? what does it, can it, look like? Is what 'church' has become right? is it what God would like his body to look like? the representation of Him to look like? If we're indwelt by God, do we listen and follow His promptings? Do we even recognize and know our Shepherd's voice?

Lots of children had drawn pictures for Pentecost - asked, "what does God mean to you?" A fellow artist and me hung them across the front of the church last Wednesday from a red cord with clothespins. Other art was contributed and a gal wrote a song that she sung with a friend this weekend. Ellen had brought her dancing Trinity candleholder (like mine - I posted a picture of it long ago) to adorn a table in front of where we spoke, along with one of my felted pictures on an easel, I call "Transformation". (I may have posted it before but I'll put it below.)

Lots of tables were set up for eating and fellowship decorated with red cloth and lots of red balloons. And Gretchen even made what we called Red Velvet Cake for desert, after barbeque brats and burgers. The whole body really got into celebrating what the Trinity means to us and the birth of the Church. 

This is just the beginning of a new beginning for our church. We've come through a tough time and the body is healing by paying attention to all of it's parts and acknowledging each part and letting them 'do' their part!

Cracked Pot

A friend, Beth, sent me this story. I love it. After the story I'll tell you about the 'cracked pot' I made, pictured here.
_____________

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots,
each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.   

One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.

At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily,
with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments.  
But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection,
and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. 

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure,
it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.
'I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side
causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.' 

The old woman smiled,
'Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path,
but not on the other pot's side?'
'That's because I have always known about your flaw,
so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path,
and every day while we walk back, you water them.' 

'For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers
to decorate the table.  Without you being just the way you are, 
there would not be this beauty to grace the house.'

Each of us has our own unique flaw.
But it's the cracks and flaws we each have
that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding.  

You've just got to take each person for what they are
and look for the good in them.   
SO, to all of my crackpot friends,
have a great day and remember to smell the flowers
on your side of the path!
________________
I was in a small group of gals - we've grown spiritually together. One evening we had some clay, and just did a quicky project of forming a pot that we imagined representing ourselves. So I did mine with very bright colors. I wasn't thinking of me as bright and colorful, but that I'm not a black and white person, nor gray, and prefer color (and that's not in dress, but my outlook on life)! And I intentionally did create holes and cracks, because I had just come to understand...

In striving to live so 'right', striving for perfection ... it seemed futile and I realized Pharisaical. The Pharisees were the main people Jesus railed upon. They didn't recognize their need. I started recognizing the beauty of my imperfections, realizing the more cracks, the more places for the light of Jesus to shine through.

But now, I'm going to be thinking beyond light, to dripping water that helps give life ...

Washing and Dying Wool

For my final needlefelt class tomorrow, I needed more dyed wool hair colors. We clothe the people we've sculpted of wool and add the hair. Then we're done.

Since I gave most hair colors I had left to my daughter-in-love, I had to dye more, which meant I had to clean more wool - more precisely goat mohair.

I finally said "yes" to my friend Marty's daughter's request that I take her sheared goat wool. I kept saying "no" because for spinning, I only like to deal with fairly clean wool. The people I buy fleeces from have their sheep wear canvas jackets all year. But when I finally said "yes", I saw how curly like hair it is. But OH how dirty!!!!!

For years I wash my wool in bags I've made of nylon screen replacement for doors and windows, and then in the washing machine. I fill the machine with very hot water and 1/2- 1 cup Dawn dish soap depending on the wool. BUT, you don't let the machine agitate!!!!!!!! I just periodically push the bags around in the soapy water with a long handled spoon or dowel. Then let the machine spin the water out. I do this several times depending on how dirty, ending with a rinse one. Then I lay the wool on a sheet on my back deck in the sun to dry.

This morning I took four of the bags, leaving some natural, and dyed four color batches. BUT, remember I said it was so dirty? I barely touch the stuff, only to put it in the bags. Once done, like tomorrow night at class, they will have to pick out the grass, and yes, poop. But I tell them it's clean grass and poop! Actually, it's mainly grass!

Info 1: when wool is scratchy? Yes, some sheep varieties are scratchy, but those are usually used for tapestries and rugs. That poop and grass? Factories use intense chemicals to leach out the poop and grass and weed burrs ... and it also rips away the natural lanolin and elements that make most wools soft.

Info 2: Itchiness in some wools, like: llama, and breeds that have 'guard hairs'. In the cleaning, if a company or person doesn't eliminate the guard hairs from the soft wool, they tend to work out of the spun fiber and have ends that 'poke'.

Info 3: Some sheep breeds have adapted to their environment - evolved! Like the Navajo sheep hardly have any lanolin at all. Lanolin takes a lot of washing to tone it down (you do want some left), but if too much lanolin stays in, it gets tacky like hairspray. In the desert where water is scarce, the people use the dye process to both clean and dye the wool in one batch.

Birds

I just walked to the mailbox practicing my next weekend talk, out loud - both to work my voice (we have three church services) and my body. The mailbox is a mile away. Coming back, with a lot of it hill, I looked for the current wildflowers in bloom and took pictures with my little Canon Elph. I've been taking pictures of stages of flowers in my gardens. I'll try posting pictures on my photoblog.

I told Dawson I wanted pictures of the two birds building a nest in a little bird house hanging on our porch. My camera didn't do it justice, and if I was outside close, the birds wouldn't 'work'. I hung this cute birdhouse for it's cuteness, not thinking birds would actually use it!

From the kitchen sink we've been watching them bring these LONG sticks and trying to aim for the hole. It's made us laugh! They're done now. The other day Rocky jumped off the porch steps, going out of his electric boundary and got shocked, and caught a bird in his mouth. Monte and me were so scared it was one of these birds, but it wasn't. They are still a 'couple' and must be laying eggs now. But we moved Rocky's boundary back a bit!

Last night elk were tromping through a new flower bed I'm creating. Monte needs to move the electric fence further. They kept messing with a tarp and waking Monte all night long. But it looks like they knocked over another bird house. It's post must have been rotting and they kept butting it. Elk are a pest. They'll soon move to the higher mountains till late August. We've not seen a bear yet this year. The electric fence went up last summer when a bear consistently raided the bird feeders.

We have a new bird that's not been in Evergreen before. Last year was the first I'd seen it here. I saw it before in Prescott, Arizona, when Monte was doing geology there. But the last few evenings this Western Tanager has been visiting the bird feeding area. The other evening him and a baby downy woodpecker, with his red capped head, were taking turns on the hanging suet feeder. His bright yellow body and orange-red head were so beautiful in the flowering crab apple tree!

A bird guy told me that with more feeders going up the mountains, birds will start migrating further into the mountains. The one I'm anxiously awaiting is the bright red cardinal!

Weather

Just a quick note.

In reading a couple of my recent posts I've gone from snow and cold to instant bare feet in the dirt warmth.

Yes.

That's the nature of 8,000 feet and even the Mile High City of Denver, which we're a half hour from.

We tend to go from winter to summer.

Happenings

I have been blogging in my head for a week. Does that make sense? I talk in my head - forever! Sometimes I wish it would just shut up! It's what causes me to not sleep; been a curse since I was a teen - the talk, or reliving everything, or composing stuff I'd write, and thus, the lack of sleep. I sure don't want to get into it all now, or I'll not go to sleep.

Monte is watching some scene selections from a movie we just watched while I sit reading emails, writing this, and having my nightcap. It's had him saying he's returned to his ancestral roots. It was a Scandinavian kinda Viking era, tho not the warring stuff, movie. With his geology, he's been to Norway and Norwegians have visited us several times. He's pure Swedish, I'm part, and then Dutch and English - the English that came over on the Mayflower - Governor Bradford,  to be exact. But I look at all those Northerners so interwoven that we're all really One.

All I want to say for now is that I'm heavily gardening from morning till night, thoroughly enjoying the out-of-doors. And like I said earlier, my looking-forward-to, my bare feet have been in the dirt - they are stained! I was thinking of this when showering tonight - I still will wear sandals - in spite! 

But then genetically, I don't have feet or hands that can ever by 'pretty'. My nails grow upward, never curving downward. And my fingers and toes are stubby. AND I use my hands too much (and enjoy digging my feet in the dirt) to ever hold a mani/pedicure. If my nails don't get shortened from all my varieties of labors, I slice my nails often in my cooking from scratch (so we get some calcium from my nails! That's weird, I know, and gross, and not so prevalent - but Jesus used hyperbole to make a point!)

If I keep reading Annie Dillard ... but listening to murder mysteries counter-balances that ... 

The Gift of Art

I'm home from a meeting at church - a meeting of artists ... how to find and draw out people in our body of Christ ... value their giftedness (beyond just the typical written Word spoken and talked about, and then the music) ... let the rest of the body know more about 'their' body ... help people learn to see!

What's the 'help people learn to see' piece? I read a line in a 'art and the church' book about the fact, and yes, it is 'fact', that as protestants we are malnourished when it comes to our imagination. (I'm protestant and I have a lively imagination ... but ... )

Did you ever think that it truly takes imagination to read and grasp scripture? 

In this book it showed a bass-relief artwork of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem - he was riding side-saddle. If you saw that, would your imagination run away with your thoughts on the possibilities of that image?! The point, is that most of us would just register 'Triumphal entry of Jesus', and that's all.

Imagination thoughts?: Hmmm ... we think of Jesus as King, besides Divinity - why didn't he ride in in a Roman chariot, or riding a majestic horse? ... maybe horses are a too militaristic, warrior posture ... donkey, okay, peaceful ... but side-saddle? ... isn't that a feminine posture? ... hmmmm

I don't like filling in all the blanks for you. Just my hint at 'feminine' ... doesn't that help you imagine further?

I'm so glad the walls of our church are full of art. We want more. People still walk by without really 'seeing'. We don't have a white wall in our church, we have color. We are not a Black and White Church! There is so much color ... and I'm thinking it's way beyond the spectrum we actually see ...

Memorial Day

Our Heather married William Lavender last December 18th. He was newly home from Iraq. He is a captain in the military.

They left this morning in their rental truck full of stuff Heather's gathered over the years awaiting marriage. She's prayed very specifically since she was 10 for this man she'd marry. As she was approaching 30 she was still trusting and resting in God. I was trusting too, thought I'd often argue with God ...

How'd they meet? Through E-Harmony, an online Christian dating site. Bill is a wonderful man and they are like brother and sister - both in looks and compatibility.

While today we remember those who have died for our freedoms. I'm also saying thanks to those still alive, willing to give their lives for freedoms they value - like our Bill. 

Clotheslines

I was just googling 'clotheslines'. I used to hang out clothes to dry and am missing it. I was looking for the kind I saw a lot of in Wisconsin, and Monte's mom has one. It's a heavy metal frame that can be moved around. They are non-existent online. I'd probably have to go out of the city to a country hardware store to find one. 

Do you know what is most prevalent under the subject of 'clothesline'? Blogs and articles on the trouble you can get in if you try and hang clothes out to dry. In this new 'green' climate (which I'm kinda sick of - it's mass consumerism! There's a new book out titled Big Green Purse, subtitled Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World. I'm an old hippie, and I've been called Earth Mother, and feel I've lived fairly green conscious, and I do want others to live greener.) clotheslines are a great idea.

I did have someone in an Arizona neighborhood tell me the covenants didn't allow hanging out laundry, but we lived so far apart, I ignored it and never got in trouble. But I guess people really do get in trouble for hanging out laundry and even clotheslines exposed to view.

I have nostalgic images of clothes-pinned laundry gently blowing in the breeze and neighbors talking over fences. I loved the fresh air and listening to the birds and the fresh smell of things dried outside. But I'm glad I live in an era where I don't HAVE TO air dry everything. I wouldn't want to do it in freezing weather or where it rains a lot. And some things just need to dry in the dryer. I rarely iron, using my dryer to take out wrinkles.

But what if I want to hang some things out?! I guess Monte will have to make me another clothesline. The last one rotted.