slow pokey ....

so yesterday after i wrote my blog i decided i had better copy it and save it in my writing folder on my desktop because u know if i ever die someone might get a kick out of reading what sometimes feels more like a journal entry than a blog, but whatever. at any rate, i was wondering if i had saved the last few blogs, so i went searching through the folder to see what titles were there (and believe me there r a lot of titles -- some of which never made it to the blog site), only to discover that there were MANY that had not been saved. I spent the next hour or so opening, copying and saving them all -- all the way back to January of 2009.

i don't know what prevented me from saving them as i did them -- that would have been a much easier and less time consuming task and in the past, i would have been all for easier and less time consuming. lately, it seems like i just saunter -- like an old slow pokey turtle -- my way through life and don't really pay a whole heck of a lot of attention to the amount of time i'm at something and that is a tad worrisome on one front. its not that i can't push myself (because i can), its just that i don't want to. i want to take it all slowly and enjoy the moments -- even the seemingly mundane ones.

yesterday a friend stopped by to lend me her teeny tiny philips head screwdrivers to see if i could fix my daughters digital camera (i couldn't and that's a subject for another day/blog). we had seen each other briefly the day before when i took my daughter (with said broken camera) to the town where my friend lives to take photos for her photography class. my friend and i have kept in touch through facebook, but we don't get to see each other often because her schedule is crazy nuts. so its nice when we do, however, we spend a lot of time "catching up" and then talking about our spiritual journeys.

yesterday was no exception. but some where around 7:30 my daughter wandered downstairs and announced that it was 7:30 and that she was starving. i hadn't told her to hole herself up in her room, but she had and i hadn't realized the time because my friend and i were so engaged in talking. it was just another example of letting what's gonna happen, happen and enjoying the now of the moment.

maybe its something that happens as we age -- idk. maybe its our way of making life last longer since it appears more and more fleeting as we get older. but i have to say that not having a real job these last two+ years and spending more and more time with papa god has just made me stop and smell the roses -- so to speak -- more often than not. it probably frustrates my daughter because she's at the other end of life and, as such, wants things to pop pop pop ... luckily, she will be going off to college in the fall and won't have to deal with her slow pokey dottering old mama the majority of the time ....

diamonds and coal

my neighbor believes that bad things come in threes. she might be right -- i know that whenever one celebrity dies, it seems that very shortly thereafter, two more die. and for her she had a hot water heater go in her apt. and then the water pump in her van, so she was just waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak.

she came over yesterday to gorilla glue my cupboard shelf brackets into place. you see, about 8 months after they installed the new kitchen cabinets, i had a shelf fall down on me. the bracket came out of the socket it was resting in partly because the shelves were cut about 1/2 inch too short. unfortunately, that shelf contained a lot of my cups and my irreplaceable tea pot to my dinnerware pattern and some irreplaceable glass dishes that were my mom's. when i complained to the office about it, i was told to get my renter's insurance to pay for the damages -- as if paying for the items would make it all better. of course, i have a deductible on my insurance and their feeling was that it was the housing authority's issue since they installed faulty cabinets. even though this same issue happened with several other residents, and was reported to the office, nothing was done to rectify the faulty cabinet shelves and we've all just "dealt" with it for the last couple of years. but my neighbor finally figured out that if we gorilla glued the brackets in place, they would be less likely to pop out and since she did her's she figured she would come over and do mine.

this meant that i had to unload two of my shelves. which i did. and i realized just how much stuff i have in that one cupboard and it got me to thinking about moving and how much stuff i have all over the house and how difficult it will be to do that alone. now i don't have any solid plans to move anywhere in the immediate future, but u never know what might happen, since i'm about to write a letter to the housing authority about a rent increase issue, and they don't seem to appreciate it when u put something in writing (probably because it leaves a paper trail). so u never know.

I've had a couple of "coal" events this week. the first was the not getting too far with the financial aid offices of the two colleges my daughter is truly interested in attending. the second was a rent increase, that although i knew it was coming, i couldn't comprehend the amount they actually came up with because it revolved around me working 52 weeks a year and i don't know anyone who works 52 weeks a year, although i'm sure there are ppl who work 52 weeks a year, i'm just not one of them. and the third was a letter i got yesterday from Old Navy saying they were dropping my credit limit to $100 from $450 because seemingly i'm too much more of a credit risk now than i was 1 year ago when they gave me the card (and truly my financial situation has not changed one iota since then but whatever). and considering that i rarely use the card (we live 80 miles from the nearest Old Navy and probably shop there once in a blue moon and u know how often they happen) and that i pay the bill off immediately or at least within the first two billing cycles, i figure they just decided to do it because they rn't "making enough money" off me. so i'm probably going to be writing them a letter and telling them what they can do with their silly card because truly the only reason i got the card in the first place was to take advantage of the points u earn towards free stuff. but who needs them...

at any rate, as i lay in bed this morning thinking about "coal" events of the last week,i decided that i wasn't in the right mood to go to church. and truly we should stay home any how because my daughter really needs to work on her scholarships, since the two schools she applied to rn't going to give her much in the way of financial aid (even though she lives with a mom who hasn't worked a steady job in two years). so we're staying home, and having our usual pillsbury orange cinnamon rolls for breakfast. its a tradition in our house that on sunday mornings i would always make them -- some things r hard to let go of. i'm feeling just a tad like a heathen right now (and not just because i'm about to eat fattening cinnamon rolls.

on the bright side, i bought my daughter a tea kettle identical to mine for $3 and a Brita water pitcher for 92 cents at the thrift store so she can take them to college now. and i had a job interview last monday. it was the first in a long time and at least i got the interview, because most of the jobs i've applied for lately i haven't even been called for an interview, let alone gotten a letter saying "we're sorry we've already filled the position with someone more qualified" blah blah blah stuff. so there is hope now that if i could glean one interview, i might actually glean more .... so that's three diamonds. three diamonds to three pieces of coal. and i'm still smiling, mostly..... coz things do come in threes -- even the good ones ....

go google urself ....

'tis really funny what u find sometimes. i googled myself tonight to see what comes up (like my etsy shop and this blog and perhaps facebook) and the stuff that came up made me go awe and giggle and have some fond memories of times gone by ...

i used to moderate a chat room for women, at a website called WOW (women on the web -- i was Bonnetwow -- don't ask), a long long long time ago -- it was like another lifetime. but i also wrote some articles about feminism and what being a woman meant, etc. of course, that's the first link that comes up when u google me. unfortunately (or fortunately depending upon who u might ask), all the links for the articles r broken ones -- so we can't even read my contributions. its probably just as well since it was like a zillion years ago and in the midst of a weird marriage -- so who knows what i might have written.

one of the other links that comes up is below:

Photo Cropping Book Layout

the funny thing about this is that when i was scrapping i had three layouts published in three different idea books by Memory Makers magazine and this link just happens to be one of them. it was an honor to have one layout chosen for publication -- but to have three was more than i could comprehend. its so neat to see it online now ...

one of the other links is to some photos i posted online at WMUR-TV's website. it goes along with the scrapbooking -- take photos, show them off -- only this is online ...

and another is the link to my profile on BeenUp2 -- which is a board of cool ppl -- mostly from Redding, CA that i joined a while ago when i thought papa god was gonna take me to Bethel Church there. i still think i might get to go there, i'm just not sure that it will happen any time soon. but they r such a great bunch of ppl and they pray for each other and care and the relationships r there even if they r long distance because they r all children of papa god .... so its "all good" ....

these r just little bits of the person i was/am -- it will never be a complete picture. but i suggest that u go google urself and see what comes up....

still tough times for the economy ...

business has been kinda slow -- ok, let me be more specific -- business has been non-existent on etsy these days. the last sale i had was feb. 4th. i've had a couple of sales locally, but business locally has been pretty non-existent, too. on etsy there r tons of threads in the forums about it as well. everybody is having a bad time. i wonder if the local big box retailers r having as bad a time (i kind of doubt it but u never know). several of the smaller independent locals r going out of business, which is kinda sad to see. having closed a store myself, i know what this feels like.

a week or so ago we discovered that Hollywood Video was going out of business. its like walkable from our apt. and one of only two real video rental places. but i guess they felt like they couldn't compete with comcast on demand and netflix. i don't have either one of those -- and i know a lot of ppl who don't. when i made mention of the fact that we enjoyed renting movies there, someone suggested we try the "red box". i've seen them popping up around the area but i'm not sure i want to give some red box my credit card. something just doesn't sit well there. and i can't afford comcast on demand or netflix on a regular basis because we don't watch that many movies -- we might rent a movie once a month or less (thinking we probably contributed to the demise of hollywood video because we didn't rent more often). and honestly, i feel really badly for the ppl who r losing their jobs because of it.

the other store that is going out of business is our local birkenstock store. to some folks this is a non-issue coz they wouldn't be caught dead with a birkenstock on their foot. for me ... its the only shoe i wear because i have foot and back issues and i know they would be a lot worse if i wore something else (coz i've tried). but i didn't shop there very often either because birkies if they rn't on sale r really expensive and i could only afford them when they had sales (which wasn't often). so again -- probably contributed to their demise. but now i wonder what i will do now to get birkies for my poor feet. its not like we have a mall close by (read the mall shopping blog and u'll understand). again, ppl without jobs.

i hear all this stuff on the news about the economy getting better, but i don't see it. i don't have a job, so what r all these ex-employees of birkenstock and hollywood video going to do?

the other bad part of this is that when u close a store, u have a going out of business sale and then ppl u never saw in ur store before come in looking for bargains (which in itself isn't a bad thing), but feels to the business owner like their being taken advantage of (which, of course they r). i know, because i've been through this. yet who can resist a really good sale????

idk -- i wish i could say i see a glimmer of hope on the horizon for business owners -- the small ones i mean because it seems like the big boxes will survive no matter what. especially the wal-marts because in tough times everybody needs a place to buy things cheaply. i'm just praying that things pick up soon for all of us ...

what price beauty ...

WARNING: if there r any men out there reading this, don't go any further ....


i had to say that otherwise i will get lots of ewwwws from the guys.

this morning as i was standing in the shower sloughing off the dead skin with my scrubby, i thought to myself how nice it would be to live in a place where it didn't matter if i sloughed off my dead skin, or shaved my legs (or armpits), or plucked my eyebrows, or even worried about whether my grey hairs were showing. it would be nice not to have to take the pedi-egg to my feet and then slather them with cream or paint my face with stuff that will probably age me beyond belief. it would be wonderful not to worry about whether or not my hair was combed, my teeth brushed (ok, well i HAVE to do this just for me), or my pants were void of wrinkles.

does such a place exist? i kind of doubt it. but its a nice thought.

currently, jessica simpson is traveling around the world doing a series of shows called "the price of beauty". now, in the past, i know that she's gotten a lot of flak for being a flake (remember the tuna/chicken thing). but i have to applaud her efforts in this regard because it isn't until we can see how beauty negatively (or positively) affects the culture that we can start to make changes for the good. i have to admit that i didn't really watch this show -- well -- i caught the tail end of the one where they went to thailand and saw the previews for the one where they interview an anorexic model. and i am not sure i want to watch it (let's be fair, i'm not a big fan of tv in general and usually tend to only watch cooking or fixing up ur house shows -- although i do love watching NCIS, but we won't go there). but i have to say that if she takes the right approach with this show, it might help a lot of young women (and some older ones, too) realize that life isn't all about how beautiful, skinny, whatever u r.

maybe this is such a sensitive topic to me because i was spurned because i gained some weight after the birth of my children. basically, i think if u love someone, u continue to love them no matter what their looks. whether they have gotten heavy through child bearing, lost a breast/hair/etc. to cancer. i just think that love -- real love -- looks past the exterior to what's inside and finds the true beauty there.

i hate to say this, but my grandpa was a bit of a bigot and i remember when i was little my mom telling me that i shouldn't listen to what he said about ppl because it didn't matter what a person looked like on the outside, but what was in their heart and whether or not they were a good person. that has stuck with me for many many years and i've taught that to my children. as a result of what my mom said to me and tried to teach me, i tend to look past the exterior to see the heart. the other thing is that the last few years, papa god has taught me how to see ppl the way he sees them, and that has made a difference in how i view myself as well. so all this "stuff" that we do to have a "pleasing" appearance to others doesn't mean as much as it used to. and perhaps that's y i wouldn't mind going somewhere where it didn't matter at all ...

Mall Shopping

this really isn't about mall shopping -- its about non-mall shopping. u see, we live in nh -- where the malls r few and far between. the nearest mall to us is in concord -- which is about an hour's drive (provided u don't hit any traffic when u get close to concord. the largest mall near us is about 1.5 hours away in manchester. if we drove 2+ hours we could go to the mall in holyoke, ma, but then we'd have to pay sales tax on anything we buy. however, there is no toll booth on the way there and its pretty much a straight shot. the same could also be said for target and craft stores like michaels and acmoore for us. shopping is NOT easy when u live in nh. ppl don't believe me when i tell them how far we r from a mall. but its true ...

so having said all this, yesterday my daughter had no school and we decided around noon that we would go to the mall in manchester. there is an acmoore there and a michaels nearby and lots of stores (like old navy and forever 21) where my daughter likes to clothes shop. we got there close to 2 and went into acmoore, where she got one paint brush and i bought about $7 worth of beading supplies. we then went to the restroom and as we came out of the restroom into the mall near acmoore i heard a boom, the lights flickered and the fire alarms started going off.

this is not a joke folks -- this is my life -- my timing has always sucked, so it was no surprise to me. since there were no announcements that we were to evacuate the building and ppl were pretty much ignoring the alarms, we continued (rather stupidly my daughter thought since at school when the alarm goes off it means "get the heck out of here now"). we got to forever 21 and i asked the sales lady if she knew what was going on and she assured me that this sort of stuff happens all the time and we were in no real danger. my daughter decided to try on a few things and the next thing i know they were telling us we needed to leave, so we started back towards the store we'd come in originally (best buy) only to discover that the security ppl wouldn't let us back that way and we would have to go out another door and walk around the outside of the mall to get to our car. have u ever tried walking around the outside of a mall??

we decided we would drive down the road to the michaels and then come back and see if we could be let into the mall. of course, by the time we'd left there were already 6 firetrucks (and probably half the fire battalion of manchester) in place and two of them with baskets up on the roof. where were all these guys when we were asked to evacuate the building by the personnel at forever 21 -- not once did we see any firemen in the mall or security telling us to leave or even an announcement that we should leave.

at any rate, after we went to michaels we came back to the mall and it still was "closed" and we decided to drive the 40 minutes to concord to the other mall -- which we did -- where we had some dinner and shopped very little and then went to michaels and target nearby. it was just one of those really weird days that u can't predict. and truly it wouldn't have been so bad if we hadn't had to drive 1.5 hours to get to the mall in the first place.

so today i turned on the news to discover that an electrical worker triggered an explosion, which lead to a fire, (thus the need for the firemen and firetrucks), and that he was severely injured. i will pray for quick healing for him.

and so it begins

yesterday i went to the mailbox and pulled out a large envelope from one of the two colleges to which my daughter applied. i knew instantly what it contained because everybody knows that when u get accepted to a college u get a large envelope and when u get rejected u get the smaller one with just a letter saying sorry...

so i brought it into the apt. and i called upstairs to her that she needed to come downstairs right then. she got all panicked because i'd been home since Wed. after injuring my back at work -- and she figured i'd fallen and couldn't get up (said with that annoying Urkel voice).

she stopped halfway down when she saw i was holding up a large envelope, and started to get all excited. she opened the envelope and tears came into her eyes and i said, "what" -- even though i knew that "what" was a given. we both ended up laughing and crying and hugging and omygosh, if i'd had a camera handy i'd have taken a photo of that look on her face when she opened the envelope and read its contents.

and so it begins... she's on her way to becoming an art student at an art college, and what fun she will have, and what fun she is looking forward to having. and i'm going to learn to let go in a bigger way now because its her adventure and not mine. and i'm excited for her and happy for her and kinda sad for me -- but more excited and happy for her than i am sad for me because i know this is a fulfillment of a desire that's been in her heart for a long time. and i'm so proud of her, but that's just one of a myriad of my emotions ...

and so ... it begins ...

busy work

i just joined an etsy team called EstyHookers and of course, whenever u join a team u have lots of busy work to do. like set up ur page on their blog site and upload photos there and to flickr and add tags to already existing photos there and at ur etsy shop. so i've spent the last day and a half working on that.

i've also finished another afghan and hat set and started on a fourth one in this run of what seems to be crocheting for baby. maybe there is some secret desire there to have another -- although i know there is -- this will never happen as #1 i'm too old (no more details need be added here) and #2 there is no man in the house (also eliminating details). but crocheting baby items really does make me want to hold a baby right now.



i also have several items that i need to redo the photos on for my etsy site. always trying to improve them and make look better so that customers will want to buy them.

i also had a sale -- and packaged that up and sent it off this morning. discovering that the rates have gone up on plain old ordinary priority mail (much to my dismay). so i guess i need to exchange all those priority mail boxes i just had delivered here for flat rates -- at least for the smaller ones.

i did finish an exceptionally nice piece of jewelry that was special ordered. i do still like doing jewelry -- just seems like that takes a back burner in the winter when i can easily work on crocheted items. but i'm thrilled with the finished product and need to show it off....



its all about butterflies -- which means renewal -- and the beaded sections r done in threes to represent the trinity. i really love the way it turned out and made matching earrings to go with the necklace. i was inspired!!

well its back to the busy work. still lots to do. its after 12 noon and i still haven't had a shower. and there will be lots of running around after i pick up my daughter at school. should be a good productive day!!

good ol' days r gone ....

so remember i said a couple of days ago that my facebook fan page had disappeared along with all my facebook notes? well they never reappeared and so i had to reconstruct the fan page. which is fine.... but in the process i decided to reactivate my twitter account and then link the two and basically, i have decided that technology is just way too frustrating.

many years ago when i had a sewing business i was a beta tester for my local internet provider for websites. they wanted ordinary joes (or janes) like me to build their own websites. so i did. and it was quite nice and successful but it never had a shopping cart or a place to enter credit card info. however, it didn't need it because ppl could just email me from the clickable email link and lmk what they wanted and then send me their info. i'm sure it was frustrating to them -- maybe not so much -- idk. i could never do another website from scratch like that. i had an HTML Bible that i used to help me write the correct code for doing things like links, etc. and i've retained a bit of that and still own the book, so occasionally i can go back to research something i need to do on the blog. i really haven't used it much because the technology of places like facebook, twitter, and blogspot really doesn't require a whole lot of it.

but sometimes i want to do something and can't and its frustrating and makes me wish i'd taken a class at school or something. only they never offered this kind of stuff when i was in school because i went to school in the middle ages -- ha ha...

no really, i mean when i learned to touch type (now some of u r sitting there scratching ur heads wondering what touch typing is -- it is exactly as it sounds) we had typewriters (anyone remember those) and they weren't even electric (probably explains y i have carpel tunnel issues). one of the first jobs i had working as a secretary involved typing up psychological reports on an IBM magcard typewriter. "cutting and pasting" meant "programming" a stop in one card, so that it would eject the card at the right place so that u could insert the next card to put the "pasted" item on, then programming that card to eject so that u could put the first card back in and continue the printing out process. and heaven forbid if u mixed up the cards. it was not fun. prior to this technology, though, cutting and pasting truly meant -- cutting it out of one place and taping it into another and hoping when u went to the copy machine that the place where u taped it didn't leave a line on the copy. or it meant retyping the entire paper from beginning to end just to make sure things were in the right places. making "corrections" required u to either retype it, white it out with white-out (omygosh what was in that stuff) and basically, it was a pain.

the first "computer" i ever worked on was back in 1980 and it was an IBM displaywriter (would NOT be considered a computer by today's standards). the first computer i ever owned was a very very early Mac (see above photo of something similar to what i owned) that didn't even have a hard drive (don't ask). they make fish tanks out of them now and i believe there is one in the Smithsonian... when i moved to NH (eons ago) i worked at darmouth college and they were in the "computer age" but not what u would consider the computer age now, and u had to know certain code in order to get things to print out, move stuff around, etc., and we worked on machines called Diablos (u do know that's the word for devil in spanish don't u???). i'm sure they were aptly named because honestly, there were times when i truly felt like the devil was running the entire operation and i had no control over what was printed out. they did eventually move into the era of Macs and wasn't i a happy camper.

now we have computers that can print out DVDs and play music and make movies and mess around with photos and isn't it all so wonderful how easy we've made it? ha ha ....

i am pretty sure that in the grand scheme of things some things r easier to do than others, but some things r just more frustration than is necessary. gone r the days of taking a photo on a SLR film (what's that -- u can't even buy that stuff locally anymore) camera and taking it to the local photo shop (huh??) and having them process and print ur photos. coming home with a packet full of pictures and a sleeve full of negatives (what???) and if u needed more prints in different sizes u had to take the negatives back to the shop and wait for them to be printed (usually a couple of days to a week). now u take a photo with a digital camera, plug it into ur computer and bam u have instant pictures that u can print in all sorts of sizes and u get to print only the ones u like!! who'd have thunk it! but on one level its more frustrating because then u have to make sure u have a printer that has archival quality inks and papers and yeah let's not even go down this road.

sometimes i think we've just made more stress for ourselves by the continual upgrading of our technology. things that we thought would make our lives easier have just increased the need to "know more" about the technology behind it. and who has time for that -- idk. maybe i'm just waxing nostalgic for a simpler time ....

a state of mind, not a state of circumstances

u know the poem "If" by rudyard kipling. u know how at the beginning it says: "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you" -- well in the last several months i've been impressed that i need to keep my head -- or at least my thoughts -- in check even in the worst of circumstances. that my reality is NOT papa god's reality and that what i see about me isn't necessarily what or how it really is.

now this is easier said that done when most of ur life u've seen the glass as empty and never even half full. its a true test of will to "keep ur head" when the circumstances dictate something much more dire. its a real-learning of sorts. retraining ur brain to look at the crap and see that its not really crap. kinda like the king asking everybody to see him in his new clothes when he's really naked -- sometimes the naked just can't be imagined away.

i'm not asking u to imagine something away either or pretend it doesn't exist. what i am asking u to do is to try to see it in papa's reality. here's an example: i live in subsidized housing and sometimes its really not very pleasant here. the walls r thin and i can hear ppl screaming at their children on either side of me (which hurts my heart), and in the spring and summer there is a lot of conflict here between residents when their children get into scuffles. let's just say that some of the parents don't have very good communication skills beyond screaming. there has also been a lot of drug dealing and police calls, and well, u get the basic picture. now on the outer layer it looks like a really crappy place to live and i could sit around and wallow in self-pity over the fact that i have to live in a place like this. but what papa god has shown me is that compared to others, i have been quite blessed. i have a roof over my head, a warm bed to lie in at night, food on the table and a reason and ppl to pray about. and something that in the past would have put me down and kept me down for months (maybe even years) no longer does.

sure, sometimes i get frustrated and angry and yes, even sad, but the sadness never lasts long (like it used to) and i'm immediately reminded that what i see before me is not papa god's reality. that he is so much bigger than any issue that is laying in my lap and that i just need to let it go, put a smile on my face and move forward.

recently, i've had the pleasure of talking to two ppl i love dearly about their depression. one has made some unwise choices and is now suffering the consequences. they r miserable and i can see y. but i also see a way for them to get out of the mess they r in -- something they were having a hard time doing. it seems like when u get into the muck, there is very little room for actually seeing the path of escaping it. and i understand this really really well because of a lot of "messes" i have gotten myself into the past 53+ years.

the other person is just generally depressed because of things not going the way they had planned. other ppl's attitudes towards them is causing them grief and they rn't overly happy in their job, and they don't like where they r living, and u get the picture. i understand this area as well -- having been in all these circumstances. and having been like both of these ppl, i was depressed and miserable for ages. when ppl would ask me how i was i would tell them (even though they really didn't want to know) and could see the instant look of "oh my gosh i shouldn't have asked" come across their faces. some ppl -- those who have compassion -- would become miserable just from listing to my story. it bothered me that i was making someone else miserable just by telling them about my miserableness.

so a year ago, i made this conscious decision to just not tell ppl unless they really pressured me -- or i really trusted that they wouldn't become emotionally tied to my miserableness. because i couldn't handle seeing someone else upset. y should i make other ppl miserable just because i was. the other thing i vowed to do was to wear a smile on my face -- even though the world around me was crumbling, i knew that i was deeply loved and cared for by papa god and that was worth smiling about. the reality is that i was not alone in any of the muck, even the muck of my own making, and that the one being who was there for me and holding me and supporting me and providing for my needs was papa god -- and that warranted a smile. a big smile.

what started to come back to me was smiles -- and i found that those smiles bolstered mine even more. if someone wanted to really know about my circumstances, i would tell them, but i would always end it with the statement that i was well loved and blessed by papa god and that what i saw around me was not what papa saw and therefore i was making the conscious decision to see it through papa's eyes.

yes, sometimes i don't do that. sometimes i get down -- but what i have discovered is that the duration of the depression has been more than halved just because i've chosen to see the glass as overflowing from papa god and not as empty. i've made a change in my "state of mind" which then changes my perspective and reaction to my set of circumstances. its empowering and uplifting. and i know i couldn't do any of this without papa god's help and guidance. he's set me on this course and is there all along the way to help me when i stray off the path. he always reminds me -- even in the smallest of ways -- that he cares for me and is there blessing me. and that makes all the difference ....

lessons learned from one small autistic boy ...

well, the holidays r almost over, and we're heading back to the routine. monday morning will bring rushing around to get ready and driving daughter to school and then i'm off to help a family with two small boys who have autism. i will help the boys get dressed and fed and off to school two or three mornings a week.

during the holidays, another friend and i took them to the local school yard where they could sled and play in the snow. the younger boy is milder in his autism, but the oldest boy (the one i'm really taking care of) has an extreme form -- so rare that only about 100 cases in the world have been diagnosed. he's a really sweet boy -- although he does have his moments. he doesn't speak, but he does have ways of communicating (some sign language and a book of pictures of things he likes). but even though he can't speak, he can show joy and sadness and pain and love. the last one is the one that always gets my heart. he will come and look at me and then hug me -- or he'll come up behind me when i'm not looking and give me a big hug. he's just so affectionate.

one day, after i first started helping them, when i was waiting for his paraeducator to come to the house to get him for school, he was sitting in the chair looking out the window and i was singing to him. he loves to listen to ppl sing and i like to sing worship music to him. at any rate, just at that moment i saw this glimpse of how god saw him -- as a little boy with so much potential and any thoughts i had of self-doubt about being able to work with him, went away. my heart broke, just like i knew papa god's had, over the fact that that potential might now be lost due to his disability and i started praying for him, his brother, and his family.

again, i am reminded that sometimes we need to look at others and see what god sees. sometimes that is difficult to do if we have been hurt or betrayed by that person.

recently i had a conversation with someone who had moved out of the area a while ago and came back for a visit. i saw them at church on two separate occasions and then later in the week talked to them in chat. i have to preface that the relationship i had had with this person before they moved away was sometimes difficult and hurtful, but, it was a relationship that had a good deal to do with where i am now in my walk with papa god, so there is still a good deal of love and appreciation in my heart for them.

during the conversation they were talking about how they saw me wearing my gray sweater on the two occasions we had seen each other recently. i said, "i'm sorry, i wasn't wearing my gray sweater -- i don't wear that sweater any more since it has a hole in the elbow of one sleeve." he was insistent that i had been wearing that same sweater and i was just as insistent that i had not and explained the two different outfits i had worn both times.

what struck me, and as i explained to him, was that sometimes we can't see past the "person who was" to the "person who is now". that the sweater was just a symbol of something deeper. like my father and brother can't see past the 5 year old little girl to the almost 54 year old woman i am now. there's an image there that we either can't or r unwilling to let go of to see the person who is now.

the great thing about papa god is that he sees us as to the ppl we will become -- the potential. he also sees us where we r all along the way, but it doesn't hinder him in any way to seeing the person we r to become. if we get words about us from papa god, we need to keep them present in our lives because it helps us to see ourselves as papa sees us. but i believe its even more important to listen to the words from papa god given to others so that we can see them as papa sees them. this gives us guidance then for encouraging them and supporting them so they can come into their full potential in papa god. even more than that -- it allows us to put aside any judgements we might have about someone based on their treatment of us and allow us to continue to love them and appreciate who they will become.

i have to admit that i haven't always been the best at this -- as a matter of fact when it comes to certain ppl (the ex for example), i have failed terribly. i continue to try to see him how papa sees him, but as of this writing i have been unsuccessful and therefore, allow all the hurt feelings and bitterness come into my heart when i have to deal with him. i'm a work in progress, i'm not perfect, and i know that at some point in my life, i will get past this and be able to see him as papa sees him. so i'm not professing perfection here, just suggesting a different way of looking at someone. and to think, it all began in earnest because of working with one small loving boy....

Harry Potter and the Ex

a couple of months ago my almost 18yo daughter (my youngest child) came to me and asked me if i would take her to the harry potter exhibit in boston for her 18th birthday -- coming up in january. at the time i said that if i had the money we would go. now in the back of my head i was doing this silent calculation of how much the bus down and back would be ($140) and the cost of the tickets (unsure) and what a taxi from the bus station to the exhibit and back would cost (also unsure) and knew that somehow this might not come to pass. but i also knew that i had a few months to try and make this happen.

one day before xmas my child asked me again and i basically told her that it wasn't going to be possible because #1 i didn't have enough funds to get us through xmas without help and #2 since my birthday is also in january my car needs to be registered (its all done by b'days here in NH) and inspected -- at least an extra $200 i didn't have. so i didn't see how it was going to be possible for me to take her to the harry potter exhibit. i suggested she ask her father, since she's with him on her birthday anyhow.

so, i guess she took me up on that suggestion. and mind, its my own fault for saying it. but at the time i was feeling a lot like the reason i was in the financial pickle i was in was because of his uncaring attitude (since he stopped paying me alimony after only three years). he seems to have an unending supply of money and not just from his job -- but for a long time his parents and brother were sending him money left and right. even though he really didn't need it. but whatever ....

at any rate, as the date for them to go to boston looms closer and closer, i find myself getting sadder and sadder that i can't take her and that he can. i find myself being resentful for his financial ability to give her whatever she wants whenever she wants and my inability to even provide the most basic of needs. and i know that i need to give it over to god because it just eats away at me and makes me dislike my ex even more than i had when i found out he was cheating on me.

all the statistics i've read have said that when there is a divorce 90% of the women and children live in poverty. when i look around at the women and children living in the housing area i live in, i see that statistic looming large. its not just that we can't buy our children presents or give them elaborate trips or parties. its that most of the time we can't even meet the most basic of their needs. in most instances we end up going to food banks to put food on the table or go begging the office for an extension on the rent.

if i could have found a job when i first closed my store, i might not be in such bad shape. i had been an administrative secretary when i left to be a stay at home mom almost 22 years ago (a joint decision my husband and i had made at the time). i left my career to be a full-time mom and did in-home daycare and had a 10 year sewing business which helped to pay our bills. my ex never saw that as "income" unfortunately. but that's another story. having the store gave me back a sense of self and confidence i had long since lost. i knew i was a great mom, but could i be a great anything else ever again?? of that i was not so sure.

through a set of unfortunate circumstances i found myself unemployable. after tearing the rotator cuff in my shoulder i was unable to get a job lifting things. after being out of the secretarial workforce for 22 years i find myself unemployable as that. add to this the fact that the job market sucks right now for anyone and u can see how this is going downhill in terms of me finding a job.

last night i realized that the one thing that i'm really good at is caring about children -- caring for children. its something i can do well -- and have done. i have been looking for the past couple of months for jobs where i could be a mommy's assistant or do daycare in someone's home. it hasn't been easy. everybody seems to want u to have some degree in child development. i don't have a degree on paper, but i certainly earned my credits by raising two children and caring for others over the years. how do u document that??

at any rate, this whole harry potter and the ex thing has brought me to a place of suddenly feeling like i have somehow failed my child by not giving her what it was she really wanted for her birthday. and for not being able to spend it with her this year. it amazes me how one small thing regarding my child can make me feel somehow inferior. but then i realize that for a long time i felt like being a good mom was the only thing i did well. and its easy to fall back into that pattern of self-doubt that i carried for so long. so this is another time when i need to turn to papa god and see myself as he sees me -- and not as i have perceived myself for so long. to him i am something so much more than just a mom -- and this whole harry potter and the ex thing -- in god's terms -- is but a blip on the radar to self discovery ....

Raising the Faith

i have a facebook account. i've had it for eons. not as long as i have had a myspace (which, btw, i never look at anymore). i've written a zillion notes at my facebook. and i even set up a fan page for Angelic Adornments there. so imagine my surprise this afternoon when i went to upload some new photos to my fan page and discovered it no longer existed. and not only did it no longer exist, but all my notes were missing as well -- and who knows what else at this point. idk what the problem is and i can't get the higher ups at facebook to acknowledge my existence or the fact that some of my important items r missing. after much mucking through the different places to go to get "help" i finally sent them a message only to get a canned response about how they don't respond to individual messages but that they would be "looking into" my issues. how sweet.

normally i wouldn't get upset about this stuff. like the missing notes -- i've got all the important ones in files on my computer so its not like they couldn't be duplicated. but the fan page -- that's the pits. i have a link from my Etsy website to my fan page. there's a link at this blog page to my fan page. i would have to go back through zillions of photos to find all the ones that were posted on my fan page in order to recreate it. and then there is the question of the fans. i would lose them. mind there weren't a lot -- but still.....

as there isn't a whole lot more i can do about this, i have to "let it go" and let the higher ups deal with whatever the problem is. it reminds me about how there r a lot of things that i can do very little about and need to let papa god deal with them.

a couple of nights ago i was watching a live stream of a local church that we sometimes attend. during the service, someone called to say that a pastor from the west coast had collapsed during his service and was rushed to hospital. so we prayed. then later it was discovered that he had passed away and that ppl were going there to pray over him to raise him from the dead. having read some of the works of Smith Wigglesworth, i firmly believe that this is possible.

now before u go all postal on me -- this does happen in this day and age. it has been documented -- so its not something that can't happen. so we all prayed. and we kept in touch on facebook about what was happening. like how they had moved him to another room and that the glory was coming down and we should keep praying. and we were praying. but he did not arise and walk.

now some ppl would look at this and say well, god doesn't exist because if he did this man would certainly have been raised. but as someone reminded me -- did anyone ask papa god what he wanted to do with this man?? i'm not sure that anyone did. most of the ppl (and i have to admit that i was a bit of a lemming and just followed the higher ups here) saw that a man of god had been felled in the middle of a sermon before his time and knew that it was an opportunity for god to show his glory and bring the man back to life. which it was. but it begs the question: does our faith and trust in papa god stay strong even when prayers rn't answered the way we want them to be but the way that papa god sees as best??

i've had plenty of opportunities in the last 5 years to lose faith and trust in papa because prayers i made went seemingly unanswered. but i've also had many prayers answered and i've had many times when papa showed me his love when i wasn't expecting it. what i saw on sunday night/monday morning was a gathering of ppl of faith from all around the world, to pray fervently for a man to be raised from the dead and if nothing else, i saw their faith and trust in papa god and that made mine stronger. strange as that might sound. what i've come to realize is that my reality here on earth -- ie, what i see/hear, etc. -- is not always god's reality. so i have to trust that papa knows better than i in all circumstances and let go -- as hard as that sometimes is. papa god is in control and that gives me a real level of freedom -- freedom from worry, stress, the need to "fix it", etc. its another wonderful gift from papa god.

overly blessed

some might say that i am poor and not blessed at all. but i know different. we may not have much money and bills might get put off from time to time, but we r most certainly overly blessed. the last two days were testimony to that.

on thurs. my neighbor told me about the turkey dinner fixings that her church was handing out at their food pantry. i really didn't have room for a turkey in my freezer, and my kids weren't going to be with me this year for christmas, so i thought i would wait until after christmas to pick one up at the grocery store for the christmas celebration i would then have with my kids. but when i got home from lunch with a friend, my neighbor had left me an almost 13 lb. turkey and a grocery bag full of food -- not just for the turkey dinner, but for other dinners as well. it was an amazing blessing. i didn't have room in my freezer for it, so i'm currently thawing it in my sink to make later today when my son comes over to eat. we will have plenty for our meal and much left over to freeze and make for other meals.

that same day a friend called me and invited me to lunch. i don't get to go out to eat much. occasionally sammy and i will venture down the "strip" and get something at McD's, Wendy's, BK, or Taco Bell off their dollar menus. once in a while we'll splurge at Panera and can usually walk away with a good meal for a little over $10. but that doesn't happen often -- so to go to a real sit down restaurant with a menu that the waitress hands u is a really special treat. this particular friend has taken me out before and its so sweet of her to do that. we have some commonalities in our lives and enjoy each other's company.

afterwards she came to my apt. and looked through my wares. she was looking for presents for her female relatives and picked several jewelry pieces. she blessed me by not only feeding me spiritually and nutritionally, but by purchasing some items which then put money in my pocket to pay some bills and buy a gift card for my son for christmas from the local guitar shop. to top it all off, she gave us a bag of lindor truffles (if u haven't had these -- they r an extravagant chocolate -- even white chocolates which i can have). it was a truly blessed day.

yesterday another friend stopped by to pick up some speakers i had that she wanted to use to plug in her ipod. but she didn't come empty handed. she walked through the door with a huge basket of fruit in her arms and in a shopping bag attached to one arm was a spiral cut ham as big as the turkey i'd gotten the day before -- along with homemade mustard sauce. talk about being blown away -- i was...

the thing is that i don't accept gifts given very well. i'm always embarrassed and humbled by the experience. and here i was being totally humbled three times in two days. we now have too much food and i'm not sure how to handle it all. don't get me wrong, i'm so very very grateful for all of it, and i realize that christmas is the time for giving. but i am one of those ppl who feels this need to reciprocate in kind -- and i can't and it kind of hurts me that i can't. but i'm grateful for the blessings and i think that papa god is trying to teach me to be more accepting without feeling the need to reciprocate immediately. as my friend yesterday said -- u gave to me throughout the year when u just listened or talked to me about spiritual things and look today u let me borrow ur speakers which gets me out of a pickle -- that is ur gift to me. i have never thought of that as a gift -- doing little things or just spending time talking with someone as a gift-- i have always thought of it as just being me. and if something i do doesn't seem "above and beyond" the norm, then it doesn't seem like a gift. but maybe it is to others. and maybe i need to stop beating myself up for not being able to give "gifts" that come wrapped in pretty paper.

at any rate, today will be a day of cooking and feasting. i will be making both the turkey and the ham and we will have a bit of both on our plates along with all the fixings and i will freeze all the leftovers since my daughter will be going to her dad's on monday and not coming back till the middle of the following week. and every time i pull out turkey or ham to make another meal i will thank papa god for the wonderful friends who blessed me in a most thoughtful way.

ARE YOU READY????

so lots of ppl around this time of year get a little frantic because they haven't gotten all the shopping done that needs to be done for the holidays and r worried to some degree or another about the gifts that they were able to buy and whether or not they will be nice enough, etc. other ppl have been ready for months (some even were VERY forward thinking and bought this year's presents last year after christmas when everything was dirt cheap -- i really admire those folks the most).
since i haven't had a real income from a job (Feb. of 2008) for a while, its been a real experience trying to make christmas with no real funds to speak of. its really kind of exciting to see what i can do considering that after the holidays, i then have my daughter's birthday and my car registration/inspection fees to deal with -- which really makes it interesting.
but i've always been the kind of person who likes to make my gifts instead of buy them -- when i can. i learned early on when i was first married and had children how to take my creativity and use it for gift giving. but recently i saw this commercial where the guy kind of whispers "hand made gifts -- who wants them -- nobody" and then goes on to say how u can get other things off ebay. i'm not really sure if he's touting ebay or not -- but he makes some really disparaging remarks about handmade gifts (smells like church, etc.).
it kind of makes me mad because ppl who handmake something put a lot of love and time and effort into it and to be so unappreciative to think that the only gift worth getting (or giving) is one purchased off and online auction is really a reflection of the kind of person u r -- (insert some negative word here).
at any rate, i'm glad that in one sense i don't have to worry about what to buy someone (since i have no money i can't buy anyone anything). but i can make lots of things -- and am. and even got my daughter to make an ornament for her grandfather. so i'm sort of passing on the tradition of y buy it if u can make it urself. that's probably not good for the economy in any sense of the word -- or my purse if u think about selling things at my etsy site. and i understand that some ppl rn't talented with a needle and thread or hooks and yarn or paint. but perhaps ur a great baker or cook -- u could cook a meal or bake a special treat or give a hand made coupon for either of those -- or maybe u give great back massages -- that might be something someone who is overworked or over stressed might like. or to someone who doesn't have transportation u could give coupons for a ride to the store or mall or wherever -- it might give u a chance to get to know someone just a little better. one of the best presents i gave one year was a soup in a jar mix -- they just had to add hot water and let simmer a while -- with a texas cornbread mix (just add milk and an egg). they were recipes i got off the internet for gifts in a jar. a few simple ingredients and i had several jars to give as gifts -- attached instructions for cooking with a sweet bow and there u had it. ppl loved it.
All Free Crafts Gifts In A Jar Website
times r tight right now financially for a lot of folks and ppl r scrambling for ideas to make their dollars go a little farther in the gift giving dept. there r so many inventive ways to "make" a gift for someone special that won't cost u an arm and a leg, but will show the person that u really care about them during the holidays.
and as for me -- well, i'm just about ready. one more thing to make and i'll be done. my presents to my dad and my brother's family have already been mailed. so i'm feeling pretty good right now ....

snowstorms and such ...

so we're having our first real snowstorm of the year. we probably got 10-12 inches since early this morning. when the phone rang at 5:30 this morning from the school district to say that school had been cancelled, i got up and looked out the window to see NOTHING!! i thought, was i dreaming the phone call ... but decided to crawl back into bed and go back to sleep. which i did.

three hours later i awoke to hear snow shovels on pavement and snow plows scraping off the parking lot and knew i needed to get dressed and move my car. at that point we probably had 6 inches -- which, btw, was the original estimate of how much we would get. the next several hours the snow continued to fall at a rate of an inch an hour. my neighbor, daughter, and i ventured out to the local craft store for yarn (to complete christmas projects) and grocery store. there weren't many cars on the road and the going was slow and slick.

i forget every year just how much i'm NOT in love with snow until it happens again. usually it starts sometime the tail end of Oct. or the beginning of Nov. we're kinda late this year -- although we did have a dusting a couple of days ago. sometimes it doesn't end until late march or early april. ppl who don't live in snow country r jealous. maybe they wouldn't be if they had to shoveling and wait for clothing to dry before venturing out yet again to shovel or deal with the wicked cold temps (something about 30 below with a windchill that makes it feel 20 more degrees lower than that doesn't make me happy).

don't get me wrong -- i love snow on christmas day -- i love looking at it and taking pics of it. but i hate shoveling it and i am not fond of driving in it. the schools here tend to NOT call school unless there is at least 10 inches on the ground or the promise of such so that's one reason i was so surprised this morning to get the call. i'm glad that my daughter didn't have school because i would have had to pick her up during the worst of the storm (noon). snow is great for taking pics and looking at and sledding (i'm not a real outdoorsy kind of gal if u haven't already figured that out) or skiing -- but when ur not into skiing or sledding or snow mobiling -- snow seems like a pain.

for right now i will be content to sit in my not so warm apartment and watch the snow fall and play my christmas music and crochet the presents i'm making. i'll take pics for my friends in warm places so they can oooo and aaaahhhh and be duly jealous...

sick again ....

i can't believe this, but i'm sick again!! it doesn't help that i had two little boys coughing all over me at the beginning of the week. i remember the days when my kids brought stuff home from school and inevitably i would get it too -- which, of course, in mommy terms means u don't rest because ur too busy being nurse to sick children. but i had several good years of not much more than the occasional cold until this year.

idk what it is, but when i'm feeling really ill, the one thing i want more than anything is my mommy. it probably harkens back to when i was little and she would take care of me when i was sick. its funny, but i don't remember my mom ever being sick -- which is probably a testament to how well she hid it when she was sick. i'm afraid i don't hide sick very well ...

when i was little i got a lot of bronchitis -- especially around the holidays. finally, my mom decided to have me checked for allergies, since she and her mom both suffered from them. sure enough i was allergic to a zillion things -- not the least of which was the evergreen tree we would bring into the house for christmas. and not only the tree, but the mold on the tree. so i was getting a double whammy every year. of course, allergies by themselves r just a pain, but they don't usually cause much more than a sniffling runny nose and a cough. but mine would eventually settle in my chest and i would end up really sick with bronchitis, which evidently scars the lungs and leads to more episodes of it. lucky for me, i outgrew some of that.

this year seems to be an exceptionally bad year all around the country for illness, what with the H1N1 flu. i'm pretty sure i don't have the flu right now -- although i might have had a slight bout of the regular flu earlier in the season. i still had the residual cough from that when i got hit with this -- whatever it is. like i said, i am pretty sure its not the flu because i only have a mild fever. but still, its enough to make me feel bad enough to want to stay in bed 24/7.

of course, as a mom i can't stay in bed 24/7. i thought about this the other day when i came home feeling really ill and there were two sinks worth of dishes to be done. i stood there and did them, but it was about all i had energy for and promptly collapsed afterwards. my daughter still needed to be picked up at school and of course, there was dinner to make. who feels like doing any of that stuff when all u want to do is sleep because every muscle and bone in ur body hurts?? today i have bills i need to run around and pay -- so there will little rest for me and probably i won't feel up to making dinner tonight, but i need to do it.

i was supposed to do a crafts fair tomorrow night -- and i really need the money -- but if i'm not feeling well its not going to happen. but the world doesn't stop revolving and things don't stop needing attention just because i'm sick. as moms well know, u keep going even though u feel like u can't. do men feel this way to keep going? my ex never did. at the slightest sign of pain he was a wimp. won't go into the details, but it was never pretty. so i wonder if its a general difference in the sexes thing.

at any rate, i'm doing what i always do -- loading up on the vitamins and zinc and forcing the fluids till i think i'm going to float away. what else can i do when there is so much stuff that needs attention?

so i lied ....

u know a couple of posts ago i said that i wasn't going to put up a tree this year because no one was going to be around and that it was this pitiful little 4' charlie brown type tree that was 27 years old. well, i lied. someone on the freecycle board published that they had a tree to give away -- so i went to get it and i thought it was going to be little like my 4' -- but its as tall as i am (5 something) -- and its in better shape than my old one and so we decided to go ahead and put it up and one box of ornaments later, i have my tree and my little victorian village up. we put up the tree the day before thanksgiving but didn't decorate it until thanksgiving evening when my son was here. then i finished it up today and put the little village up. the little village has so many pieces now that i can't put the road in and i guess next year i'll have to come up with a more clever idea. and to think -- i'm only missing 3 years' worth of pieces.
well, at least my daughter and son and i and anyone else who happens by, can enjoy it now. and it won't be so awfully hard to taken down because we only got out one box of ornaments. although that's like a jigsaw puzzle (without the picture) trying to fit them all back in the box.

Thanksgiving Holiday Sale

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Happy Thanksgiving everybody!!!

gifts from the heart

back in the late 50's or early 60's my dad sat down with my then very elderly grandfather and recorded him reciting poetry. i couldn't have been very old since i was born in '56 and i'm pretty sure my grandfather had to be nearing 80. the recordings were done over several sessions because my grandfather, who was a perfectionist, didn't work from notes, but from memory and got easily frustrated when he made a mistake. some of the poems r repeated several times on the tape -- since it was done over several sittings -- and it was originally taped on a reel-to-reel tape deck. eventually, that got transferred to a cassette tape with my dad adding a narrative of explanation at the beginning. my dad had a copy and my brother had a copy, but i never did and idk who of my dad's family had copies -- i suspect at least one of my uncles did.

at any rate, when we went to visit my dad this summer, the tape came up in discussion and dad dragged out his copy and we attempted to listen to it. nadda -- nothing -- zip -- zilch .... cassettes over time go bad, just like CDs do and so there was nothing left. my brother said his copy was fine and i asked if he could make me a copy because i had a plan.

earlier this year, i managed to discover that with a simple $10 cord, i could put cassette recordings into my computer using garageband and make mp3s from them. i had done it with some other recordings on cassette (mostly prophetic words that ppl had spoken over me) and it worked great. so with the copy of my brother's tape, i went to work.

now i have to preface this a bit because my old tape player had died before i completed my project with the prophetic words and when i went shopping for another one i found they were high priced and few and far between. i had looked in several second hand stores on a continuing basis to only come away empty handed and disappointed. here's where a god moment comes in. while at a second hand store with a friend i happened to look down and there was a small hand-held sony one for $4. so i bought it knowing i could bring it back if it didn't work. however, it worked perfectly. now if i hadn't gone to the second hand store with the friend that day i would not have found it. it was such a god moment to be at that store at that time, standing in that exact spot and then looking down to see it. i love when papa god helps me with a problem.

i set about downloading the cassette recording into the computer and all the while listening to the poems and making notes. listening to my grandfather's voice and hearing him chuckle at certain humorous parts. i went searching for some of the lines to the poems using google because there were only a few that i knew the names to in order to find them. i found all but one of the poems. it took me an entire day and my arm was really sore from using the mouse, but i wanted to make cds for my dad and uncles and brother with not only the recordings on it, but the poetry as well.

when i do things like this -- which in reality cost me very little money since i already have the cds -- i tend to go at it full force -- nothing done halfway and we have my dad to thank for that ethic. and i can see -- by listening to the poems -- where his work ethic was formed. several of the poems spoke to a job well done and living right. if my grandfather knew them by heart -- they meant enough to him to carry them there and model his life after them. i'm sure all of his many children learned from his values.

i'm still holding out hope that i'll find the words to the last poem before christmas rolls around. i was hoping to give them as presents. very inexpensive -- but given with lots of love and lots of meaning. sometimes it isn't about what u buy when u present someone -- sometimes its about the thought that goes into it that really matters.