List 19 . . . Seventeen Country Songs I'm Soon to Write

Friends, you have to see it when you look at me.  I would be a grand country singer.

For today's list I thought I'd shower you with a few of the country songs I might soon write.



Chart-toppers, to be sure - be on the listen:

1. Babies, if Mama Could Find the Keys, We'd sure 'nough go to Ride
2. Sometimes I Feel Like Crying When the Laundry Piles up High
3. Once I went to Mexico and they didn't have no Cheese Dip
4. Lord, How Did All These Dirty Socks Get All Over my Floor?
5. The Back Yard Looks Like a Tornada Done Ripped Right Through
6. When I Opened the Pantry Door, Some Loose Spaghetti Noodles Hit Me 'Tween the Eyes
7. Ain't Nothin' Purtier than a Silver Mini-van
8. Honey, We'd Have Some Comp'ny if I Could Find the Dining Room Table
9. Summer's A Comin' Soon, 'Cause I Can Hear the Skeeter Truck
10. Don't You Ever Get to Thinkin' You Wish Your Dog Could Talk?
11. At Times I Feel Embarrassed Without a Cornhole Set
12. Sleepin' to the Squeak of the Trampoline Springs
13. Bubba Done Put His Goggles on and Got Back in the Tub
14. Grandma Never Had to Worry About all these Couponin' Rules
15. Are all the Armadillas Dead Out on the Bypass?
16. Wal-mart's Always Easier if You Go In Through the Garden Door
17. All My Friends are Talking 'Bout Drinking that Aldi Wine

And that's just a few of the country diddles I could write.  Reckon I just need somebody to help me put 'em to music.  

You fixin' to write any?

2 gifts to begin Lent 2012

As a follow up to yesterday's post, I present the photo above . . . it was Fat Tuesday and we did our part with a party.  There was merriment and mayhem and a ton of happy, dirty, crazy boys to help us blow it out.  If there is any sugar left within a one acre circle of my home, I can't imagine it.  Much was eaten, much enjoyed.  Pancakes were downed, pancakes were flipped in a race and things were done with silly string and canned whipped cream that might make you a bit queasy just to read.  Suffice it to say, it was a celebration.

Now, we get the gift of Lent.  The gift I appreciate, the one that keeps coming back every year, right on time, allowing us all to re-examine how things are going and pause for reflection.  Lent is hard, but I welcome it this year.  It's time to do some soul-searching, some refiguring and some planning.  Time to reign in the eating, add to the exercise and consider the parts of a life that work well and the parts that need a bit of tweaking.

I begin this season with gifts from two friends, two of my favorite humans, and two folks I'm thankful to have along for this journey.

The first gift I bring along into this lenten season is a comment on yesterday's post from my good friend, Amy.  Aside from being the hands-down funniest bi-pedal (how about that flash-back to a previous post) on earth, she is also a dear friend and wordsmith.  Amy is good with words.  She can use them to be humorous and she can use them to speak from her heart.  Her comments from yesterday are a perfect way, as I see it, to begin this time of reflection.  I put them here and I'll be sure to refer to them as I move along the coming weeks.

Sometimes, when we go through hard times (whatever they may be), we tend to get tunnel vision. We complain, we pout, or we simply give up. We focus on ourselves, rather than on God's constant and unending gift of hope. The promise of tomorrow and all that it offers gives me great comfort. I think God presses pause on our lives for a reason...to reflect, to renew, and to restore in us what gets lost in our fast-paced lives: our faith. When we lose sight of what's really important, I mean really important, God has a wonderful way of slowing us down. Maybe these next forty days are His way of making us remember what His vision for us truly is...to love wholly and deeply, to forgive and be compassionate, to give freely to others, to laugh and be joyful, and to feel the peace and grace he provides us despite our shortcomings. What a beautiful world it would be if we had the discipline to live this way all the time. So today, I too will bask in the frenzy that begins this season, for I know that my life is good and God is great. Eat up!!!!! 


The second gift is from my friend Melinda.  She hasn't been my friend for my whole life, but it sure feels like it.  I wouldn't want to think of life without her.  I've asked her for the gift she brings today, and she has given it before.  Like Lent, Melinda just keeps coming around to help me, even with things she has helped me with numerous times.  Remember when I referred to those people (I love but don't understand) who create order, enjoy tidying and have lives that make sense?  Well, Melinda is one of those.  Over and over, year after year, in different places and different spaces, she has come to my rescue when I allow my life to lose all sense of order.  Again and again, she has done for me what she can do for herself easily.  She has forced me to clean out drawers, stood in the entrance to closets and not let me out until they're in order and drawn detailed calendars on large sheets of paper to attempt to illustrate for me what times allows and what it does not.  She reminds me about the things that need to be done daily.  She swoops in and tries to move around through the clutter of a blogging, photo-taking, right-brained friend who is always in need of rescue.  She has done it before and she'll most likely do it again.  Once, years ago, Melinda decided I had too many t-shirts, that the drawers were too full of too many items that weren't necessary.  The entire faculty of the school where I worked took part in a pool to predict how many t-shirts I actually had - my friend, Ann, was closest to the total of 106.  One hundred and six t-shirts?  Yeah, folks like me need help.  


I've subscribed to the blogs that promise to get me organized, decrease my clutter and stress and deep-clean my home in 365 days, but someone in my condition gets a bit scared just by perusing the plans.  So far, I've read a few entries but I'm un-surprisingly hesitant to actually get started.  So . . . Melinda is coming to the rescue.  She'll come today and take a look.  She'll make some suggestions and she'll force me to get rid of some things I won't want to toss.  We've done this before.  We'll do it again.  I'm hopeful, though, that each time I take a few steps forward, I don't take quit as many backward.  I guess it's like that for all of us.  We've all got our stuff.  Now, we get this season, this semi-pause on life, to take inventory and do a bit of housekeeping.  


Today, I give thanks to Amy for her words and to Melinda for her actions.  Thankful beyond measure to be living alongside friends who make me better, make me think and give the gifts they do.  

dear photographs

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately.  Writing this blog has had me in a thoughtful place.  (I'm using the word 'place' the way my Dad has always used it.  Dad talks about the place where people are, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with where they live or where they are at this particular moment.  He might say, "She is in a really good place right now," meaning things are just peachy, or "He just isn't in a good place right now," which is bad news.)  So, I'm in a thoughtful place, which is neither good nor bad, just a time period where I've been doing a lot of thinking.  I'm learning that writing a blog will do that to a person; sharing pieces of myself, recalling old memories and putting my words and pictures "out there" gives me occasion to think.  I'm enjoying it.  Thanks for coming along.

I've spent a great deal of time considering what words and pictures I'd like to share.   If you know anything at all about me you know that I have A LOT to say and I take A LOT of photographs.  It's difficult to decide what goes where and when it should appear.  It's fun to think about future stories and pictures I'll share in the time to come; and I've  noticed that even the preparation leads to interesting thoughts and invites me to remember, revisit, consider, and dream.

A few months ago, my good friend Leigh shared a cool website, and I visit it often.  If you haven't heard of it, you're in for a treat - a thought-filled treat!  When you have a few minutes to enjoy something different, something quiet, something that will make you think, point your browser to DEAR PHOTOGRAPH and enjoy.  I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.  The dear photograph site is an antidote to so much we are bombarded with on the internet.  There is no motion or bright colors or exciting graphics.  There is no contest, no competition, no race.

On dear photograph you will see snapshots from the past taken in the present.   Snapshots from the past taken in the present.  What started a couple of years ago with 21 year old Taylor Jones quickly turned into a blog with millions of visitors.  The Canadian, Jones, was living at home with his parents and was looking through an old photo album.  He happened upon a snapshot that was taken at the same table where he sat looking at the photo.  He snapped a new photo of the old photo in the same place.  What came of that and a few other similar photos became this mega hit.  The site will draw you in, I suspect, and it will have you thinking.  Visit and see.  This is fun homework, and it's full of discoveries.

You might enjoy just looking around the site at what others have done.  You might look at all of the photos from one particular day or you may jump from day to day.  It seems when I spend time on dear photograph my mind wanders to places I've known.  Sometimes those are sad places, but many times they are happy ones.  I find myself 'going through the motions' of those on the website and imagine different photos I might use.  My husband loves to look at old photos, and he likes it best when they are in no order.  He thinks it's fun to be surprised each time he reaches for another photograph in the stack, never knowing what might be next.  Visiting this website might be much like that.

Go for a visit and stay for a while or check in quickly and then go wherever your mind takes you.  That's the fun part.  Enjoy.

Just imagining some 'dear photograph' projects.  Hope you will too.

Pictures of Hope

I know that if you don't have anything good to say you shouldn't say anything at all, as I use that phrase quite often with my three kids. Usually when you hear that something frustrating is going on. That's not how it came to me today, though. My mind has spent the better part of the day attempting to figure out words for times when words just won't do the job. Today I thought of "not saying anything at all" because the words I wanted did not come. My brain never thought them up.

As I sit in my den, a fire going in the fireplace, Sadie balled up in a pile of old blankets and my family all safe within earshot; a dear friend is saying good-bye to the love of her life, best friend, awesome husband, father of four adult children and soul mate. Today she gathered her family together for their circle to be broken. Today she realized that the race was over. There aren't any good words for that.

And then it seemed that wherever I went today I heard another sad story, another race lost too soon, another tragedy. Three different friends said to me today, "It just seems like there are too many bad things happening right now." Agreed. It's always hard to come up with the right words when 'bad things happen to good people' and always will be. Not much to say when the world gets kicked out from under someone. Nothing we can do to make it right. My brain just kept reminding me of that today and explaining to me over and over again that there was nothing to 'blog' about on this particular day. "Maybe this is THE day to reach people with the perfect message" I explained to my brain. "Yeah, right" my brain sarcastically screamed back, "you don't have the words."

My brain was right. I don't have the words to make things right. I have faith, I have hope, but not words. Sometimes we're just stuck in the bad until glimmers of the good come back. . . and then I realized that glimmers of the good was what I had! "A picture is worth a thousand words" right? I researched the origin of that phrase and found that it was originally on a streetcar advertisement. Apparently the literal translation of the 'Chinese Proverb' was A Picture's Meaning Can Express Ten Thousand Words. Over the years the actual message was that words and pictures work together to give meaning. Okay, I decided, I know what I wish I could say with words, and I have plenty of pictures. I want to give a message of hope, glimmers of hope, until the good comes back.

Here are but a few faces full of hope (and joy and laughter and faith and love). May this small picture express ten thousand words of hope, a message of love to all who suffer with sadness on this night. The good will come back . . . look at these faces.