How to tame the dame

<
O.k.,, let's get real here for a moment... any of you out there on Mood stableizers? you know the kind... no.. not chocolate of caffine.... i am talking the hard core kind for the "chemically imbalanced" Prozac, Effexor, Zoloft? fine keep your comments to yourself... but let me tell you a little about me.... cause that is what this blog is about... me and meeeee and more of meeeeeeeeee. after all who could get tired of me?.... well.. me for one!

well Funny how God pulls things together... cause as i was writing this a 5 year old friend of mine just sat on my lap and rested her head on my shoulder as she told me that "my girl " aka Heather" was not being nice cause Heather made her follow a rule. so we talked about how crazy things would be if we didnt have rules to keep us safe. and then we talked about how rules keep us from hurting eachothers feelings like just cause you feel mad or angry does not mean you get to me mean to someone cause you feel like it. even if you feel like they deserve it....

Well,,, that has been my struggle these last few days... i feel like i have been tested in this area... with my kids, Husband,, and even being so hard on myself. I need to just be aware that if i dont take my Stablizers..cause i ran out and the stupid stinking pharmacy had stinking stupid issues with refilling them.... i better be prepared to be kind even if i dont feel like it. with that said... i am going to see my sister in the morning,.... and i will have coffee and chocolate and hugs and warmth and caring and all that sister kinda stuff... thank you GOd for giving me Freinds and Family to remind me of the rules of kindness... and God thank you for the gift of Stablizers if you chose not to heal me in that area.

YEAH, KINDA LIKE THAT

ISNT IT FUNNY HOW ONE SAY YOU WAKE UP AND ALL OF A SUDDEN YOU ARE TO THE MARROW, BONE DEEP TIRED. I FEEL LIKE THIS OLD SHACK WEATHERED AND WORN.. I THINK MY ALERGIES ARE MAKING MY NOSE CRAZY.... LIKE THIS SHACK IN ANTELOPE OREGON...
ENOUGH ABOUT MY LITTLE EPISODES OF HEALTH.

MY LITTLE HOUSE WILL SOON BE FULL OF 5 LITTLE GIRLS UNDER THE AGE OF 13 AND 2 BOYS AGES 13.. ROB IS GOING TO CHURCH TO PRAY FOR THE TIBETEN TEAM THAT JUST LEFT FOR 10 DAYS TO INDIA ON A MISSION TRIP. I THINK IT IS A WAY FOR HIM TO ESCAPE ALL THE ESTROGENE AND TEEN FUNKY SMELL....WHY DO GUYS AT 13 NEED TO BE TOLD TO SHOWER? YOU DONT SEE GIRLS HAVING ISSUES WITH HYGIEN.... GOOD LORD, GET RID OF THAT FUNKY 24 HOUR TEEN AROMA.. AND WASH YOUR HAIR!!! ROB AND I ARE NOT FOSTER PARENTS WE JUST LOVE THE FRIENDS WE HAVE AND THIER KIDD'OS.... I CANT WAIT TO GO SEE MY SISTER JALET THIS WEEK AND HER KIDD'OS TOO..... WELL I BETTER GO SET THE TABLE WALTON SYTLE.... KISS'S AND BARS OF SOAP.

Men are from.....

Yup i believe that men are from a place called Grey Matter... ( aka the brain) and women are from the Red planet ( the heart) i know that God intended this so that we would rely on eachother to balance and compliment... but so help me Father of Blessed Jesus... i didnt get it today... i missed the mark so far it aint even funny. i tell hubs i am off to gather provisions and clothing for the family... i am dressed in my spring dress with my hair in a lose bun.... Hubs tells me with a smile in his voice ( to soften the blow i am sure ) that i should think of getting a couple pair of pants... if you knew me you would know i wear dresses.. almost always. I feel like a girl in dresses.. it is good.

Pants? what??? then the other blow.... with a smile in his voice...once again hubs says.. how come you dont wear your hair down? i like your hair down..... soooo. anyway... i can see him struggle in his grey matter and i am wounded in my Red planet... i blurt out something like this... " is there anything you like about me?""" and the baffled look in his eyes tells me, that he has just learned he just gouged me,,, and i dont feel like looking any where but away.
i glibly ( if that is a word) finished up my biz and he with a perky voice says how about if you and i have a date tommorrow and we will go shopping for you together.... my heart sank into the red planet goo.... and i know his grey matter was looking for a redeeming way of making it o.k. i felt terrible and i am sure he did too.

I have learned today that my wounded planet can withstand a storm... even storms with grey matter in them. that God is working in those places that i feel... and he is haviang me step away from feelings all the dang time and look at truth... cause truth is not a feeling.... unlike like p.m.s. which is one raw feeling after another truth rings true.. it resonates even when you dont want it to.. it looks and sounds like rationality. but when your hair is in a bunn and your spring dress is soft yellow you dont want to look at pants and hair styles without hair clips... but God whispers to my stubborn ear... listen you... that man over there cares about your red planet and you need to tell him you know it.

FOrgiveness is funny... it is so much a grey matter thing that changes the red planet... i need to remember that obedience doesnt always look easy. but it is difficult to live alone on my planet... and i am not willing to do so over a stupid dress comment.. so tonight after Hubs comes home from Worship Band practice i will let him know that Grey matter is a messy thing. i am thankful that Rob can say that certain outfits and hairstyles on me delights him.. i have just got to get over the delivery of such messages... that will come in time,,, after all its only been 20 years.

Almost Finished

hey, i am almost done.. but you can see what i have done so far.... i need to finish the edges, and place the hooks onto it to hang in the window.
kg

Headache in my Eye

The lastest splash of snow sat on my flowerers. the white snowflakes made the colors so vivid i loved it.
Well, i have been down with a stupid debilitating migraine for the last 24 hours. i have getting them cause for a couple of days afterwords i feel like i have wobbley legs and i emerge from mt bedroom like a mole comes outta ground....disoriented and feeble. so here i am trying to get caught up on a bazillion emails... ilove it when family visit the clog site and posts things. i feel connected for a time. Finally i have gotten my sister Jalet to blog,,, i will have to add her to my blog happy people... i cant wait to see what she creates... $10.00 bucks she changes her background a few times till she finds one artsy and clean enough for her likes.. i cant wait to see what her site grows into... well i think that is all for today... i have some catching up to do.. and calls to make...

God, your love covers me like winter snow.. making the things in me seem so much more vibrant. thank you.

it smells like God

Church Doors and Spring...
I guess Easter is around the corner... white gloves, Easter hats. Bow ties on little boys, stained hands from coloring the eggs, smells of Easter dinner in the oven.. Soon Lent will be over and i can play my crappin' video game again!!! i doubt it will be as important to me... (who am i lying to?) anyway... i have this 1940's style of thinking when i think of easter.. perhaps it is the Catholic in my past that gets my mind floating to that era....

Well today it was about 57 degrees out and i managed after church to plant 2 of Heathers Liliac bushes and her Mr. Lincoln Red Rose... and i tootled around in the garden and spread a bit more extra barkdust in those areas that kinda blew and washed away in the many winter storms.. i talked to my flowers in bloom and when i planted the lilacs i prayed over them.. yes shut up i pray over my plants..but this time i said Lord. bless these Lilacs and allow them to grow through the many generations that my grandchildren will enjoy them as well..

so just to let you know.. when i plant something... it isnt just for the now.... it is for my children and thier children,, each flowering shrub and rose will tell its own story.... that is how i process... nearly all things.. in my garden.
years ago my daughter due to a trauma lost her sence of smell of flowers and fresh laundry... so it is important to me to continue to plant for her in hope and prayer her memory will awaken and again be able to relate the fresh scent as a lovely thing. not a nightmere. and i cant wait come next spring to have her cut a bouquet of her lilacs and breath them in... and maybe have her like the smell. perhaps her rose she chose to plant this spring will do much the same... or the tulips or daphne... i cant wait to see what God does in his healing garden... i love that he Heals me in such a place.

it was good to get my hands dirty in the soil and smell the earth revived from the bitter winter... it smells like God does to me.... it smells of SSSSSSSSS-pring.

caught in the Rain

So i am out on a walk in the snow down by a very swollen creek bed. I lift my head to see this leaf in a tree caught since fall. i thought to myself... it looks like stained glass..... ( maybe its because of the mode i am in).... anyway i thought it was cool.

I have frightfully nary an once of energy today and 6 places it all needs to be spent... and blogging should not even be in the race, yet i need the time to just write to get back into the habit.. its a great creative outlet. WE

last night Justin was doing a health report and needs to catagorize his freindships into several labels... 1. aquaintenence 2.friend, 3. intimate friend.
which if you ask me, is just not enough... like where is the lable..

4. friend you go swim suite shopping with and dares to tell the honest truth in a loving manner.
5. warrior that layes on the floor face down in prayer for you.
6.I Ran out of rags could you come over and bring a few tampons kinda friend.
7. hey could you go to with me to parent / teacher conferance cause this one is gonna be painful and hubs is out of town kinda freind.
the list goes on.... what about the
8.friends that you would much rather spend holidays with rather than your own stinking desfunctional family?

so Justin and i recatagorized the labels,
1. acuaintenecnesss how ever you spell it
2. casual friends
3. close friends
4. intimate friends and
5. family that is not blood.

you should think about the people in your life to see where they fall... it really makes you smile.

Dream a little Dream

Mr. Benson spent time in Vietnam as a young country boy all of 19, he joined because his Best Freind had been killed in that same war earlier. he decided it would be the last thing for his Best Friend From Childhood that he could do.. (other than to later Marry his Best Friends sister .)

shown here in the photo, Clayton is sharing a Painting that a Friend had done showing Clayton standing next to his Huey ( helicopter) before and after a horrible crash in the Vietnam Jungle. why do I know these things? Mr. Benson is a man i used to work with at Boyd Coffee, he is a funny man that dared to share his life, the good bad and ugly with me, on those early 6:00 mornings when he would bring reports for me to run before anyone else strolled into work, we would sit and talk about grand kids and raisng children and just life while report info was being input to the computer.

He dared to share the darkness of the War and we both Cried together with Joy the day he got the news from the government that a brother in arms that had been killed and "lost" in the Junlge, bones had been identified and were being sent back to the U.S. to waiting family and other Brother's in arms. He closed a weary and still raw chapter in the book of that dirty war.... yet he rejoiced that 35 years later a Man, a solider a Friend would finally come home.

I wonder what the Angles must sound like when they rejoice that a Man, a child, a soal has given thier life to Christ.... and one day too, will be coming home.
I cant wait to hear the trumpets sound.
just a thought.

Misunderstood Art

this is a picture of rough draft page from a children's book i started in the fall. I am going to write and Illustrate a Picture book on God being the Father of Creativity... and how he has called us each in our own Creative ways to worship him with it. The Middle of the Color Circle is White where God is most Pue and radiates color outta of blackness..(Nothingness) by the way the real pages will all be a black background for emphesis on the power of Creative color. adams eye as you see represents man in general but in the eye itself you see the "face of God" as well as in the reflection on the water... wait for upcoming Book pages....


So I am teaching Art to Heather as part of her Schooling.. she gets a grade for it and i get to spend time molding her artful mind... 5 lessons later we have gleefully picked our expensive watercolor pencils, art paper, graph paper, gum erasures, rulers, you know Art stuff... well the last couple of Art Projects have been miserable not due to my teaching so much but my lack of ability to teach Heather in a way that she feels like she can learn and win.... she is an A type personalilty and needs controll,, she needs to look at a project and judge weather it is fitting for her in 3 catagories... 1. is it fun??? 2.Can i make it look just like the example??? and 3. will she herself be satisfied with it?

whew.. where is the joy in the journey? where is the freestyle and flow? so today i say to myself... hey lets go down to forrest Creek and sit and draw over a nice cup of warm soup.. c'mon how many of you are just thinking to yourselves,,, can i go too??? well not so for my creative genius... toooooo outta the box for her... no boundries.. too many areas to " screw up" too much distraction.. cold, hunger, glare of sun, and finally what if she fails and doesnt sketch a stream just the "right way"... Good God i really felt like i was making her do somthing she hated.. and all of a sudden i stood up and said this is not fun is it? her eyes got big and said NO!!!! ( obviously she thought i medicated myself) so i said lets get in the car and try this again tommorro. now she feels like she failed me... and what i had to explain to her that it was I who missed the mark.. i failed to listen to her learning needs and was bent on teaching her my way. no wonder she is a frustrated artist.

On the way home i said o.k. tell me how you would love to be taught... and she became a bit upbeat... which is nice for the black cloud as of late... and she told me she can't just sit in front of something and pound a sketch out. she needs steps and little ones. she wants comfort and encouragment... she needs enough room to explore and not fail. she wants to go to the tulip feilds as a feild trip but not paint while we are there... ( great now what am i gonna do?) she wants to take it all in, come home and express herself on paper AFTER wards..... What a concept....
so anyway funny how she could tell me after the frustrating fact. but i had to be willing to learn her style so that she could bloom in her creative heart... thank you God fow teaching us both.... Grace.

Stained

So, I think i just had an "apostrophe" as Rob calls it... here in my Picture is my first Stained glass project ever... yeah check this off my "learn stained glass" part of my life dreams... well as you can see i have just cut out, sanded or excuse me " grozed" the edges off so you dont open your flesh upon every handleing and fit them into there little cubby space on the pattern.... it is soo relaxing and Rob and I are setting up shop in the Bowels of the funeral home..... you know here is that apostrophe i was talking about.... ready...

What is a stain? somthing tainted, somthing that changes the look of somthing we "used to like" like our favorite shirt before those of us who became mothers wore it during a feeding of peas and carrotts to the wee ones.. and ended up wearing more than the angles ate.. leading to a stain that if Mr clean himself tried, couldnt get out. stained means a blotch, a blemish... and yet when you use the word stained with the word Glass instantly you think of church windows that glisten in the morning sun. and as the light changes the glass takes on a new character,,,, you think stained glass, beauty and color, Art, and you think.. cool!!!

but when as wounded soals we use the word "stain" when thinking of ourselves, and the yuck inside us we try to hide, the stuff that isnt pretty, somtimes it is down right UGLY and messy. Stains of our past, stains that others have left on us. stains that bare witness to events and places in ourlives that are less than beautiful...

Intresting isnt it that if you spill Red Wine. to clean the stain you put White wine over its place until the red wine dilutes and becomes a stain no more, intresting that God is that way. Intresting that God sees our stains as Artful windows into places in our lives that he walked with us in, wheather we wanted him to or not. intresting that God is the original Mr. Clean.... he takes the sin away like lifting the stain from your favorite shirt, yet he does not take the memory of feeding pees and carrots to the wee one.... that is the stained glass beauty of it... he takes the crap that makes us feel stained and crappy and replaces it with an artful window of Beauty...
just a thought..

Remember

Well i have got to say, when i happened across this picture of a Beloved Friend Diane, i had no idea at the time it would be the last one i took of her... she passed away a month later of lou Gehrigs, all this to say.. i have really been struggleling lately with my role as a women in a newly adopted church where women are not leaders, or to teach men. I am sure many of you are blinking non stop about now... but i know that God is working in me on this one.. cough cough. The Baptist's do things very in the box, and yet i know that God is growing me in incrediable ways. so, you say what is the tie in with "Diane" ? well Diane was an amazing friend and Mentor, and it just so happenend that she lead Women's Minisrties, ( i am not taking about pajama parties and High teas) I am talking spiritual warfare and deepening your relationship with God without all the mumbo jumbo of limitations...

Diane was the poster girl for limitations growing up... her childhood... what there was of it.. was cruel, and one gross measure of abuse after another. so how could this woman have such an untainted view of God as a True Father, or see Christ as someone who dared to love her unconditionally? cause she dared to search for the truth in Gods word, about who she was in Christ not what others pinned on her, or what she thought of herself. she relied on Gods timing and love to strip layer after painful layer, bandages that hide the wounds that wouldnt heal wounds that Named her. Wounds that bore rememberences. Diane would sit for hours and laugh and pray with women and men as she walked in the mire of thier junk and lead them to the truth of Christ. she was a lay counselor that was motivated by the Healing Touch of God.

So here i am in a new church that would look at Dianes place in the Church and worry how to keep her in the safe box. Funny thing about it.. one evening a few months befor her death i laid in bed with Diane talking about Womens Ministy and how she had given me so much over the years and fostered a deep love for women and thier " stuff" and she reached over and took my hand and said to me....Kary Continue the work. you know how to do all the things God has allowed me to do here, you have been part of it every step of the way. ( so she was passing the baton of sorts) and i wept as she spoke these words to me knowing it was true... that what i have gleaned and walked with her was not for not. When it is God inspired it gives you life. and that is what her Ministry is/was all about.

Now I sit here in this new Church and think to myself.. o.k. God how in the world will you use me inside the box? I think that with this network coming together of the churches int eh community coming together to do Gods Stuff not our stuff and inviting God along for the ride is part of that whole picture of inside the box... there is a deep sence that God is going to use me in ways that are new to many but fitting for HIS MINISTRY. in ways that are outside the box. I cant wait to see how God will grow me up in this little community of 2000 people. with Rob on the Chamber board it makes me smile to wonder the GOodness of God and HIS plan.

Thank you God for the woman, mentor and Friend that Diane was and is to me.... thank you for allowing me to walk with her for those years and recieve your healing in those dark places she tenderly offererd saftey and your truth to. Thank you that you are a God outside the box.....

Snow Flurries

So, Old Man Winter must be feeling pretty smug about now.. wasnt it last week i picked up several packets of flower seeds for my new garden this year... yeah, i had to make myself wait to sow the dang things cause it was so warm nearly 70 outside and today the cherry blossems and daffys all are snug under a layer of white fluff. it started yesterday and will continue off and on through saturday with a chance of freezing rain.... I love Oregon weather. I really do...

I miss the Idaho snows.. where as kids we walked to school in snow up to our knees and didnt get sent home because it was snowing.... i remember on one hand the times we were sent into the gym to play cause the temp were too cold not becuase the 2 feet of snow on the playground.. geesh we would make snowmen on recess... so this N.W. tradition of having a snow flurry and closing all schools is so out of my norm.. even though i moved here to the green belt as a teen... what in the world...

well, hubbs told me to take the 4 wheel rig and take a drive up the mountian... apparently that is where work took him today is up the mountian on snowy roads.. cause it is beautiful.. i will try and snap some photos of cherry blossems and snow.... that is such a cool thing... well here i go 4 wheeling baby!

Mr. Potato Heads Nephew

Well, here is a picture of my Freind Rick McKinley with a Kraut Cabbage bigger than his head. can you see the dismay in his head.. i mean face? isnt it hilarious? it is so Rick... he and I were at the same Farmers Market he was laughing his butt off saying to me,,, what in the world... is this thing gynormous our what? whaddya do with it? !!!

you know i just wrote a huge huge entry, and i wanted to check spelling and it all got erased and so all the emotional stuff i wrote bout is gone.. and i wrote for about 30 minutes... which means i dont have the emtional wakefulness to try it again so i will talk about the deep stuff like it snowed today and is snowing now. and the Retreat how God's artwork is on all the pebbels so i brought a handful home with me for my livingoom fountain.. and then i wrote about my Pastor Dude calling me today for a meeting later and my emotional colon twisted and i got nervous Diarreha wondering what lampshade i could have possibly put on my head over the weekend at the retreat with eight of our conservitive Baptist members attending... I swear i didnt even smoke, anyway it dawned on me that Satan was having a field day at my expence and It wasnt about somthing i had done.. but somthing i was doing for the good. geesh it is amazing how your brain and intestines are in direct contact with each other.. anyway... this is the very short of it and i have to say the very not funny version.. I am so mad about losing all of the last stuff i wrote i will have to find humor in the morning in my cup of coffee cause right now it aint happenin for me.....so with that i will put my sassy backside into bed.

Going, Going, Gone

Well,
I am off to the Beach this weekend with a few other land lubbers
Rob & I are taking our new study group to Rockaway Beach for a few days. without kids. Most likely I will go through withdrawls from posting.. but i am sure i will get over it.. afterall. I seriously gave up a stupid computer game for lent... and honey, let me tell you what.. it has been really h-a-r-d.... have i mentioned my addictive personality... yeah i gave up smoking too... what happens in vegas stays in vegas. ANYWAY...
Nearly all the photos posted are taken with my green eyes. this one is Heather from last February when she and I took off for a Mommy and Me weekend.... she is dancing around the sand waiting for the sun to go down.... i loved capturing her excitment and sence of freedom.... wonder where she gets that! ha
until then, by his grace, Kary

La De Dah

Family outing... Dec 05 with Kitty Amy

Deeelightful

Well Good Morning ,
it seems i am having a bit of a time sleeping as of late.. i dont know if it is all the busy schedules running about in the house, or God stirring my heart a little faster, but i cant seem to sleep.. there is a restlesness inside me. I wonder what will be birthed from these nights of dreaming while still awake.. alone with God and no one else. i am getting ready to launch a new Ministry in my little town... maybe that is it... yeah i dunno.....
I chose this picture of Justin and Rob from back in November practicing guitar together.... that is Robs old bass he used when Rob was Justins age. Justin of course loves the fact that its an antique.... good Lord we are aging. well off to coffee, makeup and who knows.. what else...

Lord be with me today and be my measure of time because there is so much in my day that truely needs to happen, allow the busy-ness to be centered in your calm when all about is swirling. Amen.