A thought on this week

(click photo for source)

“I consider it a mark of great prudence in a man to abstain from threats or any contemptuous expressions, for neither of these weaken the enemy, but threats make him more cautious, and the other excites his hatred, and a desire to revenge himself”
Niccolo Machiavelli


“Those that are the loudest in their threats are the weakest in their actions.”
Charles Caleb Colton


“There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats; For I am armed so strong in honesty That they pass by me as the idle wind”
William Shakespeare



Life can be a little scary sometimes but I have confidence that God will see us through.

Personal Challenge

Remember the photography challenge that I blogged about the other day? You may recall that at the end of that post I alluded to maybe adapting that challenge to my poetry.

In my down-time today I've been thinking about the specifics of that challenge. We all know that often life gets in the way of my writing ambitions. I can't guarantee that I will be up for the challenge every single week. Instead of issuing a challenge to all my poetically creative bloggy friends out there, I think I'm going to keep this one personal. However, if you feel the inclination or inspiration then please play along.

Every week Photography139 issues a random subject to be photographed during that week. The submissions are to be sent to him by noon on Monday. I will be (and have been) taking part in that challenge as time allows. My plan is to use those randomly generated subjects as inspiration for a short poem that I will post over at Impassioned Versifier. I will not hold myself to a strict schedule on this, though, as I remain quite busy throughout the week and may not always have the time to allow creativity. I know, I'm being rather lenient on myself here, but I strongly feel that creativity should come naturally and be inspired, not pushed.

If you want to take part please check Photography139's blog for the weekly word, then when you have posted your poem leave a comment on either of my blogs so we can see who's playing along. Most of all, have fun and enjoy the creative process!

I have already posted a poem for last week's word Soothing. My submission for this week, People, should be up shortly.

A Pampered Patient

“Smile - It's the second best thing you can do with your lips.”

Warning: If you are the slightest bit squeamish, this entry would be better off left unread.

Last month I had my annual physical. No big deal, I'm pretty religious about those after my mom passed away. At that time the Doc and I discussed a tiny bump that I've had on my lip for the last 9 years. It had appeared while I was pregnant with Bug, at that time we attributed it to some hormonal imbalance or gland issue brought on by my little bun in the oven. The plan was just to keep an eye on it, and that's what we did. Then in November, I had another one pop up on my lower lip. The Doc decided it was time to have it looked into.

Two weeks ago I met with an Ear, Nose, and Throat Specialist. He didn't have any answers for me. He knew that the one on my lower lip was benign, but he had never seen anything like the lesion on my upper lip. He gave me two choices: we could check it every six months for the next twenty years, or we could take it off, biopsy it, and be done with it. The latter seemed like a lot less stressful solution.

Today was my surgery. It went very well, I slept through the entire thing and have been at home napping on and off this afternoon. The swelling is a little more than I expected and I'm running a slight fever tonight, but other than that I'm glad to have it over and done with.

My lips before surgery. The lesions are just off the middle of each lip along the lip line.
A closer look. I always thought the top lesion looked similar to a mole. The bottom one is white and small, making it rather hard to see here.

This is right after surgery. Notice the redness going up my cheeks? I'm hoping that's from the sedative and not an indication of future bruising.

A few hours later and the swelling continues. Hopefully it will go down tomorrow!

Sis and Bug have been wonderful! Sis made chicken nuggets and garlic mashed potatoes for lunch, Bug has been looking for every reason to wait on me so I can rest, and Sis is getting ready to make chicken & pasta for supper. I hadn't planned on them taking care of me, but it sure is nice to know I raised such caring children and to have my turn being pampered for once!

Soothing

So, my friend Chris over at Photography139 and a friend of his came up with a fun idea and I am going to take part as time allows. Every week they post a new photo assignment. You can read about how to take part here.

This week's subject was "Soothing". I will admit that it took me a little while to figure out how to photograph something that I find soothing. I find that summertime is a lot more soothing to me than winter is. I really miss thunderstorms, warm gentle winds, sitting by the lake, and walks through nature. Those are the things that speak soothing to me. I was able to come up with a decent representation of what is soothing to me in the winter though.

My "Soothing" submission

Next week's subject is "People". That should be fairly easy for me since I'm always photographing the kids. Hopefully I will find time to produce something a little more artistic than usual! You can see the rest of today's submissions over at Chris's blog.

I am thinking that this might be a great project to try from a poetic standpoint. Maybe if I ever find the time to write regularly again, I'll give it a try!

Hakuna Matata

2010 has not started out the greatest for us. Bug & Sis are emotionally drained from recent events involving Ex. It's been very hard for me to provide big enough distractions to outweigh the abandonment issues they are experiencing. I had a great opportunity last weekend though. I had given the kids each a ticket to the Broadway production of Lion King that was coming to Des Moines for Christmas. Saturday evening we dressed up and headed for the city.

It was a good thing we left early as we got all the way to Granger before I realized that we didn't have the tickets. We had to turn back and retrieve them. On the way back I called down to the restaurant we had planned to eat dinner at to see if they took reservations. Good thing I called, they no longer had food service. We found a great waiter at Legend's that had us in at 6:35 and out by 7:15 (he got a great tip from me).

This was Bug's first trip to the theatre. He was extremely impressed. As were Sis and I, even though we had been to multiple theatre performances.

These are the amazing costumes worn by Scar and Mufasa (click on picture for source). This was by far the best theatre performance I've ever attended. The costume artists and choreographers deserve big accolades. The actors had dead on performances. The lighting and music were both perfect.

Of you have young children that you want to introduce to the performing arts this would definitely be the show to take them too. If you haven't seen Lion King yet, I would highly recommend the experience.

Resolutions?

When I was growing up New Year's Eve was spent watching the ball drop on tv and grape juice all around (ok, maybe the parents had something a little stronger). New Year's Day was spent watching bowl games, playing cards, and mowing on tons of party snacks we didn't usually get. The Christmas tree was normally in danger of being condemned to it's basement tomb for another eleven months.

Comforting traditions unfortunately change and we are forced to create our own. Last night Sis and I went to a movie in Ames with our old friend Trucker, whispering Happy New Year to each other during the closing credits. Afterward, Trucker and I relived old times, discussed new situations, and played the Wii until 5:00 this morning. Ah, the joys of being a child again in your 30's.

With my parents gone there is no more sports influence. My children enjoy participating in sports but I have yet to instill the desire to sit through a bowl game in them. They tolerate my watching the occasional basketball or baseball game, but they draw the line at football. They get that from their dad's side. So there are no more bowl games for me on New Year's Day, it's not that much fun to sit and watch a team you don't follow by yourself. The "holiday" instead has become an extra day for me to either be productive or relax, which ever I need more. This year it seems to be a little of both since I actually have 3 days off in a row.


I am not one for making New Year's resolutions. I often make goals for myself and I stick to them if it seems beneficial and I revise or scrap them if not. I have a few type A tendencies, so if I want something I am going to push myself to work towards it.

I have made several changes to my life over the years and not a single one of them were given birth to on the first day of a new year: I quit smoking in the middle of August, I threw my Ex out at the beginning of February, I started exercising more in March. What does today signify other than our planet is one more year older?

Big whoop. In two months I will be another year older too.

In my mind, today would be better off spent reflecting on how good our Mother Earth is to us and celebrate the fact that she has lived to such a ripe old age even with her children that aren't so nice and respectful to her. But I guess that's what we have Earth Day for, huh?

Last year I posted a sassy little list of resolutions just for fun to see who I could get going. I know, I sometimes have a strange, sarcastic sense of humor. But here is the list again, with a few revisions and additions.

And for those of you that do hold on to hope that today is the catalyst for the changes you feel you must make, great for you, you have my full support and I hope you achieve your goals!

My 2010 Resolutions

1. Be a bigger doormat to people. It’s not working to fight it, so why not invite everyone to spill all their problems, seek my advice, love and friendship, then blow me off when I need the same in return.
2. To give up my dreams of traveling, or even getting out to the activities I enjoy for that matter, why not accept that something is always going to come up to ruin it?
3. Give in to my addictions to Facebook, blogging, and texting, they are the biggest form of socialization I seem to get anyway
4. Either quit eating healthy foods or start smoking again… 16 additional pounds since I quit smoking despite exercise, WTH?
5. While we are at it, why don’t I just start shooting whiskey straight (maybe mixed to start?) and go for the “tough mama” look
6. Better go blow all my money at the racetrack too, forget saving it
7. Let all my houseplants die. I’m probably going to wait too long to re pot them or forget to water them anyway. (ok, maybe this one borders on the truth!)
8. Admit that I have no useful organizational skills when it comes to housekeeping and vie for a spot on Hoarders.
9. Start buying into all the 2012 hype and living in fear of living like everyone else.

Have a Happy and Blessed 2010 Everyone!

I've lost my muse

Courtesy of Sis & Ricky, hopefully these will lift my spirits

I'm trying to figure out why. Why every time that I get a good creative flow going, life has to knock me down & complicate it, so that eventually the creativity gets pushed aside and I have to deal with whatever is so pressing.

That right there is the sum of my last two weeks. Everything was going great. I was baking up a storm, I was writing up a storm, I was living and I was happy. I had started several poems and had the beginnings (or middles, or ends) of several more. I had started the outline and first sample writings for a new blog. I had even started writing a short story, something I have not attempted for years.

I will admit that part of the problem is that I became distracted. I let a few messes clutter up the counters. Then I realized that I had put off the necessary phone calls to secure a location for our next Scout meeting. I have a tendency to become temporarily obsessed with my inclinations. I don't think I'm alone in that. We all become a little caught up in our own creativity every now and again.

It would have been all fine and dandy though, I am comfortable with letting a few minor details slide now and again, except that I got into a huge argument with Ex. Admittedly, I had let my guard down. I had begun to trust that maybe, just maybe, Ex had grown up just enough to be trusted in a co-parenting roll. Perhaps he now realized that his actions reflect on his roll model status as a father. Or perhaps not. There was a lot of hurt and betrayal felt by Bug & especially Sis as Ex followed his own whims and left their feelings and admiration behind. I wish I could say out right the terrible decision that he made, I will keep to my promise not to discuss his transgressions on this blog however, but I am very thankful that I have been able to raise my children well enough to realize that it was a moral mistake without my pointing it out.

So I spent last week consoling my children instead of writing and being creative. It was the right decision and I have no regrets about that. Then Christmas came. A 3 day weekend alone with the kids! No one can really be expected to sit themselves in front of a computer on a long holiday weekend can they? Instead I cooked, did some light cleaning, made phone calls to loved ones, and played the wii with the kids. We had gotten a lot of snow and travel was not really advised, so we stayed in where it was warm and simply enjoyed our time together. The one time I did venture out I managed to get pulled over, but that's a different part of the story and not where I'm headed with this particular little rant.

So Sunday night came and I was very relaxed. I was sitting right here in this very spot with the computer in my lap. I really thought that maybe I could find a little bit of that creativity and write just a little bit. I was a little cold though, so I ventured over to the thermostat. 65 degrees it read. Not bad, but lower than I usually had it set. I went down to the basement to check, sure enough the pilot light was out. No big deal, I had become a pro at relighting the old rusty contraption since Ex moved out.

After getting the heat flowing again I decided I should probably just head to bed and jot in my notebook. I listened to the furnace hum as I went about my nightly rituals. I could feel the house starting to warm. And then, suddenly, nothing. The pilot light was out again.

I braved the frigid basement and lit it again. I fell asleep listening to the rattle of heat blowing through the vents. It seemed like the furnace was running a long time now and I was quite toasty.

I woke up at 1:00 shivering. It was now 57 in the house. I re lit the pilot. Then I lit it again at 3:30. And again at 5:30. And once more before I left for work at 7:00.

I sent a text message to my best friend, who's dad happens to be my furnace guy.

I stopped by home real quick while I was running the work deposit to the bank. I re lit the furnace twice. The temperature had dropped to 53 degrees. The kitchen faucet was starting to show signs of freezing since the pipe runs along an outside wall.

I got a text back. My friend's dad would be over after 5:00 to see what he could do. He was pretty sure it was a cheap part & simple fix. I took the rest of the day off work and used two space heaters and blankets to set up warm rooms in the house. I opened up each of the faucets to a drip so the pipes wouldn't freeze. I did laundry just to run the dryer and I curled up under a blanket with Bug to read a book. Every couple hours I would check the faucets & move the heaters.

My friend's dad came over sooner than expected and set to work. Throughout the even I could hear pounding and the occasional shrill of his phone ringing. At 8:00 he came up to tell me the bad news. He had done all he could, but sadly my furnace was beyond repair. The good news was that he had used furnace in his daughter's garage and he would put it in for me free of charge.

The man is a saint. I have said before that he is an angel in disguise. You wouldn't know to look at him what a huge heart he has. He looks like Chris Farley if he had lived to his almost 60's and had chosen a career in plumbing & heating. He is always laughing & smiling and rarely has a bad word to say to anyone.

So last night he put in the new furnace. It took him until 11:00. He left here with an apple pie as my thank you to him. I know that was not nearly enough thanks for the wonderful kindness he bestowed to me.

Now I have heat, wonderful heat. Maybe I could pick up where I left off, but now I have the sniffles. I suppose that's what happens when you go 2 days without heat. I just want a clear head so I can concentrate and unplugged ears so I can hear my muse again.

Oh well, such is life. Maybe next week. The start of a new year, the start of new creativity perhaps?