A thought-provoking quote from The Naked Soul:

“Even though we may not be conscious of what our purpose is, intuitively we know our true purpose and our soul and our source will not permit us to sustain passion/fire for something, which is not aligned with our purpose.”

I have the intention…   I intend to set the intention…  OK -the ol’ getting ready to get fixin’ to get started!   Enough already!!     I want to align myself with my true purpose.   I want to be aware enough of my soul’s purpose.

This blog is one of my attempts to awaken that introspection into my soul.     Can you “awaken an introspection?”      Am I committed or planning to someday sit down and make the plan of my self-improvement plan?  sigh

Off the subject:   My mom-in-law will not be mailing me the photos and paint colors.   She’s decided to go with the lighter taupe.      AND…                I’m off on a fun trip to the Windy City for a few days.    Will be ‘un-plugged’.   Will catch up with y’all on Sunday.       Joyfully yours, the ever so curious “C”

The Greatest of These is LOVE

13:11  When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.
13:12  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.
13:13  But now faith, hope, and love remain–these three. The greatest of these is love.

Besides the big ‘LOVE’ message this is known for, I had always interpreted this verse as an admonishment to ‘stop being so childish’.   I’m re-thinking this.

I had this bible verse read at my wedding.   It was read at sorority functions.   I just heard it again at a wedding a week ago.   I’ve literally heard this verse as often as John 3:16.    However, this latest time, I reflected more on the ‘as a child’ piece.    Perhaps Paul was suggesting that our childlike faith was the best part of our childhood!   That in growing up, we lost a loving perspective and (sadly) developed an adult feeling of separateness.  I don’t remember analyzing this in school, maybe it was explained or discussed with authority about not being childish;  but I suppose I created and absorbed my own meanings about maturity and acting responsibly.    

Could we actually interprete this more along the same lines that Dr. Wayne Dyer recommends?  That we knew EVERYTHING when we were born and that in our awareness of our humanness, we created an ILLUSION of being separate from God.      Dyer gives an example of how drops of water seek the ocean and once arriving in the flow of the river to join the great seas, it is still just water.    As individual humans, we are only distinct drops of water and if we consider joining with the oneness of the ocean, we can see ourselves as part of the whole.    Fully known. 

It is love that we are.    God is Love.    Everywhere, whole.

It’s Still Me!

I figured out how to change the photo in the banner.    Good for me.    I’ll probably change it again to something a little SHARPER…   so don’t be surprised!    

Decorating Advice

My in-laws don’t have a computer.  And I truly believe it is because it annoys us kids so much.   They are so smirky about it, too.   Like, it’s a badge of honor thing, not to own such a contraption.    

Which is why it’s so cute when she calls me for decorating advice.  She wants to know if I think she should paint the living room a dark taupe or the lighter taupe.   See, she got some new chairs…      She lives 1500 miles away.   I can’t just drop in on her this afternoon.

So, here’s what she is going to do.   She has taken photos of the chairs;  she will mail these and the paint sample color cards.   Once I receive and make my decision, I am instructed to call her and give her the result.   (I’m already thinking I will go with the darker color…)

Oh yea, she can do that quickly.  She has that Kodak easy share camera with a crazy-large San-Disk plus the printing station.   She’s high-tech on some things.   Anything to avoid getting a darn PC to store these photos on or exchange them with any of  us kids.

I’m so looking forward to her letter!!

Miscellaneous Meanderings & Mutterings

Watched The Queen with Helen Mirren last night.   As much as I do know about Princess Diana, I know so little about the Queen.     Fascinating movie, well done.  I thought the actor who played Tony Blair was superb, and Mirren was truly incredible.   

My memories of the crash in Paris are still vivid, ten years later.   We were in DC, staying with my friend from High School whose husband is from Marsailles area.   We had CNN on in French and O translated.    So sad.     The movie really captured how much the world was captivated by Diana and how we all were touched by her life.

Then (last night, not last decade)  we switched to watch the end of Independence Day.  I love Will Smith and think he is  fearless and ambitious in a good way.   Not that this movie could be considered high art; entertaining for what it is.   I don’t think it was trying to be more than a good blockbuster spectacle and THAT it did achieve. 

Phone Update:   I have the LG VX8300 VCast(?) phone but I am really not sure if I signed up for all the features it can provide.    I just wanted a phone.    It does come with a camera but all I do is snapshot people for my contact database.

I’m listening to Jamie Cullen [I Want to be a Popstar] on my last.fm radio playlist.   Blogging has exposed me to a whole new variety of music!   Usually, I sit in my house in quiet.    I rarely watch TV during the day.    Contrast this song with Nickelback’s Rock Star!     I’ve been isolated in Country music recently…   years, actually.   and only in my car, on the radio.     No IPOD.   only own a few CDs.

I don’t really know what I think about Barry Manilow canceling a visit to the View because he disagrees with the politics of Elizabeth Hasselbeck.    Did he not realize the personalities on the show when he booked the – would it be an ‘appointment’?   Are we so polarized that we can’t even sit and have a civilized conversation?     Or was his point to make news – cause a controversy and you get noticed.      Appearing on the show and saying something brilliant in opposition to some point that Ms Hasselbeck MAY have provoked wouldn’t have gotten the attention of the press.    Comparatively.     But then, he has to be a pretty old guy by now!     His LIVE album was the first album I ever purchased..   yes, in grade school.  

and my very first record – a single – was some 70s song about Time.   Not Time in a Bottle…  I’ll think of it one of these days.    It’s so close to rising to top of mind, I can sense it!   But Kelly Clarkson is belting it out now on my playlist…  conflict.

I just read The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros.   Beautiful.    Quick, too.   I liked the ‘chapter’ about Bums in the Attic.   But my favorite was about the Four Trees.   Keep keepin’ on, my amigos. 

Hired Gunn

I’ve hired Tim Gunn!   Actually, I’ve only purchased his book.   I am excited to learn how to find my own STYLE with Quality and Taste.  and have Tim’s help along the way.    

I love Tim Gunn!   I was not so enamored of his new show, however, but am eagerly awaiting the next season of Project Runway.   I love everything about this reality show.     The goals and dreams of the designers; their uniqueness, skill & creativity to design and construct given a theme, a few $$$ and less than a 24 hours to complete the task.      I  read the blogs of the participants, and especially enjoy the behind the scenes thoughts of the producers.    I am fascinated and hooked.   Bravo:  Bring on Season 4!

My husband has the absolute opposite reaction to the show.    It makes his skin crawl.   He can’t even calm down enough to explain how much it vexes him to find me ooo-ing and ah-ing over Project Runway.     He cannot understand my enthusiam for fashion and the ills of this show in particular.   Bless him, he does grant me the wish to view the program on our big screen TV.   He can then camp out upstairs and watch sports or whatever all by his lonesome.

So, what do I find in the first chapter of Tim Gunn’s Guide to Quality, Taste & Style?    That I should first:  KNOW WHO I AM.   Sigh, that seems to be a theme I run into all the time.    I do – so I say often enough – I do want to know who I am; in fact, most of my goals these days, include discovering the answer to the riddle.     I can’t tell you how many times, even as a grade schooler,  I screamed whenever anyone said, ‘Just Be Yourself’.     Who IS that?!    Anyway, that aside, I’ll move on.   What does thrill me in a positive way with this first chapter, is to find out that Tim Gunn loves me right back.   I quote,”I love the fact that you exist!”    Isn’t he SWEET?!

Who knew that this book would open up a whole new world for me?   Silly frivolous fashion?   scoff.    This is high minded stuff.    I am reading more words I do not know the meaning to (couldn’t even fancy up a guess to a lot of these!) and the references to fashion PEOPLE I have never heard of is already over 10.    I’m on page 40 of a book with pictures and big type.     I have been a ‘reader.   I love to read and I read a variety of genres.   I had only recently read Jane Eyre and other ‘chick novels’ because in high school, those were the books the cheerleaders read.   I myself, chose War and Peace and Les Miserables.    Point is, I am quite intrigued about how much I don’t know about fashion.

Ah, so much to learn.   I am excited to do just that!      And, now,  for my reader friends who enjoy the motivational/self-help/awareness bent of blogs, I share Tim’s motto “Make It Work.”   

“… often, students who struggle with an assignment are inclined to abandon the struggle and begin again.    This practice unnerves me, because it’s like playing roulette with one’s work.  What assurance does one have that the next spin of the wheel will be successful?  Important learning occurs when a struggle is examined and analyzed , diagnosed, and a prescription offered.  Ergo, make it work.  I believe that we all benefit from the make-it-work practice.”

I have been such a student.   I’ve been abandoning projects (and jobs) for so long, that I have little confidence to start anything.     So, now a new interest in fashion?   Well, it just may be the diversion I need to spark some passion, test the waters, LEARN TO SEW, find a new career?!     Craft a sense of self.   and learn to step up to the challenge of Making-It-Work…   for me.

We got SIGNED yesterday.

I think ‘the KIDS’ still TeePee houses, but this time, we woke up to about 40 political and real estate signs littering our front lawn.      We think it was a neighbor.   A neighbor with grown kids.   Can’t blame this on the youth.  

I laughed.   I feel ‘pop-lar’!   Somebody likes us!    Called another neighbor who gave us the “you-didn’t-hear-this from me, but, just the other day, so&so’s front yard was full of signs.   It was probably them.”  

The hub thinks it HAD to be some teenagers who got confused and hit our house instead.   But I don’t think do.     Anyway, with Halloween coming up, Hub wants to dump a few hundred pumpkins on the lawn of whoever did this to us.  

I want to let it be.     Be amused; enjoy the attention and the comedy.  Pick up the signs.    and go on.     Being the nice gal that I am, I will call or drop off the realtor signs to the appropriate company…

That’s all folks.      

Word of the Day

Today, Class, the Word of MY Day is

“deipnosophist” - someone skilled at informal chit chat

According to World Wide Words, a deipnosophist is a person who is skilled at dinner-table conversation. 

This short blog post submitted to balance out my previous post…    Thank you for reading;  no need to comment.    This is only posted for me to have a reference place so I can go somewhere to look up how to spell it.  ha!   (or in blogdom:   LOL.)

My 30th Post: Thoughts on Blog-O-Mania

I feel like the little kid who was invited to a party and yet had no idea how exciting the party would be until I started to dance.

I’m settling in with the charged atmosphere and getting comfortable enough to go peruse the refreshment table and calmly look around.    I’m dropping into conversations, sharing a little bit of who I am, being BRAVE.    and then being THRILLED to see my blog on other’s ‘rolls’!

However, I’m starting to see vague RULES emerge.   Am I required to comment back to comments?   Do I expect others to comment back if I drop a note to their blog?    and, so for the record, NO, I don’t think so.   If I have left a comment and you feel obligated to come visit my site and also leave a note, just know that I respect your perogative to do so or NOT.      Sure, it’s thrilling to see my words in cyper-space ‘print’!   and it’s thrilling to see something I say acknowledged, either here or ‘there’.    But, I’m a newbie!   I’m having fun.

It saddens me when a blog I’ve been impressed with and maybe even intimidated too much to leave a comment and then build up the nerve to do so, is now quitting or doubting their blogs due to not having time to go visit  and return-comment on ALL their fans’s websites.   Please, again, don’t feel obligated!    

Just another reminder that most of the blogs that are well received, well read, and enjoyed seem to be written by those who do it solely for the personal enjoyment they get from their own words.   The comments are cool, yes.    But that’s not the goal.    Written for outlet and expression, written by some motivation ‘beyond’ and trusted.     Then again, do I write this post today as a missive to those who want to quit so that I don’t feel guilty for being one of those new fans requiring your attention and flattery?    

Comment back!  PLEEASSE!   I want to know if anyone is out there?!!?   not really.   do what you want.  I’ll be fine.   I’m just not writing THAT kind of blog right now…   where I get 2 cents for every one who reads and sees some ad on my site.  (only cuz I have yet to figure out how to do that!!)   which would drive my motivation to write awesome worthy posts consistently.    I’m just playing.  

I was thinking how this blog-world is like flying through the forest like Tarzan, ya know?   I swing to my FAVEs and then I jump to somewhere from their blog roll (cuz mine got too crazy and I need to weed it down – no offense, right?) and then I read comments and go see THEIR site and then I get lost.    I know I have bloggers I would love to go find again but I didn’t save thier address, so.   Not meant to be?

And then the THRILL – of seeing finding myself really far from home – reading some blog with no connection that I can trace back – and seeing in in THAT blogroll, a site I am familiar with!   Makes me think it is a small world out there.   

I have a friend who once sent me a blog link about 6 months ago and I thought it was cool.   It was a knitting blog and her topic that day was about the selfishness or not of having children.  or not.    Huge response.   Anyway, I was mildly intrigued with blogging then.   Knew about it as a concept.   Not sure what the big deal was, etc.    Not until I was reading a website of a life coach who blogs occasionally.   Someone who commented on that site, had a link back to a blog.    Hmmm.   I followed.   and explored.

 Now, I’m addicted.   Started my own blog here.    Every day, I try to limit my time to just jump around and be Tarzan swinging on the ropes and finding topics that resonate with me.

Yesterday, I was reading about wierd myths linked to one of our obscure Presidents.  Somehow got to a journalist in India.  Then to a wannabe comic.  Then to atheism.  Then to homeschooling.  Then to a tribute of a well-loved blogger who died.   I had never read this man’s words while he was alive.   Yet I was in tears of the touching comments given in this man’s honor.    I’m choking up now. 

I follow recipes a lot.  I follow cool avatars.   I jump around and pick favorites.     I can see, if you get too many favorites, how DO you keep it up?    Is this a fad that will fade?    Is it like towns you live in that eventually, you settle into a routine.   Do only what you know?  Get overwhelmed at how big a mess of un-importants that now seem to fill the hours?    LIMITS!   we need limits!     Which requires us to judge.  Compare.  Get critical.

Time to stop writing.  thinking.  typing.    (I prefer short posts!  oops)    ENJOY  LIFE.   Remember to EXPLORE and encourage the butterflies of anticipation of something new & creative. 

Got the L%^& G ($@en !*V phone

I had a Palm Treo 650 and was paying a hefty monthly fee, right?   (it was my 3rd due to the crazy thing being real good at playing DEAD.  often)   So, since my plan with Verizon was up, I thought I would attempt to get a newer but less feature phone and pay lots less each month.    Did I really need email?   I certainly didn’t use my web access that much and don’t know anyone to TXT (no teenagers in my life who care enough to communicate with me), so here was my chance to save.  

Gosh darn, gad nabbit, they talked me into an enn&Viey!   [spelled incorrectly on purpose...]   I could still have email!  and the camera was OOOHHH SO BETTER!  and my monthly service fee would be less PLUS get MORE minutes!    Yippee, wicked cool, makes SO MUCH sense, yes?    Those little alarm bells that should go off in my head remained silent.    

I only average 600 minutes of air time per month.    Who will I call if I now have 900 to play with?    However, the other option is 450.    Hmmmm.     and now, I find out -after calling Verizon on the homephone to chat with tech support – that the $19.99 warning that kept popping up on the new phone and scaring me…  IS TRUE.    If I really do want email like I am used to, I will indeed be privileged to pay $19.99 per month.   more.   additional.    and the Navigation is $9.99.   The ‘navigator’ that comes with the service is something else.  Uh huh.

Learning pains and the challenge of change…  I feel so mislead, misdirected, duped, SOLD, disrespected, old, stupid and wronged.

I do now have unlimited emails if I want to use yahoo.   or aol.   (ARE YOU KIDDING?)  or msn.    Which is probably fine.   If I want to change my email address.    sigh.   Maybe aol is cool again?    I was too cool for aol back in the day.    and honestly and ashamedly (is that a word?) I am biased against those who still have an aol account;   I meet these people and I wonder how long they have put up with aol?   I admit, I am probably being prejudiced and just out of date some more with that snobbery.     

If I were to unplug from the grid and cease communicating with technology, I wonder how much $$$ I would save each month.      STOP – don’t even go there.   At least wordpress is free.    

The other really cool feature about the phone?   Is this the appropriate time to use the word gnarly?  (I’ve been hearing it used in an appreciative manner…)  I can go up to any really loud speaker in Circuit City and my phone will tell me who the artist is!     THAT is going to be so meaningful in my life, I can’t describe the joy.   

and the camera takes 1… 2…. 3… seconds to actually take the pic after I press the click button.    (is this a rant?)   Now, if I want to do anything with these awesome photos, I will have to open an msn.com account to mail them to myself.  I think.   Or buy the disc card thingy that only fits the enV for taking digital files off my device to move to another device, like maybe my PC and that is only $40?      Plus have to buy some other cable do-hickey to plug into my USB port that also reads this new silly size disc…    

What was my point?     I’m going to go cry now.