Thoughts of Spring Blog Party

My sister (Many Paths to Tread) mentioned this to me and I thought it would be fun. No time like when there is snow on the ground to think of spring!

How would people describe your personality? (If they could only use ONE word.) Are they right?
Optimistic. I think if you look at the world through rose colored glasses you will see exactly what everyone else sees, but with a more positive perspective. At least that is what I tell myself, though I've really wondered how that works.

What celebrity/celebrities would create a “Star-Struck” feeling if you saw them in real life?
Hmmm, I might not recognize them, or have a clue that they are celebrities. In fact, it’s very likely that I wouldn’t.

Who is your favorite blogger? Why? Pioneer Woman. I love her cheerfulness, positive attitude, smile, the delicious looking recipes and peeks into her life on the ranch. Not to mention the documentation of her travels. I like traveling.

What is your comfort food/drink?
Tea, lots of tea. Best of course, with a little something to nibble.

Be brave – tell us something very random and weird about yourself.
I would still be crawling if I hadn’t sprained my wrist when I was about 13 or 14? months. Okay, I exaggerate a little. I mean, about the still crawling. I was a late walker.

Do you have a strong desire to do something you’ve never done? What is it?
Publish a book.

Movies: Action, Drama, Romantic Comedy, Documentary, Comedy? What are your favorite genres?
From the list above, probably Romantic Comedy. I like Action as long as there is no blood or scary parts. :)

Books: Fiction, Non-Fiction, Romance, Biographies, True Stories, Self-Help, Devotional/Study? What are your favorite types of reading material?
Mystery – with a romantic touch. My favorites are the type where the guy saves the girl, but their romance isn’t the central part. It’s just a human interest touch.

Music: Funk, Rock, Country, Jazz, Classical, Film Score, Blues, Classic Rock, Crooner, Alternative, Heavy Metal, Techno? What are your favorite types?
Cheerful Classical – a very occasional country song, and an assortment of unremembered movie scores I’m sure. If I even know what that is.

If you inherited a million dollars, what is the first thing you would do with your money?
Invest it. Thank you for your time. (I would be interested in spending the interest, in case you were interested.)

Name one weakness of yours (confession is good for the soul).
One? I can’t pick between them all. Procrastination?

If you could live anywhere at all (and take all your loved ones with you), where would you go?
I tried to get the family to move to the East Coast, but they didn’t buy it. And I don’t know if I would really want to live there anyway. I think I like it here, in the Blue Castle. I’ll like it even more when it’s all finished. Mostly, I like being at home, being with family.

Strange Talent? Can you juggle basketballs, put your legs behind your head or perform some other strange feat?
No, quite simply. I don’t know that I have any talents at all, let alone strange.

What’s something you consider yourself to be good at? (Don’t worry, it’s not bragging, it’s acknowledging a God given gift).
As long as we’re not discussing talent, and if we consider that some days are better than others, I can cook, in quantity, whether or not it is good, is something you’ll have to ask somebody else. Sometimes, I think it is.

What is one of your favorite things to catch a whiff of?
Oh, dear, now I’m procrastinating. It so depends on what it is I’m catching a whiff of at the moment. If it’s good, it’s good. Like rain, or fall, of fresh mown grass, or a wild rose, or coffee, or spices, or fresh garlic bread, or…..I would probably have to say freshly cut grass.

When you leave a social gathering, do you wish: You would have talked more or You would have talked less?
That depends on the gathering. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes I don’t go at all.

If money wasn’t a factor, what stores would you shop in?
Brooks Brothers, Nordstrom’s, very exclusive stores and Costco – ever since I was young, and even when I hated shopping, I liked going to Costco. Want to know something else? I don’t know that I would necessarily buy a lot of things, just very nice things.

What is your greatest fear or strange phobia?
Never mind.

What is your greatest accomplishment?
I’d like to say, “investing in my siblings,” but I don’t know if I accomplished anything. I mean, they’re great, but I don’t know that I can take any credit for it. Next question.(I almost wrote that as "I'm mean, they're great," - just try reading it that way. Now they might agree, but....)

What are your favorite animals?
Dogs. Clean dogs. Well behaved dogs. Nice dogs. Hot dogs. (sorry!)

Are you a hopeless romantic?
Like do I believe in love at first sight type of thing? Yes, for other people. I personally way overanalyze things to really make that possible for me. However, if the right guy wants to “love me at first sight,” great. Only, it might be more romantic if he didn’t like me at all and then finally come round, and fall helplessly (hopelessly?), madly in love. Only I might never forgive him for resisting my charm in the first place. I’m thinking about getting a dog….

What movie or book character can you most relate to?
I at one time in my life thought of myself as being very much an Elizabeth Bennet, sometimes since I have wondered if I’m not more like Jane. But with all the snow around here, maybe I’m more like Mrs. Claus.

Do tell me, is this one of those parties where I talked to much?

Love,

T.W.

(P.S. If you want to join, click on the "green spring" link and check it out!)

Simplicity....

Something I've come to appreciate over the years is, that sometimes less is better. I still love things that are beautifully decorated, but that doesn't mean you have to have a lot to do it. While I appreciate many different decor styles, I tend to like things that are classic and stately. However, I think the simplicity of modern is growing on me, not in its traditional adaptation, but rather using fewer classic and stately elements.

What it boils down to, is I like things CLEAN! And if you have to move a dozen things on a shelf to dust, that can get a bit tedious. If you have to move closer to two or three dozen things to clean a bathroom, that is really tedious. Believe me. (It's what brought this whole thing to mind)

So one of the things I'm trying to keep in mind, and hopefully won't forget as it draws a little bit closer to decorating our room/upstairs, keep things simple! Not modern, because that will just never do, but simple. Forgo the majority of knick knacks, bobbles, etc., for pieces that are attractive as well as functional.

You will always have to dust, forbearing some miraculous scientific breakthrough, and some of the decorating ideas I have in mind will require a little extra effort as far as moving things to cleab, but sometimes the extra effort is worth it. I just don't want to have to move a dozen things on every surface before dusting. I personally (generally) take pleasure in good housekeeping, but at the same time, I don't want to be a slave to it. That, I think, takes the joy out of it real quick.

What do you think? More time dusting and enjoying lots of knick knacks, or keeping things simple

The start of my week....

We've been getting a lot of snow lately, and it is lovely. The problem is when the wind started.....

Snow, snow, beautiful snow.

Now, here is the clincher: Beautiful, yes, but it drifted into very deep (4 feet plus in some areas) across our driveway. That was too deep for the Grater that usually keeps the roads clear, so Monday morning we went outside and started shoveling....

Monday night, we started trying to figure the distance we had to cover and our estimation was about 1/8 of a mile. That is a lot of snow, folks.

We were about halfway through the job Monday night, and we stopped when it got dark and the newly falling snow started to soak through our clothes and chill us.....I had to be careful when trying to stand, it took me a few careful movements to get into the upright position. I was sore, ladies and gentlemen, very sore. I think everybody who had been shoveling was. At least they should have been.

Tuesday:

The general consensus was that another foot of snow had fallen, despite the prediction of only 3-4 inches. And so we tromped up there and began shoveling again, this time a deeper drift. My body ached in all new places. I should say everybody's bodies ached in all new places. On Tuesday we were all out there. Both my siblings that usually have to go off the mountain to get to work couldn't, so they helped us shovel.

Shoveling....

This is behind the shovelers (I don't believe that is actually a word)in the first picture, looking across the drift at the people shoveling on the other end....we had our own "railway race."

Deep. Is she contemplating her fate?

We had almost finished. A part of me wanted to finish the last little bit by hand. We had come so far, but I was still praying that the bulldozer they had brought in from town would hurry and come...I just wasn't sure how much longer I was really going to last. Wanted to last.

The Calvary!

Sometimes machines are a beautiful thing.

Where were you Monday? Not really, I'm glad you showed up when you did. I'm grateful for all the exercise - and sure glad that job is done.

The neighbor driving the Grater actually had the gall to tell us, "okay kids, you can stop playing in the snow now, there is a bulldozer on the way."*


Oh, hah.

(*Hi, this is my conciense, and I'm not sure if that is the exact, 100%, correct, precise words. Thank you.)

Divine....

I unwrapped the chocolate. I ate it. I read the message,"Write a real letter, not just an e-mail." I thought of a friend, and wondered, should I write her a letter? A little bit later I got an e-mail from that same friend asking for prayer; her mother has just been diagnosed with breast cancer.

I'm wondering if I should add Dove chocolate to my daily devotions?

(I'm not endorsing Dove chocolate. Dove doesn't know I exist. Unfortunatlely.)

Inspiration

Layla over at The Lettered Cottage posted this YouTube video called Dream Rangers. It made me smile. Go watch it - I think it will make you smile too!

The Manuscript

I made one fatal mistake, and after I had summoned up the courage too, to print seventy-four pages (double-sided)! I’ve been procrastinating on printing out a working copy of the NaNoWriMo story I wrote in November so I could get serious about some editing. I’ve worked on it in other ways, and tried to do some stuff on the computer, but it just came down to the fact that sometimes I need a physical copy in my hands and a cold hard pen, or any pen for that matter, to work with a story. But that’s a decent amount of paper, so I’ve kept putting it off.

I finally “just did it.” The mistake however, was leaving the copy of the manuscript on the sofa. Now bear in mind that I had printed it so I could work with it, pen in hand, cross things out, make notes in the margin, etc., work with it! And, I was hoping to finish by the end of the month, the clock was already ticking, and then I left it in the wrong place at the right time. First one sister picked it up, read it until very late, then Father started on it, stopping himself from continuing it into the late hours, then somebody else got in line, and somebody else, and the line is still waiting.

Days are passing, I’m sitting back, listening to the suggestions that I should have printed it with page numbers, put it in a binder, titled it, etc. and *blink* I was trying to work with that copy. *blink*

And who is complaining? I’m not really, except for in a dry humor sort of way. Sure my goal is being blocked, but so? I think anybody who writes must understand the inner pleasures this hubbub has given me. They like it! I like it when one of them is reading and they keep laughing. Yes, the truth is I wrote a few parts intending them to be funny – and, shock, apparently they are laugh worthy.

Does the story still need work? I think so, but you know what? After all this feedback, I’m not going to be changing some of the things I had intended to, and it’s going to save me a lot of work.

Honestly, page numbers would have been a good idea, if I wasn’t in such a hurry, because, well, I just finished sorting out the chaos that an unnumbered manuscript comes to when it passes between a few hands.

One of my sisters had already read it and she knows I’m trying to use it. She seen this all unfolding and suggested a few times that I might want to just print another copy. But that is seventy-four more double sided pages……and I already will probably have to print off a few more drafts……sometimes being so frugal isn’t so very practical.

Sunday

And I wil make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.

Ezekiel 34:26 KJV