Dolly is presenting 3 funraiser concerts for the Imagination Library and I have tickets to the 8/17 show. I cannot wait!
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
Wings are for birds
BIRD WING - I love birds! I think it is yet another thing that I inherited as my Grandmother Mundy (Mama Sib) loved them so much she had bird houses and a ceramic collection of birds on a shelf in her house. My house is surrounded by lots of "woods" and so the birds just love to flock here and I enjoy looking out my window to see them.
WEST WING - My 20ish year old children love the West Wing. I've seen sporatic episodes and enjoy them as I've seen them. Blake also turned me onto Six Feet Under and I enjoy it the same. The West Wing and it's politics are interesting fodder.
RIGHT WING - UGH! It makes me nausiated to just hear the word. I grew up in church but once the "church" attached itself to the "conservatives" and the "right", I got more and more turned off by the whole thing.
I think wings are for birds and that where they really belong but please enjoy this video which is the perfect storm of West Wing meets Right Wings. I couldn't have said it better. Wings are for birds... Let it go righties!!!
WEST WING - My 20ish year old children love the West Wing. I've seen sporatic episodes and enjoy them as I've seen them. Blake also turned me onto Six Feet Under and I enjoy it the same. The West Wing and it's politics are interesting fodder.
RIGHT WING - UGH! It makes me nausiated to just hear the word. I grew up in church but once the "church" attached itself to the "conservatives" and the "right", I got more and more turned off by the whole thing.
I think wings are for birds and that where they really belong but please enjoy this video which is the perfect storm of West Wing meets Right Wings. I couldn't have said it better. Wings are for birds... Let it go righties!!!
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Yard Therapy Interrupted
My blog title of Yard Therapy was born out of my belief that working in the yard and loving it is part of my genetic assemblage and I need it to make me whole. Doing the happy dance while mowing or singing to the hum of the mower just seems natural. For me, I think it's either the vibration of the mower handle or for sure it's looking over the landscape after the mowing is done and seeing how good things look.
The anti-Christ of yard therapy is POISON IVY! And yes, that beast has yet again found itself too close to me. So while I'm suffering from some unknown brush with that 3 leafed monster - please enjoy the two videos below while I (try not to) scratch.
Remember LEAVES OF THREE - LET IT BE!
The first, how it happens - what a nasty green beast:
The second, how it consumes you (kind of sorta) or a way to pass the time waiting for the rash from hades to clear up:
Is that me? Come on, geez - I dance much worse!!!
The anti-Christ of yard therapy is POISON IVY! And yes, that beast has yet again found itself too close to me. So while I'm suffering from some unknown brush with that 3 leafed monster - please enjoy the two videos below while I (try not to) scratch.
Remember LEAVES OF THREE - LET IT BE!
The first, how it happens - what a nasty green beast:
The second, how it consumes you (kind of sorta) or a way to pass the time waiting for the rash from hades to clear up:
Is that me? Come on, geez - I dance much worse!!!
Monday, June 9, 2008
Traveling Light
I can't believe I haven't written anything since January! Life goes on whether your watching, worrying or just hanging in there....
I've rediscovered a book that the pastor at Sugarloaf UMC did a series of sermons on some time back. Maybe 8-9 years ago, it's been a while. The book is titled "Traveling Light" by writer Max Lucado. If you are familiar with Max Lucado don't let that turn you off. He writes some deeply spiritual, flowery stuff that I just can't follow. This is not like that at all. Funny, how many years I've been been going to church and I still view myself as a spiritual babe who's still teething on the vanilla wafer's of God's kingdom and not as a saintly mature lion ripping the meat off the bone of Spiritualness. It doesn't bother me, I just acknowledge it. Thus, I digress, per usual - back to "Traveling Light".
The book is a line by line breakdown of the 23rd Psalm. You know the one that begins "The Lord is my Shepard I shall not want." It takes each sentence and dissects it into a burden God never intended for us to carry therefore we can lay those things down or take them out of our suitcase and "travel lightly" without them thru this life.
Well, the book has just been awesome to get back into again. And this trip thru, I seem to be picking up things I never noticed before. One particular meaningful chapter to me is "Doubt".
My friends and my children say I like to be in control. I think I've mentioned that before. It's a quite subtle need for control. I do a good job of masking it as concern or involvement. Some call it hovering. Some call it being overbearing. I call it what I do.
Hmmmm....Well.
There's been this cloud of undefined uncertainty that has been hanging over me and in my mind for some time so when I was flipping thru "Traveling Light", I thought gee I wonder if there's a chapter on uncertainty, well "Doubt" was the closest chapter I found to it so I began reading.
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." is the basis of the "Doubt" chapter.
Not "surely uncertainty will follow me" but goodness and mercy.
Certainly goodness and mercy.
Certainty. Not uncertainty.
Goodness and Mercy.
Well, I read it and read it until one morning I said "UNCERTAINTY get out of the backseat of my car! There's no room for you back there because GOODNESS and MERCY are already there! GO AWAY!!!"
It's actually worked. I truly believe it.
I don't have to haul uncertainty around being weighted down by it like carrying an extra 200 pounds around in my car. Every time I get in the car there's goodness and mercy already there. This spiritual babe needed that and hey learning this and applying it might just have put some mane on the teething lion cub.
"Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of life"....
Of this... I AM CERTAIN! NO DOUBT!
I listen to this song in the car almost every morning. It does me wonders!!! Please consider this post as me whispering into your ear.
I've rediscovered a book that the pastor at Sugarloaf UMC did a series of sermons on some time back. Maybe 8-9 years ago, it's been a while. The book is titled "Traveling Light" by writer Max Lucado. If you are familiar with Max Lucado don't let that turn you off. He writes some deeply spiritual, flowery stuff that I just can't follow. This is not like that at all. Funny, how many years I've been been going to church and I still view myself as a spiritual babe who's still teething on the vanilla wafer's of God's kingdom and not as a saintly mature lion ripping the meat off the bone of Spiritualness. It doesn't bother me, I just acknowledge it. Thus, I digress, per usual - back to "Traveling Light".
The book is a line by line breakdown of the 23rd Psalm. You know the one that begins "The Lord is my Shepard I shall not want." It takes each sentence and dissects it into a burden God never intended for us to carry therefore we can lay those things down or take them out of our suitcase and "travel lightly" without them thru this life.
Well, the book has just been awesome to get back into again. And this trip thru, I seem to be picking up things I never noticed before. One particular meaningful chapter to me is "Doubt".
My friends and my children say I like to be in control. I think I've mentioned that before. It's a quite subtle need for control. I do a good job of masking it as concern or involvement. Some call it hovering. Some call it being overbearing. I call it what I do.
Hmmmm....Well.
There's been this cloud of undefined uncertainty that has been hanging over me and in my mind for some time so when I was flipping thru "Traveling Light", I thought gee I wonder if there's a chapter on uncertainty, well "Doubt" was the closest chapter I found to it so I began reading.
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." is the basis of the "Doubt" chapter.
Not "surely uncertainty will follow me" but goodness and mercy.
Certainly goodness and mercy.
Certainty. Not uncertainty.
Goodness and Mercy.
Well, I read it and read it until one morning I said "UNCERTAINTY get out of the backseat of my car! There's no room for you back there because GOODNESS and MERCY are already there! GO AWAY!!!"
It's actually worked. I truly believe it.
I don't have to haul uncertainty around being weighted down by it like carrying an extra 200 pounds around in my car. Every time I get in the car there's goodness and mercy already there. This spiritual babe needed that and hey learning this and applying it might just have put some mane on the teething lion cub.
"Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of life"....
Of this... I AM CERTAIN! NO DOUBT!
I listen to this song in the car almost every morning. It does me wonders!!! Please consider this post as me whispering into your ear.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
January 26, 1983 ... 2008
25 years ago - 1983Coach Paul Bear Bryant died. I lived in Tuscaloosa where I was a senior at UA, graduated in May and moved to New Orleans in July.
25 years later - 2008
We still talk about Coach Bryant. Blake is living in Tuscaloosa, a senior at UA where he is scheduled to graduate in December. Today, he is in New Orleans for the Pi Kappa Phi Rose Ball.
The irony of life, as always.
Running with Scissors
I woke up really early this morning - like 4am - after falling asleep on the sofa last night. At first I tried to go upstairs and go to bed but it was useless. I could not sleep. So I came downstairs and decided to watch the movie Running with Scissors that I fell asleep on last night - actually, in the first 2 minutes discovered.
I stayed awake.
I thought the movie was interestingly strange and at times it started to make me and some of my deep thoughts seem very normal. I didn't feel as unique or different or unusual as the characters of the movie and in a way that was comforting.
I was getting deeper and deeper into the movie. I could tell.
I loved the part where "Blinded by the Light" played while Annette Henning (Deirdre) was dancing in the "snow" as it was failing from the ceiling.
The movie finally reached it's ultimate communication to me personally when Augusten asked Agnes to make him some Hamburger Helper. He's come full circle from the center of his biological mother's universe when the movie starts to needing another as she's removed herself from his life.
I wonder if that spoke to anyone else?
If you've seen it , did that speak to you at all?
I wonder if there were "profound" moments in the movie for you?
This is the scene. And the Mr. Blue song is great too!
I remember being 12 (or 13) and I was babysitting my cousin Alan. He was 10 years younger than me so that makes him 2 or 3. He was so little and such a sweet little kid. I would baby sit for my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Bruce when they would go out. It would just be Alan and I for a couple of hours and then he'd go to sleep. I don't remember if we watched tv. I think we did. I don't remember what we watched. What I do remember is more often than not Peggy would fix us Hamburger Helper before they left. We never had it at home so it was something different. It seemed so cheap and easy. And as I watched the movie this morning, that vivid memory of Hamburger Helper on a Saturday night when I was 12 came back in a flood letting me know that she loved us and was telling us that before she left. Or so it seems to mean to me.
She entrusted one of the joys of her life to me and I took the responsibility very seriously. I would often try to keep him awake because I was afraid he'd stop breathing if he went to sleep. I would often wake him just to see if he was still breathing. So crazy I know. I can't count the times I just lay beside him to know he was ok in those short few hours on a Saturday night when I was responsible for his life.
Today, I find that I'm struggling often with all the daily responsibilities of life and work and fatherhood. It's like a big huge ferris wheel that I can't get off of right now and one that I can't stop. And isn't it odd that I got folks to go out to dinner with like last night for great Mexican food and I could fix a t-bone steak on the grill tonight or go out to breakfast at Cracker Barrel or lunch at the Varisty for dogs, onion rings and the best diet coke on earth but what would be really good, what would really be just the best thing ever...
is for someone to fix me some Hamburger Helper!
I stayed awake.
I thought the movie was interestingly strange and at times it started to make me and some of my deep thoughts seem very normal. I didn't feel as unique or different or unusual as the characters of the movie and in a way that was comforting.
I was getting deeper and deeper into the movie. I could tell.
I loved the part where "Blinded by the Light" played while Annette Henning (Deirdre) was dancing in the "snow" as it was failing from the ceiling.
The movie finally reached it's ultimate communication to me personally when Augusten asked Agnes to make him some Hamburger Helper. He's come full circle from the center of his biological mother's universe when the movie starts to needing another as she's removed herself from his life.
I wonder if that spoke to anyone else?
If you've seen it , did that speak to you at all?
I wonder if there were "profound" moments in the movie for you?
This is the scene. And the Mr. Blue song is great too!
I remember being 12 (or 13) and I was babysitting my cousin Alan. He was 10 years younger than me so that makes him 2 or 3. He was so little and such a sweet little kid. I would baby sit for my Aunt Peggy and Uncle Bruce when they would go out. It would just be Alan and I for a couple of hours and then he'd go to sleep. I don't remember if we watched tv. I think we did. I don't remember what we watched. What I do remember is more often than not Peggy would fix us Hamburger Helper before they left. We never had it at home so it was something different. It seemed so cheap and easy. And as I watched the movie this morning, that vivid memory of Hamburger Helper on a Saturday night when I was 12 came back in a flood letting me know that she loved us and was telling us that before she left. Or so it seems to mean to me.
She entrusted one of the joys of her life to me and I took the responsibility very seriously. I would often try to keep him awake because I was afraid he'd stop breathing if he went to sleep. I would often wake him just to see if he was still breathing. So crazy I know. I can't count the times I just lay beside him to know he was ok in those short few hours on a Saturday night when I was responsible for his life.
Today, I find that I'm struggling often with all the daily responsibilities of life and work and fatherhood. It's like a big huge ferris wheel that I can't get off of right now and one that I can't stop. And isn't it odd that I got folks to go out to dinner with like last night for great Mexican food and I could fix a t-bone steak on the grill tonight or go out to breakfast at Cracker Barrel or lunch at the Varisty for dogs, onion rings and the best diet coke on earth but what would be really good, what would really be just the best thing ever... is for someone to fix me some Hamburger Helper!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)