What I have learned

Friday, November 8, 2013

Tell us what you've learned so far about daily blogging.

First of all, This is not my first rodeo. I have blogged daily on several occasions. It has taught me to expect the unexpected, learn to do post scheduling and to try not to stress when things go wrong.  

Don't worry, be happy.

Switching Names

Thursday, November 7, 2013

If you had to switch your first name, what name would you choose and why?

This one is EASY!

I would like to be known as Victoria.

That's the name I chose for myself as a child after watching one of my favorite Western TV shows, The High Chaparral.  I loved Victoria and her brother Manuel (Manny). I think this fueled my fascination with the Mexican culture in general. 

The High Chaparral

Changing Yourself

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

First I need to decide if this is a physical or mental change...hmmmmmm.  I guess I will take the risk of angering the blogging police and answer twice.

Physically I would change my weight. Well of COURSE I would. I am tired of being labeled fat. I walk more and eat better but I am still over weight. So I would like to slim down by about 50 lbs please.

Mentally I would like to lose the fear of man I still have at times. It's a religious thing. I should pray for Holy Spirit more often.

*Sits back and waits for blogging police because she said TWO things she'd like to change about herself

My writing Space (joke ha!)

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Tell us about your writing space. Where do you write your blog posts?

First off, calling this a writing space is ridiculous. It's a MESS! No matter how hard I try to keep it clean and tidy I fail. Fail I say.

Right now I  have on this table I use for a computer desk:

1. A piece of   a blouse someone gave me with embroidery and pearls on it
2. A dozen buttons I cut off other blouses while adding to my crazy quilt fabric stash
3. Tei-Fu oil
4. Allergy medicine
5. Nasal spray
6. Bottle of pain reliever tablets
7. Old cell phone I keep for addresses
8. Current cell phone
9. Paring knife
10. Shot glass from Niagara Falls
11. Fortune from fortune cookie
12. Nail polish
13. A thumbtack
14. A knitting needle sizer
15. Doily pattern
16. Doily being made from that pattern
17. Deck of playing cards with Illini on the Back (my mom's) 
18. Two extra playing cards 4 and 5 of spades
19. 2 GB Sd card
20. Two memory sticks that equal 1 GB together
21. An unplugged webcam
22. Two Rossville-Alvin Yearbooks 1974 and 1975
23. Business cards
24. Medical alert bracelet
25. A cough drop
26. Two sticks of gum
27. A dime
28. Two bobby pins
29. Yellow quilting straight pin
30. Field service report slips
31. Dr.s Appt card (for last month)
32. Small wad of thick yarn
33. Large paper clip
34. Thank you card from my nephew and his wife
35. Coffee cup with pens, pencils,hole punch, chopsticks, crochet hooks, a ruler, an emery board
36. 5 pennies
37. Guitar picks
38. Fingernail clippers
39. Extra SD card reader
40. Small notepad
41. Crocheted hat with alien eyes
42. Blue hair comb
43. Picture of a friend taken in 1986
44. Some plastic things from a canvas I don't know how to use
45. Mix tape from 1997
46. Book of poems I wrote
47. Brochure for Bible study Thursday nights
48. Brochure for fabric store
49. Pierced ear care booklet
50. Another crochet pattern

I'm stopping at 50. No I will NOT take a picture hahahahaha! Yes, I will clean my desk off but what's the point? If you look far enough back in my blog you will fins a similar post anyway. Some things never change.

We should love them Unconditionally

Monday, November 4, 2013

Who is your favourite character of all time?

This young man...Yes, he had some trouble but that doesn't mean I don't love him with all my heart. Who among us has not had trouble?

LIke a Little Girl

That's how I felt yesterday, like a little girl, waiting to get her ears pierced...yikes! Afterwards I got a sucker lol.

The return of the Lost Poems

Yeah so...no prompts on the weekend. I guess I'll go with what I started when I found that notebook last month.

This little Haiku was written for a the dog I eventually took my Nickname, Dances with Pit Bulls, from. She was a long legged brindle pit named Diane. I have no picture of her and that makes me sad.




With high voice barking
With sharp tail wagging
Diane keeps us up all night

How I would Spend 1 Million Dollars in One Day

NOV. 1: If you found one million dollars in the morning and had to spend it by nightfall, what would you do with the money?

Easy...buy my kids each a house and new car. Buy myself a house and car. Take trip with rest of money assuming there is any. 

Alternate spending scenario...give everyone I know $10,000 until it was all gone. Trust me I have that many friends and family!

 Next question/prompt please.

Stepping Up for November

I talked to a friend who surprised me by saying he read my blog now and then. That in itself did not motivate me to write more but tonight I got an email from BlogHer that promised writing prompts from NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month) Ok I will try. I will try and even if I fail I will hold my head up and take stupid pictures of myself to direct your attentions away from my failures HA!

Forgotten Poems Day 3

Indigo Blue       Oct 7, 1981

This is of promises
Turned indigo blue
Whenever it happens
I think of you
The times that we had
Still shine in my head
There are so many things
I wish I had said
And then when the ocean
Turns indigo blue
Again I find myself
Thinking of you
The words and the silences
Were one between us
The touching, the holding
And sometimes the lust
No one understood
How we felt, me and you
In our own little world
Of indigo blue

 It's a secret who this is about but there are more poems dedicated to that person coming up. Looking back, yeah I'm seeing why it didn't work, but man was it painful for a few intense years wondering what could have been.

Forgotten Poems Day 2

1977

Future Premonitions
           (To a Milkweed)

How much will the
common milkweed
have evolved in
three million years?

Will its ivory white
sap have turned
green as the result
of too many radioactive
particles in the air?

Will it have shrunk
to the size of the
Lilliputians of
Gulliver's Travels
or will it
have grown to giant
proportions to become
the national tree
of some future nation?

Ok so how corny was that? This reminded me of something that happened while I was living in Colorado Springs. I was out for a walk one day when I saw some milkweeds actually being grown as ornamentals. Coming from farmland USA it was WEIRD to the max. I stopped to smell the milkweeds every time I saw them after that. They are quite fragrant.

The Forgotten Poems Day 1

OMG seriously o.m.g.

I got most of the rest of my stuff out of my daughter's shed yesterday and I went through a tub and found a book of my poems dated 1977-1991. I had forgotten all about them. I think I'll blog them for posterity since the only thing I can leave my kids and grandkids are youtube videos and facebook crap.

I must have been a senior in high school when I wrote this first one:

Para Tu

When the flame
goes out
what is left?
A mere puff
of smoke
or is it
something more,
something no one
will ever understand?

For a fleeting
moment
its presence
is felt
and then
it's gone too.

Relief.
The body
relaxes
sinking slowly
into a state
of quiet
peacefulness
and the mind
is
at
rest.

The NIGHT of the BAT

Imagine if you will a cool rainy night in May. The sounds of a small city, amplified by the damp air, drifting through your open window. Sleep evades you until well after the Witching Hour. You finally drift off but awaken at 2:46 AM hungry and in need of a pee. Yogurt, potty and back to bed. Thankfully sleep visits quickly this time.

4:09 AM- you awake again , not sure why. Suddenly something whizzes by your face! You watch in horror as a small fluttering figure circles the room, barely visible in the gloom, and you remember the words of your friend..."HERE THERE BE BATS!"

We were talking about mosquitoes when the subject came up. "No mosquitoes here, the bats keep them down and oh ,by the way, they get into the house. Is that going to be a problem for you?" Wait...what?

I guess I really didn't believe her. I had never seen a bat in a house (I did see one in a Catholic Church once during a funeral but that's another story). She even showed me THE BAT NET once while we were watching Dancing With the Stars. THE BAT NET is a large fishing net she uses to capture the naughty the naughty bats that dare come in. She releases them back into the wilds here in beautiful Danville IL (ha!) so they can continue to keep us fairly mosquito free.

 I watched the bat fly around and around until it spiraled into the ceiling fan and was thrown with a thud against the closet door.

"Good- I hope it stays down."

It didn't.

It fluttered and flopped and resumed it's endless circling, coming way too close to me for comfort. I knew I should just get up and go get THE BAT NET but being the little girl that I am I just laid there and quietly FREAKED OUT. I covered up completely with the sheet and Grandma Inez's yellow quilt and promptly had a hot flash. Great, terrific, wonderful. I waited it out then got chilled from the evaporating sweat. Lovely, just freaking perfect.The bat now seemed to be trying to escape, (how did you get in here anyway? I need to know!!) and was making a racket louder than would allow me to ever get back to sleep. I put a pillow over my head to try to drown out the noise because I didn't want to expose my arm long enough to reach for the ear plugs on the nightstand. It didn't help. I braved exposure long enough to turn the window fan on, half for the white noise and half in hopes it would frighten the creature downstairs. I got so cold I had to sit up and find the other quilt. I had just settled back down when....

SILENCE! NO BAT NOISES!

OK where is it? Kitchen, stairway, bathroom? Oh crap what if it's in the bathroom? I NEED TO PEE AGAIN!

15 more agonizing minutes, no BAT NOISES. Oh hell, I might as well get up. No sense in peeing the bed and having to deal with that mess.. The sun is coming up and I can see pretty well but I flipped the bathroom light on anyway and peered inside. NO BAT- YAY!

Did my thing and crept into the kitchen to make coffee- NO BAT YAY!

remembered I was cold and went to get my robe from off the back of the bedroom door and THERE IT WAS hanging in the corner...silent...motionless...UGLY!!!!

It's still there. I'm too exhausted to go o get THE BAT NET.

A Plethora of Pretty Pillow Tops

And it continues. The piecing and embellishing of the pillows. Next step....get the backs on them. Any questions?

The Making of the New Old Pillows

You didn't seriously think I went away never to return did you? I'm just busy. Really Busy. Here's a little taste of just one of my projects. 

Not only am I sewing again I have been quite the social butterfly. So fear not...I am here, I am creating and I'll try to tear myself away from it all to share it with you!