Prayers and Blessings to the People of Asia

For the first time in my life, I can truly say that I'm glad to see the year come to an end. This past twelve months has been difficult for me and even tragic for many people I know and love. The coup de grace was the horrible tsunami the day after Christmas. My heart and prayers go to all who were affected by it. How do you pray for 80,000 people I wondered, then watched as the count continued to climb.

Soon the media will begin saying how badly the relief efforts are going, but as I looked at the pictures on CNN, all I could think of was, "where do you start?" As I pray for the victims, and their families and friends, for the lives that have been taken and those that will soon be lost from the after effects of the tidal wave, I will also pray for the survivors and the people who offer to help. My prayer is that God will give each one the strength to begin life again in 2005. Through my tears I ask God to bless every one of you.

The Child Within

The day after Christmas and I'm at home searching for the perfect creative project for the spare hours remaining to me in December and the upcoming month of January. I have a mini teapot stuffed with writing prompts, which is a gift from an on-line friend, two novels in progress, my website, several drawing ideas, a lovely stack of unread books next to my reading chair, and an idea for an altered book. I'm considering using embroidery to decorate the pages and I have no thread. Naturally, this is the project that's calling to me!

Does this remind anyone else of a child surrounded by Christmas toys, tugging on mama because she's bored?

How embarrassing!

Merry Christmas!

A Blessed and Merry Christmas to all who read my blog and to all who don't!

I thank God for the joy, hope and peace of being a Christian and of knowing that nothing can ever separate me from the love of God.

Joy to the world and peace and blessings to all our people in the military. I pray you will return to your loved ones soon. God bless you!

I'm Feeling Much Better Now.

Sometimes all it takes is a baked potato.

Procrastination

I'm supposed to be writing my nano novel, or doing any of a dozen other practical things that desperately need doing around the house. Why am I here? It's either this or the chocolate chip cookies. I baked them yesterday and gave myself permission to eat six a day. I just finished the seventh. Okay, confession is good for the soul and I've confessed. Back to the novel.

Word Lover

I'm a word lover--a reader, writer, talker. I love words in any form: fiction, essay, poetry, conversation, anecdote, lyric. Foreign words like pamplemousse, (grapefruit in French)and miercoles (Wednesday in Spanish) delight my mouth and my ear. Surnames challenge me to discover their meanings: Guttschmidt, (German for good smith)Kaminski, (Polish for Stone.)

The only word I truly hate is the *f* word.

Its meaning is foul and the very sound of it is displeasing, hard, guttural, and angry sounding to my ears. Everywhere I go I hear it, even from children in grade school, and I'm puzzled by its appeal.

I once got so annoyed at a co-worker's constant use of it, despite the fact that I'd asked him politely to refrain from saying it around me, that I told him I considered it "verbal rape" and that its only legitimate use would be if he came home and discovered his wife in bed with another man. His jaw fell open and I realized he actually found speaking without it nearly impossible.

You'd think that any word that could be used as so many different parts of speech would elicit my admiration. Sorry, but no. Why rely on constant repetition when the world's full of glorious evocative words? Is it laziness? Ignorance? A lack of education? A glitch in the brain? Is that really how people want to be perceived?

What a shame. What a lack of imagination.

Nanowrimo Time

My mind loves to go off on a tangent, to stray off target. It tends to get seduced and captured by random thoughts. It yearns desperately to ditch the current idea and delve into something (anything) more fascinating than what I'm committed to writing. Index cards come in handy. I write a word, a question, a sentence, put it aside, and get back on track.

Life's like that, going off on tangents, being seduced by things that take you away from the task at hand. My task right now is Nanowrimo. No, it's not baby talk, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and I'm signed up to write a 50,000 word novel in November. I'm behind and I probably won't make the goal, but I'm committed to giving it my best shot.

So why am I here? Because this blog is my pack of index cards, a place where I can get the surplus thoughts out of my head so I can get back to whatever it is I should be working on. Done. I'm outta' here. It's nano time!