A Monday Morning Meme on Friday (instead of Fiction Friday)

Okay, Okay ... so it said it is a Monday Morning Meme but ...
it IS 4 o'clock in the morning ... on Friday ...
honestly, I just JUST now found out about it. On a quest for the missing Fiction Friday prompts I discovered the new home for them and decided I did not like this week's prompt. So I kept wandering around the site and discovered this:

July 14th Questions:
1. Do you ever change the ring tone on your phone? What is your current ring tone? What cell phone service do you use now? Are you happy with said service? What sort of phone do you have? Are you happy with your phone? How often do you use your cell phone in a 24-hour period?

On my home phone, I do occasionally change the ring tone. "When Irish Eyes ..." in March. "Fur Elise" for April. "Beep beep boop boop" tones fore July. Phone doesn't offer many options. "Old MacDonald" is a special tone that rings when a certain friend calls who has a goat herd ...
Cell phone? We got rid of the money sucking things. Wish everyone else would, too.
Satisfied with service? Heck, no. More trouble than they are worth.
When I had one, how often did I use it? Over the course of a month, it averaged out to about 16.2 seconds of usage in any 24-hour period. :-)

2. The year is half over (can you believe it?!) - think back, where were you at midnight, when it became 2008? If you made goals for ‘08, what were they and have you met them? What would you like to accomplish before ‘08 is over? Tell us ONE thing you absolutely MUST have done before the year is out.

Well, I think I resolved no to make any resolutions this year and haven't broken that one yet. LOL ...
Actually, I think I had a vague idea of wanting to accomplish something this year, even if I wasn't sure what it was. Maybe some writing goals; some art and crafting goals; some idea about getting organized. But nothing specific.
Where was I at midnight, December 31, 2007, and 12:01 AM January 1, 2008? Even though it was winter, I think I was out in our three-season porch just staring at the sky. If there were stars visible that night, I was marveling how many we can see out here on our hilltop. I had had some ideas of things we could have done that night, but in the end we stayed home and putzed about. Just another night like any other.
Why?
"His mercies are new EVERY day." I don't need to wait for one particular day of the year to think about new beginnings and restarts and building new plans and goals. Not only does every day offer another chance, every moment does.
What is one thing that must ABSOLUTELY be done before the end of the year? There are lots of things I'd love to see happen but I've gotten realistic about those kinds of things in my life and have given up on those kinds of expectations of success; I expect goals to remain unmet as a general rule. For some reason, I'm far more cynical than I ever was before and far more pessimistic as the days go by.

3. It’s Saturday – are you going to lounge around the house and be sloppy? Or are you going to be social and run errands and catch up with friends? Sloppy or social?

Maybe go see some friends, but they ahve a farm (see question 1); so it is not a get dressed up be super-social -- it's almost like still being at home in our own jammies still (though in reality, I don't wear my jammies out of the house but they are the most comfortable clothes in this house ...) Jeans and decent t-shirt are almost my usual "work" (at-home) uniform.

4. If you could live one day in the life of your favorite TV character, who would it be and why?

A favorite TV character? Do I even have a favorite TV character? When was the last time I watched TV?
This has been a very long time ago -- a show I used to watch when I got my first VCR and taped it from Nick At Night when that was really worth my time. Besides the Turkey TV program that I taped every night when I was at work so I could watch it when I go home, I taped Dobie Gillis. I can't remember the name of the character -- but the character that was played by ...
Well, went to the Net to look up the actor's name and got the character's name -- Maynard G. Krebbs ...
And Zelda -- loved her name more than her personality.
But Maynard. I loved his offbeat attitude and I-don't-care-what-other-people-think and I-don't-care-if-I'm-not-in-the-top-clique-group attitudes. While I was similar in those attitudes, I was really never so willing to really be myself completely or as flambouyantly as I would like.

Recent Photos -- Como Park Conservatory -- Spring Flowers Show

You Are 44% Weirdo

You're definitely quite strange, but you can act like a normal person when you have to. (But just because you can act normally, it certainly doesn't mean you want to!) You have normal aspects to your personality... but you usually don't choose to emphasize them.

Are You A Weirdo?

Win an iPod and a lot of books as Camy Tang Celebrates the release of her book SUSHI FOR ONE

Camy Tang's first book, Sushi for One, just came out. To celebrate (and to generate interest in the book) she is hostessing an awesome contest. The grand prize, first place winner, will receive an 8 GB iPod! Plus a lot of books (I didn't count them all ...)

For more information, and to enter, go here:
http://www.camytang.com/contest.html

You will need two things
- you'll need my email address to put in the contest entry form -- SuseADoodle at gmail.com. Please be sure to use that, okay?
- a Yahoo ID so you can join her Yahoo Group, Camy's Loft. And you will WANT to join her Yahoo group because every week she gives away books!

An author who whole-heartedly believes writers are readers too!

The contest runs till October 31, 2007.




The book sounds like a wonderful read. It is on my list of "GET THIS SOON!" Books and I've scheduled an afternoon to read it cover-to-cover. Want to know a little more about it? Check out:
http://christianfictionblogalliance.blogspot.com/2007/09/sushi-for-one-by-camy-tang.html
or
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310273986
or
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=273981&netp_id=479128&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW

FAIR TRADE CHOCOLATE EVENT

Who doesn't like chocolate? There are very few people who don't. (They were probably given chocolate as a kid but were told it was calves' liver or something like that.)

Did you know that about half of the world's chocolate is produced with slave labor? For more information, visit http://www.stopthetraffik.org/.

If you like to cook and would like to win a goodie bag of Traffik-Free Chocolate, stop over here: http://rkhooks.net/2007/09/03/stop-the-traffik-chocolate-event/

If you participate, stop back here.

In the comments section leave your name and the url to your blog post that you use to enter r k hooks' event, using Traffik-Free Chocolate.

I'll be posting this info about the event at each of my blogs. Feel free to leave your comment and link at each one. (One comment entry per blog please, though.) From all of the comments posted, there will be a random drawing and I'll send out a chocolate-related thank you to three winners.

One view ---

http://www.faithchick.com/ had this list of questions (answer them in their comments section or send them an e-mail and maybe you could be the "faithchick of the week). I'm not looking to be the anything-of-the-week. They looked like good questions though, so I "borrowed" them to answer them here:

1. Who are you? What's your passion? What makes you cuckoo?
2. Where do you live? Where do go to church? What do you do?
3. Who inspires you? What energizes you?
4. If you joined us for coffee, would you have: a) venti mocha, b) frothy frappaccino, c) green tea with honey or d) soy latte with cinnamon?
5. What version of the Bible do you read most? What's your favorite verse?

(I tried to get the permalink for you to their post with these questions, but ... I'm NOT a techno-dope but this time, I failed. Couldn't find the permalink even after clicking the word "permalink." Oh well. It's their Aug. 29, 2007, post if you care to go see the original.)

Okay, now for the answers.
1. Who am I? What's my passion? What makes me cuckoo?

You know, now I am wondering why I wanted to even think about answering these questions. I'm actually shy and don't like to draw attention to myself and generally I'm not very self-revealing until I get to know someone well enough to know if they meet my criteria to be considered "trustworthy" with my foibles and failings and hopes and dreams.

So, who am I? A phobe of sorts. Isn't that awful? This particular blob of DNA-scripted humanity answers to things like Susan, Sue, Su, Suse (rarely do I acknowledge Susie, though), or even "Hey you." My passion is -- hmm -- depends on the season or the month or the year -- it changes but things tend to reappear. Right now I am a writer, devouring space on the hard drive even faster than I destroyed nice clean white surfaces of notebook paper the last time I went through a writer "stage." It can quickly change back to hand-built pottery, doodling-is-my-art, quilting, crocheting, learning a new language, etc. I am made crazy by lies presented as truth and driven almost to the insane by the ease with which the liars get away with it.

2. Where do I live? Where do I go to church? What do I do?

I live in rural western Wisconsin, between Amery, Osceola, New Richmond and Balsam Lake -- in Garfield Township, just north of Wanderoos.
We bought our house about a year and a half ago. I left almost immediately after that to go be with my mom who was diagnosed with leukemia. I've been back here about a year (give or take a little time for a few trips back east to move things from mom's to here to get the house ready for sale), and we are still looking for a church home. A reader of one of my other blogs has suggested a church to visit and a building that has been for rent for a while just hung out a banner for a new church. Those two are definitely on my list of places to visit -- soon.
What do I do? **snicker** Ask my siblings and they'll say "nothing." But I write and actually have one WIP that has a very good possibility of being published as a serial novella; just have to finish it. I am also involved in direct sales of rubber stamps and supplies; plus actively making things for sale at autumn, winter and holiday craft sales. And there is a good chance that come next spring I will leave the direct sales company and start my own Internet-based rubber stamp company. Nothing like trying to juggle when even a Klutz(tm) book can't succeed in showing me how ... LOL!

3. Who inspires me? What energizes me?

Hmmm ... one of my inspirations has been Madeleine L'Engle and I was very sad to read this week that she had died. I may not always agree with everything I've read that she wrote, but I found her writing open and refreshing and full of insights.
I am inspired by the beauty of Nature, the quirkiness of the personalities of the wild animals that live around me, the awesome diversity and complexity of God's creation. I am energized by friends and creative people plus creative projects that get me so involved that I lose all sense of time and don't even get hungry (How about a book for the next diet craze "The Creative Project Diet"?).

4. If I joined the FaithChicks for coffee ... well, it better be some place that sells something other than green tea, coffee in all it's permutations, Italian sodas or mushroom tea. Soy latte? What is that? Whirled up soft tofu with a sprinkle of cinnamon on it to make you think it's a lukewarm milkshake or something? Sounds horrid. **shudder** I would either order a hot chocolate IF it is made with frothed milk and chocolate syrup (preferably a hot fudge type syrup and not from the can from the company with a town named after it with a spa where they will let you take a bath in chocolate and ride rides at the amusement park bearing the same name) and not from a packet of dry powder (I can do THAT at home); or I would order a Coke or bring my own. Sorry, I get my "Christian drug of choice" in a non-coffee version.

5. What version of the Bible do I read and what is my favorite verse?

I grew up on King James. Then my dad bought a Bible, newly published translation, at the County 4-H Fair (for $2!!!). It was quite a few years later that I started using that Bible. It was New Berkeley Version. To this day it is my favorite. Unfortunately, while in college I was leading a small group Bible study on campus and no one had that version. They all had NIV. I bought a New American Standard instead. That is my second favorite translation. Both of those Bibles have disappeared over the years, so I now have an inexpensive New Living Bible for reading and return to the KJV for deep study. Still trying to get a new copy of the New Berkeley / Berkeley translations (NB is New Testament, I think, and B is the Old Testament -- they were released for publication at different times almost a decade apart).

My favorite verse is one my husband loves too (though his favorite is a different one): So often the story of the Rich Young Ruler ends at "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." The story does not end there. It continues two more verses, and ends here: "...With men it is impossible, BUT not with God; for with God all things are possible." My hubby is right, when Jesus uses "BUT," we better listen to Him as well as everyone supposedly listened to EF Hutton when he was "talking." So, my favorite verse is Mark 10:27. I hope it is yours too!

Thankful Thursday

When I first discovered Thankful Thursdays, and then decided to try to remember to participate each week -- I had no idea it would be hard. Yeh, hard. Who knew? Of all the weekly prompts and challenges I've decided to try to keep up with, I figured this one would be the easiest thing around.

My life is blessed. Truly blessed.

So, what's the problem?

Me, I guess. **sigh**

I have this problem, built into my psyche -- and I don't know the best way to thwart it working so well in my life.

I tend to see the obstacles and not the open paths. I see the list of things that can go wrong and not the possible positive outcomes. It's as if every blessing has a hidden dark side just waiting to bite me. Or go sour. Or just turn-tail and run away. That's it. If I get too happy to have it in my life, it's going to go away. Better to ignore it and pretend it isn't there than to get too comfortable with it.

That just isn't the right way to see things, is it?

It is way too much like the response of the Israelites when the spies came back with the news of "giants in the land" -- and Jacob and Caleb said, "God can handle it." The Israelites seem to have forgotten about the crossing the sea on DRY land. They seem to forget His protection and love so quickly, so easily. They were easily overwhelmed by the enormity of the obstacles, or imagined obstacles, in the road ahead.

God calls us all, especially me, to trust Him. Trust that the road ahead is known to Him and He IS in control.

So, that's a long way to go to get to what I am thankful for.

And, funny, while I was typing this post, the phone rang and I almost ignored it. (Having said to "Zorba the Swede," [what my DH prefers I call him in my writing] that we should get rid of Caller ID since it works only about once in every hundred calls or so -- it actually worked this time and said it was my friend that I meet with weekly for chitchat and creative play.) I did answer the phone, and now 58 minutes later, we're off the phone.

And she brought up some of the things I was just writing about; you know, seeing obstacles instead of opportunities. Strange, huh? :-)

And, about trusting God when things get to be overwhelming. Hmm ...

See, I gave her a few books, on Creativity from the Christian perspective, for her birthday last week and she's been reading them. She had to read some good quotes out of them to me. (Maybe she'd trying to tell me I should be reading my copies of the same books?)

So, while I was thankful for friends in my last Thankful Thursday post, I am thankful again for friends. Friends who care and who are a gift to me from God.

We both know that God brought our lives together for a reason. We don't know the exact reason. But we know, "It's a God thing!"

I was a new student at the University of Minnesota. She was in the same art history class and sat right behind me. We got talking somehow and ... well, that was more than ten years ago. We didn't see each other for a few years after I left the U and moved from MN to WI. Then I got involved with The Angel Company(tm) and our Team met at a location only 15 minutes from my friend's house.

I'd been afraid to call her house because - well, I thought I had seen her about a year before that. We, Zorba and I, were buying plants at the nursery and there was this other couple buying plants. It was not her husband, but sure looked like her. Must have been her double -- she's never even heard of that nursery center. LOL. But, I didn't know it and was afraid to call her house and get her husband; didn't want to hear anything had happened between them.

So, I sent a note, Figured, if they had split, he would just send it back or burn it and that would be that. Got a call back, "SUE!!!! We have to get together!!! How soon can you get here?!?"

We got together.

My life is light on close friends. And almost as lightly touched by acquaintance-friends. So, a friend for me is a true gift and blessing.

The couple true-blue friends I do have are very special to me. I am thankful for them. THANKS, Sherry and Carol! And Annette is very special too. :-)

What else am I thankful for?

Well, did ya notice that I said Sherry called with quotes that went along with what I was thinking at the time?

Again, that's a "God thing!"

His timing. His presence in my life. How He hears me and "talks" to me to show me things I need to know about myself, others, the world around me, and mostly about Him. Things that help me learn to trust Him more and more all the time.

His patience with me. His love for me.

His faithfulness to me. How He has held me close through all these years, even when my faith was based on a wrong foundation, He held me fast, not willing to let me crumble as the foundation crumbled. He is holding me up while the foundation is being rebuilt that I might stand fast in Him.

It was a great book, and I identify with the title so well: Soul Survivor by Phillip Yancey. When there are so many things that could shake our faith in God and destroy our connection to Him, He holds us and shows us the errors and the truth -- if we are willing to look for the truth.

I am thankful for God's hands in my life, the gifts He gives, the blessings, the talents, the dreams, the calling and mission, the friends He sets beside me on the road of life; His willingness to be patient and kind to a stupid, dolt like me. (Stupid because maybe if I looked more at Him and less at the road ahead, I would see the Opportunities instead of the Obstacles ...)