An overnight sensation.

People in this town, to swoop into huge generalization mode, are either natives (not that many) or people with a plan. They're here to be discovered. And a whole lot of them don't deserve to be, or won't work hard enough, or don't have the right look (yep, it does come down to that), or their skin isn't thick enough, they aren't unique enough, they're too unique and can't easily be categorized, etc.

Hey, I have to count myself among those who moved here with a plan. Actually, I visited Schmoozic City five years before I actually moved here. My goal was to become a record executive type. Yep, I did it. And now it's in my rear view mirror, off to a different calling.

The other day we met a musician in our neighborhood. An actual working musician. They call this city "Music City" on purpose, but a recent statistic stated that we have the most working musicians of any city in America--yep, more than New York or the city of angels. This, however, is deceptive...if I recall correctly, the survey said that this meant .6 of a percentage in this town actually made their living being a musician.

Which brings me to Keith Urban.

That guy played gigs in this town for eons, with some local following, but no major impact. He even signed with a good sized label, but no major impact there. He moved here sixteen years ago, and for most of that time labored in obscurity.

All of a sudden, it seemed, things exploded for him. And now Mr. Nicole Kidman is a superstar, and still hangs out in local venues because that's how we are in Music City--virtually paparazzi free, and not swarmed by residents. We treat famous people like that almost universally, so when Keith and Nicole want to go out to Bread and Company, or go see a movie, or go to Bed Bath and Beyond, we leave them the heck alone. I know when I saw Ronnie Dunn at kiddo's cross country meets, or sat next to Darrell Waltrip at one of kiddo's soccer games, I left them the heck alone...and so did everyone else.

But the bottom line was, Keith labored for a long, long time without anyone noticing to speak of. Yeah, he was cute back then too...so that's not it. Perhaps he made it partially because he was like us: TSTQ. That's our acronym around here: depending on the day we call it "Too Stubborn To Quit" or "Too Stupid to Quit."

That's certainly part of how hubs and I have stayed together twenty five years, at least some segment of it. Although I have to say--how could ANYONE stay together without God? That puzzles me, frankly...

So to the story at hand. Last Monday was a horrifically despairing day. We didn't see any way to get from the crises that had lingered like bad odors, some for many months, and no way out. Then in the span of thirty-six hours last Tuesday and Wednesday, we had five important positive things happened that gave us great hope, comfort, and provision. All after striving for a couple of years on some of it.

I had pleaded to God to show me what to do next, actually yelled at Him, knowing from the Psalms that He can take it. That was cathartic in a way, but still no word. Then all of a sudden...wow. Hubs and I could see the effort that we had been putting in for so long come together, in a great relief. I can see this being the time of blessing that equals the time of suffering that the writer in Psalm 90 talks about. So grateful, thankful, joyous...can't begin to put words to it that truly describe the place we reside right now.

Hey, we can't sing like Keith Urban, but we know what "overnight success" feels like. God has very interesting timing, and does quite an admirable job showing that it is indeed God's work. At the same time, waiting for resolution/blessing/provision to rain down on one's head without doing the work one can do and needs to do is a pretty much pointless activity (or lack thereof).

If you've been praying for us, we are truly grateful. Thanks.

By request: Anniversary Pasta Salad

Let's take a break from the madness. I need one, you do too? Okay, how about cooking something summery? Put those crises in a pillowcase, thrash them about a bit, and then tie the top. Yeah, they'll escape soon enough, but at least right now they're chewing on each other trying to get out.

Okay, off to the kitchen. I think both cooking and baking can be therapeutic for different reasons. Baking: reassuring and orderly. Cooking: a whack on the side of the head, a jolt that might get me thinking differently about the problem(s) and possibly come up with other ideas.

This is a salad I threw together for our 25th anniversary party. I consider cooking an art and baking a science. In other words, baking is almost uniformly a science experiment, i.e. combine the exact ingredients in the exact measure in the exact conditions (humidity, heat, etc.) and you should have a baked good emerge from your efforts. Baking is very gratifying because it doesn't fall along the realm of unpredictability, by and large. Do these exact things, and you should end up with the baked good of your dreams.

On the other hand, I consider cooking an art. Throw in a little of this and a little of that, and see what you come up with. Keep track of what you did, or you'll never be able to replicate it again. Or intentionally DON'T keep track, and enjoy a one time adventure.

Here's the ingredients. Need I say that they are open to experimentation, and you'll have to come up with the amounts yourself? It wouldn't be an art otherwise, would it?

Here are my suggestions:

Pretty pasta. I used Neptune's Dream pasta (photo and vendor shown), but of course that's all up to you. I like the multicolored aspect, but you could always go monochromatic.
Pesto dressing. I just used Kraft.
Roasted red peppers
Chopped green pepper
Black olives
Artichoke hearts
Basil (yeah, I added some more) and extra virgin olive oil
Chopped garlic cloves
Crumbled feta cheese
Chopped vidalia onions
Salt, pepper, whatever other seasonings suit you.

Okay, run with it, and make something exclusively your own. Not necessarily a substitute for therapy, but a heck of an adjunct. :-)

King's Island...

ain't got nothin' on us. Hangin' on. These past few days have been a wild ride.

The last twenty four hours...

...have been a great encouragement. A couple of things we have labored over for months, one for over a year, have started to show signs of life and positive motion. Perhaps remembering the psalm about continuing to sow seed despite many tears of despair has been the great comfort and encouragement we needed. God is at work, which I knew intellectually but not in the deep core of my being. My heart's getting some much needed encouragement today and I am so grateful.

Perhaps this is a good moment to share something I wrote the other day before this all happened.

The rain, whether from the sky or from my eyes, almost always happens on a dark and gloomy day. If my heart is like receptive soil, and not hardened, I can receive something helpful and nurturing from the rain, rather than having it roll off without benefit. I can actually grow and not just be eroded and swept away.

Some good news...

...not the major stuff, but something that will help.

I'm sorry, I know I sound cryptic sometimes. Many difficulties surround the kiddo, and since kiddo isn't our kiddo, if you know what I'm saying, discretion is the better part of valor. Not things to be posted on a blog, and yet I feel the need to emote about them. If you stopped by my blog, and indulged me the chance to emote, I thank you from the bottom of my pea-pickin' heart.

Lord, I'm grateful for the reminder that you are working things out for our good. Now, please show me what to do, in Your time. Thanks.

Quotes of the day...

--I can feel guilty about the past, apprehensive about the future, but only in the present can I act. The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.

--If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.

--A first rate soup is better than a second rate painting.

--We may define therapy as a search for value.

--He that is good with a hammer tends to think everything is a nail.

--What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself.

--A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we call self-actualization.

--If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim. And I'd despise the one who gave up.


Abraham Maslow

I liked this

Warning, it's political. I did say I'd largely stay out of politics, right? Back to the regularly scheduled life of nashbabe...

Sow on, sow on...

It seemed like a dream, too good to be true, when God returned Zion's exiles.
We laughed, we sang,
we couldn't believe our good fortune.
We were the talk of the nations—
"God was wonderful to them!"
God was wonderful to us;
we are one happy people.

And now, God, do it again—
bring rains to our drought-stricken lives
So those who planted their crops in despair
will shout hurrahs at the harvest,
So those who went off with heavy hearts
will come home laughing, with armloads of blessing.

Psalm 126 ("The Message" -- Eugene Peterson)

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair. -- Edmund Burke

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. -- from the book of Galatians

Defeat


Defeat, my Defeat,
my solitude and my aloofness.
You are dearer to me
than a thousand triumphs,
and sweeter to my heart
than all world glory.

Defeat, my Defeat,
my self-knowledge and my defiance.
Through you I know that
I am yet young and swift of foot
and not to be trapped
by withering laurels.
And in you
I have found aloneness
and the joy of
being shunned and scorned.

Defeat, my Defeat,
my shining sword and shield.
In your eyes I have read
that to be enthroned
is to be enslaved,
and to be understood
is to be levelled down,
and to be grasped
is but to reach one's fullness
and like a ripe fruit
to fall and be consumed.

Defeat, my Defeat,
my bold companion,
you shall hear my songs
and my cries and my silences,
and none but you shall speak to me
of the beating of wings,
and urging of seas,
and of mountains
that burn in the night,
and you alone shall climb
my steep and rocky soul.

Defeat, my Defeat,
my deathless courage,
you and I shall laugh together
with the storm,
and together we shall dig graves
for all that die in us,
and we shall stand
in the sun with a will,
and we shall be dangerous.

"Madman" 1918 --Kahlil Gibran


I'll make up for the years of the locust,
the great locust devastation—
Locusts savage, locusts deadly,
fierce locusts, locusts of doom,
That great locust invasion
I sent your way.
You'll eat your fill of good food.
You'll be full of praises to your God,
The God who has set you back on your heels in wonder.
Never again will my people be despised.
You'll know without question
that I'm in the thick of life with Israel,
That I'm your God, yes, your God,
the one and only real God.
Never again will my people be despised.

from the book of Joel ("The Message" -- Eugene Peterson)

Haven't I been quoting that last one a whole lot, God? I don't understand, but I'll do my best to keep sowing. If something grows, that would really help me keep flinging the seed. Thanks.

That's about the extent of it...

They wonder why people don't vote...in droves.

I have been very well behaved about my lack of political blogging, in light of current events around my domicile and nearby domiciles. :-) However, I may have to go into defense mode rather than remaining like the Swiss. I won't be doing it on this board, though. This was probably my only other political post of the year.

The last straw.

After a night of watching kiddo and hubs bowl in their league (a silly, strangely out of place activity that has become kind of a "family" bonding experience despite its low level of intellectual pursuit--and we're a "family" of sorts, aren't we?), I went outside to the car and realized that someone had stolen the logo off the trunk. It was pretty obvious, a trio of finger marks in the light layer of dust surrounding where the logo had been.

Good grief, people, it's an early 90's Honda. How could that be something worth stealing?

I'm sure they thought it wasn't that big of a deal, didn't even think of the ramifications for me. But the main thing was that it was the last straw. I was already stressed, angry, searching for answers, continually trying to put all the junk back in God's hands where it belongs. But this could have just pushed me over the edge.

Later, I thought about the small hurtful, insensitive, or possibly injurious things I have likely done, really without regard for others. It didn't seem like much at the time, but for all I know it could have been the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were. I do tend to walk on eggshells because of my family history, but we all veer toward Self-Centered Land, and it gave me pause. At least by this stupid situation I was reminded to go as gently as I can into the world and be as helpful and complimentary as I can.

And by the way, the fabulous nashbabe (that would be me) ventured to the auto parts store all by her lonesome, picked out the needed products to fix and reasonably seal/paint the affected area, and am finishing the repair later today. Won't be perfect, but it will be reasonably mended, and I'm fairly certain that rain water won't leak into the trunk as it would if I just ignored the problem.

So that's not all bad.

Prayer of Thomas Merton

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

It would seem that deja vu is here again

Haven't I already said that it was rough, really rough, and seemingly getting rougher? Yet, here I am again saying it's getting even rougher. Will it ever get any better? I am trying to have hope.

I am so grateful for all the people who are helping us, sending notes of comfort, strengthening us. It is very hard right now, but imagine how hard it would be if they were not here lifting us up?

Also, I don't even want to think of where I would be right now if I wasn't walking and walking and walking some more. I am walking 45-60 minutes a day, four-six times a week. Yeah, pudgy Clydesdale nashbabe is doing that. Hard to believe. Never thought I could do this, but I am. Now I can't imagine not doing it. Frankly, I need it. It IS changing my life, I have to admit. Now I hope that in all this chaos, I won't be forced to give it up. I need some protection, Lord, and deep inside I know you are protecting me, but frankly, I feel pretty vulnerable right now to the storms. Hurricane Dolly ain't got nothin' on them, unfortunately.

A difficult part of all this is that I'm trying to hold my hubs up through this madness, really by necessity, but I can't really hold myself up. Really stinks to both be going through such difficulty. I am so tired of saying this. I thought things were going to calm down, and I know pretty much every friend in the book has to be tired of nashbabe and hubs' problems. I know I am. I feel stupid for having these problems, but in my more rational moments I know that they are largely if not exclusively outside stressors being dumped on us.

There are four, no, five things weighing down heavily on us. Any one of them would be considered a difficult, crisis type situation on their own. All of them together is madness.

The good part is I am stronger now than last year, in order to deal with them. It does seem like the problems haven't abated much in the past year in particular, and seem to be worsening. I'm grateful that I have some stress management in place now that I haven't had before. Growing up with nearly constant abuse gives a person weird ideas...like they deserved it, like there is no possible situation where one should attend to one's needs. After all, you are crap, and the abuser will remind you of that on a regular basis, even after you have severed contact. At least I'm learning to care for myself. Lord, I hope I do it for the right reasons, and not just to be strong enough to care for others.

I'm reading Psalm 42 a lot, too. Lord, please help me through this. I don't even know how I'm still standing. Surely it's time for a break from this heavy, depressing stuff. Please. I'm begging you. But even if it can't change, please stay really close to me and help me right now. Thank you, amen.

Enough musing, praying, and crying for tonight. Off to make every attempt to get some rest.