There is nothing more soothing than waking up on your own, no alarm clock and no husband telling you to get out of bed, beginning your day with willingness and having a storm roll in to drop water steady on the tin roof. This morning no one is here with me. It is just me and Mikey who is the best dog in the world. It was such a warm morning that I went out to brush my teeth outside. I know that is weird, but my husband doesn't like the dog in the house and so when I want to pet the dog, I go out on the front stoop. It just happened this time to coincide with me brushing my teeth.

Then I started to clean. I was just so willing to clean my house, that I didn't even notice that is what I was doing. I don't normally enjoy cleaning so much, but lately, I am finding that if I will listen to my insides of willingness, it is amazing what gets done. So this morning after my morning prayers and teeth brushing, I was willing to clean. I did dishes (which for those who don't know, we are a little farm house and a dishwasher would not match the place, so we hand wash all of our dishes around here: thus the necessity for willingness!). I even stripped the bed and threw in a load of laundry with the sheets. I now know why I don't have any socks. I look forward to having every pair I own in about an hour or so. Yesterday, I was not willing to do all that. It feels good to naturally do something instead of doing something while being unwilling. That resistance of not wanting to makes the task so painful.

As I was cleaning, a storm literally rolled in like you hear about in a Garth Brooks song. It was such a pleasant thing, not scary at all. You can see the cusp of the storm out my kitchen window and just beyond are the mountains. It was beautiful. I love the way the rain sounds on the tin roof. People try to record that sound, but I don't know that its possible. The only downside to the rain is that it brings mud to the spring where our water for the house is drawn. That means no more laundry because the water will be to muddy to wash with, but maybe that is not such a bad thing. It also means no drinking water for about a day or two until the mud cleans out. Thus the reason for bottled water.

I am slowly beginning to like living out here at the farm. There are still things that I want to do in order to get it into a home instead of a bachelor pad, but they will come in time.

I get to go be a maid of honor today. Meg has an appointment with my favorite florist, Gertie Mae's, for her wedding flowers. Meg and I were on the phone until two in the morning looking at bride's maid dresses on-line. She is so funny about her tastes. She and I totally don't agree in that area, so when I see something I don't like I would tell her about it and sure enough, she loves it. My understanding is that is the traditional way it should be. Bridesmaids never like the dresses. Meg wants us to have a dress that we would wear again, but there is nothing about taupe or peach that I would ever wear again. Oh well. It is a good thought. The really nice thing is that she finds the best deals on things so it will probably be the least amount I will ever pay for a dress of any kind not to mention for a bridesmaid dress. She is a thrifty thing. I am grateful to be of service to her. She is my best friend and it is not often that she'll let you love her.

I have also found an old friend again. I love that. My brother says that love has no time boundaries. This gal that I found loves me just like she did when we lived together. It's as though nothing changed. How wonderful to love and be loved.

That is kind of how I felt about the storm. It felt like I was being wrapped in a grey cloud of loving arms. It was calm and peaceful despite the thunder and lightening. I used to be afraid of lightening until I was taught how it worked. My Dad taught me how to count the lightening from the thunder to know how close it is on the screened in porch on the black iron swing at the Avondale house. Maybe that is why I like the storm is because I don't feel alone, rather have the warm loving memory from a time ago.

With limited commercial interuptions...

Spring Break is over and nothing got done that I'd hoped would get done.

Watched "War of the Worlds" at home by myself in creeky farm house...bit scarier that way.

Hoosiers makes me feel like home.

Two job apps out for summertime work.

Zertek is tada for my allergies.

Thank goodness for working out. Didn't know I'd miss until it was gone.

Won a roundtrip ticket to anywhere in the US via Airtran. Thought they were lieing, but they weren't. Cool.

Took alumni survey. How do you tell your school that you got nothing out of your academics but had the best time of your life overall except that slight little problem with low self esteem and incomprehensible demoralization?

It snowed today around two thirty, so much for spring. My dogs are so cold they wouldn't leave my mudroom. They are huddled together on a blanket but don't tell John because he'll say I'm a softee. (Hinkley that means you.)

Sunrise, Sonrise. Good sermon on Sunday.

Easter was noisy. Trumpet, french horn and bad choir in balcony that you could have heard from across the street. Lots of family, lots of food, lots of youngin's.

This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.

And the winners of the 1963 Sunfun Fest Shag contest are....

I have had a sleepover without any guests in my house. It has been rather strange. My house is messy, I have eaten whatever and whenever I wanted. I have stayed in my pjs and watched movies all day. Last night I stayed up late: midnight! And slept in late: eight am! It totally feels like a sleep over. Except, the sleepovers that I remember, I stayed up until 4 am and then was a brat the next day instead of sleeping in. I remember at Lea Anne's birthday sleepover where we all tried to stay up the latest and this gal who went to bed first woke up around two. She was so afraid that she couldn't go back to sleep, she couldn't go back to sleep. That is when I found out that Lea Anne liked to spin pillows with her feet.

The last sleepover I had was with Megan. She was so excited to come spend the night with me. She was like a little girl all over again. It was a great opportunity to become better friends.

I guess a sleepover with no people means that I got a better opportunity to know myself. My list of movies alone tells me something about me:

Private Benjamin (w/Goldie Hawn and not the movie I thought it would be)
Waitress
Man in the Moon
Serenity
SHAG, the movie

I especially liked SHAG because it reminded me of Lea Anne. She and I actually went to Myrtle Beach my senior year of highschool for spring break. I don't remember a whole lot about it other than I think we had fun.

I really needed a day off. Thank God for Spring Break.

...couple number 12!

I have decided that the fashion industry is totally looped, smashed, stumbling through life with unfounded reasoning in the direction they take. Totalled. Totally.

I went to the store today because John says that my new pair of jeans that are a size smaller than my old jeans are already too big. Okay, so I just spent $29.99 on left over wedding gift card money on these jeans that went out of size so I am not willing to spend that much again. So I say to myself, no sense in practicing impractical behavior; I will try something new. I will go get clothing from goodwill. Even better, I will get clothing from goodwill in PTC where the rents live because that is where the rich people are and good name brands will be there.

Mom and I go to "Well Spring" a gently used clothing store across the street from her house. It is THE nicest thrift store I have ever been in, even better than the one in Savannah where I bought super nice clothes for five bucks. It had good organization, well designed displays and kind sales people. Mom and I found one pair of jeans (*ranglers) in a size smaller than the pair I had on and two pair (Arm*ni & G^P) in the size I am currently in with the thinking that maybe my jeans are overwashed or something. Arm*ni, I couldn't get a leg in and G^P, I got two legs in but couldn't get them buttoned (what's the point in getting the legs in if it won't button?). Both are the size of the pair of jeans I bought at Macys, (Leevi 550). Neither fit. These are the two that have "clout" in the fashion industry. Maybe not the G^P, but definitely Armani. Fashion--eers are stupid. The wranglers, size smaller than Leevis 550, fit like a glove. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Since others are in the business of controversy, I thought I'd give it a try. Of course today would be a slow news day. The AJC had three sections today and the lead story was a commuter car-pool story (not a whole lot controversy on people trying to make the world a better place). Even Cnn had a hard time coming up with news. Luckily, they are resourceful.

They carried a story on a (R) representative who was speaking her mind about "gay lifestyle" and got caught on tape. The weak part of the story is that she is not a US Representative, she is a state representative from Oklahoma. Obviously nothing happening in any of the campaign states so I guess Cnn had to get creative...

The fun controversial part is that she compares gays to terr*ists. It is odd actually to think of gays as terr*ists, pretty big stretch.

The story states: She was invited to a meeting with other (R)'s and vocalized her opinions on the gay lifestyle. What she didn't know was that someone in the room had hidden a digital recorder. She was very outspoken on the topic to the point of calling gays terr*ists. Someone took the hidden recording and turned it into a UTube broadcast. There are people in the UTube broadcast holding up signs saying "I'm listening." One of the local gay & lesbian local organization is calling for her apology. She rebuts that she was vocalizing her beliefs as a Christian, they are not necessarily her legislative beliefs. She also states that it is her first amendment right to freedom of speech. She will not apologize.

There are several big issues with this story: privacy, separation of church and state and freedom of expression. I pick a combo first amendment rights, then maybe separation of church and state:

I take issue with calling anyone a terr*ist who is not a proven terr*ist, as in innocent until proven guilty or on the most wanted list. To me, this is not a freedom of speech (or expression) rather slander. If they write it down, it is libel. It is in the same realm of someone calling me a witch when I am not a witch. It goes directly to character of a person. Slander is name calling. Name calling is abuse. Abuse is illegal. Just like we are not allowed to hit people, we are not allowed to hit them with our words either.

Labeling an entire group of people as one is a generalization. So now, instead of slandering one person, an entire group of people got hit. So this woman, Rep. Sally Kern of the Oklahoma House, hit not one person with abuse, but millions with her statement as a result of the broadcast. (It's apparent to me that she hit one person initially so that they knew she would do it again. They caught her in a trap for opening her trap! Not so sure that ruining a person's career in politics was the best method of stopping the abuse, but that is not my controversy of the day.)

I am not arguing on whether on the gay lifestyle is Christian or not-Christian, but calling gays terr*ists is definitely not Christian. I learned when I was little not to call my little brother stupid--wasn't even baptized yet. So I am pretty sure that if Christ were to walk in right now, he would never say that the gays are terr*ists. My guess is that he wouldn't call anyone names for that matter.

Watching the story again, she says they act like terr*ists, scooping up children when they are two and three. This simile is still slander. It is still name calling and I am not getting yanked off my soapbox by a technicality.

If there is anything I have learned from the West Wing, it is all about what you say. Word choice is key to the message. My guess--strictly a guess--is that her real message is that she believes the gay lifestyle is not in accordance with her religious beliefs, her Christian beliefs. She also detaches them from her legislative duties.

This is the hard part, but I really get it.

She has personal beliefs, that mind you are poorly expressed, that do not affect the way she wants to legislate. I wish this were true more often.

I am a big believer that gay, straight, bi-sexual, tri-sexual, should have the right to be married. (Breathe...Watch the anger, stay focused on the debate not the emotion.) The reason I feel this way is because to me marriage is a spiritual thing not a legal thing. I think either the gov't should get out of the marriage business; or if it is going to be in the marriage business, make sure they are getting the maximum profit off of it. While I am all about this section of gov't being smaller, the CPA part of me says show me the money. I also recognize that it is really up to each individual religion to interpret what is and is not in its parameters. Let the religions moralize/demoralize the members of its body. Let the gov't mind its own business: governing.

This leads me into the complex part (separation of church and state): what happens when our religious selves want to govern? What happens when there is someone like Mrs. Kern who has strong spiritual beliefs who wants to govern. She is totally influenced in her legislative decision making by her religion. What if she were Mu$lim or Jew!sh? What if she were H!nd! or Budd!st? What if she were a witch, m0rm0n or atheist? So how do we take the religion out of the legislator? My only hope is that she will [and like I try to as well (although I limited in knowledge)], lean on the Constitution to help her draw those lines. I think that one can lean, I think it is hard. Someone would have to be extremely well versed in law making, state constitutional law and US Constitutional law. This is hard to find in legislators because we can only elect those who run. Obviously, Mrs. Kern was elected, she vocalized her opinion to other people in her party who get people elected and/or might have been other legislators which means she was influencing others. I know one thing is for sure for me, I don't want Mrs. Kern's religion (whatever it may be) governing me. I feel safe in saying that Mrs. Kern doesn't want my religion governing her either!

So I feel controversial today, how bout you?

When I started the Hydrangea last night, my husband came home in the middle of me painting. "Nice grapes," he said...

Doesn't look like grapes now, does it?

Hopefully, by the end of the weekend I will have a hydrangea on all the cabinets, but I might add yellow rose or two too. Two, too, that's funny.

Honesty can sometimes be not such an easy thing for me. Actually, rigorous honesty is down right painful for me. I would rather people think badly of me than tell the truth...sometimes.

We are an undiscplined lot. Only God will discipline us.

Rather than have God discipline us (because last time he sent me a messenger that made me want to be her), this time I got really honest. I got honest with myself. And then, I got honest with someone else.

What was so painful to get honest about? Going and seeing those women who only know me as a mean, nasty drunk. Calling them on the phone and asking them to come to the reunion when everything I remember about myself would not entice anyone to come to a reunion. I was unkind, illmannered and down right mean to women who had either relationship or no relationship with me. If they came through my path, I was aggrivated at either being drunk, not being drunk or wanting to be drunk and not being able to get that way fast enough and as a result, whoever the poor soul that ran into me, got it in the neck.

I remember one time that someone cut up one of my favorite t-shirts and posted scraps of it on my door during my sophomore year. I still don't know who did it or why. I felt victimized and outcasted. I was in tears and terrified that someone was going to eat me. The reality is that I probably did something that warranted a scare. I probably ate someone else.

This is the type of thing I remember. When I volunteered to help with the reunion I would never predict that they would ask me to call women who may not think well of me. Specifically two women who I owe a direct amends. Specifically someone I ate.

I stole a date. And then I blasted the gal whose date I stole, and I blasted her girlfriend who was there to hold her hand. I remember it pretty clearly. I couldn't imagine calling them and saying "Remember me? Won't you come back to see me again?" No way. The longer I mulled it over, the worse the fear got.

Am I willing to make the direct amends? Yes, I am, just not while I am soliciting for my class. It isn't really the right time.

So how did I get honest? I had to tell the head of the committee the truth. Does she know the details of my crimes, no. I told her how afraid I was of calling the list of women and that I owed amends to at least two of them, which I didn't think would be appropriate for me to call. She being the kind woman she has always been, said no problem and that she would take care of it. When I got her reply, I cried.

How did I ever do those things I did? Why would I steal another girl's date at a formal? What on earth was I thinking? I was a horrible, rotten person. I don't remember being raised to be a horrible, rotten person. How did I get to be a horrible, rotten person? I had no God. The only god I understood was one that would destroy me.

But, these women don't know that I have a God today that is all loving, all knowing and all powerful. They don't know that never in my life would I ever consider stealing anything not to mention a date. I would have done what I saw other women doing like going and dancing with friends and then going home to bed. Normal people...

I am really afraid to go back and meet this group of women. Why are reunions so...whatever. Why is it that people return to see others when they were horrible people? Aren't we supposed to remeniscence about good things? I mean, I don't remember good things...well yes I do. But what if they don't?

It doesn't always feel so great when you get honest.

The cabinets are well on their way to being hydrangea blue...

This is the first set, tomorrow the bottom set and then the hand painting will be added.

Woohoo. I found something I like.

Thoughts:

I have started listening to a local radio station that carries a show called Knee Deep in Blue Grass. I have always liked the sounds of a quartet and a banjo. There is something familiar about the music that I can't put my finger on.

I actually used MySpace today to look at some people. I have so many friends that are slightly out of touch. I miss them and wonder about them, but I am not worried about them. It is a new thing. I have old friends too who I couldn't do without in my life right now. Then there are the new folk, who I always guess what category they will fall into: those who stay or those who go. There is no way to know until it happens.

After having a completely detached day, I had every emotion one can have in three hours. It was impressive the very next day. Michelle calls it dealing and feeling. She says that at some point I will do both, and then it gets wierd.

Tonight is my night. I am not going out under any circumstances. I am going to movie watch, clean my house and make some dinner. I have been out the past two nights and I feel abit overwhelmed. Maybe I will work on my cabinets a bit too.

School got easier this week for no apparent reasons outside of no exams.

I am feeling nostalgic today....

You've got your ball,
You've got your chain,
Tied to me tight tie to me up again,
Whose got their claws in you my friend,
Into your heart, heart beat again
Sweet like candy to my soul,
Sweet you rock,
Sweet you roll,
Lost for you, I'm so lost for you
You come crash into me, yeah....baby

This weekend was perfectly lovely. No thinking, no doing, no nothing. Just like I like it after a mind meld of a week. It was me and my hubby doin nothin. At one point I went outside to the cow park to see what exactly that man of mine might be up to and I found him driving his truck around aimlessly among the cows. When I asked him what on earth he was doin, he said goofin off. Nothin. He was doin nothin.

My head was cold mush by the time it was all said and done. Today at school I was completely in detach mode. I was doing what it is you do when you go to school, but I wasn't really there. It was odd. I had people come and sit with me in between classes who I know and are in class with me, but they don't sit with me. But today, they sat with me. And called me darlin. Gotta love those military men. I didn't have the heart to tell them I had step children older than them. Hell, I've got step children older than me. But what the hay, when is the last time a young man thought me young enough to be so general with me? See, I am totally disconnected. In any other day other than today, I would have made him feel about the size of a pea.

Thank goodness that my morning meditation was on acceptance of self. The concept that we are right where we are supposed to be. So today my disconnectedness is all part of the grand plan. I am me. After long periods of emotionally taxing days sequentially, I disconnect. That is not such a bad thing. I think it is a coping mechanizm. It makes me feel like I am swimming.

Oh no,no,no...see the wave come crash into me...crash into me.