a new favorite

the princess kitty came home sick yesterday. i think we need a germ exorcism done in my home because this is getting ridiculous. i picked her up from school and stopped at the cvs to pick up necessities for a sick child and she asked for puffs plus. her little nose gets so red and she knows that these tissues feel better than some of the other brands.

apparently tissues have come a long way. you can get tissues that are antibacterial, tissues with lotions, and tissues with vicks vapor rub.

all last week i kept thinking i should get some vicks for my cold, but never did so i jumped at the idea of puffs plus with vicks.

the princess kitty, of course, doesn't like the smell of them, but OMG do i love them!!!

since i am still blowing my nose from the cold that i got a week ago they are like heaven. i keep sticking my nose in the box and breathing in.

who knew tissues could make me so happy.

you can even decorate your own box and print out a template when your head starts to clear and you are feeling creative again.

God's peace y'all

fave fours

i’ve played this game before, but here it is again for kat-kat

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. video store clerk (and yes, there was a back room)
2. assistant manager of a women’s accessory store
3. director of a inner city summer program
4. pastor

Four movies I've watched more than once:
1. man of la mancha
2. crash (just yesterday in fact)
3. buffy the vampire slayer
4. the princess bride

Four places I have lived:
1. philadelphia, pa
2. lynchburg, va
3. newark, nj
4. atlantic city, nj

Four places I have been:
1. the grand canyon
2. antigua
3. chicago
4. hoboken, nj

Four of my favorite foods:
1. shell fish
2. chocolate
3. my mom’s mac and cheese
4. marsha, marsha, marshmallow ice cream by ben and jerry

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. bed
2. any warm beach
3. on vacation
4. bed (did i say that already)

I am looking forward to this year:
1. vacation at the obx
2. doing 2 weddings for 2 wonderful women
3. 10 year anniversary from seminary and seeing all my old friends
4. celebrating my 29th birthday all over again

Four T.V. shows that I watch:
1. M*A*S*H
2. heros
3. lost
4. american idol with the princess kitty

God's peace y'all

what are they teaching our children?

before email, in order to send a letter to someone, one had to write words down on a piece of paper, fold it and put it into an envelope. one would then have to place information on the outside of the envelope with a stamp and place it in a big blue box called a mailbox where a person called a mail carrier would pick it up and take it back to a place called the post office where it would be sorted by the information on the envelope, given to another mail carrier, and then be delivered to the person to whom it was addressed.

i know this because i was taught how to do it in grade school, before email became my primary means of sending information to another person. however, i do still on occasion need to put something in the mail where i use the above technique.

last weekend hubby and i went on a confirmation retreat with 20 kids grades 6-9. we wanted to teach them about how they had gifts that they could share with others and part of the process was to have them do a service project. the service project was to send appeal letters to other churches asking them to participate in something called God's Global Barnyard which is the ELCA's (my denomination) version of heifer international.

i made the service project as simple as possible... they basically had to stuff and address envelopes with information that i gave them and then they had to come up with a project to do in their own church.

had i known that many of them didn't know how to address an envelope properly i would have told them about return addresses and where the stamp had to go and where on the envelope the addresse's information went. silly me, assuming that they would have learned this in school by the 6th grade.

hubby says that we are old. afterall, mail is sent electronically now. in fact, when i did a google image search of "mail" this is what i got. of the 20 images of "mail" there was only one picture that showed an envelope (and that was clip art) and 1 picture of what looks like the inside of a post office. there were 2 pictures of george w and somehow i can't help but think that there is a correlation between his no child left behind and the fact that kids almost in high school have no idea how to address an envelope!

sigh, they aren't teaching cursive writing anymore either.

God's peace y'all

8 inches addendum or how to make a hot toddy

i'm now losing my voice so i decided to do what the mucinex will not...

make one of my mother's hot toddy's.

here's how:

in one mug full of scotch whiskey add a tea bag and just enough hot water to heat the booze stir in honey (no honey had to use sugar) and drink... repeat as necessary.

still sick, but now i don't care as much.

God's peace y'all

8 inches

i have had a cold since waking up on wednesday. everyone and their mother has told me that i should take mucinex, "it's the wonder drug" "nothing else works for me."

it is also the most expensive over-the-counter cold medicine on the shelves of the cvs and even though i have been taking it religiously it has not helped ONE LITTLE BIT!!!

meanwhile there are up to 8 inches of snow outside. hubby and the princess kitty shovelled earlier and you can't tell that they did anything.

i'm going to go make some tea and collapse in front of the tv now.

God's peace y'all and remember to wash your hands.

writing about writing addendum

if you haven't read the post "writing about writing" then do that before reading this one.

this afternoon i decided to look around the attic to see if i could find my file box that i kept stuff in that i had written and sure enough there was the short story i thought i had lost. i had to stand there in the attic and reread the whole thing.

i suppose i have written better since, but when you think something you've written is lost is becomes larger than life, pulitzer prize winning work.

i also discovered the portfolio of my final assignment for my 12th grade creative writing class. i was afraid to even get that one out of the box!

and since i was asked... the excerpt in the last post is from book 2 (remember i haven't finished book 1 yet) about a warrior woman that becomes a queen. i did say i loved to write fantasy.

God's peace y'all

writing about writing

i wasn’t exactly tagged by the pobble, but since she said she was interested i will do my best.

What is the last thing you wrote? a sermon for ash wednesday.

Was it any good? actually i think it was… you can always read it for yourself

What’s the first thing you ever wrote that you still have? i would have to searching through boxes in the attic to answer that.

Write poetry? i used to, but i was horrible at it.

Angsty poetry? please see the above answer

Favorite genre of writing? fiction, but rarely ever get to write it.

Most fun character you ever created? don’t know about “fun” but my favorite is a man named olin

Most annoying character you ever created? a guy at a diner who insists on playing the same song on the jukebox over and over again.

Best plot you ever created? well, hopefully it’s the one i’m working on

Coolest plot twist you ever created? the birth control berry

How often do you get writers block? every saturday night

Write fan fiction? nope

Do you type or write by hand? yes

Do you save everything you write? i try to, but invariably things get lost

Do you ever go back to an old idea long after you have abandoned it? i hope to go back to the book someday… does that count?

What’s your favorite thing that you’ve written? alas, a short story i can no longer find

What’s everyone else’s favorite story that you’ve written? hmm, i don’t know

Do you ever show people your work? well, people get to hear what write every week, but yes, i often share… i’m needy that way

Did you ever write a novel? someday…

Ever written romance or teen angsty drama? yes, when i was a teen

What’s your favorite setting for your characters? fantasy lands where i can make anything happen

How many writing projects are you working on right now? well, if you go back to the two books i have started… and i have another sermon due on sunday.

Do you want to write for a living? in a way i already do, but that’s what i’d like to do when i retire

Have you ever won an award for your writing? when i was in 8th grade i won a contest for the zoo for an essay i wrote on teddy bears. i still have the mug i got as a prize

Ever written something in script or play format? yes

What are your five favorite words? i love them all, but i am fond of the word: cryptic

Do you ever write based on yourself? i’m sure i do

What character have you created that most resembles yourself? all of them have something of me in them

Where do you get your ideas for your other characters? they are just born

Do you ever write based on your dreams? you mean the kind you have when you are sleeping?

Do you favor happy endings, sad endings, or cliff hangers? i’ve never been a fan of cliff hangers, though i do enjoy endings that aren’t neatly tied up in a bow.

Have you ever written based on an artwork you’ve seen? no

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write? only because of the squiggly lines my computer makes on the screen when i do something wrong. can’t stand those lines.

Ever write something entirely in chatspeak? no

Entirely in L337? good Lord, why would anybody do that?

Does music help you write? no

Quote something you’ve written. this would be from the second book:

My father was a soldier, but then so was my mother back in the time when the great lands were at war and unnamed. The moment I could lift my newborn head my mother strapped me to her back and followed behind his regiment; her body tensing each time he followed the charge into battle. If it was for fear of his death or desire to join the fight I do not know, nor do I know for which side she prayed for victory to be granted.

She had been the enemy and captured; given to my father as a prize for bravery by his commander because he had said that only my father could tame her. I suspected that she grew to love him as she grew to desire peace for lands constantly divided by the pettiness of warlords.

After each battle we would sort through the dead and wounded looking for him, but my father was indestructible though scars decorated his body like trophies or medals he would display with pride. I was his only child and never once did I believe that he would have preferred a boy to the girl that I was. And if my mother grew to love him he loved her as well, weeping openly at her grave more so than I cried for her. She died in childbirth, a battle of its own kind that produced only another death; brother or sister I was never told. Its little body was wrapped up with my mother’s and lowered into the ground amid whispers that she had been too old to bear another child. Her burial was more than most received at the time; the countryside was covered with mass graves filled with warriors and peasants alike.

I grew up in death, not a life for a young girl, but it was mine and I embraced it.

anyone else wanna play?

God's peace y'all

what kind of world do you want

i've now gotten this link for more than the tenth time in my email. i've also been alerted to it via a message board i frequent.


yes, five for fighting is donating $.49 to autism speaks for each time the video is viewed and that's great.. and you should all go clink on the link... really, because it's wonderful.


and yes, i appreciate all the people who have seen it and thought of me... but i already know about the video and have watched it several times. i think i saw it for the first time a year ago... when the band first created the site.


so please, no one has to forward it to me anymore... if you want to forward it... please do.. just to someone else. the band (according to the email) wants over 10,000 hits and i can't do it all myself.

God's peace y'all