The devotionals...

I had mentioned before that I was writing some devotionals for my church... a few of you asked if you could see them. 

I wasn't entirely happy with the idea of posting them here tho... so I've made another blog so you can look at them if you're interested in such things...

Haven't quite finished with the design of it... very much a work in progress... and there's only one on there so far... but HERE IT IS

flea market stuff...

Well just one flea market stuff...

Got a wonderful vintage TV lamp... from the 50's... perfect condition.

bad pic... the boat is actually brighter yellow... and there's a place in the top for a plant... most of these I saw growing up had a plastic ivy in them... the light, which shines from inside, is red...

Can't find the maker, but it's in perfect condition, and I've priced it at 45 bucks.


Anyway... hadn't posted for a while, so I had to post SOMETHING and there we are.

Well, here's a surprise...

Last year, out of the kindness of her heart, Julie, that wonderful lady over at A Succulent Life, sent me a Gloriosa Lily...

I am ashamed to say that I thought I killed it. I neglected to dig it up in the winter as I'm supposed to in this zone. I'm a bad plant parent. I am a bad plant recipient. I should be taken out and beaten soundly. But, I thought to myself, there's a very thick layer of straw mulch over that tuber... maybe by some miracle it survived our record breaking cold weather this winter.

This spring, nothing.

But, evidently, the thick layer of mulch was enough. Imagine my surprise when this morning I walked out and saw this dangling over my head in the carport...


There's still not a shoot showing by the ground though. What happened, is that evidently, the lily sprouted and sent it's shoot up inside the hollow metal pole that holds up the carport... and after it reached the top, it grew out and began blooming...

Determined little thing, ain't it?

a bright shiney morning...

Don't get all excited... I don't have a new camera yet... can't justify the expense because of other stuff going on in my life. This is a really crappy cell phone pic.

yep... the peanut cactus, 'rose quartz' is blooming it's fool head off after the HUGE storms last night... here in my part of Texas, we just caught the tag end of the things... through the midwest... well parts of Oklahoma came might near to being scraped off the map as far as I could

tell.

But these cheered me up a little this morning, and quite frankly I needed it... not gonna go into details at the moment, but let me say this...

My Grandmother, who was a very wise woman, always said... "The good Lord don't give you any burden you can't carry. But there are times when I've wished He didn't have such faith in me." Let's just say... I know what the hell she was talking about and leave it at that, OK?

driving...

I forgot my phone at home today... by the time I figured it out, I was 20 miles away and in the middle of a delivery... not possible to go get it.

At first... there was a sense of panic. What if there's an emergency? What if I have a flat tire? What if something happens to a friend and they can't get ahold of me? The last is a legitimate concern. A couple of them are prone to assuming that anyone out of phone range is obviously lying in a crumpled broke pile in a ditch bleeding to death.

And what if I needed to call someone for work... Occasionally, on a delivery, I have to get in touch with someone for assistance. OK... about twice a month... but still, it happens...

But then, inexplicably, I felt a sense of calm come over me. I heard a voice in the back of my head say... "YOU"LL BE FINE"

Got a flat tire? Change it.
Someone can't get a hold of me? They'll call later.
I need to call someone for work? Find a pay phone or better yet... let the dispatcher call them.

I relaxed.

And I enjoyed it.

There's something amazingly and wonderfully liberating about not being at the planets beck and call. It's totally amazing how much the phone bleeping at you interferes with your day.

I drove around. I made my deliveries. I joked with warehouse guys, without having to worry about returning a text. I sang a whole bunch of songs I remembered. (This is actually almost a psychological breakthrough... I have major childhood traumas around singing... don't ask...) I had a great day.

It's true, when I walked into QT and they had 5 liter boxes of wine on sale for a buck... I'd gone in with the idea of buying a lotto ticket, but quite frankly, the odds are better on a box of wine... I really did want to send a message to a church guy. But I can text him later. Or maybe I'll have a glass or three of wine and not worry about it. Hard telling...

And when I had an hour without a delivery, I pulled out a pen and a piece of paper and started writing down an idea that had occured to me for a church devotional. (I sent in a couple during lent and they asked me to keep em coming... oh well...)

Don't get me wrong... I'm not going to start leaving the phone at home. There are legitimate reasons why I might need it on the road. But... I may be turning it off for long stretches of time.

Well, Good Friday was actually OK...

Last year on Good Friday, I made a single delivery, so I took this one off.

Went to rummage sales, found a few good things, and took myself to the flea market to price them and then, changed shirts to go to Tennebrae... now I guess I should tell you what Tennebrae is since I've had to tell about everybody else... Tennebrae is the old name for a good Friday service. Basically, it's a sunset service where you go over the Passion of Christ in reading and songs, while the lights are gradually turned off in the church, until, at the moment of sunset, which is the moment that Jesus died, all the lights go out. At the beginning of the service the altars, and all the crucifixes are draped in black... basically, the church goes into mourning.

It's a very deep and emotional service, that is usually only performed in what's refered to as 'High" churches... Catholic, Episcapalian, Anglican, Orthodox and some Lutheran... but it's actual form varies, and many churches are passing it over. Seems it depresses people.

Anyway, after Tennebrae, we went out for a drink... Really, what's a funeral without a wake, Right? Just kidding, but we were all together on a Friday night, so what the heck...

Saturday, I worked at the flea market all day... had a good day actually...

Easter Sunday was... different...

I'd never been to a Sunrise service before, and we were having one in the churches rose garden, so I decided I'd crawl out of bed at 4 AM... well, for various reasons, I was late... got there just at the end of it. But, even though I was late for the service, I was there in time for the breakfast (some people fast from Tennebrae to Sunrise on Easter, so breakfast is a big thing) and I'm not one to pass up free food, so eggs, sausage and biscuits and gravy.

I decided I'd go ahead and stay for the 9 o'clock service... I didn't really want to go home and come back for my usual 11 o'clock. One of the Assistant Pastors came over and asked me if I'd mind carrying a banner in the procession.

See, after the black drapes are taken down, the chior comes in, in procession, followed by six huge banners that are placed around the sanctuary. I say sure... and after I've placed my banner and am making my way to the pew... the head usher grabs me and co-opts me to replace an usher who didn't show up.

So, I have to pass communion, collect offerings and basically stand at the back of the sanctuary for an hour.

Here's the problem. In true Easter tradition... I am wearing new shoes. And I've been wearing them for several hours. I started out standing in the back all right, but by the time it was all over... NO MORE.

So off for the between service coffee hour where I can sit down and rest my feet when suddenly... Asst. Pastor shows up again, and I'm not really given the choice of whether I want to carry a banner again. I did, however, fairly loudly, refuse to usher again. Primarily by barking before they got the question out.

After all this, I went to an Easter lunch at a church guys parents house, and Thank the Lord, everybody there had kicked their shoes off and I was able to finally get mine off too...

and that was my Easter. Not too exciting, but there we are.

music...

Well, I don't usually inflict my rather bizarre taste on the world at large, but this video from Florence and the Machine made it through... 1) Amazing voice... 2) Amazing song... 3) and as far as I'm concerned... bright blue go-go dancers with brooklin girl wigs are perfection personified... Besides, I looked over my last few posts... and I need to lighten up!

well, I had this big long post...

but I had to delete it... I looked at it and said, "What the hell are you whining about?" To be blunt, it touched on 1) church politics... which are boring to anybody not involved and not all that fascinating to those who are... 2) the trials and tribulations of working 10 to 12 hour days... which I'm sure many of you already know about and don't need to be reminded of... 3) and then there was a good dose of POOR ME, boo hoo boo hoo... I don't know why anybody out there would want to read that. I don't want to read that. But, I have been working too much, and the yard has fallen behind, and even if it hadn't, I still haven't gotten around to getting a camera. Did take a nice long drive to Temple TX to deliver some pieces of metal to a factory that I'm sure is going to make something absolutely fascinating out of them, but I have no idea what. It's frustrating delivering to these places. I'm sure there's lots of wonderful things in all of them but I never get to see them as I have to drop and/or pick up and run... but such is life. As soon as I get a camera, I'll be back in full force... the Mammillaria sonorensis v. craigii in the front yard was lucky enough to survive the winter and is setting buds, and the Escobaria missourensis is also... but this winter, while it didn't produce as much snow as last year, was much colder than last year and a few of my plants didn't make it, so I'll be replacing some and propogating some others and replanting. After I've had a nap or two...

Walking Cactus?

On 20 legs no less....

Of course, it's not really a cactus... not a plant at all... and it's not alive anymore...

but it is intriguing enough to catch my attention... seems they found an ancient worm creature fossilized and all here's the link to the NPR story...

Whatever have I been doing?

The answer to that question is "Not much of any interest to anyone but me..."

Sorry about that...

The truth is that I'm working and working and working... and as much as I want a new job, I haven't had time to even think about applying for one. The only time I have is on Sunday afternoon... and I usually spend that asleep.

I work, I go to church on Sunday and to the classes when I can drag myself there... These are from one of the classes on a Wednesday...

They're an Anglican Rosary... We strung them ourselves at the class... my little summary of the class is this... Almost all major religions of the world use some sort of prayer beads, to repeat a prayer or mantra. In the mid-eighties an Episcopal pastor, during one of their study groups, created these, and they've been slowly catching on ever since. To find the complete history of them, and other stuff like suggested prayers and how to make them... go here


Anyway... my church is non-denominational... and the former Catholics were missing their rosaries... for no good reason really, none of the rest of us are stopping them from saying them, but they missed the communal rosaries that are often said in Catholic churches and most of us just don't know what it's all about, and the former Baptists, Methodist, etc... who do know what it's about aren't objecting, they just are most CERTAINLY not praying to the virgin Mary.

The Anglican Rosary or Protestant Prayer beads are a very nice compromise. As you can tell by looking, there aren't as many beads, and they aren't as large as most rosaries that you see. You go through the entire strand 3 times. And while the church has distributed prayers that we will all recite together every Monday during Lent if we choose to participate, there are no hard and fast rules for saying them. You can make up your own prayers. You're kind of expected to actually. So while I have memorised the prayers the church sent out, I made up my own for myself... for several reasons.

1) the prayers the church will be saying during the mass are heavily focused on mercy. The phrase, "Have mercy on me..." is chanted a hundred times during the rosary... and while I'm not perfect, I don't think I need THAT much mercy. I just don't feel that pitiful.

2) The prayers are all directed towards Jesus... which I don't object to by any means... It's just that I had the sudden realization that even though I was definitely raised Christian, our church prayed more to God than Christ. Primarily because, in the New Testament, Christ never said pray to him, but to pray to his Father... and I guess my particular sect took that pretty seriously. Oh, we prayed in Jesus's name a lot, but not too Jesus... kind of a petty distinction, but... still...

3) There are certain prayers and phrases that I remember from my childhood which give me comfort for some unknowable reason. They fit just fine into the beads, and I will use them...

Now... the purpose of the beads is more meditative than anything else... repeating a prayer, mantra, phrase or any word really, can, bring about a very calming state almost like a trance.

Provided it's done right... like one of our assistant pastors pointed out... if you're gonna be like her brothers when they were growing up, and have contests to see who could get through the beads first... well, then don't bother.

Anyway... We made our prayer beads in class, and I got home and started trying to memorise them... and the beads promptly broke. Scattered all over the floor. And my first thought was... "great... now I'm damned to hell."

The cats however were thrilled to no end... and were chasing beads all over the place... and they made a nice maddening high pitched rolling sound on the floor as the cats batted them across the room...

The above pic is a restrung set that I made myself. The cross is from the church beads, the others are hematite and silver beads that I had in my flea market stuff... they look pretty good actually.

So... now that I've gone on and on about some things that most of you probably don't care that much about... I guess I should probably let you go...