Checking the OIL

A lot of folks can't understand how we came to have an oil shortage in our country. Well, there's a very simple reson. Nobody bothered the check the oil. We just didn't know we were getting low. The reason is purely geographical. See, our OIL is located in: Alaska, California, Costal Louisiana, North Dakota, Costal Florida, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Philadelphia. Our DIPSTICKS are located in Washington DC.

Happy Aniversary.....Again

Looking back over my blogs I found one that dated back to April 8, 2008, it said it had been two long years since I tried to get published. That was three years ago, which means it was five years ago that I began my quest for publication. I'm sorry to say that it has been mostly fruitless because of my lack of trying. Yes, the responses I've gotten so far have been positive 'no's, but they are still nos. I'm trying not to take it personally, but it's like having the ugliest baby in a baby contest. No matter how dog-like your baby, you expect it to win with distinction. So, tomorrow, come hell or high-water I will be finding a publisher and sending off my baby off for judgment. If time is going to fly, I'm going to soar under my own volition!!

Networking is as Networking Does

I have been toying around with the idea of sticking my electronic hand out there and introducing myself to total strangers to assist in my job search as well as finding in-roads to getting published. I understand the idea of networking, I do, but it's never been a strong suit of mine. Making *friends* of people I've never met seems a little pushy but I'm receiving a welcome far beyond anything that I would have given in return (Says a lot about me, doesn't it). It's not that I'm rude, I try hard not to be, in public anyway, but I've always been more intro rather than extroverted and vain to think that people will want to seek me out instead of the other way around. No one is that good!

So, now I've got more friends on Facebook than I've ever had, I've got leads for associations that I've never known before and people that are willing to help a introverted writer become an extroverted author. I gotta say, than you to all my new friends and a bigger thank you for my friends that have always been there for me. Networking is a good thing.

PS, those in the Bay Area area, I am still looking for work if you know of anyone that needs and admin, office manager, event/tradeshow/project coordinator or a phlebotomist, please let me know. There is a fresh loaf of hame-made bread machine wheat bread in it for you.

Taking Flight into My Future

Well, I finished my exam, and I have to say it was a transformative experience. I didn't expect that. I was thinking it was from a grub to a butterfly but that didn't seem to encompass my feeling completely. The grub (or pupa or worm...whatever you want to call its pre-flight stage) always knows that she is supposed to have wings one day. A dragonfly starts off as a nymph, a complete and whole as an underwater being skewering small fish, mosquito larva and anything else they can fit in their mouth. This state can last for a few years, and then one day, they drag their wet bodies out of the water and shed their skin and wings appear.

This is a whole new animal, well, insect. She can fly up to speeds of 30 miles per hour. With her four independent wings she can fly forward, side to side and even backwards. When I read that it clicked! That's what happened to me. I pulled myself out of the pond of self oppression, of chasing the wrong dreams, of allowing myself to just slide by with good-enough. I'm not that girl anymore. I'm flying! I can see clearly now, the pond is gone. I'm no longer in still stagnating water, but I have the dexterity to fly to chase my quarry; becoming an author. I still have work to do to become a fully fledged phlebotomist, but for now, I am quite content to just stretch my wings and fly.

Mammon Mammon Everywhere But Not A Thought To Think

Okay, strange title I know. I'm in a strange kind of mood. I'm observing Lent for the first time ever. Parts of it, I'm regretting, like the exercise part, but I'm enjoying the 30 minutes of reading every day for pleasure. So, not the books I should be reading for school, not the books I should be reading for Church, not the books I should be reading when I exercise, a pleasure book. So I chose Paradise Lost by John Milton.

I know, you're thinking, what kind of pleasure reading is that? Patrick wasn't very helpful, he told me the ending....The Devil did it. Well duh. I'm not that dumb to not know that. I was however caught off guard in regards to Mammon. I always equated Mammon with Manna from heaven. Which is why the verse in Luke confused me...you can't serve God and Mammon. If you substitute manna with Mammon, you'd think like I do that you're turning your back on the physical gifts from God to serve Him. But serving him, even if it meant ignoring the blessings from Him was the path we were to take, so the path was correct, the intention behind it not as clear. So, it didn't make sense, turn your back on the blessings of Heavenly Father to serve Him in which you will gain more blessings to ignore. (The title should start making more sense to you now, hopefully).

Today I read....

"Mammon, the least erected Spirits that fell

From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision beautific"

Mammon isn't bread that falls in fluffy clumps from heaven but a demon, or a really ungrateful Spirit. But how often I find myself looking at the ground (figuratively) completely engrossed in the things that I don't have. I don't have a lot of money, I have too many things (but in my defence they all fit in my garage now). No, I don't have the shiny brand name uber-expensive cars, I wear my clothes until I pinch every last bit of value out of them, and I don't always have the rent in one place when I need it. But I am so blessed. Unlike Mammon I look up, I walk confidently towards my blessings and trials because by looking up I have my Father and His Son to guide me. To be hunched over, or downward bent, is to welcome more weight onto your shoulders and honestly, who wants to serve THAT? Not I. But it is EVERYWHERE you look. I'm not saying I don't have the odd flash of "Gee, I wish I could buy a new car." "Golly, I wish I could go out to eat at fancy bistros and restaurants," Or "Jimminee, why can't I win the lottery like those rednecks, I'd use it for good, I promise,". More often then not they are just fleeting thoughts and I move on.

Something else I know to be true is who you serve in the name of Heaven you become more heavenly and when you serve Mammon, you become more hunched, more downward bent, more hyper-focused on the pavement that you become trapped in Mammon's snare. When you look up, when you see the infinity that is the sky and space beyond, you see that nothing is impossible, nothing is more limitless than serving. So, yes you end up focused on the manna from Heaven when you learn to stop looking for pennies on the ground to appease Mammon.

My Marbles Moto To Live By

I've not lost my marbles. Some of them may be cracked and not rolling around anymore, but I have all my marbles!

First Storm of The Year

I am so grateful fall and winter are finally here! You would be too if you didn't have a working air conditioning unit in your car! It's un-freaking-believable to have the season nip at my nose and to come in dripping wet from rain instead of sweat. We are so abundantly blessed! Okay, maybe it's just me. The rain is playing havoc with Mom's arthritis, she doesn't want to come out from under the heating blanket.


I think of how desperately the Bay Area and parts south need the rain, and how lucky we are to have it. It seems though every blessing is a double edged sword. If too much rain falls in the fire ravaged areas then it will cause ashy mud slides, and in some towns where the elected people didn't keep their word, will be underwater if the storm is as ferocious as the weatherman promised. For now though, I'm not going to think of the mud, the ash or the floating towns. I'm just going to enjoy the sound of the rain as it dances on the pavement to the song of wind in the rose bushes outside my window.

Writers Block, Thy Name Is Jealousy

I just finished reading The Host last night. I was too wiped from the Gartner Gala for Mom's 80th and about all I was good for was reading or sleeping. So, I read. I had been reading this on the treadmill at the gym, and it actually got me going to the gym for a while.

I love the book, but I also hate the book. I love it because it is a really good story, I hate it because it made me cry. I don't cry, as a general rule. It's too emotionally exhausting. So, I find other ways to express myself. I loved it because it had a happy ending, I hated it because it's made me feel like such a slouch with my writing. I can't get my family to read the book that I have written, how can I get strangers to read it. My friends like it, so that's somewhat consoling, but I still depend on my family for validation.

I know, I know, being jealous isn't a good thing to be, it's counter-productive, I'm not going to get anything really accomplished. I'm not going to be a Stephanie Meyer, I'm not going to be a Victor(ia) Hugo, or even a Jane Austen. We already have them, I just need to be me. But I want to make people cry, I want to publish a book that makes people sit and spend the whole day reading until they get to the end, just because they know they can't sleep unless they know the end. I want to be like that.

I'm whining, I know I'm whining. I need to go to the gym, I'm reading Harry Potter again, it's a simple book to read on the treadmill. Before The Host I read His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, which is the title of the trilogy of The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. All very good books. None of them made me cry, none of them made me wish I was *that* good. I would like to have the imagination to create the world the Phillip Pullman created, I don't think I'm wired towards fantasy. Yes, The Host is fantasy but it's more of a psychological romance, sacrifice and so on.

One of the things that I really admire of Stephanie Meyers is her willingness to stick to standards in her stories. When I say "stick to standards" I mean the LDS standards that she lives. There is some language, but no F-bombs, no degrading behavior human towards human, even though they didn't like the alien, they didn't treat her well at first but some were willing to look past it and that's where the story really takes off. I need to be true to myself, and believe that I have talent, that I am a good writer that people will read me like I read others. At least have hope to faith until faith becomes knowledge......

Fear and Loathing in Silicon Valley

First my desktop dies, then my car dies. I get my car out of the shop at a $700+ ransom and using my Internet-less laptop, and borrowing other laptops to get other things done beyond the walls of my temporary prison. Then, in a fit of rushed anxiety the housing of my thumb drive came off. One would think it wouldn't be too bad of a mishap, in light of my computer being down, my car being broken, oh, and did I mention I was running late to my appointment with the Cannery so I could fulfill my calling as home storage guru for the ward? But that one particular thumb drive had my current working document of my novel "Hearts of the Mothers". I had just concluded I had over 2/3rds finished. I tried to quickly save it to my laptop desktop but it wouldn't and it completely killed the application. The only soft copy that I had was the twenty six pages I started with in January. It would be okay if I hadn't written over 300 pages since then. I was dying inside.

I refused to curl up on the floor in a fetal position and give up though. I tried to put the housing back on but that didn't work, and I also knew that handling the actual components of the drive I ran the risk of sending some sort of static shock to them so I plugged it back into the laptop I was using and then my 4 gig thumb drive I've been meaning to update everything to and quickly moved all the files over. But when I tried to call the file up the computer wouldn't work. Even without the knowledge that my work was saved I went to the cannery, printed up my backup work there and then came home and took a sleeping pill and prayed that all will be well.

All is well. I was able to pull the actual 321 page document up and save it to my desktop on my laptop, saved it to the desktop of my sisters laptop and I will save it to this desktop of Patrick's laptop. I'm never EVER going to loose that much work again. I can't say that I hate computers, I think I hate more my dependency on them.

The C Word & The S Word

Cancer. That's all the doctor has to mention and it sends me into a tailspin. Yes, they always err on the side of fatal illnesses so anything else you have feels like a blessing, but it's still disconcerting none the less. No, I don't have cancer....she believes....but she still wants to talk to the oncologist about my case and then check back around with me on Friday. I knew I didn't have it when they biopsied me back in February, but the very idea that they were testing me for it was enough of a loop that it took me some time to recover from it. So, over the last six months when I've had these suspicious symptoms, I never once thought about it. Then when we chatted last week, well, she brought it up again. I know my body, I know that I shut down on a few levels when I'm under stress, and this has happened before. But she didn't have to say cancer. I guess she did, it's her job. I guess what I'm worried about is this being a wish fulfillment kind of thing back when I thought having cancer would be a noble way to die since suicide isn't an option in my belief schema. I don't want that any more, I haven't for a long time. But I still worry whenever someone says the word. Fearing that wishes never die, they just hang out in a nebulous space in our lives waiting for the most opportune moment to blossom into fruition.

Sterilization. I knew that's what was going to happen when I had a hysterectomy, honestly, I knew it. But I've never heard it out loud. Again, I know my doctor is doing her job, she is very good at her job, but the idea that I'll be sterilized brings to mind the idea of eugenics and how the lesser of society was "sterilized" to be sure that they don't bring forth more idiots or morons or whatever the classification for society's excuse for this autrocity. Plus it makes it sound so irreversibly final. I know it's final, I truly am not an idiot or a moron, but I still preferred to sugar coat it for myself. Again, knocked for another loop. I feel like I'm in one of they gyroscope rides trying to stay calm enough to get off before another push sends me spinning again.

I haven't talked to anyone about either of these words. Because, right now, they are just words. My journal would be the best place to explore these concepts but I haven't found the time, the space or the energy to do that. I don't really have the time to do it with being on call 24/7 with my Mom. Even though she doesn't need it any more, she still "requires" it. I just needed to get it out of my head and somewhere and this seemed to be the best place for me to do that. If this doesn't work I'll have to pull out the big guns, only I might just end up shooting myself in the foot. Sigh.