Painted Perfect

All the dolls say the China doll has it best.
She lives a perfect life, they know it is blest.
All say with her smile, no one can compete.
She's always so strong, she never sees defeat.
All see her beauty and know her heart is light.
She's always so content, her life is pure delight.

However somethings a China doll cannot share.
Things that other dolls are not aware.
But she can't tell them, they wouldn't care.
Instead she cries softly, "God, why's this my fair?"
While trying to stay grounded and not to despair.

Her life is not perfect, but a struggle every day.
Smiles are feigned, but kept there anyway.
Her strength is waning, she can't keep up the fight.
A heart with few joys, it is heavy, not light.
If they'd look closely, peering behind the fan,
The other dolls would see she's a tearful Raggedy Ann.

If tomorrow never comes

I was away at my first year of college, 2004 I believe...it was a week before I was coming home for Christmas break...I remember my cellphone rang, it had been sitting on my desk, the screen was orange, Home was calling. It was after 10pm, I was a little worried. "Hello?" "Hi Rebecca...how ya doin..." Normally, that may have subdued my worry, but something was wrong. "...your Grandma died..." My mind reeled. I'm not sure if I said it out loud, but in my mind I asked, "..but she's okay, right?" ....then I choked on the tears that started coming as the reality started to hit....

That August before I'd left for college, I was supposed to have gone to see Grandma, but we ended up not going for some petty reason...and somehow I "just knew" that I'd missed my last chance to see my grandma...I remember that I regretted leaving for college without saying goodbye one last time. I may have thought of calling her too, but never did... I guess sometimes God gives us premonitions, it's not just that we're worriers... I felt really bad/guilty/heartbroken for sometime after Grandma died because I'd never gotten to say goodbye. ...some months or a year after Grandma died, I had three dreams about her. Now I don't know that God sent them to relieve the pain in my soul, or if He just allowed that I have random dreams that soothed, but I am thankful for these three.

In my first dream, Grandma came over to our house. I was in total shock seeing her alive, but also excited to see her again, "Hi Grandma!", then I just sat there in my dream thinking and then saying it outloud "but...you're dead...?" she only smiled and kept talking to my mom. She was looking for something it seems, something that Mom had or was making for her, I didn't really know. But I asked her if she was okay, she smiled and the dream ended. When I woke up, I thanked God that I got to see her one last time, even if it were just a dream.

In the second dream I saw my grandma again, she was in a hospital bed, I was still questioning, "...you're...dead...?" but I was excited and was going to take advantage of seeing her again and went up to visit with her one last time! She was in good spirits and asked to do her favorite thing, "do you want to play a last game of cribbage?" so I got a board and we played on her hospital bed. As dreams are the game was gone and there was something about the pink blanket Mom was making her and then I asked, "Grandma, are you okay where you are?" She just looked at me with that smile, like she was happy but at the same time sad, maybe because she wanted to tell me but couldn't or maybe because she couldn't console my pain... and then it all vanished, but I woke up feeling happy to have seen her and played one last game with her. 

The last dream I've ever had of my Grandma I just remember being at a train and then seeing Grandma walk in, didn't know where she was going. I asked, "But you're dead? How, how are you here?" She had this pink blanket that mom had crocheted for her and said, "I was just picking up this blanket, I needed it before I left." She wasn't on the train yet so I hugged her really close and said goodbye and let her go... as she stood on the moving train I was asking "are you okay where you are Grandma?" She just smiled at me like she couldn't tell me with a little sadness then said goodbye and was gone.

After those dreams I've never had another with my grandma in them, but I thank God for the consolation, because, it really felt like I had seen her, I had played one last game with her and that I really did give her a final hug and say goodbye.

I never told anyone about the dreams until after the last, I told my mom. Then Mom said she'd just finished up a novena for Grandma's soul a few days before. ...and I just realized something... I told my Mom the dreams after she'd finished the novena.... the first dream Mom was making a blanket and there was something special about it, the second it was like Grandma was waiting in her hospital bed for something and the last dream was Grandma having the blanket my Mom had lovingly made for her, Grandma couldn't leave without it....

Random Review: The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Just went and saw the new movie Sorcerer's Apprentice. Pretty good show, though I was a little disappointed with it at the same time. Perhaps I was expecting a little more development and a little more action overall? Also, the intro to the show was...cheap. It seemed like the intro to Disney's cartoon Aladdin or something , it was pretty corny. C'mon, it's supposed to be believable, then MAKE it believable. It couldn't be taken very seriously. Not something I was terribly into. 

Anyhow, after watching Sorcerer's Apprentice, I was thinking how more and more it seems that many tv series and movies are using magic and mythical creatures in them! Not that I hate all the cool special effects, etc. Fun to watch. ...but the conversation between the father and daughter in Pirates of the Caribbean comes to mind sometimes with all the magic going on. Elizabeth and her father were talking about pirates and the father was saying he wondered of the impact on his daughter from all the pirate talk and she says, "Actually I find it all fascinating!" to which her father replied "Yes, that's what concerns me."

It seems that our generation is becoming more and more captured by the magical world, I myself enjoy watching shows.... But sometimes I stop and think of the conversation between Elizabeth and her father and wonder, "Are we becoming fascinated in that same way?"

It was a month you weighed heavy on my mind
Cutting my heart deeper an inch at a time.
Perhaps I should have seen it, but I was blind
You were acting your pain out in mime.

But what is a friend? a reflection of pain?
Why did you hurt me, to release some shame?
You should have told me, made it quite plain
I'm here to help, I will not blame.

If you'd but told me I'd caress, I'd pray
If you'd display your struggle just to one
Perhaps you could face your demon and say,
I've won.

Of Ebony; for Katie

Sorry this post doesn't seem so .... cheery... was just a sudden random thought as I read something a friend wrote...I haven't talked to them since I moved without saying goodbye :-( alas, my fault.

I was just relating this...stupidity I can't take back... to a friend, then it suddenly struck me, we design our own crosses, so to speak:

I designed my own cross:
Loss of friendship heavy as ebony,
Details carved intricately, I can never forget,
Memories glow as a lacquer, brightness burns the eyes.
I want to throw it from me, but then I can't let it go....

And so I carry you always with me, my cross.

A Woman

I just started reading the life of Anna-Maria Taigi which mentioned (on only the second page) that she was like another Catherine of Siena, supporting the the pope with her prayers against Emperor Napoleon. It made me stop and think of that phrase one hears once in awhile in history class that behind every great man is a great woman and that behind every evil man is an evil woman.

But then I thought of Catherine and Anna-Maria and then Our Lady and I thought, "In the way of every evil man, God has always placed as his foe a holy woman to protect the Church" and "In every century, there is a holy woman sacrificing her life for the world...in every century, there is a strong woman saint who has saved the world, even if she's gone mostly unseen..."

In all the really frightening and evil times, in every century, I'm sure we can find that there is a great woman that rose to the challenge to sacrifice her life and by prayer and suffering softens God to help the Church, a Pope, a nation, a king to do God's will.

Think about it, the devil (we all think of Satan as a man right :-P ) challenged God, fell from heaven, temped Adam and Eve to sin , God said that his head would be crushed by a woman, Our Lady. When there was a threat to France and the Church, God rose up St Joan of Arc to fight the English (hey, the English had a male ruler! :-D, besides, the English pretty much gave birth to some "great" protestant sects and killed the Church in England it could have taken over half of Europe in error had not Joan rose up and fought back the English helping to end English hold in parts of France, who knows. Not much of a historian, but I did hear that theory brought up once, sounded interesting.

Anyhow, you get my point, we can look back in history and often find a great woman when there was a time of great crisis for the Church who had a hand in saving the Church by some means or influence.

...and even thought it just came upon me all this randomness, I have often thought of how God does seem to make use of a saintly woman when the world seems to be floundering... and then I stop in awe and wonder, "I wonder who/where this great woman saint of today is? There have been saints all along, where are they? are they in convents or just some housewife somewhere giving up her life to God for the world, for our leaders? ..."

There have got to be saint somewhere in this world, right? ...and then something I read that Padre Pio said to a woman once, I think I read it in the Angelus or something, a woman confessed an abortion to him or he just knew, and he said to her "You aborted the bishop who would have saved the Church...." Perhaps that woman then devoted her life to God begging Him to save the Church another way? We may never know...

But it's an interesting thought, God raises up great saints in all centuries, why not ours? Where are ours? Maybe it's a housewife in Brazil, maybe it's some nun tucked away in one of the convents of the world, maybe it's someone we know. Whoever she is, wherever she is, I am in awe of her, I applaud her, I will pray for her.

I Heart My Cabinet Shop

Get this! I hardly ever get personal emails, then this morning I got one from Mom AND one from Dad! :)

Mom sent me this email about Agape love today, was really good, thinkin bout posting it just because it was cool.

And Pop's was tellin me about needing a template for a cross to put on a casket he was building yesterday, then he found the template for a celtic cross I had made when I was making liquor cabs for my bro and me last year :) *sigh* I really do miss working in the cabinet shop... It's so...it's just amazing. It's so relaxing on a Saturday to be out there working on my own project, no one else there to make lots of noise. Granted, sometimes I'd coax my sis out there just because :-P

But really, it's awesome being out there in the shop alone,when I'm the only one making noise out there. The radio is set to the music of the day, the big garage door is open in the earlier morning when there's a cool breeze...when the door is opened, the sound of the air compressor that comes on at least every 30mins is muffled.... Still, there is a certain comfortable easy embalming silence that reigns when I'm there. I can hear my thoughts and the sound of a screw going into the wood....

I miss being able to just go out to the shop and grab the drills, the batter powered mini skill saw (so awesome, the one's by Makita!) or whatever else I needed to build a box for a present, make a backboard for a poster, make a shelf to go above my washer and dryer because, frankly, the builders of my rental place were pathetically cheap and completely inefficient or, my absolute favorite thing I've ever built and am most proud of, make a wine/liquor cabinet because I felt like it!

Those cabinets...just...wow! They are GORGEOUS! and I only have two crumby little pics from my phone of them! When I moved here to KS, I only brought what would fit in my car, thus, my cabinet is sitting royal estate in what my family likes to refer to as "the princess room" .... yes...that would be my old room! lol.

Anyhow, I started makin the wine cab for my bro, then only partway done I was getting jealous and I'd already told him I was makin it for him.... So I just put his on hold for a few days and started on another for me, brought it up to speed with the first.

Of all things I've built or made, I am most proud of those two cabinets that I made. And the brother I made one of them for (the one pictured, actually) is one of the most amazing men I know. He is the kindest husband and father that I've seen. Love you bro!

Flamin'..er...Bloomin' Onion Anyone?!

Okay, so I got a Green Tea Latte/frappe fix today, ordered some mix off of Amazon, good stuff by the way! Lol, let me know if you want some, I'll point ya in the right direction! Oh yeah, back to my story.... 

So after my Green Tea Latte and workin out in the yard for a little bit, I came back in and suddenly decided that I wanted to make a Bloomin' Onion, ya know, like at Outback Steakhouse. I have no bloody clue why on earth I suddenly decided such a thing.... Haven't had one for a long time since when I was back home in the Idaho...nor have I seen anything to suggest the Outback, so anyhow, I took it as very odd, but Googled "how to make a bloomin onion". ...I went through their steps, though I added more ketchup to the dipping sauce and I didn't cut the onion quite like they said to, but it turned out way better than how they were sayin I should do it.

Anyhow, I cut it almost to the root end, and then turned the knife vertical and sliced to the roots that way as well to make the onion bloom without havin to put it in boiling water then cold water like the recipes said. So after I was done cutting, it looked like this: 

Which was pretty cool. Then came the interesting part....

I had a medium sauce pan for the oil, and had it half full, enough to just cover most of the onion I figured... So I put it on the stove (which is a flat glass top), had it on for awhile, so I think it was a little on the too hot side

when I went to put my battered onion in...well...let me tell you...one should have a bigger pot/taller pot when ya'll put a bloomin onion into hot hot oil....

I dipped the onion into the pan, and it started boiling...OUT of the pot! Lol! My face had to have been a Kodak moment! LOL! I stepped back in shock for a moment, didn't want to have exploding oil on me or anything, then I realized it was just going to boil, much like hot water..but it was pouring out all over the stove top...so I picked up the pot to move it off the burner, stop the boiling over. Then as I stood there holding the pan over the stove wondering how on earth I was going to clean up the mess I made in my shear brilliance, it started to smoke! I breathed a quick thanks that the evil smoke detector wasn't in the kitchen anymore. Well, I shouldna been saying a thanks so quickly, I was suddenly standing in shocked horror as the oil burst into flames!

So I'm standing there for a split moment in shock watching as the flames floated over the oil, grabbed the pot off so I wouldn't have a flamin' onion, then grabbed the bottle of oil since the flames started to spread all over the bloody top! So I'm standing there with a pot in one hand and wondering how I'm going to put it out as I have no extinguisher or anything! I thought, "Maybe a towel to smother it? No, bad idea, could start on fire then what would I do?!" Stood there a moment longer and the flames got higher and wider and black smoke was everywhere! So I thought, "Okay, I've got nothin left, I'll try blowing on it..." Thank goodness it worked! I took two breaths and blew it out! Lol. So yeah, that was pretty interesting! :-P lol. 

So after the flames were out, I noted that my onion was still cookin even off the burner.... Didn't look half bad either! 

Yum Yum :-) It tasted just like from Outback :-) Most enjoyable.

Update: Watches gone Wonkey!

PS: After I wrote "Little Ray of Sunbeam", my wristwatch apparently got jealous that I didn't take notice of his time as I did my Sunbeam on the wall...so he went all wonkey, yes, much like Harold's wristwatch in Stranger Than Fiction... apparently my wristwatch has a role model there.... Anyhow, my wristwatch, who's face is a brilliant array of sunny colors, went and slowed down by a few minutes! The bratchild! So it made me late to work! 

And now that it's daylight savings time kicking in, everything is kinda wonkey, except my Sunbeam somehow made it through the Spring Jump just fine.... As for the bratchild, he has finally realized (once I threatened to get out the other Lorus with a more sedate outlook on life...in purple tones) that his co-operation is paramount to retaining his position on my wrist!

Little Ray of Sunbeam

The clock on my wall is pretty much my closest friend here in my house lately. He's the only one who has stuck around for some time. He knows, I really do rely on him to keep me on track.

He's pretty diligent in his duties as a friend and guardian (self-appointed you understand) and keeps me ahead of the times running a little faster than all the rest. Every evening when I get home from work, he watches down as I get dinner ready and then log onto my computer and sit typing away madly, sometimes late into the night, and not at all perturbed that I'm not paying as much attention to the time he's trying to show me, but he is rather persistent. I'm sure he's smiling at the oddness of me laughing hysterically sometimes too as I type at my computer, but if he does, he keeps his laughter to himself, never judging me--at least not that I'm aware of! He even tries to get me to go to bed at a decent hour sometimes, the sounds of "tick tock, tick tock" growing louder as the silence of the night settles in. He even tries to rush me off to work every morning warning, "Rebecca, it's 7:45am! Time to start the car!" When really I have a few minutes to spare :-)

Yes, my clock on my living room wall has been a faithful friend, breaking the silence and providing a constant reminder, waving his hands around at me, letting me know time is passing, the world is changing, and I am a part of it.

Say tonight, fight the break of day...

I don't want to fall asleep...I want to keep this day from ending.... Sometimes ya take something for granted, then one day it gets up and walks away whether you like it or not, whether you're ready or not...so prepare yourself, today may be the last day.... tomorrow it will be my last to spend an evening with my sister...and I have hardly told her how much I really appreciated having her here with me...and now there's only one day...only a few hours of which.... *Sigh* Goodbye, Sister....

Snow Angels

Okay, so I got a little crazy with the snow Friday night... :-D

No, not minister...

Last summer, mid-July, I stood atop the York Minster, terrifying.

The Minster is a beautiful and majestic piece of art set in a city filled with remnants of Roman legions of the past, cobblestone streets and tiny medieval-ish neighborhoods with hardly space for a horse and wagon to get through. York is even the home of many ghosts --and is alleged to be the most haunted city in Europe.

One of the ghost stories we heard was from an archeologist who gave us a walking tour of the city --which was really awesome from an archeologist very interested and VERY unbiased in his history -- oh yes, back to the ghost story!

So our guide told us that in the city treasury building, the city official knew that the basement was haunted, but didn't tell some plumbers who had to fix some pipes in the basement. The workers came running upstairs white faced where they ran into the city official who laughed and said, "Did you see the legion?"
Apparently, once in awhile a Roman legion can be seen marching across the basement out of one wall, across the room and into the opposite wall...but only from the knee and up.

Our guide then explained that there was a Roman road that runs through York, but that by now, it is buried several meters below current levels. They estimate that the Roman road runs about 1-2 feet under the basement of the treasury! So the ghosts of the legion is actually marching on the Roman road! Crazy!

Okay, so back from my ramblings....

Our last day in York, we decided to climb the 275 steps to the Minster's tower --in circular mini-staircase we're talking about here. (btw, I just read that the minster "weighs 16,000 tonnes - about the same as 40 jumbo jets!") Anyhow, I hate going around in circles, so that wasn't very fun. There are actually two sets of stairs to climb.

The Minster is built in the shape of a cross, the main entrance is at the "base" of the cross  (left end in pic) and the tower in the center is where you finally get to the top. To reach the center tower, you have to go up by the right arm of the church, (the arm pointing down in the pic) across the roof, then where the roof meets the center tower, another staircase takes you to the top (you can actually take a virtual tour (in good quality) of the Minster here)

So we climbed the first staircase and came out onto the roof (well, there's a little walkway right on the edge with shifty pieces of metal/wood that you walk across since it's basically the gutter I guess). Yeah, so I got up there --such and EXHAUSTING climb let me tell you! -- and thought, okay, kinda scary. Then I stepped onto the little cobbled-together-looking pathway along the roof...that basically completed this feeling of fear! lol. But I was like, "okay, I can take this, I just feel a little freaked about being so high up on top of a building...breath, I can do this..??!!" Then back into the next staircase for another 100 something steps.

When I came out on top of the Minster tower, I was almost dead from exhaustion! lol. Then I got up and looked around....It was a great view, but I was pretty much freaked being on top of that building that I walked around once and then went back down! [I was just reading my journal I kept on the trip, which I wrote in print until I wrote out my thought, "What if the building collapses?!" It was in cursive. Lol, apparently I think in cursive:-P ]

Seriously, never before have I been so scared of being so high up...and I was on top of a building to boot. ...maybe it was the scaffolding and rickety path over the gutter.... I dunno. But instead of awe inspiring, as most found it, I was terrified! *shivers* Apparently I'm more afraid of falling to my death than of being crushed by the building coming down around me....

Interesting what we learn of ourselves as we dance through life.... :-)

Firelight Smiles

I just popped a can of Fresca as I'm sitting down to lunch, as the sound hits my ears, the memory of flights past come to mind. It's funny that this kinda thing seems to happen most often, not with family or familiar people or places, but to do with airports and flying.

If I catch the scent of perfumes mixed with a stale scent of cigarettes, parties don't come to mind, but walking through Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport does! I see the many different vendor stands and the casino  passing through my mind just as when I druggedly walked through Schiphol....

Then of course there's the smell of brewing coffee that they always serve on airlines, which I HATE! Okay, that could be biased by the fact that the first few times I flew I was really really sick.... So that smell of coffee isn't so cool to me nowadays, though it is getting better now. Plus, flying no longer makes me sick, I think I was just nervous flying off to boarding school for the first few times :-P

Of course there are sounds, besides the sound of a pop can opening that bring memories to me. My favorite memory is triggered by a sound...

When I was between 5-10yrs old:

      It's between 3 or 4am, I walk out of my room, I'm dressed in my night gown; the hallway is dark, but there is a faint orange glow coming from the living room fireplace as the fan system surrounding it breathes out warm air. There's only one kitchen light on, and Mom is working on Dad's lunch beneath its yellow gleams. Mom doesn't say a word, she just smiles at me.
      I sit down on the edge of the bench of the picnic-style table Dad made and just sit and watch while Mom loads Dad's black lunchbox. Behind me, the wood stove seems to be humming a lullaby as some of the red embers darken and begin to sleep. My tired eyes still squinting, I am content. The humming lets me know it's a happy home. 

      After a few minutes, Mom says, "You can go back to bed now...." and smiles. Silently I walk back to my room where I fall asleep as the fireplace softly hums it's lullaby.