With Apologies to Terry - I Was Tagged!

A few weeks back Terry tagged me for the Shrink meme. I was in the middle of my blue funk so while I knew I wanted to respond, after all, he graciously responded to mine, I figured it might be a while. Well, I'm feeling a might more energetic this weekend so here we go! And for its lateness, "Terry, I'm sorry!"

The Rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you (that's me!).

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write six random things about you in your blog post.

4. Tag six people in your post.

5. Let each person know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

OK, so I'm supposed to link to Terry. So there you go! If you want to read his response to the meme just click on his name in that first sentence. :)

I did the posting of the rules above. Actually they were the first thing I put into this post. I figured I didn't want to be bouncing back and forth between blogs to remember what I was supposed to be doing. Have I ever mentioned that I'm ADD and have a short active working memory? Well it's true! I am and have. Makes for some interesting social situations. Okay, now to the 6 random things.

1) I think I already mentioned one random thing. Being ADD is important to me because it means that, knowing that, I can work on ways to get around it.

2) I've taken Ballet, Tap, Ballroom, Country Western at various times in my life. Yep, I love to dance!

3) The most interesting thing I've learned about myself lately came from my mother. We were discussing the situation of my birth, at home and lengthy labor, when she told me that for the first few weeks (or was it months?) of my childhood, someone had to hold me 24/7. Apparently I screamed if I was put down. So my mother and I stayed with her parents while my dad went off to fight in the Korean War and my grandparents and Mom all took turns holding me through the long nights and days. I have nothing but sympathy for my parents and grandparents. I've known a child with colic who needed to be held and rocked till the discomfort subsided. It's so frustrating because you want to comfort the child but few things seem to work and not consistently. So a belated but heartfelt, "Thank you!" to my mother and grandparents for that loving and devoted care.

4) This may be a repeat from an earlier meme, but I wrote a history paper on my home town. When I went back to college in 2002 one of the courses I took was US History Part 2, taught by Robert Hines at Palo Alto Community College. One of Hines's course requirements was to write a history of a small town in Texas with the intent that we learn to understand how history is written and developed. So I chose the town I grew up in because I had 2 generations of family that had lived there. The paper got me an A, and because I took the time to turn it into a web page for the professor, it got me enough scholastic points that I was able to escape the final exam for that course. That was a first for me. The paper also got me my first and only radio interview along side the teacher on an early morning talk show. If you are interested in reading the history of Mercedes, TX, go here.

5) I'm pigeon toed. This makes for some interesting effects on shoes which wear out on one edge before the rest of the sole. It also means that I was never able to do the 180 degree spread of feet in childhood ballet lessons. Instead, I can turn both feet in and cross my legs over while doing this so that they point 180 the other way. Yes, you'll see the outsides of my ankles and my feet still point away from my body. I can do it without crossing the legs too. How's that for being flexible? I challenge Mrs. Shrinky to try this. :)





6) I'm officially going on a diet! In the past couple of months I've put on 20 pounds. That means most of my slacks wardrobe doesn't fit anymore. I want my size 14 (or better) figure back again. Yep, it's portion control time for me. Time to do salads and ice water for lunch. No more breakfast tacos. Instead, I'll have a healthy portion of cereal with low fat milk. Oh, and stop buying Oreos at the grocery. Instead find me something healthy to munch on, such as carrots or other snacks with next to no calories but lots of filling qualities and plenty of vitamins. And will someone please remind me to walk on a regular basis? I keep forgetting. :(


OK, now I'm supposed to tag 6 people and let them know. Let's see, I tag San, Sandi, JS (& wife if she wants to), Paschal, Susan (if she can find the time), and ALT.

A Quiz That Got it Right!

Middle of the road! That's me. I've always decided to go my own way and not side with the left or the right. There's more fun to be had picking from the best of both worlds than from joining a side. And today I went back to that site of quizzes which told me I was a crossword puzzle and discovered whether I was an Uptown or Downtown girl! My results are below.

You Are Midtown

You love so many things, you don't fit into any one label. Your city girl persona goes to a fancy restaurant one night and a dive bar the next.

Are You An Uptown Girl or Downtown Girl?

Feel free to take it too and then join me as we plan our All Around Town night out!

And We're Back to Taking Quizzes!

Popped over to CrazyCath's today and discovered that she had taken one of those delightful blog quizzes. So of course I took it too. (Big Smile) And guess what! I'm now a game!!!

Being the overly honest person that I am, I have to admit that I tried to see if I could get different results. Nope! No matter which answer I changed, although they were all within reason, I remained the same game. My results are below.

You Are a Crossword Puzzle

You are well read, and you have a good head for remembering facts. You are a wordsmith. You have a way with words, and you're very literate. You are a mysterious person who enjoys dropping little clues every now and then.

What Kind of Puzzle Are You?

And I bet you thought I was a Sudoku. LOL!!

I tag San, JS, Murat11, Sandi, Alt, and any other friends and readers who want to take the quiz and discover their gamehood.

First Sources are a Treasure

A picture of my dad as a young man from the 100th Bomb Group website.

Both my father and my grandfather fought in World Wars. Granddad fought in WWI and Dad fought in WWII and the Korean War. While I was growing up I gathered in bits and pieces of historical lore and popular songs from those times as part of being a loved child.

Songs were usually just fun for me when I was a kid. Dad used to play his ukulele for my sister and me at bedtime. He taught us to sing American folk songs and some military numbers along with those funny popular songs that people come up with when times are hard. Lots of times I didn't know what I was getting. So it was a huge surprise to me when I auditioned for a college musical by singing "Hut Sut Rawlson on the Rillerah" and learned from the director that it was a Korean War song. Here's a video in black & white of it that I got off of You Tube.



Granddad passed on when I was still a young woman. I wish I'd had more time to gather in his memories. He was a great story teller. Dad however, is doing a fine job of telling his own stories. He's writing his memories of WWII pilot training and some of his "missions" during the war on the font of information that the guys from the 100th Bomb Group (home page link) have set up. I'm really proud of my dad and all his accomplishments. So I've included a link to the website in my sidebar under Friend's Blogs. Hope you all will visit and read his stories. You'll find his memories and some others listed there. Dad's are the ones written by Bill Kennedy. There's a place for comments there so why not leave him or the other veterans a word and tell them how much you appreciate their service and their value to correct history as told by the people who lived it.

Kill the Blues and Your Pocketbook Too

Well I'm back at it again. That age old remedy that women are so fond of using to cure a case of the blues. I went shopping. At Amazon.com!

This past week, along with a lot of the US population, my government rebate hit my bank account. :) Yes, I now have a little extra cash. Part of me wonders how we are going to end up paying for that later, but I loathe political commentary and discussion almost as much as I hate shot needles, so we aren't going there. I promptly put the money in my savings account. Now I've spent about a 3rd of it. On what you ask? Silly question. Books of course!

For a while now I've been wanting a New Zealand Prayerbook. It's all JS's fault. If she hadn't posted that beautiful prayer from it when I needed it so much, I'd never have known the darn book existed. When I realized how cool the book was I went looking around for one. Those things just never go on sale. There seems to be a standard price for them which is about $31. The other day I was telling my friend Susan that I thought an apartment blessing by Robert, my priest, might help me fend off the blues when sitting at home alone. The reason this place gives me the blues is another long story but I got that idea from two sources at once, my PC and my own heart. So I'm planning on having one in the not too distant future. And Susan told me there was a lovely house blessing service in the New Zealand Prayerbook. So now I had another reason to get it. And suddenly I have cash! Oooohh! Google and find the cheapest prices, there were none, so Amazon.com here I come.

Once at the Amazon site I promptly located the much desired book. Yes, I'd checked out the local bookstore too. It had way too many books and not enough info. Amazon offered free shipping. When I looked down the page for shipping details and other stuff (always read the fine print from the editor/publisher), I discovered it was also sold with a celtic book of some sort. Then I remembered when we had that wonderful celtic book sale at Church after the service by Reverend Newell.


There had been a Celtic Daily Prayer book. And if I remembered right, it had Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Eucharist, and communion in it. So with dreams of doing a Celtic version of Morning Prayer I went looking for that one too. Amazon had it and low and behold, it was on sale. At 30% off! Now it's in my shopping cart too. Yay! I can do all kinds of prayers and healing services. It didn't seem to have any Celtic House Blessings but I'm sure something can be adapted. One of the reasons I selected this particular book instead of another one by a well known author is because it is by an entire community and seemed to have some extras in it. By all means go and check out the look inside that Amazon gives.


Then I remembered that good Sir Paschal, had suggested The Artist Way as a book to inspire and help one maintain an air of creativity and spirituality. So I went looking for that too. I found lots of versions but one was The Complete Artists Way. This one had 3 of the books and when I looked inside there were lots of small chapters and exercises too. So, of course that was put into the shopping cart too. It also was on sale. By now my total is well past the $50 mark. I told myself I should pay my bill and leave. But my sensibilities told me I had one more necessary purchase to make.


For the past few weeks I've been carrying my beloved digital camera around in my tote bag taking it to work with me. I'd not been able to find time to wander outside to use it but it was there nonetheless, building the good habit of taking my camera with me at all times(Thank you, David!). The bad thing about that is the tote bag was filled with all sorts of stuff and not a safe place for camera view screens. So I badly needed a camera case. That too is available from the font of all shopping mavens. Searching for a proper camera case for my Canon PowerShot, I found too many extravaganza's with lots of extras I didn't need, and very few real cases until I typed in the model. Then I had 5 choices of which 2 were cases, one of which was out of stock. The instock one was leather and promised to fit my model. But it had no photos. The unavailable one looked exactly the same but in a different color. Oh well, I looked anyway. It had pictures, uploaded by a past customer. And it was the exact same case but in blue. Mine will be gray. It was also available used for about half the price. So of course it is on order too. Now I'll be able to attach the camera to my belt or something suitable and protect it from mishaps while having it available. I feel good about that.

So you think I might be done shopping? Probably not! I need some milk products from the grocery store and I have a really cool 15% coupon for Barnes & Noble, plus a membership, and there is surely a wonderful next book in one of the various werewolf, or vampire series I seem to be so fond of reading these days. That will probably be my next stop. Besides, it's right around the corner from Bath & Body Shop and I just happen to be out of soap. On top of that there are some awesome movies I want to see, among them are Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones 4, and Spiderwick Chronicles.

And I've got still more blogging to do. A while back Terry tagged me for a meme I've not gotten around to. So that's next on my list. You can't say no when it's a friend. Then David suggested that because my dad is writing his memoirs on the web site of the 100th Bomb Group (yep, a genuine first source for you history buffs, just look for posts by Bill Kennedy) and I mentioned that I'd run link trainers when I was in the Navy that perhaps I could write a post on that. So I've said okay to that too. Looks like I'll be busy for a while.

Bright Colors, Beauty, and Activity Help

It's been days since I posted anything. Sorry about that! I've been in a blue funk! Yeah, that picture above of "Misty Coastline and Sea Stacks" by Corbis/Punchstock pretty much fit my mood. Life can get sad and scary you know? I don't want to sound sorry for myself, but I'm going to be going through an emotional adjustment for a while; and it isn't something I want to do, but part of the reason is something I'm glad to see happening.

My life is still in flux from the not finishing student teaching. That will have to be handled at sometime and soon. I keep meaning to get back to work on redirecting my life but right now I am involved in a job that has me sitting all day scoring tests for Pearson and at the end of the day I'm just exhausted. So I still have the dreaded but exciting job search to kick off and complete.

To add to that, my best friend, JS, the one God put into my life, is going to Vermont to become a priest. And while I love that she has gotten a great job to move her and her family up there (becoming a priest can be a long process), and has a huge house to move into, I'm also gonna really miss sitting next to her at breakfasts on Sunday and taking notes together in Sunday School. Or dropping by for something or other to visit with her, and her wife and kids. I'm gonna have to find someone else to hang out with which will mean I'll probably be bouncing from acquaintance to acquaintance for a bit. I guess right now that's a good thing because I can get really insular when I've found a comfortable niche. But like I said, I'm really excited for her and we've promised to stay in touch even though she will be way up north. So it isn't all bad. I'm not losing a friend, I'm just seeing her off.

On the positive and active side, I'm planning on becoming a Verger for my church. If you want to know what a Verger is go here. I won't be alone in this. There are four other people who want to be vergers and they are all men. Yep, I'm to be the sole woman verger at my church. There will be a course of study to follow and a test to take. I'll be mentored by the present verger, Ted, and Robert, our priest. I'm hoping this will move me further into my church community and get me more involved. I'm already a Lay Eucharistic Minister(LEM) and on Altar Guild, so that will help with my new responsibilities.

A short bit about LEM duty. On Wednesday, I was supposed to help with the Healing Eucharist by supporting out priest as he lays hands on, anoints, and prays over those who attend the service asking for healing for themselves or others. Well, Robert had gone out of town and no one who was ordained showed up to take his place. Neither did our seminarian, Lisa who worked with me last time to do the service when Robert was unavailable. So there I was, in my robes, with three people in attendance. I had to do some kind of service all on my own. Eek! By church rules, I'm not allowed to officiate at Eucharist so we didn't do the communion. I am allowed to do Morning and Evening Prayer Rites. So, that is what I did, combining part of Evening Prayer Rite II with the prayers for healing from the regular healing service. And once I got started it went ok. The scriptures to be read that evening seemed to fall in line with the requests of the people, a sign I took to mean God was in attendance, and everyone was familiar with the service so we were able to do what was needed and tend to all there after a fashion. That was my first time doing a Prayer Service with people in attendance. I was scared at the start but when I was done I felt good about how it went. Now I know that I can handle it and will be ready should it ever happen again.

Ok, so that's activity. On the inactivity side, I've got a 3 day weekend and am resting up. Yes, I could have been scoring and making overtime. But my project has ended, I'm scheduled for another one on Monday, and I felt that I needed the time off to recoup my energy and try to take care of myself for a few days. So that's what I'm doing and why I'm blogging now.

It isn't that I haven't been thinking about blogging. I have been. I've just been too exhausted and blue to think of anything to say. However, I do have a couple of bright pictures to share. They are both Jigzone jigsaw puzzles. One I worked about 5 days ago and the other one I did this morning. So I'm going to embed them here.



This first one just attracted me so strongly. I love it's strong bright colors and maybe I'm crazy but the light seems to glow through the petals of this lovely Icelandic Poppy. So that was the earlier one I wanted to share.



Here's the other one. It's full of flowers and that Butterfly just looks ready to take off doesn't it? I love bright colors. I also love butterflies and all things winged. That winged group includes angels, fairies, dragons, kites, and anything else you can put into the sky. Hmmm...if I believed that I had past lives I'd almost think I might have been a sky creature in one of them.

Please enjoy the puzzles. I get them daily and now use them to share daily bits of news with my mom to whom I send an email of that day's puzzle so that she and I can share them long distance. Cheers!