Category: A to Z Blogging Challenge

A to Z Blogging Challenge

Jasmine, Lavender, Jobs, and Junk

Sally8 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. I’ve fallen behind but haven’t given up! If you want to join me, just add a comment naming something you like and something you don’t like that begin with the letter J.

Also, I know this is Sunday night, but I’m going to try to incorporate Linda Hill’s (actually, this week Dan Antion’s) Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday which was “cent/scent/sent.”

Stream of Consciousness writing is supposed to be no editing and minimal planning. Trust me — I have not planned this. Life has been too busy.

“I should be able to crank this out,” I said to Mary as I headed in my room to write.

“You can do it,” she said — always my best cheerleader.

“It’ll be crap, but it will be done,” I said.

I forget what she said next.

Stream of Consciousness —- blah — I can’t even remember what was said to me five minutes ago.

Jasmine is a scent that begins with J. Do I like it? Do I not like it? I don’t know. I’m not sure I would recognize jasmine.

I like lavender. Does that count for anything? My friend Leah once sent me a bunch of lavender scented stuff. Here’s the problem, though. Lavender begins with L, not J.

I like my job, and that begins with J. The other day, the cash drawer was off by a cent — a single penny. Problems like that are so easy to solve. We have a little stash of coins to fix those problems.

I like the bigger problems too — figuring out to help members, guests, and even other staff. One of my co-workers is a “not my job” kind of person and I feel like she misses out on so much because of that attitude.

I don’t like junk. I bought a cheap lavender scented candle at TJ Maxx because I like lavender (see above). It was junk. I could hardly smell the scent.

I hate the junk mail that is sent to me.

I have spent waaaay too many cents on junk and thus learned the hard way that it’s better to buy quality.

Sorry for the crap post — but it’s done. And I used ALL the words so I should get lots of bonus point.

How about you? What’s something you like that begins with J? What’s something you don’t like?

Neither Jasmine nor Lavender scented. Hot toddy, I think.
A to Z Blogging Challenge

House

Sally10 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. I’ve fallen behind but haven’t given up! If you want to join me, just add a comment naming something you like and something you don’t like that begin with the letter H.

Also, trying to do Linda Hill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday (late for this also). Here’s the prompt: Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “a picture from wherever.” When you sit down to write your post, find a picture, whether in a magazine, newspaper, or even product packaging. Write whatever thought or emotion the picture provokes. 

I’m such a rule-breaker. I didn’t find a picture in a magazine, newspaper, or wherever. My first thought, probably because of writing about my roots yesterday, was this picture of the house where I grew up.

circa 1967, hand-tinted by my sister

I found the photo, not where I thought it would be but close. I showed it to my daughter, Mary.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“It’s this house,” she said. Clearly she didn’t hold the deep affection for it that I have.

“But look — there’s the front porch! And the side porch,” I pointed out. “They’re both gone now.”

“There’s still sort of a side porch,” she said.

And she’s right. The side porch in the photo is gone and has been replaced with a room we call the sun porch. I can still remember the year we went to the state fair and my mother dragged my father over to the display of modular-type rooms that could be added to the house. The next year, the side porch was torn down and the sun porch was installed.

The front porch has been long gone. I still remember the hammock that had been hung there and my father telling us ghost stories out there on summer nights.

The house faces west and my parents used to always go sit on the front porch after dinner with coffee (instant — yuck!) and watch the sun sink over Grasslands hill.

I love the house. It holds so many happy memories for me.

Here’s a photo of a house I drive by when I’m going to Syracuse. It’s on a back road, and I’ve watched its slow demise. When I saw that it had fallen, I stopped to take a picture.

When I would drive past it with Mary, she would often say, “I would love to explore that house.”

There’s something intriguing about abandoned houses.

I took the picture to send to Mary. A missed opportunity to explore.

I don’t know that I like abandoned houses. I certainly don’t like the wreckage of a house. It’s sad. I can’t help but wonder who holds the memories of the happy times that may have happened in that house.

Scottish Gaelic:
Is toil leam dachaigh mo leanabachd. I like my childhood home.
Cha toil leam long-bhriseadh taighe. I don’t like the wreckage of a house.

How about you? What’s something you like that begins with H? What’s something you don’t like?

A to Z Blogging Challenge

Greene, Green, Don’t Hug Me

Sally8 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. I’ve fallen behind but haven’t given up! If you want to join me, just add a comment naming something you like and something you don’t like that begin with the letter G.

In 2006, we moved from Cooperstown to Greene, NY. It was a miscalculation on my part of how deep my roots were in Cooperstown. I was like a plant uprooted that failed to thrive in its new location. Nine years later, I uprooted again and came back to Cooperstown. I don’t know how other people do it — all this moving from place to place. I definitely have roots and they are in one particular soil.

But Greene — Greene was a great place to live. Still upstate New York. Still small town. Still surrounded by farmland and wooded areas. Warm, friendly people. A great library. A charming main street (called Genesee Street, not Main). Safe. Walkable.

The economy in Cooperstown depends largely on two things: tourism and medicine. The economy in Greene depends largely on a forklift factory. I’m not kidding.

The Raymond factory is right next to the high school and it’s one of the largest employers in the area. Raymond is generous to the community, too. Kids from the high school who are interested in engineering have opportunity to be part of a program where they can test it out there. The largest scholarships from the school are named for members of the Raymond family. It’s a good relationship.

I like Greene. I liked our house there — which we still own (and need to sell). We call it the Greene house, even though it’s yellow.

The Greene House — March 2015

I liked our neighbors. I liked our church a lot! I loved walking the streets and the familiarity that grew from that. I loved the way the community would come together for events like their July craft show, Labor Day picnic, and Applefest. In December, they hold an official Christmas tree lighting and sing Christmas carols together.

So I like the village of Greene — I really do! It just never became home.

The color green is also one of my favorites. In my mish-mash of different pens within easy reach, I have ten green ones! It’s a happy color, a hopeful color, a sign of life and growth.

Our family used to vacation in Myrtle Beach every April. We would leave New York and its dirty snow and mushy grayness, and watch a progression of green as we drove south. South Carolina would be in full bloom and it was wonderful.

Driving home again was a regression, like watching a nature film in reverse, where the budded trees become sticks and the grass disappeared.

It never failed that it would be snowing when we entered Otsego County.

So green is good.

However, “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” partially ruined green for me.

Whereas Andrew Peterson sings about green being “the color of hope” (Hosea) and about God leading him by the hand into a land of green and gold (After All These Years), “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” starts off hopeful, talking about creativity, and then veers off into bizarre creepiness. The shift begins with the words, “green is not a creative color.”

I’ve only watched it about 137 times, which tells you the love-hate relationship I have with it. It’s so funny — in an awful way.

If you’ve never watched it, here it is. Watch it if you dare, but don’t blame me if you never see the color green in the same way again.

Scottish Gaelic:
Is toil leam Greene agus an dath uaine. I like Greene and the color green.
Chan eil mi cinnteach an toil leam “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.” I’m not sure I like “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.”

How about you? What do you like that begins with G? What do you dislike? And what’s your honest opinion of “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared”?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · family

Family Feud

Sally6 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment naming something you like and something you don’t like that begin with the letter F.

I love my family. I may have already mentioned that half a zillion times.

I like them.

I love them.

I think they’re amazing.

I’m proud of them.

I love spending time with them.

Since the wedding, a number of people have stopped at the front desk and asked to see photographs. I have a few on my phone, but my favorite one is this:

Those are all my children! Aren’t they wonderful?!

I was showing this photo to a woman who comes in to swim every day and she called her husband over to see it. “Look!” she said, “These are all Sally’s children!”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe it. Eight of them!”

“Look at this photo,” she said again. “That’s a great family!”

He looked at me and shook his head again. “I just can’t wrap my mind around it. You gave birth to all those children?”

I smiled and nodded. “Having those kids was the most fun thing ever,” I said. Then added — “well, maybe not the giving-birth part, but raising eight children was fun. We played games together, read together, ate together nearly every night. It was a lot of work, but it was all good.”

He just shook his head a third time. “I don’t know,” he said.

But I do. I KNOW every minute was worth it.

Lest you think that every minute was perfect, let me assure it was not.

There was one time that two boys were playing medieval times and one almost jousted the other’s eye out.

And there was the time when one boy almost removed another one’s ear in a freak accident. (Same two boys incidentally.)

There was the time I came home of a shopping trip to find a little boy scooching along a thin bit of roof to get BACK to the open window he had come out of.

Oh — and that time we came home from a dinner out to find a boy with a broken arm.

We’ve had stitches and a knocked out tooth. Also, chicken pox, ear infections, strep throat, and stomach bugs upon stomach bugs. One round of stomach bugs was just after I had come home from the hospital with a new baby. Fun times.

At the end of the day we are family.

And yet we also feud. The middle child in me wants us all to get along. If I homeschooled my children with purpose, though, it was that they be able the think for themselves.

And they do.

Because of that, they cover not a linear spectrum, but a three-dimensional one. They are eight unique points in a universe, not lined up in a row at all, but all over the map. Some are very conservative, while others are very liberal. Some attend church every Sunday, while others search and question all of that. Some own guns. Some hate guns. Some hunt. Some are vegetarian. I could go on.

We gathered for a family wedding back in May. We laughed together, ate together, and celebrated together. We were family, not feud — and I really liked that.

Scottish Gaelic:
Tha gaol agam air mo theaghlach. I love my family.
Cha toil leam sabaid. I do not like fighting.

How about you? What do you like that begins with F? What do you dislike?

A to Z Blogging Challenge

Exercise and Ego

Sally6 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment naming something you like and something you don’t like that begin with the letter E.

It’s a good thing I work at a gym. I love exercise.

I think it has to do with endorphins, another “e” word. Over the course of a good workout, your body releases neurotransmitters called endorphins. They reduce pain and improve mood.

So many people come into the gym grumpy and leave laughing. I’ve learned to send people to their workout before we talk business at the front desk, especially if they seem irritable.

They sometimes come in asking about their bill. “Go work out,” I’ll say. “I’ll pull your file and take a look. Then when you’re done, we can figure it out together.”

It’s pretty amazing what a spin class or yoga class will do for the affect. (Psychology definition for affect: an experience of feeling or emotion, mood)

Kinds of exercise I like: walking, swimming, climbing. Mostly I walk these days, though. I still don’t trust my shoulder.

Scottish Gaelic: Is toil leam eacarsaich. (I like exercise)

I don’t like big egos. We see those at the gym too.

Some guys come in so full of themselves that I’m amazed they fit through the door.

Blech. I don’t even want to give them the time of day.

But I work at the front desk, and, if they asked, I suppose I would.

Scottish Gaelic: Cha toil leam egos mòra, (I don’t like big egos.)

I almost wrote this about envelopes. My daughter spent last week making envelopes out of pretty papers. I really like her envelopes.

Here are just a few:

How about you? What do you like that begins with E? What do you dislike?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · friendship · Life

Dentist

Sally16 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment of something you like that begins with the letter D and something you don’t like.

Also, today’s post is my submission for Stream of Consciousness Saturday’s prompt — irony.

“You invite your dentist to your family weddings?” someone asked one of my children when they were being introduced to Dr. Kate.

I think it was Laurel that I was talking to about it, because she said, “I never really thought it was weird until they said that.”

We don’t invite Dr. Kate to weddings because she’s a dentist. We invite her because she’s a friend. She’s been a nearly lifelong friend to me.

I can still picture her when we were kids with her jaw wired shut and her head with a halo screwed into it to keep her neck in traction. I would go visit her every day after school at the hospital before getting a ride home with my father.

It was probably close to three months that she was in the hospital — so that’s a lot of visits! A friendship grows over something like that.

To be totally honest, I’m pretty terrible at keeping in touch with people, so we lost touch during the years that happened between high school and parenting. She went off to the dental school and Navy. I went off to Wyoming. Eventually we both ended up back in Cooperstown.

And yes, she comes to our family weddings. I love my dentist, Dr. Kate.

Helen, Dr. Kate, and Mary all dancing

So I suppose there’s a little irony in the fact that I hate going to the dentist. It ranks right up there with having a gall bladder attack, another not-fun repeated experience in my life, but I’ll save that story for another day.

In Scottish Gaelic:
Is toil leam am fiaclair agam.
(I like my dentist.)

Cha toil leam a dhol dhan fhiaclair.
(I don’t like going to the dentist.)

How about you? What do you like that begins with D? What do you dislike?

A to Z Blogging Challenge

Collaboration/Condescension

Sally11 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment of something you like that begins with the letter C and something you don’t like.

The other day I was at TJ Maxx returning a few things I had purchased at the same time as my mother-of-the-bride dress when the checkout clerk asked me, “What’s the Rabbit Room?”

I was, at first, startled by the question. Why would she be asking me that? Then I saw her looking at my bag, a lovely spacious bag that I carry everywhere.

My bag has everything I could possibly need if I was stranded in a snowstorm — lots and lots of pens, a blank mini-journal, several other journals, a book (sometimes two), cough drops, scissors, a key fob to get into work, scraps of paper with little reminders on them, a few receipts, an empty glasses case, my wallet, a couple of notes from people I love to remind me who I am, hand sanitizer, a flashlight, and a tic-tac box with one mint left. There’s more, but I’ll stop now.

The sales clerk was looking at my bag as I was shuffling through it trying to find my wallet. On the outside, it says “The Rabbit Room.“

My Rabbit Room bag, complete with Rabbit Room personalities pinned to the front

I fumbled for words to answer her. It was like being asked to define family.

I think I said something like this, “The Rabbit Room is a gathering place for creative people. It’s named after a room in a pub in London where JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, and some other writers met to encourage each other. It’s both a virtual and a physical space for encouragement, collaboration, and community among artists.”

She looked at me and nodded like she understood. “I had just never heard of it before,” she said.

Once I was back in my car, I tried to rethink my answer. The Rabbit Room is so hard to explain. Community is at its heart. Collaboration is an outworking of that.

Condescension, however, can shut down collaboration with just a word or two.

John Steinbeck said, “There are no ugly questions except those clothed in condescension.”

Unfortunately, there are far too many answers clothed in condescension too.

Condescension is a smothering blanket on any discourse. Can you tell that I don’t like it?

Collaboration allows questions and answers to be exchanged without condescension shutting the whole process down.

The Rabbit Room is place where that happens

How about you? What do you like that begins with C? What do you dislike?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · family

B things

Sally19 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment of something you like that begins with the letter B and something you don’t like.

“What’s something I like that begins with B?” I asked Mary.

“Biscotti,” she said immediately. Ooh, I do like biscotti.

“Books,” she said.

“Bosnia.”

“Blue.”

Does this girl know me or what?

“Bugs,” she said.

“I don’t like bugs,” I replied.

“But you need a ‘don’t like,’ don’t you?” she said.

That was the problem. I had had an idea for a post, but when I sat down to write it, my words went off in a direction and I was stuck with a “don’t like” that I hadn’t expected. Sometimes that happens.

But I really do like biscotti, books, Bosnia (one of my best trips ever), and the color blue.

If you want to read what I don’t like, you’ll have to suffer through the next part. Please forgive the TMI.

I am not a shopper. Other than my frequent trips to the grocery store and occasional trips to Target, I really don’t spend much time shopping.

When my oldest daughter set the date for her wedding, my co-workers asked to take me shopping — dress shopping to be precise.

“Um… no,” I said.

“It’ll be fun,” they said.

“No,” I said.

“We’ll make a day of it,” they said.

“Really — no,” I said.

So I went shopping with my daughters. It was a painful experience — leafing through racks of frou-frouey dresses, trying on a few here and there. No, no, no. They all belonged on some other woman, not me. My daughters were great. They were encouraging and kind, but no. We all needed to face the fact that I was not a dress shopper.

In the end I bought some fabric and a pattern and sent them to a dear friend. She had helped me out of this very pinch once before by making a dress for me that I wore to two sons’ weddings.

My friend and I messaged back and forth. She sent me a mock-up of the bodice to make sure it would fit. Finally, about two weeks before the wedding, she mailed the package.

I waited.

And waited.

I messaged her that it hadn’t come. She went to the post office. The tracking number was dead. I pictured my package falling off the conveyor belt of a vast postal facility and getting kicked into some dim corner. Dead.

The wedding was in three days.

This meant another round of dreaded dress-shopping. This time I found one.

But here’s the very worst part of the whole ordeal. Because of the neckline of the dress I found, I had to go bra shopping.

I HATE bra shopping — and that’s my B.

And that’s enough said about THAT.

My new dress matched my daughters perfectly.

 In Scottish Gaelic: Is toil leam biscotti, leabhraichean, Bosnia, agus gorm. Cha toil leam ceannach airson fo-aodach.

How about you? What do you like that begins with B? What do you dislike?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Life

Authenticity/Aches and Pains

Sally23 Comments

This is my own A-to-Z Challenge for the month of June — likes and dislikes. If you want to join me, just add a comment of something you like that begins with the letter A and something you don’t like.

Authenticity

I’m applying for a new job. I saw Mary staring at the printed resume and cover letter in my hand. Her brow was slightly furrowed. “What?” I asked. “Does the paper look like it expired in 2017?” It’s kind of a running joke at the house these days. We keep finding outdated food items.

She pointed to the cover letter printed on plain old white paper. “This looks very professional,” she said. Then, pointing at the resume printed on a heavier slightly marbled-looking paper, she said, “But this is more you.”

“Great,” I said. “I’m going to use it.”

I hate trying to pretend to be something I am not. I said something like that to one of my co-workers when I was struggling to hide my irritation with a situation. “Stick with me,” she said, “and I’ll teach you how.”

She is masterful at gooey niceness and then making nasty comments as soon as the person is gone. It bugs me.

And I can’t do it.

Instead of learning to be fake, I would rather learn to appreciate the other person for whatever their strengths are.

And I would rather be true to who I am — dated marbled paper and all.

“The authentic self is the soul made visible.” Sarah Ban Breathnach

Is toil leam fìrinn.
Scottish Gaelic for “I like authenticity.”

I do NOT like aches and pains.

I’ve reached that age of joint pain and arthritis. Honestly, this is for the birds. I hate it.

My shoulder was bothering me a few weeks ago — a sharp stabbing pain when I stressed it in a certain way. I kind of like my shoulder. I especially like it when it’s pain-free.

So I called to see a health care provider in orthopedics about it. I just wanted someone to look at it and, “You’re fine,” or, “This is what’s going on.” My first appointment, which was scheduled two weeks out, was cancelled when the provider got COVID. The second appointment, scheduled two weeks after the first, was exactly what I had hoped for.

I had an x-ray. “You have a little arthritis,” she said, “but I would be surprised if you didn’t.” Advanced age and all that.

“Everything today looks fine,” she said. “Continue your usual activities.” These include swimming and climbing.

That was last week and I still have yet to do either, but I’m glad for the go-ahead.

Cha toil leam pian co-phàirteach.
Scottish Gaelic for “I do not like joint pain.”

How about you? What do you like that begins with A? What do you dislike?

A to Z Blogging Challenge · Hutchmoot · prayer

Liturgy

Sally1 Comment

On Mother’s Day, one of my children asked, “What’s something you like, Mom?”

“Ummm… I don’t know. I like you, ” I said. “I like my family.”

I kept thinking and started rattling things off. “I like pens. And I like paper. I like books. I like words.”

I definitely like words. So when I struggle to find words, I know that I am, in general, struggling.

When I first started blogging, words helped me to make sense of my mother’s slide into dementia. She was losing words. I was finding them and using them. A few years later, when my father followed my mother down the same road, the words didn’t come as easily. After he passed away, words slowed to a trickle. Occasionally I have enough to fill a post, but, obviously, not often, or at least not often enough to complete a blogging challenge.

But this is a post about words — specifically, liturgical words.

I wish I could say that Hutchmoot started me on my journey into liturgy as a spiritual practice, but I think it’s more like I met a bunch of companions who were traveling down the same road, and we’ve now traveled that way together for many years.

When I’m refer to liturgy, I’m talking about ritual, about scripted words, about reciting ancient prayers in unison — practices that we seem to have abandoned in many modern churches.

In 2013, my friend Alyssa — the one I met at Hutchmoot — gave me a “hijacked journal” for Christmas. It was a lovely journal with a rabbit on the front, and she had hijacked it by writing quotes from some of my favorite authors on many of the pages. I spent 2014 and 2015 filling those pages with prayers – a new one each week.

Most of the prayers in 2015 were ones I wrote myself. I wrote them and then I prayed them over and over. The pages are full of revisions as the praying helped me edit. Or, was it God?

At Hutchmoot 2015, on Sunday afternoon as part of our closing session, we joined together for “The Liturgy of Lost Rhyme,” written by Douglas McKelvey. When we walked into the sanctuary, we were handed a script and a slip of paper that told us the part we were to read.

We joined together reading old/new words, interspersed with songs, that told the story of our brokenness and our redemption.

In retrospect, I see how this was a prelude for one of the most important books to come out of the Rabbit Room — Every Moment Holy. (Rabbit Room is the “host” of Hutchmoot.)

Every Moment Holy, published in 2017, is a collection of liturgies written by Douglas McKelvey. It contains everything from table blessings that can be read by a group at a special dinner to a couple of prayers for before or after changing a diaper. He gives words of thanksgiving to God for the wonder of the first snow or arriving at the ocean, and prayers to offer when we hear sirens or find ourselves randomly thinking of another. Every moment truly is holy — and these are liturgies to remind us of that. They gives us words for moments when we don’t have words.

If I were to tell you to go to the Rabbit Room store and buy one book, it would be this book.

Every Moment Holy, Volume II: Death, Grief & Hope came out a month ago. It contains liturgies for when a person receives bad news, for caregivers in need of rest, for those who enduring lasting pain, for final hours. Having sat at both my parents’ bedsides when they passed away, I can tell you that words don’t come easily in those moments.

Back to struggling for words… This post has been in my draft folder for a full month. Hey, Doug — how about a liturgy for finishing an unfinished blog post?