Amish Eyes

Growing Up Amish: It's Berry Time

2014-08-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

This is the second article I did for my local paper on the Amish, based on the Old Order way of living and my mom's experiences as a young Amish woman. Be sure to check out the delicious berry recipe at the end. There is even an "English" cheater version that tastes almost as good. :)

As the days lengthen into beautiful summer, luscious, ripe strawberries, blueberries and blackberries taunt us with their sweetness, begging us to pick them and taste their marvelous juices, taking us back to summers before when we gave in to their seduction. The Amish, too, had times of berry picking when whole days revolved around these sweet gems.

Since my mother’s family had no kind of refrigeration (today some of my Amish relatives use a method of placing a large ice block into a deep freezer, not plugged in, to keep food items cold), the berries had to be eaten or preserved the day they were picked or the following day.

My mother remembers the berry season coming around with the ripening of the bright red, sweet strawberries. Her mother usually planted a patch three or four feet wide that ran the length of their vegetable garden at the edge of their yard. Also, the advent of the cherry orders marked the season.

The Amish are a tight knit community where very few of them in my mother’s day had contact with the outside world. Since there were no local orchards for the Amish to go pick their own cherries, they placed orders as a community to a place that one of the men in the community knew about. This man would go around on a Sunday and ask the families how many cherries they would like to order, then he would place the order by phone at the English neighbor’s house. After he got the delivery information, he told each family when the truck would arrive at his house with the cherries. On the day of delivery, a freezer truck would come with five-gallon metal containers of frozen cherries. The truck dropped off fairly early. My mother remembers her father hitching up the buggy and heading off to pick up their order of cherries. By the time the containers arrived at their house, the cherries were mostly thawed except for a chunk in the middle that were still frozen. While the rest of the cherries thawed, the women got the quart-sized canning jars up from the basement and washed them. Then they filled them with the cherries, topped them off with cold water and put them in the pressure cooker just long enough to heat and seal them. The jars were left to cool on the counter, tantalizing rows of bright red or yellow cherries, ready to use in desserts or eat virgin from the jar.

But cherries and strawberries were not the only berry excitement of summer. After the “necessary” berry picking came the wild berries, the ones my mother and her sisters picked just because they enjoyed the unique jam flavors these berries made. These were the blackberries, boysenberries and dewberries that grew deep in the woods. On berry day the girls rose early in the morning, usually around 5:00am, went out to the barn to do the milking chores, then returned to the house for breakfast. Their mother had eggs, hashbrowns and oatmeal ready for them. In my mother’s house the family did not drink coffee. They had milk or water for breakfast. If anyone wanted coffee, they had to make their own from instant.

After breakfast, the girls took the younger children with them, each of them taking a container to put the berries in. Then they headed into the woods to find their treasures. They found patches of berries, thick with thorns and crawling, vine-like, part way up the trees. They had fun by daring each other to go into the thick brambles, seeing who could reach farthest into the bushes and the highest up the trees. They would return to the house with their find to cook the berries down, add sugar and thickener then pour the finished jam into jars. To seal the jars they melted wax and poured it over the top of the jelly.

Another treasure they enjoyed picking was elderberries which grew along the roadside. In elderberry season, the women tried to keep boxes on the back of the buggy in case they stumbled onto a patch of elderberries while going out to visit friends. On their way home, they would stop and cut off the heavy heads that held the clusters of tiny elderberries. They filled the boxes then took them home to pick them off the severed branches.

After the jams and jellies were made, my grandmother set some berries by for fresh pies and delights or just topping off a piece of cake or tossing into a fresh cobbler. Below is a recipe that has been passed down to me from my mother’s Amish days that I still make today. There is a simple “store-bought” version that is quick to make and saves on time. But if you want to experience the work and reward of flavor that was a daily requirement for the Amish, then follow the recipe below.

Cherry Delight

4 ½ graham crackers, crushed to make 1 cup

2 tbsp melted butter

4-8oz cream cheese, depending on your taste

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups cherries

4 cups water

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 cup sugar

red food coloring for a more vibrant color (optional)

Before you begin, set the cream cheese out to reach room temperature. (You could cheat and put it in the microwave for a few seconds, but remember, the Amish wouldn’t have had microwaves.) You can use half a bar of cream cheese, or the entire thing if you like the flavor more “cheesy”. Either way, the final result will still be sweet and dessert-like. Next, cook the cherries in the water. Bring to a boil and let boil for five minutes. Then add cornstarch by mixing it into a few tablespoons of cold water in a dish. Stir cherries while adding the cornstarch mixture. Next, stir in the sugar and food coloring and let cool completely. (A can of cherry pie filling also works here.) Mix graham cracker crumbs and melted butter thoroughly, then pat into a 9x9 inch pan and bake at 300° for 10 minutes and let cool completely. (You can use a pre-made graham cracker pie crust here.) Next, beat the whipping cream until it forms soft peaks then carefully fold in the sugar and vanilla and set aside. (You can use an 8oz. tub of whipped cream here.) Now, stir the softened cream cheese (make sure it’s not actually warm because it will melt the whipped cream) to get it loosened up, then gently fold in the whipped cream until mixed. Put dollops onto the cooled graham cracker crust and spread evenly with a spatula. Lastly, top with the cooled, cooked cherries and enjoy. The dessert is best eaten the same day.

Growing Up Amish: Preparing for an Amish Summer

2014-08-12T18:07:00.000-04:00

Recently I did some articles for my local paper on growing up Amish since my editor has a fascination with them. My mom is my source. She was Amish from the day she was born until she was in her early thirties. I too was born Amish, but my family left that culture when I was only four. I think like an Amish person, but don't have the experience of living that life. This article (and the following one) were created off of the information my wonderful mom gave me about the Old Order way of living.

Many people are curious about the Amish and their way of life. I had the privilege of being born into an Amish family. Although we left the Amish when I was about four years old, my parents both grew up in an old order Amish community, old order meaning they lived one of the more old-fashioned styles of Amish life. There are several places in the US where large communities of Amish people live. One of those places is Lancaster, Pennsylvania, which I have visited often during my fifteen years living in PA. Some of the Amish in Lancaster have sinks in their kitchens and even carpet in their living rooms. The Old Order were not allowed to have carpet or sinks. So the information I am giving you is from a type of lifestyle similar to Little House on the Prairie.

Beginning in March or April when my mom was a young Amish woman, she would be helping her mother put in orders to Burpee’s seed catalog for the seeds they would need for their vegetable garden that year. They would send out for green beans, peas, corn, lettuce, radishes and spinach. They also planted lots of potatoes, a vegetable the Amish eat in abundant amounts. But the seeds for potatoes come in the form of chunks of potatoes that contain an “eye” where a root can grow out of. They would buy fifty to one hundred pounds of seed potatoes from a tractor supply store called Orfhlin. If the weather was good that summer, they would harvest a couple hundred pounds of potatoes from this amount of seeds. For tomatoes, cabbage and bells peppers, they would usually buy small plants that had already been started. The Amish, like any people, fall on hard times, and some years my grandmother would be worried they wouldn’t have enough money to buy as many potatoes and seedlings as they would need to provide them with food for the following year.

When the weather turned right, usually in the beginning of May unless the cold was lingering on, my grandfather would plough up the garden to get it ready for planting. He used the Farmer’s Almanac to predict the weather since the Amish are forbidden to have TV or radio. The almanac was surprisingly accurate. Sometimes they would get news of a bad frost coming that night by way of a visit from the milkman or some other English person that had access to the news. Typically they did not interact with the English--what they called any non-Amish person--except for strictly business purposes. If a frost was coming, it was extra work for my mother and her two sisters. They had to cover tiny seedlings with overturned buckets or containers and to save the strawberry bed, they covered it with bed sheets or light blankets. The next day, all the coverings had to be removed so the plants could soak up the sun. Several nights in a row, sometimes, they had to cover their plants to keep them from being killed by the frost. “Day by day we had to feel it out,” my mom said. If they even thought it might frost, they would recover the plants. If they took a chance and left them uncovered and the weather did turn to frosty temperatures, that meant they had to start all over with their planting. All the careful plowing, planting, hoeing and caring for the plants would be wasted and they would have to put in that work all over again, and now with a late start due to taking a risk.

Also during this early stage of summer, my mom and her sisters would take count of all the mason jars and canning lids and rings they had. Since the lids should only be used once, they usually had to buy more lids for this next season’s canning. A large Amish family will end up with hundreds of jars of canned produce and meat by fall to last them through the winter until they can plant fresh again.

Even in May and June days could get really hot by ten in the morning in Bowling Green, Missouri where my mom grew up. So to keep cool, they took advantage of the early morning hours to do things like strawberry picking or tending their garden. If you passed a strawberry field in Amish country, you would see the older women bending from the waist to grasp the red berries. My mom and the younger women would kneel and pick and sometimes crawl along the patch if the straw was clean enough.
The women would also take their work outside under the shade trees where they might catch a breeze. they would clean green beans by snipping off the ends or pop shiny, new peas out of their shells or pull the husks off gleaming, golden corn.
To keep their house cool during the day, they would cover the windows with dark curtains that would keep out the heat of the sun. By afternoon, even the dark curtains did not keep the house cool enough, so my mom would sometimes go for a visit to the dark, cool basement, just to get a small break from the heat. She remembers my grandmother using a cool rag to wipe down her arms and face to cool off. In the evenings, after the work was done, the boys would go swimming in the pond while the girls waded in shallow creek water under some shade trees.
Falling asleep was not always so easy. The windows were open with screens put in them to keep the bugs out. But there wasn’t always a breeze blowing and the upstairs where the bedrooms usually were was now hot and stuffy from holding the heat all day.
Mothers hand-fanned their babies to keep them cool long enough for them to fall asleep, or they would lay them on the cool floor just so they could get a bit of relief. The older children grew immune to the heat as the summer wore on, being able to fall asleep in spite of the heat. Then early in the morning, before the sun was up, they would get up to start their day over again, hoeing, picking, cleaning the vegetables that would be their food all year long.

Perseverance and Napping Go Hand in Hand

2013-10-09T11:35:00.001-04:00

I'm serious about this title. You think it's sarcasm. Mm-hm. I know what you're thinking. But it's ok. As you probably read in my first post (Is Writing from the Heart Really Worth It?), people will think what they're gonna think. So go ahead. Think it. It's a free country. But let me also tell you what I'm thinking. It may change your life--maybe even your entire world.

It was 1pm today and I had just about completed the first thing on my list. Yay, that sounds good, right? No, it doesn't. Usually I get all three of my major writing projects for the day finished before noon, often before 10am. But here it was 1:00 already and I had three short paragraphs to go before I would be done with only the first part of my first project. (Yeah, don't ask where the time went. Between laundry, checking on my gay social networks, not literally; I'm just mad at them right now, and deleting worthless emails I was now at 1pm. Can't cry over spilled milk. Just have to suck it up the best you can with a straw. No pun intended.)

As I pushed myself toward those remaining paragraphs I knew they would take me way longer than the three minutes they should take, so I did the persevering thing…and laid down for a nap. I promised myself one hour.

Ok, now say what you want to say. "You should have just finished then you could have marked one thing off your list and at least felt a little successful, if rather behind on time still." But my mind doesn't work that way. I would have been pissed to take 20 minutes on a 3-minute job. That would have opened the door to The Downward Spiral. Does anyone know what I mean when I say that? An hour later you find yourself hating life, hating yourself, hating those you love and hating what you love to do. So you sit for another hour and analyze what made you start feeling this way. And you track the whole pile of crap back to one tiny thought you let in, now two hours ago. Yeah, for me that thought woulda been "You took 20 minutes to do a 3-minute job??' You could have been taking a nap for Christ's sake! Literally, for HIS sake because he works through your rest. He knows your body has limitations so that's why he gave you the ability to SLEEP. Quickly assessing my situation, I knew the only thing that would help me feel successful was to get an hour's rest then hit my work refreshed and able to work quickly.

Anyone ever played The Sims? It's a game on PC and Playstation 2 (and maybe other systems, I don't know). Sounds funny, but that game taught me something. It's a game that simulates real life. You create a character, choose their outfit (they can change outfits too!), choose their hairstyle, skin color, etc. Then they live in a house and you move them around and have them eat, sleep, hang out with friends, choose a job, get raises. Even if you're not into game systems anymore, you would still enjoy this one. I started playing it at age 31 after I already thought game systems were extremely childish. (Yay younger boyfriends that make you young again!) Anyhow, your "Sim" has bars that say how low they are on sleep, nourishment, comfort, socializing and so on. Until this point, life had been difficult for me to figure out. I thought everything had to be spiritual. You know, read your Bible when you'd rather be reading the latest bestseller. Pray when you'd rather be watching a movie. Don't go to the movies because someone might think you're watching an R-rated one. (But watch the R-rated ones at home where no one knows you're not forwarding any sex scenes or muting the cuss words?? I know, doesn't make sense. But I fell for it too, for THIRTY YEARS! Guess the joke's partially on me. Lol) And there's the ever-famous one, DON'T SLEEP, cause lack of sleep is somehow spiritual. I don't know who came up with this shit but it's pretty hilarious. Like those random state laws like "No one will hereby carry a duck on top of a refrigerator across the road." I don't know that this one is actually a law but it's a very close example of ones I've read about.

So there I was playing with my Sim (sounds kinda perverted, huh? Haha. Just kidding.) and I was trying to get her dishes washed, make some phone calls to friends, run her to the toilet before she peed herself, then suddenly, she just crumpled to the floor. I hadn't been watching my sleep meter. When it reached zero, my Sim shut down, just like that, snoring loudly. No matter what I had been doing with her, she could no longer go on. Her body took over and shut her down. That's what happens to your real body when you don't get proper sleep and rest (yes, they are two different things).

I read that 10-minute naps help, 30 helps more, 1 hr is great, 90 minutes lets you complete the sleep cycle and is the most beneficial. I may not have gotten the medical explanations quite right, but it's what you believe that changes your life, right? (Placebos anyone?) So if you believe it the way I wrote it and it improves your life, to heck with correct terminology. People want words they can understand, not a book they have to read that's joined at the hip with the dictionary.
After my hour nap, I hit the computer again, got my three paragraphs done and the other stuff on my list. That nap was the only way I could go on--could persevere and see my projects through. It gave me the power I needed to get more done in less time. Sometimes the greatest act of perseverance is lying down and taking a nap so you CAN persevere.

I Want to Get My Hands in There and Change People

2013-10-08T22:11:00.001-04:00

Did you ever meet someone who needed help, you talked to them, were understanding with them, encouraged them, but nothing ever changed? They just kept being the same person. And you reach a point where you scream and clench your fists and say, "Damn, if I could just get my hands into their life and just change all the stupid things they're doing!" You see them pitying themselves in their sad situation that they're stuck in, but you see so many ways out for them. Whenever you mention one of these ways, they gently shut the gate you've slung wide open and remind you with sad eyes that this potential freedom cannot be. They reinforce their thinking at every chance that they are helpless, that there is no way to change their situation. But you see the truth! You know something can be done. You can plainly see the way to a better life for them. But they have their eyes half closed as they exist day after day. Why they do that?! To heck if I know! But I remember doing it myself. I would have to say that it is a mindset they get trapped in. Whatever the reason, whatever its beginning, it's there. So, what do you do with it?

Today I was feeling frustrated as I saw a loved one's life so clearly: the steps they needed to take to strengthen themselves, the steps to change their stale, restricting situation. And I wanted to just get my hands in there, to make them do what needed done to bring change and a better life. But at the very same time, I knew that would never work. Well, it might work in a temporary, dictatorial type of way, but I knew it was not the right way. If they were going to change, it would have to be their decision. The only thing I could change was myself.

Well, that sounds stupid. They are the one that needs changing, right? How is changing one of my flaws ever going to help them see what they need to change in their lives? The truth of it is, if I try to change them, I will frustrate myself to the point of hating them, being rude to them, definitely not helping them in their situation. The only way to keep my attitude and perspective about them correct is to just change things I actually have the power to change, such as myself. And amazingly enough, this has often gotten the ball rolling for someone else to start change in their lives. Maybe them seeing me happy and unafraid of change gives them the courage they need. Maybe my complete acceptance of them exactly the way they are gives them that loving comfort zone that makes them dare to step out. Whatever it is that does it, it works.

So when I start to get all torqued up, I try to remember that I'm just building a useless frustration if my focus is to try to make them change. Instead, I remind myself to shift my focus onto something I can do in my own life, a project I've been meaning to finish, a tantalizing story idea to work on. And before I know it, I'm happier, they're happier and we're both working together to make our lives better. It works so much better than pointing out their faults in an accusing sort of way, as if I don't have any of my own.

As I was writing this post, I found a quote on the Facebook page of a writer friend of mine, Liz Hamm. It says: "If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change toward him….We need not wait to see what others do." --Mahatma Gandhi

One of the secrets to helping other people to change is to change yourself. You are the influence that evokes change in others.

My friend has a blog as well. Go check it out at www.bookwetzlhamm.blogspot.com She writes excellent poetry that will make you feel magic again.

What Makes Them Change?

2013-09-26T20:51:00.001-04:00

Yesterday a woman was telling me how her husband used to make her breakfast when they were still dating. After they were married, he would clean the floors, wash the dishes and help keep things clean. Now he doesn't even close his own chip bag. He throws his things on the floor or jams his ironed shirts in closets undoing all her careful ironing. And in the past he was even blatantly unfaithful to her.

How did that happen? How can a person go from being sweetly in love to cheating on the person he loves--or loved?

This question haunts me. It makes me feel insecure, like the best of men can turn into monsters. But what triggers their actions? Or were they always that way and the truth is finally coming out?

I don't know what causes such a change of heart. I imagine it's different for every relationship and is never wholly due to one party. But there is no need for blame, just analyzing to get to the root of the problems that cause such disarray in the family unit. Perhaps the couple will seek a deeper relationship again one day. Or if they move on to other partners, at least they can have a successful relationship the next time.

I do know that every day we must work on our relationships to keep them special and sweet, respectful and loving, and truly passionate. Nothing must stay in between us and the ones we love for long, or years later in a psychiatrist's office we may find it is that very thing that is the root of our crumbled relationship.

Be on your guard. Welcome God's arms around your relationship. The curse of sin makes misunderstanding so easy. You are opening your heart in the most vulnerable of ways with your partner. Anything can be taken as an intentional hurt. God's love is the only protection. And it is the only way to keep the monster in either of you from being born.

Why Do Good Memories Sometimes Feel Sad?

2013-09-25T20:25:00.001-04:00

Do you ever think of a good memory and then feel like crying? I saw a picture of my sister when she was probably 16. She had a straw hat on a was giving some kind of glamour smile for the picture--something stupid we used to do back in the day. I remembered messing around with my sister like that and having lots of fun, but every time I think of those memories now, there is some kind of sadness along with it.

My solution is to not think about them very much. I want to think about the future and what's going to happen today and tomorrow instead of thinking about even the good times in my past.

I really don't know yet why good memories make me want to cry. Maybe it's because I live in NC and most of my family live in PA or Canada. Perhaps seeing those good memories reminds me how much I miss them right now, something I try not to focus on since I have to make a life here with my new family. But at times I feel like they will never replace my real family. I know. They're not supposed to, but you know what I mean. I guess I'm afraid I'll never have as good a time as I had with my own brothers and sisters growing up, and it makes me really sad not to be able to keep making daily memories with them now.

But I wouldn't change my decision. Starting a new life here in a small town was what I needed. And I'm overlooking the fights I used to have with my brothers and sisters when we were all growing up, the lack of emotional control I had (lol, well, ok, I guess that one's still with me at times…don't act like you never do that as a grown woman! PMS week? Hmmm???).

What I do get to look forward to everyday is being with my wonderful Jorge (my boyfriend…heck, no, that's not the name of my favorite teddy bear. I don't have stuffed animals on my bed anymore, not that there's anything wrong with that. But let me just say, ladies, that if you do, give your man a break about his "childish" video games then alright?). And I get to work on my dream of writing and publishing.

So while dwelling on family memories brings me to tears and does not accomplish anything more that calling the day a "no work zone" so I can deal with the depression, I choose to dwell on my future, meet the people of this rinky-dink town and learn how to live as a strong woman with the love of a truly good man, and write! My goal is to be a best selling author, so keep your eyes on those New York Times lists. I know, it might seem a long way off. You might say, "You don't even have your first novel published!" But that doesn't change anything in my mind. In the future my books are already on that list and I keep living each day with these thoughts as my focus. I hold the memories with my family in my pictures and in thoughts I keep locked in a back room of my mind. The day will come when it's time to pull them out and write a bestseller about growing up in a place so small it couldn't even be called a town, in the Appalachians. "Some day I may teach you how to sing, Georgie. But today is not that day." (For those of you who've seen Rigoletto.)

Today it's time to focus on the now so when I stand looking at that bestsellers list, I will have a pocketful of good memories about my new life, my new life that is happening today.

Do You Feel Good About Yourself?

2013-09-24T22:24:00.001-04:00

This morning I was reading a strengths finder book. There were thirty-five strengths listed, anything from Activator to Wooing. Each strength had a description then three comments from three different people describing themselves with that particular strength. Of course I found several that pertained to me just in browsing through the book. When I had first started reading, I was feeling down. I had started feeling this way very noticeably yesterday but there was no logical reason for it other than being a bit tired. I was starting to feel like no one loved me, like the day was dull and depressing, like I didn't feel like doing anything, not even eating. What an odd feeling to have when your life is going so well. Do any of you know what I mean?

As I browsed the strengths finder this morning I started to feel better. The book was listing some of my quirks as strengths. I started feeling like somebody somewhere who had written this book realized I was a special person. My quirks did not make me crazy. They were my strengths. And they weren't quirks! They were strengths that made me a valuable person.

I put the book down after almost an hour (certainly didn't feel that long) and thought, "All I wanted was to feel good about myself, to be accepted just the way I am." I can't explain why illogical feelings of depression try to haunt me at times. But at those times I do know I just want someone to come hug me and start telling me what a great person I am. My family and boyfriend cannot always do that for me because they may be down and tired too. But that does not mean they do not love me. And that does NOT mean I have to give in to depression. As long as there is a Higher Power, a God in the heavens, or whatever you may call him, there are 1,000 ways in which I can be reminded I'm loved and that I'm a great person with great strengths.

Resource: Strengths Finder 2.0 by bestselling author Tom Rath
This book is an upgraded edition of the online test from The Gallup Organization and is based on more than 40 years of research. Find and develop your natural talents.

Is Writing from the Heart Really Worth It?

2013-09-23T18:17:00.001-04:00

Sometimes it's beneficial to remove the other flaws and worries so you can find the one that is causing all the other worries. I was recently worried about my monthly bill payments. Since I am not making enough as a writer yet to cover all my bills, every time bill due dates came up, I went into an inner panic. Several weeks ago, seeing my tense fright, my wonderful boyfriend offered to cover the bills I couldn't handle and told me to keep working on my writing and helping out the best I could with expenses. I must tell you, that was a huge weight off my shoulders. But what I came to find out is that what was disguised as financial worries (and I had no way of knowing until those worries were taken away) was something far deeper that plagued me. I felt this growing trouble and was finally able to tell myself that it was not my bills. With my financial worries pushed aside, I found there was indeed something else that had me trapped in its clutches. But what could be more worrisome than not knowing if you could make your next car payment? I dove into my mind to investigate.

It turns out I've gotten stuck on my first book, my first full-length novel. (It's kind of a big deal.) I wasn't sure how this could have happened since I had a plot, characters, and knew the outcome of the story, heck, even the plots of the two books to follow. But there I was. Sitting down every morning feeling this same sense of not knowing what to write as the day before. I thought all it took was the simple act of making myself write, of writing the next logical thing that should happen in the book. I had read writer after writer's advice on writing and they all spoke of having a time to write and often of having to make themselves write for an hour before anything truly worthwhile came out. But they looked at this as success because now they had something to work with, something to edit and mold.

Now, hang on a second. When I wrote as a child and early teenager, I was sure my writing could use some work, but I also believed that I could write my first novel and have someone accept it on my first submission. Simple youth, you say. Yes, part of it. But I also believe that I had something so essential to success besides the curse of hard work that everyone spoke of. And now as an adult, I wanted that thing back. However, everywhere I turned everyone told me I just had to do the fucking hard work. Something deep inside really did not sit well with that cursed idea. But I didn't listen to my heart. I listened to them. I tried their ridiculous methods of hard work.

Now hold on a second here. I'm not saying hard work doesn't produce results. There are several New York Times bestselling authors that sound like they have a "hard work" schedule and they have results. I see their names time after time as they produce a new book yearly, if not more often. They have made millions already with their writing. I'm happy for them. The success of another author is my success. But I had to face it, I'm no Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts. I've heard one such author writes ten pages a day without fail. But for me, there's a let down to having written ten pages only to take those ten pages out in the editing phase. Perhaps it's my personality. For the life of me I can't fathom why someone would want to dive into a task then fix it so much it's like they're doing the thing twice, when they could have just taken a little more time and done it right the first time. Kind of like assembling a piece of DIY furniture. You have the directions right there. Why would you not follow them and have a successfully assembled piece of furniture the first time rather than try to put it together on your own only to have to tear the whole thing apart because there was a vital piece that should have been put in on step two? This is just the way I think. And now we're getting to the root of my dilemma.

For six years I taught high school English in a private school in Pennsylvania. Teaching required certain things out of me that my personality doesn't possess, such as the ability to quickly identify important details from unimportant details. As a writer, every detail is important to me. Also, a teacher has to accept that there are some A, B students and so on. I believed that every student was meant to be an A student if they just had the right attention and teaching. However, this goal required a whole lot more than I could give as one person and I would have been less frustrated and felt more successful when my B students made a B.

I struggled the first year, like most teachers do. My principal told me that it takes new teachers three or more years to adjust and become good at what they're doing. So I taught another year, then another, and another. I was there for five and three quarters of a year before I finally realized I was trying to make myself be good at something my personality would never naturally do. The result? Feeling like a failure pretty nearly every single day. No matter how great or comfortable a job situation you have, if you feel like a failure nearly every day, you will come away from the job acting like a failure. Deeply wounded on so many levels (part of the story not included here is the most horrendous one-sided romance story that is far too long to put into one blog post), I took myself to North Carolina, a state where I had met a guy that opened up the possibility of a different life. He was not the person for me, but through meeting him I did realize there was so much more in life than what I had been living. And I was going to find it!

Now here I am. Some days I think my world's problems should be all solved by now. I've been here almost two years. But I find days where I cannot follow my dreams. Something is still holding me back. I also find that ignoring those things or pushing against them blindly only tires me out. Joseph Prince talks about working in rest. (Google him. He's easy to find. You can't miss his great hair.) That may sound like the strangest viewpoint on work you've ever heard. But it's making more and more sense to me. Sometimes you literally have to rest. Take the day off. Get extra sleep. Relax. Watch movies, do something you enjoy. Other times it means working in a spirit of rest, which I can best explain as working with the confidence that even your mistakes will be turned into successes. An example from my childhood explains what this means for me and my writing.

As a child I had a secret hiding spot that no one knew about, not even my brothers or sisters. If they were coming close and I was afraid they would find me, I crept out of my spot before they could see where I was coming from and pretended I was just walking casually along. I would do anything to protect the secret of my sanctuary. Oddly enough, we would play in this very spot together at times and that didn't bother me. It was the knowledge that this was my place of refuge, of conjuring up magical stories that must always be kept secret from them. They must never know the depth of what this spot meant to me. I would go to this spot to write. In my childhood and teenage years I could never write out in the open. I could jot down ideas of which I never let people read over my shoulder. But writing the actual story had to be done in secret. That's when my best writing was done. My stories were very personal to me. You could not see a correlation between them and my life, nor were they a diary of events turned into a fiction piece. They were something so much more. They were a reflection of my hopes and dreams for the future. I loved when people read my stories. I was never too shy for others to see them, often in their incompleteness. But the creation of the stories had to happen in private, just as my life dreams did.

As an adult I noticed I don't require this same secrecy. And just yesterday I found out why. Somewhere along the way, I stopped putting my heart into my writing. I felt the desire but no longer knew how to do it. I thought I lacked discipline or commitment. So I set some goals and decided I was going to push myself through no matter what: this, from the advice of other writers. My result: unmet deadlines and the uninspiring feeling of being a fraud, being so juvenile I couldn't even keep my word. However, I was writing as others advised, not as was natural to me. Even though I was in my proper field, writing instead of teaching, I was still feeling like a failure because I was still trying to do things the way others did instead of the way that works for me. That's when I remembered the joy of writing during my childhood. I never made myself write. I wrote because I wanted to. I was driven to write because I felt an excitement for what I was writing. Sometimes I wrote much, sometimes little. I always worked on several stories at a time.

As a creative person I loved variety. The freedom of writing several stories at once satisfied the need for variety and always kept me moving forward on my stories. So different from these recent feelings of frustration from boxing myself in to one idea and forcing myself to write on it till it's finished without even the freedom to jot down any new ideas that come to me. I don't know why multiple ideas come to a writer. I just choose to believe that if new ideas come to me, even when I'm committed to one project, I would be better off to ride out the creative wave when it comes and write about that new idea rather than to block it.

From experience I have found that the only result of trying to block specific thoughts or feelings is emotional and spiritual constipation. I used to block myself from the pain of rejection. Along with that I ended up blocking creativity. When trying to block yourself from pain and hurt, you also keep love from coming in. So I believe if you try to block random creative ideas, you will also block yourself from useful creative ideas that pertain to the project you're working on. The result is tons of uninspired, hard work now necessary to complete your project by deadline. I totally believe there are different types of creative people, and some of you may not identify with anything I'm saying. But I also believe there are so many like me, hiding their real selves in the shadows because we don't match up to other people's ideas of how writing or creating should be done. I've tried their methods, and they just don't work for me. I want to live my real life, not some pretend life just so I'll be accepted by those who are so bossy that telling themselves what to do is not enough. Our journey in life should never take us to that wicked place of making a person feel bad for who they are and how they naturally do things.

As I look back on my childhood methods of writing, I realize a good dose of discipline would have helped me finish many more stories than the few that had to be completed because they were English writing assignments. However, as an adult, I've realized discipline can never replace true inspiration that comes from writing the way I was truly meant to write. I've felt guilty for a long time just for the fact that writing is now my chosen profession. After all, how can you call it a job if you're at home all day and not doing work for someone else? But I have learned better. People will think what they're going to think. My wonderful boyfriend has taught me that. (Yes, I met him when I moved to North Carolina. Just another reason why I know I'm in the right place. Our dating story is a completely different blog post for another day.) I moved away to start living my life, not continue living my life as other people see it. Writing with emptiness because I'm forcing myself to keep a schedule or "working hard" so I have a comeback for people's questions of "What are you doing with your time?" is not enough. All along, my heart has yearned for something more. Something I was denying myself until now.

So today I face the question placed as the title of this post. Is writing from the heart really worth it? My answer: I know I couldn't live any other way.

Singer from the Amish-my cousin's wife Anna Mae Eicher

2013-06-20T08:31:00.001-04:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_jxewHy6OI&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Cloud 9ine: To Be Or Not To Be

2013-06-04T13:20:00.001-04:00

Cloud 9ine: To Be Or Not To Be: Dearest Dreamers, It's funny....for the longest time I was too scared to find out what I wanted to do with my life and to commit to on...

Balance

2013-05-13T21:26:00.001-04:00

Last week the temperatures here ran in the 80's. Although that is not too hot, by afternoon our little mobile home was a sauna. I did my best to cool the place with open windows and fans. I was holding the fort until it was time to cook dinner. Amid the scent of frying burgers and the heat from the stove, all my cooling progress was lost.

Today began with a brisk breeze coming in our windows and an overcast sky, a promise of a cooler day. Just when I think I will have to resign myself to living in the heat, a cool day comes to freshen the land and my spirits.

Thats's when I thought of balance. My boyfriend tells me, "No one can be bad all the time, and no one can be good all the time. Therefore, perfection is not being a certain way all the time but rather being balanced. Balance is perfection." I remembered his wise words this morning when I saw even nature follows the pull of balance.

Today I meditate on:
When my life is following a pattern I do not like, relax and let the gravitational pull of balance make things right again. Open my mind and heart to opportunities that will lead me back to a balanced life. Don't obsess about being perfectly balanced. Only an inanimate object can maintain perfect balance, but I am very much alive. I celebrate my life and its imperfections, for, together, these imperfections create balance. And balance is perfection.

It's Ok

2013-05-06T20:39:00.001-04:00

Have you ever seen the sun reflected off the underside of pine needles? Such small things. Small things that remind you God is here.

I used to struggle With the thought that God loves me. Having learned that I must work for God's approval, I tried until I realized that I would never reach the standard that was required of me. It took me the better part of my life to learn that God holds no rules over me. I am free to choose as I will. I have learned some of my choices have dire consequences and that most decisions are not a matter of right and wrong but rather an opportunity to learn what I prefer.

If you are one who is trying to decide what is best for you and have been begging God to show you but there is no answer, perhaps he is trying to tell you that it's ok to choose as you will, to choose what you would prefer. If your decision does not work out, then you have learned something about yourself. You have learned one thing you don't like and are more knowledgeable about making a better choice next time. Perhaps you don't know the choices to make because you don't know yourself. And if you don't know yourself, how could you know which choice is best for you? Therefore, I encourage you to quit praying and start deciding. You'll figure things out in no time.

First paid story-I'll Be Home for Christmas

2013-05-01T21:09:00.000-04:00

Recently I got paid by a local newspaper for my first story. I am very proud to publish it here for all my out of town friends and family.

I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Adelle lifted her violin to her chin and pulled the bow across the strings. Her violin squeaked like Suzy when she got her pigtails pulled. Adelle pulled her bow away with a pout.
“Mrs. Sampson, my violin isn’t working right,” Adelle whined.
Mrs. Sampson came over and lowered herself to Adelle’s height. “Adelle, there’s nothing wrong with your violin,” she said gently. “I checked it yesterday at practice, remember?”
“But I think something’s wrong with it today.” Adelle pinched her lips together and looked at Mrs. Sampson with clear blue eyes.
“Adelle, honey, your violin is just fine. I think,” and she tilted Adelle’s head so she could look right into her eyes, “that there is some other reason you do not want to practice for the Christmas program we’re putting on at Main Street Baptist Church.”
Adelle looked down at her little white sneakers with the pink shoelaces. She didn’t want to look at Mrs. Sampson because Mrs. Sampson was right. How would she tell her that she didn’t want to play because she was tired of all the nice-looking people sitting there, listening to Adelle and the other orphans playing while they held their children close to their sides with strong protecting arms. And after the concert Adelle would go back to the orphanage and lie alone in her cold little bed with no parent to kiss her goodnight.
“I just don’t want to play in the concert this year, Mrs. Sampson. I’ve made up my mind,” she said firmly.
“Ok,” the kind director said. “I think you should play and join in the Christmas celebration. I think you are making a mistake by not doing so, but I will do as you wish this year. You are almost nine and have been playing in the concert for four years. If you would like to sit out this year, you may.”
“Really?” Adelle was surprised. She had expected a bigger fight than this. But she was relieved to have her way…and a little sad, although she couldn’t say why.

Over the next few days Adelle sat in the playroom while the rest of the orphans practiced for the concert. But she was so confused. Instead of being happy to be playing toys while the other children were practicing, she grew more and more sad. She sat looking down at Ken and Barbie sitting down to dinner with a little girl Barbie. Even her toys had a family. Suddenly Adelle hit the barbies and sent them sprawling across the floor. With a big pouting lip, she left the playroom to wander the halls until the rest of the kids were done practicing.
The next day Mrs. Sampson took the children to the park to play. Adelle didn’t feel like playing. She walked along the path lined with trees and benches a little ways away from the other kids. She felt very sad. With her eyes on the ground, she almost ran into a man sitting on one of the benches. He looked a little like Santa but with a long brown winter coat. He smiled at her.
“Hello there, little miss. You look deep in thought.”
“Yes sir, I am,” she replied.
“You wanna talk about it?” His kind, warm face made Adelle feel like she was drinking a cup of hot chocolate. Suddenly, she wanted to tell him everything.
“I was supposed to be in a Christmas concert, but I didn’t want to play this year. So Mrs. Sampson said I didn’t have to.”
“It’s sounds like you got what you wanted. Why the sad face?” he asked gently.
Adelle let out a big sigh and with large sad eyes said, “I don’t know.” Her little brow furrowed in thought, trying to puzzle through her problem.
“I think there’s something else about the concert you’re not saying…” the man prompted.
Then with a deep breath Adelle poured out in a fury, “I hate seeing all the parents there with their children, holding them tight. Every year I see them, hoping that one of them with take me home with them. I practice so hard to be the best violin player so that one of them will want me to be their daughter, but every year they just say ‘Good job, little one’ and go home with their families.”

The man watched her for a few moments. She was so adorable even with her hurt expression and angry eyes. He rubbed his beard with one hand. “Where is this concert of yours, little miss?”
“At the Main Street Baptist Church.” Her eyes were still clouded with anger.
“So you’re from Main Street Orphanage then?”
“Yes sir,” she replied.
Suddenly, a light came into the old man’s eyes. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder, causing her to look up. “Little miss, you need to play in the concert this year.”
She looked at him sharply. “I don’t want to! And I won’t! Mrs. Sampson said I didn’t have to.”
“I know what you told me, but you have to play. This year will be different. Christmas is a time for miracles, isn’t it?”
“Not for me,” she grumped.
Then he looked her right in the eyes and said, “Let me tell you something, little miss. Your heart is sad because you have been disappointed year after year, but the true heart does not give up believing when the road is tough. It keeps believing because it knows someday its dreams will come true, no matter how difficult the road. Believing brings miracles.”
Adelle looked at him for a moment, then the frown came back. “Well, that’s not how it works out for me,” and she turned and walked back to her playmates.
The day of the concert came and Adelle sat apart from the other children as they tuned their violins. When the others filed out onto the stage, Adelle would walk down with Mrs. Sampson and sit on the front row with her. Adelle expected to feel better today since she had a special place beside Mrs. Sampson and all the other kids had to play for the concert, but she felt sad and angry and a little sick in her tummy. She sat twirling a ribbon on her skirt as the violins squeaked around her. Her face felt hot and her heart began pounding. Mrs. Sampson clapped her hands and called everyone’s attention. “Alright children, it’s time to go out on the stage.” The children moved into order. In the shuffle, Mrs. Sampson temporarily forgot about Adelle. As Adelle watched all the other children go, something pulsed in her heart. Her eyes became bright and her breath quickened. She didn’t know why, but suddenly she knew she had to play in the concert. She grabbed her violin out of its case and stepped onto the platform just behind the last child.

The lights shining on the stage were warm. Two trees were lit, one on either end of the platform. Pine garland looped along the front of the stage with big red bows pinning it up. Excitement thrummed in Adelle’s chest. She lifted her violin to her chin and the sweet melody of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” lifted out of her instrument and floated down on the crowd. She closed her eyes as the music sank into her soul. Next she moved her bow up and down quickly for the enchanting “Carol of the Bells”, one of her favorites. Then smoothly again for “O Come All Ye Faithful.” As she gazed out at the audience she saw the dim figure of an old man with a white beard in the very back of the church. She gasped. It was the man from the park! Her hear felt like it was going to burst, but she couldn’t explain why. She played as she had never played before, the music forming and spinning high into the air before swooping down on the audience and holding them spellbound. Adelle felt happier than she had ever felt in her life. That night as she lay down to sleep, she prayed, “God, even though I didn’t get a family this year, I’m really glad I played in the concert. Thank you for the home I have. Good night.”
The next morning was Christmas. The orphans traditionally had breakfast before running to open their gifts. It was all they could do to wait. But as Adelle walked into the dining room, Mrs. Sampson came to her and said, “Adelle, come with me to my office for a moment.”
Adelle wondered if perhaps Mrs. Sampson was going to yell at her for joining in the concert after all. But when they entered the office, a young smiling couple stood there. The man had his arm around his wife and looked very eager to say something.
“Adelle, this is Mr. and Mrs. Fields. They came to me this morning asking to talk to ‘the magical little girl who played the violin so well.’” Mrs. Sampson paused and Adelle thought she looked as if she was about to cry. Barely able to speak, Mrs. Sampson continued, “They want to know if they can be your new mommy and daddy.”
Adelle didn’t know what to say. The man leaned down toward her with shining eyes. “My wife’s father told us he met you at the park. He said you would be the perfect little girl for us. You see, we can’t have children, and we’ve been looking for someone special just like you. We just started attending Main Street Baptist Church a month ago and this was our first time at the Christmas concert. You captured our hearts with your violin playing, and when we found out that you wanted badly to be adopted, we just knew we had to give you a home. We know today is Christmas, but we couldn’t wait any longer to come see you. We wanted to give you a home for Christmas this year and make your dream come true.” Mr. Fields paused a moment then whispered, “Will you be our little girl, Adelle?”
Adelle looked at them both with big tears puddled in her clear blue eyes. “Yes,” she whispered back. And for the first time in her little life, she felt the hugs and kisses of her very own parents.

I would love to hear from you. You can contact me at oneladyofshalott8@yahoo.com or leave a comment at the end of this post. Also, check out my children’s ebook, Betty Butter, at Smashwords.com or Barnes & Noble.com.

Like Cake Icing

2013-05-01T12:09:00.000-04:00

It is April 12, 2013. The scent of spring is full on the bosom of the earth. Sites like Walt Whitman with his scandalous Leaves of Grass scamper through my head. I have only read lines from his volume but the title alone beckons me to indulge in his words, to drink them in, to massage them into my mind like an expensive and aromatic oil. I want to grab a pen, to write a white stack of paper black with gibberish about nature. I want to climb a tree and peer through the branches at the silky budding leaves. Waves of passion wash over me as I take in the blue sky with the scattered rain clouds.

Nature makes me delirious. No cup of wine has ever been this sweet! My mind gropes for words as my hand itches to keep moving my pen along. Visions of timeless writers, heads bent over their desks, consumed with the passion of their art blink through my mind. A door is opening to a world I had all but lost through a painful process called growing up. To grow up and leave the sweet faith of childhood behind should be a punishable crime.

"She sat reading her work from the day to him. He sat still, listening. He did not hear her words, but rather the sound of her voice, for nothing could equal it when she was reading her own work to him. Work filled with descriptions of scented honeysuckle, wisteria and starflowers. He did not really know what any of it meant, but therein did not lie his passion. His formed within the light burning in her eyes and expression as she read and her wild hair tousled about her head, reticent of her scamper through the woods to gather her love-laden descriptions. At this time she had no magazine that would take her works, but rejection had not dimmed the fire of her passion for writing. If she did not write about the buttercups and bluebells, then who would even notice them? For this reason, for love, she must keep on writing. Even if no one ever paid her for her work. She wrote for love's sake, not for money. And somehow nothing else seemed to matter. There were days in the darkness that she doubted. And then you would find her snuggled up in the arm of her love, her feet tucked beneath her, and her head on his shoulder. He would lean his cheek against her wild hair and whisper love and faith back into her. And so life continued for two years until the day she went to the mailbox....

Lily's Book of Flowers

Two tears fell onto the cover of the book she finally held in her hands."

And what made me write all of that just now? I don't know...a delicious hunger for beautiful, intricate, complicated things? For description so lush you can feel like you're taking a bite out of a moist chocolate cake, laden with cool whipped fudge icing, decadent and far too elaborate a flavor for a human tongue. Description that draws you to childhood days of carefree visits to Williamsburg, Virginia where time stands still in the 1800's. Secret seats beneath dark shady vined trellises. A calligrapher hard at work copying a book. A shop displaying parchment paper, books and inkwells.

I run my finger along the icing of this cake, then put it slowly in my mouth. The icing melts. The chocolate floods my senses. I step into another world and I don't think I will come back for some time.

Dream On

2013-04-22T12:45:00.000-04:00

"Dream On"

"Never lose your laugh. " "Don't let Satan steal your joy. " "Keep that smile. "

I was always confused by phrases like this when I was in high school. Now I know why. Smiling comes naturally to the young who know nothing of the impossibilities of life. Life was good, no matter what happened. Now I see that the grown-ups were warning me of impending disaster. They were saying, Your life will inevitably fall apart. When it does, keep smiling. A very ominous prediction. (In truth, my life never fell apart. All normal things came into it, like heartbreak from a first love, deception, misleadings, lies. But that is all a natural part of becoming a part of this world. Perhaps instead of looking at it like "Your life will fall apart, when it does, stay true to God," it should be portrayed as the right of passage into adulthood. I used to shrink in fear at what might be The Thing that happens to me. There is naught to fear. To most people, only the natural things of life will occur. Gaining a job, the loss of a job. Gain of money, loss of money. Having someone's love, losing that person's love. It's all natural and need not be given the pleasure of having the negative side of these aspects emphasized. These curses need not be put on the young, for they will happen naturally enough.

Encourage them that life is how you see it. You can see these natural happenings as your life falling apart or as the doors to the rights and privileges of adulthood opening. Adults know how to get themselves through these obstacles without losing their desire to live. This attitude is what should be taught to the young, not that disaster will come, but how to get through it. Why do we try to douse their light as teenagers when we've encouraged them to dream and imagine as children. The teen years are the most powerful time for encouragement because they are at an age when they can do something about their dreams. Tell them that even with a college education, it is difficult to get a hold in the world, so here is how you do it. Let's give them something useful for their adult lives instead of depressing them and squelching their dreams. And instead of saying, There will come a day--, let's tell them, There may come a day when you want to give up, when the world is dark, when you think your dreams can't come true. On that day, remember all the excitement you had about life when you were a child and choose not to let anything make you put that excitement away.

Dream on!

"Dream On" by Aerosmith

Rainy Days 1

2013-02-13T09:13:00.000-05:00

Sad rainy days...
I fall apart slowly like a
soaked cardboard box.
Everything in life is dull
But a deeper color than it was
before
Just as rain soaks the trees and
weeds and makes them a deeper
color than on a bright, sunlit
day
How can a clear liquid change
the color of something?
Or perhaps it has color afterall,
we just can't see it.
I do see that there are little
mirror puddles between the
grasses in the yard
And that the yard is more
beautiful now than when
it is dry, for it holds a
mystery, an added depth,
through these little sunken
mirrors with wintertime's brown,
soaked grasses poking through.
There is beauty, when you look
past the surface--on a
sad, rainy day.

by Rebecca Yoder
at 7:58am on a sad rainy day

Please add your comments about what you like about rainy days.

Rainy Days 2

2013-02-13T09:11:00.000-05:00

Cloistered in a convent of sad gray
clouds,
I kick my feet behind me as I lie
on my tummy on the thick
corduroy couch cusions and
look out the window.
A sad sky beckons me to clear
it. The trees cry for me to help
them dance again, the raindrops
dripping off their needles like
teardrops.
I smile at them from the cozy
indoors. Even the house is
crying as drip, drip, drip falls
from the ends of the eaves.
The seclusion of this rainy day
wraps me in its warm secrecy.
Does anyone else see what
I see?
The world outside is crying,
But I LAUGH!

Please leave your comments about the secrets you find in a rainy day.

A New Way to Live

2012-12-05T17:38:00.000-05:00

Days dawn bright with many possibilities, many things to do. A list waits on my dresser; part of it leftover from yesterday, a new one to make today, to add to things I didn't accomplish yesterday. Tomorrow, another list. It will never end. There is more to life. I can feel it. More than just waiting till evening, till the weekend, till I have my own place, till I'm married.... That is just another kind of list. A list of things I'm waiting for and, many of them, can do nothing about. But there is another way to live. I just know it!

Peace in every moment. A deep excitement that cannot be explained. Energy pulsing in my body. Anticipating things to come, yet relishing every second I live in.

The sky opens to me and light pours down. I close my eyes. My heart feels warmer. I have a desire to put on a coat and go explore the last of the fall leaves on the tall oak beside my front door. Anticipation wells up like a slowly rising stream. I reach out to inspiration and inspiration reaches back. My heart opens, blooms and accepts the rays of the sun. Peace has come.

Mango Zing Satisfaction

2012-08-24T16:58:00.000-04:00

Rain poured down the windows like a piece of silver silk rippling in the wind. The sky had grown dark only moments before, then suddenly the rain had come like water being dumped out of a bucket.
The house was dark now, except for the two lights I had turned on. All windows were shut tight against the flash storm.

Hmm. My jigsaw puzzle was at a standstill, when my tummy rumbled. Mangos! I had two of them. What a delicious before-dinner treat.

I went to the kitchen and found my peeler, a knife and a cutting board. Then I went to work. Take the peels off of the delicious teardrop-shaped fruit.

Perhaps it would be better to call them raindrop-shaped today, I smiled.

I took my knife and sliced the fruit, then cut it off of the long, thin seed.

I like nothing better than sweet and savory together, and my boyfriend's mother had just introduced me to sliced mango with a lime chili seasoning.

Chili powder, red pepper, lime juice and garlic salt came from my kitchen cupboards. Like little soldiers I lined them up. Ok, chili powder first. Mm, tastes like smokey on sweet. Add some lime juice. Tangy with smokey on sweet. Pretty good, but I think I can make it better. A little garlic salt should bring out the savory in the spices to balance out the sweet, juicy mango.

Yep, that's it! I found the perfect spice combo. My spicy fruit quickly disappeared as my fork zoomed back and forth from my bowl to my mouth. The succulent mango melted into zingy juice in my mouth. How soft. How luscious. How absolutely delicious! Perfect snack for my rumbling tummy. Mmm, satisfaction is here.

Another delicious and much quicker alternative is Tajin Clasico Seasoning with Lime. If you don't have a boyfriend with a Hispanic mother to buy it for you like I did, you can find it in Wal-Mart near the fresh fruit or in the Spanish foods aisle. You could also find it in a Mexican food store.

* * *

These handy spice carousels have the perfect combination of spices that every kitchen needs, and it looks great on your counter too! This wonderful Kamenstein Stainless Steel Spice Tower will cut down on the time it takes you to gather ingredients for many fabulous meats, soups, side dishes and even the great chili garlic combo listed above, delicious sprinkled on mangos, sliced watermelon, cucumber or jicama. Add some zing to your life with this great-looking piece that will add convenience and beauty to your kitchen.

A God-sized Sigh

2012-05-05T00:16:00.000-04:00

After I posted my poem the other day, what are the odds I'd find this quote:

"God is an unutterable sigh, planted in the depths of the soul."
-Jean Paul Richter

With One Deep Sigh

2012-05-02T12:36:00.000-04:00

One deep sigh...

God, you wrap me in your arms

Your love--like warm sunshine and melting chocolate--

Floods my soul with your warmth

I feel protected

I feel loved

I feel sheltered

And always taken care of

With one deep sigh I rest myself against you

Carolina Girl

2012-04-30T16:59:00.000-04:00

A warm North Carolina day awaited me when I finally stepped outside. I jumped in my car and headed out to buy the little George Foreman with the missing drip tray from the thrift shop called Jacob's Sales at the end of my road.

When I walked in, a gaggle of women were playing cards around the wooden checkout counter and talking louder than an industry-sized chicken coop full of laying hens.

I headed right to the back where I had found my little prize the day before and carried it businesslike to the front, already pulling the five dollars cash from my purse.

"Hey, girl! You found it. I hid that thing, and you found it."

One of the women started slapping me in the arm. She already had a George Foreman at home I found out but hid this one in the store so she could have a second one? I don't know. But she acted like I was her best friend even though she had never met me before, and everyone in the circle gave me advice on how to clean my grill and what to cook on it.

I walked out and soaked in the heat of the day, feeling like a true Carolina girl.

Light

2012-02-02T20:28:00.000-05:00

That night I lay on the floor in my room, crying from the aggravation of the pain. I wanted some kind of relief. A blue towel on navy blue carpet was all I could see. My nose pressed against the rough material. The towel needed to be washed. I didn't know what to pray or what to say. Every prayer technique I had ever learned seemed so worthless at times like this.

"I don't even know what to say," I moaned.

I had tried praying all my life, and few were the times that I had ever had confidence that I would get an answer. But then a voice came to me and said, "Ask me for my promise. Ask me to give it to you."

Promise? Oh. I remembered...Behold, I will do a new thing. Now will I do it; shall ye not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The promise that had come to me earlier, he wanted me to ask him to give it to me. Asking God for a promise he had already given me didn't make any sense. Then he said,

"I am teaching you how to pray. Ask me for my promise."

And so I did.

Then he told me, "Get up and get something to eat."

In a few minutes I returned to my room with a plate of cold meat, cheese, and grapes. I ate as one who had been fasting, completely enjoying each morsel. In my heart now was a certainty that God would answer. He burned a foreign truth into my heart that night: When you speak, I hear. You have my heart. Your words are the command that makes resistance die, that makes good spring forth; for as my child, you have the same power as my Son. That's why he died.

That night, I got off the floor, fed myself and took rest as the daughter of God, confident that he would answer every prayer I prayed. I would speak now as his daughter instead of speaking to convince him that he should answer my prayer. I had his heart. I was my Daddy's girl.

Golden Promises

2012-01-30T16:23:00.000-05:00

The sun rose like a golden god over the horizon. Yellow rays of gold like fine chains on a woman's necklace shot through the pines. Computer and pancakes. Coffee and sliced pears. Breakfast by the living room window while typing on my PC was supposed to inspire me for the day, yet I still felt this dull ache in the back of my throat, like something was slowly squeezing it, not to kill, but to slowly suffocate. The tension had been there for 10 days now. Was it going to end? When? How long could I survive with this feeling of stifled life in me?

Then the promise came. "I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." The feeling was still there, but the promise had come.