Got Lemons?

Do you ever feel that you've just let life throw you off-track?  Well, I have.  All my grand intentions to do more writing, to get organized, even to go on vacation... everything got side-tracked due to more health issues (I refuse to bore you with details today), family concerns, budget derailments...

I've missed several Sunday Scribblings, and I haven't even gotten back to my other writing.  Just too many things going on.  Our air conditioning went out during the hottest two days we'd had this summer.  Multiple Sclerosis and heat are not a good mix.  Thankfully, the same company that installed our furnace a few years back, agreed to come out the day it happened.  They had a brand new unit installed in two days time.  Right now my feet are too cold, so I had to put on socks!

The only downside of the new AC, is that we've had to cancel our trip to the coast.  My husband and I have been to the Oregon Coast twice... once on our honeymoon and once on our 25th Anniversary.  This year will be our 30th, and we really wanted to go again.  We will, it just will be later than planned.  Instead, we have decided to do a few home improvements, be tourists in our own valley, and just have fun here at home!  It's called making lemonade, and enjoying it! So, make time to relax, kick your feet up, pour yourself a tall glass, enjoy the sun, and be thankful for the little things...

Write...

"I'm caught in a dream.  
Reality doesn't seem real anymore, 

and I'm lost inside my own mind."

Have you ever felt that way?  What do you do when life seems overwhelming?  Where do you go?

I've always turned to my faith, my family, & my friends.  I have also used writing as an outlet.  I think it's time for me to get back into my writing.  It's always been an escape for me.  A release.

"When life gets hard... write!"  I pulled out a book I started years ago and began to reread it.  Now it's talking to me.  It's time to revisit that idea, that place.   Time to get serious about my dreams...

I just have to add this quote a friend posted on her wall: 

"Read, read, read.  Read everything... trash, classics, good, and bad, and see how they do it.  Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master.  Read!  You'll absorb it.  Then write.  If it is good, you'll find out.  If it's not, throw it out the window."  ~ William Faulkner

Maybe I've always been afraid to find out that it's just not good enough.  I'm over it!  Time to get to work and find out!

Sunday Scribblings #268 - Better Late Than Never

My head is dancing in circles
It's spinning with dreams, thoughts
What could have been
What should have been
Where did days go
How many remain
Will I ever get where I am going
Where my dreams wanted to take me
Is there still time
I hope there's time

© 5Jun2011 ajj



Today's prompt is below.  I'm trying to get caught up.  Ironically, that fits with this prompt!

Sunday Scribblings #270 - Sweet

This is my response to the new Sunday Scribblings prompt.  It's not my usual poem or piece of fiction.  Just some shared thoughts, on where I am in my life, on this particular day...   


Church has always played a role in my life, whether I was attending or not.  My mother told me I was baptized as an infant, but I neglected to ask where or what denomination.  It was most likely in Kellogg, Idaho.  It didn't really matter to me, because for as long as I can remember, I spoke to God and felt like He heard me.  What I felt for my Creator was sweet, pure, and deep within me.


Mom worked nights and many Sunday mornings, but she often let me walk to a little pink church down the road.  I loved Sunday School, until they started putting black marks by my name for the Sundays I missed.  My final break with the pink church was when my Sunday School Teacher, and
I use the word teacher lightly here (though I did learn a lesson from her), told me that unless my mom started coming with me, she was going to burn in the fires of Hell!  Then she passed around the bag for our offering.  I slipped my clenched hand into my pocket, hanging on tightly to my dime.  I never went back to that church.  I did continue to pray to God each night though.

I'm saying all of this because I'm in an identity crisis with my faith.  I've always known who I was, what I believed, and who God was to me.  I had my home church, and it remained home to me even when I lived in another state.  But everything has changed.

It's not so much that my church changed, though it has.  It's more that I have changed.  My faith has been challenged... well, actually rocked!  I feel like I've been treading water, and I've never been a good swimmer so there is the constant fear of drowning.  Of losing myself.  So once again, I am home on a Sunday morning, and it feels strange to me.  I haven't stopped praying.  I still believe.  I'm just standing at the metaphorical fork in the road.  Neither path looks appealing.  Neither calls out to me.  So I'm sitting on this grassy knoll, enjoying the sun, until I'm ready to move on. 

© 5Jun2011 ajj