Warning: This Post is Pointless.

Uhg. Nothing to say.

And yes. I'm a day late. Again.

....

Okay, it's official: I'll take a full grown dog over a puppy any day. I know, I'm an idiot, but this puppy really is testing - and destroying - my mental and emotional fortitude. It's not all her fault. She's actually mellowed out a bit since her arrival. Maybe it's because I'm taking her on walks now. (Okay, I've taken her on two in the last week.) Maybe she's just giving me the silent treatment because I made her wear the head harness we got Hershey a couple years ago. Without it, she pulls and almost suffocates herself in her eagerness to explore. With it, she pouts and glares at me.

Yup. I hold the status of "mom" in her mind: controlling, demanding, and less patient than all the rest of the household members, minus the cat. (No, Mom, I'm not suggesting anything about you. I love you!) I also clean up all of her messes, feed her, wash her, put her to bed and tuck her in (ie, give her Mr. Teddy and pull down the towels over her crate), get up early to take care of her, and beat her when she's not playing nice with the other kids. And somehow my brother thinks he deserves her more than I do. Right. After all the effort I've put in, I'm not giving her away.

Sorry. I'm rambling and Melody is reading over my shoulder so I can't concentrate. 'Spose it's time to practice my writing-in-any-and-all-conditions.

A friend of mine recently wrote me into a story of hers. Yeah. I'm a daredevil who travels the world. According to her, I fought bulls in Spain, climbed the Eiffel Tower, and got a window seat for my gypsy wagon from an Arabian prince. My alter ego is way more exciting than myself.

The real me has spent a lot of time lately plotting my story. Yeah, not the important one I've been working on for three years. No, not that one. Why on earth would I be working on that one?

Help. I'm going crazy and myself is the one driving the bus. And I don't have a passport, and one cannot reenter the US of A without one. So I'm stuck.

Okay. I really am just spouting nonsense. Pain. But hey, I'm blogging twice a week, and that's better than I've done in a while. However, I think I'll stop now.

Oh! We got snow! Yeah, deadly snow. I wanted it, but not like this.

Okay. Now I'll go.

Dexter (and YELLOW!)

WARNING: excess links below. Only click if you need to waste some time. They're really not all that grand.

For starters, let me just state that I have recently developed an obsession with the color yellow. (Okay, so maybe "obsession" is a little too strong a word, but a more accurate synonym escapes me. And yes, when I informed my mom of this last week, she, too, gave me a funny look. "Yellow?") Maybe it's because I'm feeling a bit sunshine-deprived (although we have had some fairly sunny days of late). But it's such a happy color! (Yellow Brick Road, anyone?) Yellow is summer and laughter and flowers and lemons! (Okay, so I don't really like lemons, but they're still bright and perky.) Stick a yellow bandana on a puppy and instantly it's like "Hey! I'm a friendly guy. Come give me kisses!"(Which is probably why my dog does not wear yellow.)

Yeah, yellow is traditionally the color of cowards, but I think that's totally unfair. To me, it's more like happiness.

*cough*

Okay, I'm done.

My real reason for coming here was to relate the adventure I had yesterday. (I know, I was supposed to post yesterday. Things happened and I eventually didn't have the time. I'm sorry. But I'm here now.)

It was probably about 2 or a little later when Hershey started going berserk about something outside. Like high-pitched whining, yapping, and eventually all-out barking. Sasha didn't know what to think and was pacing back and forth whimpering.

I finally noticed and went to see what was going on. There was a dog pacing in the road in front of our house. Mom and Wes had just pulled in and were calling the dog over to them. I hurried outside (barefoot, of course).

The dog was a bit timid and trotted back and forth around Mom, Wes, and the car. I coaxed him over to me and got ahold of his collar.

He didn't have any tags or any other form of identification. Just a collar. (Green camo, if you're wondering.) He seemed friendly enough, so I started petting him. He was a pit bull, about the same height as Hershey, white except for patches on his face and ears and a couple spots on his tail.

Wes said he'd never seen the dog before, and the rest of us agreed. Living so close to the "park", we see a lot of dogs walk by. So we started wondering what to do.

Long story short, we got an extra leash, I took Mom's shoes and got my coat, and Wes and I headed off to ask some people if they'd ever seen the dog.

We didn't knock on many doors. Most people weren't very pleasant and told us to just take the dog to the shelter and be done with it. Fine. If your dog gets out, I'll do that.

We found one guy who was nice enough. He thought the dog looked familiar but said it wasn't from his street. ("They have a black dog. They have a beagle. They don't have any dogs. He has a cat....") He eventually shrugged and said his neighbor (who has a golden retriever) knew who had what dogs and could help us, but he wasn't home. So we gave him Mom's number and our address and headed down the street to a house he had indicated. (The lady there didn't want to talk. I think she was mad about me making her dog bark. She's the kind of person who wouldn't buy coupons.)

We were heading home when the friendly guy's neighbor pulled in, so we went to talk to him. He said he'd seen the dog running loose a while ago and that a boy had come and got it, and he pointed in the direction he thought he'd seen them go. It was a general location, but Wes and I weren't going to lead a strange dog down all of it. (Oh. At one point a couple drove by. We'd been watching for someone driving along looking for their dog, and as these people were smiling and staring at us we did the same to them. They drove on by without a word. I felt like an idiot.)

So we started back for home, numb and out of ideas. Wes went inside to talk to Mom and I sat outside with the dog, who was now licking my face, all shyness gone.

Then I heard shouting. It sounded like the same name over and over, along with the occasional whistle. It was coming from the direction opposite of which we'd been told the dog probably belonged, but I called Mom outside. She'd been on the phone with the Humane Society asking if any missing dogs had been reported.

Mom agreed we should go looking for whoever was shouting, so we hopped in the car, me in the back with the dog.

They were standing at the end of a dead end road just past the Inconvenience Store shouting and whistling: an older woman and three kids. Mom asked if they were looking for a dog. They saw him in the backseat and nodded, looking unhappy. (They'd been shouting "Dexter", not "Samson" as I'd guessed.) The woman undid the leash and they all headed for the house, she giving me a curt "thank you" over her shoulder. We headed home, me feeling satisfied. Good deed for the week: check. (Haha.) Now I'm even more determined to teach our dogs to come when called and to stay nearby at all times. Somehow....

Take Time to Smile

(Note: While I am posting this on Saturday, techinically most of it was written on Friday. It's just that facebook was down so I couldn't get one of the links I needed.)

(My aunt posted this on facebook today, and I just love it.)

In a land of perpetual gray, sunshine looks quite alien. There isn't even any white snow to offset the varying shades of gray: gray-yellow grass, bare gray trees, heavy gray clouds.

Yesterday on routes, I had settled in for anther gray day. The upside was learning to deliver in yet another new car. This time, it's a manual: hence, all Mom can do is drive and shove the occasional paper into a tube. (Not that I ever ask her to help, anyway, but now she can't even reach out to stop papers from sliding off the dash.)

A little more than half-way through, there was a change. What's this? Sunshine...?

Yes, I got teary-eyed. Sunshine! And look! A patch of blue sky in the distance.

And then I turned around and realized the entire sky in that direction was pretty much all blue.

How I had missed it before, I don't know. As I said, "I was too busy looking at the gray; I didn't even notice the blue." Mom commented on how philosophical that was.

Yes, I suppose it is a bit philosophical, and strangely suitable. Just a few days ago, Dad posted this link on facebook. (Well, kind of. The thing he posted didn't actually have a link, but this is the same story. Google is amazing like like that.) To quote the story, "In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? If so, do we stop to appreciate it?"

I've noticed I tend to focus on the negative things in life. I'm more inclined to the pessimistic, glass-half-empty, guilty-until-proven-innocent perspective. Hence I no longer color outside the lines. I don't sing out loud in the middle of everyday life when other people are looking on. (Well, not normally. Sometimes my family will hear me burst into song.) I get lost in my own little world and the next thing I know, I'm whacking someone in the face as I put on my coat or I've failed to greet the visitors or I come off as a proud snot or awkward social outcast.

That's what this blog is about: enjoying my life by finding beauty in everything. But that hasn't come up a lot on here, has it? Most of the time I hurry along with my head down or my thoughts wandering. Too often I forget to pause, take a breath, look around, and smile. I miss the little things that make me smile and bring sunshine on the darkest days.

(Ironically, rain really makes me happy. I'm hoping for rain for my birthday.)

On Saturday:

I was up early for routes, as Heather had yet again gone to a friend's house. The moon, maybe three-quarters full, hung low in the sky. I'd forgot my glasses, so it wasn't very clear, but I could tell it was beautiful. The clouds had cleared and I could see the stars. The sunshine that appeared as we were finishing was breathtaking in it's simplicity.

Now the sky is a brilliant blue, with puffy clouds drifting along. It was a frosty morning, but now that the sun is well up (it's just past 11), there's birdsong.

I'm noticing all this because it's the first time any of this but the frost has occurred in at least a week. It's a change. And I've recently made an effort to become more aware of my surroundings. But how long will it take for me to drift back into life and ignore these little things that, for the moment, make me "feel all warm and fuzzy", and my youth pastor would say?

When it's not an appropriate time, will I make time - even three seconds - to pay attention?

Just because I said I would

I almost missed it.

The same week I set some guidelines (I mean real guidelines) for my blog and already I'm tempted to ignore them.

Like they say, habits die hard.

And, like I expected, I don't really have anything to write.

Naturally.

....

Yeah, I'm just staring at the screen trying to think of something. Between it being past my bedtime and Lost playing loudly in the background, I can't think.

I visited Gail Carson Levine's blog today. There was a post about author quirks, and she was talking about how she could write anywhere, anytime. Ha. Not me.

I can't concentrate with loud noises (or people who talk in a manner that demands you pay attention to them and nothing else), lots of activity, and more. I subconsciously built certain guidelines I act like I have to meet in order to accomplish anything. Well, eventually, if I'm able to settle into my work, I can do it if the conditions change, but that doesn't often happen.

Okay. I ran out of stuff to ramble about.

Can't. Think.

We're having another thaw here. It totally doesn't feel like January. More like late March. We got snow last week, but it all melted, and now there are puddles all over the yard. I'm sort of glad I don't have to wait for spring to get to properly use the rain boots I got for Christmas. Every time I take Sasha out, I splash around in the puddles like a little kid.

I was reminded recently on facebook that I always remember how to act like a kid: coloring outside the lines, singing off key, scribbling with chalk, wearing mismatching clothes.... Growing up is hard enough without forcing myself to stop having fun. (I know. I make it seem like growing up is this awful, nasty business that should be avoided at all costs. It's not like that. Sometimes it just gets a little confusing.)

So that Day Zero list I started a little more than a year ago.... I finally completed the list. The final item on the list: go puddle jumping. I've decided that, if the weather is right, that's one of the things I want to do on my birthday. (Yeah, I hope for rain on my birthday.)

Okay, I'm really not making any sense. I'll come back when I can actually form complex thoughts and I'm not trying to focus on Lost at the same time.

Not the Only One

Too many days like this, where I sit here staring at the screen, the words having abandoned me. What to say? What to write? I know what needs to be written, but the words won’t come.

It sounds far more poetic than it really is. In reality, it’s a huge bother, a predicament that, more times than two, has ended with me banging my head against the nearest surface while I moan and growl in frustration and come so close to swearing it probably is a lie to say I’m not.

Does every writer go through this? Surely C. S. Lewis never had this problem, or Ted Dekker, or Gail Carson Levine?

In writing, as in other areas of my life, I’m prone to think I’m the only one going through my particular issues. Somehow I get the idea they’re unique to me. (How I think that’s possible when I’m living on an earth more than 6,000 years old and the current population is nearly 7 bil., I don’t know, but I do.)

I’ll be browsing blogs, checking out facebook, or (as is most often the case) sitting in church, and something will be said (or written) that will make me jerk to attention. That’s exactly how I feel! The speaker or writer will continue, describing my problems exactly. Time and again it hits me that I’m not alone, I’m not the only one, this is normal and it can be overcome.

And that gives me the power to try again.

An example that has often sprung to mind lately is a sermon I heard a few months ago. A young man who used to come to our church. He and his wife moved down south a couple years ago, where he became the youth pastor at a friend’s church.

All my readers know him as the man who suffered serious heart issues back in August. When he preached at our church, he didn’t spend much time talking about the circumstances surrounding that time. I can’t even remember exactly how he got around to the part that impacted me the most, but when he did, he talked about something I’m very familiar with.

I believe he was talking about prayer, or at least our relationships with God. He described the feeling he said he went through when it seemed like God was distant, like there was this wall separating himself from God, like all his prayers were bouncing off the ceiling. That was when I sat in shock, my mind racing.

Because I’ve had those moments. I’ve had those weeks. I wonder why I don’t feel anything, why nothing seems to be happening. I lie there in silence and fear, breathless and searching, though for what I’m not sure.

I feared that I was the only one who felt that way: like I couldn’t find God, like I was too small to reach Him. I was…hypocritical?...to even really think it, but sometimes it felt like God wasn’t even there.

It was such a relief to know I wasn’t alone, that others had been through it before. And it happens time and again (like I said, mostly in church). Whenever I’m going through something, there will be something mentioned every day – something I hear, something I read, something I see – that reminds me of my struggle and encourages me to keep moving. It’s in those moments that I wonder how I could ever doubt God; His timing is perfect. It’s like He reaches down to tap me on the shoulder. “Pay attention, Amber. This is for you.”

Wow. In the true sense of the word, that really is awesome.

The hard part comes when the moment passes and I’ve descended back into the real world, back into the midst of my struggling. Seconds pass, it fades, and I return to the same old habits. I return to the muddy ruts, dragging myself through and barely getting by. Next week, I’ll hear another sermon that will stir my emotions but probably won’t get past my head and into my heart and back out through actions that change the way I’m moving.

That’s my real problem, in writing and in life in general. I see the obstacle, I ponder over it, I plant my hands on my hips and glare at it, I mutter threats against it. I hear the suggestions, the encouragement, and I start to overcome it. But instead of my hill becoming a speed bump under all the energy I could employ conquering it, it practically becomes a mountain for all the extra time I waste crawling over it.

So what to do? It’s so easy to go back to old habits. My mind defaults to all those practiced motions and methods. How do you break those personal traditions? To a mind that is so focused on the end result and impatient to get there, it’s hard to take it day by day, step by step, like I need to. With every day I hesitate, every step I stumble over, it piles up behind me and I give up before I make any progress.

Hence, presence on this blog is sporadic at best, I haven’t completed a book in more than a year and I’ve been through too many works to count, and I’ve found two dozen different ways to talk about this same personal issue.

Sorry about that.

So this is my plan: if I never post any other time, I need to post on Fridays and Tuesdays. If I post on other days of the week, I can skip those days, but I have to do at least that much. Maybe I'll eventually I'll actually figure out how you're supposed to blog and I'll learn to do it right. Until then....

What Really Matters

One of the definitions of life simply is "unpredictable". You don't live by sticking to your plans and never changing them; you live by taking what comes and making the most of it, because, in the end, plans are only intentions, never rules, of how your life will go. One little thing can disrupt the plans for your whole life, and you're left in the dust wondering what to do next. You live by acting, now and in every moment, making the most of it.

I've never had a day where absolutely everything goes as I planned it. I wonder if anyone has. And yet we still make plans, even though our best laid plans are always changed in some way or another.

The quietest moments are shattered by harsh reminders of the frailty of life. I was reawakened to that truth this past week.

I always dreaded the day I'd have to write about death on my blog: death as a personal and recent experience for me. To my memory I've only ever done it once. That time was years ago, when I wrote about one of Wes's friends who died of cancer.

This past Saturday I went to help out at Dad's store. (Yes, I spent most of my time folding T-shirts, as usual.) Right in the middle of our ordinary day, Dad got a call that changed everything.

When he went to tell me, he started crying so hard he couldn't speak, and that's when my heart dropped.

Daddies aren't supposed to cry. My dad never cries like that unless something really, really bad has happened. In a second, my mind ran through a dozen possibilities, and with each one I became more and more frightened.

Then Dad told me that my cousin had died in a car accident the night before.

Here's my second point: we tend to take life for granted, but we also take for granted those who are closest to us, those we've had the longest: family.

Yes, I didn't know what to say as Dad briefly explained the situation. But, ashamed as I am to admit it, it wasn't the news itself that sobered me and caught my breath in my throat. It wasn't entirely the death of one so close to me that shocked me.

The first thing that struck me was my dad's pain. The second was that I didn't share that pain. Yes, I cried, and I cried hard. But I cried first for him, and then for myself. I tried to fathom the fact that a man of 20 and his 15-year-old friend had both died, and not even through the fault of anyone. All that happened was my cousin swerved to miss an animal, over-corrected, and hit a tree. It was the reminder of life's unpredictability scared me.

We all want to think we'll live past 60, but it doesn't always happen. People die of all ages, from all causes. We can't choose the time or the reason. That was the fact I was awakened to.

Eventually, it all sunk in, and I cried for a cousin I really didn't know. I've been crying over the loss of my cousin because just now I'm learning what an amazing person he was, and I never realized it. I have people closer to me than him that I take for granted and, in a way, neglect. We get so used to the presence of family that we forget to value who they are to us.

I don't know if I should feel so guilty over not really being able to mourn the loss of my cousin; not the sort of mourning that comes from missing him. But I do feel guilty. Maybe my guilt is the result of being reminded to cherish the time we have and the people with whom we spend it, and the fact that I do neither half as much as I ought to.

I've been debating for a few days about what to say in my next blog post. I feel like every sermon I've heard recently has been a call to live a life with purpose, to live with my eyes wide opened so I don't miss a heartbeat or a smile on a love one's face. Yet I keep going back to my old deeply rutted trail of habit and memorized motions. Sad that it takes death to shake me out of my trance and reevaluate. I pray I don't waste or forget the things it's made me realize.

New Year, same old habits

Oh.

Hi.

Yeah. I feel like a total bum.

I can't even think about recapping. The very notion is painful. So I won't!

Well, not really. Maybe a little. What else do I usually have to blog about?

Our New Year celebrations were great. Up until midnight, ringing in the new year with sparkling grape juice and fireworks echoing through the city. Paper routes made it feel like any other day, but then we skipped Sunday school and only had a morning service at church and spent the rest of the day with friends. (Sasha hated that, because she was in her kennel for 9 hours.) There, we mostly played games and laughed until we cried and ate a bunch of junk food. Yay!

Other than that....

School is back in. I'm battling it out with math. Something about algebra simply does not click in my brain. Neither does the notion that it's all life applicable. Right. But I must suffer on. Get through June. Get through June. Then it's all over!

My personal challenge for the year (well, one of them) is to write two complete books. Technically, the challenge started in November, because that's when I started the book I'm currently working on. I'm guesstimating that's about 150,000 words, give or take. I have 9,500 now. That's about 550 a day from here to November. (I think. I can't trust my math.) The problem is looking at it as 550 a day, not 150,000 in 12 months. And then there's the part where I have a hard time finishing projects.

Um.... We got more snow (finally!), I'm now attending adult church on Sundays (still in Youth Group on Wednesdays), my youngest sister had a birthday, my puppy hasn't changed, I have five books on my "Currently Reading" list, and I got a new box of tea.

Yup. That's about it.

Summing it up like that makes me feel so under accomplished.

I'm still trying to figure out what I can do to motivate myself to blog more than once every week (or bi/tri-weekly, as the case has recently been). People say telling your friends about it is good motivation. I linked a few of my posts on facebook a while ago, but that didn't seem to work. What to do, what to do?

This literally was just a "checking in" post because chores are calling.