For months, I have abused, abandoned, ignored, and forgotten them.

But no longer.

Hello Spring! As of today, my little piggies are ready for you.

Last Saturday, I did something new. I met a couple of bloggers for lunch. Shari (from Tickled Red) befriended me on Tasty Kitchen. Once we discovered that we only lived an hour apart, we knew we were going to be friends. We decided to meet for lunch, along with Shari’s friend known as the Pie Mistress (from Pie Pans & Pigtails).

Things have been pretty swamped around here lately, so I don’t have time to properly tell you about it. Until I do, check out what the others thought about our lunch. Or maybe we should call it coffee because we did have coffee. But we also did a lot of talking. Fine - just call it a 4 1/2 hour fun lunch/coffee/talking/we actually dressed up and put on makeup for this girl date.

Tickled Red’s Account

The Pie Mistress’ Account

Oh yeah, I think I forgot to mention that all of us are redheads. They both have beautiful, long, loose waves. I’m the one with the constantly changing short hair. But it is all red. There aren’t many redheads out there and some people don’t quite know how to take us, so we have got to stick together!

I wrote a children’s book a couple of years ago. It did really well. There were two printings and all the copies are gone…all 3 copies that is.

It was a Christmas present for my niece, Miss O. For the book is about Miss O and her special friend, a green puppet whom she loves so much. Here are the first two lines.

Once upon a time in the land of the flowers, Rose’s to be exact; there was a little green puppet.  He was all by himself on the very top shelf, nameless and faceless. 

 

“If only someone would come along” he said.  “I know they would love me.”

Not to keep you in suspense, it does end well.

At the time, Miss O was thrilled with the book. Not so much for the fact that someone wrote a book just for her, but because of where she thought it could take her. She envisioned that I would write a whole series of these books about Tally-ho Greenish, the little green puppet she named when she was four. Then the two of us would travel around to different bookstores signing them. She was in it for the fame.

I was reminded of this again on Sunday. As we ate lunch, I mentioned to her that I had recently auditioned for a talent show. She got very excited and said, “They are going to call you back. Then we are going to be famous. And we are going to be rich.”

Yeah, she is still in it for the fame. But she is so sweet about it, that it is endearing. So maybe one day, she will be famous. But until then, she will have to settle with just being mine.

It’s amazing how many things can go wrong in one day.

I overslept.

I have dark circles under my eyes.

My boss is out of town and things have been exploding in my face all day long.

I can’t finish one task before someone or something clamors for my attention.

I spilled mayo on my shirt as I scarfed down a quick sandwich.

My head hurts.

My fingernail polish is chipping off at a rapid rate, and I just painted them 2 days ago.

I doubt my day will end at 5pm.

Then I got an email that changed all of this. Well, it didn’t actually make everything go away, that would take Calgon. But this email changed me. Burnside Writers Collective accepted an article I submitted a while back. They liked it and want to put it on their website soon.

So many bad things, yet with the flip of the switch of one good thing…everything is alright again.

I played volleyball in high school. Mainly because it was the only girls’ sport that was offered at my school. But I’m not really into sports. Not football, basketball or soccer. Not college. Not professional. Baseballs ok because I understand the rules, but the rest of it - you can have it. I’m pretty indifferent even when it comes to championship games. I actually googled names of the teams playing in the Super Bowl this year so I wouldn’t look like an idiot when people asked me who I was cheering for, but normally I don’t know who is playing.

But when it comes to the Olympics, it is a totally different ballgame. I love it. All of it. The seemingly off the wall sports. The speed. The flair for the dramatic. The excitement. The behind the scenes look at the athletes. Their endurance. Their stamina. Their determination.

This year we are able to enjoy the Winter Games - the thrills, the spills, the medals. There is something for everyone.

Do you like speed? Catch the downhill skiing.

Have a flair for the dramatic? Hope you tuned into the men’s snowboarding halfpipe. Talk about excitement!

Sequins more your style? Then the women’s figure skating is a must. Or this year, the men’s skating had plenty of sparkle with Johnny Weir’s costumes.

These athletes participating in the games have spent years training for their event. All those years culminate in the Olympics. In some cases, the actual event is over in seconds, but they still participate.

Professionally, I am trained in accounting. I too spent years perfecting my sport. School, CPA exam, then certification. But outside of that, I have other training as well. Lessons learned from the school of life. Some of those lessons were easy. Some were very hard.

It got me thinking…how well am I using my skills that I have perfected over my life? Because if I let all that training go to waste, what does that say about me?

We celebrated Valentine’s Day this past weekend. While I have many people who love me, I don’t have a sweetheart in the Valentine’s kind of way.

But I have to say, who needs love when you have SNOW.

Disclaimer: When substituting snow for love, there are a few things you should know. While snow will put a bloom on your cheeks, it will not keep you warm at night. And it tends to be a fickle friend. You can’t count on it to be there day after day. It is a little hard to take a vacation to a tropical place with snow as your buddy (or honey). But if you treat it like a short term romance and enjoy it while you can, snow will make Valentine’s Day sparkle.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to an women’s retreat in Greensboro. It was one night. My main purpose in going was to get away from everything and just breathe for a little bit. The conference was called “Encouragement Extreme”. Seriously, who doesn’t need a little encouraging in their life?

It made me a little nervous when I got an email from the conference planners the day before the event. They wanted to make everyone aware of the forecasted bad weather but they were proceeding with the event. I wasn’t worried. Everyone knows that if they predict snowy weather in North Carolina, it really doesn’t show up. So I forged ahead. I was going to get encouraged, and nobody was going to stop me.

If this were a movie, I would cue narration here: “Little did she know…”

Yeah, we actually got snow out of that storm. A lot of snow. Eight inches of snow. The last 45 minutes of my 3 hour drive were a little intense as I drove through a snowstorm. But I finally got there just a little late. They had a good number of cancellations due to the people who actually listened to the Weather Channel. But the rest of us laughed, cried and learned about God.

When the last session ended around 3pm on Saturday afternoon, I struggled to decide if I should start home or spend another night. Finally the idea of staying put with a warm bed and a restaurant in the hotel won over the prospects of getting partway home and having to find somewhere to stay when the roads got worse after dark. 

I decided to splurge on an in-room movie, but I couldn’t figure out how to start one. Now, I am pretty savvy when it comes to figuring things out. This one proved to be beyond me. And no wonder, when I finally questioned the front desk, I found out that though the TVs had been replaced in the last month, the movie option had not been reconnected.

Great. Now I was in a hotel room a bad selection on TV, no available movies, without my laptop, and not much to do.  

What’s a girl to do?

If you were me, you would sit in your room. Lost in thought. Sometimes the biggest revelations come when you let everything else go. In fact, that night I realized that…

my favorite fingernail polish* is the exact same color as Diet Coke! Dark brown with just a hint of red. Wow.

* It is Midnight in Moscow by OPI

It started with the Amish Friendship Bread. Everyone I know has mashed, babied and baked this bread countless times. But not me. My cousin got some from one of her students for Christmas and decided to share the love while she was home over Christmas break. So I have been mashing, babying and baking this bread for the last month.

For the uninitiated, Amish Friendship Bread is really cinnamon cake that takes 10 days to prepare. To begin at the beginning, it starts with a starter that someone gives you. Every day you follow the instructions, either adding items or mashing the bag. Finally on the 10th day, you make the cake and create 3 extra bags of starter to give away. Since I am me, I can’t just make the plain recipe. I have been concocting and make a sweet potato version that is to die for and a lemon poppy seed one that is pretty fabulous.

Several of my other cousins are making this bread as well. One of them said that she must only have 4 friends because that is all of the starter she has been able to give away. That got me thinking…I guess I have 2 friends then. Because that is all of the starter that I have given away. Don’t even ask me how many starters I have going at my house right now! And with everything else going on in my life, I started to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have any friends. Poor me.

But then last Friday, I wrote a post about hope in the midst of hopelessness. I had some comments on the post. Other people texted, called or emailed to check on me. And I realized that I don’t have many “typical” best friends - ones who live down the street and you see on a daily basis. But I have so many other connections that make up for it.

Family - my parents, siblings, niece/nephews, aunts/uncles & cousins who love me

Telephone friends like Wallyce - who listen to this East Coast girl pour out her heart while on the West Coast (and who let me visit her in LA)

Lunch buddies like Cheryl - who encourage me about my writing (and has promised to buy the 1st copy of my 1st book)

Busy moms like Jeanne - who keep me sane while keeping up with eight little children on Wednesday nights, allow their own children to love me, and let me stay at their house talking for hours after I finish babysitting

Blog buddies from afar like Dawn, Jana and Lindsey - who let me glimpse into their lives on a daily and weekly basis

New blog buddies like Shari and Jessica - fellow redheads who actually live only an hour away, so I get to meet them later this month

Young CPA friends like Scott- who write poems for the Sweet Potato Queen and email to remind me that I am a tough nut to crack and I will make it

Church companions like David and Jean Kelly - who faithfully read and laugh and share my writing with others (which means the world to me)

Once I started to list all of them out, and believe me this isn’t the whole list, it made me feel like the end of Follow That Bird. Miss Finch took Big Bird away from Sesame Street because there weren’t any other birds of his own kind. After a long hard journey, he finally makes it back home where Maria points out that while there aren’t any other “big” birds, they do have people, grouches, a snuffleupagus, other birds, kids and frogs. I think I will take variety any day.

So I guess it really did take Amish Friendship Bread to make me realize how many friends I do have.

Today, I am not funny. My humor tends to be directly proportional to my emotions. Someone must have performed funny bone removal surgery on me during the night. They put me way under because I don’t remember a thing. But just like the soreness you feel after surgery reminds you of the procedure, I am feeling the afteraffects.

As cliche as it sounds, I am fighting back tears. Oh, I don’t always fight them, but I am still at the office and hate to cry in public. I have cried more in the last year than ever before in my life. My eyes just drip, drip, drip all the time just like the rain pouring down my window right now. The tears signify lots of things. Being overwhelmed, feeling lost, anger at other’s actions, frustration at the feeling of moving in circles or not moving at all.

Hopeless. That is what it boils down to. I know it isn’t, but it sure feels that way many days. Pretty much everything in my life is hard right now.

I didn’t write this to have people worry about me. I guess it is more to be honest with myself. I have always related to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, ”I am very self-reliant, you know.” These days I feel more like the Sanctus Real song, “I’m not alright. I’m broken inside, broken inside.” Some days I feel like a broken record stuck on these lines.

But the reason why is in the next line of the song, “and all I go through, it leads me to you.” I think God is chipping away at my pride. Oh yes, pride is my close friend. I keep it near as it whispers to me. But given everything going on, its voice is getting much harder to hear.

Someone reminded me last weekend that God is Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals. Or quite literally, the Lord who makes bitter things sweet. That is the answer to the hopelessness. The fact that this bitter taste in my mouth will one day be made sweet. It doesn’t make the waiting easier. But it gives me reason to hope.

I bought this Christmas ornament on sale after the holidays. I keep it on my desk to help remind me about hope. Some days it works better than others. But even on the dark days, it sits there unchanging, always hoping.

In case you are not alright either, here are the words to the entire Sanctus Real song.

I’m Not Alright by Sanctus Real

If weakness is a wound
That no one wants to speak of
Then “cool” is just how far we have to fall
I am not immune
I only want to be loved
But I feel safe behind the firewall
Can I lose my need to impress?
If you want the truth, I need to confess

I’m not alright
I’m broken inside, broken inside
And all I go through
It leads me to you, it leads me to you

Burn away the pride
Bring me to my weakness
Until everything I hide behind is gone
And when I’m open wide
With nothing left to cling to
Only you are there to lead me on
Cause honestly, I’m not that strong

I’m not alright
I’m broken inside, broken inside
And all I go through
It leads me to you, it leads me to you

And I move, and I move, and I move…closer to you
And I move, and I move, and I move…closer to you
And I move, and I move, and I move…closer to you
And I move, and I move, and I move…

I’m not alright
I’m broken inside, broken inside
broken inside, broken inside
And all I go through
Leads me to you, leads me to you

I’m not alright, I’m not alright, I’m not alright…that’s why I need you

I get attached to things - a comfy sweatshirt 4 sizes too big, my pink mechanical pencil that is falling apart, my 2008 calendar with the pretty pictures, and my Blackberry.

My phone is perfect.

• It’s red. (I mean, the way it looks IS the most important part of it.)
• It allows me to text quickly. 
• I can use the internet on it.
• The screen background looks great with the red color (see the 1st item about how the looks are the most important). My brother thinks it is hilarious that I took a close-up of the fabric on my couch for my background, but I liked the color combinations.
• It allows me to actually make phone calls from inside my house. Yeah, don’t ask me how long I had a phone that didn’t work inside my house. I got many a bug bite sitting outside talking on my previous phone.

And today, I gave up my phone. Don’t worry, I’m getting another one in return. But my head keeps spinning ’round and ’round wondering if I did the right thing. My phone company was acquired by another company, so I need a new phone with a Verizon chip in it. Verizon advertises about “my people”, but ”my people” seem to be on strike some days. They must not like small towns. Hopefully, the new phone will make them go back to work.

So I am a little blue. But thinking back to the day I got my Blackberry, I was a little nervous about it too. I wasn’t sure if we would become fast friends or sworn enemies. I feel like I have given up my 1st born. I guess that makes my new Droid, the 2nd born. Hey, maybe it won’t be too bad because everyone knows that the 2nd child is definitely the best!

They say that the Droid can do so many great things. Hopefully, it will be like Auntie Mame says, “I shall open doors for you. Doors you never dreamed existed.” And maybe one day, you will hear me say that I am completely and utterly attached to my new phone. Here’s hoping.