Beware of Totally Awesome Soap...It's Not

How do you feel about the Dollar Store? I have mixed feelings about it. Our small town has a new one and we love finding household items and snacks there at a great price. Hubs and I stop in about once a week on our way to the main grocery store for everything else. 

In fact we go so often that the cashier always greets us with a smile and we chit-chat a bit about the weather, our work schedules etc. But I am wondering if maybe we are getting a little too chummy with her. At least I am pretty sure that is what she is thinking after a recent visit......

Cashier, as she rang up the sunhat we bought for me: Cute hat, good for all this sunshine.

Hubs: I don't go out it in at all, burn too easily.

Cashier: Yeah that pasty white skin.

Hubs mutters as he runs his card through the ATM: Wow, I've been called "white" but never "pasty"!! 

Poor Cashier turns completely red!!: Oh I'm so sorry, I didn't mean....oh I am so sorry!

That nice lady will probably hide in the back the next time we walk in.

So anyway, 99Cent stores and Dollar stores; what do you think of them? I have found them to be great places to find a genuine deal once in a while, like the TOPSY TURVEY TOMATO things we got there. BUT, you have to be careful about many of the items.

For instance, take a look at the dish soap label above. I mean, how many exaggerated adjectives does one bottle of dish soap need? I simply wanted a liquid soap that would cut grease, so I bought this lovely bottle of orange TOTALLY AWESOME ULTRA DELUXE Citrus soap. 

The name alone should have been my red flag. A few days later I reached for the soap to wash butter off my hands while preparing dinner. A couple squirts of this  Totally Awesome Ultra Deluxe soap on my hands made them feel even greasier than before. The more I tried to lather my hands, the more slimy and greasy they became! So gross. I had to ruin a dish towel to get the butter AND soap off.  

Hmm, maybe this stuff would make a good sunscreen for my pasty white husband?                

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The Mothering Job

Happy Mother's Day, Friends!

Oh the thoughts, memories and wonderings that this complicated and weighty holiday brings! It doesn't seem like Father's Day is fraught with as much deep introspection and measuring of one's self-worth. Maybe it is, but men tend to keep it inside while we women...well, you know.

It is about 9:30 on M.D. morning and I am doing one of my favorite things...writing. My coffee is delish, the dog is laying in the sun and my hubby is outside repairing my backyard swing because he knows how much I love it in the summertime. 

My sons are grown. At 26 & 30 they do not need me to mother them. Well, that statement would be true if you define "mothering" as dressing, feeding and protecting. But of course, mothering is actually a very different thing according to the stages of one's life. My guys do not need the old version of mama. But,

My mothering will never stop...it will just change.

When the night was noisy with an unhappy infant, love was there.

When the Legos were EVERYWHERE, love was there.

When bedtime talks were sweet and little boys kissed mommy goodnight, love was there.

When scrunched-up school papers were smoothed out with my hands so I could read them, love was there.

When tears were spilled over math papers and science project due dates, love was there.

When rooms were trashed and eyes were rolled, love was there.

When I listened late into the night for the front door to open and close, love was there.

When generous gifts of dark chocolate and mom's favorite movie were given, love was there.

When my son told us with shining eyes that he was in love with his best friend, love was there.

When my grown-up sons with their deep voices, laugh and talk about movies and comics, love is there.

The mothering job changes from season to season, stage to stage, but the main job, the one that really counts stays the same......just to love. 

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I think I just accidentally convinced Hubs that I need to get out more......

I really need to talk to someone besides my husband and the dog.....

Hubs called me this morning while on his break at work. While saying good-bye I said,

"Bye bye, love you baby girl." *

 Good thing we are meeting friends for dinner tomorrow night!!!

* By the way....this is what I sometimes call the dog. Some of the comments are making me think I did not make that very clear! Ha!
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Layla is Going to be Famous! (Not really)

My NEW blog post for 

The Pet Supply Company

is live!

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Is My Dog Depressed or Simply Resigned?

Something puzzling and mystifying has occurred in our life with Layla recently. It feels like she has suddenly turned into a mature and relatively calm dog, almost overnight. A few weeks ago I posted this Facebook status:

"Is the dog sweetly calm today because she is growing up or is she sick? Hmm, I recall asking myself the same question about my sons when they were little."

You have read the multiple blog posts on her wildness, destructiveness and many close calls to be sent away due to "irreconcilable differences." I did some research on her breed mixture. Layla is Labrador and Spaniel. (I love that she is Spaniel size, but has Lab hair.) The articles I read claimed that somewhere between 18 months and 2 years old, Labs will suddenly mature and be much easier to live with. Layla was 8 months old when we adopted her and we had a few bad habits to work on, but mostly she was just ridiculously active and destructive. 

She will be 2 years old next month and it seems my research is holding up. She still greets us and visitors with much more affection and enthusiasm than needed, but her overall mood is quiet, sleepy and calm. I am figuring that she has either hit that maturity mark or it has finally dawned on her that we are not the active family she was hoping to be adopted into. She will circle the house looking for one of us to play with or take her for a walk and then with a resigned sigh, plop herself down for a nap.

Possible explanations for Layla's calm behavior:

• She has given up on the ideal adopted family that takes long walks everyday and plays fetch for at least 5 hours a day.

• She has accepted that she landed in an old folks home.

• She is depressed because one of the dogs at the park teased her about her bobbed tail, which is a no-no for Labradors but required for Spaniels and her birth family were Spaniels.

• She is almost two and it's time to be a big girl like the well behaved German Shepherds next door.

• The German Shepherds said something about her bobbed tail.

• It's hot. It's raining. There is lightening. (All this happened in the last 4 days!)

I hope she is not unhappy or sick or depressed. I choose to go with the "two year old" theory. Layla still has issues with personal space; meaning you don't have any. She must picture herself as a tiny Chihuahua as she edges her butt onto your lap and completely blocks your view of the television. And she is still a goofy puppy when she encounters a new toy........

Toy lasted about 3 minutes.

So she will be 2 years old in June and I am happy to be out of the rebellious teen years of a dog's life!
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"But I'm not made to sit still!"

It's the first Friday of the month and that means it is Random Journal Day!  Grab one of your old journals, open a page and use it to inspire a blog post. If you want to read other RJD posts click on over to Beneath the Surface: Breath of Faith and link up with other bloggers.

Today I opened a journal that I kept for Rocker Son from the day we knew he was coming to make us a family of four. This entry was 7 years later as I pondered my 7 year old mystery boy........

December 7, 1993

In many ways (Rocker Son) is my mystery son. His thoughts do not tumble out all the time like (Writer Son) did at age 7. But his mind is very quick and always busy. He is often a step ahead of me in conversation, "If 3 cookies are OK, then 4 is probably Ok too, right?" 

Yesterday he listened as I told Hubs about how wiggly he had been in church that morning. Rocker Son's immediate contribution to the conversation was, "But I'm not MADE to sit still!!" He was totally serious and probably right. 

As I read the words in the little red, white and blue cloth covered journal, I was reminded of my last blog post here. I wrote about how we can be thankful for our own quirks and personality traits because our Creator designed us with intention and purpose, not accidentally. Accepting ourselves is a way of honoring what God made.


I wish I'd caught this lesson from my little dark-eyed kiddo back when he was 7 and seemed to "get" it pretty well. This charming young man is now a tall and handsome 26 year old who has always known who he was. At the age of 6 he knew what clothes or haircut were "right" for him and what was unacceptable to his high standards. I admire that strength today but did not appreciate it at all while shopping for school clothes back then!

I am still learning from this deep thinking and kind young man. I have always marveled at his ease and lack of fear when meeting new people. There just may be a link between his acceptance of himself and his open heart to strangers and new friends. The two go hand in hand, don't you think? When you are comfortable in your own skin, you can be more accepting and open to others around you.

When Rocker Son was seven, he knew that he was "not MADE to sit still". And if a serious motorcycle accident in 2011 that added a steel rod to his leg, is any indication, I think he knew what he was talking about!

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My Grand Gesture

Walking through our living room the other day I wondered where the pretty aroma was coming from and then saw this little dish of dried rose petals I had placed on a side table. It surprises me every time because it does not seem possible that an old dried up rose that used to be so beautiful could still offer such pleasure. But it does, and it made me smile.

Many years ago while scrubbing a dirty wall in a church nursery, I made what I thought was a grand gesture in prayer. I said to God, 

" Please get me out of the way so that you can shine more brightly in me God. Reduce the Susie and magnify the You in me."

Turns out, God did not appreciate my grand words or even the real desperation that lie behind them. In fact, as I remember it now, I think He may have been a bit bugged at me for my request. And it takes a lot to get Him bugged. I heard a quick answer.......

"No I will NOT reduce the Susie in you. I created you and I like what I designed just the way it is!"

When God talks to you there is an understanding that goes beyond the actual words you hear. I knew that God was telling me that He made me in a specific way for His purposes and when I do not like myself, I am insulting what He made. There is something about my "Susie-ness" that He loves and my personality, quirks and talents are not by accident. They are useful to Him and He enjoys me as me. Even when I don't.

The dried up rose petal provides a soft and comforting aroma long after the fresh blossom is born. God likes the way He designed the rose. It has a purpose and reason for being just the way it is. I am treasuring each stage of the life (and death) of that yellow rose and its' siblings from the same rose bush.

Some days I feel much more like the the dried up and dead rose petals than the soft and dewy fresh blossom, but either way, I am loved by a God who designed me to be nothing more than me. Not only is being myself good enough, it is perfect. To do less or to moan about who I am would be insulting to my God and I do not want to make Him bugged at me again!

My friends, can you apply this small and so simple truth to yourself? God likes who you are, the way you are and the way you do things. He is not shaking His head in frustration when you "mess up". Our lives are a learning season and mess ups are totally expected. Get back up, laugh at your goofiness and try again. One further bit of advice though...do not ask Him to get you out of the way. He won't go for it at all. 

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Waiting for the Coffee to Kick In

"I sit quietly, staring at the backs of my eyelids, waiting. I can see nothing but blackness. What else would you expect from behind closed eyes? I am dreading the upcoming sharing time when I would have nothing to report. 

The guest speaker at our ministry school had instructed us to close our physical eyes and ask God to show us who He wanted to be for us in this time of our lives. This was not a new or unusual activity for our small school, we believe that God is always communicating with us, we just need to stop and listen in order to hear Him. Or, in this case, to “see’ Him.  

But on this day I was in no mood for it. I could easily imagine that the others in the room would dreamily report visions of walking in flowering fields with God or pictures of themselves nestled in His comforting arms. I saw blankness and blackness behind my eyelids, and I seriously considered leaving the room to go to the bathroom for a few minutes so I would not feel embarrassed by my lack of vision-seeing ability."..........

This is an excerpt from my current WIP (work in progress). I am not sure what form it will take once I am finished. For now I am just working on getting it down. In the meantime I am hanging on to this quote from a favorite writer, Wendy Welch.....

"Hope coupled with hard work can even trump stupidity." Taken from her book, The Little Bookstore of Big Stone Gap

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Getting My Flip-Flop On

Sorry. I don't really have a new blog for you. I just wanted to get the picture

of me with the toilet paper in my nose moved down

and out of the way.

Thanks.

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He Dared Me...

He dared me to post this. 

The way I have been walking around the last 3 days. 

Head cold, runny nose, toilet paper stuffed in my nostril. 

He liked the post yesterday, but said maybe it made us look too perfect. Too together.

He said I should put up a pic of how I really looked. 

Dared me to do it, and I said "No way!"

But everything I wrote yesterday was true and I can't help it if it made us look too cute.

So here I am posting the true pic of me and my toilet paper nose. 

Because today I made him this for no reason.......

I win.

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I Laughed, I Cried, I Kissed my Husband Good-bye

Hubs didn't have to leave for work yesterday until Noonish, so he made some oatmeal for our breakfast and I found him seated at the kitchen counter. He pulled up a seat for me too and I filled my bowl with the hearty stuff and joined him. 

After chatting a bit my hand flew to my mouth with a gasp and tears filled my eyes. I suddenly saw the yellow rose bud in my blue vase sitting right in front of me. Have no idea why I cried. It was just so sweet and I so loved the way he had carefully arranged our red salt & pepper shakers on either side of the bloom. He had cut the rose from our bush in the backyard at some point and the thoughtfulness just messed this girl up bad. He was then embarrassed at my strong reaction, as if he never did such romantic things. He does and I still have no idea why I got teary eyed. 

About five minutes later he was taking a big sip of coffee and one of those pesky little tickles touched the back of his throat and the scene you see pictured above was spewed with brown droplets far and wide. We both laughed so hard while reaching for napkins to begin the clean-up. The window, the sugar bowl, the counter was a coffee flavored polka-dot mess.  

This man, this best friend that I live with is my favorite puzzle to figure out. Married 35 years does not mean we know enough to explain one another. He is complicated, I am complicated, and we are both an unsolvable mystery that keeps us on our toes. I need this person in my life and he needs me, though I think his need is smaller than mine. 

A single rose bud of yellow placed lovingly in a tall blue vase is an intricate love letter that even the writer does not understand. The message sent is sometimes different than the message received. Love is like that. Little things can easily outweigh big things in the world of love between a man and a woman. And I am recently becoming keenly aware of the shortness of life and the reality that we will not have one another by our sides here on earth forever. Not the "forever" that it felt like on our wedding day anyway. Forever is getting shorter and must not be wasted.

Look at the humans around you in your daily life and cherish what you have with them. Not in a morose or "we're all gonna die!" kind of attitude, but in a "I love you and want to enjoy it all while we can" sort of way. Look beyond the little irritants. Those ordinary quirks or annoyances are an ingredient of the one you love or the ones you've been thrown into a family alongside. Embrace them as some of the spice and flavor that add up to the person you care about. 

Laughing or crying, we need one another and when you are free to do both with someone, you are blessed.

Writing to you from my backyard today!

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Writers Love Checks in the Mail

Money in the mail is a lovely thing...it just might be buying me some happiness. A check in the mail is especially fun when it is a surprise! It looks like I am going to be in a fourth issue of The Secret Place Devotional Magazine, according to the check that I found in my mailbox yesterday. 

The odd bit about this news is that I do not remember sending the piece in, even though the title does sound like my writing. I poured over my beautifully organized-color-coded freelance Excel spreadsheet and it is not there. The letter accompanying the check includes the title of the submission but not the whole devotion. I can't even find it in my computer files. So weird! I have to wait for the magazine issue to arrive to see what I wrote. Ha!

I am constantly submitting things and I THOUGHT that I was being very careful and organized so I could keep track of all my rejections, acceptances and payments. Potential Clients: Please know that I will never lose your work and I love a deadline, so just ignore this post OK?  

My email also announced yesterday that nearly $100 has been added to my paypal account from my new client for the giggle inducing "Udder" subject. Yay me! To be clear; the content I sent them was NOT causing giggles, it was serious information that cattle-people need when ordering farm supplies. The chuckles came from the seemingly never-ending puns that the word udder can produce from my friends. If you wish to add to the udder nonsense yourself, go here and leave it in the comments. :) 

My 4th issue will arrive in the fall of 2013.

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Writing Sentences I Never Would have Imagined...Udder Nonsense

Spoiled, who me?

I am sitting on my brown leather couch with Layla tucked in close next to me once again. She's been part of our family just a little over one year now, and I am so glad to have her beside me as my writing buddy. A freelance writer, working from home, can lead a pretty quiet, isolated life with very little face to face interaction with real human beings.

Since I would be talking aloud to myself anyway, it is a good thing to have an animal to direct my interesting observances toward, right? Layla has heard things that make me grateful she cannot speak. I ask her opinion on article titles and opening sentences. I stare at her while composing bullet points and she doesn't flinch. She just stares back...unless I get real intense and then she tenses up and lunges at me. (With love of course.)

While looking at the blinking curser on my Mac screen, waiting for the next profound thought to arrive, my right hand will rest on her head, smoothing the velvety hair on her ears. Today the sentences were about cow udders and teat care. Yes, you read that correctly. Not all of my creative writing is full of deep and honest God thoughts. My latest project is providing web content for a pet supply company that sells all kinds of stuff for small and large animal care. So yes, today I wrote the headings for the disinfectants for cow udders. I am finding myself writing sentences that I never, ever would have thought I would be typing! 

So you can imagine the odd things Layla is hearing as I read my words aloud to see if the paragraph flows. She is a great listener and very non-judgmental. Even when I want her to be. If I ask a question, her ears perk up because she is checking to see if I am asking her to bring me the ball to throw. Which, by the way, is another great advantage to having a dog as your writing buddy. She periodically gets impatient with my lack of movement away from the computer and her nose begins to push at my typing hands until I stop and pay attention. That's when I know it is time to go outside and play fetch or let her chase me all around the house while I hide around corners and try to jump out at her. 

Taken while writing this blog post.

As I figure out how to bring this post to a close, I am thankful for Recovering Church Lady blog and the nice mind-cleansing space it gives me to clear my thought-pallet after spending the last few hours in udder-land. This minute with you all has been cathartic and calming, so now I can go about the rest of my evening with some better pictures in my head. Thank you.

Mac and Layla both want to be on my lap.

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Picture-Heavy Update of Life in Susieland

My Easter Rose is keeping company with my Christmas Poinsettia.

Farmer Hubs is trying out the Topsy Turvy system for tomatoes
along with planting in the ground like a normal person this year. 

Layla had a tough morning today but I think she has forgiven me.
I slept in with earplugs and did not hear that she needed to "go". So when I opened her crate
she ran like crazy for the back door while I discovered a messy accident in her crate. Then I saw that she has a sore spot on her nose from trying to get out of the crate, poor baby. I am so sorry baby girl!

My mornings begin here at the counter with breakfast and Facebook and coffee, of course.
I eat and browse while standing and stretching because I know I will be sitting a lot later on.

My current writing station is the couch these days. It is comfy and Layla can join me for a cuddle
and distraction. My new client is The Pet Supply Company and I am enjoying the challenge
of writing about livestock supplies as I provide the category introductions and I will be adding some fun blogs to the site on any animal subjects I want!
I am also working on a book about my encounters with God and how He convinced me that I am loved.

So that's the latest happenings here in Susieland. What is going on in your land?
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Random Journal Day - One Year Birthday!

It is the one year birthday of Random Journal Day, the once-a-month writing prompt using a page from one of your old journals. It has been fun and I send out a big THANK YOU  to my friend Dawn for organizing the LINK-UP  with other bloggers so we can all sneak peaks into the journal entries of strangers and online friends. To celebrate our 1 year together she has created a brand new logo using her collection of journals. It looks great!

Today I opened one of my journals from our decade of being the Overseers of Potter's House School of the Supernatural, our small ministry school. They were days full of activity and young people. We adored it and every year we fell in love with our new students. We are still in contact with almost all of them (about 125) in small and big ways, thanks to social media!

Ready for the first day of school 2008.

Arriving between 7 and 7:30 am every morning, we opened up the church offices and set about preparing the atmosphere for our first hour of worship with the students who would arrive at 8. At least MOST arrived on time, there were always those who stumbled in with bed-head and sleep-creases on their faces about 8:30.

The guitarist and drummer would fill the room with music and I could see the sleepy eyes change as the minutes ticked by. Some would begin to sparkle with an inner joy as God spoke something sweet into their hearts. Others would be full of tears as they repented and received forgiveness in as quickly as it takes to ask. 

I can see a beautiful dark-haired one swaying with the music in front of the big picture window that framed swaying trees lining the creek next door. A passionate young guy is flat on the floor, face down, talking to God with a muffled voice. Students are also scattered among the chairs, reading, writing in journals and drawing their worship as the music swirls around each of us. 

The rest of the day was full of teaching, small group meetings, art, counseling and outreach. It was all valuable and it all made significant changes in the lives that shared their year or two together. But that first hour of worship; I am convinced that more deep ministry and healing happened in that hour or two than in any of the classes that followed!

Now click on the pic below & go read some other Random Journal Day blogs........

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Had No Idea My Yellow Rose Had so Much to Say!

This is one of those times I am beginning a blog post with a need to write but no sense of where it will take me (or us). I have a paid assignment to finish today and this will be my "warm-up" exercise, so to speak. 

A few days ago I posted the photo of the closed tight rose bud, admitting that I felt the same. I love watching the transformation of a rose as it slowly but quickly, if both can be true, opens its petals to the sun and reveal its beautiful color and aroma. All of these photos of the same blossom were taken between March 25 and March 31. Incredible really! 

The elaborate and intricate beauty of this single flower shouts and whispers to me about the One who created it the very first time. Do you ever wonder why God invented flowers the way He did? Why use such vibrant colors and scents? Why so much ridiculous variety? 

God imagined and then produced more varieties and types of flowers than we could ever think up or even collect in a life time. There are teeny tiny blossoms in glorious color explosions on the side of a mountain somewhere that no person will EVER see! Why? Such a complicated process for each bloom and they last only days at a time. The floral bouquet will grow, mature and bloom there in the hidden spot for a few days or hours and then wither and die without any human being laying eyes on it. Why?

There is much about God that we cannot and will not understand. If you hear a speaker talk as if they understand God and all of His ways, you may want to consider that a red flag. We are simply unable to grasp the mind of God. But.....

The flowers do reveal some truth about the One who made us and the universe in which we live. The rose in my backyard tells me that God loves color and aroma and beauty. The tender yellow petals sing to me of a tender-hearted Father who knows how to be gentle. The swirls of over-lapping petals that fit just so, tell me that my God loves order and synchronization. Conversely, the uneven shapes and sizes of the nestled rose petals reveal a love for a bit of chaos within the fitted blossom. 

The curled edges talk to me of smooth transitions from one petal to the next. The shades of yellow from vibrant to muted show me that change is inevitable but possible. The life-green stem and leaves are strong and protective and yes, even the thorns remind me of God's power and His release of that power to us, his people. 

And the aroma. I have sniffed and tested so-called "Rose Scented" perfume over and over again for years and have never found one that "caught" the actual aroma of a rose. It is strong and gentle at the same time. It is sweet and spicy together. I don't think that man can do it. We cannot replicate the true scent of a rose. We are missing some secret element that only the One who created it can conjure. 

The precise care for detail and flabber-gasting beauty of a rose can only advertise that God loves variety, color, beauty for all of the senses and that He loves us in all of our variety and aromas too. When I look at a rose...really look at it and take it in, I feel loved by God. He did not HAVE to make flowers so lovely and interesting, but I am thinking that maybe He did it that way for His own pleasure and for our pleasure.

Maybe when He stops and looks at one of us, in all our detail, He smiles and breathes us in just like we do a rose. Consider that it is our differences of shape, size and color that He enjoys and revels in. God could have created all flowers exactly alike. They would still have served their ecological purpose. He also could have made each one of us exactly alike. But he did not. 

The yellow rose in my backyard is a reminder to me that I am loved by God. This message of love has caused me to let my tense shoulders fall a bit and relax my petals, opening them to Him in trust because I am loved. The yellow rose tells me that He knows me in the smallest detail and that I give Him pleasure and delight. 

So do you...even if you are a daisy or a cactus or a dandelion.

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