Thursday, April 20, 2017

Ramifications

This morning I  sat in my pick-up truck with my little Sweetpea dog beside me.

Those who read of my Hawaiian experience know that my truck is my second office.

So, here in Oregon, on some days when my daughter is home with her son, and I am free, I take the truck, order coffee, and read, write, or go somewhere.

This morning I sat and read the manuscript of my novel Song of Africa.

You may be tired of me talking about this book, but please bear with me. When you begin something 40 years earlier, it is telling to read what you wrote then, and what you think now.

Some 40 years ago when I began writing Song of Africa my protagonist Miss Sara Rose, asks some of the questions I asked myself then. "Is there a God?" "Why do people say that God harmed people so He would be glorified?”

Those questions bothered me then, but no more.

I have come to an understanding.

And so does Miss Sara Rose my protagonist.

Forty years ago I didn't know how it felt to be a 65-year-old woman. I made it up.

Now I understand more.

Have a dream and go for it.

For Sara Rose, it was to ride a river in Africa.

She set out, and as told by her Goddaughter, "Once we begin weaving the gods will provide the skein," Sara finds a new life, new love, and an event that leads to the next generation.

We never know the ramifications of our lives, do we?


The first chapter of Song of Africa is boldly displayed on

Monday, April 17, 2017

Tame the Brain



Listen to the marketers and they tell is things are not so good, and they are going to get worse.
#Seth Godin (blogger) wrote: Turn back the clock just 60 years. If you lived in 1957, how would your life compare to the one you live right now? Well, you have access to lifesaving medicines, often in pill form. You can choose from an infinite amount of entertainment, you can connect with humans all over the Earth, for free, at the click of a button. You have access to the sum total of human knowledge. You have control over your reproductive cycle. You can eat sushi (you've even heard of sushi). You can express yourself in a thousand ways that were forbidden then...

That's in one lifetime.

Strange isn’t it, with all the access to goodness we have now, we focus is on our belly buttons.

You know what I mean, worrying about the next stock crash, the next mortgage crash, worrying that we’re not happy, worrying that some crazy kid will shoot up a school.

If we think back 60 years the worse things did kids did in school was chew gum or smoke behind the bleachers. Well, pregnant senior girls attended my graduation—but they graduated.

As the daughter of a sixteen-year-old mother, I’m not condemning anyone, bless my mother’s heart, she had me.  The pill would have eliminated me. I‘m grateful to be born. Not only that but she was a good mother—got married, divorced, remarried, wanted babies, didn’t have them for 21 years.  See, I had to come into the world when she was sixteen.

If you’re frustrated with what you hear now, don’t listen.

I am a believer that what we focus on brings more of what we are focused on.

It’s a weird Quantum Physics thing.

You’ve noticed that on crappy days more crap comes your way?

On the flip side, you are bopping along, feeling good, and good appears to drop from the ethers.

Some say that positive thinking doesn’t work, but it feels a heck of a lot better than the alternative.

It’s not easy to “Accent the positive and ignore the negative, as we are evolutionarily programmed to look for danger.

Being on the alert worked in the past when stepping outside the cave was risky—risky in the cave too if we stumbled into the hovel of a bear.

Bears inside, Saber-toothed tigers outside, and animals that would carry off your toddler if it ventured out into the night.

No wonder we got hot-wired for worry.

Ever notice how if you are basking in the beauty of a peaceful hillside, the grasses are lush, little yellow flowers dot the hillside, and something moves…

Your eyes dart to the moving object. Maybe it’s as small as a mouse rustling the grasses.

But we see it.

Clearly, that is a protective mechanism.

Notice though, that we don’t live in a cave, and there are no Saber-toothed tigers.

We have other things to worry about, true, death, taxes, finances, our health, our education, a successful endeavor. I admit it’s not simple. But we can begin by deciding for ourselves and not let the fear proclaiming voices of the world decide for us.

They know that fear gets attention.

Tame the brain!

You own that beautiful object, your brain, it doesn’t own you.

I thank God I don’t have to peel potatoes three times a day.

And I can order out for Pizza.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Obi Likes It


A friend started a course for a job selling a Remedial Reading program. Well, she liked reading, and she wanted to help children read, so she signed up, only to find herself so bogged down with the training program that she told them to take their job and, well, she’s a nice person, so she probably said, “No, thank you.”

If they released my friend to her own devices, she probably would have sold reading courses, the company would have benefitted, she would have made extra money, and the children would be good readers.

Do I listen to a different drummer?

Once I volunteered at Terry Cole Whittaker's Church in San Diego California. I was on a hotline. They pointed me to the phone and said, “Go for it.” I didn’t’ know what I was doing, but took the calls, gave advice when I could, the callers and I had a great time. The staff told me I had done a good job, and that was it.

I felt I had to call upon my inner resources, and they answered my call.

Today I hear that old How-to books are dying on the vine. The reason is, they are still addressing the corporate rule on how to fit in. As did the Remedial Reading Company.


Are you living life on your own terms?

We hear a lot about that these days.

Thus is born the entrepreneurial spirit.

I do wonder about marketing and selling. And how we must to “talked into” things that aren’t fun, like Life Insurance that won’t keep us alive, and Health Insurance that won’t keep us healthy. Things we “need,” and are mandatory like car insurance. We hate to spend the money on things that don’t show and aren’t fun. And so enters the salesperson, talking us into buying from them instead of a competitor.

And since the company requires that they sell on commission they must hustle. That gives them a less than stellar reputation and us a bad taste in our mouth.
.  
I’m not a salesperson, but don’t tell that to a Publishing House. They would then drop me like the proverbial hot potato.

 I am, however, wondering what to do next with my book, Song of Africa.
 It should be good to make people want to read it.
People should know about it.
They must like reading.
They must like what I am offering.
They must find value, learn something, have fun, or be entertained.


Both cats love my manuscript. One day one cat is sleeping on my printed out version. The next day the other cat is.

See, it has good cat vibes.



Monday, April 3, 2017

Sigh



On Thursday night I turned off my cell phone in a movie theater and it took off for tall timber never to be been seen again.

Well, that sucks.

On top of that my website Wish on White Horses also sucks according to one analyzer—the readership is so low I don’t count.(My other site traveling-thru-life.com has been found by Smut people, so I'm taking the comments off although I got a couple of good compliments from "Mental Health.")

Sigh.

Of course, if I pay the analyzer, they will amp up Wish on White Horses for me.

Well, I don’t believe you would be reading a really sucky blog, so it can’t be too bad.

You make my day.

Rewind back to Thursday before I reached into my purse and found my phone missing. I came home from a movie that had so much violence and CGI, I felt slimed, and so wanting to relate to a film that had sweetness and light,  I asked my daughter if she knew the lyrics to the Muppet song,” The Rainbow Connection.”

A portion of that song had been cycling through my mind for the last couple of days—you know how that can be, a song goes round and round in an endless loop:  “Have you been half-asleep, have you heard voices, I heard them calling my name…

“It's something that I'm supposed to be
“Someday we'll find it
“The rainbow connection
“The lovers, the dreamers, and me.”

The following morning after asking my daughter about the lyrics, I found a note sitting atop my computer:

“Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
“That’s part of what rainbows do.
“Rainbows are memories, sweet dream reminders. What is it you’d like to do?”

That was the refrain from the Muppet Movie.


Jason Mraz wrote the song, not Jim Henson as I thought. Henson aka Kermit the Frog sang it.


Isn’t it odd how when we get into a state such as I was after watching that Thursday movie, that we allow ourselves to go into a slump, and enter into its state instead of maintaining our own?

You don’t?

Well, I did.

It happens.

And then to add a big exclamation point at the end of my mood, I lose my cell phone.  What was that telling me? (“To not to?”)

Okay, all’s well. I ordered a new phone from  #eBay, and bought an intermediate TRAC phone so my grandson and I wouldn’t be without communication as well as no vehicle for a week.

I guess after insulting my phone by calling it a smart alec phone instead of a smartphone (it had stuttered and disconnected in the middle of a conversation), it decided to take off and leave me standing in the dust.

Back to the Muppets: Do you remember the old Jimmy Dean Television Show? Or was that before your time? You know of him, for you can still buy Jimmy Dean Sausages in the grocery store. Jimmy Dean first introduced Rowlf,  “I’m Rowlf, Rowlf the dog.” Rowlf was a wise-cracking big brown hairy dog who sat on a piano stool tickling the piano keys. 

Jim Henson created Rowlf, and he and Frank Oz, performed the puppet on The Jimmy Dean Show. (The picture above is of Rowlf.)

Henson was so grateful for this break that he offered Dean a 40 percent interest in his production company, but Dean declined on the basis that he did nothing to truly earn it and Henson deserved all the rewards for his own work. For the rest of his life, Dean made it clear that he never regretted that decision of conscience.”

Henson took his love for puppetry and created an empire. See, people do love love, humor, and sweetness.


Muppets:
All of us watching, and wishing we'd find it;
Fozzie:
I've noticed, you're watching too.


I've heard it too many times to ignore it
It's something that I'm supposed to be
Someday we'll find it
The rainbow connection
The lovers, the dreamers, and me

Love,
Joyce


I must have seen a really good movie the day I came out of the theater to see this. The rainbow is in the eastern sky. The western sunset behind me is reflecting on it. 

Jimmy Dean and Rowlf: