The menus have been planned.
The list have been written, revised, rewritten.
Most of the shopping is done.

Thursday night we will have grilled steak, Caesar Parmesan shrimp, salad, baked potatoes, bread, and cheesecake.
Because it is Thanksgiving Day but Levi, Christi and Zoe will be somewhere else.

Sunday night we will have our traditional meal of ham, turkey, dressing, Mother's cranberry salad, rolls, pumpkin, apple, and cherry pie. Levi and Christi are bringing vegetable dishes.

And, all just for us.

This is the only time, ever, that I miss having family and it's not that I long for or miss my family but, you know, the idea of family (which never seems to work out the way you had hoped).

What do you have on your menu? Staying home or going to Grandma's house? traveling or staying close to home?

Whatever it is that you are planning I hope it is wonderful.

It was a beautiful day today here in Oklahoma. I worked in the yard a little, walked the trail and then sat up against the studio in the sunshine. I contemplated the whole idea of meeting with others. I looked up some book reviews on "finding God outside of the church"

All I got was that same sense of panic.

All of the books I looked at smacked of the same ol', same ol' stuff we have already been through. Everyone was about house church, or organic church... no thank you. That's not what I'm looking to find.

The scary thing is that I don't have a clue what I am looking for... what do I want????

something meditative
something contemplative
something inward
something deeper
something bigger

I don't know. I want to dance through the fields and watch the stars. I want to walk barefoot on the grass and feel the earth's vibrations. I want to lay my hand on the smooth bark of a cottonwood tree and feel its life. I want the Spirit to move me. I want to read or write or hear poetry so beautiful it makes me weep.

But, I will tell you what I did do tonight that felt good.

I sat with an old man who recently lost his wife. A man I knew when he was younger and stronger. A man who has been left alone by the church he attended for nearly 30 years, by his children, by almost everyone and we made him smile and laugh a little and shared our french fries.

I think it was divine.

I was reading on Anj's blog earlier and had a moment... you know, a moment.
I'm not sure what to call that moment. Anj might say a moment of clarity. I would have at one time said that it was a holy moment, an opening to something divine...

to be honest it sent a shiver of almost panic through my heart. To be even more honest I'm not sure I even want those kinds of moments.

Okay since I am being honest here, Anj's post hit a note of longing in me, a longing to connect to something bigger, something outside of myself.

I have always said that even where I am now, I may not believe in much but I still do and have always believed in God and desired to have a connection to the spiritual. I'm just not sure what that looks like anymore. I can walk my walking trails and see the beauty and mystery of God in nature. But, I want nothing whatsoever to do with church or churchy people. But, something in that post struck a hidden desire (so hidden it surprised me that it was even there)to meet with others.

That's when the panic button was pushed. It dawned on me that I was being tugged on by something spiritual. A few nights ago we had supper with a couple who kind of lagged behind when everyone else left because they wanted to approach us about meeting with them (on a regular basis) to discuss spiritual things. They don't want anything churchy like a Bible study or prayer group, they just want to talk about God.

I had pretty much dismissed the idea until now.

WoW! I think this calls for some meditation/walking and trying to be open.

SOMEBODY STOP ME!!

I have been on a shopping frenzy this week which is so not like me. I have been somewhere shopping almost every day this week and if I wasn't gone somewhere to shop I shopped online. I'm a bargain hunter but we can't afford this kind of shopping although it something I've been planning on doing and had stashed a little extra for...

On Tuesday Misti,the woman who does my hair, was finally back at work after an eight week maternity leave so, yeah, this is one that I had been planning for a while.
We did my hair a dark cola brown with red highlights. She got it a little darker than I like but I'm sure it will lighten in a few shampoos.
I had also been planning on going to my favorite liquor store when I went to Holdenville to see Misti. I had a budget and a list and stuck to it pretty well. I love to go to the liquor store... oh, all the shiny, pretty bottles. I stocked up on my usuals.. dark rum for baking cakes and Jose Cuervo gold for shots but I bought a new brand of vodka we've never tried, a polish vodka Monolopowa, a new whiskey Wisers, and a new bourbon that a friend told me about, American Honey. I buy small amounts, pints, so I can more variety and we just don't drink all that much. The American Honey is amazing.

Oh, and I stopped at Walmart and picked up some pj's for Emily, Seth and Zoe.

Yesterday I was cleaning out Emily's closet and had a load of clothes that needed to go to the Salvation Army so I took them and decided to shop a while. Hit the mother load of extra nice onsies for Zoe Beth.

I have ordered Levi & Christi's and Seth's Christmas presents online so my Christmas shopping is all done except for Emily and she is the most fun of all.

When Levi was 15, 16 we were in a position financially where I could indulge the whole brand name/right store/too expensive teenage desire for clothes-to-impress-the-other-teenagers a little. I'm just way to practical to do a lot of that kind of shopping. I have never been able to do that for Seth and actually he is just now going thru that stage where he is around other teens and wants to fit in by wearing the "right" clothes. So, I had told him that I would set aside some money from a big job just for that purpose and today was the day to take him on his first big shopping spree. Boy did we shop. We hit every store in the mall that had cool boy clothes and bought something in almost everyone. Lots and lots of sales going on. We stopped long enough to eat lunch and shopped some more, we shopped until he was tired of shopping then I dragged him across town and we shopped some more.

Very fun day.

After today I don't think I will be shopping again for a while... by the end of the day I was so spent I didn't even want to look at baby girl clothes.. and that must mean I AM DONE.

What are you reading?

nothing.

I went to the little local library and looked for something; I asked them if they had anything by Sylvia Plath or Mary Oliver and no, of course, they don't. They have lots of Danielle Steele or Nora Roberts but sorry that won't do today.

What are you watching?

Our routine is that after supper Mark, Emily & I sit together and watch an episode of whatever TV series we are interested in and have on DVD. We have watched all of Smallville, all of NCIS. I rented the first few episodes of Supernatural to see if we like it and we do. So, I ordered the first season on DVD to continue this ritual.

Seth and I watched "Knowing" with Nicolas Cage... meh (as Kristen would say)... kind of an interesting story but they just didn't pull it off in this movie.
"Push"... same thing, you would think they could have made this work but it just seemed kind of thrown together to me.
"The Heffalump Halloween Movie".. adorable
"Tinker Bells Lost Treasure"... I so love Tink.

We celebrated Halloween with our annual bonfire/weenie roast, a couple of friends, and the OU Football game. I sat in the house with Zoe the last half of the game because she was getting restless and tired of being held down by the fire. I didn't mind because by then I was worn out. Planning and executing even a small party is a lot of work.

Mark is in the studio this afternoon putting final touches on KP & Southern Rain's second CD. We hope to have it back from production by the 21st of November. That is when the band will be playing at The Wormy Dog in OKC. I'm sure you've never heard of the place but for red dirt bands it is THE place to play in Oklahoma. We've been trying for a year to get a date there and finally made it. It was one of the things on our big to-do list for this year. The only other thing that hasn't been accomplished is to get a song on the Texas charts. Kevin and I decided it was time to make a new, bigger list... and we put Billy Bob's in Ft. Worth at the top of that list. Look out Billy Bob's ... here we come.

It has been a year ago today that my Mother died. It seems like so much longer. It's funny how easily I have let that all just slip out of my mind.

I haven't talked to either one of my brothers more than a couple of times over the year and that was just to answer questions or settle something that pertained to Mother's estate. I don't think you would call what I feel forgiveness but I have let it go. The anger and hate was not good for me. I still don't want anything to do with either one of them but they don't preoccupy my mind. I just don't care.

It makes me sad to look up there at Mother's little house and see what disrepair her place has fallen into in such a short time.... junk litters the almost always unmowed yard, the vinyl siding needs to be cleaned and has algae growing on it. Her flower beds are weedy and grown over. She is not there anymore, no sign of her.

If we could but live to be one hundred and ten we might begin to understand what we need to know about how to live this one wild and precious life we've been given.

When you are young all you know is what your raging hormones tell you and then you wind up married and pregnant with Lord who knows how many babies.

And then you are too busy for hormones or life either one.

and then you are old and too tired.

We should live longer and to be stronger so we might enjoy the wisdom we have so wisely earned. So, we could run and play and dance with the wind, lay in the grass and feel the sun on our skin, have wild and (thank goodness) unproductive sex.

Someone somewhere got it all wrong, we shouldn't grow old and feeble, we should grow stronger and stronger.