Somewhere there’s an angel on frog duty

I went to the loo last night in the dark. You see I’ve got this thing about sleeping. I really really love it. So when my bladder alarm goes in the wee hours, I do the trip in the dark – mostly with my eyes closed. A writers brain is a fickle thing and once you start flicking switches and being around bright lights, you can kiss sleep goodbye. Anyone with me?

So… I’m doing my best impression of a sleepwalker down the passage and I kick something cold and slimy. I take another step and kick the freaking thing again. If you thought bright lights put a whammy on a sleepy brain – you should try bare feet and cold squishy things. URGH. I put the light on.

There he sat in all his slimy smugness. A gross frog. Not a cute little tree-thingy with sticky pads for feet… not one of those swimmy ones ala Flushed Away. Just a big knobbly frog. Somehow those knobbles turn my stomach inside out. So I trapped him under a cup for my other half to deal with in the morning. He normally walks them down – not on a leash or anything – to the closest storm water drain, and magnanimously returns them to the wild. Greenpeace would be proud. Flushing them would have the same effect, but for the teensy problem that they refuse to be flushed. NOT the kind of thing you want to sit on in the dark in the midnight hours. *Shudder*

The morning went pear shaped and he ran out of time. I thought I would do one better and take the offending amphibian into town to release him into the wild. You see… these things are frighteningly territorial and he would come back and quite frankly I’m not volunteering for that whole squishy in the dark thing. Uh-Uh. Nope. NOT.

It was all going rather well till I went round a bend and the cup tipped. Traitorous blooming cup. It happened in slow motion. Just like the movies. He sat deadstill for a moment and then leapt under the seat. I screamed so loud I’m sure all of Heaven ground to a halt to peer down and see. I’m not a wuss, promise. Just don’t be a frog and leap at me. I will scream at you. Guaranteed.

I drove to work scanning for frog rather than traffic, expecting cold knobbly frog fingers up my pants leg any moment. No man. Not funny. My lovely boss let me park in her yard and leave all my doors open in the hopes he’d take the hint. She doesn’t have frog issues. I prayed, asking for an angel to come escort him out the car. I could just imagine some junior angel being dispatched from Heaven grumbling and wishing it were a frothy demon he were coming down to sort out.

So is he gone? I can only hope so. What deeper lesson did I learn? Um… other than ‘never take a frog in you car unless you want him in there’ – I got nothing.

How about you?

What creeps you out?

Indulgence…

It is 10:13pm, Friday night. Today started at 5am and marched on at the relentless pace of an army on the trail of the enemy. I’m tired and cranky and feeling somewhat out of sorts.

So I’m going to indulge. Is that the sound of taps and bubble bath… I hear you ask… HECK NO! I’m going to indulge in something far more satisfying than that.

Hush up have-to’s, push off should-do’s… I’m about to tackle my dear, sweet WANT TO! Yip… the no-mans land of novel #2.

See you on the other side. X

I loved this post by Kerri. Enjoy!

Goosies and salty tears

My heart has a way of recognising truth long before my mind catches up. When truth hits home inside of me, two things happen – I get goosebumps all down my arms and I find myself blubbing like a baby. Without fail. Every time.

As a writer, I get excited when I go goosies. Simply because I know that what moves me – will touch my readers. Maybe not all of them, but thats okay. Us creative types are ‘moved, to move’. Rory Noland describes this dynamic beautifully in his book The Heart of the Artist. To paraphrase… when you watch a movie, hear music or see a painting that makes you want to weep – its because the artist felt deeply about what he was creating.

I felt this when I read Jim Zee’s post Two Heartbeats Wanted – Apply Within. I caught a glimpse of the heart of the man – the things that matter to him and reading it moved me.

I heard a song yesterday that had me undone for most of the day. Why? Because Matt caught the heart of the Father and sang it over me. Over you. Over a broken, hurting world. I’ll leave you with the song…

Wet, muddy – but alive

The last week has been my ‘work deadline’ week in which I produce a monthly mini-magazine for our church. It involves some writing, a good bit of editing, some photography, some arm-twisting (to get others to write for me), a whole lot of design and layout and seriously little sleep. Did I mention that I don’t get to sleep much? The entire process has a way of reducing my brain to a pile of mush that quivers if you look at it too hard.

The good news is that I delivered it safely to the printers on Wed, and I’m slowly catching up on my home & my family. I feel like I’ve been trawling the bottom of the ocean in deep dark isolation. At last! I’m being let up to see the sun and breathe air again! I’m still soggy and muddy and in serious need of some catch-up-zzzz’s… but I’m up.

The best part of all this is… I get to visit with you lovely lot again! I’ve spent some time each morning skimming through the latest posts while my brain slowly surfaces over a cup of tea. I don’t want to feel completely cut off. But rounding up enough coherent braincells to produce a vaguely meaningful post? Not a chance.

On a different tack, I do want to take a moment to crack open a bottle of the best cyber-champagne to celebrate some wonderful news. My lovely friend Kerri Maniscalco has landed herself an agent! How nice is that! You should go see what she’s up to, so much fun.

Well folks, the low battery light is blinking furiously in my head and I should probably quit while I’m ahead before I start to dribble drivel through my sleepy fingers.

It has been so nice to see you again! 🙂

The lovely Commutinggirl is holding an I love reading giveaway. 🙂 Join the fun!

The one that got away

I had a plan for today. I really did. It was rather good too.

It involved getting kidlets off to school, then a solid hour writing stint on my project 2, some choreography for dance group tonight and quietly wrapping my brain around cutting our music for the dance we’re working on. After that was off to work, mom’s taxi in the afternoon, home to make supper then dancing.

And then small kidlet woke up sick.

My morning was spent sorting brekkies that she didn’t want to eat, finding Ariel…no no no! Peter Pan. No Mom, the other Peter Pan… packing food for her visit to Grampa (which she didn’t eat anyway), packing toys for her visit to Grampa… catching the ball she was throwing at me – and trying not to drop my laptop in the process. I gave up, dropped her off and went to work.

And now? My kidlets are sleeping and my dishwasher is quietly humming in the background. Finally some writing time? Um. That would be no. Draped over my couch, I have my 13yo’s school gym glaring at me. The offending gym is too long. So instead of writing tonight, I’ll be hemming a school dress.

Today got away from me. In every way imaginable.

But its okay. I get to try again tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, I’d better get on with that hem…

Hoping you kept your hands on your goldfish today. X

Your winter is over

Today’s post is a little unusual, so bear with me. If you get to a point that you feel it’s not for you, you are most welcome to go make some tea and carry on with your life, or move on to the next blog. I won’t be offended in the slightest. Promise.

In the December holidays, I decided to move our Allamanda from one side of the garden to the other. We’ll be building a garage sometime and that bed will be abandoned. (You can read the tragic saga of our ensuite garage here.) I love my Allamanda with its bright happy trumpets, I couldn’t bear the thought of giving up on it. We planted it way back when we first moved in, so it’s pretty much part of the family. You know, that part that lives in the garden and doesn’t come in for meals. Surely every family has one? Many years of happy growth means it was broadly spread on top and underneath the soil. I needed to move this rather large plant by myself, and the only way to do it, was to chop back the top and the roots quite harshly.

I know what all the books say about transplanting – take all the roots with, dig a square 1m x1m and so on. I’m a girl. I can only do so much and, in faith, I did. For weeks, seven to be precise – not that I’m counting – there was every indication that I had committed vicious planticide. The severely hacked branches looked good for only one thing – firewood. BUT! At the beginning of this week, I went over to have a look… and it was sprouting! Vibrant green life peeping through the seemingly dead wood. I won’t lie. I nearly hugged my little plant.

Why am I telling you this? You see, that first day when I started hacking my plant in preparation for the move, I felt God whisper to me that this action was significant. I’m learning to listen when He whispers, He often says the most important things in a whisper. This is what I believe He was saying…

You may feel as if your life has been severely chopped back. Things have been stripped away from you, top and bottom. You’ve been in a place of fruitlessness with no sign of any life or progress.

That season is over. You have been moved to a different place – not one doomed for destruction and abandonment, but a place of growth and fruitfulness. A place of LIFE. For a time there was no visible evidence of His working inside of you, in your life – but now its bursting through the seams in glorious technicolour!

No more dry, dead bark.

Now green shoots and bright flowers.

Welcome to Spring!

ABC Award

You really should head on over here to meet the lovely lady that sent this my way. In reality, we’ve only just met here in blogland, but it feels like she’s a friend I’ve known forever. She is encouraging, inspiring and has a tranquility about her that breathes through every beautiful word she writes. I’m looking forward to many years of rubbing virtual shoulders and sharing cups of cyber-tea with you Jeannie. 🙂

I am passing this award on to the lovely ladies of #ClubAwesome… this is a rather neat way of getting to know a few random factlets about new friends…

The ABC instructions are:
Add the logo to your site.
Pass the ABC award on to other bloggers.
Use the alphabet to make a list of words describing you so readers will learn more about you.

Okay, this part is a leeetle bit daunting…

Armchair adventurer… which is why I write.

Believing

Contradictory… half of me is incredibly organised and the other half is incredibly NOT. (According to this book, I’m not crazy)

Dreamer

Enthusiastic

Far too emotional

Grace only by grace…

Hurried life is BUSY

Imbalanced 😀 Oh yeah…

Joker according to my kidlets, no idea what makes them think that

Kids 3 girls, 13, 11 & 4-going-on-16

Love my life.

Multi-tasking permanently!

Never-ever-ever-give-up

Objective about most things in life, not all though and not all the time.

Persistent

Query query query… rest… repeat. My writer buds are nodding.

Running < one exercise I hate with a passion.

Strange but not a stranger 🙂

Tired – often.

Upheld by so many of you who are reading this.

Visionary

Waterbaby love swimming

X X! Are you kidding me? Um…. XOXO there you go!

Yielded

Zany What a daft word, but it kinda fits.

PHEW! That was fun.