The Holidays Approach

Job 22:21 “Acquaint now thyself with him, and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee.”

The Holidays Approach

I can hear the kitchen utensils clanging, I can envision the family get-togethers, I can almost inhale the food cooking in the ovens across America as we hurriedly prepare the holiday feast for the family. Yes, many prepare a week in advance!

As much as we’re a nation addicted to Big Pharma drugs we’re also an overweight nation addicted to food. As the holiday nears, this is the season where people overeat without guilt. They stuff their faces in the name of ‘it was there’ and as Christmas strolls around the twenty added pounds are already seen in the tighter belt and jeans. The guilt won’t be felt until January first when people make a haphazardly New Year resolution to lose all that was gained setting themselves up for a letdown when they fail.

I am one week away from my eleven-month mark. It’s the time of the month I mark another successful notch in my belt and sticking to my protocol that changed the shape, literally, of my future. The holidays will be more challenging than all eleven months together have been. It will be where his mom pushes ham balls and fudge brownies in his face for his upcoming birthday, and where the family gets together to celebrate the Christmas day meal. 

Since they put a halt to exchanging gifts, that is all Christmas day is anymore, a day of food and family gathering. It’s not like we haven’t spent MANY occasions with the family this year (funeral, wedding, visits) So, the only reason I see celebrating Christmas this year is that I’m alive! And I am ever so grateful for having been allowed these eleven months to change me! I have a lifetime of gratitude, to confine my gratefulness to thirty-days seems menial to me after finding I have a disease that would’ve shattered many.

Please don’t rag on me how December 25th is Jesus’ birthday and a just cause to celebrate the day. Christmas is a pagan holiday set in stone by man. Factually, Jesus’ birthday has been somewhat proven that it didn’t take place in December and hence the reason I don’t celebrate Christmas as Jesus’ birthday. It’s a day not much unlike Thanksgiving, a day of family, food, and gratitude. To each his own. 

While I see my husband trying to change also with his toxic soda consumption, and him wanting to take his own vitamin supplements, we as a family here are embracing change; that is until the family get-together. My hubby will be weak against the wiles of his family as they intimidate him with delicious food. I can’t expect him to be as strong as I am and seriously, I don’t think there are many people who could hold out on sugar consumption (among other things) for eleven months. I’ve been quite impressed with my willpower this year. Where was I hiding all of these years?

I will need all of my armor to face these next thirty-five days and beyond. Instead of stressing over the visit with family, I’m preparing what meal I will take with me on Christmas day like a mega salad with all the fixins and I’m sure the hosts will understand that I had to bring my own dish if they want us there. I’m also preparing what I’ll make for the carnivores of my family and for me on Thanksgiving! I’ll have a rainbow of vegetables and they’ll have meat and potatoes, easy peasy.

I might even try to attempt a modified pumpkin pie with coconut milk and stevia. My only cheat of the year just might be the flour crust. I won’t have the added cool-whip but there is no reason the guys can’t, that’s if they even attempt to eat a modified pie.

Another challenge I’ll face is having a stress free holiday. I sometimes let the smallest of things bother me but this year I am selfishly focusing on ME and my continued healing, in this scenario there is no room for stress. As the month unfolds there seems to be a lot of stress-less events taking place already; it’s as if God knows me so well he’s already set in place the good things that need to happen to keep me stress-free. I’ll elaborate at a later date but for now…I’m off to have me a screen less stress-free day! 

God bless one and all! 

Pss. 4:8 “I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Memory Lane

4 Ezra 4:40 (Hebrew bible) “And I took it, and drank: and when I had drunk of it, my heart uttered understanding, and wisdom grew in my breast, for my spirit strengthened my memory:”

Memory Lane

Strolling down memory lane

I peel the years away

It’s all I can do to find the pain

And heal the years at bay

I remember childhood wonders

And how they came to being

With all the plights and plunders

Is what my mind is seeing

Reeling from the hurt-filled past

A life that no one knew

Into years my rod was cast

The good ones were but few

With all the bad that shaped me

The good was carved in stone

A haunted past I had to flee

My choice to stand alone.

A home in God is what I found

As truth and Light felt right

By days of old I’ll not be bound

I’ll soar the star-filled night.

My Spirit...

Pss. 83:15  “So persecute them with thy tempest, and make them afraid with thy storm.”

My Spirit

My spirit rests in heavenly skies

Stars erupt through spatial sighs

The cosmos is an open foray

For souls to land and spirits pray

Earth below the physical realm

Worlds collide to overwhelm

Stardust sings in blissful pleasure

Music for the spheres to treasure

The source of peace forms within

The heart and mind will then begin

To show the world this shape you take

Energy flows the storm’s awake

My spirit soars where dead men roam

I found in heaven a place called home

There’s no place here on earth or sea

I’ll fly alone just God and me

Poetry Sunday ~ Stardust Sand

google image

Job 38:7 “When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

Stardust Sand

Friends often come and go

Acquaintances pass you by

Souls that meet on stardust sand

Will give you wings to fly.

Land is stiff yet supple

Footprints dot the path

Darting here and over there

Meeting raindrops wrath

God extends his hand to you

And pats you on your way

He never lets your fall 

Define who you are today

A friend is one you turn to

When soaring through the sky

You're souls that met on stardust sand

God gives you wings to fly.

I walk alone...

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."

- Douglas Adams

In writing, it is kind of hard to focus when insanity rears its head. Sure the folks can pretend to be writer’s but really they are just fooling themselves. The writers that I admire most are the ones who keep their sanity in check, learn and progress at a normal pace in their writing careers, and the only insanity can be seen from their families by way of, “What! Are you crazy?”

I realize they walk alone. They surround themselves with like minded people and the crazy ones, they surround themselves with the gibbering fluctuating frenzy of madness. I realized these past few weeks as the clique isolated me from themselves, the reason they pushed me away, it wasn’t my ‘craziness or madness’ it was my sanity. I’m sane and in the clique, there is no room for sanity.

They throw pity parties, they float in jellybean madness, they gossip like the wind, they toss around God like he was a joint to pass around; they can always be seen huddling around, supporting one another but in the end, they get nowhere except where they began, in the white room.

This all has certainly been an enlightening experience, and I’m glad for it because it peeled those out of my life who were bringing me down.

“People too weak to follow their own dreams, will always find a way to discourage your own.” Author Unknown 

This is true because as I sat getting pelted by ignorance, I realized those folk are weak and just needed someone stronger than themselves to sling mud at. Sure I got mud in my eye, but I’ve moved on to where I can finally focus more strongly on REAL writing, not the circus atmosphere; I seek the pleasant Shady Brooks atmosphere.

Ok, Shady Brooks is a place in my mind where water ripples downstream, I create the illusion of the rainbow permanently above my head inspiring me to move forward in life, sitting on the edge of the water with my notebook in hand. No laughter, just the rushing water, wind-chimes off in the distance and me sitting there, alone, awaiting sanity to brush my face and as they slowly appear, I realize, they are all new people, that have entered my life and are lifting me to the heights that I need to be.

Thanks for the memories my fellow writing friends. You carried me to the hot air balloons lift-off and now I must soar. I’m going to new places to meet new people, and you all will just be a memory. A bad and a few good...but nonetheless... a memory.

The Drama of it all...part II

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. ~Ray Bradbury
***

As if one drama post wasn’t enough...I had to go and write two? Well you know...I have a tendency to over dramatize. If they had a crown for drama queens I think I would win the crown hands down. But know that my dramatics are usually my truth in a situation as to the way *I* see it unfold.
 

I can not take anything lightly by no means. If I see a picture, I want to write. I dramatically unfold the scene for you, word by word. You yourself climb into the picture and become one with the world in which is presented to you. When I stop writing I jump into my reality, which is no picture postcard let me tell you. And you wake up out of the daydream saying, wow!
 

If I see a kitty, run across the road, I scream out, “Did you see that mountain lion?”My son will laugh and say, “Mom that was a very fat tabby cat.” “But it was huge!” I go on and then I come home and tell anyone within earshot that this huge fat cat almost made me swerve and hit a tree, so as to avoid splattering all his innards over the road. Again, over dramatizing a mere avoidance of hitting a cat.
 

I can take a molehill (I have them out in my backyard so I do know what they look like) and turn it into... have you ever seen a molehill? Well I ventured out in my backyard and the silky sand mound was splat right in my face, it had grown overnight. I put on my hiking shoes and as I started to climb, I slid all the way down because this molehill was made out of sand, not rock like I normally expect to see.
 

There it was...the molehill that turned into a mountain! Now do you see what I mean? I can make a mountain out of a molehill. This is what needs to come alive in your stories. You need to give your character that thorn that will prick her/his finger and draw blood.
When you have a character that is bland, your story that you’ve built around her/him will surely be bland. You have to set a mountain on fire and have your character strive to walk through the fire!
 

If he is blind, have him fight for his sight! If he was born with no arms, have him go for the Guinness Book of World Records for archery. If it is a fish with no fin, have a character create a prosthetic tail. The world is limitless. Don’t just sit there and see the world through one window, grab hold of it and build yourself a house with MANY windows. Windows that look out onto mountains, or fields or a lake or stream.
 

Remember YOU are the writer. You are the creator. Your power with words is what is going to make or break you. The ones who fall, are the ones who cling to the old. The ones who soar, are the ones who decide to move on and FLY....

Poetry Sunday ~ Hope in my hand...

The wings of hope carry us, soaring high above the driving winds of life. ~Ana Jacob
***

Hope in my hand...

I fall through the cracks
that have surfaced
on the sun-scorched land
I’m in His hand.

I stand to walk
head held high
but I’m left to fall
absorbed by it all.

I claw my way
into the light
that warms me within,
it’s there I begin.

My sin is no more
a scar on my soul.
I traveled so far
the door left ajar.

Stars I wander 

hope in my hand
I am all for
my soul to soar.

All rights reserved: copyright © Joni Zipp