updates & creativity

i realize it's been awhile since my last post...and that my last post wasn't one at all. it's been a busy time at the merryman house...sort of.

a few updates: my mom is hanging out with her radiologist today. she starts a pretty rigorous radiation schedule on monday, as well as a 6-month stint with chemo. i'm sure it's going to be fine, and that this terrible monster will exit my mom as soon as he sees all the weapons we're throwing at him.

my dad went for his "halfway" exam. the lesions in his liver are shrinking...praise the Lord! he is healthy as a horse...he really does look a thousand times better than he did 6 months ago. the treatment is a' working...and none too soon.

in other news...i don't normally have a whole bunch of time to read, but i do it any way. one of the best books i've read in the last two years was eat, pray, love, by elizabeth gilbert. she's amazing.

this month, TED is hosting a big ole conference...one that i'd kill to go to, but alas, killing wouldn't make money spring up from the ground to get me there. elizabeth presented a talk there. i know that most of us don't have 20 minutes, but if you have any creative persuasion "in you," please click http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA to see it. if you absolutely don't have time, go to the 15:30 mark and hear her out. the synopsis is that (1) creativity is taxing on your emotions, but that (2) we have to work hard to manage the emotion that comes with it and (3) regardless of whether your work will be labeled "genius," sometimes you gotta let it out on the off chance that you might let a little bit of divinity out into the world. powerful.

additionally, my beloved has been working on ways to manage our expenses given the state of our economy. bless him. i am proud to say that over the past week, the hubs has saved us about $1200 (!) a year! seriously, he has called the cable people and bundled our services and changed our alarm company and called the insurance people. he even threatened to sell his (really cool) car to buy two mazdas. this was where i had to tell him to slow his roll, but i had to admire his tenacity.

finally, our son has been invited to his first prom as a friend. to which he said, "maybe i will wait until she finds someone she likes and then she will ask him." i said, "when a girl gets up the guts to ask you to the prom, she's pretty set on you taking her." and he said, "maybe. maybe not." bless him little heart. darn tootin' you'll get some pictures posted on that one. can't wait.

tagged in photo fun

my friend hannah tagged me...and i thought this would be fun. so, here's what you do:

1. go to your 4th folder where you store your photos.

2. select the 4th photo (no exceptions).

3. post the picture with an explanation and link it back to your tagger.

4. tag 4 people do do the same.

this is a table arrangement I did three Christmases ago for a women's holiday event at our (then) church. i (as a children's pastor's wife) was asked to do a "segment" on decorating for the holidays. so I introduced the women of Rolling Hills to no napkin rings. note that this is not at our home. meaning I toted my crystal tea glasses and two (count them) sets of forks to do this. and i threw in a little shout out to martha and made place cards that could be taken home as gifts. if only i had that time these days. 

what you don't see is the children's table arrangement on the other side. i toted butcher paper and jumbo crayons and put little paper napkins in tiny paper sacks for their setting. and i even put little luminaries as the centerpiece with fake tealights so that the kids wouldn't burn themselves. i was SO good back then. 

i tag: Dayle, Rebecca, Jessica and Mom.

just for fun this time.

jon made the decision to take our son on an outing last weekend to see mall cop. i was dubious from the start, and, as usual, my instincts were correct and it was truly a terrible flick. it had that quality that poor tyler perry is guilty of...the one where you try to mix a lesson into something that should really just be for laughs.

anyway, this post wasn't supposed to be a review, but there's a scene in the movie where paul blart (a painfully large kevin james) puts a cassette tape into his boom box and jams. i leaned over to jon and said: i think i had that same stereo. and he said: me too.

it got me thinking: kids these days have no idea. do you remember what it was like to have to search for songs using the rewind and fast forward? and if you held it down halfway, you could hear the teeny mousey music that made it easier to figure out when the song was over? how great was it when you caught the whole song from the radio and were able to add it to your mix tape without the deejay speaking before it was over? and you couldn't hear the latest song by just flipping on your laptop or flicking through your iPhone. you had to get that puppy at the wal-mart or one of those creepy music shops at the hot springs mall. and use the afore-mentioned finding methods to get to the song on the radio, because it was never, ever the first song. there was no best buy or really even target. if you didn't have enough baby-sitting money saved up, you had to buy the single. for me, that meant "blame it on the rain." and the B side had "dance with the devil." which i wasn't allowed to listen to, because no one should EVER think about waltzing with satan.

i'm sure one could make the argument that our brains are freed up by being able to skip around to whatever song we want with a couple of button clicks. that we can accomplish more by being able to save a trip to the store by downloading the latest from iTunes. but i kind of miss the intentional nature of the cassette tape. you had to be committed to find what you wanted. more people could benefit from this, i think.