Merry Christmas, my friends

 Merry Christmas to all of my wonderful blogging friends!  

You all have been one of my best and most surprising gifts this year.  Wouldn't it be fun if we could all get together and  have a Christmas cookie or two?

But in lieu of that, let me just say that you are, each of you, so special to me.  And I thank you for sharing a little piece of your precious time with me.

                             
                  Have  a safe, wonderful, joyous  holiday!

                                      Love, Barbara

PS. - Be back soon!
                        

For Renee

                                              

This Christmas Angel is for you, sweet Renee.

Please know that you are in my thoughts and prayers.

If you want to visit Renee and add to the hundreds of wishes rising up

please follow her link and leave a message. She can use all of

our prayers. And if we all shout, maybe someone

will listen to reason.

Be Kind To Yourself

Do you make resolutions? New Years or otherwise? How do you feel about them? Do you find yourself let down at the end of the year when you don't achieve your goals? Or does your list make you work harder to accomplish things? Do goals set your direction for the next year or do you drift along waiting for fate to find you?

I'm a believer in goals. But I've never been a writer of  lists-- mostly because I inevitably lose them, and then I feel like an idiot for doing it. I keep my lists in my head. (Although, I confess, that is a less and less efficient system considering C.R.S has set in. (Can't Remember, uh, Stuff.) Or maybe it's system overload. "The hard drive is temporarily inaccessible." Whatever the reason, lists are starting to be more appealing. And according to Oprah and the other 'experts' out there,  the very act of writing a goal down imprints it into your psyche or shoots the request out into the Universe to be fulfilled by the Wish Gremlins and... yeah, never mind...

Maybe it's too early to begin thinking about  goals for next year, but today, it occurred to me that (thankfully!) 2009 is wrapping up.  And just as I began to feel depressed about the time wasted this year, the things left undone,  I began looking back over the year I realized that I actually accomplished a lot this year.  I:

•  graduated from Grad School
• rewrote my screenplay 4,391 times. (okay I may be exaggerating that a bit. It just feels like that.)
• published another book
• welcomed a grandson into the world (while that was a deam of mine, my darling daughter did all the work on that one...)
• learned to Skype.

• survived the horrid economy (Yeah,...that would be me on the right.  Should've seen that one coming...)
• got a full time (office) job for the first time in 30 years.
• and have managed to survive 3 months of crazy law office stress.
• realized that everything (including this job) comes for a reason and I'm learning a lot.

       I guess we all tend to be hard on ourselves this time of year when things haven't gone as planned. But making this list of accomplishments made me feel better than looking at the things I'd left undone. And it gave me a starting point for my next year's list.

Oh, there will be things on that one, too, that will go undone. But next year, I'm gonna write another list of the great things that happened and not beat myself up too much for the other stuff. 

Hope you all have a wonderful, blessed Holiday, however you celebrate it,  and I wish you all bright 2010 with lists of dreams realized.

Wrecking Ball Dreams

Tap, tap, tap...

[silence]

Knock, knock, knock...

[crickets]

Higher Self: Hello?? Is anyone in there?

Lower Self (er, me): Oh. You talkin' to me?

Higher Self: Uh, actually, yes. I've been trying to get your attention.

Me: Wow. How long have you been standing there knocking?

Higher Self: A while.

Me: Sorry. I've been a little busy.

Higher Self: Yeah, apparently you didn't get my message the other night either.

Me: Message? Uh, no, I--

Higher Self: In the dream, the dream! You know the one where you were in the roomful of babies?

Me: Babies? Well, maybe there were babies. Hey, you're not suggesting--

Higher Self: No, no, nothing like that. You're being literal.

Me: Oh.

Higher Self: So you remember, in the dream, how your boss kissed your forehead, smiled benevolently and said, "You should do that." (indicating the babies)

Me: (Eyeing Self-Righteous Higher Self suspiciously) I should become a nanny?

Higher Self: Try to focus.

Me: Okay. I'm focused. Like a laser beam. Just spit it out, will you?

Higher Self: The babies. They're not...babies. They're ideas. The birth of something creative. You remember creative...right?

Me: Creative.... Uh, huh.... Those 'babies' don't come cheap, you know? And like I said, I'm a little busy right now.

Higher Self: Hey, I'm not concerned with minutae that blocks your path.

Me: Path, schmath... I'm getting a regular paycheck. I don't have time for "babies." (grandson excluded)

Higher Self: (Smiling pitiably at it's lower common denominator.) If the knocking's not loud enough, I can arrange for a wrecking ball...

Me: Is this all about that finished novel manuscript I'm not submitting? Because I'm not scared if that's what you think. I'm not. Of rejection.And ego battering "this was really close for me" letters, or reminders about how hard the publishing biz is these days. And when I say'finished' that's merely a figurative statement. It needs a 5,365th rewrite.

Higher Self: Two words: Minutae, excuses. That's all I have to say.

Me: Well, thank God you're done. I'm sure all the people out there reading this are glad, too.

Higher Self: I'm gonna keep sending the baby dreams.

Me: I know.

On Blooming

This was my day yesterday.
This will probably be my day today.
But, hey. Someday, that damn flower has to bloom to give me somewhere to sit.

Right?

Peace, Barbara

Thank You!

To all of you who have sweetly stopped by my DH's blog (see below) and/or became a follower, thank you so much! I love you guys! You really made his week.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I just have to go wrestle the computer away from him. :p)

Did You Know?

Are you a STAR WARS fan? Or maybe your significant other is. Or your son. All I know is that pretty every man who's lived in the last three decades has been touched by George Lucas's Ode to Joseph Campbell's HERO'S JOURNEY in one life-altering way or another.

For some, it's like an answer to all questions, like THE GODFATHER is to others. Funny, huh? I mean, I loved STAR WARS and everything, but never totally understood the fanaticism that went along with it.

However, when my son was young, he began watching it like so many others: A LOT! We had pretty much every new version of the series that came out, from video tape to DVD with Special Features. He loved them all.

But somewhere around the time when he was almost 7 or 8, my husband casually mentioned that he had played a part in STAR WARS. He'd done a voice of one of the stand-out minor characters.




I remember my son just staring at his dad blankly, like WHAT???!!! How could you keep this from me??

So we played his part back and, for the first time, my son heard his DAD'S VOICE COMING OUT OF THIS STAR FIGHTER'S MOUTH!

To say it was a happy surprise would be an understatement and thereafter, our son's friends would drift in with disbelief.

Later (much later) we would learn that there are whole websites devoted to this character on the Internet, fan sites, etc... A few years ago, my husband began doing celebrity signings at STAR WARS Thirty Year Anniversary conventions, and Comicon shows, traveling to London and Japan among other amazing places. He's had a lot of fun with it.

This is all to say that if you're interested in that world, or in the world of Hollywood, (My husband's other love) I'm so happy to say that he's started his own BLOG!! It's called Speaking of Hollywood. Please tell your Star Wars fanatics to go say hello and maybe learn something they didn't know about STAR WARS, or the crazy world of Hollywood. Hope you enjoy it!