Spilt Milk

Woke up thinkin about the grace to "do-over". You can never "Take it back" ...can't un-say, but you can ask permission from someone you've disappointed...or hurt...to "try again". 

Thank you Miss Billie for this sweet inspiration...for askin' the question that got me to thinkin.

I do so hope you all enjoyed your Christmas, Kwanza, Solstice Winter Holiday.  I hope you filled your heart as well as your belly and that above all you looked around and realized that these days are filled with lessons...opportunities for grace and guidance.  

If you "spilt" something, I suggest you clean it up prior to the New Year...makes for a tidy beginin'.  

I don't know if I'll get back here with any Wisdom...but thank you all for your sweet inspiration...I think about what you say...churn it around in my head and heart...until it comes out here.  I couldn't do it without you.  

Happy New Year 

More from the Kitchen...

There are times when I can feel it comin' on.
The steam starts to rise...the bubbles begin to roll to the top.
First its just a few...then they just all let go at once, spitin' and spatin' and hissin like a bunch of cats in a scrap.

Maybe I need a little warnin' system...not for me mind you, cause I know the heats on.

More for the folks that might be just a little too close to the stove.  

In the Kitchen of Life....

Maybe it's because winter, for me, is all about the kitchen. Seems I'm either in it...or avoiding it. 

It's clean...then in an instant...its a mess. It's like a mini-life. 

Lots of wisdom in the kitchen...a good place to do some thinkin'. 

I'm learnin' however that there are just some things you need to keep the lid on if you know what I mean. 

I know you've all probably cooked up a batch.

The Sting

There are some lessons in life that never seem to lose their sting….that’s how you know you learned them.

I took a little bait last night…edged on by some old business and a long time need to make someone see things differently.   

I saw it comin’, complete with the voice of Miss Universe sayin’ “don’t take the bait”.

I started pullin’ up old cards in my head…I could see’um plain as day.

All the signs were there, visceral, intuitive, and downright “know better” .

It was then I felt the sting, just painful enough to send me back to my corner.

We hurt for a reason…all pain is a warnin’ no matter what form it takes.

Word:  12: 16-12

Momma Claus is Comin' to Town

Is it just me...or does the thought of your Momma comin' for a visit send you into a cleanin' frenzy.  I don't know why I do it, I mean she can't see squat and yet I know...she will find that cobweb over in the corner across from her bed.  There is no way to say..."Oh, it's just spider tinsel,"  that boat wont float.

I know when I'm not lookin, she'll check the silver, cause in the South...at Christmas...the silvers gotta be polished and I don't mean dipped in Tarn-X.  I mean cloth polished.

I found a letter my Daddy wrote me the other day and in it he said, "Jus finished polishin' the silver."  It wasn't dated, but I knew it had to be just after Thanksgiving cause that's when the whirlwind starts to blow.

Momma would do it...cause her Momma was comin'.  I do it cause I saw her do it.  But I guess it stops with me, cause all I got is an old cat, and he thinks I'm down on on hands and knees for one reason and one reason only...to rescue his sparkle toys. 

And you know...I think his expectations are right on target!
In this season is wrapped in memories...and traditions...tied with tinsel and expectation.  Some habits are impossible to break...so I'm just gonna whip out this can of Pledge and git goin'. She'll be here before you know it.  

Crazy Quilt

 Some things don't always make sense, don't seem to fit no matter how I twist or turn'um.  Every now and then I get a whole bunch of ugly that's got to be worked in so when it all comes together you don't even notice.

That's the artistry of the divine...you sew up what pieces you're given... layerin' the perfect next to the tragic, the simple next to the complex...trustin that somewhere there is a plan.

Don't Hurry...Be Happy

It all started so early this year...as if miraculously timed to pick up as soon as the electoral college closed for  another four years.  Not a moment's peace to heal the battered senses. Sleigh bells rang...I could hear 'um, and something deep inside me whispered..."Hide"

Lord have mercy, please tell me when did the Christmas Season, and yes,  I am using the C word; when did this beautiful season of peace and promise, turn into such organized and commercial chaos? 

I am surrounded by paper; bombarded daily with shiny catalogs and inserts, battered by seductive commercials for fragrances and fancy underwear and pretty much overwhelmed by the multitude of "holiday savings" available to me. 

I swear to the Lord herself,  I would rather pay you full price any day of the week than be caught up in a mob of grabby-crabby butt-heads tryin' to use last year's coupon for this years stuff.

Truth be told, it all just makes me want to shut down...put my wreath on the door...my candle in the window and stick cloves in oranges until January 2. But I won't.

I'm gonna save my own Christmas.

I'm not gonna bother yours...you do just as you like, but I think Buck and I will take walks just like always and I'll take pictures along the way.  We'll get through this, there are lessons out there and I expect to find them with humor and joy. 

The greatest gift you can give us is to come on over for a drink and stay for soup.  It's the givin' season, but all I want is your company...and your laughter....your "presence".

So take back your season...do it your way...and don't let all this other foolishness get you down. 

I'll be postin' Polaroids  along the way.

Word: To quote the poet: Three Dog Night

Joy to the World

Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea

Joy to you and me

Take it...and leave it

I tend to wrap up what I have to offer in lots of different ways; talk, ideas, plans. Thing is sometimes...there are just no takers and sometimes...you can't give a Hoot.

Thank you Lurlenistas!

Just a quick shout out to all my sweet friends who seem to enjoy "the voices I hear in my head"  both from the  

Book of Lurlene:  General wisdom that your Momma shoulda taught ya; and 

Wise-crackin with Mean Lurlene. (Inspired by the funny and talented Art Parts Clip Art by Ron and Joe, (www.ronandjoe.com) and yes I paid for it!)  

Putting these together has given me such joy, but not half as much as sharin' them with you and knowin' you get a kick out of them.  I'm overwhelmed by your response. 

While I never dreamed of actually putting them together for sale, I'm here to please. So thanks to Bubba and Robyn Allen and the team from my home-town printer, Dogwood Graphics in South Hill, Virginia  (http://www.weprintinva.com/) for making all this happen. 

I have many you have never seen...but we pulled together enough to make the following

• Four packs of 8 different cards
• Pack # 1 = Mean Lurlene - The Classics
• Pack # 2 = More Meanness or Meaner Lurlene
• Pack # 3 = Book of Lurlene #1 (Things your Momma should have taught you)
• Pack # 4 = Book of Lurlene #2 (Things you shoulda known jus' cause) 
• A joker in every pack with contact information (subject to change I'm sure)  

Why the packaging of  8 cards you ask?.  It all has to do with the magic of printing and set up...and pricing.  Everybody needs to pay the proverbial piper...and we want you to be able to collect them all if you see fit and to share the wisdom/madness/meanness.   

Packs are still only $5.00 if you order from me (Plus 1.00 shipping and handling on the whole lot...unless you are family or a neighbor and then I will just throw them at ya).

 If you purchase them at an outlet, I don't know because those folks have pipers too!   I'll try and figure out a better way to distribute in the New Year.  Until then...I thank you from the bottom of my tiny little "Black-bead of a heart" as VerDell used to say.

If you have questions or want to order, shoot me an E-mail at:  jorshipman@verizon.net (best) or teenalurlene@gmail.com and I will do all I can to see that you get what you want. 

Thank you again for your laughter, your support, your thumbs up and encouragement!  

(Note:  I pledge 10% of all profits (after I pay all my pipers) goes to The Alzheimer's Association to assist families doing all they can to cope while we wait for a cure.)

Laughter is incredible medicine....take in large doses!   

Love

Lurlene

Do you know the Muffin' man?

With the "Eatin' Season" upon us...you may want to clip this card and put it on the fridg. I was inspired by my own reflection this mornin'. Not pretty. Now just have a good day and avoid three way mirrors....til you have to.

Only the beginning....

I saw so much passion during this last race...so much divide. My prayer is...that the energy and funding that went into all of these races be pooled into moving this incredible country forward, that we put down the rope that we tug on so hard and use it to lift one another...up and over...and pull one another through.  Word:  Book of Lurlene

Did not...would not...could knot.

Every now and then the mess I'm in comes from my own doin' or inability to let go of the outcome I'm after. If it happens to you...think about playin' this card.
Have a great week everybody.

No blue ligts here...just folks...and memories and fleece robes

It's 39 degrees outside...November has a colder shoulder than Miss October. Great opportunity to wear the fleece robe I picked up in Ashland at the "Grander than we used to be" Opening of Roses. 

 I go there cause it reminds me of home and because I like to talk to folks about bargains and how early the Christmas decorations are out and try on hats and pick up a bag of roasted peanuts...all in the same place. Life is good in the village of Ashland.

Cookin' Lite with Lurlene

As you may well have noticed...or not...I took a little break during the month of October.  I did indeed continue writin' but just never got around to postin'.  It was my Jubilee birthday..and I threw that high protein diet right out the door.  But like a boomerang it's back.

 

I am just beside myself...it seems my month of birthday celebratin' has finally showed up in the midsection. I hate it when that happens. But with the eatin' season knockin' at all of our doors I thought I would share some of my most important calorie cuttin' tips. I do hope they work for you. I'll "weigh-in" with you on them later. Here's oneI tried last night.

Pretty is...

Back in the 80's I undertook a project...partly due to my social work background and partly due to my love of the work Dorothea Lange did during the depression. Not that anything I did could match her. But I believe that in all segments of life...joy and pride can be found. I spent a summer taking pictures in the trailer parks in and around Richmond, VA. Some say I took my life in my hands...and there were one or two moments when I had to decline an invitation to "step inside". I think out of hundreds of negatives...I showed twenty prints. I shoved them back under the eves in an old portfolio and stumbled upon them last week. They have deteriorated somewhat, but due to the fact that the Book of Lurlene seems to be "not writing itself" I decided to share some of these. This is my favorite...it seemed everyone was looking in a different direction...except for that little angel...so proud of her rose dress. I wonder how she is doing today? I pray she is still as proud and confident as she was in this moment.

Bad Seeds

And then there are those that get stuck in your teeth...won't even go there, that's a whole 'nuther story!

Space-Cadet

These days...I have very little personal "space".  You know it's strange when you actually enjoy waiting at the dentist.  I think that has been one of the hardest parts of this phase in my life.  While I am the flaming extrovert, few know how much I need a defined time that belongs to me and me alone.  Miss Universe has helped me to understand that it is there..I need only claim it as it presents itself...like at the dentist. 

Princess Planet

Is it just me...or are folks just gettin' so self involved that they do not realize this planet is indeed shared with others? I wanted to "jerk a few knots" today...seriously, I could have ended up on the front page of the Richmond paper given my agitation level. Anybody who knows me knows...I am NOT the Princess of Patience, but I will make you smile as I rush by and I will always say "cuse me" and thank you so much.

I hear the train a'commin....

You know...sometimes it's hard to sit back and watch a train wreck...it's like some folks ignore all the signals...the whistles...the flashing lights....the bells....folks on the side jumpin' up and down and flappin their hands. 

 I suppose, when you've said all you can say...concern can start to look and feel like just plain "meddlin". It's hard to know when to step back and mind your own.

The Memory Bank Progect

So I'm layin’ in bed the way I do after the cat has gotten me up for a snack, and I’m thinkin' what can I do to support this effort to end Alzheimer’s? Well, no sooner questioned, than answered, through the memory of Mother Theresa’s quote:

"We can do no great things, only small things with great love."
as it is with my hopscotch brain, that morphed into; “small change adds up” and that into, The Memory Bank Project®.

So just for September, (or longer if you so desire) won’t you join me in makin’ nightly deposits in an effort to help make the big changes in research, policy, and care that are so desperately needed by the 35 million (and counting) folks living with Alzheimer’s Disease.

So go pull a nice glass jar out of your recycling and stick today’s card in it and start makin’ change!

At the end of the month, simply count the “change” you made and write a check to your local Alzheimer’s Foundation. You can find it at www.ALZ.org

. along with some other great stuff.

Next year, who knows…I might even have some purple pigs made up for ya’ll.
Share if you know somebody who just might be interested. I’ll contact the Association and tell’um to start looking for the checks!
  All the love, TL

Can it!

I was talkin' the other day....and I could see I was just wastin' this precious resource. I canned it...saved it for somebody who cared. One must preserve energy in all forms! Nuff said.

Wishin'

According to theories of anxiety relief and control, people turn to magical beliefs when they are overpowered by the sense of uncertainty and potential danger.  I understand that, who hasn't looked or the four leaf clover or cooked a turkey just for the bone? 

Wishin' just won't stand alone and ya'll know that...

But  then again,  there is the placebo effect. 

Side steppin'

It takes me a long time to learn a dance step, hell, I have yet to master the darn "electric slide"  But after I've learned it, well, it's my dance and I'm stickin' to it.  Confident, ready to boogy until  somebody goes and changes the music.

That's the way it is with Alzheimer's Disease, just when I think I've got Buck's routine down pat...and I'm confident he's cool and comfortable with our little routine, he'll up and ask me something like...How did I get here?

I have to say, it knocks the wind out of me.

I'm learning a few new steps and I'm sure I'll learn many more...as long as we don't miss a beat, I think all will be well.

Hellina Handbasket

I am off to a slow start this morning. I had to process a few things that I woke up with...no, not the "morning" cat or the constant laundry, but rather what I was going to take with me through the day and what I was going to put back.

I only wear the pants that zip...

Try as I might...the time gets away from me.  It would be all so simple if I just posted first thing like I imagined, but life somehow finds a way to take it's bony little fingers and pry open my personal space, leaving me sleepy...or crumpy....or prickly, as VerDell described me.  So here is the end of week catch up.
While it didn't start too well...

8:16-12   
Yeah...so what the *&^%
I walked around all day with bedhead, and while folks looked...they said nothing. Can't say I blame them.  I really was a sight.  

When I was younger and had no idea how messy life could be, I caught myself staring at a disheveled, thirty or forty year old woman in the grocery store.  There was a spot on her blouse and she had a big ole "bad-hair-day" happenin'. I remember thinking to my self in a rather condescending manner, "I don't care how bad it gets...I will never go out in public lookin' like that."
 
But I did...and I do...and I will probably do it again, because poop happens and I have been wearing the same pair of earrings and shoes for three months .  I wear the pants that zip, end of story. 

8:20-12   I am not!
VerDell called me out this mornin', said I was a little prickly. She was exactly right...and bein' as she is so often my muse, I decided on this card. I just couldn't come up with an alternative...other than the obvious (than to be one) and then there's or "kill someone". But I couldn't put that in the Good Book. 

8:21-12   

Oops...did I wake you?

For what ever reason...the sleep Gods smiled on Buck and that light transferred to me.  If he sleeps.. I sleep and all is right with the world.  There are stories about goin' places with me...wakin up to song and the smell of hot coffee. I am annoyingly joyful in the morning. I like company...I need company, "Oops...did I wake you?"  
History.

 

 

 

  

 8:22-12 These little lights of mine...

So after bein' so "prickly" I started thinking about how dark my world would be without the dear friends who inspire me...put up with me...are there for me.  I started thinking about all the beautiful things they do and then this popped out of nowhere.  Sometimes "Miss Universe" feels that there are things that must be said...minus the punch-line.  

  

 
About the path

8:23-12

 You know, the thing is...sometimes they are synonymous.  Maybe I didn't take the wrong way...maybe just the long way.  The lesson is there...sometimes you just have to go around it to get to it.

Enjoy your weekend everyone, walk a path...any path...you will no doubt end up where you are supposed to.

Cic-a-doos

Woke up this morning to a full chorus of these guys. It's summertime and the chirping of all those flirty spring birds has given away to the ever present shrill of these guys...the Dog Day Cicadas!

In some Asian cultures they're considered a symbol of both good luck and rebirth, well yeah...rebirth would sorta be a "do over" in my book and we all know that's a stroke of luck right there. 

I like to think of them as Southern Noise Makers, kinda like party favors...ushering out the heat of summer and callin' in the season to come.

So to my dearest husband...and all of my dear friends who are enjoying August Birthdays...I hope your days were filled with health and song...and your new season a joyful one.

Love you all!

Diggin' up stuff

Most any farmer will tell you that after a heavy rain, there'll be stuff in the field that you never saw before.  You gotta keep a closer eye out cause things surface.  Chances are a  rusty piece of  wire can end up bein' a whole fence. 

Be careful what you start tuggin at.  Some things can jus' be clipped off and left alone.  Best to decide how much work you're willin' to put into it before you start diggin.

Weedin'

I don’t know why, but when I feel like I’m loosin the battle; it does my soul good to weed. There’s something about reachin down there and pullin that sucker out…roots and all… that gives me great pleasure.
 

I know it’s just a momentary triumph but there are some days when that’s all I need.

Sink...Swim...or Tread

Like I told a friend the other day...There comes a time when you have to make a choice, you can either anchor or you swim, if you continue to try and do both... chances are you'll end up like one of those sad little carnival ponies...you know the ones...with the broken spirit.

Great day..

I think the card says it all.  I could add...Don't drink and draw...but then I would have never come up with this one.  Washin' dishes, house is quiet, man and cat sleep in the lounger.  When I look at them I can think of nothing other than the laughs on the porch, the hours in the pool and the giant fur-ball stuck between my toes. 

Life is no more than a long string of events, held together by memory and selection.  Friends often comment that I have a lot on my hands...but I wash most of that stuff off! 

Life is good.

Alchemy

Alchemy: any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.

I believe that baking is indeed magical and cake is indeed a form of gold.

I believe we can transmute that which is a pain in the bo-tuckus into some form of joy.

Word.

Of Ruses and Rules

So I woke up this morning thinking about being hard-headed...or block headed...or stubborn.
Then I realized, things change. 

Most of the time the only rules I follow are the ones I've made for myself...or the ones I agree with.

Then Miss Universe got me to thinkin'.

Things change...rules change...sometimes folks even change rules and don't bother to tell you...sometimes you do the same to them.  

It happens and that's not a bad thing

What rules are you re-writing?

Makin' stuff up

When I was a kid, long about August, I was pretty tired of things like swimmin, nappin, and lazin' around. Sometimes I would complain to my Grannie that I was "bored" and she would always say that there was no such thing as bein bored as long as there was a needle and thread in the house. Then  I'd get a lesson in "makin' stuff up". 

 Truth be told, we all have a zillion things we could do...I only get bored when I try to avoid them. 

 

Don't Bait!

I don't usually read the Sports Section...but this mornin, I did and decided that it is filled with "Man Code".

For example:

Croaker are hitting bloodworms and squid, and bream is starting to turn...Use crickets.

Seriously???? Sounds like some kind of fishin' fortune cookie to me. But there are all kinds of "fishin" if you know what I mean. I have a policy not to throw bait at things I don't want...or can't handle. Word!

There is a line from the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel that says something like,

"In the end everything will work out okay, if it's not okay...well then, it's not the end." 

I like that philosophy and I suppose I could apply it to Hildegarde's beautiful philosophy...if it does not look like a tent...perhaps it hasn't unfolded...

But then I think...naaah, there are all kinds of tents and as long as it covers your butt in a storm, I'm pretty happy with it.