Cats and Cactus: Journal Update and Progress Report

I'm so far behind right now. Life happened all over the place this month and I'm just now beginning to get my attitude back. More on that in a moment. Mom's Recovering and We Have Not Killed Each Other Yet: I may have mentioned that my mother had her Gal Bladder removed back on 7/2. She's doing well, but the helpers I thought we had lined up were themselves laid up, so I've been challenged with a roll I'm not well suited to. Fortunately and unfortunately, Mom's a worse patient than I am a nurse, so she's bouncing back quickly and fending for herself more each day. Many of my friends know how deeply I empathize with people in physical or emotional pain, so they are often surprised when I confess to a bedside manor just short of hostile. I feel for people in pain, but I don't want to be around them longer than an hour or two at a shot. When it comes to nurturing, I'm a cats and cactus kind of guy. 4th of July and Nick Names: Anyway, it's hogged up some time which is part of my delay this month. We also had the holiday, which I LOVE, but I took the day off to regain sanity and that's a day I fell behind. I'm not going to regret that though, I had a blast over at my friend's parents house. I should mention at this point that I've had many of my friends since high school and some even from grade school. I should also mention that the majority of them are named John or Jon. To further complicate things, my best friend from 3rd grade on, is named John after his father, so even though we call most of the Johns by their last name, it doesn't entirely eliminate confusion. So most everyone at these events has nicknames. To avoid being John Jr. his parents called him Tiger growing up. In a twist of irony, if someone in a group setting like the 4th, referred to someone strictly as John, that's the one we'd all assume they meant. John's brother, Aaron, has a name to himself. However, when his mother was so angry she could barely speak because we'd done something or forgotten to do something, she'd mangle their names together, like Ti-Aar. John somehow emerged from this as John (Tiger) and Aaron was christened Aar-Ti. (Probably didn't help that Aaron was tall and had basketball skills). Another high school friend, John, got stuck with John Thomas throughout high school, courtesy of Monte Python, but in college he managed to make the shift to JT. My friend Rick didn't need a nick name, but we were already in the habit so he ended up with The Ricker (think BOC and don't fear him, also probably because his last name begins with R--Rick R.). Our college buddies all ended up with just their last names, particularly Shorter, because he's well over six feet. All that to say, I spent Independence Day with John Sr., Tiger, Aar-Ti, JT, Shorter, The Ricker and their families, along with another dozen guests who dropped in and out. Aunti Cheryl stayed with Mom so I got a much needed break. Saturday was Wild Branch: That is my Oasis in a land of confusion. It kicked my ass as always. The message was about relationship. Basically, a band of obligation surrounds two people in a relationship. When we pull operate in love we don't feel it, because we are drawn close to each other. When we start to draw apart we lean back against the restraints that are in place regardless of the attitude we have toward each other, or the emotions we feel for each other. We can respond to this discomfort by trying to sever the ties that are holding us, or we can realize that our feelings come from that lack of love that could be helping out. Obviously this hit me hard on several fronts. I've been really weighed down by the time and effort that goes into helping Mom recover. I really wanted to throw myself into the editing that will advance me toward my goals/dreams. So many things have gotten in my way that I'm becoming quite ruthless in my pursuit. My attitude about my mom stank and it was causing me pain in a situation that is just what it is. So we'll see if I can fix that. This morning, as I contemplated this idea, it occurred to me what the burden of Christ is. We've all heard the verse Matt. 11:29 "Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." I could always see why casting my problems on someone else, particularly someone who is all powerful, would make me feel better, but the part of it that troubled me was the part about taking on His burden did not sound restful. To be yoked to something certainly speaks of that relationship binding Mike G. spoke of Saturday. However, the burden of Christ is his love for mankind. It keeps coming full circle. Love God, love each other, and love yourself. When you do that, your obligations to each other become light. I like the way the message puts it 28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.” Lunch in the Sun with Friends: After Wild Branch I got to eat lunch with Ricker and his wife Lynette, and Miss Stacy. Miss Stacy is a gifted school teacher, and more importantly my movie buddy. It's a good thing we'd just had this grace filled message about relationships because Miss Stacy wanted to go to McMins...which is a great place to go if you like snooty servers and over-priced, greasy food. This time was much better. The server was good, the company was great, and we sat on the porch in awesome weather and I do like their beer (don't ask about the food or the price.) I spent Saturday night at the $3 movie theater. I saw Hangover 3. I needed something about that speed. It was funny, but I'm glad I paid $3.50 Sunday Coffee: This brings us to Sunday Coffee. I met up with Friend Kristin to chat about old times and catch up on what's happening in life. It was a truly pleasant way to spend an afternoon. On the way home, I stopped in at Sherri's and drank ice tea while trying to catch up on some work. I did the trial edit on a friends novel and sent it off to her. That made for a great day. Then at home I tried to open it to send it to her and it wouldn't show my edits...not a good thing right before bed! So I'm off now to try to resolve that and really hoping I don't have to spend the 3 hours to do it over again. Progress Report: I officially surrendered and went through my project plan/action hopper and moved everything back a month. I had only planned three things for August to build in slack for this sort of eventuality, but not that slack is used up. Also I've discovered some steps that are more time consuming than anticipated so I broke some items down into more steps which means it really is going to push everything back a month. I knew this would probably happen and I purposely set this goal as a stretch, but it still sort of sucks to actually admit the set back. On other fronts, I've uncovered really good resources on how to run a kickstarter campaign. So I feel confident that it will pay off on several campaigns I intend to run this year. My greeting card muse with The Ricker is progressing nicely toward the testing phase, and I have a meeting scheduled for next Saturday on the muse that my friend Jeff and I are going developing. I have a meeting today to plan a book booth at Sunday Streets Alive Vancouver. More details on that soon. Up Coming Events: Today is Author Speed Date in Tigard! Details on yawn flier. July 19-20 I will be at the Robin Hood Festival in Sherwood, OR. Friday 5 PM through 11 PM and Saturday 9 AM through 11 PM I don't have a flier on this yet, and probably won't until the end of this week, but here's a link to their website--http://www.robinhoodfestival.org/