Now upon a tine.

I've been meaning to do this for some time. Back in mid-spring I could tell I was approaching a fork in the road, so to speak. Normally I dawdle, hem and haw, and drag my feet when it comes to decisions. Except for this time. As I saw the fork approaching, and I made the decision before I got there. The result? Ever since then my priority has been doing what God would rather have me do. Thus I've been busy doing everything else first, with negligible time for my writing, and thats ok. Of the two main projects, and the two side projects, three were just for me, and one was for God.

You may be asking yourself, How could my God be so selfish as to demand that a writer put aside her craft and do anything else?

First off, because he gave up his only Son to die, specifically because of the things I've done, for the off-chance that I'd not only recognize his gift for me, but that I'd accept said gift.

Secondly, because he didn't ask me to put aside something I enjoy for something I hate. I put aside my writing, which I didn't do 8 hrs a day, to do other things I enjoy. My church has been through a rough patch during the past 4 years. One of the symptoms of the problem, we no longer had the funds nor ability to put together a VBS. This year we were once again able to do so. Mid spring a good friend of mine asked her if I'd help her out with the small area she was responsible. I'd helped in years past, was familiar with what was required, was able, and wiling. So I dug in, knowing I'd be handling the lion share, under her direction. Why was I handling most of the work, because my friend is getting married in Oct, secretary of our church, helping with translation work for some French Missionaries, helping her brother with his website, helping her other brother with more translation work, helping with the typesetting of the Samoan Bible, the Tagalog Bible, and consulting on a handful of other small projects. In other words, chika muy busy. Eventually, she handed the rings over to me, which I didn't mind one bit. Oh, also forgot to mention, she'll be teaching typesetting1 and 2, starting in September.

Thirdly, as I previously mentioned, I didn't spend all day, everyday writing to begin with. One of my side projects is in collaboration with another individual who is going through college. Understandably, he's got other things on his mind. Project # 3 was spurred by a series of short writing prompts that just fell into place as a story about alien invasion. I do absolutely no prep work on it. An image shows up, then characters, plot, locations, and dialogue seem to appear in my word doc. This venture comes in flashes, and is over and done in under an hour; frequently in a matter of minutes. My second writing passion is my part in the Niners Shared Universe, aka the Ninerverse. A few writers from the io9 observationdeck got together and put together this scifi epic, it has time travel, space travel, cyberspies, military security types, generation ships, teraforming, and space pirates. My part, The Adventures of the Scarlet Slash involve the life of a young woman who finds herself between a plethora of plots to take over the known, and unknown universe. When the antagonist uses the rules to tilt the balance of power in his direction, she breaks them with every trick in her bag. I have fun with this story, My protagonist is a character who's personal motto is "Cut me and I'll cut you back. I'll also do something else, but where's the fun in telling you what?" Her story flows like water from a spring. If I took the time to sit down and knock it out, I could probably get 3 or 4 more chapters in a day or two. However, her story is only part of a larger plot, and I don't want to steal others thunder by saving the day in her arc, before you know just who it is she is saving. So I set it aside, and will probably get back to it soon enough. The last project, the one that gets the majority of my time, effort, and thoughts, is City of Walls. This one is my pride and joy, yet while Scarlet flows quickly like water, this story has by very blood, sweat and tears. For all that I love this story, it treats me like a red-headed step-child. We come to blows, and I feel like I'm flailing against a wall. I stumble against writers block, and when I ask for help or feedback, I get responses for the Scarlet Slash. I know the Ninerverse tale is the most exciting, but the account of Tara Harris is one that I've been working on slowly for almost 15 years. Critical moments, characters, the ending, and beginning is what I started out with. Currently I have fleshed out the beginning, introduced all the characters, except for two, and hit one of the five major moments of the story. I try to make this one as hard on the science as I can. Interestingly, a few of the concepts that I figured were near future breakthroughs have been achieved, or are on the edge of accomplishment.

Now I find myself in a bit of a conundrum. There is no fork in the road, nor a spoon, yet all the other tasks that have been taking my time seem to be complete. VBS is done. I'm not needed to help with many of the ministries at church any more. My yard is now presentable, since my garden is complete. I have time again.

So, should I then prepare myself to do battle with my worthy opponent? I consider this essay, which sits just above 1000 words, a warm up.

Yes Virginia, there will be stories.

City of Walls:Ch 15

         

 *Just an FYI-unusual opinions at play here. More note after story in order to avoid spoilers. also no footnotes today, maybe I'll add them later.

          Upon finding my old bot, parts, and tools, Sonj and I got to work. After 30 min. of silence she spoke up.

          "So..."

          "What?" I put my soldering iron back on the holder.

          "You never did say," She continued typing code on her holopad, "are you a Christian, like those people who left the city?"

          "Well," I could feel my brow wrinkle, "kinda, I guess."

          ""What do you mean, I guess? How can you not know if you've joined a cult or not"? Sonj minimized her work, and turned to face me.

          "First off, I didn't join anything. Second, they were not a cult. We talked about things." I turned and leaned my hip against the workbench. "Do I believe in God, yes. But I still have questions. I don't even know why there are so many different churches."

          "Does it matter?" Sonj stopped typing and looked over her shoulder at me.

          "I dunno, maybe." I haven't been to mass since I moved to Russia. "Look, as far as Christianity goes, I'm just looking for answers. I doubt anyone is going to be hunting me down."

          "Is that what happened to the others?" Now she turned her whole body, her eyes stern, one hand on the work bench.

          "I honestly have no idea. I know one family went to jail; that could be why others felt the need to leave town."

          "Alright so, you believe there is a god." Her shoulders lowered slightly. "What's that got to do with your life?"

          "God isn't some distant thing that remotely interacts with you. It's incredibly personal. I don't just believe in God, I believe Jesus Christ was his Son, and that not only did he die for me, but he came back from the dead for me." Sonj began to say something, but I held my hand up. "I know it sounds crazy, and I'm not even asking you to understand. Right now I'm not asking anything of you."

          "You asked me to watch my mouth."

          "I have never liked foul language. You know, even though we've been friends for a while, this is the most time we've spent together outside of work." I picked up the soldering iron and continued with the seam I had been working on. Sonj resumed typing out the code that would give the bot flexible search parameters to find either the modrpunks or Seraph.

          "Huh, we don't know all that much about each other do we?" She asked.

          We began exchanging stories from our youth. The next two hours were filled with tales of exploding rockets, hacking government sites, snow in Moscow, snow in Chicago, family, friends, parties, and dating.

          Sonj had finished tweaking the code long ago, and sat on a chair still wrapped in plastic cling. "Oh man, you're serious aren't you?"

          "Yup." I finished bolting the plate that covered the bot's internal wiring.

          "But," She burst into laughter for a few more seconds, "how could you think he had an actual rocket for you to see? I mean that line..." By now tears were attending her fit of glee.

          "I was in the university's rocket club, and I'd seen him on campus at one of the meetings. It made sense to me that he also had an interest in achieving planetary orbit through explosive means."Sonj let out a belly laugh at my phrasing. "It turned out that he usually got one date with that line. Apparently the other girls in The Rocketeers were somewhat desperate." I initiated the diagnostic program on the bot, then sat on the other chair Sonj had scrounged up after compiling her work.

          "Oh my..." She wiped her eyes clear. "But you weren't desperate enough to join him for an out of this world experience? Hehe" She sighed, breath slowing in an attempt at composure.

          "I never had much interest in dating guys."

          "Well that kinda limits who you can date."

          "Yeah, it does. After that failed experiment I should just say I'm not interested in dating period."

          "You exp..." Sonj's eyebrows popped up. "Oh you mean you really experimented? But I thought."

          "It was two years ago, and my experience with Anya was no different than with any other guy." I stood up and reached into a box behind my chair. I pulled a small wooden box, much like the one in my hidey hole, and sat back down. Once the lid was removed, two rows of precious gems and crystals could be seen. I picked up a diamond and attached it to the bracelet on my left wrist, then set the box on the floor.

          "All through high school I dated a few guys here, or there." A snap of my fingers opened my holopad to the image directory. I scrolled though pictures of myself standing next to various boys in a variety of settings. "I usually had a good time with most of these guys, but whenever the date came to an end, well. I mean, if I was having a good time hanging out and doing stuff; then shouldn't I have enjoyed doing stuff with at least one of those guys."

          "Sometimes there's just no chemistry. One or two dates is hard to tell. Most people don't put out on the first date." Sonj tapped my holopad. "I don't see one face repeated very often. Looks like a lot of one timers."

          "When I was younger I didn't date seriously." I flicked my fingers across the hovering images, flying past the represented years. I stopped at a picture of a young man in a t-shirt and jeans, seated on a bench next to me, also casually attired. "This is Dmitry, possibly the closest thing to my first love."

          "Still have no idea how this leads to a Anya." Sonj interrupted.

          "I'm getting there!" I said as I smacked her shoulder. "As I was saying before being rudely interrupted. I've known him since I moved to Russia; he was the Gulf's nephew. We were friends right from the start, and we were as thick as thieves. One day, after complaining about another bad date, he asked me if the problem was the guys I was choosing. I asked what he meant, and he said that none of those guys were people I spent time with to just have fun. Then he kissed me."

          "Aww, I bet you were as giddy as a little school girl."

          "Nope, I was just confused. He was embarrassed. But we started dating. Dmitry is very special to me, but anytime things got physical, I just felt awkward and frustrated. After a year, we broke things off. He thought I didn't feel anything more than friendship for him. But I cared very strongly for him, and his touch didn't repulse me. I just wasn't aroused by him. After that I didn't date again through the rest of school, or the first few months at Moscow either."

          "Which leads us to Nikolay and his marvelous member." Sonj quirked her eyebrow.

          "Thankfully, he wasn't a jerk, just very...odd." I flicked more pictures by, these featuring a girl with raven tresses. "He took me home, and apologized for the mix-up. But after that night, I began to think. He thought his intentions were obvious, even you said the line was blatant." I selected a pic of us, sitting at a picnic table, along with a few other girls.

          "Anya looks like a pretty little thing." Sonj said as she gazed at the short haired, green eyed, dimpled creature. "If nothing else, all these pics prove you have good taste."

          "I guess, but it feels like everyone of them chose me, not the other way around. I went to a few of the GL meet-ups, mainly to ask questions. Anya was the first person I met. My question sessions led to dinner, then more." I paused, groping for words, unsure how to approach my last relationship.

          "Did you love her?" Sonj injected into the silence.

          "No. I liked her about as much as any of the other guys I dated when I was younger." I snapped my fingers twice, closing the photo gallery. "There was nothing special there. Not even the awkwardness I felt before. We didn't see each other for long. After two months she thought I was in denial. But I don't think that was the problem." I picked up the wooden case from the floor.

          "Are you sure, Tara? Are you gonna give up on dat..."

          "Give up on dating, yes." I cut off the rest of her sentence. "Wanna hear an old joke I heard in my Chem lab?"

          "No I don't want."

          "What is an acceptable demonstration of insanity?" I interrupted Sonj again. "Its performing the same experiment repeatedly, and expecting a different outcome. All I did was change one variable, nothing else, and got the same results. I don't like, or enjoy doing those kinds of things, with anyone. Dmitry was the only break up that hurt me. But even him, if he were to come back to me now, I don't think I could even enjoy kissing him, let alone... Never mind." I detached the diamond from my wrist and returned it to its place, then stood up and left the case on the chair. "It doesn't matter because he has his own life in Moscow." I walked over to the work table, glancing at the small timestamp projected above the bot's access panel.

          "Sorry, I didn't think this bothered you so much." Sonj placed a hand on my left shoulder. I turned to face her. "I'll leave it alone, and promise to stop trying to get you to date." Her lips twisted into a sly half smile. "I'll just get you three cats, and tell you about my aunt Density."

          My eyebrows rose. "Density? You have got to making that up."

          "Her mother liked the name Destiny, but wanted something different." Her hand fell from my shoulder. "So how much longer do we need to wait for your little robot?"

          "Looks like we got less than five minutes. How about we start clearing up all this stuff." I said as I motioned to the chairs and worktable.

          "Alright." Sonj said as she began picking up tools and returning them to their proper package. I walked over to the chairs, picked up the wooden case and began to close it. Before the lid snapped shut, the light of the room gleamed off the jade stone I stored all my i-reads. All those romance stories, did they just fill my head with nonsense? Is it truly unrealistic to actually yearn for a caress of the cheek? Or a tender kiss? Am I not so odd for feeling the way that I did, back then? How can I ever know?

*Author's note.

My own personal opinions are not displayed here. I tried keeping the character from certain decisions, but Tara has a mind of her own. Personally, I believe homosexuality is a sin. Do I believe Gay people are vile, horrible monsters? No. There are just people, like you, or me; who is, by the way, a sinner as well. 

Feel free to and tell me how you feel about this; whether  or not I handled it well, as well as your opinions on my personal point of view.

Yay!

Go Giants! Go Eli Manning!
I didn't get to see the game, I was sick in bed all day with a temp ranging from 101-104. And that was with meds. Hubby DVR'd it for me, but my DVR wont play it now! And what a game it was! But, I DID NOT SEE A SINGLE THING! Wish I could see it. Oh well.

Good Quote

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” - Oscar Wilde
So does that mean I'm just left overs?
Honestly, I like being myself. It truly is a good Idea to be yourself, being someone else can be trying, as well as an easy cop-out. Being yourself can bring such a flavor to life.
In the Holy Bible, Jesus said "Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men."
I know many Christians who are very interesting. I count it a priviledge('sat spelled roight?) to be a part of the family of God. It is also a priviledge to know my numerous odd, and outlandish traits accepted.Picture #17

Farewell Christmas

Here's my little army of nutcrackers. By the time this picture gets posted they will be all packed up and waiting to be stored in the back room closet. Kinda sad to see them all go, but there is a time and place for everything. And their time is up. Soon flowers and trees will begin to bloom, children will flock to the park, daylight hours will return to a proper portion of the day (try 13 out of the 24). And that means Summer is just around the bend! I can't wait, and that was picture #15

You've gotta be kidding.

Priests brawl at Bethlehem birthplace of Jesus

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) - Seven people were injured on Thursday when Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests came to blows in a dispute over how to clean the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

Following the Christmas celebrations, Greek Orthodox priests set up ladders to clean the walls and ceilings of their part of the church, which is built over the site where Jesus Christ is believed to have been born.

But the ladders encroached on space controlled by Armenian priests, according to photographers who said angry words ensued and blows quickly followed.

For a quarter of an hour bearded and robed priests laid into each other with fists, brooms and iron rods while the photographers who had come to take pictures of the annual cleaning ceremony recorded the whole event.

A dozen unarmed Palestinian policemen were sent to try to separate the priests, but two of them were also injured in the unholy melee.

"As usual the cleaning of the church after Christmas is a cause of problems," Bethlehem Mayor Victor Batarseh told AFP, adding that he has offered to help ease tensions.

"For the two years that I have been here everything went more or less calmly," he said. "It's all finished now."

The Church of the Nativity, like the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem's Old City, is shared by various branches of Christianity, each of which controls and jealously guards a part of the holy site.

The Church of the Nativity is built on the site where Christians believe Jesus was born in a stable more than 2,000 years ago after Mary and Joseph were turned away by an inn.

My thought-Since when has anyone heard of a man fighting over NOT having enough to clean?!? But seriously, its ashame that this happened, and for the morbidly curious here's a pic. http://www.flickr.com/photos/anandamurti/2141712171/

Smorgusbord!!!!!!!

(was that spelled right?)

Eat your heart out! This is a collection of all the goodies I got for Christmas. I luuuvvv Chocolate. I am set until Easter. But it's not all candy, I do have some apples and oranges. Mmmmmm, I'm getting hungry. Pic #12

Craftsy!

What else can I say?
Oh, ok. A friend of my mum's made this as a table decoration for her. I think its pretty, but not realistic as a depiction of an angel. Oh well, its picture #8.

Long Time No See

My Thanksgiving was good. I finally fixed up our living room, looks nice eh?. I really haven't been doing much lately. I did change Internet Browsers, from IE to Firefox. Let me tell you, FF is good stuff. Great customization (zat spelled right?) and looks great, when you can get it to work. I haven't got mine set up quite right. More on that later. So any~who, this is Picture 5.

NaNoWriMo

So autumn leaves are falling, children are coming in from outside sooner and sooner everyday, the critical christmas crunch is gearing up. For me, in Texas, fall is but a weekend, a week if lucky, after the last day in October (in honor of J http://amarylandgirl.blogspot.com/2007/10/photographic-evidence.html).

Because of our luxuoriously warm temperatures, I don't ever get a real fall season, and I end up not caring much, NaNoWri Mo gives sme something to get excited about. So here we go again.

Window with a View.

Today is Day 2, yesterday was day 1, again. This is a picture of the hedge of bushes that stands well above the halfway mark of the front window. Either the previous owner really wanted privacy, or they didn't know how to trim hedges. I don't know how to trim either, so it stays that way. :]

If I were...

Hey J!, Here's my response to your found list of questions. Gotta say, Its reaaal tempting to take pictures of every answer.

1. If I were a month, I would be: July. Nice and toasty.

2. If I were a day of the week, I would be: Saturday. No Work.

3. If I were a time of day, I would be: 4:30, Quiting time.

4. If I were a direction, I would be: Southwest, Good temps there.

5. If I were a piece of furniture, I would be: A low-seated, comfortable, reading armrest chair. Hey, thats today's Picture!

6. If I were a liquid, I would be: Dr. Pepper. What else from a Texan. Though a non-newtonian fluid is second.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-newtonian_fluid).

7. If I were a stone, I would be: Obsidian.

8. If I were a tree, I would be: Pecan.

9. If I were a bird, I would be: Big Bird.

10. If I were a tool, I would be: Hammer, just keep banging away.

11. If I were a flower/plant, I would be:Pothos, Epipremnum aureum.

12. If I were a kind of weather, I would be: Hot and Dry.

13. If I were a musical instrument, I would be: Piano.

14. If I were a color, I would be: Dark Blue.

15. If I were an emotion, I would be: Happy.

16. If I were a vegetable, I would be: ???, Corn on the Cob ,maybe.

17. If I were a sound, I would be: Clapping.

18. If I were a car, Iwould be: Nissan Sentra, small, good looking, but definetly the one to get the worst of it in a scrape.

19. If I were a food, I would be: Briskitt, sure a little fatty, but tender and oh so flavorful.

20. If I were a place, I would be: Franklin Mountains. You can see a lot of sky from there.

21. If I were material, I would be: Wood, strong, sturdy, with many shades, and still delicate.

22. If I were a scent, I would be: the smell of a finished pinapple up-side down cake.

23. If I were a word, I would be: sarcastic, obviously, hehehe.

24. If I were a body part, I would be: a hand.

25. If I were a facial expression, I would be: a quirky smile.

26. If I were a subject in school, I would be: Creative Writing. Thats not a copy either, I really would be Creative Writing.

27. If I were a game, I would be: WoW. World of Warcraft, a rather addictive geeky game.

Hiatus, over?

So the daily photo thing isn't working. I'm taking pictures, almost every day even. However, actually logging on and posting something, well that's another story.

Not a lot of anything going on right now. Work is long, trying to unpack and set to rights our house is confusing, which leaves evenings as a time to be cherished. Squirreling away time for piddling activities isn't easy.

Having said that, this is what I made yesterday and the day before.

It's called an 8 sided compass rose jar. Info and CP, or Crease Pattern, can be found here http://origami.oschene.com/archives/2006/03/05/the-8-sided-compass-rose-jar/ . Mr. Oschene, I think that's his name, created this fold as a varriation to the normal compas rose jar, which has 6 sides. Least, I think thats what the difference is. One of my jars is 6 sided, the one with a picture of a lady on it, though that happened by accident.












Each jar has a star inside, like so.

And the day before I made this.

Its a bat. No info as to creator, and I've long lost the link to the CP. Well this has been a long one and maybe that means I'll be doing more normal ones again soon, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

365 is back.

So now that my camera's back, I'm back to this project. I have a bunch of new things around me, (I'm living in a new house!) and I got a dog. I haven't had a dog or any pet for so long, I'm so psyched. Later ya'll.

My camera's fixed!

Actually, it got replaced. The place of bussiness jerked me around until I finally got fed up. Customer Service is really untrained, but I got my camera back.

So anywho~ I've been itching to take a picture of this sigh by the side of the road for ages. Take a looksie.

I wonder how old this sign is.

So I messed up.

I didn't get a picture of anthing yesterday. Why, you ask? Because I went housse shopping and didn't feel comfortable of taking pictures of someone else's house. Well we found one that we like, don't have a pic of it, but we might actually get it. The excitement is tingling.
the 365 will start over on another day, maybe tommorow.

lost

He raced onwards to the fastly fading light. The rays of the sun leapt ahead, leaving behind only shadows. He struggled to keep ahead of the darkness, but the night was sweeping in on him.

For anyone who has actually read my past entries, you know I've center on a particular character for awhile, but I stopped to hone the story a bit more before putting more out here. Right now I feel like that character. The exerpt above takes place in the story at a point in time which has not been revealed here. I feel like him because I'm trying to stay in the "Light", on my path, or just plainly-by my Savior's side. However, I'm not sure if I am following my own head and desires, or His will. When in the dark, its hard to see your way. You stumble and get lost, you have no way to navigate. Am I in the dark? in the light? or in the twilight, soon to be overcome by shadows if I don't get moving and hurry back into the daylight. Only God knows, but I must find His path.

I use this picture because I like the light and shadow, it relates context and vision for me.

I've been thinking

Yeah, I even know your response, Don't hurt yourself.
Lately I've felt that I need to turn from my own ambitions and recenter myself on God's path for my life. 'Cause quite honestly, His plan for me is much easier for me, than the convoluted mazes my simpleton brain conceives for me are. ( is that sentence comprehensible?) As a result, I've stopped my writings. Not altogether mind you, I've been working on something that I hope represents God, and reveals him to others around me. But I haven't been posting online, because more and more this blog became an arena for the wonders of yours truly. It hit me tonight after church, along with a few other bricks of import, that this unnoticed little blog can be used to God's Glory, if I give it to Him. The other bricks were every other aspect of my life.
And so I pray.
My God, My Heavenly Father, I want to do your will in all that I do. I pray that the promise you gave in Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it.
Lord I pray that you work on the hearts of the people who read this prayer, and I pray Lord that I will have the opportunity to communicate with them. I thank you, My Saviour, for all the blessings I have recieved. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

Hair

Younger me. This picture illistrates where the name Goldenhair came from.

Just the Begginning

Just wanted to post something real quick before I start putting up stories. Just so you know, they are very juvenile, and unpolished. These are all things I wrote while in High School or earlier.