“Toy Packaging”

I just heard this song by Sara Groves, and I think all Mommies around the world will unite with me [and Sara] in denouncing the accursed TOY PACKAGING!  Yes, let us stand together in one accord and say, ” I will not be beaten… by TOY PACKAGING!  Though toddlers and mommies alike are brought to simultaneous holly jolly tears by the barrage of twisty ties, plastic wing nuts, grommets, and [!] screws standing between ripped wrapping paper and contented play, we will not succumb to TOY PACKAGING.  Yes, armed with a phillips head screwdriver, a Coke and the toll free number for Consumer Reports, we shall overcome… TOY PACKAGING!  You sing it, Sara.

“Nothing makes me lose my cool like 
Toy packaging 
Ask the kids to leave the room for 
Toy packaging 
I have no choice the money’s spent 
I’ve worked for hours to make a dent 
I guess it’s anger management 
Toy packaging 

Nothing makes me lose my cool like 
Toy packaging 
Ask the kids please leave the room it’s time for 
Toy packaging 
I’m drawing up a battle plan 
to extricate this robot man 
My self-esteem is in the can 
Toy packaging 

In the old days you could hold a box and shake it 
And hear the pieces rattling around 
My eyes tear up with these grommets, tape and twisty ties 
Remembering their beautiful sound 

Toy Packaging 
I love Toy Packaging 
(Mom! Honey!) 

Nothing makes me lose my cool like toy packaging 
Kids you really need to leave the room, mom’s opening toy packaging 
I’m sorry you have to see this sight 
You must be brave, no please don’t cry 
I promise it will be alright 
I hope to have it by tonight 
Nevermind this dynamite 
Toy packaging”

Ha! and double Ha!

By the way, you can download this song along with the stunning “Joseph’s Lullaby” by Mercy Me legally and for FREE at this site:  www.freeccm.com  It’s available for a limited time, I think, but it’s a great site to check each month.

Evidence of Spring

It’s late October and in Mississippi, just today, we’ve started to get a touch of truly Fall weather.  I believe it’s the first day that the temperature is expected to stay in the mid-sixties with a low in the lower forties tonight.  It’s cloudy and a little drizzly.  My boys are excited to have our pumpkins and scarecrows out on the porch and throughout the house.  I’m one of those decorate-for-every-season types, and I love this time of year.  My birthday is October 28th, so the month has become almost like New Year’s Day for me. Internally, it represents family celebrations, the start of a season of evaluating the year, a relief from the oppressive doldrums brought on by summer’s heat, and a renewed, crisp attitude toward the tasks at hand. Although the rest of the world outside may be preparing for a season of dormancy, Autumn always seems more like a fresh start for me–sort of like Spring in October.  

This October, however, there has been a dampening of my enthusiasm and spirit.  I’ve been a little down-trodden, wrestling with my insides and trying to navigate a challenging time for our family.  An amalgamation of overwhelming financial and work concerns, confusing parenting concerns and the upcoming bittersweet end of my maternity leave has shaken my defenses against discouragement.  I can normally readily find hope and faith despite the challenges, but this October I feel shaken.  We are at a time when it is hard to discern what God is doing in our lives, where he is taking our family.

This morning I read a post from a friend and fellow-blogger that was like rain for me.  It brought fresh evidence of God’s hand and reminded me of one of my favorite re-aligning, faith-building verses:

“So, let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.  His going forth is as certain as the dawn; and He will come to us like rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.” (hosea 6:9)

Kristi writes a blog called To Walk on Fertile Ground and has also published a book with the same title about her walk with God through cancer and infertility.  The post marks the 5-year anniversary of the day she found out she had cancer on the heels of a molar pregnancy.  Her walk through the experience has truly been inspiring.

Three astounding sentences produced a shower in my soul:

It’s been 5 years ago today that cancer entered my life, which took me on a new path of unexpected joy, peace, and grace.  And today, I am thankful for that unexpected time in my life.  That’s when I began planting a new garden that daily teaches me how to live a fertile life through my infertility.

What a powerful and rare statement.  In it, God came to me like rain, just as the verse said.  It was an encouragement to look for a path of joy, despite the confusion, conflict or worry around me.  It was a challenge to embrace even the unseen path with the full understanding that our Creator and Savior is certain–as certain as the dawn.  Rain brings about hope, refreshment, growth, and bloom.  Even those of us with children have glaring areas of infertility in our lives.  They are areas where we feel stifled and stagnant, or where the hope of beautiful blooms has been choked by weeds of despair, uncertainty, sorrow or confusion.  Facing that overgrown ground, I must press on with God, even if it takes a little convincing and arm-twisting.   There is hope.  Those areas can be cultivated into abundant, fertile gardens for His glory.   Only He can provide the nourishing rain necessary to sprout the blooms.  And, He will.

Blog Noshin’

Serendipity!  I was checking my email this morning and found a message from WordPress Dude.  Actually, it was from my handy-dandy WordPress application.  I like to envision that there is a tiny little WordPress man in there firing off meaningful communication about my posts.  In my mind, he’s sort of a kind but straight-shooting newspaper man version of Kermit THE Frog + Mark Twain + James Qwilleran from the “Cat Who” series, but my inner geek reminds me he’s just an auto-responder.  Back to the story.  

There was an alert for a ping back from Blog Nosh magazine.  Hmmm.  My interest was piqued. BlogNosh.com is an online magazine highlighting blog posts from here, there and everywhere.  I’ve enjoyed reading it, and the designer in me likes how they’ve carried the whole noshin’ concept throughout.  An added bonus is that the site is edited by real people–other bloggers who also scour their in-boxes and the internet for “delicious” content.  I’ve submitted a couple of posts to various channel editors over the last few months.

So, I was checking my email this morning.  Low and behold, WordPress Dude delivers the announcement that BlogNosh.com is linking to me.  Ding.  Has an article been published?

Yes!  My article about Darfur and the Beijing Olympics has been posted front and center.  There is a collection of someones out there, and at least one of them is reading my “stuff.”  Thanks, Blog Nosh, for the encouragement and the needed motivation to keep on writing.

Oops.  There goes baby BabyGirl’s nursing alarm.  My “I’m a writer” ego-trip is now over.  I’m back in the bus to more pressing alerts of the non-homogenized variety.

A Creativity Treat

Business tips.  IT solutions.  Weekly coupons.  Parenting ideas.  Ways to go green.  Child development.  All things Mac.  Various blog alerts.  New Hallmark goodies.

I get a lot of Ezines–you know those mini magazines and at-a-glance hints that filter through your in box every day or week or month with usually lots of advertising links and sometimes a few good ideas.  But, this one from Jupiter Images is my FAVORITE!  

Yes, it has it’s share of advertisements, but in it’s consistently concise top three “treats,” it never fails to somehow turn over my giggle box or get my creative juices going.  It’s mainly targeted at designers, but who doesn’t need a little creativity boost or shot of fun?

It has introduced me to this crazy way to pass the spare time — making Presidential Candidate Finger Puppets from the website folduscandidate.com, complete with downloadable candidate templates, a countdown to election day, instructional videos and a rockin’ beat (”body movin’ body movin’ a sound so soothin’)!  The things designers do to pass the time!

I also found this cool tool at Add-Art that replaces all the annoying internet advertising boxes on FireFox with great artwork from around the world–in this case Renoir in various states of cropping.  It beats AT&T and IcelandAir any day.

Then, I got to see this exhibit of posters by top graphic designers shown at Florida’s Wolfsonian called “Thoughts on Democracy” and highlighting some modern takes on Norman Rockwell’s Four Freedoms.  I’m still pondering “Democracy is the Helvetica of Politics.”  Hmmm.  There’s another post in there somewhere.

And, most recently, let me test my typography and pop culture acumen with this quiz from the Chicago Tribune challenging us to identify the magazine logos these letters came from.  It’s multiple choice.

Yep!  Subscribe to this one.  It’s a creativity treat!

“Citizen Media”

Cultural Context:  The term used to describe media content or forms produced by private citizens who are not professional journalists.  One of those forms of content is the weblog.  A Global Voices Citizen Media Summit was recently held in Budapest, Hungary highlighting issues related to citizen blogging.  Global Voices is a non-profit advocacy group that seeks to highlight significant conversations arising from existing worldwide citizen media, facilitate new citizen media outlets and foster global freedom of expression.

My first exposure to the term was reading an article last week about the Summit that wrapped up in Budapest on June 28.  I’d never heard it phrased that way (although, I’m a little behind — it even has a Wikipedia entry!) and I was shocked to realize that I am actually a member of the Citizen Media trend that has been growing across the globe.  Who knew?

An article about a document produced by Global Voices’ Rising Voices initiative called An Introduction to Citizen Media highlights the phenomenon:

“Everyday citizens across the world are increasingly using blogs, podcasts, online video, and digital photography to engage in an unmediated conversation which transcends borders, cultures, and differing languages.”

This phenomena of media has been greatly spurred by technology and the growth of the internet.  The unique perspectives and grass roots access to newsworthy situations or disaster-ridden areas provided by Citizen Media have found their place even in professional media outlets in the form of IReports, UReports, etc.

I’ll admit.  I once thought of blogging as a waste of time, or self-absorption or even arrogance  — until I decided to try it.  Now, through my own short experience in the Citizen Media corp, I have seen for myself the various perspectives of those I never would have had the opportunity to read or share my writings with.  Even a simple, uneventful account of the daily life of another broadens my world in a way that CNN never could.

Today marks the eight-week anniversary of my first post on EyeJunkie.com.  As I’ve been thinking about and evaluating my experience so far, I have prepared another post that contains some of my own personal “rules” for blogging.  But, knowing the chorus of global voices that are joining me, the pursuit is somehow larger than it was before.

Link I Like

Babel Talk

Just like the name implies, it’s a collection of various and interesting perspectives from blogdom.  I’m enjoying reading it.

“Thinking” About Water

I saw an interesting post on the My Life Thinking BlogCatalog group called Water by G – great metaphors for what we can learn about ourselves by examining the characteristics of water. It got me thinking…

My family and I like to visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.  The park contains lots of rivers and waterfalls (which my husband likes) that are easily accessible without devoting a full day to hiking (which I like.)  Most of the water in the Park is only seen in small trickles or shallow streams, especially at the lower elevations. It’s humbling to realize, however, that the entire mountain range was formed by water over time. A slow, steady and persistent trickle, seemingly insignificant and at times made more powerful by violent storms and the inevitable inertia of flowing downward — It has carved and pushed and molded the earth into astounding new forms.

That which is most hard –- rock, soil, earth — has been moved by that which is most fluid and malleable — water.

What a metaphor for changing a life!  What a metaphor for affecting change in a world!