Sacred Sundays

Today has been a good day, I got a good nights sleep, got up in time to get stuff done before church, got ready in time (pretty much, we always seem to be late) and there were a lot of people today that we knew from when we first moved into the ward. Our first bishop in this ward was here with his family to see his brothers baby get blessed. His brother Jason his wife Sunny are moving to England in a month! We are going to miss them a lot, Sunny and I still need to get over to the park together with the kids (and soon). ;D

My good friend Peggy was here as well for the blessing and she introduced us to her newly (or about to be) adopted daughter, and her two brothers! I am so happy for Peggy, she is a wonderful nurturing lady who has gone through quite a few struggles in her life (including a battle with alcoholism, she is so open about it and inspiring). She also has trouble with her feet and has had quite a few surgeries on them.

Our lesson today in Sunday School was teriffic as well, very uplifting. In relief society our RS president spoke to us and everyone contributed nice comments to the lesson. I got through leading both songs nicely (yeah for me!) The last song "Carry On" fit perfectly with the lesson. This song means a lot to me and I love singing it (though there was a lady on the front row who kept getting me off key, Oi').

Favorite part about it is that it starts out singing about the mountains, I so relate to firm mountains... the mountains have been there every day of my life (almost).

Ah, and I guess I will make a blog announcement (as my sister is in on this as well). I made a blog (called "Pie in the Sky") as a place to be silly, with my family as contributors. ;D

(...I just read an article about running barefooted, I think I will try it) ;p

SG

Finally, my own bed...

I finally have a bed!!

I have not had a bed for almost 6 months now, I have been sleeping on my daughters lower bunk with Roxie. All this because of bed bugs, it has been a long nightmare.

Long story.

We got a couple hundred dollars from a little job Sam went to help with and there is a lot of stuff I could have used it for but this was important! So I went up to IKEA today, bought a bed frame, then got it home to put it together. I got the frame together and found that I hadn't bought the middle bar, so I had to go all the way back up to the store to get it. I hadn't gotten the wooden slats either but I refused to spend $40 dollars on them so I just got some lumber from the hardware store and had Sam cut it to length.

It is actually a better bed than the last which was a bed frame without a headboard, now I have a headboard, and I am happy/relieved... now I am going to go get some rest! ;D

SG

Wool Gathering

I am at this place right now, where I want to gather and assess everything that has gone on in the past little while. I have been blogging for almost a year now, and it has been rewarding for me, I have learned a lot and grown a lot from the daily excersise of trying to convey to the world what you are doing.

Blogging is a good thing, yet sometimes there is an unspoken (and really an imagined) pressure to entertain everyone, and sometimes I am just not that entertaining. In fact I can be just down right awful sometimes, yet still want attention because that is human nature.

I'm attempting to transfer all of my blog posts over to a word document so that they are easier to look at all at once, plus I need to save them somehow without the fear of blogger going kapoot and losing all of those moments from my life. So that is going to be a bit tedious, I have tried to do it before but got tired of it. I think the easiest way to do it is to hit delete by the post that you want to transfer, and a nice little screen pops up with "are you sure you want to delete this?" from which it is easier to copy and paste over to Word. (Of course being careful not to really delete it and all).

This will help me figure out as well the topics that I might do well writing about for a newspaper article or magazine. I read about the method that writers start attempting to get published and that is usually what they do, pick topics and start sending out queries. I will borrow "The Writers Market" from the library to avoid the need to buy it (which I did at one point, many years ago, it became a nice paper weight). I figure that I need to start somewhere, and what I have is a start so I had better use what is already there.

I hope to make the rounds on visiting your blogs a bit later on... ;D

SG

Discovering the Classics

At the same time, I have been feeling weak and strong.

Weak from some sort of ailment that has been running me down a bit, due in part to a lack of sleep. R kept me up last night complaining of something in her eye and washing it out did not seem to help.

Strong because the sense of purpose for which I set out, to learn how to write well, goes a long way towards the security that I feel about my purpose in life.

Even though I am a bit tired I feel satisfaction in the development of a craft, it is an enjoyable process.

I am reading a book by Francine Prose (I smile a bit ironically as I read her name, wondering if she has chosen the name as a handle or if it is her given name).

It is called "Reading Like a Writer" she has read widely and gives examples out of many great works. My repertoire of classic books is rather slim as I was a voracious reader of LDS Romances when growing up to the neglect of other novels.

I did however pick up a copy of "Crime and Punishment," in my parents room, when I was 13 years of age or so. The cover of the book was stained, so I carefully manufactured my own cover for it, topped it with plastic and started to read it. I was plunged into the convoluted mind of Dosandtoevsky and found myself depressed by the plot, so I stopped reading it midway through.

Now I am plunging myself in the waters of the classics to see where they will carry me.

As for a job, still working on that as well.

SG

Different Path

There are some things you know, without a lot of thought and I knew that I wouldn't get the job I applied for on Tuesday, Ryan called to tell me what I already knew.

The sticky part of this job was that it was so close to my mom's office that she wanted to stay out of it to avoid being pushy (because she has had the experience of pushy co-workers herself and didn't want to join their ranks).

So on some of the questions the answer that I gave sounded odd, they asked me how familiar I was with the admissions policies of the school. I told them that I had been familiar with the admissions policies ever since I was a little girl and that sounds odd unless you fill in the blanks that my mom has worked there ever since I was about four or five and I used to sit at her window and help the students when no one was paying attention.

So yes I am familiar with admissions, I am familiar with all of the changes that the admissions department has gone through as well, policies and procedures.

Plus I went to the school for ten years! That too sounds odd unless you consider that I started going to UVCC (Community College) in 1996 at the age of 16, took a few classes here or there over the years while in high school. I was there when they became UVSC (State College) received my degree in Behavioral Science then went on while they were in the process of becoming a University to get my degree in Accounting. So not really odd at all... (its not like I was drifting about in an unfocused manner like some people do).

One of the things that my Mom brings up is that I am too qualified for the position, they know I would leave. Ryan told me I interviewed well, (though I know the questions that I botched). The job would have driven me crazy, sitting there processing things all day and not thinking (you all know I am thinking all of the time).

So I will keep applying, there are other offices that are not quite as close to my moms where the situation will be different. Until then, I am keeping busy, as usual. ;D

SG

Now I wait, wait and write

It seems as though every day brings new ideas and the drifting winds of change. Things that bother me one day, do not bother me the next. Or things that have just slightly been a bother suddenly become unbearable and I cannot rest until it is taken care of.

Life has been kind of a manifestation of concerns presenting themselves to me each day. All lined up, waiting for my attention. It takes a lot of time to deal with some things, a lot of concentration, the things that I want to do sometimes lay waiting in the rafters of my imagination until I can shake out my ideals and work on them some more.

So I have my concerns, yet I also have little bits of beauty that takes the edge off, stirs my imagination and makes life worth living.

I will have to wait a few days yet to see if I got the job. The interviewer, Ryan, is new at the process. He told me that he would get back to me by the next day, that was yesterday. I haven't heard from him yet.

I am not particularly distressed about that though because I talked with my mom who has experience with the hiring process at the school. She told me that after they interview all of the candidates, they cannot even offer the job until they put things through the process of submitting names to HR, approval of pay, then the department heads have to review things. So the process takes a lot longer then he probably knew.

As for now, I am taking this time to work on personal goals, as you all know. I am concentrating the most on writing, yes I can write, I enjoy writing as an exercise. Yet I find that I am confronting old ignorance's and old fears so to speak.

Ignorance's in certain aspects of plot development, interpretation of the authors intent in things such as poetry and sometimes in prose, I have difficulties in my spelling and especially punctuation and grammar.

If writing is an art, and it is, then there is need to cultivate it. Good writers work on the development of their weak areas, tedious at times but in the end well worth the effort.

I might as well believe the voice in my head that tells me that this is all a waste of time, that there are too many writers out there already, that I cannot expect to receive any benefit except my own amusement, if I do not take the talent that I have and work with it.

At least the prospect to me seems an enjoyable one, no one is telling me to do this, no one is setting limits here (save my own), there are no deadlines (as of yet).

To others the idea of writing and working on writing might seem ludicrous, because they don't enjoy it, I do enjoy it or else why do it?

Doing what you love is the path to true happiness.

SG

Job Interview and Runty Kitten

Well, I was interviewed today. I stumbled a bit but got through it, I even asked them some questions afterward. Oi' I hate job interviews! Puts me all out of sorts!! GRRR.

The funny thing about it is that my mom hired two of the interviewers and knows the other guy really well, I didn't say anything about it though. They hit me with a few questions that I answered a bit stupidly, (now I kick myself), we shall see. Tomorrow I will find out if they want me, they need 3 people so...

As for the job itself, it is a data processing job. I will do a good job of it, but it is just a job, I have other ideas about life.

As for said kittens, there are four of them and there is a runt. Poor little critter can't seem to latch on long enough to get fat!! He's dreadfully skinny and we are all worried about him. I need to look it up to see if there is something to do!

Now I am sleepy, gonna go catch some ZZZZ's

SG

Tongan Greetings and Farewells

Mālō e lelei! Hello!
Fēfē hake? How are you?
Sai pē! Just fine!
Ko au. Polite response when someone calls your name.
Mālō e lava mai. Thanks for coming.
'īo, Mālō e tau mo eni. Response to mālō e lava mai.
Ko hai ho hingoa? What is your name?
Ko NAME au. I am NAME
Ko e hā e lea faka-Tonga ki he ? What is the Tongan word for?
'oku 'ikai te u ilo. I don't know.
Fanongo pē! Just listen!
'ōua e lea, fanongo pē! Don't speak, just listen!
Fanongo lelei! Listen carefully!
Lea māmālie! Speak slowly!
Ko ia! That's it! (that's right)
Fakamolemole! Forgive (me)!
Kātaki! Please, excuse (me)!
Kātaki fakamolemole! Please be patient! (empatic)
Tali mai! Answer (me)!
Toe 'ai! Repeat!
Tulou! Excuse me!(Tulou is appropriate when you
have just passed in front of someone or
reached over in front of someone.)
Hū mai! Come in!

Farewells
'ālu ā ē! Goodby! (to the person going)
Nofo ā ē! Goodby! (to the person staying)
Mou ō ā ē! Goodby! (to several persons going)
Mou nofo ā ē! Goodby! (to several persons staying)
Faka'au ā ē! Goodby! (polite form, singular)
Mou faka'au ā ē! Goodby!(polite form, plural)

Note: īn most farewells there is a rising intonation in the voice on the final ē.

Spelling, Sounds, Pronunciation

Tongan spelling is phonemic, it is spelled the way that it sounds.

Vowels

a as in father (only shorter) fala, mate, pato
ā a lengthened mālō, kākā, fakahā
e as in bet (or somewhere between bet and bait) fale, mele
ē e lengthened pehē, ko ē
i as in machine liku, piko, taki
ī i lengthened ī, kulī
o as in born (pronounced a little farther fono, pito
back in the throat)
ō o lengthened pō, kokō
u as in root (only shorter and without offglide) lotu, muka
ū u lengthened pūluhi, fufū

In Tongan all consonants are separated by a vowel, all words end in a vowel.

Now on to my goals...

I have been goal setting again (again you might ask?) yes again... I always seem to be trying to set and keep goals.

The process goes like this, I write everything that I want to accomplish out, then I take this list and try to divide up my time in order to work on my goals. I schedule everything out, drive myself bananas then give up.

So this time I am taking a saner approach to it all. I've written everything out, then identified what is most important to me and that is what I will focus on. I tried to schedule no more than 3 hrs. everyday for working on goals, I will be lucky if I actually get 1 hour each day. Yet now that I know where I am going I think that little bits of work on the goals will get me to where I want to go.

So here are the main goals;

Learn how to write well, study grammar and spelling, learn Tongan (then perhaps another language), learn how to draw and paint well, how to take great photo's, how to play the piano and guitar. Then there are a bunch of things I am interested in so I just made a list of those to work on when I can...

Yes, yes I know this is all so interesting and all. Yet it helps to make it public that I am working on goals, it might just be the extra incentive that I need to actually do it.

So I was able to get on our keyboard (we have a piano but it is out of tune) and play around a bit (5 min.) before R came to take over.

So I've gone upstairs to try practicing the guitar (that I have had since I was about 14 or 15). I have tried exploring the book that my dad used to teach himself, yet didn't focus on it so I didn't get very far. I have a print out of chords that I got from girls camp oh so long ago and from which I actually did practice from then.

The only thing that I really hate about trying to learn the guitar is how my fingers hurt, became numb, and I never practiced consistently enough to develop calluses so that I suppose is the reasoning behind my failure at it. Though there are other reasons (excuses) being that I have four kids, I was in school and/or work (at one point). I'm gonna go pick it up again (after I distract R and get her off of my lap) ;D

So ya' here are my goals, I have tons of interests as well but I can't focus on too much.

(Ah, and now R is singing, maybe I should just make a goal to learn a bunch of kids songs and sing along with her... Her songs usually go like this, hmm, hm,hm, g,g,g, ga ga ga and then she can get really enthusiastic and start dancing and drumming as well!)