Mothers can surprise you...

So in my efforts to get all digi-tized with my life, I had a revealing conversation with the Moms.   She had mentioned that we have a free website with Comcast that I could use for Massage and Music biz's.  When I sat down today with her at the table she said, "Oh, Jul....you could get a wikispace....or a voki!"....uh...who is this techie lady who is using my Mother's body as a host?  and what the heck is a voki?
Apparently she already has a wikispace (which is some sort of free website) and one of her cool chemistry teacher-friends has a voki (some sort of site that you put a video of a cartooned-you on to explain your biz or something).  The point is...when did my 62 years-young-mother join the geek squad and learn how to speak R2D2?


She has the tendency to surprise me.  Especially lately...

Mom and I as we made it to sunset just in time- in Cali :-)

One night, over dinner recently, my Mom talked about her desire to skydive...uh, what?  You are a logical, play-it-safe, thrifty, chemistry teacher who carries ketchup packets, saltine crackers, splenda, and packets of peanut butter in your purse, AT ALL TIMES, to ensure that we could make a meal, if in an emergent situation.  You are the lady who allowed us to spend money on fast food, provided we could find enough change on the floor of the old station wagon to exchange for four meals at the golden arches.  You are the thrifty woman who convinced Dad and I to walk 3 miles in like 5 minutes in order to save the ten dollars it would have taken to drive through the park to the coastline to see the California sunset (we ended up running full-speed the whole way...just to make it at the EXACT moment of sundown.) You have an insurance plan for your insurance plan... And you want to throw yourself out of a plane?  My brain just twisted into an oxymoron...

Two years ago, My fantastical father was stuck in a whim to move back to Georgia and buy a house on a lot with a barn...and horses.  For a brief moment, we all got swept into the idea, including my Mother.  It was uncharacteristic of her to join us in la-la-land.  While on a visit to see the house, My Mom tried to get the attention of one of the horses that was being boarded there, while exclaiming, "I've always wanted a horse."  Again....ketchup packets.  Mom, you are aware that a horse does not live off of a casserole of edible purse-findings....and that their up-keep costs much more than the amount of change that could be found under the floor mat of the car, right?
Oh, Mom.  I'm glad you're you.
She likes it when people call her Mrs. Doggendorf- not a fan of the southern way: Mrs. Loretta. Her favorite candy is black licorice- which I for one think should not be allowed to fit in any category of edible treats. The best kind of day for her is when things go according to plan...without any hiccups. You can only get her to sit and watch a movie with you if she can be simultaneously grading papers, paying bills online, or emailing herself to-do notes for later. A Practical-Polly...a Logical-Loretta.
Yet in her dreams, she skydives...and she has a horse.  What a lady, she is :-)

Love you Mom.
Jul

A Pinteresting, Tweet-able, blog-worthy note:

I'm not big on t-e-c-h-n-o-l-o-g-y...

AND...I'm not on facebook, so I had to join something to stay cool...or to become cool.  So now I am a Pinteresting (http://pinterest.com/bluesyjewel/) girl who tweets with little blue-birds....(birds I never thought I'd associate with @juliedoggendorf). AND, of course...you are reading Julie Doggendorf's BLOGendorf. Wow...look at my 2012-self! If the world ends this year...at least I'll go down tweeting or blogging about it...and loving Jesus, of course. I don't mean to joke about a serious matter like the world ending...but if I take myself too seriously, I'll seriously go crazy.  


I'm pretty ordinary, but I am a wanna-be crafty, witty, creative-do-it-yourself, make your own bread and cheese type of lady.  I mean what girl doesn't wanna-be like that, right?  If I said I was a wanna-be: processed food-eating, lazy, boring, girl who isn't adventurous and doesn't like sewing or the outdoors....who would want to follow someone like that on twitter?


Sorta makes me want to start a website for the normal, not-so-extraordinary people to join, who...tell the truth about themselves.  I mean, it's not the truth about myself that I am a boring girl who doesn't like the outdoors, but somedays I'm sad and don't want to leave the house and face the sunshine that would actually, probably lift my spirit...Its not true about me that I am a processed-food junkie, but I like a Chick-fil-a sandwich once in a while (especially on Sundays when they are not open....what is it with craving Chick-fil-a on Sundays....can I get a witness??)  Its not true about me that I don't love Jesus, but somedays I'm really frustrated with Him and we have fights...(which mostly entails me shaking my fist at a pretty patient, supernatural man-God who is allowing me the very breath I am using to yell at him)...sigh...makes me want to really be a Proverbs 31 kinda-woman, but I'm hope-fully flawed and that gives me character...I think? Or maybe it just piles me with the rest of the flawed humanity, who long to bake good bread, or to be perfect Fathers, or who live off the land and grow their own food for their organic, perfect, hypothetical children to eat someday...can I get another witness?

Guess I'll have to try and find other ways to be different, because it seems that different is becoming the new normal. Its funny because no matter how much we try to fit Jesus into a normal paradigm... it never works. He is not a recycling, liberal hippie...or a scholarly religious pharisee...or like our earthly fathers and mothers...or even like the most ideal earthly fathers and mothers.  He is so genuinely His own - doesn't that just make you want to follow Him...not on twitter, but like in 3-D life....not like a Pixar film with special glasses, but like in an actual, tangible wake-up in the morning with bad breath and messy hair as you set your feet on the floor for the first time in a new day where His mercies are new - kind-of-way?
I get so offended with Him sometimes, that I forget how very kind He is.  I get so busy looking for something different, that I forget how very novel He is.  I get so confused, and wander so far away sometimes, that I forget that He is patiently waiting to envelop a prodigal-y me in a warm, sin-erasing embrace.

Pinterest is cool, I guess. Twitter can be interesting - (as long as there is a remnant of privacy, and people don't go into such detail, that they are tweeting about their bathroom breaks or about the fact that they like wal-mart and are eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch as they type).
None of it is fulfilling though.  Not even the dreamiest, hypothetical life is... because if I was married to the most nearly-perfect guy, and had the most nearly-perfect children, who ate the most-nearly organic meals which made them smart enough to invent the most nearly-needed creations...or if I wrote the most-nearly amazing blogs and published a book that sold most nearly-one-gagillion copies...

I'd still be starving inside.

Nothing's gonna make sense until I see Him face to face and He tells me that He knows me....and that I know Him. the real Him. How I hope He says that.
I'm sorry I use the muscles you formed and the arm you knit together...just to shake my fist at you sometimes. I'm sorry that the brain you, so carefully, molded together- rages against who you are sometimes.  You are deserving of so much more... and yet you still hang around, and you still smile.  Who are you?

I'm going to go outside now...while there is still sunshine to be had...and vitamin D to be soaked up.
much love,
Julie


"Behold, God is great, and we know Him not..." - Job 36:26

I may have pregnancy brain...but Georgia's on my mind

I think I have pregnancy brain.  No, I'm not preggers, but everyone around me is so I must have gotten it through osmosis.  Pregnancy brain, also known as placenta brain or baby brain drain... can be characterized by short-term memory loss or forgetfullness.  Hmm...it seems that I might have been born with pregnancy brain then. I guess its an exaggeration to say that every lady surrounding me is with-child....because remember, I'm living in a 55-and-older community and....well, that would be somethin' to blog about, wouldn't it ;-)

Fertile Myrtle stats: 2 out of my 3 sister-in-laws, best friend from home, best friend from here...and who knows, probably even my imaginary friend from childhood, Jimmy Tootie.  James Thomas probably grew up, got himself hitched to an imaginary lady-friend and she's probably got an imaginary bun in the oven as well.  It's great, don't get me wrong....I love pregnancy.  Seriously, I am forever amazed at this phenomenon.  So much so that I gotta keep a handle on myself so as not to spend the entire day staring at the bellies around me.  I can't help it...It's just so amazing.  I feel like when (Lord- willing) I have a little human growing inside of me...I will wake up everyday...in joyous shock.

My brother Matt, his wife Amberly, and my nephew Landon went back home to Georgia today.  The lump in my throat is now slowly dissipating from holding back tears a little when I had to hug him goodbye...I was strong, though.  I love being an Aunt. When Landon was born I was living at their house which allowed me to spend the first few months of his life with him...back when his little chicken legs used to curl up towards the nook of my shoulder...one of life's most wonderful feelings.  Now that Landon is ALMOST FIVE, I had to think of an adventure mission just to be able to convince him to go with me to water a friend's plants the other day while they were out of town.  I didn't mention the plant-watering to him....instead, I explained that we had to go on an Indiana Jones mission to save a bird.  Once we got there, we found the treasure map and were able to speak with Indiana through an intercom system by which he delivered the message about our mission to save the bird.... and the flowers didn't die, so.... in both 4-year-old adventure world and 27-year-old responsibility world..... Missions were accomplished.

I really miss the South.  I sang Ray Charles' Georgia on my mind at my gig the other night and it must have reminded my soul about sweet tea and grits because since then, I've been living in nostalgia.  I miss letting the muscles of my mouth get sleepy as they settle into their comfortable twang.  I miss cicada hums seeping through my bedroom windows, filling my room with their sweet sounds...acting as my personal noise machine for sleepy time.  My eyes get heavy just thinking about it.  I miss the waves and smiles on familiar faces as I turn onto my street....and the sound of country music or oldies blasting from the backyard as I pull up my driveway to my shirtless, sweaty Dad doing yard work as he greets me with his shirtless, sweaty hug.

I often dream of our house in Georgia...then I wake up, and I'm still in Pennsylvania, where some of the people are as unsweetened as their tea.  I know, I'm exaggerating, its not that people up here aren't kind or giving... or loving - its just different.  I have met people up here that feel like they are made of the same stuff as me. Ya know, heart friends.  I'm thankful that God gives me people with similar guts.  Even in the most difficult of seasons, I've always had at least one person who I connected with on a gut-to-gut level....see, I live in Pennsylvania where people say words like "gut" instead of "heart." Or "yo," instead of "hey y'all."  The south has its draw-backs too...no one knows how to make a good "hoagie," and many of you reading this now won't even know what a hoagie is.

I wonder where I'll be in a year...and if I'll be dreaming of the 55-and-older...and how I was the cutest girl in the neighborhood ;-) I'd love to write more because thoughts are swimming, but I must go upstairs to dinner and soak up every second I have left with my sweet little munchkin niece.

...pictures to follow :-)

Julie