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

a thousand words

My niece, Josie...in her "cool diaps"

I feel wordless...
I actually have millions of words going through my brain, but sometimes silence is sweeter.
They say...pictures are worth a thousand words....

Zebra-striped diapers...what a diva.  Because we have had, both elderly people and babies stay with us for long periods of time...my Mom made the observation that we have a supply of : diapers for babies and adults, walkers for babies and adults, potty chairs for babies and adults...and the list goes on :-) Its funny how life seems to come full circle...isn't it?

I'm not even kidding...if, God-willing, I live to be old enough to go through the diaper stage of life...again - you better believe that you'll find my 100-year-old self in zebra stripes! No shame in that game girl. 

The Sweet Girl...

These are just a few snapshots from my phone...I will post better pictures soon - when I figure out how to use my new camera :-)

Sweet love and diva diapers,

Julie

Everything's better with...grass-fed butter?

It's been a lil' bit since I've written...I've been busy with school and preparing for a gig I had on Friday night for a business function.  My friend Kathy accompanied me on the piano as I sang. Now I wouldn't consider myself a gadget girl, BUT I have to admit that my new favorite thing was Kathy's amazing, studio-quality microphone that she let me borrow.  It not only made me look like a super swanky chic, but it also had great sound quality! Sigh...how I love sangin'  :-)

I've been changing the look of my blog...a lot lately.  I'm still under construction.  For now, I've gone with the broken old piano...because of the whole Band Wagon theme...and 'cause I like playin' piano (almost as much as I like sangin')...and also because the keys on the piano reminded me of the different seasons of my life journey thus far....some crooked keys, some nicely-aligned ones, and some that were just.....straight up broke. Actually...I changed it AGAIN, because I fell in love....with a blue piano :) I like to think of my story as a Jazz or Blues melody.  Some jazz chords, when played outside of the context of a song, can seem dissonant or jarring...but within a song, they have the ability to weave a lovely melodic design. So maybe I'll keep this canvas for my blog...(at least for a week or so)...as I write my notes along the way and God weaves my life's design into a sweet melody...

So....about BUTTER.





I have been reading about how great butter (from grass-fed cows) can be for our brain health. I came across this website about the benefits of the healthy fats in this type of butter and how yummy it is when blended with some toxin-free coffee...and I decided to try it out for myself. Julie...girl you crazy! I know it sounds strange but just think of how it seemed to the first person who discovered that pineapple on pizza was, ahem, at least in my opinion....amaaaazing

My Recipe? 

• 1 tbsp of UNSALTED, grass-fed butter (Kerry Gold is a good brand you can find at Trader Joe's) JULIE WHAT? GIRL you have GOT to be kiddin' me....a whole TABLESPOON of butter!? But that's so much FAT!! Well...I would actually attribute the "low-fat-fakey-chemically" diet as the true culprit that has been making Americans fatter over the years...so yea...lets take the ancient paths and PUT SOME BUTTAH IN IT!!! ;-)
• 1 tbsp of organic, unrefined coconut oil (because coconut oil is SO good for you too) WHEW GIRL...now you just gotta be playin'...all that SAT-U-RATED fat...uh-uh, NO way. Oh dear, well you see, certain types of saturated fats are actually very good for you...its them nasty ol' trans fats, and hydrogenated oils that mess with yo' body in a bad way.  So be free, and SAT-U-RATE yo'self in some good fat. 
• 1 - 2 cups of coffee (depending on how much you usually drink or how black you like it)
• I sweeten it with stevia
• blend in a blender that can handle hot stuff, or with a nifty hand-held blender like the one below....until frothy

Why grass-fed butter? Here's a motto: "Eat happy things that ate healthy things" Happy cows = ones that ate healthy grass... as they were created to do. Their poor little tummies weren't made to digest corn :-/

OK, well I'm anticipating the cuteness of my blog to rise about 100% soon, because my niece (Josie, 1) and nephew (Landon, 4) are coming to town this week!  So, if you're not down with butter...or coffee...or blending them together, I understand....BUT, if you are not down with pictures of the cutest lil' niece and nephew in the world..... well then no comprendo, my friendo.

Mucho Amor. 

Blogger's block prohibited

If there's anyone out there who is still reading...you can probably tell that I've had a bad case of blogger's block lately.

It's not that there has been a lack of things to write about, but every time I sat down to type...I just couldn't.

I'm not gonna lie...I've been a little down...but I'm learning that in times like these...underneath all of the rubble.... gratefulness is just below the surface.  Well, it may take a bulldozer to get to it, but I'm willing to dig to find it.  Sometimes you just gotta start with the "small stuff," which is actually...usually the pretty amazing stuff...that we tend to take for granted...
I am thankful that I have all of my limbs and a functioning brain (a mostly functioning brain ;-)  I'm thankful for air to breath and water to drink. I'm thankful I have God and people who love me.  I'm thankful that I live by a river....
The other day, while driving, I noticed a neat bridge over the Delaware so I pulled over to get out and walk across.




I hadn't been there 4 seconds before I was bombarded with signs prohibiting me to do...most things!
Ever notice how we only see signs of what NOT to do?
Like at a museum: Do not touch
A pool: Do not dive
A zoo: Do not feed the animals


....I know, I get it- safety first...but I'd still like to see a place where you are bombarded with signs that tell you all of the things you CAN do!  

So in respect, while walking over the bridge, I did NOT... fish, loiter, jump off, swim... ride my bike or moped....

Then when I got to the park across the bridge, I made sure NOT to.... consume alcohol, unleash anyone's dog, park my car...anywhere, do any metal detecting, litter, or start any fires...in non-picnic areas (I guess one could argue that setting fire to the picnic areas is fair game? ;-)

Because I saw no signs prohibiting the following- I DID.....

Make a hair weave out of leaves: A leave weave...Lady Gaga hasn't even heard of these yet!

Cook sticks on the grill...because I had no steaks...

Find a scarecrow doing yard work in Pearls....

       I posed with her...she was sort of shy and opted out of the pose... (wow...this is scary - I need friends...;-)

Then I busted some moves on a park bench.....Yep, someone totally rode by me on their bike as I was taking a photo of myself doing this.  I shook it off and hid behind my aviators.  Lately I have been wanting to move somewhere else..."What Julie? You don't enjoy being 27 and living in a 55-and-over?" Nope....that is one of the reasons I've been bulldozing for gratefulness ;-) Truthfully, I am grateful that my parents took me in after a very difficult season in Georgia.  I was working as a House Mother in a shelter for women coming out of Human Trafficking and when I think about what they had to go through....my bulldozing for gratefulness  turns into digging with a toy shovel in a sandbox to find it.  I miss those ladies.  Some of the most brave women I have ever met.  Maybe I'll write about my experience there soon.  

I'm grateful to express myself in this blog....and for aviators to hide behind when expressing myself means making a fool of myself on a park bench :-)

Much Love.

My extraordinary inner-life

Isn't it amazing how you can put everyday, ordinary pictures to music and make life seem.... extraordinary.
My Dad has always done videography as a side-hobby, so I know first-hand about what this is like.... and some of the pictures make you think life is extraordianrily.....embarrassing!  I'm not ready to unveil those photos to the blogosphere...yet.

I've had moments, walking around, where it seemed like there was music in the air, or that I was actually watching my life, as on a movie-screen, from outside my body or something, because things just felt....special for some reason.  When I was a kid...the mundane of life - as it may have seemed from the outside- was actually an epic adventure on the inside...the swimming pool was an ocean (and I was a mermaid, of course), the garden my Dad helped me plant in the woods by the house was my, "secret garden," just like in the movie.  And....

I danced with my door....

Julie...seriously?....Yes. Its embarrassing, but I would pretend that the door was a boy....a prince...and I would hold the door handle like it was his hand and I'd sway the door back and forth as if we were dancing....me and the door of my heart.  I know....it sounds WAY cheesy, but if that was your little girl dancing with a door, you know you would video that and put it to music....making it extraordinary, and cute :-) Don't worry, I've given up dancing with doors and have danced with real boys since then....no princes though.

I'm the youngest of four.  Three older brothers and me...the little lady.

I was actually very much of a lady when I was a little bitty thing.  My Mom said I would only wear "spinny" dresses, tights, and "sam and libby" shoes.  The only thing that didn't qualify me as total lady were my haircuts.  Seriously...I didn't have ONE attractive haircut as a kid.

My Dad recently framed a picture of a little girl looking into her mirror and seeing Snow White in her reflection.  It hung in my room when I was a little girl and I had a Snow White dress, just like hers in the picture.  The only photo he could find of me wearing the dress was a family photo we had taken when I was probably about 5.  I told my Mom that I thought it was way cool of her to let me wear my snow white dress for our professional family photo.  I'm sure that I totally thought I was her...I was probably thinking...look at me, a princess with all of these commoners wanting to have their picture with me...that was on the inside; on the outside, I was just a little girl with a mullet haircut in a princess costume.     

My Dad blurred out the rest of the family so he could zoom in on me, my lovely dress,
my Mom, and great Granny....and, if you look closely.... my mullet

I also had an imaginary friend named, Jimmy Tootie.  I should devote an entire blog just to him...but just to give you a sneak peak about my invisible buddy, he wore green polka-dot tights (I guess I was watching a lot of Peter Pan when Jimmy came into my life ;-) He had long brown hair, and lived in a humungous bird's nest on the branch of a tree.  What? You think I  made him up!?  Well then how do you explain how I got the chocolates and Valentines from him in college?

...ok, so maybe my brother's sent them and signed it, "I'll always love you. Love, James Thomas" (My brother, Jeff, decided that the grown-up version of Jimmy Tootie should be James Thomas).... I have to admit, when I first opened the card...I might have wondered a little bit...ya know the same feeling you get when you are sort of questioning the whole Santa Claus thing, but then when you see the plate of half-eaten cookies and the empty glass of milk in the morning....part of you wonders ;-)  Its like that....except that I was in college, and perfectly capable of understanding these things...a psychology major no less - good thing I never shared any tidbits about my little friend with any of my Professor's...


Faith like a child...its such a beautiful thing....when you are a child.  After that, it tends to be defined as, insane.  But the biblical definition of Faith is like that....a little insane- believing in things unseen.  We all have faith in something, its just that our un-cool, grown-up brains are "too mature for such silliness."  So, instead, we watch movies about people who dare to believe in such things because we long to let ourselves believe like we did as kids.

The other day I went to lunch with my friend, Janet.  We were laughing because they gave her coffee in a Tazzmanian Devil mug and her personality couldn't be more opposite than that.  Then they brought mine in a princess mug...with all of the Disney Princesses on it!  I'd like to think God was trying to tell me something....well the boring grown-up part of me didn't, but that little girl in the snow-white dress did!  She's still alive and kickin' somewhere in there and I should probably let her out every once upon a time :-)

I've learned a lot from my Mom, but today I'm going to go with this lesson: If your baby girl wants to wear her princess costume in the family picture....by all means - encourage such behavior!