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How’s Your Connection?

2 Nov

Onisha Ellis

On the Porch

 

My name is Onisha and I am an addict, specifically a twitter addict. My addiction began innocently as an alternative to throwing something at the television. It quickly escalated into an insatiable need to “know” things. Twitter is a global community of people who share in 140 characters what they are seeing, thinking and feeling and by joining twitter I found I could get information straight from the source.  I know most people will think this need is a bit extreme and it is, but I have trust issues with our media outlets.

After my daughter, Rebekah Lyn began writing novels, I moved deeper into social media and twitter as a way to help with her career.  This is when I became thoroughly addicted. Tweeting in the independent author community is an amazing experience. I have connected with women and men who I now consider to be friends. We meet together each day on twitter to help each other promote their work and in the process we laugh and encourage one another.

I have been musing over this connection phenomenon and think I may have figured it out. Each year, starting in November, my husband becomes very thoughtful and attentive. In the beginning, I meanly thought he was just angling for a nice Christmas gift, but after a few years I began to notice a pattern.  You see, my husband loves to give Christmas gifts and he starts thinking about what he will choose for me in November. The more he thinks about which gifts would please attentive, the more thoughtful and me he becomes. We feel a closer connection.  I, of course, love this time of year.

On twitter it is so easy to be attentive and supportive. With two clicks you can retweet someone or create a brand new tweet and help them promote their book.  In 140 characters you can ask someone how their day is going and share yours.

Come check out my books on Amazon. There’s romance, horror, inspirational                and children’s books. @ReginaPuckethttp://ow.ly/eW9TY 

It seems connection comes from moving our attention away from our thoughts and onto thinking of someone else. I wish it was as easy in my everyday world as it is in the virtual realm.

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Jane

18 Oct

I am writing this on Sunday night. Monday I am having my third cornea transplant and I just can’t seem to gather my thoughts to write a sensible blog so I am offering you a look into my secret life. Mind you, I am not worried about the surgery, after all, I have done this twice already. My concern is nothing to eat or drink after midnight and I won’t have surgery until at least 11:30! Seriously, I am supposed to go hours in the morning without coffee? 

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

 

My mother always told me “your name goes further than your face,” and she was right. Many times I know of people by name but don’t have a clue what they look like. Have you ever met someone who, when you were introduced would say something like “I am so glad to meet you, Suzy Q has spoken often of you?”

Names are important so why do I use a pseudonym in public?  I have an unusual name and EVERYWHERE I go whether it be a restaurant or Starbucks, I have to spell it. I am not a patient person so after a course of trial and error, I found the perfect “list name”, JANE. The same people who couldn’t spell Ann or Sue have no problem with Jane. I don’t understand it. Please don’t use my idea and choose Jane for your “list name” because I am pretty sure I would have trouble remembering a fake last initial.

Transplant information

http://www.pricevisiongroup.com/sutureless.html

 

All joking aside, I am extremely grateful for the family who chose to restore my sight by donating a loved ones cornea. It is a gift I will receive with both joy and sadness. To lose someone you love is a lifelong sorrow. I have been praying they will feel the comfort of our creator’s peace and rest.

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Away

11 Oct

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

Today is the last day of our cruise. I am sure we have had a good time and have eaten too much. I have been “disconnected” for  four days and hopefully it was not too painful for me. It is odd how attached one can become to their friends on social media.  I know for sure that being able to “talk” with people from all over the world has enriched my life.

What’s Your Favorite Color

24 Sep

 

My Take

DiVoran Lites

I like them all. Today I like turquoise. A beautiful book arrived in the mail, Inspired and Unstoppable, by Tama Kieves. It is pale turquoise. Crayons are perfect for marking passages, so I chose a turquoise one and a turquoise Pentel Pen (my favorite brand for many years.)

Onisha and Pam are coming over this afternoon and I wanted to wear a special tee shirt with my jean shorts. You guessed it, I picked turquoise with a faint violet thread through it.

I just bought new patio cushions, and they are turquoise. Funny how it just jelled today that it’s the color I now love best.

I don’t know what formal meaning this color has, but to me it means water, sky, mom, because she loved it. Color Me Beautiful, by Carole Jackson says it is the color most people look good in. If a color lifts your spirits, wear it, sleep in it, bathe in it, and love it.

I like books about color, and I’ve picked up a few quirky ideas by reading them. People debate this, but it is said that the color Indian Yellow, which is a bright yellow with a lot of orange in it is made by feeding mangos to cows then collecting their urine and using it as an ingredient in paint. Saffron is another yellow. It comes from the tiny pistil of a flower. Yes, its’ the same saffron that’s used in food. It costs $1,000 a pound, so as far as paints go, I’m glad we have the wonderful synthetics we have. Before that artists ground rocks to make ochre and other earth colors. Carmine came from the cochineal bug. Our foremothers, as we know, used plants to make indigo, what would we do without it? It’s the color of our jeans, but also now synthetic.

Color took off when car manufacturers began formulating acrylics in all the beautiful colors we see on the road. On the road and on my palette, I love them.

Last week in Sunday School the children helped me make up a story about a little girl named mud and how miserable and unhappy she was. She pouted all the time and had no friends. She preferred to sit in ashes. Her mother called on the Prince of Peace, he came and opened up her heart, and suddenly her world was full of color. Of course, she had to have a new dress, her old one was raw umber. A tentative “pink,” came out of a little girl’s mouth, but soon colors flew around the room so fast I couldn’t get them all on the board. Then the solution came: a rainbow dress. Oh yes, and in our imaginations it was beautiful.

The next thing was a name and another barrage of very nice names hit the board. How could we choose? Then Aaron, a six year old gave us a name. I wrote it phonetically, but I can’t tell you now what it was. It was colorful to be sure. We all knew spontaneously that it was a spectacular name for her. We’d call her by its last three letters, Zia. We can only trust that Mud, now, Zia, loved her name and her dress as much as we did. Now, what’s your favorite color?

John 7:38

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Sunday Memories-Safe

16 Sep

 

We at the OldThingsRNew blog  are  so pleased  to be growing and adding a new feature, Sunday Memories. We welcome Judy Wills as our very first contributor and hope she makes it a weekly event.

Judy Wills

Safe

“I’m sorry……….but it’s cancer.”

Those words are probably some of the most dreaded in the English language.  I certainly never expected to hear them about myself.  My husband was standing by my side as I took the phone call, and laid his hand on my shoulder as I immediately looked into his face and told him the results.

“It’s very small – it’s probably only been growing a few months – since Christmas perhaps.”

Well, that’s one bright spot in all this – if there can be such a thing in………cancer.

Make the appointment to see the surgeon.  Take time off work to see the surgeon, then schedule the surgery.  My boss was the most understanding, gentle, generous man I could ever want to work with, i.e. take all the time you need.  We can cover you here.  And he and my co-workers did – they bathed me in their prayers.

One of the most difficult things was to tell our daughters – so very far away.   And then to tell my brother and sister-in-law, who is more than a sister to me.  They prayed with us over the phone.

And my prayers took on an almost desperate mantra – “Lord….keep me safe.  Please keep me safe.  Keep Fred safe.  Keep me safe………”

Good Friday came, and I was scheduled to play the organ for the service at the church.   During one of the short devotional thoughts, as I was sitting on the organ bench, it seemed like God took me on His lap and wrapped me up in His arms.  And the word that came into my mind was……. SAFE.  Nothing more.  But I knew everything was going to be okay.  I was SAFE in God’s arms – WE were safe in God’s arms.

It only lasted a few seconds, and I can’t tell you what the Pastor spoke on.  But I’ve never forgotten that feeling of total security and safety and love that God gave me that evening.

12 years and counting.  How’s THAT for being SAFE in God’s arms?

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Things I Learned Today

30 Aug

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

We are blessed to be able to divide our time between the beautiful mountains of North Carolina and the tropical beauty and pleasant winters of Florida. On Sunday we kissed the grandchildren goodbye  and on Tuesday we hit the highway for Florida.       By the time we arrived I was pretty sure one of those sweet grandchildren had gifted me with a summer cold. So, at the moment I am miserable  but fortunately I have a nice piece of writing by Jacob Leitzinger tucked away for just such a time.

Things I Learned Today 

Jacob Leitzinger

 
Make the protein shake BEFORE the workout and store it in your fridge.
You ever try to open one of those “Protein Powder” things right after a workout? They make it seem like you need to be working out. They’re REALLY tough to open
Add the protein powder AFTER the milk. Otherwise, you get clumps.
And finally: working out is hard.

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Worms, Sauce and Homemakers

9 Aug

 

 On the Porch

 

Onisha Ellis

 

 

I started my day on Saturday in the garden. I had procrastinated for days harvesting the garlic plants. It’s not a particularly difficult task but I seem to be running low on energy. This lack of energy might have something to do with having the grandchildren sleeping over Monday through Wednesday this summer. They are so much fun but by the time they leave I am wasted, but I digress.

 

After harvesting the garlic, I moved on to the tomatoes. As I was picking them I came across a huge horned  green tomato worm. Gross! I went inside and chose a nice pinchy pair of my husband’s pliers to pull it off the plant. As I held it in the jaws of the pliers it tried to wiggle toward me so I quickly squeezed them shut. It seemed to writhe in agony but it wouldn’t die. Totally repulsed, I took it to the garden wall and smashed it. Just so you know, they have green guts. The next one I found, I called my husband to take care of.

 

Tomato Horned Worm

Tomato Horned Worm (Photo credit: jmdgolfman)

 

 

 

The morning was still cool so I moved over to the green bean plants. They were supposed to be runner beans, but only a couple of plants followed their genetic code and actually climbed so a bench was needed to pick them. A row of cucumbers are planted between the beans so I was able to multitask and picks beans and cucumbers at the same time. A quick check of the squash plants and I was done with picking.

 

Coming back into the house, I assembled my garden bounty of fresh tomatoes, garlic, zucchini and herbs and began washing, chopping, sautéing and boiling. Five exhausting hours later I had a wonderful spaghetti sauce.

 

I have always admired the women of the past but after making homemade spaghetti sauce, my admiration has increased a hundred fold.

 

BETTY CROCKER COOK BOOK

BETTY CROCKER COOK BOOK (Photo credit: Lulu Vision)

 

 

 

Proverbs 31:14

 

 

 

Does the Earth Still Call?

8 Jul

I missed my Thursday post due to a problem with my hands. This will be short but I wanted to talk about family. Last week my daughter, Rebekah Lyn took on her first solo-canning project. She had an abundance of Roma tomatoes and decided to make homemade salsa and can it. It came out beautiful and I am re-blogging her post so you can read about her experience. In the same week my son, Matt, canned eight quarts of green beans from his garden. He is an excellent gardener and has begun raising chickens too. It delights my soul to see my city-raised children taking up the skills they saw their grandparents practice. When you have a farming heritage, does the connection with the earth still call to the soul?

Rebekah Lyn's Kitchen

Happy 4th of July!  I hope you all take some time today to reflect on what makes this day so very important in the history of the United States, especially as times are so rapidly changing for us.  There is another reason this day is so important to me though.  Today would have been my grandmother’s 90th birthday.  I have been thinking about Grandma Pearl all week and wish she could have been here over the weekend to help me with my first endeavor at canning on my own.

I have many memories of helping her can preserves, green beans, and tomatoes.  I remember setting up the Coleman stove on the back porch, watching the giant pot boil, peeling the skin off the tomatoes and skimming the froth off the strawberries. Those are memories that I will always treasure.

Since I had so many tomatoes of my own…

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20 Jun

This has been a busy week. We returned home from vacation and now we are spending time with the grandchildren. So for my post today, I am sharing Rebekah Lyn’s latest from RebekahLynsKitchen. It is a good story of how she came to write and publish her latest nove,”Julianne”

Rebekah Lyn's Kitchen

Yesterday was the digital release of my second novel, Julianne.  I have been writing most of my life.  I was the kid in school who new book coverdidn’t cringe when a term paper was assigned; I relished the idea and delved into my research.  However, when it came to my personal stories, I had a problem with actually finishing them.  Julianne was one of those stories.  I started it in 2003, got about halfway through and then life got in the way.  I let it drop by the wayside.  Six years later I picked it back up, determined to actually complete one novel.  The day I wrote the last sentence was one of the proudest moments of my life.  I had finally completed a full novel.  I then promptly put it away and moved on to another story.

When I managed to complete and publish Summer Storms in two years, I…

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Announcing the Launch of Julianne- Beautiful Voice

19 Jun

Today is so exciting for those of us at Oldthingsrnew. Rebekah Lyn’s new book, Julianne is launching today. I will post her first five-star review, but first, my thoughts.

Julianne did not start out for me as a favorite character. If you have raised a teenager, you will feel  frustrated and want to tell Julianne to just “get over it.” But bear with her, because God is faithful and Rebekah shows how God  can help even the whiniest girl to grow up.

Now here is the Amazon and Goodreads review:

 Beautiful Voice! June 18, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition
Rebekah Lyn has a beautiful voice in each of her stories. Her latest, Julianne, is an excellent exploration of the conflict that young professionals experience in contemporary society. They fall into many traps when dating and finding careers. Julianne illustrates how we take many wrong turns in life, but can find our way through love, trust, and spirituality. This Christian romance novel by the author of Summer Storms contains characters that are clearly defined and relevant to the storyline and a plot that is romantic without being sappy. The references to Christianity are not preachy, but instead show the effects of sound decision-making and personal choices that young adults create in their lives, making this novel appealing to all readers, from YA up to older generations of adults.
If you would like to read Julianne, visit Rebekah Lyn’s Amazon author page. Julianne will be available in paperback  June 30, 2012.
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