My Favorite Topic--Part 3

You already had a sneak peek of my third child, Carolyn. She arrived 5 years after my first, 3 1/2 years after my second.

Carolyn is our actress/singer. She is quite talented, having been on the public stage since age 7. She landed her first lead role at 10, Sara Crewe in "A Little Princess". Since then she has played Annie (Annie), The Cat in the Hat (Seussical the Musical), Charlie Bucket (Willy Wonka), her favorite role The Dodger (Oliver), and many many more. She has recently become interested in modeling and film acting.  She was a background actress in Nicolas Sparks' "The Last Song" (cutting room floor), and the girl two rows back on the aisle in the school bus scene in "Letters To God". (Movin' on up! ;-] )

She is also directing school productions. She put up "Nightfall With Edgar Allen Poe" this fall, and is currently directing "Shout, The 60's Mod Musical" for the spring.

Carolyn is single-minded and determined to make it in this business. She sees it as a mission field full of those who need to hear about the Lord. What an understatement! I know that she has the talent and confidence to achieve her goal. Not to be a "star", but to make a living at her craft. God has gifted her, and it will be thrilling to see how He uses her.

Vote For Carolyn!

My 17yo daughter  is up for the cover of the Prom Guide Magazine.  Please vote!  It will take less than a minute, I promise!

(1) Go to http://www.promguide.com/ and register.
(2) Go to your email and confirm by clicking the link.
       (Confirmation email takes seconds. If it doesn't show up in your Inbox check your Spam folder.)
(3) Click on the "Vote Now" link and type "carolynlloyd" into the username space and click "Search".
       One of the above pictures will show up. (Isn't she pretty?  :-] )
(4) Under her picture click the "Vote" button.

THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!  THANK YOU!
You can vote until Nov. 27th, but do it now! I'll let you know what happens.

My Favorite Topic--Part 2

My husband and I wanted our second child to be about a year and a half after our first. We wanted Melinda to have no recollection of *not* having a sibling. This worked perfectly. 

Bennett also is very talented with art and design. He is a performer to the max, and is an amazingly gifted writer. He has had an interest in designing board games since he was little. He created a game for my 40th birthday--the Over The Hill Game... He also has a bit of a sense of humor... He has always had a keen interest in History. These two interests have manifested itself in his creating Historical Board games, and he has a website where he sells them... perfect for History teachers and homeschoolers!  He is brilliant with scientific thinking. He was writing a novel in high school with a medical/scientific theme, and came up (on his own--no lie) with a unique method of curing a certain disease. A few months later I was playing around on the internet and found an article about that very medical procedure being tested at Purdue University. He amazes me. 

Bennett was always noted for his beautiful singing voice and acting.  Everyone thought he would pursue theater, but they didn't know about his writing. He got married in August to my favorite person in the world who is not blood-related to me. :-] Because his wife is fully supported by her parents in school, this has allowed Bennett to devote himself full-time to writing.  He will finish his current novel, in the Historical Fantasy genre, within 6 months. I'll keep you posted... :-]

Purple...

So who said purple is the next big thing?  Purple is *the* holiday color, no matter *what* the holiday.  Valentine's, Easter, Halloween, Christmas...  I'm sure we'll be seeing purple flags and stars and stripes next year for Independence Day.  Purple is "it".  Granted, I like the color purple.  No, really... the COLOR purple.  Not the movie... never saw it, don't care to.  Purple is a nice color.  Peaceful, pleasant.  But if I start seeing it everywhere at all times, I think I will be getting tired of it soon.  Like that dusty country blue that overtook America back in the 80's.  blechhh...

Purple has its place.  Perhaps the problem is what it is paired with.  Easter... purple, pink, yellow, green, aqua... ACKKK!  Color overload!

Halloween... purple black and orange?  Black and orange for one day of the year is not so intolerable, but put purple with it, the purple you have seen all year long already, and puh-lease...

Christmas...  I could go for purple at Christmas.  Except when it's paired with NEON GREEN!!!!  Eh???

Purple, purple, purple...  No one ever comments that you can't rhyme anything with purple.  Maybe orange rhymes with purple.  Of course, we all know that Chuck Norris rhymes with orange...

Excuse me while I go paint my bathroom purple...

My Favorite Topic--Part 1

Most mothers will admit that their favorite topic of discussion is their children.  I am no exception to this rule.  My children are the most interesting and fulfilling aspect of my life here on earth.  Since I have heard that "a very good place to start" is the beginning, that is where I will start.

I grew up in a household with three children.  I was the youngest.  I experienced the worst side of this phenomenon, which is the "two against one" syndrome.  Hence, when discussing the topic of children with my future husband I was staunch in my desire of having either two or four.  We have four.  :-]

The oldest is a girl, just as I had planned.  I had an older brother after all...  Melinda was talented artistically.  She loved to paint, draw, and create.  When 14, Rhonda, the director of our children's theater, asked her to costume her production of "Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp".  She designed, and I sewed.  She had a great eye for fabrics and character concepts.  From then on she costumed (having learned to sew herself) many of Rhonda's shows, overlapping her talents with costuming for her high school drama program.  She did shows such as Aida, Cyrano de Bergerac (which she also directed), and Oklahoma!  As a Junior, she not only received Critic's Choice at District Thespian Competition, but was selected as the District Representative for all the technical theater entries.  She is now majoring in Costuming at one of our large State Universities.  She is quite respected by her professors, and earned two scholarships after they saw what she was capable of doing.

Now 22, she still loves to paint, create and design other art, and has a website displaying her work.  She is fluent in German, having taken 4 years in high school, and living for a year in and around Cologne after graduating high school.  She is also a successful retail salesperson at White House Black Market.  I love spending time with her, as she has grown into a gracious, intelligent and need I say, talented young woman.

Kiss

Kiss of the sun on horizon's neck,

Or a star on the moon, a gentle peck.

Kiss of a lover - passionate, wild...

But the best kiss of all is that of a child.

:-]

Ginger...

I have almost always had at least one dog in my life.  As a child the first one I remember was a toy poodle. I even remember the first day we got it, when we picked it up.  We drove to a house pretty far away from where I lived--it could have been two blocks, what did i know back then?  It was in our big red station wagon.  I don't know car models, but my memory of it was awesome!  I'd love to have one of those now... (digression) 

The puppy we got was light brown and furry, furry, furry!  They said that she would change colors. How strange! I had visions of purple one day, orange the next...  As she grew older she did change colors, from soft brown to almost white.  We named her Ginger.  We got her when I still lived in California, so I had to have been 4 or 5.  When we moved she made the long journey with us back east to where my parents grew up.  Their parents were getting old, so they wanted to be near them.  She grew up with my brother and sister and me, and was always there.  She never really did normal dog tricks, sit down, roll over, but she would jump up into our arms when we patted our chest.  She would get all crazy when we said "go for ride?"  She was a member of the family.  Whenever one of us was away from home and would call home long distance, we would not want to pay for the call on our end.  We wanted instead to call from the home phone.  So we would place a person to person call for "Ginger".  Of course, "Ginger" couldn't come to the phone, so she would have to call us back--at a lower rate from home, of course... 

She died my first semester of college, so I was 18.  I knew she would die sometime during that year, so I told my mom to not wait til I got home to tell me.  I wanted to know as soon as she died.  I wanted to remember her appropriately, in a timely way.  I got the call during finals week. 

After Ginger, my mom went exclusively to owning cats.  She said no dog could replace Ginger.  I agree.  RIP Ginger!

teen wisdom

my 16-y-o son said today, "I have figured something out.  God is like toothbrush and toothpaste.  Jesus is like floss, and the Holy Spirit is like mouthwash."

'nuff said...

Artist interrupted...

I am a frustrated artist.  I tend to be creative in many areas--songwriting, sewing, drawing, designing whatever needs designing--but in the area of creating art, I am frustrated.  Give my daughter a blank canvas and she creates.  Give her a blank anything--wall, notebook, cat--and she will paint it.  Me?  I stare at it.  Cock my head at it, turn it around, upside-down, backwards, I can't *do* anything with it.  There is a lot inside me that wants to get out, but it won't come out when the opportunity presents itself. 

Mostly what I do end up doing artistically is what someone tells me to do.  I have designed shows for theatrical productions--backdrops, sets, costumes--ask me to paint a brick wall and I'm there, baby!  But I guess I have to have something to go by...  a script, a concept, a direction. 

That is what is frustrating.  I am going to try, though...  I'll let you know if I'm successful.  When I can figure out how to post pictures, I'll show you!  ;-]