Pumpkin Time

We had a bunch of rogue pumpkins growing in our garden - leftovers from last year and growing despite lack of water and constant harassment from neighborhood dogs. I'm not really sure how they grew actually...

But I'm glad because I really just can't help myself around pumpkins. Those bumpy, lumpy, beautiful balls of canvas. I hate - scratch that - loathe feeling like I'm wasting time, so I don't read for fun or watch TV by myself, but I can't resist taking the time to paint a pumpkin.

And so, with dinner cooking/burning behind me in my kitchen, I sat at my table and painted through the week...

I always have the headband around my wrist and it comes in handy when I'm painting and needing to push hard on the brush. I just tie the paintbrush to my hand.

This little football-shaped pumpkin couldn't stand up on its own (hey, I understand...) so I just painted it on it's side and it's stem made the perfect side ponytail.

This is when I remind you that I'm not a "professional" pumpkin painter...just an avid one.


This one started out as a flower. Actually, they all start out as flowers... But this one turned into a cross between a gremlin and The "Count" from Sesame Street.

One...(muahahaha) Two...(muahahaha) Three...(muahahaha)


This one stayed a flower.

This one started out as two pumpkin friends but turned into a 70s-blonde-disco-superman and his fuzzy-haired red-headed girlfriend trying to hold hands above a blue heart. I'm sure there's meaning somewhere...


This fierce piece of pumpkin art started out as a flower (surprise!) but I just couldn't help myself. Go Florida Gators and all my friends from Jacksonville!

My husband calls this one "Dragon Horse."
I think it's kind of catchy.


And here they are, in all their splendor (sans football head girl because she's still drying on the table) for my 26 trick-or-treaters to see!

And I suppose I'll get started on my fall collection of fine-pumpkin-art. As you can see, I have my artistic work cut out for me:


Have a fabulous Halloween!

...all legit artists use the word "fabulous."

I'm so legit.
Too legit.
Too legit to quit.

...hey, hey!

The Cripple

I was feeling overwhelmed with all that I’ve been doing and all that’s left to do and I took myself to the temple to get some strength (it’s my spiritual gym). As I drove there, I was actually thinking that maybe I should drop something…which is totally unlike me to even consider, but I really just didn’t think I could keep up with everything I’d taken on.

It was nice there and when I entered, I actually felt a weight “lifted” from me and I felt so much better. All the self-deprecating thoughts were gone and my mind was blank. It was a great feeling…which is weird…I heard somewhere (I think it was President Eyring…?) say that when we die, we’ll be surprised how many thoughts weren’t our own. I apply this to good thoughts and bad thoughts.

Anyway, with my blank mind, I was changing in the dressing room – the big one for wheelchairs so we can shift around and stuff. All the other dressing rooms are tiny. I wore boots and couldn’t zip them up so I moved out into the aisle to find someone passing by to zip them for me.

The next girl who came walking by was very willing and we got them all zipped up. She was about my age. She walked with a tall walking stick and I asked her about it and she looked down at me and said, “Oh, I’m a cripple.”

My blank face must have said what I was thinking and she elaborated for me. “You know,” she said, “a maim. Maimed. Crippled. Halted. Whatever you want to call it.”

She continued to tell me how difficult it is being her and having to keep up with doctors and medications. She kept telling me how difficult it was to be her. She said it over and over.

I asked her several questions about marriage, hobbies, activities and stuff and they all ended with the same negative answer: she can’t because she’s a “cripple.”

It was quite the weird exchange and I left feeling very sad for her. As I rolled through the hallways toward the exit, I wondered what I was supposed to learn from this.

I remembered a quote I’d heard on the plane ride home from FL this past Monday: I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.

I changed the quote to teach me what I needed to learn: I cried because I had no strength until I met a woman who had nothing to be strong for.

And the strength I came to find found me.

Good thing I’m not a cripple. I don’t think I could handle it.

Frisky Business

Tomorrow, I will be frisked.

Because, apparently, I am a threat to all airplanes and they must ensure I haven't been creating explosives with my paralyzed hands and hiding them in my seat cushion. Obviously the best, most comfortable, place to keep a handmade explosive is under your bum.

The second most comfortable - and convenient place - to keep them is in my shoes, which they will remove.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad for the safety of airplanes. I just think that their predictibility in frisking every wheelchair user is a little, well, predictable. Surely any conniving disabled person is smart enough to hide their treachery on an unassuming frisk-free able bodied accomplice.

Do I look that dangerous? Or is it that I look that unassuming and surely would accept any unmarked suitcase from a stranger if he asked me to hide its contents on my chair?

My favorite is when they tell me to raise both my arms and lean forward so they can swipe the back of my chair (for explosives, of course). I end up flopped over my legs like a rag doll, much to the surprise of the frisker, who seems to always believe that if I look like a normal, able bodied person who just happens to be sitting, surely I am. The lack of back muscles surprises them.

My second favorite is when they ask me to lift my legs so they can swipe the foot rest (again, for explosives). Lady, if I could lift my legs, I'd kick you.

Well, tomorrow morning I'll be frisked again as we head out to Florida to speak. Maybe I'll throw myself out of the chair and army crawl through the metal detector.

...but then I'd have to wait on the floor while they frisked my chair. Which, of course, was the culprit to begin with...

New Wheels

My one wheel went flat when we flew back from St. George a couple weeks ago and Whit has been pumping it up every morning. The leak is slow, but annoying, as you can imagine. It's harder to push and a lot harder to turn.

I guess that's what I get for not "scaring" the flight staff of the airlines when they take my wheelchair down below. Usually we take a picture of the chair just as the airline worker comes to get it so that he knows we're serious when we say "be careful" with it. I only haven't taken a picture of my chair in front of this guy (whoever takes it below) twice: on my very first flight when they broke off the brake and severely damaged the rim, and this last time when the tire went flat.

We're flying to Florida to speak at a Women's Conference this weekend and for sure we'll be photographing the chair...just to scare the person. It's dumb, why won't people just understand that super expensive and extremely necessary?

Oh well. As long as we know the "tactic" that works.

But for today, I have a different set of wheels on from a wheelchair someone gave me. The rims are metal, which is hard for me to push because I can't grip them. But Whit, my genius husband, got some rubber rims that just snap on and viola! I have new wheels, fully pumped, with rubber rims! The rubber on the rims is amazing and I've been cruising all over the house. I turned right and it was easy! I went straight and it was easy! I went over a little ramp in our house and, guess what - it was easy!

I;ve been paralyzed for 7.5 years and this is the first day I've ever had rubber rims on a manual chair - I don't know why I didn't think of this before. It's 100 times easier than the wheels I've been using because, even though the rims a re "rubber," they're a smooth, hard rubber, not a sticky, soft rubber like these magnificent pieces of sticky beauty.

Love them.

Book Winner!

My hot, geeky husband put all the names of the people who commented on my blog, facebook, liked the fan page, and reposted stuff (thanks guys!) into a random generator. Then I got to push the button and it chose the person who wins my new book, The Coolest of Days!

And the winner is...(drum roll, please)...

Lex-a-roo!

So, Lex-a-roo, send me a message on my facebook or website and I'll send you this book!

Thanks everyone who commented and got books already - you're awesome!

Disabled

I left a seminary building the other day and this kid runs to get the door for me. As he holds the door, he asks, "so when can you walk again?"

Not wanting to sound like a downer and tell him there was no cure, I said, "in the resurrection."

To which he replied, "Whoa - you're disabled?"

I stared blankly at him for a second. I guess to him, up until that point, I wasn't...

Me and my big mouth!

The Coolest of Days

Okay, so I love poetry. Not the deep, intense, beautiful stuff you study in literature classes, I'm more of a Dr. Suess, Shel Siverstein kinda girl.

Bring on the rhymes.

Every so often, I'll feel super rhyme-y and just write something. It happened a couple years ago and when my friend read it, she said I should paint pictures to go with it.

So I did.

And now, 2 years later, here it is!

I almost can't believe it. The colors in the pictures are so vivid and the book even smells good. It's bigger, about 9x11", and everyone who reads it wants to buy it for someone they know who is going through a hard time. (I did, too. I just gave it to my friend whose husband has cancer.)

The message is so good...it's definitely not "my own" idea...obviously the idea that we learn from our trials has been around forever. But trials are so freaking hard sometimes. And unfair. This is why I decided to make a video out of the book, so people everywhere can feel uplifted!

So I've decided to give one away! (and if any of you know my husband, you know that it took a lot of groveling for me to be able to do this...)

You can win one free copy of The Coolest of Days in a drawing we will hold on Friday, October 7, 2011. You can have multiple entries to win and to earn entries, just do one or more of the following (more is better):

1. Follow my blog (current followers are automatically entered - I love you guys) - 2 entries
2. Subscribe to my Youtube Channel - 1 entry
3. Like The Coolest of Days fan page - 2 entries
4. Repost this video on your facebook page (comment on the fan page to let us know you did it... my husband checks...) - 3 entries
5. Repost this video on your blog (post your blog link here in a comment) - 3 entries

The more you do, the more chances you have to win!

All entries must be completed by Friday, October 7 at Noon.
Winner will be announced on my blog on Friday afternoon!

I am truly excited about this book! The message is so nice for anyone/everyone who is having a hard time and I am glad for the internet to be able to share what I've learned with so many.

Much love,
Meg