Dear God....

Essay Question: Discuss how the nature and role of God changes through the book and how it relates to the title "The Color Purple".

Celie starts out writing to God because after her stepfather rapes her, he tells her she better talk to God because no one else will listen to someone like her. So in the beginning of the novel, Celie sees God as someone who’ll listen to her and helps her get through the day. She has an image of God as an old white male with long hair and white robes, but she feels something isn’t quite right with that impression. Eventually Celie sees God as someone who behaves like all the other men in her life... the ones who do what they want and don’t listen to black women. Even though she doesn’t feel like God pays attention or listens, Celie maintains her beliefs until Shug challenges her view of God. Shug introduces a new concept of God to Celie. Shug advises Celie to see God not as a man, or a person, but as an “it” – something that takes celebration in creation and wants people to love what’s been created. Shug suggests Celie see the presence of God in everything, and not to be mad at God for the injustices that have happened to her. She tells Celie to take a look around and appreciate the trees, the flowers, the pleasures of life. Celie learns that she doesn’t have to reject God... she can envision him in other things with which she has more of a connection to. Shug teaches Celie that the concept of God is as individual as every person, and everyone should manifest God in their own way. Through these conversations, Shug makes Celie realize that she does not have to blindly accept what’s been told to her.

One of the examples Shug uses to explain God to Celie is someone walking past a field of purple flowers and not noticing the beauty. Shug thinks God gets angry at people who don’t notice the beauty. The color purple is used to represent worthiness, derived from royalty with regal overtones. Every person is a creation of God, just like the purple flowers. Every person is important and worthy of notice. Many people walked by Celie every day and didn’t notice her, just like the field of purple flowers. Shug noticed Celie, and tried to get her to see that like the field of purple flowers, she is also worthy of notice.

Manual Labor Not For Me

Picture a bright sunny Saturday morning. Nice breeze, birds are singing. Now look out into the backyard. Yikes! Grass needs to be mowed. Keep in mind it’s been *at least* 15 years since this woman... woman being ME... has mowed any yard. Confident I can do it, I get the push mower out of the garage. Got this mower from Freecycle. Had the best lawnmower guy in these parts check it over: My Dad! Out on the driveway it sits in the shining sun. Oil – check. Gas – check. Safety handle pushed up – check. Pull the cord. Nothing. Pull the cord. Again, nothing. Duh, forgot the throttle! Push throttle forward. Pull. And she fires up! Woo Hoo! Fast forward ½ hour. How BIG is this yard, anyway?? I think every bump and hole in the neighborhood is in MY backyard! Push, push, push. Lawnmower starts to sputter – Oh no, only ¾ done with the backyard! Finally it dies. Gas, I need more gas. I traipse off to the garage to find the gas can. I finish off the backyard and take a break – Water! I need water... What a workout. Thank goodness the front yard is very tiny! Push, push, push some more. Front yard done. Whew. By Saturday afternoon, I felt like an old, old lady. My back was so sore and the palms of my hands were swollen and bruised. By Sun afternoon, my back felt a little better but my palms still hurt! Today, I noticed I got some sun. Feeling much better! This person is not made for manual labor!

After tonight, I will have only 1 more evening of American Literature - The FINAL exam. I've calculated my grades so far and I'm getting 89% not including the paper I need to turn in next week, and the final. The instructor will be dropping the lowest essay grade, which I'm not sure is really going to affect my grade. After the exam, I’ll have 4 days off and then start the pre-summer session which will last for 3 weeks. I’m taking Music in the USA. It should be interesting.

For the past week, I’ve been working on Spring 99. I have just a bit of regular stitching to do on it and then some backstitching. I should be finished with it sometime this week.

Marinated Mushrooms

Have you ever been to a fancy party or company sponsored function where the caterers served Marinated Mushrooms as one of the appetizers? Although, you probably wouldn't want to eat too many, they are pretty good! I had a package of 'shrooms I needed to use up, so I decided to try a recipe I got recently. Actually, it's two recipes I've combined into one:

MARINATED MUSHROOMS

1 lb. small mushrooms
1 c. balsamic vinaigrette
1/4 c. chopped chives
1 tbsp. minced fresh thyme
1 garlic clove, minced
1/4 tsp. pepper

Combine all ingredients in a large zip top plastic bag.

Seal bag. Shake well. Marinate in refrigerator 8 hours,

turning bag occasionally. Serve with a slotted spoon.

Makes 8 servings.

BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE

DRESSING

1 c. olive oil

1/2 c. balsamic vinegar

3 to 5 cloves garlic, minced

3 tbsp. Parmesan cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Whisk together vinegar, garlic and grated cheese.

Gradually add the olive oil. Salt and pepper to taste.

My Notes: I just used a package of regular mushrooms and cut them into halves or quarters if they seemed too big. I tried to keep everything uniform in size. Didn't have balsamic vinaigrette so I made my own from a recipe I had. For the vinaigrette, I subbed feta cheese for the parmeasan, just cuz I had it on hand. I subbed dried herbs for fresh (figure a third of the fresh amount, if you're using dried). I used the minced garlic that comes in a jar at Aldi Foods. Too much work to peel and squish or mince garlic... LOL! This recipe doesn't take long at all to make. The longer you let the mushrooms marinate, the better the flavor. If you leave the mushrooms in the oil/vinegar mixture in the refrigerator for more than 8 hours, the oil will start to solidify and you'll have to sorta "knead" the bag to mix it up well. LOL, guess how I know that??

Are Kids Today Spoiled?

I received this in an email today:

IF you are 30 or older you will think this is hilarious!!!!

When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning... uphill BOTH ways through year 'round blizzards. Carrying their younger siblings on their backs... to their one-room schoolhouse, where they maintained a Straight-A average, despite their full-time, after-school job at the local textile mill... where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death! And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

>> Oh yes! I remember my Dad telling me tall stories like these… LOL

But now that... I'm over the ripe old age of thirty, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!

>> I actually worked in a library with the card catalog system. Up until several years ago, they still used it. You had to have several skills: Know your alphabet, Know how to read, Know how to write the Dewey Decimal #’s down, and Know to how walk the stacks!

There was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter... with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!

>> Ahhhh, email makes it so much easier. BUT, kids today don’t have the etiquette either, such as writing Thank You notes to Grandma for the lovely gifts they get.

There were no MP3's or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and messed it all up!

>> I remember one New Year’s Eve, us kids listened to Dick Clark’s Rockin’ Eve on the radio and YES, we taped the songs off the radio in order to have the latest music. Cassette tapes to boot!

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal, that's it! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your mom, your boss, your bookie, a collections agent, you just didn't know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

>> Didn’t dare answer the telephone! That was for adults only. To this day, my parents don’t like using the telephone. Answering machine? The only reason they have one is cuz us kids bought it. Do they check it? Nope. LOL Do they leave messages for us? LOL, uh yea. Here’s a sampling: “This is Dad.”

We didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked ! Your guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! ... Just like LIFE!

>> Us kids begged and begged our parents for an Atari! I think my Dad was pretty proud of himself in getting us one several years after they were out. We didn’t care! WE FINALLY HAD ATARI!! And we loved it!

When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy or some old broad with a hat sat in front of you and you couldn't see, you were just screwed!

>> Only went to 2 movies as a kid. Was I deprived, or what?!

Sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 15 channels and there was no onscreen menu and no remote control! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You didn't get to channel surf!! You had to get off your butt and walk over to the TV to change the channel and there was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little brats!

>> Yup, Sat morning’s was the highlight of the week. Didn’t have cable, still don’t. And yes, I still watch Sat morning cartoons.

And we didn't have microwaves, if we wanted to heat something up . we had to use the stove or go build a frigging fire . Imagine that! If we wanted popcorn, we had to use that stupid JiffyPop thing and shake it over the stove forever like an idiot. That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled.

>> Microwaves came out when I was a teenager. Thinking back now, it’s quite hilarious thinking about my Dad trying out the “microwave” recipes, and splattering egg all over the inside of it cuz it exploded while cooking! JiffyPop? Oh no, we used a pan and lid! Now, that’s old fashioned!

You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980!

>> Ah the 80’s...

Tell It All Tuesday

Hmmm... I really don’t have much to tell.

Two more weeks and the Spring semester will be over. For Monday night’s class, I had a 4-question essay test over “The Grapes of Wrath.” It took me about 4 hours to write and ended up being 5 pages long. I also had to read the first half of The Color Purple. I liked it so much, I read the entire book in two days. So, I guess I’ll have a week off for homework! Yay! Class discussion about The Color Purple was quite interesting and it amused me that people are so uncomfortable discussing the sexual overtones and abuse that occur in the book. We are all adults now, and things that occurred was a way of life during that time period.

I managed to get some stitching in over the weekend. So far, I’ve put 59 hours into my Soldier Memorial Project. Once it’s finished, Freedom will look fabulous! It’s to commemorate a young soldier (22yrs old) who died in Iraq. His family lives about 40 miles from me. I finished Love You To The Moon bookmark. It looks so much better in real life, as the yellow and blue stars are stiched with metallic braid.

Oh! Stash shopping! I stopped at my favorite thrift store and found a new-still-in-the-package Zweigert Cross Stitch Afghan for $5. I also found a nice frame for LK “How Does Your Garden Grow?” for 50 cents. I will have to cut it down and reassemble it, though.

Country Cottage Needlearts has (during the month of May) 40% off on all Sue Hillis, Leisure Arts and Stoney Creek in stock charts. Shirley is a great gal, for those of you that don't know her. I walked away with:





Won't these look good on the afghan I got??













My Dad and brothers are Hot Rod lovers!



















I think these will make very nice Christmas gifts.Definitely will make some for myself, too!


















I figure this one will come in handy for all the athletic nieces and nephews I have.

I got these just cuz I liked 'em!

OK, so I had more to tell than I originally thought! Btw, when's the next XA (Cross Stitchers Anonymous) meeting? I think I need to stand up and take responsibility for my actions. Ahem... My name is Meari, and I'm addicted to stash!