Julie Unplugged

Celebrating the Detours on the Way to Mastering those Jealously Guarded Secrets

“Mom, I think the dog vomited on the rug in the entryway.” 

I look up at fifteen-year-old Emma with a hopeless, “What are you talking about?” which forced me to take my eyes away from the lazy fun I was having visiting new blogs from new people who are so cool I want to be friends with them all. “Ok, thanks. I’ll be right there.”

It is another Saturday in the life of Mom, a job I love more than anything in the world, but really? The dog vomited? Can I put that on my updated resume or CRV, “Cleaner of animal vomit from the entryway rug?”

What about the endlessness of washing dishes?

Please don’t leave, dear reader, I won’t write anymore on those subjects but I just had to get it out. I had to say that before I continued down the path of some truly amazing writing (which in my first drafting I actually wrote “righting” on some very reflective and action oriented topic which will assist each person who reads this to have an amazing, abundant life made up of one dynamic jealously guarded secret after another!

Now, now, I know I have gone too far now.

I’ll get back to reality.

Sometimes you think you have this lazy day stretched in front of you. No one needs your direct supervision throughout the day and most everything is under control. We start thinking, “Hooray! I deserve to live in paradise!” which yes, we do, but what if paradise includes cleaning up the dog vomit in the entryway?

I would hate to not have my dogs in paradise and I would hate even more if my dog got sick in paradise and had to hold it back in order to keep me happy.

Sometimes you need to take detours in your writing to get to the “best stuff” and sometimes you have to take detours in your career, lifework or business because situations change.

Your best stuff will still be there when you come back just like the dog vomit will stay on the rug until I go to clean it up unless the magic house cleaning fairy comes to visit. I’ve been waiting for her most of my life without results so I doubt it will change now, no matter how long I procrastinate.  All those things you really want to do with your life will wait, patiently, when you address, once again, those endless dishes that need watching.

This morning Alice the cat wanted to keep me company as I wrote here, so I cleared off my desk to make her a spot. It was far too cluttered, anyway, it was about time I cleared it, so once I got over a very short whine fest, I made her space and surprisingly I felt immediately freer and grateful to have pets who love to hang out right beside me when I do my creative and lifework practices.

I suppose the moral of the story for each and all of us is, celebrate the detours and be with whatever shows up right under your nose. I know, this isn’t anything new, but I thought maybe you – like I – need a reminder from time to time, even if it is just an excuse to not get off your derriere and clean up… well… you know.

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I'm so glad you are here!

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Our Literary Grannies from A to Z: B is for Buffalo Bird Woman

Buffalo Bird Women Tended Squash with the tools (in this case, a bone hoe)her Grandmother & the Women before her used...

Her name was actually Maxi'diwiac of the Hidatsa people, but we (as in the English Speaking, non Hidatsa people usually refer to her as Buffalo Bird Woman.

 

I couldn’t help but remember literary Granny Sojourner Truth’s words   which continue to inspire people today.

Buffalo Bird Woman was also a  woman who took pride in her heritage to the point of refusing to go with the flow as others were: she intended, instead, to keep the traditions – and her language – alive. She was a story teller extraordinaire and for her stories to continue as they have today, they were written, and translated, and shared with many.

Her book, Buffalo Bird Women’s Garden, continues telling the traditions and will, hopefully, continue to be popular to girls and women of today.  I loved her almost “post script” about squash:

Squash Dolls

There is one other thing I will tell before we forsake the subject of squashes. Little girls of ten or eleven years of age used to make dolls of squashes.

When the squashes were brought in from the field, the little girls would go to the pile and pick out squashes that were proper for dolls. I have done so, myself. We used to pick out the long ones that were parti-colored; squashes whose tops were white or yellow and the bottoms of some other color. We put no decorations on these squashes that we had for dolls. Each little girl carried her squash about in her arms and sang for it as for a babe. Often she carried it on her back, in her calf skin robe.

Her words are an important part of American Literary History we simply must keep alive. Honoring her words and her person is integral to this mission of spreading love, knowledge and curiosity about our Literary Grannies.

  This post is a part of my series Our Literary Grannies from A t0 Z which was inspired by the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. Find out more about the Challenge by either clicking here or on the icon.

 

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A is for Aphra Behn: Our Literary Grannies from A to Z

Aphra Behn was an eccentric, wise woman who was well ahead of her times of 17^th Century England. She had quite a sumptuous career before she started writing: she was a spy for England but when King Charles II didn’t pay her for her work in Antwerp, she got sent to debtor’s prison.

Not one to feel victimized and “stuck” in prison, Mrs. Behn (she was married for perhaps a year to Mr. Behn before he died) started writing plays while there. Upon her release she officially became the first professional woman writer in English literature. Some may argue other women wrote before her, but she was the first independent woman to write who actually worked in order to make her living.

Aphra’s first literary success was for the plays she wrote.

Her dream, though was to be remembered for her poetry. Instead, her plays and her novella, Oroonoko, are now considered her most important and influential work. Oroonoko  was a story of an enslaved African prince. It is now considered an important beginning to the development of the English novel.

She had quick success in The Forc'd Marriage in1670. It was an immediate success – well loved and made Behn a financially successful woman as well.  It was followed in 1671 by The Amorous Prince. Five of her plays were produced in the next five years 

Her biggest financial success came next, via The Rover which was produced in 1677. Nell Gwyn, the famed actress and mistress to King Charles II, came out of retirement to play the role of the whore, Angelica Bianca ('white angel').  The Duke of York (he later became King James II) was another fan of the play. 

As Aphra continued to write, her plays became more and more sexual in tone and she was even more gossiped about in the papers and in the circles who tittered and gasped yet somehow continued to support her productions. I wonder if they wore costumes so as not to be seen? Women involved in the theater were also rumored to have a second career in the world’s oldest profession, so she was fighting a battle on several sides.

Playwright Robert Gould wrote of Aphra and other women writers "Punk and Poetess agree so Pat,/ You cannot well be This, and not be That.^”  The pious Alexander Pope said, “The stage how loosely does Astræea tread/ Who fairly puts all characters to bed.^”

I don’t think she cared. She just kept writing.

Her book of poetry, Poems Upon Several Occasions, was published in 1684. She continued to become more and more successful until her death .  She was laid to rest after her death on April 16, 1689 in the Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey. I think this would have made the baudy, over the top, fun loving Aphra very, very happy.

Centuries later, Virginia Woolf further eulogized her, writing:

All women together ought to let flowers fall upon
the tomb of Aphra Behn, ...for it was she who earned
them the right to speak their minds.

This post is the first of 26 in a series I will be writing and sharing in April,2013. The challenge is simple and SUCH fun!

Check out the A to Z Challenge here.

Please stay in touch: Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot    

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Literary Grannies from A to Z: The Whirlwind Word-Love Adventure -

2013 Literary Grannies - (Aunties, Sisters, etc) with Aphra Behn as our kick off Granny!

I am in the middle of a  life long love affair with words. I wrote before I was literate by “dictating” to my mother, who would write my words on paper and I would then very carefully copy the letters with my crayons onto construction paper.

Read my posts here:

A is for Aphra Behn

B is for Buffalo Bird Woman

C is for Christine de Pizan

D is for Denise Chavez

E is for Ellen Emerson

F is forFredrika Bremer

G is for Gail Hamilton

H is for Hannah Adams

I is for Isabelle Eberhardt

J is for Judith Sargent Murray

 Some might say I was a preschool visionary or others might have said I was stubborn to the highest level. Perhaps I am a combination of both even today.

My first attempt with the A to Z blog challenge was 2011. I jumped in last minute with no plan at all and as often happens, with no plan in place, everything falls apart. I loved the concept and decided I would try it again, fail or no fail.

2012 came with a plan: because I love women’s history and I love 19^th century literature, I decided to marry the two together and came up with Women in Literary History. I didn’t solely cover the 19^th century, but those women were featured regularly because they are so often pushed aside in favor of the massive quantity of men who wrote and published more frequently. Our literary canon is very heavily weighted toward men.

So because I enjoyed the heck out of the 2012 series as well as engaged people in some great discussion about these authors, I wanted to take it for another ride now in 2013 with a new, catchier name "Literary Grannies from A to Z".

Am I a man basher or “hater”? I am not at all. I love men. I have a whole volume of poetry on this topic because so often I have talked to people who think “feminist” = “militant man hater” or “anyone who is stuck on women this and women that is being so exclusive, let me turn her volume down.”

Do you have a mother, sister, daughter, cousin, neighbor, close friend who is a woman?

Perhaps in honor of them, read the very short biographies I will be sharing along with images and fun facts about these women. You may discover someone very cool that until now you didn’t even know existed.

Why  do I choose to use first names as my A to Z?

Our "Z" feature will be award winning Zoe Akins

 

They are the names given to the woman, usually – sometimes the woman has adopted the name or it is the name she is known best as and I wanted to feature her with both names, like Naturalist Buffalo Bird Woman who is also named and known as Maxi'diwiac by her Hidatsa people. I am also featuring a Japanese Poet Ono No Komachi  from the 11^th Century and I was never able to determine which was her given name and which was her family name. I apologize in advance if I mixed up her name. I am thrilled to have found her in my poetry reading and so happy to share her legacy here.

Family names are usually not something thought about, we are just passed the name from one of our ancestors. I love my family name, Jordan, and continue to use it after marriage as well, partnered with the name my children bear, “Scott”. I wouldn’t want to be like Cher or Madonna or even French Writer/Performer Colette who was featured in last year’s series: Julie isn’t a name that stands on its own very well.

I love my other names, but I am most frequently referred to as “Julie,” except, possibly, “Mommy” which is a name I claim with a special pride.

Please write a brief comment, if you are comfortable, after my entries so that I know you were here. Your presence is appreciated more than you may know.

 You still have time to register for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. 

Check it out here - and join the fun. You don't have to prepare but you even still have time for that as well.

 

Yes, I Confess - I am One of the Rare Few

From NaBloPoMo on Blogher.com:

Do you like getting up to speak in front of a crowd?  Will you submit this year for VOTY?

Rare is, ironically, my word of the day today and I must confess, I am one of the rare few who loves to speak in front of a crowd. I often tell people, if they hand me a microphone I will start telling stories which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I did win two storytelling slams – the only ones I ever competed in – and because I write prolifically as well as having theater experience in a change purse in my pocket, I can improv almost anytime, anywhere about anything.

I am not sure what VOTY is, but I did a quick google search and discovered it is “Voice of the Youth”. I am not a youth so no, I will not be submitting. I would be thrilled to speak most anywhere but like American Idol or the Bachelorette, I am far too old. There is also an insurance agent in Pennsylvania with that name, again – I doubt he is hosting a big speaking event but if he is, I am ready. Just tell me the subject, give me a half hour and watch me go!

Last December I was the Emcee for my friend’s holiday cabaret show. The dancers were not the most speedy at costume changes, so I even though I had tons of material, I still ran out. I pulled out my phone and started to search and tell jokes from online.

The audience thought that was part of the schtick. They didn’t know I was actually doing what I said I was doing.

So yes, I can manage a crowd.

And yes, believe me, I love every minute!

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How a Simple Question from an Unexpected World Changer Transformed Me

This post came from a prompt from the folks at the Scintilla Project. I opened my email, read the prompt and started writing. I didn't move, I didn't refill my coffee cup, I didn't think. I just wrote. I knew this story needed to be told more than anything else right now, except silent gratitude to the birds singing out my window and the incredible privilege it is to share our stories with each other.

It was like many other nights before it as I drove through the line at McDonald’s, getting an iced tea for Emma and fries for Samuel. Over my shoulder I heard a voice say, “Excuse me, Ma’am?” and over his next phrase I layered, “Sorry, I don’t have anything extra right now,” so I couldn’t even hear his request.

Something different happened though: I looked up and into the eyes of this person asking for spare change. He was a kid. Just a kid. He shook his head and said, “Ok,

This photo is not my friend, but similar in age and clothing. Photo via Creative Commons Licence courtesy of Elvert Barnes

sorry to bother you, Ma’am” and turned, taking his Kennedy-family-esque blue eyes and fair skin with him.

 

My eyes burned with salty tears forming a curtain across them. My face burned with shame about my for too long unconscious automatic response, “Sorry, I don’t have anything extra right now” may be true and yet, just because I’m paying with a card doesn’t mean I couldn’t buy an extra burger or something for this young man who looked like the boys who graduated high school with my daughter several years ago.

I got my children’s snacks and parked my car instead of rolling it away like I normally would have done, quickly wiping my consciousness of homeless people which have gotten to be like regulars in my mind. There’s the guy who sits by that church with his dog. There’s the woman who smokes while she panhandles. There’s the “skater” homeless guy.

I waved the blue-eyed boy over. I pressed a dollar fifty in his hand. “Where is your mother?” I asked him.

“She’s in Isabella,” he responded, which I knew to be a town about 40 miles away on the other side of the Kern Canyon. It is a small, somewhat isolated city who calls itself, “California’s Best Kept Secret.”

I paused and said, “Does she know where you are?” He put his head down and nodded. I went on to ask about siblings and discovered his sister was still at home and his brother was with him, in Bakersfield, which I took to mean they were homeless together. He also told me quite freely where they lived now.

My incredulity overcame my usual polite behavior when I asked “What happened?” I heard a story that is probably not all that uncommon. The stepfather beats the Mom. The sons attempt to come to her rescue and get into it with the stepfather. I imagine the local authorities know the family. The Stepdad gives his battered wife an ultimatum, “It’s them or me.”

The mother chose her abuser and sent her sons away. They had been living here for eight months now, he said. “How old are you?” I finally got the courage to ask.

“Twenty.”

Again, my politeness had evaporated and I heard a gasp escape from me. Twenty. My daughter turned twenty-one on Christmas Day.

I told him I wished I could give him more, but he understood and was grateful for the dollar and change I offered.

In that instant, my mind changed not only for my friend and his brother, but for the other homeless people had been slowly and surely turning invisible in my mind.

A few days later I saw the skater homeless guy. He was standing at the same spot with a can of tuna in his hand. “Excuse me, Ma’am, do you have a can opener I could use?” I said no, and asked him his name. Sure enough, he was the brother of my new young friend.

Again, I drove past and came back around, this time with a five dollar bill so he could go to a nearby store and buy a can opener.

Maybe the five dollars would end up elsewhere, but I wanted this kid – who is the same age as my daughter Marlena would be if she had lived – to know I was listening. Someone out here in the world had heard his request and honored it as best as she could.

I carry bags with food with me now. I offer them freely to people as I am out and about. I look them in the eye, smile and say, “I wish I had more for you” and for the first time, I truly mean it.

I have also continued to get to know these two brothers. I have discovered one is mentally ill, which doesn’t surprise me, and the other one has a primary purpose of watching out for him, to serve him, as a protector. It reminds me of my childhood protector status with my own brother who had Down’s Syndrome.

I have chosen to be a listener, a giver and a receiver to the homeless in my area who are not, for whatever reason, currently served by the homeless shelters or other agencies. This never wouldn’t have happened if for I hadn’t taken the extra moment to glance up. It was then I looked into the boys eyes and saw  the reflection of both my own eyes and the entire world’s eyes in his.

I have always believed real world change doesn't happen because of government programs, it happens in the hearts of people communicating with each other. My new friendship is a contribution to world change on the smallest level.

What would happen if we all chose to be more aware and looked beyond helping at the level of institutions - if we are comfortable with that - or helping in agencies and looking at these folks in the eye and hearing what they say and who they are and sharing yourself back with them.

Be on the lookout for your micro-world-change assignment today. It's almost as if this simple blog post is a doorbell on your heart, ringing.

This post was inspired by the folks at Scintilla13 - Here's what they have to tell us:

We believe that who we are is informed by our stories. Here, we want to offer you a space to introduce yourself, and a guide to share your history and make some connections along the way. We’ll be offering daily prompts for two weeks beginning on March 13th.

 Follow me on Twitter: @JulieJordanScot  

 Be sure to "Like" WritingCampwithJJS on Facebook. (Thank you!)

© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

Talk about Taking a Risk: When Your Mentor is a Completely Surprising Not a Surprise at All.

Today’s NaBloPoMo question from BlogHer goes like this:

Who out there in the world would be

the best mentor for your ideas and goals?

You want to talk about risk? My response to this question feels like a huge risk to put out there for all of heaven and Earth to see.

I almost don’t want to answer this because my response sounds really cliché. Seriously, over the top cliché.

The thing is, once I asked today’s NaBloPoMo question, I couldn’t wipe the cliché response out of my head. I’ve thought it over and here’s what I’ve come up with: cliché is only bad when we say it out of complete lack of creativity.

My response to this prompt is completely truth-filled and nothing less.

My first thought was “I have no idea” and then I remembered when I was pregnant with my son and on my own raising my two daughters, I chose to see God as my partner. It helped me through a lot of dark days. I spent a lot of time chatting with God then, just sort of “hanging out” in nearly constant prayer and communion.

Times change and I don’t do that much anymore.

What I have discovered is that when I do “hang out” with God and include Him in my choices and actually ask for his advice on things via prayer and contemplation, everything in my work and my life improves.

Since I am a creative entrepreneur, who but the Creator of the Universe would be the perfect mentor to bring my (I should say our) ideas into fruition.

There. I said it. I wrote it. And now I am even going to hit publish!

 

The First & Last Job I Had as a Mom (and will never have again.)

Last weekend I was at a writing workshop – this time as a participant, though I am oftentimes a leader at the same venue. One of the other women who I met last month asked me, “So, what is it you do?”

I responded like I often do: with a comma laden stream of consciousness “I do this and that and those and them and these other things…” followed up in my next breath… “oh, yeah, and that too.”

I wasn’t always this way.

Once upon a time in my first and last job as a Mommy I was a Deputy Conservator. My first day on that job was October 24, 1994. Yes. I remember because the entire time I was there it felt like a place I was sentenced.

I did it for all the right reasons: I was supporting my husband who wanted to start his own law practice. I had the job of being the “Good Wifey” and providing health insurance and meals on the table for my family.

On paper, the Sentence/Job looked perfect. I would be working with folks with severe mental illness as what is often called a Public Guardian. I was to make decisions much like a parent would for her child except this is the one position outside the criminal system that will insist people live in a specific place and take specific medicine and have a specific budget which I manage for them, as measly as most of their money was – primarily a cap for SSI and sometimes Social Security kicked in as well.

The only people I served were people the court decided had so much interference from the symptoms of their mental illness they were neither able to provide themselves with food, clothing and shelter, they also couldn’t accept third party assistance.

Most of my clients loved me. I loved nearly all of my clients.

Even the ones who threatened to kill me.

The whole death threat story has become legendary. When I had worked for the county for four and a half years, two of my mentally ill clients threatened to kill me. They had very specific threats with very specific ways to implement them.

I was scared. Beyond scared. I had been going to therapy for the first incident – I had broken out in hives, I couldn’t concentrate, I couldn’t enjoy myself – and then the second threat happened. It got worse. I would pace and talk too quickly and not be able to sleep. I still had hives.

My co-workers and boss were reasonably helpful, but my boss was more condescending than I can put into words. He is one of the few people in this world I don’t care for at all. I’m over detesting him, that doesn’t serve anyone but mostly I just don’t want to ever encounter him again.

In fact, it wasn’t the death threats that made me leave my job, it was the way I was treated by the bureaucracy where I worked that felt even more hazardous to my health and safety. Taking time off and going through the process of a mental health leave gave me a lot of courage and a lot of insight.

I was finally a self advocate.

I was finally breaking through other people’s expectations of me into the me I was always meant to be.

I have had jobs in the past. I have had many first jobs. The job I had first as a Mom is also the last I will have as a Mom.

Now I am many things, some of which I have put in a non-list list.

I am a quirky personified comma lover. I don’t have a job, I have a wardrobe labeled, “clothes for the things I love to do which sustain my life work and my family.” Attire: a writing dress, a poet performer beret, an advocate suit, a professional  expert  back pack, blogger pencil eraser, a Mommy nurses hat/life crossing guard stop sign and of course the requisite compact suv to drive around far too endlessly, an artist’s smock adorned with paint, mod podge and spray adhesive  because I often get these on my hands which I then wipe on my smock.

Back in the old days, I had a commitment to a job with a boss and all the benefits.  Now, my only job is being me and doing the best I can with what I have in any given moment.

I am blessed.

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This post was inspired by the folks at Scintilla13 - Here's what they have to tell us:

We believe that who we are is informed by our stories. Here, we want to offer you a space to introduce yourself, and a guide to share your history and make some connections along the way. We’ll be offering daily prompts for two weeks beginning on March 13th.

 

The Most Significant Daily Adventure in Risk-Taking

"The risk to be the true and turbulent me is one I need to take daily, as a spiritual practice."

The riskiest thing I have ever done happened so far beneath my consciousness I didn’t even know it was a risk at the time.I thought it was the way my world was, the direction I was meant to walk, the avenue I was supposed to pursue.

The most important dreams often hide, underground, in dank cellars of our minds where we have to have bravery in order to go there. The largest risks often take residence one floor below: out of the reach of our usual five senses.

I see dreams and risks hiding in the eyes of people who live life via a metaphoric remote control. It is a seemingly automatic response as simple as arriving at Columbus Avenue and Mount Vernon Street. “I am at this intersection and I always turn right, so I turn right.”

Then there is the remote control button that says, “It isn’t polite to win, so aim for second place so others won’t get mad at you for shining as brightly as you do when in a competition. Smile widely and congratulate the one who deserves to be the winner, which obviously isn’t you. It never is, after all. Don’t forget this rule!”

We each have our own, unique and personalized remote control devices which feature our own, unique world view.

My biggest risk in life was one of those buried deep ones, living in a distant space deep inside me. It was cultural, too, this risk, that told me to be who others expected me to be, especially those I had chosen to love or was related to by birth. I had a remote control button marked, “Bury your hopes, dreams, desires, fashion choices, career choices, how I spend my lunch hour choices underneath your own wishes and instead keep the hopes, dreams, desires, fashion choices, career choices, how to spend lunch hour choices of other people alive and aloft instead.”

I tried to be what I thought I was supposed to be as dutiful wife and church member, a county bureaucrat, a caretaker of those who could not take care of themselves.

I tried to be the perfect mother – only cloth diapers, only breast feeding, only attached parenting, only the cutest outfits with matched hair bows, only live in the background position.

What I didn’t realize is how risky it was to pretend to be who I wasn’t and how that impacted who I was meant to be.

I had to experience some pretty severe circumstances to wake up.

And I had to experience some pretty severe circumstances to stay the course of instead of being what everyone else told me to be and instead being myself.

Writing this today is sort of like making a confession. It is like apologizing to this me of March 6, 2013, for the years invested in being that other person.

It is like the me of March 6, 2013 forgiving that other me, and making way for the ones still living in the cellar to come up to the surface and ignore the repetitions of those who used to rule the point of breakthrough. The compassionate, grace-filled me even manages to delight in those other versions of me, knowing there are no "wrongs" there are only "rights."

Adrienne Rich reminded me in my morning reading "Writing is renaming." so today, I am renaming this risk - to be the true and sometimes turbulent me - is completely safe to continue to take. It is the most important risk and the risk I need to take daily, as a spiritual practice.

This post is part of the NaBloPoMo challenge from BlogHer

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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott

How the Art of Writing Letters Has Inspired My Creativity #lettermo

One of the Lettermo Challenges is to put mail in a variety of mailboxes. Found a new one yesterday!

February has been many things for me so far: the month when I watched Nemo come a calling upon my daughter. It has been the month of my eldest daughter’s twenty-third birthday. It has been the month of making and sending Valentine greetings for the first time in years.

The biggest thing February has been for me?

It has been a month of writing and receiving letters.

I had forgotten how fun it is to write newsy notes and receive newsy notes, written by hand from people you have never met. Because of Lettermo, I have met others who love this sort of communication. When I was a little girl, I wrote oodles of letters.

Email and life took over so no more newsy, handscribed notes or pouring over the stationery section of the store to get the “just right note paper” with colored envelopes, naturally. There is nothing I love more as a letter writer and receiver to have cool envelopes pop into the monochromatic white or ecru envelope.

I sat in a cool, independent bookstore in Echo Park called "Stories" and wrote letters one February Friday night.

Thanks to Lettermo, I have started making my own envelopes and cards and even more wildly (for me) I have actually started to make matching cards and envelopes. I have also sent more than thirty letters and received nearly as many. I still have five more to write to catch up and I’ve heard (via twitter and the like) people have letters to me on the way.

I am even going to write a letter to Malta this week. MALTA! I never would have conceived this before, my handwriting and art landing in a mailbox that remote strikes me as more than a little bit cool.

It was through writing letters my creativity has burst into flames in quite a renewed way.

As I said, February has been quite a month!

I participate in the Creative Every Day Challenge with Leah Piken Kolidas. You may join at any time.

 

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© 2012 by Julie Jordan Scott