rEdNeCk

You might be a redneck if....----> Click the link! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM-OySyYaDs


Today I feel like a redneck. My son has taken over the back yard. The lawn has been fashioned in toy ornament style with every spider man known to man, cars in every shape, size and color, and plenty of dinosaurs to make a mini Jurassic Park film. I looked, threw up my hands and went back inside! Out of sight, out of mind! No, not at all...but for a while anyways. Ugh. Gotta keep life light! :P

The Arms Of Time

A distant muse and shackled present time
Dreams that wait unused, riddles confused in rhyme
A heartbeat swift in pattern, a most tender dwelling
Eyes that burn with resistance, tears pull to swelling
Bind heavy rock upon each desire, oppression to suppress the soul
Hopes that love will not gain power, to pull mine own feet and body whole
Hunger pains dig deep for a lovers exchange of words or vows to keep
None are whispered in secret, the waiting heart cries wounded weep
Drunken love persuades provision for glances, eyes entwined
Embraces for vision of swaying, lullaby lulls and deepest kiss of romances
Unrequited love holds each hour, pressed cheek to a ticking clock
The sweetness of this love preserved in the red blood of wine
Aging ever still in the Arms of Time

By: Keila Womack

Taking back the reins of my identity.

 Life has a way of tearing off pieces of our flesh. Tiny clips and hits from the side. When I was a kid I thought it was really fun to ride my bike as free as possible. I would close my eyes and ride without hands UNTIL that one fatal day I clipped the side of a neighbor's car. The side mirror about knocked the wind out of me. I had my head in the clouds even then(haha). Let's just say I was more scraped up than the car was! Ouch. Oh, and my handle bar did put a nice scratch along the side of its red paint job! Oops. I had to ask Jesus to forgive me later because I looked around and acted like nothing happened after I caught my breath! You know you're guilty of the same!! ;) So that's the analogy that comes to mind. Circumstances, death, relationships and financial hardship all leave brutal marks. External hits become internal blows that leave us recked. Often time our way of surviving is to disappear, become numb or just run away. Our presence is in tact but our souls are missing. C'mon, you know what I'm talking about! Like that mirror that knocked the wind out of me, life has the same affect. We become a shell. Our soul puts a picture of itself on the missing section of the milk carton just hoping we'll reclaim it. What's a body without a soul? I see this robotic system of living become normalcy. I am reminded of my own response to a similar blog a friend had written. Best my memory recalls my words were that I'd decided to live my life 'awake' and that I'd rather feel pain in order to capture the beautiful moments in their fullest vibrancy. When we set out on this journey with dulled eye sight we see problems in a delusional perspective and it causes us to see color in black and white. It steals the 'moments' that make life worth living. Isn't it then when you feel most lost that you are gifted God's grace to see. He puts mud on our eyelids and restores our sight. 'I was blind but now I see'.
For me, this restoration came today.  A female client of my mother's has a down syndrome son named Andrew who is close to my age and shares the same birthday.  I've had the privilege of cutting his hair on several occasions. He is so full of life and contains a joy that is contagious!! He is happy for every moment. I'd like to see life through his eyes.  I feel he is a pure reflection of God's loving smile upon us. Andrew and his mother only visit AZ in the winter months but Andrew went out of his way to send me the sweetest card and a book God knows I needed.  As I started to read the introduction I began to cry.
 
Just Enough Light -Stormie Omartian

Sometimes only the step I'm on,
or the very next one ahead,
is all that is illuminated for me.
God gives just the amount of light I need
for the exact moment I need it.
At those times I walk in surrender to faith,
unable to see the future
and not fully comprehending the past.
And because it is God who has given me
what light I have,
I know I must reject the fear and
doubt that threaten to overtake me.
I must determine to be content where
I am, and allow God to get me where I need to go.
I walk forward,
one step at a time,
fully trusting that
the light God sheds is absolutely sufficient.

I am taking back my wandering soul and rediscovering my identity in Christ. He is my creator and reminds me of who I am supposed to be. I am reminded to abide in him.  I want to change someones tainted perspective like Andrew changed mine.  Life truly has hidden beauty that is waiting to be discovered at every waking moment. 
I was going to start reading, The Lovely Bones, but I may be fully devoted to Stormie Omartian's book for the time being.....God knows I need it.

Your Silence.

Why do you have to be so shielded with me

Anchors tied around your heart

The wave pulls you  in, sinking deep into the sea

My eyes strain to reach through thickened fog

As I drift in enriched currents of memories

Blinded pleas ask you to reach out for me

Yet nothing

Your silence locked you in, slave to your reverence

Your secret, if you ever loved me, died in your arms

Alone in a tomb there, instead of warmth with me

(poetic words from the deepest part of me)

'We're Movin'!'

The Hair Artists of Kurt & Quanna will now reside in Great Waves Hair Salon

6542 E. Tanque Verde, Tucson AZ, 85715

(520)327-1757 *same phone number*

Well Folks,  Kurt & Quanna & Company will be moving into Great Waves Hair salon, June 29,2010.  K&Q spent 15years on the great land of Trail Dust Town and their horses are leading them back to their old TANQUE VERDE stomping ground!  Many of you loyal and cherished clients followed us far and wide in the down town area and have let us know you couldn't be more thrilled with our convenient return to the Eastside of Tucson.  We thank you for following us these past 20 years and we're looking forward to a longer lasting Hair Tango with y'all.  Let the dancing continue!!!  We want to continue serving you and your hair! WE LOVE YOU! We couldn't ask for better clients!  We will have the same hours and phone number to accommodate you.  You will still hear the masculine voice of Matt at the other end of the phone line and he will help you with any future hair appointments!

Another great detail you should know:  Kurt & Quanna both worked as hair stylists for Great Waves 25 years ago where love sparks set them on fire!  They will continue their romance and celebrate their longevity by working in the very same salon their love for each other began!  How disgustingly ROMANTIC is that???  Set the night to music...giggles.

Which K&Q staff will join us?  Kurt, Quanna, Keila, Matt, Jess, Jamy, Nadya & Korrin.  See y'all at the new joint! ='D

~K

Midnight Read: My thoughts end in poetry: Indeed. 'A dream within a dream'

A Dream Within A Dream




TAKE this kiss upon the brow!

And, in parting from you now,

Thus much let me avow --

You are not wrong, who deem

That my days have been a dream;

Yet if Hope has flown away

In a night, or in a day,

In a vision, or in none,

Is it therefore the less gone?

All that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.



I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand --

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep -- while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

Is but a dream within a dream.



Edgar Allan Poe

Quanah Parker: 'Transformed'

The white man goes into his church and talks about Jesus,” Parker once said, “but the Indian goes into his tipi and talks to Jesus.”

Quanah Parker 1906 Age:58

Every day has its story and today's should be shared.  My mom, dad and I were slaving away at work this afternoon when the mail arrived and in the boring pile of bills one stood out from the rest.  Bold words read, 'Attention Quanna'.  The envelope carried a carefully cut out New York Times article titled, Men on Horseback featuring my mother's great grandfather, the last and greatest Comanche Chief, Quanah Parker.

My mom was named after her great Comanche grandfather, Quanah Parker due to her red skin, black hair and deep blue eyes at birth.  However, her hair turned red at age one, then blonde by two years of age.  Most people look at her and only know she is of Native American descent when they see her prominent cheek bones and deep set eyes...her eyes remained a mesmerizing deep blue.  One of the things I love about my mother is that even when she has done 5 hours of yard work she always smells sweet.  Since I was a child I would bundle myself up on her side of the bed just to smell her scent when she was away at work.  In Indian tradition the name process of a child was thought of deeply and sincerely.  Quanah means FRAGRANCE.  I think it's quite symbolic that my mother, no matter what perfume,  has a very distinct scent, it's unlike anything my sense of smell has captured.  My mom has many great qualities and as I've read stories about my second great grandfather, Quanah, I've learned he was a man of passion, spiritualism, zeal, integrity and heart.  He was a leader and led many victories for his Comanche tribe.  My mom is quietly passionate, God loving- fearless leader for wounded people...much like her shadowed name, Quanah.

I will share a few excerpts from the article and leave a link for the full article if you have the time to read!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/books/review/Barcott-t.html?pagewanted=1

Quanah Parker exemplifies the more deserving who get left in the shadows. One hopes a better fate awaits “Empire of the Summer Moon,” S. C. ­Gwynne’s transcendent history of Parker and the Comanche nation he led in the mid- to late 1800s. Born the son of an Indian warrior and his white wife (who had been captured at the age of 9 during a raid on a Texas ranch), Parker grew up to become the last and greatest chief of the Comanche, the tribe that ruled the Great Plains for most of the 19th century. That’s his one-sentence biography. The deeper, richer story that unfolds in “Empire of the Summer Moon” is nothing short of a revelation. Gwynne, a former editor at Time and Texas Monthly, doesn’t merely retell the story of Parker’s life. He pulls his readers through an American frontier roiling with extreme violence, political intrigue, bravery, anguish, corruption, love, knives, rifles and arrows. Lots and lots of arrows. This book will leave dust and blood on your jeans.

The Comanche didn’t raid for sport. They had specific political and economic ends in mind. The political goal was to drive the white settlers (squatters and land thieves, from the tribe’s point of view) out of Comanche territory. To that end, death, terror and torture proved to be effective. By the 1860s the Comanche were actually rolling the frontier backward in Texas. The economics of raiding were equally straightforward. Young Cynthia Ann Parker was captured and not killed partly because the Comanche needed women to keep their buffalo economy humming. The men killed the bison, but the women, Gwynne writes, “did all the value-added work: preparing the hides and decorating the robes.” The more captives and wives — as with Cynthia Parker, the former sometimes became the latter — the more product a man could produce.

Parker had a son named Quanah. Quanah grew up quickly. When he was 12, his father was killed in battle and his mother was captured by white troops. (They saw it as a rescue, but Parker was forever trying to escape back to the Comanche.) A vengeful Quanah began raiding white settlements. He was good at it, too. But skill in battle wasn’t his problem. Timing was. He happened to rise as a leader just as the whites acquired their own transformative technology: the railroad and the repeating firearm. The railroad could cheaply transport valuable buffalo hides to Eastern markets, which made it profitable for men like Buffalo Bill to massacre the great herds. Between 1868 and 1881, 31 million buffalo were slaughtered, destroying the source of Comanche wealth and food. Meanwhile, the nimble Colt revolver and the powerful Sharps .50-caliber rifle countered the Comanche’s once-superior weaponry. The empire crumbled.




Quanah Parker’s second act was, if anything, more remarkable than his first. Resigned to reservation life, he transformed himself from a death-dealing warrior to a prosperous cattleman and a hard-bargaining politician who earned the respect and friendship of Teddy Roosevelt. He played a leading role in establishing the Native American Church and its practice of peyotism, the use of hallucinogenic peyote cactus in religious ritual. “In a 370-page biography, Gwynne devotes but a single paragraph to Parker and peyote. There are simply too many other good stories to tell.

***Can I just say that I read this article and cried.  I'm overwhelmingly proud that this man is my ancestor.  It makes me want to live my life more passionately and purpose filled.  Trust me, I won't be riding horseback and leading raids but maybe in my dreams, I will......haaahaaa...;)