Guest writer: Ramona Siddoway

Thou shalt not shake thy bootie on my porch

When I was a growing up I had a great deal of energy. The term we would use today would be ADHD. Back then, the less politically correct but probably more accurate label was “Spawn of Satan.” Let’s face it, the sixth child of seven was not going to get a lot of supervision from parents or older siblings. Summers were spent running shoeless and chasing chickens in nearby coops. I had my fair share of scrapes with authority figures and near death experiences—all before the age of eight.

I think it was a family thing. I had four brothers who, even as young teens, were hauled into city hall on accusations of being a “gang”. Mind you, this town was nestled in Southeastern Idaho and had a population of roughly 300 people. Farm boys tipping cows was the closest this town was going to get to anything resembling the LA riots.

Our family lived in a religious town and were considered by the good church-going townsfolk as questionable (another politically correct term). My father could cuss like a sailor and hold his liquor but would never be caught sitting in a pew. Mom went to church most Sundays, worked full time, came home to help my Dad on the farm, and managed to keep her brood of seven fed. So when it was all said and done everyone and everything was stretched a little thin. By the time my little sister and I came along the only thing that was left to trickle down to us was more freedom and less brains. And it was this combination that made the other parents a little bit nervous.

When I was seven I had a friend who lived across the street. He was a year younger than me and to protect the guilty we’ll just call him Kimothy Tershaw. Kimothy and I loved hanging out and he kind of looked to me as a mentor.

It was the summer of free love and Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In—TV’s gregarious show of the 60’s. It featured two men in tuxedos and bow ties, holding martinis, telling stale jokes while scantily-clad women (and a very young Goldie Hawn) danced around them in a frenzied manner. The women even showed their [whispers] belly buttons. My other best friend—we’ll call her Wessica Jorrell—had a mother who forbade her from watching Elvis Presley movies for that very reason. I, on the other hand, loved Elvis Presley. I don’t think I could have told you what a belly button was. Anyway, I digress . . .

So growing up on a steady diet of Laugh In, the gyrating hips of Elvis, and bare belly buttons no wonder I was on a one-way, greased sled to hell. One day we were on Kimothy’s porch playing who-knows-what when I just got it into me to dance. I guess that is what you’d call it. Blame Elvis. Blame Goldie. But all of a sudden I started gyrating, wiggling, and jiggling like a possessed demon on crack. Folks, forget about the thousand and one demons wanting to inhabit the bodies of swine in the Bible. Here was a small seven-year-old girl with plenty of room and talent to spare. Maybe I was restless. Maybe I was ahead of the times and knew that in the future people would be forwarding drippy emails that would read “If you’re not ashamed you’ll forward this” and “dance like no one’s watching,” because that is exactly what I did. I started dancing like no one was watching and without shame. But someone was watching. And that is exactly why I think people should include the fine print in their “live life to the fullest” diatribe. If you really dance like that and someone catches you you’ll soon be wearing a new pair of rubber sheets and sporting a strange but spiffy retainer between your teeth. ALWAYS dance like you’re with your parole officer. It saves time, embarrassment, and a good witch burning.

Kimothy’s dad just happened to walk by and, when he came upon my spasmodic moves, he hid and peered through the crack in the door. I guess he was trying to give me the benefit of the doubt to make sure it wasn’t just because someone had forgot to medicate me that day. The next thing I know he is popping out from behind the door and pulling Kimothy inside. I was summarily dismissed from his porch. Dang. Where was my parole officer when I needed him?

The next day Kimothy told me his Dad thought it would be best if we weren’t friends anymore. I think I took it pretty well. At least I don’t have any memory of my head rotating 360 degrees nor spewing projectile vomit across the yard. I certainly took it better than the time my sister wouldn’t give me her money for extra candy. I kicked HER in the shins.

I now have my own porch and was able to make it through life without needing a parole officer. I still like to shake my bootie every now and then. I know I’m living life to the fullest because when I dance my teenagers start pulling curtains and clearing the room. But, the nice thing is, their dad still wants me on his porch.

"Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-groomed, and unaggressive."

--Leslie M. McIntyre

"It is within my power either to serve God or not to serve him. Serving him, I add to my own good and the good of the whole world. Not serving him, I forfeit my own good and deprive the world of that good, which was in my power to create."

--Leo Tolstoy

Week 4 Tasks: Recovering A Sense of Integrity

1. Environment: Describe your ideal environment.

Cabin in the woods. Probably the easiest task ever...didn't even have to think twice about that one. There have to be tons of trees, and neighbors fairly close just in case something crazy happens (I would be terrified to live in a remote house. You know the ones--where you're on a road trip and you see nothing for miles, then a single house, and then nothing else for miles on end).

Oh and the cabin has to have that cabiny smell. Not sure if it's pine or what, but that smell of wood has to attack your nostrils when you walk in. And even though I live in Texas currently, where there are no mountains (at least where I live), someday I will have this cabin in the mountains. Possibly with a lake. And a dock near the cabin so I can jump in the lake whenever I want.

What's your favorite season?

Here is my post on my personal blog in September of 2008 (I was living in Utah at the time):

I love love love the fall. I look forward to it every year. The leaves change to this beautiful red-orange color, there's a bite to the air, and for some reason, it always feels like something so exciting is just right around the corner. I always feel closer to family and friends during this time too. Maybe it's pre-Christmas feelings...who knows.

Fall means football, which always meant bonding with my marching band friends (since we were together pretty much every day). Now football means spending time with my husband, and having something in common with my dad, who is obsessed with BYU football.

Fall means that the hot, yucky summer is over. Houston summers are never very fun, despite how much I love the humidity. Although Houston does not show the change in seasons as well as Utah, fall was always a looked-forward-to respite from the heat for me. Now I get rewarded with not only less heat, but so much more magic here in Utah.

Fall means that not only do the leaves change color, but when they fall on the ground you can hear that satisfying crunch crunch as you walk around. I have a distinct memory of {Husband} and I wrestling in those crunchy leaves outside of Helaman Halls. I've had leaf fights with roomies. They get caught in your hair, in your clothes--signs of a battle well fought.

Fall means love to me, much more than Valentine's Day. That's when I had my first boyfriend, my first kiss, fell in love for the first time...Although {Husband} and I started dating in the summertime, I don't really associate our "courtship" with the summer. He was gone for most of it at college while I was in back home. No, it was in the fall.

Fall means hot apple cider, pumpkin everything, and lots and lots of candy corn. That pretty much says it all. :)

2. Write your own Artist's Prayer:

O Great Creator
You are the Ultimate Creator--the God of all things
Help me to Create
To not be afraid to be laughed at
To not be afraid to be corrected, either.
For I am always learning...
Always shaping who I am
Into who I wish to become.

O Great Creator
Help me come closer to you,
Because it is through you
That I can create beauty
To spread that beauty to others
But first I must create that beauty within.

Help me to become whole.

Just for your reference, here is Julia Cameron's Artist's Prayer:

O Great Creator,
We are gathered together in your name
That we may be of greater service to you
And to our fellows.
We offer ourselves to you as instruments.
We open ourselves to your creativity in our lives.
We surrender to you our old ideas.
We welcome your new and more expansive ideas.
We trust that you will lead us.
We trust that it is safe to follow you.
We know you created us and that creativity
Is your nature and our own.
We ask you to unfold our lives
According to your plan, not our low self-worth,
Help us to believe that it is not too late
And that we are not too small or too flawed
To be healed -
By you and through each other - and made whole,
Help us to love one another,
To nurture each other's unfolding,
To encourage each other's growth
And understand each other's fears.
Help us to know that we are not alone,
That we are loved and lovable.
Help us to create as an act of worship to you.

Week 3 Tasks

Okay, so I realize that I started out with this supposed 12-week program a couple of months ago. Shouldn't I be done by now? Well, let's just say I'm really being a sunday driver and taking my time. :)

Here are some of the tasks for this week. I realize this is a bit long, but this is more to make myself do the program. Read if you want-- it’s ok if you don’t.

1. Describe your childhood room.

My favorite room I had was in the third house we lived in in Texas. I had these gorgeous lace curtains along the three windows on my room. Actually, my mom decided to surprise me after girls' camp with them. I cam home from camp, and my entire room was painted purple (my favorite color) and those curtains were hanging there. I would sit on my bed on Sunday or Saturday afternoons, listen to my Celtic music and look out those windows with the lace. I would watch the trees sway in the wind, or notice the pattern the sunlight made as it streamed through the curtains onto my carpet.

Maybe I need to get some lace curtains!

2. Describe five traits you liked in yourself as a child.

a) I was family-centered. Of course I loved having friends and I still do, but I just had so much fun with my family...especially the sister just younger than me. We played together all the time. I lost this trait as a teenager, but I feel like as an adult I have gotten that trait back.

b) I wasn't afraid to stand up to people. When I was 5, I punched the little boy who was being a bully and wouldn't let me play in the sandbox. I also stood up for other people more, even if I was scared of the bully. I wasn't afraid to speak up. I think I became more of a people pleaser as an adult.

c) I was a dreamer. I had big dreams of what my life would be like, how I would fall in love, how I would be a writer or a singer or something else amazing. I also took the time to dream because I wasn't obsessed with being efficient or productive.

d) I was happy. Like, all. the. time. I did have some ups and downs, of course, but looking back I feel like it was just a good time to be alive.

e) I was likable. For some reason I feel like it was so much easier to make friends back then. That changes when you become and adult.

3. List three obvious rotten habits. What's the payoff in continuing them?

a) FACEBOOK

b) Checking my email a bajillion times

c) Trying to multi-task and spreading myself too thin

List subtle foes (habits that aren’t so obvious):

a) Belittling myself (thus perpetuating a “I can’t do this” attitude)

b) Thinking that I have a successful day when I cross off all the things on my to-do list, even if they are all trivial and I should have focused on self-nurturing things