Sunday Funday

This is the way to start a week

 It's birthday time around these parts.  Six of us have birthdays within six weeks - three adults and three kids.  That means lots of laughter, food, and cake (and probably a bounce house at some point!).  The season kicked off tonight with a dance party and three choices of homemade, squishy goodness.  Happy Birthday Friend!

... and now to prepare for the Monday

Morning tea

On a Saturday morning this is what makes me happy

 

and now I think I'll go to the gym 

(and yes, I realize the picture is turned the wrong way but I'm not sure how to remedy that)

Thinking out loud

I haven't been around much lately as seen in the lack of posts.  My schedule has been more full than I prefer and by the end of the day I have no interest in opening my computer let alone writing a post.  It seems that life gets crazy in the spring.  Somehow the schedule fills up and I feel like I'm running a marathon that has a finish line somewhere in mid-June.  I leave the house in the mornings later than I'd like, but as early as I can manage and go from one thing to the next to the next to the next.  Saturday's tend to be crash days to let my brain rest before gearing up again for Sundays before running head first into Monday.  So the posts get put on hold and the blog falls low on the priority list.

That said this blog could also become a place for sanity.  My own little hideaway on the internets to stop and think thoughts.  Even this post about not posting and the craziness of life has helped me to stop and gain perspective.  Sometimes I wonder what I would tell myself if I were a client.  I'm pretty sure I'd give permission to stop and breathe.  To engage in a bit of self care in order to run a healthy marathon and be sure to finish the race well.

And I'd probably suggest turning to exercise instead of turning to chocolate as a form of stress relief.

Whatever.  It's raining outside.  Pass the chocolate.

Foggy morning

Mornings have been foggy around here lately.  There's a certain beauty in the fog.  It is stressful to drive in, but it can be pretty to see through a window if you're bundled up safely indoors.  On a clear morning I'd be able to see the mountains far beyond the horse pasture.  On this morning I could only see past the horses.

View from the front.

View out the back.

art

I find this to be lovely ...

 

Holiday Romance by Amanda Cass

PASS!

It was so anti-climatic because I knew in my gut that I'd pass.  No doubt.  I was nervous yesterday, but I got through that.  And today I passed!  Now to wait for that special little number that will stay with me all the days of my life :)

Thanks for the support my three blogger-world friends.

minimizing the panic

Twenty-four hours from now I will be sitting at a computer (not this computer) taking deep breaths to calm my nerves as I take an exam.  It's the second of two exams that cap off a seven year journey that spans two degrees and two countries.  In December 2002 I moved back to California from Auckland to finish my BA and begin an MA.  At that time I expected a couple of years of study and a graduation celebration announcing I had the skills to do what I felt called to do.  It wasn't until I was fully in the MA program that I realized the two year school process would extend to three to get the degree before beginning a long practical training process to get to licensure.  By the time I realized it I was so far in that there was no turning back.  To stop halfway would have been to waste the education.  To continue on meant that I was embarking on uncharted territory that I did not previously know existed.

Now, nearly four years since graduation (April 30, 2006) I sit studying on the eve of the second licensure exam.  When I pass I will have to pay another fee (it's no small cost to get licensed) and wait for the California Board to process and assign me a number before I can officially claim licensure.  In the event that I fail I will have to pay another fee and wait six months for the opportunity to take the exam again.

Externally I'm skilled at handling anxiety.  Internally I'm having a bit of a freak out.  Am I studying the right material?  Do I understand the test taking strategy enough to be able to conquer it the first go around?  Do I have the terminology clear enough in my mind to be able to apply the knowledge to the cases that will be presented?  Even as I type this I am holding my breath (literally).  I do that when I'm anxious which makes me laugh because my studies have taught me that one method of managing anxiety is to breathe deeply to allow oxygen to flow to the brain.  So, I've released my breath and had a laugh at myself.

Funny how writing this out has helped.  I'm more calm than I was at the beginning of the post.  I have time left today to study and will have some time tomorrow before the test.  I have plans for eating well and getting some exercise so I go in alert and able to focus.  I haven't yet decided what to wear, but I will sort that out.  All my clothes are clean, at least, so I have options.  The sun is out.  I am energized.  I can do this.

God-willing in twenty-six hours (the exam takes two hours) I will leave the testing facility exultant.  Then in three weeks or so I'll receive my licensure number and have cause for a HUGE celebration because what was begun in 2002 will finally be DONE!

*Worse case scenario I take the exam again in August.  That's not what I want to have happen.  But it won't kill me.

Let's just say

Hypothetically, let's say I decided to take my second exam and got myself a license soon.  I think I'd like to do a bit of celebrating and buy some thing(s) to mark the occasion.  I think I'd splurge on this bag ...

from christystudio

and maybe that Paris picture below. Something for the office and something for my arm.  Sounds appropriate to me.  Maybe I ought to go ahead and start ordering.  I totally plan on this hypothetical happening soon.

And, I want the bag.

Resolution 1

I'm not one to do a whole list of New Year's resolutions because they feel so confining; like a contract I'm trapped in for a whole year.  However, I am one to resolve to do something.  Hence the resolution:

I resolve to avoid franchised food chains as much as possible.  I'd rather give my money to "mom and pop" establishments where the food tastes good and the employees have been around for years (or generations).

Now to discover more hole-in-the-wall places and the wonders served within!

This picture makes me happy

In my perusal of design blogs I came across this gorgeous picture.  I want to order a huge print for my wall and make it a goal in life to visit the location it was originally shot.  Breathtaking ...

as posted by ohhellofriend

I think the new header looks like an old blackboard which I'm not that crazy about.  Oh well, guess I'll just have to surf on over to www.picnik.com at some point and create something new.  For now the blackboard will do.

Haiti, Child Trafficking, and Psalm 10

picture from news.BBC.co.uk

Life has this way of converging.   In the past six months or so I've been increasingly aware of the problem of child (and human) trafficking around the globe.  The idea that some humans chose to treat other humans with such disrespect horrifies me.  Then the earthquake in Haiti happened last week.  In the devastation of the country people have been displaced and the vulnerable are left even more exposed.  In the past few days I've been reading Tweets that link to articles that explain how the current state of Haiti is a ripe picking ground for human traffickers.  Leslie Scrivener of TheStar.com writes:

Noting the collapse of the central prison, she said social norms that keep people's behaviour in check may disappear in a national disaster. "The fabric of society is destroyed and the controls that people internalize against rape, incest, reacting to the slightest provocation by beating the hell out of someone, go, too. One of the ugly things of human nature is that a pecking order emerges in any crisis ..." 

The article goes on to say,

And there is another concern. "What will happen with the orphans?" asked Ducos. "We know there was trafficking of children out of Haiti, fake orphanages operating illegally and trafficking to the Dominican Republic where orphans beg in the streets. Orphans in the wake of the earthquake could be another human catastrophe."

Danger grows for Haitian girls amid chaos - thestar.com

For me these things converged today in a Psalm.  Reading Psalm 10 I pictured scenes like the image above where the vulnerable are exposed and the wicked/tricky/arrogant feed on the fear to get their way.  Whether by swindling or by force exploiters will find a way to exploit.  I understand that the Bible is ancient literature, but Psalm 10 could just as easily been written this week.  And today I join with the ancient writer of the Psalm to cry out for God to "not forget the helpless" and "break the arms of the wicked" because "The LORD is King for ever and ever" who defends "the fatherless and the oppressed".

Why, LORD, do you stand far off?  Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?  In their arrogance the wicked hunt down the weak, catching them in the schemes they devise.  They boast about the cravings of their hearts; they bless the greedy and revile the LORD.  In their pride the wicked do not seek him; in all their thoughts there is no room for God.  Their ways are always prosperous;  your laws are rejected by them; they sneer at all their enemies.  They say to themselves, "Nothing will ever shake us."  They swear, "No one will ever do us harm."  Their mouths are full of lies and threats; trouble and evil are under their tongues.  They lie in wait near the villages; from ambush they murder the innocent.  Their eyes watch in secret for their victims; like a lion in cover they lie in wait.  They lie in wait to catch the helpless; they catch the helpless and drag them off in their nets.  [The innocent] are crushed, they collapse; they fall victim to superior strength.  The wicked say to themselves, "God will never notice; he covers his face and never sees."

Arise, LORD! Lift up your hand, O God.  Do not forget the helpless.  Why do the wicked revile God?  Why do they say to themselves, "He won't call us to account"?  But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted; you consider their grief and take it in hand.  The victims commit themselves to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.  Break the arms of the wicked and the evildoers; call them to account for their wickedness that would not otherwise be found out.  The LORD is King for ever and ever; the nations will perish from his land.  You, LORD, hear the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, so that mere earthly mortals will never again strike terror.

Psalm 10.  Today's New International Version

A place for everything and everything in its' place

I tend to use quotes to explain a current focus in my life.  For example, when something goes wrong I quote Steinbeck to help me to put it in perspective -  "the best laid plans of mice and men".  Or when I disagree with the perspective of another I think, "To each his own."  So it is no surprise that I currently have a quote that is rattling around in my head - "A place for everything and everything in its' place".

Maybe it's the time of year.  For my sister and I the week after Christmas became the week of organization and deep cleaning.  With great effort we completely re-did the main living area.  We organized, discarded, and rearranged to come up with a happy place where it's fun to invite people to visit.  The kitchen also saw our organizing spirit bring more order to it than it once had (though there is definitely room for improvement).

But, with the ordering of the outer rooms my bedroom became a catch-all for things that don't yet have a place to call home and are BEGGING for one.  Hence, Project Organize 2010 (which will hopefully become Project Maintaining Organization in the next month or so).  To get started I've determined I need the following:

1.  Stationary organizer - For the bits and pieces of cute papers, cards, stamps, etc.
2.  Receipt organizer - To track the finances
3.  Filing cabinet
4.  Floor to ceiling (almost) bookshelf
5.  Jewelry organizer (optional)

That ought to get me started.

Of course, I could invite my friend who is the Queen of Organization over and let her have a go at my things.  She has three kids and manages to maintain a very tidy house.  Everything the kids own has a specific place.  Their closets are the result of organizational genius!  I stand and gape at the closets because they are so orderly.  Transformers go in one drawer.  Leggos in another.  Games are on the shelf.  Playing cards in baggies in the game drawer.  Etc.  Etc.

I think I may just use her as inspiration and go at it myself.  I'll get there in my own time.

The cutest girls in the southern hemisphere

A quick look at the girls I mentioned in the previous post.  These were taken July 2008 so they would have grown heaps since then.  What a couple of cuties!

Recipe project without a proper name

I'm starting something with my friend Angela that she doesn't know anything about ... yet. Ang was one of my flatmates in Auckland when I lived there 2000-2002. She taught me many things, not the least of which is to create a meal out of the random food items that populate a house right before a proper shop (translation: going grocery shopping). She has a talent for opening up a cupboard and seeing the possibilities that remain unseen to untrained eyes. In 2000 my eyes were sorely untrained.

Fast forward ten years (yikes!) and, with much intentional effort, I've developed the ability to make something out of nothing. After a stock take of the cupboard and fridge and a perusal of a cooking site (like Recipezaar.com) I can put together a pretty okay dish. Not anything spectacular, yet, because I am still learning the art of spices. But, a meal that is preferable to anything the restaurants have on offer in my hometown.

Which brings me to the project (that desperately needs a name!). Ang and I live an ocean apart which makes it challenging to stay in touch. While she's computer savvy she's much more interested (and invested) in her tangible life than her online one. She's married, has two gorgeous daughters, and is involved in lots of social activities in her community. Admittedly, she is the better of the two of us at keeping in touch. She mails cards and sends me cookbooks on my birthday. Because her and I have a common interest in cooking I am going to begin handwriting recipes on cute little cards and mail them to her one-by-one. That part begins right away (tonight preferably!). In about a month or so I am going to send a proper parcel with a recipe card box and blank recipe cards so that she can write out some of her favorite recipes and send them my way. That way we're both sharing something we enjoy and are keeping in touch in a way that could be really meaningful.

Now to go find those recipe cards I bought years ago and have been saving for an occasion such as this ...

P.S. Funny enough, on the night the project begins I had cereal for dinner. I couldn't be bothered making something out of nothing. The project beckons.

Swimming in Sweetness

We've been out of honey for about a month. It's been a sad thing because honey is the sweetness that makes a cup of tea a cup-of-real-goodness. Drizzled on toast it changes a whole wheat crunchy snack to an afternoon tea to look forward to. But when the bottle on the counter is empty the tea and the toast are drab. Blah.

I discussed the situation with my bee farmer friend at church last weekend. He told me to drive down to the "town" up the road (that's in quotes because I don't know that a place with a population of thirty really carries the title of a town, but we don't use the term village here so "town" it is) where his honey is sold at a roadside stand. So I did as he said and was bummed to find nobody there. The stand was closed. I pulled over, did a u-turn, and drove home without the sweetness. No honey for me.

Fast forward one week (yesterday to be exact). I planned my driving route to go by the aforementioned "town" in hopes that the stand would be open and what do you know? It was! Because I was told to choose the Orange honey over the Sage I promptly picked up the three gallon jug of orange, happily paid the fee that I know supports my friend, and drove to my grandparents home with sweetness in tow.

At my grandparent's house, as part of her greeting, grandma asked, "Do you need anything?". Grandpa and Grandma have three refrigerators and one deep-freeze packed with food from their garden, orchards, and bits and pieces friends give them. I told her that I had just bought honey from my friend. Grandpa responded in a teasing tone, "What did you do that for?". Ends up they had been given honey by a friend. Because they wouldn't use it they decided to give it to me. One appears to be Orange honey; the other Sage (that's a guess ... it's dark in color so it could very well be Sage). Within one hour I went from zero to seven pounds of sweetness! (I also got sun-dried tomatoes, but that's just a side note).

It doesn't stop there...

Honey connoisseurs know that all honeys are not created equal. Bees create different flavors in the honey based on the plants they pollinate. So, the flavors on this side of the continent are different than you may find in another place - say, New Zealand for example. I have a friend who just returned from that beautiful country. Because I used to live there I had sent a shopping list of things that I'm not able to get on this side of the Pacific. This morning I picked up the items that included a jar of delicious Manuka Honey.

Needless to say we are now swimming in sweetness. "Good things come to those who wait," as they say. I could go for some tea and toast right about now.

"Oh, I suppose it was a fanciful, outrageous plan, something no one else might even think of doing. But there is power in the saying of a thing, the passionate commitment to a cause however strange and dreamlike it may be or sound to others, that must be done before the wheels of faith and providence can move."

Jane Kippatrick in her book Mystic Sweet Communion

First attempt at a photo essay - NKOTB love

What's a blog without photos? It's a bunch of words which can be interesting, but photos really help a thing to move along. So this is my first attempt at using photos in a post.

If you know me you know I have a bit of an obsession with the New Kids on the Block. What can I say? They were my boy band of choice during the formative years of my youth and my love for them just hasn't gone away. I first saw them in concert at the Fresno Selland Arena February 20, 1991. My mom remembers that concert as being "so embarrassing" because I was one of the girls shown on the evening news running after the bus. I remember it as being glorious! I remember the shirt I wore and the shirt I bought. I remember calling my friend from a pay phone when extra tickets were released, buying them at the box office, then getting my mom to drive us back to our hometown to pick-up my friend and her sister to take to back to the concert. She got hit by water from Donnie's water bottle that night and she was pretty sure that Jordan looked in her eyes. I'm still jealous!

So, when the opportunity arose to purchase ground floor tickets at the reunion concert in Fresno this past April where I could breathe the same air as Donnie Wahlberg ... I jumped at the chance! Needless to say, it was fantastic.

Yes, they did their "classic" songs, but they also performed things from the newest album, "The Block" released in 2008.

Jon had the flu and was noticeably sick (just look at his face!). Yet, he got out there and did his thing. He disappeared to the side of stage as much as possible and sat out of songs ... but still. What a trooper!

Super cool, artsy photo of Joe.

Donnie and I together. I don't think he realized we were posing for the photo.

Artsy photo of Jordan. We were sooooooo close when they were singing around the piano.

"I can't hear you!". Let me tell ya ... I screamed my head off! I'm still screaming a bit on the inside.

So, there it is. The first post with pics. You wouldn't know it by looking at it, but this photo essay took an hour to create! It will only get easier, right?!

header tutorial

BTW - in my perusal of blogs I came across this post about how to create personalized headers for blogger. Hooo-rah! Thank you, "a foothill home companion" for pointing out the path to blog happiness :)

http://foothillhomecompanion.blogspot.com/2010/01/how-to-make-blog-header.html

Now to figure out how to arrange images in a post ...

p.s. one thing I do know is that I like to learn and, so far, this has been a cool learning experience

still working on it (really)

In counseling we talk about the steps toward change. The first is pre-contemplation in which the idea of changing (or even the full acknowledgement of any problem) is something yet unthunk of. The next is the contemplation stage where the person begins to think that a change may be a good thing. Then comes the planning phase followed by action. (Don't totally quote me on this. I may be missing a stage). All that to say - I have moved through the pre-contemplation and contemplation stages to the planning stage. While there is little on this blog to show for it, I have been hard at work researching blogs. I've found a dozen-or-so favorites that I check-in with daily and others that I check in on hoping there may be a new post. I'm still formulating what my little space on the internet may look like and the content it may contain. So, for the one person who actually knows about this blog - hang with me. I'm working on it. Something is definitely being birthed ... I'm just not entirely sure what it is yet.