Trust

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In my lunchtime blog trollings, I have stumbled across some pretty great sites.  A friend directed me to the Green Monster movement after I posted a picture of our new pet family member, Vera  Vitamix , holding her first kale smoothie, which led me to Oh She Glows, (quite inspirational, especially for a new-ish vegetarian like myself), which finally led me to Operation Beautiful (and also Clean Eats in the Dirty South, but that comes later).   And somewhere along the way I found this lovely quote, which has been on my mind since I found it. I'm not sure what my own answer is to the question - what would I do if I knew that I could not fail? My first thought went to crazy career choices - I could become a singer! I could do voices on cartoons! Okay, so those are kindof easy ones to answer.   The one that gets a bit too personal are the health/fitness possibilities: if I knew, without a doubt, that every pound I tried to lose would come off, that all my efforts at healthy eating would have real, measurable results in the end, how much harder would I try? That certainly puts things into perspective for me.  Because if I just let go of my anxieties about the outcome and just went for it, I could accomplish what I'm after. It is possible.  As per usual, this comes down to a faith issue.  If I would truly cast all my cares upon the Lord and put ALL of my faith in His guidance of my life, my issues would cease to be my issues.  Well, life is short, but that's what I'm striving for! That never-ending quest to be more like Jesus - to empty myself of me, and fill myself with Him.  "Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord. He is like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and it is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8
Hey! I can relate to that! Be like a river tree! Maybe it's time to pull out the kayak and go for an object-lesson ride down the Flint...

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

...wearing my Hyperbole shirt

...reading Dominion by Matthew Scully 

...watching season 2 of Friends on DVD

...listening to Mute Math on Pandora

...eating my fruits & veggies smoothie style! 

...shopping for rare spices  Garam masala, anyone? 

I'm Not Sure How to Interpret This...

I dreamt last night that I hadn't finished trimming my nails.  

Does this mean that I'm in a wonderfully healthy state - so much so that my brain has worked absolutely everything out and untrimmed nails (only two, mind you) are the chiefest of my troubles?

Or am I just that boring these days? 

UPDATE: The next night I had a dream about the dairy industry, a horse I owned that I was worried about surviving in the heat in the back of my fictitious truck, and other random stuff. Clearly things are back to weirdness normal.

On an encounter I had at work today...

a Haiku

A thirteen-year-old
Is so condescending, but
They are just stupid.

Ah hah hah!! Taste my wrath, you wretched teenagers!!!

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

...wearing silly hats
...reading Byron Katy and Thomas Hardy
...watching Peep Show on Hulu. (It's a Brit-Com - not as bad as it sounds)
...listening to Lauren's summer mix
...eating pre-made tofurky or hummus-avocado sandwiches from Garden Cove
...shopping for groceries. Our kitchen is empty. Oops.

Sunday on the Flint

I went kayaking this afternoon - obviously on the Flint River. This trip was notable for two reasons: first, it was the first time that I flipped on a solo trip, and secondly, I made the 3.5-4 hour trip in 2.5 hours. I spilled early in the trip - actually in a place where Richard and I have flipped before on separate occasions. And I think it is significant that I'm just now flipping on a solo trip, since the majority of my river trips are alone (since I have my own boat and gear, any time that Richard can shuttle me I'm on the river without spending a dime - which I love). Where I spilled today is a great place to flip your boat, because the water is comfortably shallow and it's near a quite convenient pebbly bank. So once I flipped I managed to keep my boat upside down and walk it to the bank where I emptied it rather quickly. However, it had been so hot when I fell in, that once I got the boat settled, I decided to hop back into the water for a bit and cool off. It was great timing.
Thankfully there were hardly any people out on the water while I was out there, and I actually got a chance to stop at the caves and wander around for a bit. Very nice. The next time I've got someone with me I'd like to spend more time in the caves.
It was attempting to make up for the lost time flipping and cave exploring that I pushed so hard and managed to cut an hour off the trip unexpectedly. :) But I welcome a workout that I enjoy, and since I'm getting to know the Flint so well, I don't need as much time to look around. Quite sunny today; I am lobstery of legs and chest right now - oops! It was all good, though. Here I am on the river - not beautiful, I know, but gone are the days where I put on makeup and fix my hair for kayaking trips. It was so hot today that it wouldn't have even mattered anyway.

Looking rough, but I had a great trip! You can see the river looks rather brown today - a result of the week's precipitation. It wasn't any higher than usual, though. Richard and I ran into Ben of NACK at the Hwy 72 take out yesterday, and he said it had dropped something like 8 inches in about 24 hours! That would have been fun. The water was even slower today than it had looked yesterday afternoon.

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

...wearing socks
...reading The Ultimate pH Solution again
...watching Season 3 of Little House on the Prairie
...listening to Bread
...eating nothing interesting
...shopping for travel ideas

I got a new camera for Christmas, but I haven't even attempted to sync it with my computer, so I don't know if I'll be able to upload pictures easily or not. It has a self timer, so there's been a lot of cheesy self-portraits. I'll try to spare you, but I don't know if I'll be able to. :)

I haven't made any blogging resolutions, because I'll just break them. Hopefully the addition of the camera will inspire me. Hopefully. I just need to buckle down and realize that it doesn't have to be interesting for me to blog about it! ;)

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

Wow! That was the only post I was able to crank out last week! Hopefully I'll do better this week.

...wearing brown
...reading *The Ultimate pH Solution*
...watching nothing
...listening to Christmas music
...eating fruits and vegetables
...shopping for kids and co-worker gifts

Much like last week, really. I suspect it won't really change too much until after Christmas. I've also resolved that even though our local radio station stops playing holiday music on December 26th, I will listen (via Pandora) to Christmas music all the way into the new year. It is so depressing to have a whole month leading up to Christmas and then have it disappear in one day. While I'm near-frantic about cleaning up the wrappings and putting the gifts in their new places, I want some of Christmas to linger a bit.
Also, here's a picture of a snowy Smoky:

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

...wearing my new Little Miss Matched socks
...reading *The Ultimate pH Solution*
...watching nothing
...eating cold-weather goodies
...listening to Christmas music
...shopping for an ornament for my husband's faculty party

It Looked Like a Lumpy Strawberry Milkshake

As I pulled into work this morning, I had to veer sharply to the right and park next to my normal parking spot. "Why," you ask, "was there a bum person in your way?" No, no person. It was vomit. That's right: a big, splashy pile of puke right there in our parking lot. I have often called the sidewalk that runs next to our building the Hobo Highway, because, well, our office seems to be situated in a sort of Bermuda Triangle of homeless hotspots. Not that the homeless people are getting lost; we are just situated on the inside of three great homeless hangouts: a church that distributes food on a regular basis, the library (nice and warm), and the city park. We shall call it the "Tramp Triune." And within the Tramp Triune, we have become accustomed to pulling into the parking lot and seeking various empty liquor bottles and beer cans, but this is a first for the side-effects side of things. I don't know what you should expect out of the rest of your day when the first thing you witness as you come in to work is Vagabond Vomit, but it seems to promise more of the unexpected. We'll see...

Please Look the Other Way...I'm Being Pitiful

It's that time again, folks! An infertility pity party! *sad noisemaker bleat*

Schlepping around in New York a couple of months ago, I spotted this conglomerate of maternity stores and made the boys stop so that I could take a picture. I can't help but think that this area is ineptly named: it should be called "Arrival Maternity," because the merchandise in that store is for women who are mothers, even if their kid is still in utero. No, Destination Maternity is where I live; I would have no business shopping at Arrival Maternity at this point. I could definitely shop at Destination Maternity, though. An appropriately-stocked Destination Maternity should have stuff like Monica and Rachel gave Phoebe in that depressing episode of Friends: stuff pregnant ladies can't use, like leather pants and tequila. Of course, if that's all the store stocked, I still couldn't go there, because I don't drink, and I'm pretty sure if I ever wore leather pants the Fashion Police would jail me in a heartbeat. So we'd have other things, too, like sushi, deli meat, hot dogs, and unpasteurized cheeses. Oh, and a tattoo parlor in the back. And an x-ray machine that you can use free of charge. It doesn't sound like a classy place, I know, but it's the one place I can go and know that I'm not in jeopardy of seeing a plethora of blooming bellies. (Have you been to ikea lately? It's like a Pregnant Lady Convention!) So, if you need me, you know where to find me. I can't wait to be kicked out of the store.

Facebook: Quod Me Nutrit, Me Destruit

 

You know that lovely saying, "Don't hate the player, hate the game"? Well, that's my current relationship with facebook. I certainly don't hate the players. They are people I really care about and love. But facebook itself started messing with my head. An author that I really admire, Byron Katie, talks about the problems we cause for ourselves when we ignore our own business to purchase headspace in other peoples' lives. And that's what I've been up to, thanks to that mastermind of incognito voyeurism, the stalker page. I found myself doing things and taking pictures for the express purpose of putting them on facebook. True silliness. And worse yet, I began measuring my life against the lives of others. I began looking at other people's children and other people's vacations and thinking that my life didn't stack up. If that's not ingratitude, I don't know what is. I've been so abundantly blessed; I have zero right to compare my life to those of others. And I don't like myself as a voyeur. So while I want to keep my facebook account so that I can keep in touch with people that I wouldn't necessarily be able to stay connected with otherwise, I no longer check my page daily. I don't even check it on a weekly basis. And, really, it feels good.

Happy December 1st! 'Tis the Season...

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
Sorry the whole thing doesn't seem to be showing up. Click on the picture to see the entire picture.

This Week I Will Be Mostly...

...wearing my rain jacket
...reading *Don't Swallow Your Gum! And Other Medical Myths*
...watching old movies on Netflix Instant
...listening to Christmas music on Pandora
...eating leftovers
...shopping for my husband's "big" gift