You know, like the Buried Life!

Brilliant, lovely Lacey wrote this in a communal diary at a coffee shop and it stuck in my head and did a cool little dance.

"don't be anyone's slogan 'cause you are poetry"

I have begun formulating a list of life dreams. It is essentially a bucket list but I'm not exactly sure why I don't like calling it that. I think it is because of that fact that I serve a God who won't take me a second earlier or later than he planned. I don't want to dream with the end in mind. I want to dream. Period.

~I want to work on a farm. When Matt and I were in Maui, Lahaina had quite a few of these rad restaurants that had their own farm up on the volcano. They prepared and served only local food, farmed themselves, and served fish they caught that day. I love the idea of being part of a movement that nurtures the earth and our bodies. The fact that we've come to a place where we can get tomatoes at any time of the year but that they really don't taste like real tomatoes at all, really scares me.

~I want to ride on an elephant or a camel. I stole this one from my mom. She showed me her list when I was about 13 and the thought of riding an elephant or a camel took hold of my mind and captured my imagination. I will most definitely sing "Prince Ali" while I'm doing it. Guaranteed.

~I want to see the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. I want to see Jerusalem period but the Wailing Wall is such a beautiful image to me. It is a very physical surrendering of your prayers and your worries to God. The Jewish faith is so rich and layered and the little boys with their funny Hasidic haircuts! Seriously adorable.

~I want to march in a protest. I want it to be a protest that matters to me obviously but I want to be part of a demonstration of my liberty. There are so many marches that occur for many different reasons that I just need to get off my butt and do. Like the Take Back the Night march to end domestic violence. Or the Stolen Sisters march. Women's Studies always makes me a little uppity but I can tell it is because those issues tug at a very real place within me. It's not just about women, it's about people and how we live in our world. Different races, classes, histories. I live in a country that guarantees me the right to protest and have a voice. Lacey and I protested once but we protested outside City Hall on a Sunday so no one was there. And then we walked to the library.

~I want to assist a midwife. Lacey and Matt would get this because we watched it on The Buried Life! Which is a totally rad show if you're looking for something to watch FOR FREE, ONLINE! (It's the newest excitement). I want to give birth at home but I would also love to be part of that experience with someone else. And I have come a long way from my first experience as a labour coach thank you very much and if we could leave those stories in the realm of 'when I was seventeen...' that would be considerably less embarrassing.

~ I want to grow a garden on a window sill. This is reflective of my urban obsession. Or I'm sure this could also be construed as an obsession to nurture things. Hmmm. I like our little apartment and our big windows and the retro window sills. And I get more and more aggressive when I think about grocery stores the more I watch crazy movies that make me feelguilty.

~ I want to learn how to longboard. The kind on wheels and the kind on the ocean. It looks so fun to stand on a huge surfboard and paddle along. I think the wheel kind may be more attainable at the moment but Vic and Van have waterfronts. And I always see spandexed people out there, way out in the ocean. What are they doing, you ask? Maybe longboarding. Or doing sea research (umm...I guess). Or drowning.

~ I want to do a triathalon. I think it would be such a cool thing to work towards and actually accomplish. I don't need or want to compete. How I do in it isn't important to me (and kind of scares me actually) but I think to do something like that would be such a rush.

~ Guerilla knit or crochet. Make a little hat or something for the numerous commemorative statues that pepper downtown. Queen Victoria is just asking for a sceptre cozy. Ahaha, so fun!

~ I want to sit for hours with my feet in the ocean and write. I want to allow myself to be inspired by my surroundings and by my world. Last year, I sat in Fish Creek park and that where I wrote a lot of the things for my portfolio into UVIC. Sitting alone while the wind combed through and sculpted the long grass was an incredible feeling. It made me feel small but it made me aware of the powerful world that hosts me.

I want to constantly add to this but Lacey and I talked about how you need to have some big things but small things that you can do in the meantime.

"See mother, I make all things new."

Happy Easter! I hope everyone's Easter was preferable :)

My first Easter as a married, creating and loving every minute of the traditions my hubby and I make together. And how cute it our little Easter Bunny!

It was quite the nutty weekend in Victoria. A huge storm blew in on Friday morning. Many of

the ferries were delayed or even cancelled. Sleety, cold rain. Trees blew apart. And the Easter Bunny rose anyway.

Despite the gross weather, we celebrated the Easter I love so much. Mom and Cami called WAY too early but I was nice to hear their message. They called after bawling through the Hallelujah Chorus just before we did. We sat in peace with our respective mugs of coffee while the hot cross buns baked. I missed the 'add-ingredient beep' on my dough setting so they are essentially hot cross swirls with the fruit swirled in like Cinnamon Buns. No cross only because I find Venetian Cream totally gross and I only had so much improvisational genius in me at eight o'clock in the morning.

I've had so many wonderful people lately to have beautiful conversations about Jesus! I like this! I think Van will be such a great move for us because we already have a church community that we're so excited to become a part of.

We went for a spirited (aka blustery) walk downtown to Silk Road for some tea but we really only ended up smelling their bath salts a little too deeply and I wandered around, elbows tucked, at the prospect of knocking precious tea paraphernalia onto the floor. But oh the teapots. They speakah my language! And while we were doing this my man got his ears pierced! He wants to stretch them and put in plugs but until then he's soakin' them in salt water for the next eight weeks.

G'ma reminded us of the story where G'pa showed up at Church with a beard and after someone asked him

about it he said that his wife was growing a beard on his face. I think there's a bit of this in Matt's posts but I think think they look muy sexy. It also temporarily satisfies my desire to have a new piercing when I don't know what I want.

The three of us on Easter Sunday night, took communion together, Matt made a wonderful Thai rice wrapper meal and then we watched the Passion of the Christ. Oh my. Oh my, is all. While there are aspects to the movie that aren't maybe my thing, I think it is a breathtaking portrayal of truly what Christ did for us. Every time one of the Roman guards would spit in Christ' face, I couldn't help but realize that he had them in mind when he died for the sins of man. I was reading a bit about the movie and it is said to be very pro-Catholic, ala Mr. Gibson, which is partly because of the films emphasis on Mary. That, I think, is one of the coolest parts for me. When Christ is carrying his cross to Golgotha, and Mary is trying to get to a place where she get to him and there are the two scenes of her seeing Jesus fall as a boy and then seeing him there, falling under his cross, beaten and broken. I think when we talk about Mary in regards to Christ as a man during his ministry, we tend to forget that Jesus was Mary's son, in the sense that she gave birth to him and raised him. My G'ma told me about a speaker she heard who said that as any parent would understand the 'mother bear' kind of reflex that flares up when one of your children are hurt. Don't you think Mary would have done something to stop his pain if she could have. But Mary understood the plan. She understood what needed to happen. Ever since the Red Tent, I've loved the beauty of finding strength in the strong women of the Bible and to seek out and understand their stories.

*We also watched this video when G'ma was here. Love this movie. And Rob Bell is a very long person.

The birds and bees are our disease contracted collectively...

I addicted to crazy information. Documentaries have to be my favorite movies right now. And the trend seems to prove, not uplifting documentaries. BUT because I know this entry will kind of get off the rails pretty quick, this look holy smokes adorable. And so wonderful!

My fiction teacher was saying today that in the past twenty or so years, fiction and fiction reading has declined. It's not only the onset of 'screens', like televisions and computer screens. Many studies have looked into this and one of the theories is that is has been since 9/11. It comes out of fixation, like a car accident. It's the thought that there are so many horrific, real and far more tangible things happening in the 'real world', why would I need a

book, a piece of fiction to take me to a place of fixation, to capture my attention. Non fiction has risen in popularity as fiction has declined. It's interesting because a lot of the people I know, when things get cruddy, they want to escape. They find the most entrancing kind of fiction, that will temporarily relieve them of their preoccupation with something they can't ignore. And I am part of that trend. Film, books, magazines, blogs. I am interested in the people interacting with this world as I am. It's the feeling that we are not alone in the big, magnanimous cruddiness. We are not alone in witnessing suffering, in desiring change and in seeking fulfillment.

Umm...Blab.

Anyhoo, the most recent residents of my dvd player were Captalism: A Love Story and Addicted to Plastic. I remember seeing Addicted to Plastic on the shelf in Blockbuster and feeling depressed already. And so my husband, feeling the same voyeuristic masochism as me, brought it home. After I had spent six straight hours immersed in a renaissance literature essay. It's the end of semester, aka Boob Tube Rescue.

Ever since the huge BPA-scare when I was in high school, I have forever eyed plastic of any recyclable and otherwise distinguishable variety with a severe sense of paranoia. I silently consign myself to a slow death every time I heat anything in plastic and I can't use our microwave anymore. I should also add a disclaimer to this diatribe that I am a self-identified obsessive personality. (Which is kind of like saying I am a self-identified hypochondriac but at least it's self-identified). So needless to say this Addicted to Plastic movie made me feel nervous. I found this movie to be slightly more feel-good than a lot of other movies, like say The World According to Monsanto which was like a dash through court cases and autopsy reports with tin-foil hats. AtP made an effort to identify the truly pervasive problem that plastic poses to the environment, wildlife, food sources and humans but it spent equally as much time on what was being done about it. Did you know that Denmark has a recycling turnout of over 90%? Did you know that Canada and the US combined only recycle on 5% of their recyclable waste? That's really stupid. And did you know that we ship/sell our recyclable waste overseas so that impoverished and overpopulated countries like India can deal with it? Excuuuuse me?

Despite my tirade, this is a great movie and I found it largely unbiased.

UNLIIIIKE...Michael Moore! Capitalism: A Love Story was classic Moore. Matt actually wrote a hilarious post on his blog about the movie. The movie is not really about Capitalism at all. It's about corruption, the corruption of banks, wall street and government. But it is not about Capitalism. Moore is an obvious proponent of Socialism but using the film as proof, he doesn't seem to acknowledge Socialism as equally susceptible to corruption. Matt is on this Milton Friedman kick lately. He has a tab on his computer that links to clip after clip of Friedman debating other people in defense of the American Capitalist system. Now I am not a capitalism-can-do-no-wrong kind of person. I think it's a flawed system just like everything else because it relies on humans, who are inherently flawed. But Friedman makes a good point. Moore goes so far in his movie as to interview bishops and priests as to their opinions of capitalism and for them to denounce it as sinful. It's a wonder most people look at Christians as fanatical kooks.

What I think both of these films bring up, however, is that as residents of this earth, we have this expectation that our systems and our world should be able to function and continue regardless of what we do to them, and they should do it flawless and without consequence. We want to be able to check out so that we can 'fulfill all of our desires for our life'. Which makes me think of that part in Wall-E when we see all of the humans on the ship hundreds of years in the future. I don't want to be like that. Doesn't seem fun at all actually.

On a fun note! *Because blogs like this always need fun notes. Tomorrow is Good Friday!

She's almost here... :)

Babies

I have had two different babies on my heart lately. Their birthdays are almost a week apart and they are very very special to me.

Music has such a strong memory recall for me, everything from singing along to "Christmas Don't Be Late" by Alvin and the Chipmunks for the thirteenth time on the way to Grandma's house to watching my dad bliss out to 'Hey Jude' in high school. Music is how my family communicates with each other.

At work tonight, in my flu-y, allergy clotted stupor, The Scientist by Coldplay came on. I had to stop and marinate in the memory for a bit. It made me think of my sister's wee little, wonderful son who's watching over her. I wrote about my sister's pregnancy for my Creative NonFiction class and immersing myself in the breathtaking memory and heartbreaking story made his third birthday this year just a little more melancholy than usual.

And then today, literally the cutest, funniest toddler I know turned one today! Little Ansel Luke is Matt's godson and every time I see a picture of him or hear his mom tell a story about him, I burst out laughing. He has such personality, and so much of his parents in him. He has the cutest little expression, little curls in his brow when he's skeptical or a huge triangular mouth that smiles with glee as he pushes other kids at daycare out of the way for the water

table.

And then Matt and I went to Van over the weekend and went to a wicked, wonderful church that we love a lot. I am very moved by that church and I cry every time we go there. Obviously, the Lord reaches me there. They did a baby dedication on Sunday and I cried through the baby dedication! I have never cried through a baby dedication before...but I did this time. The pastor talked about how married couples are given a unique and intimate privilege to imitate God in the act of creation. That's what got me. I thought of Beau; I thought of Luke; I thought of the little one in my heart that will have my husband's long eyelashes and hopefully his gorgeous, fierce spirit. I thought about how breathtaking and simultaneously terrifying it will be to create life.

Easter is in two

and a half weeks! I LOVE Easter. Have I said this? More than Christmas. It is beautiful. I love this picture. I saw it on Flickr and I thought it was soo cool. I've only dyed eggs once for Easter and I thought it was no big whoop. But my cousin did drop his eggs in from standing height and after that there wasn't any dye left. Maybe that's why.

On another note: my wonderful, gorgeous best friend gets here in four days!!!! OmmmmmmmG! That is four sleeps.

Food Anxiety

Second day, second try of juice fasting.

I hate being cold. I hate how when you deprive yourself of solid food you get cold. But fasting has taken on a new meaning in my life. I remember when I deprived myself of food for too long in an effort to please myself and the impossible standards I had absorbed into my mind. It is still a standard, as consistently as I reason myself out of it and as irrational as I know it is, I still butt up against it on nearly a daily basis. I remember the shaky hands, the chills that swallowed up my fingers and the tip of my nose, the feelings that I'm experiencing right now.

But in this space, I am turning my gaze upwards, and into myself. It's not just a gaze that grazes the top of me and criticizes. It is one that permeates my heart, a heart that I have long mistreated, finding the weaknesses and sins within it and looking to the only authority of eternal meaning in my life. It is a reflection, an apology for what I have failed to do and what I don't want to do though I know it is good for me. I get the whole you take out food as nourishment in your life and replace it with nourishment from spending time in prayer and in the word. But this is my 'a-ha' moment where I realize that in doing this I am not supposed to forget my hunger or look to prayer to fill that sensation but I am only experiencing now how a bond with prayer and the word can put you so at peace that the peace you are experiencing becomes your purpose, and your focus. What I have said is convoluted but it's amazing how many times I have taken part in this and that this never occurred to me, it never made sense to me. Anyways, I am full of yummy bolthouse juice and I am loving my husband, who is doing it too. We're reading through The Purpose Driven Life because, I mean, I think we're the only Christians on the planet who haven't. But yesterdays entry was 'It's not about you'. He's very adamant that you only read one chapter a day and really think about it. At first, I was thinking, 'I won't end up thinking about it if I have a whole day'. But I actually have. In all of the aspects of our lives that we make it about us. At work, when I'm frustrated and I make the point about me being frustrated. Simple, little silly stuff like that.

"And now we're all here in God's presence, ready to listen to whatever the Master put in your heart to tell us."

Acts 10: 33

Oh yeah and I basically can't enter a grocery store without having an embolism anymore. Matt and I watched The Cove, which is about Dolphin treatment within the whaling industry and the treatment and 'harvest' of Dolphins for shows like SeaWorld and aquariums. It's...so gross. We watched Food Inc a couple of weeks ago and ever since I can't eat anything with corn in it...without thinking Monsanto is coming to get me! Skippy peanut butter is forever ruined for me. We also have this other rental called, Flow: For the Love of Water, which is about the global water crisis. I'm afraid to watch it because...I need water to live. It's making think about my food and grocery choices far more carefully but it's also making me paranoid about food. I have 'tin foil hat' tendencies within me anyway so to compound that with factual information (though undoubtedly biased of course) send me into a tail spin. We all need to be educated about stuff like that: where our food comes from, how it was grown, etc. And what it'll do to our bodies. Did you know your body can't fully digest corn because the chemical makeup of the corn is too close to that of a human cell? It's because our generation has 1% more corn in our genetics that our parents. Because it's in peanut butter, batteries, juice. It is fed to what feeds us. Where cows ever meant to eat corn. No! Waaaaaah! Here I go, down the bunny hole....

On a decidedly different note, I had a dream the other night that Matt and I lived in a neighborhood called Show Business. How fun is that?

Little Black Sandals

"Anyone belonging to the Way..."

Acts 9:1

I loooooove this.

Matt and I have this wonderful time at night, after everything has wound down, and we're laying in bed before we go to sleep. We'll read, or putz on our computers but once we are there, we stay there. This is my time in the Word too and there is something about the simultaneous-ness of these moments, my time with my love and my time hearing the words of my God, that always inspires me and leaves me sleeping happy.

In faith, we are not just adherents, we don't merely end up in the same place at the same time. We belong, we are kept, we are loved. And we are loved by The Way. "I am the way, the truth, and the light." This, I think, is part of why I'm a little exhausted by the North American model of church. It is for adherents, it is something you 'stick to', like a diet. Weird. To belong to the Way, is to belong a way of life, to a journey*. I want people to know that they matter to me, that I am invested in how they are really doing. And I want the same. And church is sooooo awkward!!

*I am a bit of a product of my upbringing when I use this word. The church I grew up in, for all it's faults, emphasized the importance of the journey. Anyhoo.

So as blogs slowly take over my life, I find that the ones I love totally nourish things in me that have been on my mind or bugging me. Matt and I have are seven months into our first year here and though we have had so much time to be just the two of us and to nurture our marriage which has been glorious, we are both finding it quite lonely. It's been hard to connect with quality people out here. It's a very transient city and so, consequently, it's hard to put down roots. But it has prompted really cool conversations between Matt and I about what we want for our life and marriage, and making decisions that benefit our marriage. I want, and need, to be pushed. I desire so much people, women, around me to talk and journey with. (Ther's that word again!) BohoGirl is a soulful and truly lovely woman and she writes such a cool thing on her blog here about once when her entire family was sick:

"You know...I am not sure I could have handled all of this at once if it wasn't for the few days I had spent with some extraordinary women. It was just such a huge confirmation to me how important it is for women to gather, to circle around one another. When all is aligned, it feels so effortless and grounding. So, I thank them for preparing me for the week ahead"

I am almost beside myself because my wonderful best friend is coming to visit me!! This year has been really good for illustrating to me my need for community. I have seriously hermit-ish tendencies and this year was definitely the year for the Lord prodding that out of me. And what's funny today is at the U, the last day of elections for the students' society was today. One of the platforms for the one party was 'creating community'. It is something we all rely on so heavily without realizing it but it is so easy to realize once it's gone.

Contains strawberry flavored pieces...

Wowowowowow, I serve a brilliant Jesus.

My mom and I have been emailing back and forth and she shared with me such a brilliant passage from her devotions. These words are a balm to a people pleaser's heart who is

misguided and held hostage in their own heart by the opinions of other people (and usually not the people the Lord has placed in your life to build you up).

"Self-disgust is lifeless and loveless." So often I get swallowed up by the dread and dissatisfaction in myself that I begin to dissect and nitpick at myself. I bring it all to God, so teary eyed and broken, feeling useless and forgettable. And then I realize when I talk to him

about it, I am his creation, he created me in his image, he carved me by hand. My sister often makes things for me, pottery, jewelry, clothing, and each time she does I marvel at not only her talent but that she made if for me. Would I ever hold it up in front of her and say, 'Yeah I guess it's nice. I'll take it. But I don't like the color or how this side doesn't match the other.' Never!

And not just out of politeness. I always prize it and put it out on display. God gave me a body that works flawlessly. A body that runs for miles everyday, that creates stories and dreams, that can breathe and get up out of bed all on it's own. He has blessed me with a vibrant life.

In giving up negative thoughts for Lent, I want to try and break the stronghold that it has over my life. I have failed many times already but so often, when I do catch myself, it sets a certain calm to choose to believe the best, or choose to see the best in myself. Instead of saying, 'I could have done better on this' or 'why didn't I do better', to say 'I did this really well' or

'I am absolutely capable of that', it begins to unravel something in me. It breaks down a cage around me, so I can see out a bit more. I have taken my own voice away, a voice that the Lord

so desperately wants to hear and hear confidence.

And it has my favorite verse in it! 'Keep your heart with all diligence..." Keep it, and not to just hide it away.

"May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you." Keep is to treasure and to nurture. Above all else, guard you heart for from it flow the springs of life." Amen!

I am sitting staring at a cereal box that 'contains strawberries and strawberry flavored pieces'. I'm not sure how I feel about that. 'Contains' makes me think of a warning label and the 'flavored pieces' isn't much

of a selling point for me. But it's still in my cupboard so it worked well enough.

And I totally want to make this! It's an ottoman, and who doesn't love an ottoman, especially when it's crocheted. Really popular in Norway, go figure! There's a crocheted version too but I think the knitted one would be easiest. The image comes from Apartment Therapy which I am absolutely addicted to. I pretty much add it into conversations even when it's not appropriate. "'Your total comes to $4.14. Have you ever checked out Apartment Therapy?". Our Alice chair in our living room needs a crazy footstool to go with it. Can't you just see it?!