"We tend, however, to divide our past into good things to remember with gratitude and painful things to accept or forget. This way of thinking, which at first glance seems quite natural, prevents us from allowing our whole past to be the source from which we live our future. It locks us into a self involved focus on our gain or comfort. It becomes a way to categorize, and in a way, control. Such an outlook becomes another attempt to avoid facing our suffering. Once we accept this division, we develop a mentality on which we hope to collect more good memories than bad memories, more things to be glad about than things to be resentful about, more things to celebrate than to complain about.

Gratitude in its deepest sense means to love life as a gift to be received thankfully. And true gratitude embraces all of life: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not-so-holy. We do this because we become aware of God's life, God's presence in the middle of all that happens." -Henri Nouwen

I especially love the part about being locked into a self involved focus on our gain or comfort. I want so badly to have a family and am constantly told by others that I will have one, but I want to be satisfied in the Lord and no longer remain "unsatisfied" just because I don't have these fleeting desires fulfilled. The Lord being sufficient for me is my prayer right now. I don't want to live my life as someone who is seeking to find pleasure or happiness, I want to be someone who finds pleasure in seeking the Lord at all times of my life. 

béisbol

I absolutely love baseball, I have always loved it. My passion for the Red Sox started however, in 2004. Someone very dear introduced us and that year the Sox won their first World Series in 86 years and it's been true love ever since! So, for the past five years I have enjoyed learning the history, following them, and watching as many games as possible. I've even had the luck to see them play at home twice, once against the Yankees! However, this season is one of sadness for me. I have no one to yell at the television with or buy me nachos during the game because I refuse to get out of my seat lest I miss anything (I keep score you see, and there's no replay in real life). So this is a call for anyone who loves the game or better yet, the Sox to "take me out to the ball game!"

Ponderment (yeah, I just made that up)

Am I pathetic or does the world not seem as glorious when there is no one to share it with? I know I can share it with friends and family, but it's so much better when shared with someone whose heartstrings are tangled among mine. The sky was beautiful today, in case you were wondering world.

ps- I'm sorry this blog has become a place to dump all my sad sappy heartache on. You can stop reading at any point but there is no stopping this pain. So I'm going to spew out my feelings, hopefully with some small doses of wit and humor. 

Nana Collie and the Infinite Sadness.

Okay, so I've had my fair share of breakups. Each time this happens there turns out to be one album that makes me sing along and puts a smile on my face. 

Ex, ex, ex boyfriend was Adore by the Smashing Pumpkins. 

Ex, ex boyfriend was Give Up by The Postal Service 

Ex boyfriend is White Blood Cells by The White Stripes. 

The guitar is a perfect match for my melancholy soul. So good. I can air strum or drum every note, seriously.

Hiding Away

A good friend gave my a CD of Tenth Avenue North. It's a copy so I have no idea what the album is called or what the songs are titled but it has been in my CD player NON-STOP since my breakup. In one song the last verse is this,

"You spread Your hands
And made a refuge for the weak and blessed
The weary, bruised, and broken
Took our sin. Inside Your wounds we hide away
Inside Your wounds we hide"

The illustration of hiding away inside the wounds of Jesus comforts me tremendously. Because of Jesus' suffering, I find comfort. Christianity is such a mysterious thing and so different than the way our culture works. The Kingdom of God is beautiful and I'm blessed to catch these glimpses here on earth.

New April's Eve Resolution

The following are things I would like to start doing. There may be additions to the list, suggestions are welcome.

1. Learn to sail

2. Purchase (or better, receive) a bike

3. Bike ride more often

4. Start climbing outdoors

5. Volunteer more

6. Voy a hablar más español

Seems do-able.

Added resolutions de Katie:

7.   Go to Panama

8.   Buy more clothes...impulsive shopping....it helps, believe it or not:)
9.   Stay at Katie's this weekend
10. Hang out with Katie's friends ;) wink wink
11. Transition to drinking Diet Coke
12. Go beach camping
13. Go to the lake with us.....to your parents house
14. Go rollerblading with Katie
15. Color/paint more
16. Go hiking
17. Go to CCV with Katie EVERY SUNDAY NIGHT!

Responses to suggestions de Katie:

7.  Yes please.

8.  Only if you pick them out (I don't have a fashionable eye)

9.  DONE 

10. Literally "LOL" wink wink ;)

11. NEVER

12. Hoy voy a planear

13. Fo' sho'

14. I only have Britney Spears roller skates, does that count? (p.s.-I know having these go against all my feminist ideals, you don't need to bring up the hypocrisy, I already know)

15. I'm down

16. Ummm.....let me get back to you

17. I'm there dude

Blue.

I feel blue. It's hard to try to gain new friends and new experiences without holding onto some form of the memories I already have of.....well, almost everything: The smell of flowers, the look of the clouds, the smell of the ocean or the meow of a cat. I know new memories will take the place of the old, it's happened all before. But in my weakest moments I question whether or not I want to replace those memories. This brings me to the question: What does it mean to guard my heart? In sharing life with someone what are the boundaries? We know the physical boundaries but what about emotional intimacy boundaries? How can I share my life with someone and make a commitment without bearing my soul, and in the same respect have them bear theirs? How can I let someone know me so intimately while still guarding my heart. This seems impossible, but I guess I'm equivocating guarding my "holy" heart with guarding my "human love" heart. 

Wow, I am now reminded of a quote by Henri Nouwen, "The more people you love, the more pain you may experience. For the great mystery of love is that while it can be received, it can also be rejected. Every time you love you enter into the risk of love." It reminds me of God's love for me, while He chooses to love me, I reject him over and over again. His ultimate action of dying on the cross was a suffering of love. I guess love is willing to suffer the pains for one another. I pray I don't fear the suffering so much that I refuse to love.

"You can either but clothes or buy pictures," she said. "It's that simple. No one who is not very rich can do both. Pay no attention to your clothes and no attention at all to the mode, and buy your clothes for comfort and durability, and you will have the clothes money to buy pictures." -Miss Stein in A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

This snipit was one of many that caught my eye today while waiting to get my blood drawn(which was awesome by the way). You can easily insert food for pictures in my case, I like art but I LOVE food. The way Hemingway describes oysters makes me want to slurp one down myself. Anyone who knows me knows that would make me puke.

Enough with all the Obama propaganda, 59 days till the season starts!

Unkown Talents

I would like to introduce you to my new found talent: Carving pumpkins.

I'm not the only one either, I come from a family of experts...

5.10 SIRENS

These are my new climbing shoes! Unfortunately I have what us laymen call "tennis elbow" and have been advised not to use (meaning climb) until...it feels better. WTHeck!

Alas, my poor zapatos, you are confined to solid ground.


ps- I just finished my first 5.10 saturday. whoohoo. yay me.

Brown Widow #2

<---This is our very own Widow!

Okay, so my brother came home that day and took out tweezers, extracted the widow from inside the chair, and put it into a vile. We are now certain this is a brown widow. The egg sacs are the same, white-ish and spikey. I thought we were going to do this big thing about how there are brown widows here and such but someone beat us to it. Apparently it was in the paper last week. So watch out there are brown widows on the loose, we are not the only ones!

Brown Widow #1

Yesterday I was called out to my backyard by Derek. He said, "look there's a black widow under this chair". As we proceed to kill it we find 9 egg sacs. However during Derek's momentary absence, the widow hid. We had no choice but to sink the giant deck chair inside my pool, that way we would not only kill the hiding widow but her precious egg sacs too...hahhaha....

We then sink a pair of shorts that we suspect the mother widow could be hiding in. I then go to swish it around and see this enormous brown spider with the shape of a black widow. Huh? Weird. So we kill it without fully seeing it's belly, but we know black widows are black, so no worries.

That's what I think, I pull out the chair this morning and see all the egg sacs in tact but assume they are all but lively little spiders, I then check closely in the crevices of the chair and see another brown spider! What the deuce! This time is different though, I have the option of looking at this hopefully drowned and dead brown spider from 2 angles. I walk around the chair bend down and gaze at this gross spider only to see.......

an hourglass!

Are you kidding me???? So I run inside and call my brother telling him for sure it's a white widow. He tells me to get a vile from his desk and preserve it. Are you kidding me again???? NO WAY!!! I mean it might be dead from the 24 hour submerging, but still, one cannot be so sure! So I do only what I can, I go on the internet. I wikipedia "white widow spider" but realize that these spiders do not bear the mark of the hourglass. I then use the links to various other widow spiders and come upon the "Brown Widow Spider".

expert from wikipedia:
"Like all Latrodectus species, L. geometricus has a bite which is venomous to humans; unfortunately, according to Dr. G.B. Edwards, a University of Florida arachnologist, the brown widow venom is twice as potent as the black widow venom, but is usually confined to the bite area and surrounding tissue, as opposed to the Black Widow."

I have not an expert's opinion yet but I saw what I saw! Wikipedia says it's usually only in Florida, Mississippi and Texas. Hopefully my brother will capture, preserve and get it analyzed at the lab. Until then we can only wait.

Monica Gellar

I absolutely hate my job. I work for starbucks and I am NOT a team player. No one there knows how to do anything, let alone anything right. So why should I be a team player? This you say, is called Type A.

Well if type A is wrong, I don't want to be right!

Where are all the good people in the world? I know, I know, it's just starbucks, but seriously is there any work ethic left in the world? Get off your lazy butts and do something, and do it right. (And when I say right, I mean: my way.)

All this to say, I really just need to move to Santorini and learn to speak greek.

Blogging isn't just for intellectuals anymore!

Guess what? I'm going to post arbitrary facts, fun stories and whatnots. Thanks for the inspiration Wendy!!!

So far the only blog I've written on this was back in 2005 just before my trip to Costa Rica, Yeah-I went to Costa Rica, twice.



playa conchal