Through the Looking Glass

Running: From Allergy to Obsession

2011-10-03T21:00:00.001-07:00

It's no secret that Vancouver is a fit city. It's a fabulous city for the outdoors and sports. There are beautiful trails, not to mention our gorgeous long stretch of seawall that runs along beaches, trees, and shiny cityscape that is perfect for running. It's a city full of races, runs, and walkathons year round. I remember on my way to church on the skytrain some mornings, seeing people with race T-shirts boasting "Vancouver Marathon". I used to think these runner-people were crazy -- I can barely manage to roll out of bed and onto the skytrain at 9am on a Sunday morning, and they have already finished running 42km/26 miles by that time. Who are these crazy people?!

Well somehow, the impossible has happened. I've become one of them. I somehow still am not comfortable calling myself a runner... I'd rather describe myself as "a person who runs." I'm not sure what's behind my reluctance to just own it, but it really is weird to see that I've come such a long way with this thing called running.

I used to say, "I'm allergic to running." And people would laugh. And I'd say, "No, really, running makes me itchy." And really, it did! When I told my sister this one day many years ago, she enlightened me about this thing called "runner's chafe" and that if you choose the right clothes, it would reduce the chance of itchiness. Turns out she was right.

So I couldn't use that excuse anymore, not using a physical allergic reaction anymore as a copout, at least. But I was still mentally allergic to running. Once a year in high school phys ed class, we would do the dreaded Cooper Run -- 12 minutes of running laps in the gym. We were graded on how many laps we could complete. The more laps you ran, the higher the grade. I don't have a problem with using such an exercise to evaluate fitness, but there never seemed to be any warning, preparation or training for the task. You would just show up one day, and it would be Cooper Run day. As an asthmatic, unathletic person growing up, this was quite the dreaded task.

It was no surprise then, that when I started attempting to add the treadmill to my gym cardio mix last year, that 12 minutes was the mental barrier. But amazingly, using a run-walk rhythm approach, I gradually increased my endurance to run beyond a dozen minutes, one minute at a time. I was happily treading along on my contained cardio machine routines, when one day, my sister upped the anti.

She was renewing her running energies, she asked if I wanted to go along with her to run a 10K race, post Thanksgiving. I blame all my subsequent running obsessions on her! My all-or-nothing personality and way about tackling new interests kicked in high gear. After running that one simple race with her, we egged each other on in our running efforts. I'm not quite sure how it escalated to this point -- but this weekend, we are heading to Victoria. My sister will run her first half-marathon (go Flo!) and I will ahem, attempt my first full marathon. I'm still daily debating with myself if I've officially lost it... what was I thinking when I signed up?!

When I started diving into the whole arena of "race training" and preparation, I anticipated there would be many analogies that would parallel life and the many lessons along the journey.

You learn to pace yourself for the long haul, so you can finish the race without burning out too early on.
You learn to know your style, not getting caught up in trying to be like someone else. I'm such a bad sprinter and am a better long distance runner, so I don't need to freak out with my sluggish-start before I can really hit my groove past 10km/6miles. True to my form, it takes me forever to start at anything I begin!
You learn to listen to your body, to hydrate, rest and recover adequately.
You learn the value of having a training goal and plan, how structure and direction provide a good foundation.
You learn how a seemingly impossible goal is achievable, one step at a time, slowly pushing your comfort zone bit by bit, mile by mile.
You learn the value of accountability and having people to run with. There were some days my sister had to coax my butt out the door.
You learn the value of encouragement, and cheerleaders along the way, especially in the really hard parts where you feel you have nothing left.
You learn that having people to celebrate with at the finish line is much more satisfying than just accomplishing it by your lonesome. My sister and roommate running on the same day I did my first half-marathon made the euphoria grander, and the pain of laughing more joyful.
You learn to enjoy the journey, to look around and see the bigger picture of where you are. I've actually stopped listening to music as I find there's enough around me to take in, observe and absorb, and pray for people and the city as I pass on by.

Speaking of "the bigger picture" while I began running just to challenge myself, I realize that I'd be foolish to miss out on the opportunity that it can be to draw others into my journey for a greater cause. I was inspired by the beautiful and passionate women who recently completed the She-Loves Half Marathon to raise money for our sisters in Uganda who are suffering atrocious injustices.

And so, I'd like to ask you to please give to SA (Servants Anonymous) Foundation -- a local Vancouver organization that works to fight human trafficking of women and children around the world. They are one of few organizations internationally that offers a comprehensive and uniquely designed long-term recovery program for young women between the ages of 16-29, who have been or are at risk of becoming sexually exploited and/or trafficked, including those who are pregnant and/or have children. Read more about Servants Anonymous here. Make a donation here. Please note that while the race is Oct. 9, the giving page will be up until the end of the month, as I was late getting into the fundraising arena.

If you think of it, and if you are the praying type, please pray that I would finish the run in one piece, but more important, pray for the countless struggling and exploited women to be freed to live in the dignity and beauty that God created for them.

Thanks for joining me on this journey...

Summer Miracles

2011-09-15T16:33:00.000-07:00

O summer, where art thou? Growing up in sunny Saskatchewan, I am forever a sun-seeker. While the sunny season in this city is short, it is glorious indeed!

But with autumn in the air, and the official first day of the season past, I find myself in a lot of conversations answering, "How was your summer?" It's a bit like the back-to-school obligatory creative writing exercise within the first week of class.

While I stayed in the city for most of the summer, I kept it necessarily simple. Do the work I needed to get done, leisurely enjoy the sun and the city, and focus on my family.

At the beginning of the season, my 97 year old paternal grandfather fell ill and was admitted to the hospital. Amazingly up until that time, he was living with my grandmother on their own in a sweet co-op housing deal near English Bay. I would imagine that one of the most difficult things about the aging process is losing your independence, after having enjoyed it for most of your life. Basically our mobility and independence starts out zilch when we enter the world as babies, and if God grants us a long life, we eventually deteriorate to lose both those treasured abilities in our old age.

So most of the summer was invested in family support, with my parents and other relatives coming in and out of town, as my grandfather remained in hospital, and then eventually when he left us and passed on to the next life.

As the family busied ourselves with preparations for the memorial service, it turned out that my small contribution of sharing a portion of the eulogy, was a blessing in disguise. In the constant-being-with-family, my contemplative soul was hungry for some down time to slow down and simply remember. The assignment of preparing part of the eulogy was just the right accountability to pause and reflect. The process of looking back allowed me to really see, recognize, and receive the hidden gems and miracles of what had just transpired.

As I began to speak at the memorial service, I surprised myself with tears as I struggled to keep control of my words. I had not cried while doing my maternal grandma's eulogy. And I certainly did not expect to cry on this occasion, as I would not classify my relationship with my grandfather as close, warm or fuzzy. This reality of relationship was partly due to language barriers, but was also related to some difficult lessons of hurt and conflict that had occurred in our family in recent years.

As I looked at him and said my last goodbye on this side of heaven, it hit me why the extra emotion in the farewell. With the family drama and conflict that had gone down and dragged on in the last decade of his life, his (and our own) weaknesses were all the more apparent. A battle of pride, self-protection, and our typical Asian inability to truly resolve conflict left us with a painful several-long year gap of non-communication in key family relationships.

Our need was more desperate for God to intervene with his power to bring reconciliation to our seemingly beyond-repair broken relationships. The relational crack was so large and impossible to our doubtful natural human eyes... so when God showed up, it was so obviously supernatural, so evidently clear that it was his power doing the work of reconciliation. It truly was a miracle to see the softened hearts and openness that brought communication and relationship alive again for the last year of his life.

In essence, because of my grandfather's human frailty and weaknesses, I could see God's grace more clearly in him. He wasn't perfect. Nor is anyone in my family perfect. And least of all, I am not perfect. But the more evident our weaknesses and limitations are, the clearer that God's goodness and grace can shine through our cracks.

I am grateful to have gained this rich life lesson in this past season. God will need to help me walk it out in reality, so that I can increasingly embrace my weaknesses and find and share his grace there. The journey continues...

Goodbye to Grandpa Hwang (Yeh Yeh)

2011-08-20T23:15:00.000-07:00

Spontaneous poem written by my grandmother

For seventy three years,
we loved and watched out for each other

You were an energetic man with wings

We could not fly side by side,
like love birds in the sky

We were like intertwined vines on earth

Today you went ahead of me,
resting in the bossom of the Lord

But I still treasure your foot prints

Forever you will live in my heart

Love, Check

My portion of the eulogy remembering my Yeh Yeh on August 19, 2011

We all know my grandfather had a love of all things air-related -- airplanes, flight and skies. By the time my grandparents arrived in Canada, and by the time we were born, his flight career was a previous chapter of his life. And I want to remember him more than just what he passionately did for his career. I want to share more personally of the person he was.

My grandparents first arrived in Canada in the spring of 1976. That was the year i was born, in May. My parents decided to put them to work right away and left me behind in their care when I was one month old, while they went off to vacation in New York. He was my first care giver.

When I got older, he continued to care for me in practical ways. I am glad that I came to Vancouver to study 16 years ago, because of the opportunity to grow in my relationship with him. He gave me his first TV in Canada so I could watch TV while at school. He gave me a fabulous clothing iron from the 1950s that I still use today -- it's much better quality and built to last than anything you could buy today. He always told me he would care for me, that if I ever needed him or anything, just tell him, because I was his granddaughter.

But more than these practical ways that he cared for me, what I will treasure most is the spirit he exhibited especially in his last days. I thank God for what a clear mind and heart to talk with us whenever we came for visits. He was always in good spirits, joking with us, telling us what we were like as children when he was taking care of us. You could tell he was taking pleasure in us and enjoying us and his family. The nurses repeatedly commented on what a good and pleasant patient he was, joking with them, saying how good their care of him was. Despite his weakness, tiredness and physical struggles and suffering, he didn't complain about being in the hospital. In fact he joked about why he didn't come sooner to the hospital to enjoy such good quality care.

I really feel God gave him a softer, more tender spirit in his last days. He was always thanking and praising God for giving him such a good life with so many blessings, and bringing him this far. On one particular visit where I arrived around his dinner hour, I had the privilege to help him with his meal. In between bites he kept saying how glad he was for a family that loved him and granddaughters that cared for him.

My grandfather left us a good example of leaving this life well. He had made peace with God. When the pastor visited with him, he knew of his place in heaven and God's love for him. Despite the conflicts that life brings, despite the conflicts that our human nature and weaknesses can stir up in our relationships, he made peace with all his loved ones. He was grateful for a good long life filled with blessing. He was ready to go.

Last week my sister and I went to the hospital for another visit, which turns out was our last. It was Sunday, the day he passed away. He was sleeping so peacefully, breathing ever so gently. So I didn't want to disturb him. I sat down and watched him while I prayed for him. I thanked God for him and how much Jesus loves him. To see him so tender in his spirit, really showed me how God was working in his heart and life. I could see Jesus in him. I prayed for Jesus to be close and present to him even in his sleep, every step until the time he would call him back home with a big warm welcome. And then I said goodbye and left.

And shortly after, he went back to his heavenly home into God's faithful presence, eternal and unconditional love for him. I know that he is enjoying an even better room than at the hospital -- he's enjoying the room and mansion that Jesus said that he is preparing for each of his children that love him. I know that he is joking with and enjoying God face to face. I am thankful that as we remember and celebrate Grandpa's life, we can have hope that we will see him one day again in God's presence.

"High Flight" Poem by John Gillespie Magee Jr, read by my cousin

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds -- and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air...

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew --
And, while the silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the fate of God.

The Simple Secret of Iced Tea

2011-06-21T23:54:00.001-07:00

So apparently based on the response to a simple Facebook status update about sipping my Caramel Pear Rooibos home made iced tea, everyone wants to know how to make home made iced tea... and it's actually very easy.

Basically all you have to do is:

brew your favourite tea,
add your choice of sweetener to your taste (while the tea is still hot so that it dissolves easily),
then cool and refrigerate until it's ready to drink!

Et voila! it really is that simple!

The secret to the fancy schmancy exotic flavours (caramel pear) wasn't anything I personally home brewed or added to my tea... I just bought the already fancy flavoured tea, which you can get at any tea shop (or just use whatever tea bags you have at home).

The caramel pear rooibos is from David's Tea, which Anita introduced me to in Ottawa. Luckily they have a location in Vancouver and they sell online as well. I highly recommend it! I walked out of there with three kinds of tea including Read My Lips (chocolate mint black tea), and one of their divine summer Luscious Watermelon fruit teas. All of them iced really well. Just going in to smell all the different teas is a treat in itself!

They have a collection of iced tea recipes, including alcoholic ones, like Spiked Strawberry or La La Long Island Iced Tea (oh that brings me back to the days of my frosh year)! The Watermelon Pops look delish too!

When I first read about how to make iced tea (can't remember where, but it was in a couple of places, from a display in a tea shop to a website), the directions were to doubly steep the tea (twice the amount of tea leaves), then add ice to cool it down.

Umm, is it just me, or does that seem like a waste of good extra tea leaves, only to be watered down? I suppose I'd try the iced method if I was in a pinch, but so far it's been easy enough to brew a jar and refrigerate it so it's ready to enjoy whenever I am thirsty or a guest shows up for an impromptu visit! Or, it's excellent in a blended fruit drink too!

Bonus Tea Tip: Rooibos tea is apparently rich in minerals, making it an excellent sports drink, helping to replenish your body after a workout. It sure tastes better than Gatorade in my books!

Summer Sippin' in the Sunshine

2011-06-21T22:19:00.002-07:00

The perfectionist in me is also a huge procrastinator, so I've been waiting for "enough time" to post my last few rounds of recipes...Apparently I just need some accountability, which usually at work takes the form of deadlines. But for fun stuff, apparently all I need is to post it on my Facebook and get people asking for it!

So here goes... all are themed for some summer lovin'. And, as per usual the Justine-key-criteria, all are super duper easy, ready to be served in a pinch with spontaneous visitors, provided you have the ingredients on hand! :)

Hot Chocolate from Thomas Haas: Okay so this one is not really a summer drink, and it's not homemade so I don't have the recipe, but it does go with the theme of drinks. I can't help but plug how amaaazing the hot chocolate was. And what an inspiring place to have a creative work meeting... Leah and I felt like we had a little vacation during the time we were there.

LYCHEE-PEACH SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:

1 can of peaches
1 can of lychees

Directions: Blend both cans of fruit including all the juices. Pour and enjoy.

Notes: Lychees are extremely versatile and go well with other fruits. Lychee blueberry is another one of my favourite combos, which makes an excellent pie.

There are multiple routes to achieve the frosty refreshing cold effect:

Add some ice before blending. (This option dilutes the flavour a bit with the added water. The below two options preserve the concentration of the fruit.)
Refrigerate the cans of fruit before blending.
Freeze the fruit (or purchase already frozen fruit) without the juices. Then blend the frozen fruit pieces with the liquid unfrozen juices.

BLUEBERRY TEA SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:

1 cup of frozen blueberries
1 cup of iced tea
sweetener, to taste

Directions: Blend and enjoy.

Notes: You can experiment with different kinds of frozen fruit. And the possibilities are endless for the kinds of tea you could use... rooibos, green tea, black tea, fruit tea, oh my! Home made iced tea is the best in my opinion though.

CREAMY TOFFEE SHAKE

Ingredients:

3 tbsp of Caffe d'Amore Vanilla Smoothie Mix
1 cup of ice
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 cup of Skor bits

Directions: Blend and enjoy.

Notes:

Try this also with Oreo cookies... yum-a-lum! Or I suppose any crunchy candy like Smarties or Reese Pieces would be a good bet too!
You can buy the amazing Caffe d'Amore mix at Superstore which works magic in turning any liquid drink into a happenin' shake or smoothie. They also have a coffee frappe version if that's more your fancy.
You can substitute cow's milk with almond or soy milk, though the drink mix powder does have dairy in it.

PURE WATERMELON SLURPEE (sorry no photo!)

Ingredients: 1 watermelon

Directions:

Cut the watermelon into cubes about the size of an ice cube tray (2 inch cubes).
Refrigerate half of the cubes.
Put the remaining half of the cubes on a flat sheet separated slightly and place in the freezer, so that the cubes do not freeze in one giant mass which makes for easier blending.
Once the cubes are frozen, place equal parts of frozen and refrigerated cubes and blend until smooth.

Notes:

The trick with this (or any other icy fruit blended drink) is not to add too much (if any) additional liquid/water, as it can dilute the flavour of the already subtle watermelon. The melon has enough liquid in it already, so you only need to take advantage of its natural juice by freezing it.

Enjoy!!!

Berry Tasty Bars: Long Run Fuel Marathon Chunks

2011-04-21T00:54:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that I watch a total of only 1.5 hours of television each week, there are indeed perks to having a sister who works for a television station. Media outlets often sponsor large events happening throughout the city. This means they get "free" sponsor tickets to use, which are conveniently up for grabs via contests.

So I wanted to go the Wellness Show, but of course I was too cheap to shell out the money for tickets. Conveniently I asked if she could enter the draw and win me tickets. Luck was with her again, and she won! Turns out the tickets were worth every dime we paid; they would have even worth every cent we would have paid had I not been so cheap and bought the tickets for real. There were tons of samples and we left quite full.

Of all the goodies we tasted, the category most represented by far was the oodles of energy and protein bar samples. Of the many we tried, I can't say any of them were decent enough to warrant me wanting to remember the name nor spend the effort to make a purchase. The textures were not very appealing, to say the least. The flavours were even more disappointing -- enticing flavours like "Cookies and Cream Delight" or "Chocolate Peppermint Stick" were overly-sweetened and artificial. I might as well have a real cookies and cream chocolate bar or chocolate peppermint patty for the same amount of calories.

Normally energy bars are not even a product I would be looking to consume. (There was the one time, prompted by a sale, that I bought a pile of Clif bars, and treated them like granola bars. Not a good idea when granola bars are one of my choice items to consume on a carb-sugar-craving-binge. Anyway, that time doesn't count! ;)

But since I was inspired by my sister to start running, I began a hunt for home made recipes for energy bars that tasted like real food to fuel my longer runs. I found success with two recipes, both quite different.

The first one is a three-grain based bar that I'll just link you to from here, because I pretty much followed the recipe, other than doubling the cocoa and eliminating the coffee since I'm just a boring hot-water drinker. Quite delicious and chewy -- and I like to chew everything, from ice cream to frozen baked goods. When I was still in high school, my mom once asked me to stop running down to the deep freeze because I was eating all her frozen muffins she was saving for later. Oops.

The second one is a fruit-and-nut bar I'll post here, because I altered about half the ingredients. You can see the original recipe here. As usual, I like to look at the broad strokes of a recipe and improvise where I can. I love this recipe because it's so simple, and you can swap out any number of adjustments to suit your taste.

Long Run Fuel Marathon Chunks

Ingredients

1 cup dried fruit (I did mostly blueberries, with a few cherries thrown in)
1 cup raw nuts (I used raw cashews)
1/2 cup nut butter (I used my all time favourite hazelnut butter, adjust for desired consistency)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 tbsp of liquid sweetener (I used agave, but you can use honey or maple syrup too, adjust for desired consistency)
1/3 cup raw sunflower or pumpkin seeds

Directions

Combine all (save the sunflower seeds) in a food processor until well mixed.
Turn the mixture into a bowl and fold in the sunflower seeds.
Remove and press into an 8X8 foil covered pan.
Refrigerate overnight.
Remove and cut into small chunks.

Notes and Cautions:

According to the original blogger, this can be tough work for your food processor if you use larger fruit like pitted prunes or apricots (I would imagine pulsing would help ease the work, but learn from my errors which resulted in a morgue of small appliances -- if it starts to overheat or smell burnt, just stop or risk killing it!). Smaller fruit like berries worked like a breeze.

I used my silicone baking mat to press the mixture flat after wrestling with a sticky and uneven spoon. You could replicate the same effect by pressing down on parchment paper. I've also seen some other bloggers make similar recipes by shaping the mixture into balls.

I'm a huge fan of berries and really quite hate prunes or apricots, so the combo I used tasted a lot like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a bar form. Super tasty! So tasty I have to restrain myself not to eat too many of these if I'm not immediately planning on going for a run. I did a rough calculation and with the ingredients I used -- these puppies pack about 175 calories per 1.5 inch square. Yikes! Great for a run, but not so good for a couch potato movie snack!

I took these for a test 12 mile run, wearing them in my pack, as a dry run for my race next week. They got a bit squooshy half way through. Next time I think I'll try freezing the chunks and see if that helps.

So there you have it. If you try it out, let me know what twists you added, and tell me how they turned out!

Blueberry Lychee Pie Goodness!

2011-02-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

I think I'm a better cook than I am a baker. That's because I'm not precise enough to be a good baker. I don't know how many countless conversations I've had with people coming to the same conclusion -- cooking is more like art, baking is more of a science.

Reminds me of how I was always better at the arts. Sciences I could do well enough -- but it took too much sweat and tears. I remember the day I was cleaning up all my old childhood things in my room after I graduated from university. I happened upon my first year of university schedule at U of Regina, where I was registered to go before I discovered I would instead be going to Carelton U in Ottawa. My would-have-been-UofR schedule consisted of English, Philosophy, History, Calculus, Physics. I was appalled as I looked over this blast-from-my-potential-past.

What was I thinking? Oh right, I didn't know what I wanted to study, so I was leaving all my options open. I am so thankful God rescued me and redirected my path. In the end I never took a single English class (or any of the other four subjects listed above) in my entire university career. Quite amazing really, considering I did a degree in Communications.

But I digress. After all the comments I received on Facebook about my blueberry-lychee pie experiment being a success, I will share with you the process here.

The inspiration for this pie was two fold:

Inspiration #1: I love lychees.

Bonus recipe alert: My main go-to way to enjoy them is to blend them in a simple summer smoothie: one can of peaches (including juices) + one can of lychees (including juices) blended together. One time I requested a lychee-peach blend at the best bubble tea place in Vancouver. I laughed when the woman obliged, but gave me a stern disclaimer and warning because I was ordering off the proven menu: "We don't guarantee it will taste good!".

The accidental discovery of the fabulous marriage of lychees and blueberries: During one spontaneous visit, I offered my guest a smoothie. I only had a can of lychees but no peaches. But I had frozen blueberries. So I threw those in the blender together, unsure of how it would turn out tasting. Wow! Delish!

I'm discovering that lychees are quite fragrant, but subtle enough to complement a lot of other fruits. Or even savoury foods. The Thai House by my work puts lychees in their ostrich curry. Yumm!

Inspiration #2: Beyond Savoury, to Sweet Dumplings

A few years ago my neighbour and friend had a Chinese dumpling wrapping (and gorging) party for her birthday. We wrapped Chinese savoury dumplings, pan fried and ate to our hearts' content.

For dessert, following the lead and suggestion of one of the non-Asian guests, we filled the leftover dumpling wraps with a sweet filling of fruit. Apparently it's some kind of European dessert (can't remember the name, or the country). We pan fried them and they were delish!

This year for Chinese New Year, we received a fairly last minute invitation to another neighbour's dumpling wrapping party. Feeling like I needed to come with something in hand, but being too lazy to go grocery shopping, I looked for what I had in my cupboards. Lychees and blueberries! We tried wrapping a few of these as dumpling fillings. Because we decided to steam them, it didn't quite work out. The texture of the wraps just didn't match the sweet interior. If you're going to do sweet dumplings (with Chinese style wrappers) you must panfry them if they're to taste right...

...so with the leftover blueberry lychee filling, and armed with the lesson that there must be fried or greasy goodness, I opted to try it as a pie filling.

Without further rambling delay...

Guidelines for Blueberry Lychee pie (use them as a starting point, not a precise recipe. While I know baking is more of a science, I just can't part from my more fluid artsy ways ;)

Pie crust recipe is found here (thanks to Dilys for pointing me there!)

Filling Ingredients (with possible substitutions)

2 cans of lychees, drained and loosely cut into smaller pieces, whatever your desired chunkiness
2 cups of blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1/3 cup of liquid (any kind of juice, left from the lychee can would be good too; with the remaining juices from the can, it makes a fabulous refreshing cocktail with a punch of lychee liquer!)
2 tablespoons of tapioca starch (or corn starch, anything that will thicken)

You could add sugar (or alternative sweeter, like Stevia or agave), to taste. I didn't add any additional sweetener, because the canned lychees have enough extra sugar. You could use fresh lychee if you're trying to go sugar free.

If you're trying to go gluten free, you could do a nice crumble topping, with quinoa or millet flour instead of a wheat pie crust.

The substitutions are endless! Try other fruits like peaches to go with the lychees. For the fruit, as long as you have about 4 cups of fruit you could change up the ratios and put more lychees if you want to experiment with stronger lychee flavour.

The Method:

Heat filling ingredients in a pot over medium heat until thickened.
Fill pie crust with filling. Cover the pie with a top crust, being careful to seal the edges. Poke the crust top with a few holes.
Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown. Cool to let set. Then Enjoy!

See how un-precise I am? I can't even give you a precise time to bake, based on your pie format. This recipe made me 10-12 little pie crusts, the size of individual muffins which I baked for 20 minutes in my convection oven (I pressed the pie dough into silicon muffin liners). But the pie crust recipe is enough for a 9inch pie I think. I think it would take longer to bake one large pie. That's why I stick with the "golden brown" rule.

Have fun and let me know how it goes!

Let There Be Light (and Life) Again

2011-02-06T22:12:00.000-08:00

It's been quite the ride finding my way again -- some things are so long gone and behind me, and other things are coming back to me that I wasn't sure would ever come back.

There is one thing that came back that I am so grateful for -- the return of my creativity. Seriously, in many of my moments of deadness and lack of creative energy in the last couple of years of wasteland, I wondered if I would ever see it again; I wondered if it wasn't to be a part of my new landscape.

As often how Jesus speaks and whispers to me, it came to me in the normal course of life. (Often I think he'll only speak to me in lightning bolt revelations when I pull away for a weekend retreat, which he still can do, but so often I see how God appears to people in the course of daily life with major words and directions.) All in one week, three design projects came to me. My friend asked me to design a Christmas flyer for her. I designed a wedding programme for a dear friend. And the kicker -- a sweet little old lady from Orilla, Ontario contacted me through my website and asked to order some of my ooooold Christmas card designs from 2005 (I mean, only one person has contacted me from that site ever, and I'm not marketing it at all. It's got to be page 100 or something if you googled it!). I felt the creative part of my soul coming alive again.

If these had happened as isolated opportunities, I probably wouldn't have noticed. Because I really am that dense.

Slowly, but surely since then, I've been getting my creative mojo back. It helps to that my sister comes into my room for impromptu brainstorming sessions on what we can do with our respective creative skills and interests.

In January I went a little overboard actually. In the course of one weekend, I finished several major projects. Some were new projects for the year, but most of them were projects that had been waylayed 3.5 years ago when the burnout truck hit me. I seriously didn't know if I would ever finish some of them.

With the new light, there is new life, and new fruitfulness.

Bear for my friend's baby in Japan: I started this one 3.5 years ago and didn't think it would ever be complete. But thanks to my friend's Facebook "home made pay it forward challenge" I had new motivation. This bear was quite the work in process -- it's the same one that my friends winced at because the incomplete look of his face appeared scary to them. He turned out alright in the end I think!

Home Hankerchiefs: In an effort to reduce my carbon footprint, save money (you would be amazed how much it cost to pay someone else for a simple square piece of cloth), and re-learn/revive my sewing skills, I embarked on the quest to sew my own hankerchiefs. The empty envelope box from my Christmas mailing was the perfect object-of-otherwise-waste to be reclaimed and reused as my "kleenex box". I may decide to make it prettier one day, but for now it's good enough for my at-home-only-use.

Cushion covers: to update and tie my new couches and cotton throws together. Man were these a breeze and treat to sew after the grueling hankerchief project!

Whew! I admit it was a little excessive. I am acutely aware of my old tendencies of productivity-addiction peeking through here. I want to be careful to not get hooked again on getting things done just for the sake of getting them done, even if they are fun and creative.

But for now, it's just good to feel the creative juices running again.

I'm back...

2011-01-30T21:13:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a long time, but I'm back. A lot has changed since my last post 3.5 years ago. It's difficult to articulate it all as I'm still processing the major changes that have happened deep within me -- changes which are still incrementally working their way out into my outer habits and behaviours.

Suffice it to say that in the last 3.5 years, Jesus brought me through a complete system reboot. I'm still going through the process of deciding what needs to be installed on the new system -- some good old programs and systems need to be reinstalled, but there are far more that need to be left behind for good. I'm still figuring out how to run within the new operating system, learning lots as I go on in learning new ways.

The reboot and "comeback" was long overdue. It was three years ago I came to a point of total give-up surrender. I had just completed working on the final project for a counselling course which involved letting Jesus walk you through your own "stuff" (the premise being if you don't know personally to have Jesus rescue you through your own messy wounds and issues, it's difficult to help anyone else through their own baggage).

For that assignment I decided to be brave and work on my addiction to work and productivity. Literally at the start of the project I felt like I had to "work" on it myself and muster up enough effort to overcome my life-long problem of letting my identity be chained to my career or what I was able to produce or do.

Well by the time I was ushered through the process of understanding the entangled roots of my problem, my eyes were necessarily opened to how I was in way over my head. I was overcome by my sense of helplessness and powerlessness to change anything -- especially matters of the heart which all my external actions flow out of.

And so I gave up -- "Jesus! Understanding my problems and knowing what the right thing to do from here on, does not give me the actual power to do anything differently. I need you to do it. Because I just can't."

And that was the simple, yet difficult, point of turning my way of being into a new direction. I was experiencing the counterintuitive, yet powerful truths of AA's first 3 steps:

We admitted we were powerless over (our addictions), that our lives had become unmanageable.
We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.

It's counterintuitive that giving up my own self-effort will help me move forward. I'm realizing more and more how Jesus' ways of governing are so entirely opposite of human wisdom. In my mind it doesn't make sense that dying to myself would be the way to finding new life. But that's exactly how I found my way back to myself -- or rather, to my new self.

Shortly after I waved the white flag of surrender, every area of my life (professional, personal family, relationships, spiritual, emotional) surfaced multiple crises that ran me over like several trucks. I crashed.

My old house was demolished. The foundation was brought to the ground. Only then was there possibility for a new foundation to be laid.

With my work addiction slain, I didn't define myself anymore by what I could do. I actually swung to the other extreme where I was repulsed by questions of, "so, what do you do?" or comments of, "wow, you did such a great job on..."

In the demolishing, I had lost all my passions, drives, and dreams -- both good and bad ones. I felt like the North point of my compass was removed completely. And I had little clue as to what my new North should be or look like.

During the time I was a bit befuddled about who I was anymore, I had the amazing opportunity to go visit my friend and her husband who were doctors in Sudan at the time. The town where they lived had only one paved road. The rest were a muddy mess of jeeps, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, and corrupt soldiers and police fining foreigners willy nilly. My friend's husband was helping the government form a primary health care system. It was eye opening to see how much we take for granted in our civilized existence.

The image was loud and clear to me -- it's messy to create a new society. Really messy. It's messy to learn a new way of life. Really messy.

Since then, I've been journeying along to discover the new ways of being, thinking and doing that I feel called to. Some days I'm taking steps forward. Other days I stumble and fall and lose my way, finding myself trying to live by the old ways in the new land.

But I'm back. I may be walking in a different land, but I am slowly learning to walk differently.

i finally caved in...

2007-05-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

... after all my ranting about Facebook, I finally caved in. That partly explains the lack of action on the blog now (the rest can be explained by my addiction to being busy with work and travels). Sorry. I can't keep up with all the inboxes nowadays (voice mail, email, snail mail, Facebook mail, blog comments...) so I'll be mainly on Facebook. My main hope and purpose of the blog was to stay in touch with people, and it seems Facebook is a better way to do that (even better than email for some Crack-book addicts!)

racing to read

2007-01-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

Ahhh! I'm swimming in all kinds of fun stuff to read right now... I received two shipments from Amazon this week (a total of five new books), my friend who is writing a book e-mailed me some new chapters, and I picked up two books I put on hold (and five magazines) at the library.

I saw a deal where you get a free subscription to a Canadian magazine if you buy two other Canadian subscriptions... For a minute I entertained the idea, but realized quickly I can barely keep up with what I already have from the library and books and old magazines that are already on my shelves.

I'm thankful that I've been given the gift and ability to read, but I can't help but wish I could read faster! It always made reading in school painfully slow. I'm only recently rediscovering reading for pleasure since I've been out of university. Part of it is that I never learned very well how to approach different kinds of reading (newspapers vs. fiction vs. research studies, etc.) Good thing one of my new Amazon books is the classic How to Read a Book. But I am quite glad to be returning to a bout of reading while I'm at the gym and on public transit (which equals about 8-10 hours every week!).

I love how reading opens up new worlds, knowledge, perspectives, understanding, ideas, possibilities and dreams.

a tale of two scarves

2007-01-25T04:20:00.000-08:00

Random short post:

Yay! I found the scarf my mom made me that I thought was lost!
Yay! I finished my scarf on the weekend. Thanks Dilys for showing me how to cast off!

Hmmm... now I have to think of what I'm going to do for our arts and crafts night as I thought I'd be still working on my scarf then... Maybe I'll make my own version of the Daring Dice of Transformation that I've been wanting to create for some time now. Or begin one of my off-the-wall sample wedding invitation ideas.

art as procrastination

2007-01-19T14:13:00.000-08:00

So yesterday I had a full day ahead of me with potential to... get lots of work done! But no... creative procrastination got the better of me.

It all started with a quick consultation in the morning with Rock on his business cards (who has done a fabulous job of designing his own!). After he left, I was just revving up creatively and Dilys was in the living room making greeting cards... so I decided to give myself permission to not work (I'll be making it up shortly with 20 hour work days in March, or so my conscience tells me).

Just as I was beginning to get a taste of not being stuck on the productivity treadmill, I discovered that you can be addicted to productivity even in artistic endeavours (I thought, and was hoping, that art would help slow me down!) But still, I couldn't help but get a buzz from all the tick marks on my creative to-do list that I got done all in a day!

Finished up the letterhead set for Lubna, the final step after logo development and business card designs we started over half a year ago...Patient woman and gracious friend for the unacceptably long wait!
Drafted some initial wedding invitation ideas for Andrew and Maggie.
Knit a few rows on my scarf while talking to my friend on the phone.
Finished a calligraphy piece I've been thinking about for a month on the theme of "finding home" just in time for the Arts in the City, Arts in the Sanctuary call for submissions. There's nothing quite like a deadline to get me moving! Now there's art on demand for ya...

All in all, (putting procrastination and productivity-addiction issues aside), it was just a great spontaneous day of wrapping up, beginning and making progress on random creative projects.

My new book Living Out Loud had a good point in it about how creative people surround themselves with other creative people as one of many ways they foster creativity in their lives. I can see the truth of that, even in yesterday's inspiration being instigated by Rock and Dilys... It should be great to get together with other creative folk next week for our arts and crafts night at our place.

diving in again

2007-01-03T19:10:00.000-08:00

The year has just begun and I'm craving a beach holiday, already.

After coming back to my apartment with the goal of some serious hibernation time to recharge my mental, emotional and spiritual batteries, I procrastinated for two days by cleaning house. Plus I consistently haven't been sleeping well since I've been back... barely enough energy to make it through my greeting duties at church on Sunday and then through the New Year's Eve party. A little drink helped with enough energy to ring in the new year.

Enough procrastination already. January 1 and 2 finally settled down in spirit enough to have some chill time with God to try starting the year off right. The day was pensive and somewhat sobering as I reflected on 2006 and looked ahead to 2007.

Last year was an amazing year by all kinds of standards. According to my productivity standard (which often is out of whack and unreasonably high), a lot was accomplished -- both work wise and personally speaking. My task-driven side should be satisfied, yet all these big giant tick marks on my to-do list left me profoundly dissatisfied. But I am thankful, because I think my productivity-work idol is finally showing its true colours and leaving me dry enough that I actually want to give it up. I've always known in my head that relationships are the important thing in life, but I think this new year I actually believe that in my heart and want to make relationships a bigger priority than my task projects this year.

January 3. The calls and emails start coming. I'm overwhelmed already. I want to hide on a beach somewhere before the avalanche of a year starts. I look at the waves and start to sink. I need to fix my gaze on Jesus. There is promise to do the impossible as I follow in his steps. I hope it's a year of walking on water. Hold on tight -- it's going to be a wild ride.

to home and back again

2006-12-30T18:41:00.000-08:00

Christmas in Saskatchewan was kind of meh. On the positive:

The weather was a steady and mild -10 the whole time.

The cousins are still cute (but they're growing quickly! Nicholas' voice started changing last month and he'll be taller than me next time I see him!).

I successfully learned to cast on and started knitting again after a 22 year hiatus... I finished one scarf and a half, but need to learn how to cast off and finish it!

The boxing day shopping was good.

The trip to see my great grandfather's laundry shop preserved at the Western Museum of development was cool.

What was difficult or weird:

My sister was not able to come and join us.

My expectations for hibernation and cave holiday time flew out the window early on and let's just say, the quiet didn't happen.

While my body rested well and I slept lots, my mind and spirit were restless. I think it's just been such a snowball-down-the-hill paced year that I didn't know how to just be still.

My trip ended on a sour note with some relational conflict that took me some recovery time to move on.

After all that and some cramped full flights all the way back, it was really good to come back to Vancouver and realize that this is home now. For the first time since I left my parents' home 12 years ago, I think I'm finally sinking some roots down and not wanting to run away somewhere new. That realization alone is a gift I am thankful for.

another successful bash

2006-12-16T03:34:00.000-08:00

Well, we did it! We survived our Christmas party. Last year we had 40 people, arriving in two major waves of 20-25 people each. This year, we had 40 people again, but this time, they were in our tiny apartment essentially all at the same time. It was a bit of an experiment, as I wasn't sure how many would show up, where they would all fit, and how loud it would get... This isn't the best photo of the night, but it gives an idea of how every inch of our space was used well! :)

This year I really wanted to be present (as some of my more contemplative friends would say), rather than running around all over the place not having a proper visit with any one person. I was determined this year to really catch up with people and listen well (as well as possible with the loud din of 30 some odd people chattering in the background). So we stripped down all the prep work and bought mostly ready-to-serve foods. But the deeper issue in "being present" is having the right heart and attentive spirit in connecting with people. I'm thankful I received a spirit of prayer throughout the week before.

While I know I am biased, there was a great food (appy potluck style), great people and great conversation. It was the best mix of people I've yet seen, from different circles of life in the city. Mingling is a tough thing -- most naturally people stick with the people they know all night. But I was quite pleased that this was the most mingling I've seen at any of our parties. I love it when different spheres of my life collide and integrate and one of those ways is seeing people I know from different circles mingling.

Earlier this year I went to a marketplace conference at Regent that shed some light on the busyness of modern life. Back in earlier days and centuries, you interfaced with a finite number of people who represented different roles and spheres in your life. For example, your siblings would also be your friends and co-workers in the family business perhaps. Another person in your life might be your butcher, friend and fellow church member.

Now, in contrast, we have a far greater number of spheres of people to juggle. In the Christmas season, for example, at typical family might have multiple Christmas parties to attend -- the husband's work party, the wife's company party, the kids' portions of work parties in addition to their own school parties, the church Christmas celebration, family friends' parties, etc. And all these parties would conceivably involve all different people. Logistically it gets busier and more difficult to manage the time to maintain all these relationships and arenas of life.

Since then I've been thinking a little more about wanting to deliberately integrate my life spheres more. Having these mingling parties is a simple start I hope. After all, I've never been one to not want different kinds of food on my plate touch each other and eat only one section on my plate at a time, so why be so firm about keeping my social lines distinct? Hopefully I can grow in integrity in being consistent in who I am, and not put on different faces for different friends as much.

funky & tasty open house!

2006-11-30T16:46:00.000-08:00

My friend Teresa who is a funky jewelry designer and a delish cook will be hosting an open house selling her jewelry creations and some kitchen wares at the Wired Monk. The Wired Monk is a fabulous place to mingle and hang -- there's a lotta love in that place especially due to shop owners/hosts Timothy and Leah (also friends of ours). If I lived in Kits, I'd be at there all the time... My roommate Dilys and I were wishing for a coffee watering hole near our place to hang comfortably, that's not Starbucks!

Anyway, I was glad for this opportunity to help make this invitation for Teresa...I've been playing a lot with circles lately (my Christmas card is totally circular -- coming soon to a snail mailbox near you!). Circles are more of a challenge to layout, but they are definitely fun!

It's so cool to see creativity in so many different expressions coming together for an event like this, from the jewelry, to the decor and atmostphere of the Wired Monk and promo materials!

If you can make it, come on out for the open house and support a local artist and business! It promises to be a fabulous time (I've never once had an un-fun time at The Wired Monk...) Unfortunately I will be back in Saskatchewan already and will be missing out :(

snowy and sunny blue skies, just like in Sask!

2006-11-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

I love it!

snowy sunday

2006-11-27T11:21:00.000-08:00

Yippeee! I was squealing with delight and quite excited when it began to snow. I know it's hell to drive in, but it's just such a novelty in Vancouver that I miss. I love the blanketed rooftops and the brightness the snow brings. The grey skies just don't seem so grey anymore... This is the perfect snow for playing -- just the right consistency and stickyness for snowmen and snowball fights without being too cold. Good thing I bought boots while I was in Toronto (first pair in years!). I went snap-happy last night and this morning.
This is the earliest snowfall I've experienced in Vancouver! We'll see how long it lasts before the rain reigns again. For now, I'll enjoy the Christmas-like atmosphere in the air... speaking of which, our doors are open for our Christmas party (see next post below). Hope you can make it!

xmas party just around the corner

2006-11-24T04:56:00.000-08:00

December is just around the corner which 'tis the season for parties! Click on the image for details and ask me for specific digits.

a typical justine pose

2006-11-17T06:47:00.000-08:00

Ai-yaaahh... (my favourite Chinese expression of exclamation) I've totally gotten myself even worse off than my usual 3am bedtime this week, averaging about 6am each night (or morning, depending on how you look at it). Crazy I know!

In cleaning up and organizing all my files this week, I came across this classic photo of how you typically would find me -- at the computer, with my trusty canteen of hot water, papers strewn about like a tornado just passed through, burning my midnight lamp... I'd completely forgotten Florence had taken it! :P

I still swear though, that if the world was operating on a night schedule as its norm, I'd be a day person. I like the quietness that comes from the time when the rest of the world is not stirring. I like breaking the norm.

thoughts on giving & taking

2006-11-12T01:17:00.000-08:00

Another successful RJD party. Thanks Becks for the practical idea of giving gifts to kids in needy countries by packing shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. It was a great way to catch up, have fun and share a meaningful purpose in our gathering.

Ta daa! Don't the boxes look so pretty... I don't know why, but in my head I thought we were wrapping all the individual gifts up so there'd be more fun to unwrap. Naive of me to forget that we live in a world where wrapped gifts are a threat while en route to international destinations. So we had fun wrapping the boxes instead (uh, correction, Dilys, Lynn and Jeff diligently wrapped the boxes -- not as easy as you might think! Thanks guys!)

Once the boxes were wrapped, the men left (I figure because the task was done :) and the women began another activity... knitting! Lynn was ambitiously knitting a teddy bear! He was so cute that we all wanted her to knit one for us! :) Apparently knitting is quite popular in populations that are not necessarily the stereotypical granny-type of person. My aunt taught me to knit years ago, but I never learned how to start a project or finish. I just know the stitches. Oh well, I don't think I'll be picking that up again -- I simply don't have the patience to finish any project!

Ironically we bought most of our gifts at the dollar store down the street. Ironic, I think, because I can't help but wonder if some of the very items we bought were made by the very children we are seeking to bless with our gifts. My sister borrowed a book from the library while she was here that I felt compelled to add to my collection of books. It's called Take It Personally: How to Make Conscious Choices to Change the World and is quite eye-opening about ethical and fair trade business, globalization and other related issues.

I realized a little while ago that I worship the mighty dollar in a different kind of way than the typical "earn lots and save/hoard lots." Rather, my expression of worshipping the dollar is more like, "I want the lowest cost possible on services and products -- at any cost," which is an illusion because while I may be getting a cheap price, you can almost bet it's coming at the cost of something or someone:

It could be costing me health safety or the environment damage, if it's a product that's been produced by a company that cuts corners in its production practices (check out this site that shows detailed info on the safety of the personal care products we use -- interestingly the cheapest brands are often the highest hazard, but expensive labels are also producing toxic products).
It could be a product made using cheap child labour in some country far away.
It could be the 3 year old daughter who never sees his father who slaves away at the print shop I use (I've been there at 3am, 8am, 3pm... there is only once of the dozens of times I have been there when Dave, the owner, is not there).

To stop taking from others (and myself!) in these subtle ways is hard and intentional work for this slow-reader -- I can barely keep up with daily news let alone research some of these crucial issues. Seeing the implications of our choices are not as easy as I'd like. Ignorance can be bliss, but I can't ignore that part of God's mandate to human beings is to be good stewards of creation (which includes this beautiful world we live in, but more imporant, people!).

RJD doors are open again!

2006-11-01T16:24:00.000-08:00

Come one, come all... Rebecca, Justine and Dilys are opening the doors to the RJD pad again for the following two events:

Almost time for our second games night on Nov. 7!

And, at Beck's thoughtful and festive suggestion, we're having a shoebox party! We've changed it to Sunday 5pm. Ask me for more details if you're serious about coming...

Toronto highlights

2006-10-26T20:34:00.000-07:00

My time in Toronto flew right by -- but is that any surprise in this city whose default pace is warped speed?! Some quick highlights:

My sister's convocation! (aww, doesn't she look cute?!) The whole family gushed with pride as she walked across the stage and got "hooded." It was fun being my sister's official photographer because her fancy schmancy digital SLR made me feel like such a pro.

Great cuisine ...food is always a highlight of my travels! Ironically I ate and enjoyed every ray of the Asian rainbow: Japanese (yay for Toronto's sushi pizza, but the best Japanese still resides in Vancouver), Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Thai. Managed to convince mom to break out of the mould and had Greek. And got my fix of ice cream (Demettre's, Greg's roasted marshmallow flavour and I got to try those new dippin' dots ice cream -- feels just like sticking your tongue on a frozen metal pole, which is why I'm grimacing as I eat them!).

Family time... It was good to spend time with my family, and even better that we were able to be there and help my sister find an apartment. After checking out a few places (including a shoebox size condo on the waterfront for $1000/month), we found Flo a great little apartment on the main subway line. She thanked me for my help and goodwill, but I must admit I benefit from the apartment too as it'll be my accommodations for future visits :)

Now it's back to life in Vancouver... gotta take a deep breath before I dive in again! Let's hope I don't sink...

from sunny vancouver to rainy toronto

2006-10-19T00:43:00.000-07:00

Left sunny Vancouver yesterday at 5am only to arrive in down-pouring rainy Toronto a few hours later. The flight my sister and I were on was supposed to arrive one minute after the flight my parents were on so we could meet up conveniently at the baggage carousel... only problem was due to the rain they had only one runway open! Then it took us 3 hours to sort through luggage, van rentals and drive to our B&B in downtown Toronto in the middle of rush hour gridlock traffic. Ah, the joys of big city life!

I must say though, I know I haven't had much time to blog recently. Life has been so insanely hectic in Vancouver. I was desperate to get away for a break to round up the family for a little "vacation" in Toronto. You know you're wound up when you think Toronto will be a restful place for vacation compared to the leisurely pace of Vancouver!

But it turns out it's still enough of the change of pace I needed to slow down and open my eyes. I don't usually have fond memories of Toronto itself -- other than all the visits over coffees and meals with friends each round of 3 weeks I spend out here every year. But I found myself quite enjoying pointing out the sights to my mom who was sitting beside me in the van while my sister and dad sat in the front navigating the rush hour traffic, weaving through express ways and one way streets.

Florence and Dad were like two peas in a pod in the front seats and really worked well together in getting us to places. Mom and I were like two peas in another pod, chatting on and off in the back, nodding off here and there because we had both been up all night getting ready for the trip (surprise surprise). If there was ever any doubt about how my sister is a carbon copy of my dad and I am cut of the same cloth as my mother, this trip expels all question about that!

I noticed for the first time in awhile the endearing mom and pop shops and character of the older brick buildings around town, compared to the slick shiny glassy buildings of Vancouver. Of course there are the usual franchise stores, but a lot more family shops and restaurants to balance it out. I was reading in my dad's CAA guide that Honest Ed's is the best bargain shop around still (a few floors of Army and Navy type of goodness)... no big box stores to be seen here!

Then I was reminded and inspired to take mom and dad around all the neat little neighbourhoods around town just to walk around and take in the sights. I hope we get time to do that... the trip has turned from "vacation" to helping my sister settle in and find a place to live (she got her dream job with CBC Toronto as a Media Librarian... a perfect combo of her background in history, journalism and library sciences... way to go Flo!)

Overall I think we are in a healthy place in our relationships with each other, but still am noticing our communication patterns that can be improved. It was quite funny tonight when my sister said in a hushed voice to me, "I didn't realize how loud our family talks!" I couldn't hear her over the fan of my laptop, so I kept saying, "what?! what? I can't hear you!" and she finally said more loudly "I didn't realize how loud our family talks!" Classic irony. :)

Anyway, I should probably go to bed now... I thought I had adjusted to the three hour time change forward due to being wiped from my previous all-nighter which got me in bed at normal Toronto time last night, but here I go the second night in town now staying up until 4am local time... I guess my insane hours are more of a pattern than I wish, no matter which part of the coutnry I may find myself in!

Goodnight... or perhaps shall I say, good morning!

4 things

2006-08-19T07:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, because I'm in full procrastinating mode, here is a post I started months ago but never got around to finishing. It is inspired and requested by Queena's list of 7 things and I was reminded by Jocelyn's list of 4 things to revisit and finish my list. I've combined both of their lists and taken Joc's cue for 4 instead of 7 (it was hard enough coming up with 4 for each!). Here they are, starting with the easiest to answer progressing to the most difficult to answer...

4 places/provinces I've lived:

Saskatchewan (Saskatoon, Regina)
Ontario (Ottawa, Toronto, Guelph)
British Columbia (Vancouver, Burnaby, Coquitlam)
Alberta (Calgary)

4 places I've been on vacation:

New York City
Vietnam
Mexico
Spain/UK

4 places I still want to see:

Africa
France
Nunavut
Israel

4 favourite foods:

Sushi (especially alaska rolls from Sushi Garden!)
ok this is terrible, I can't think of anything else that ranks high enough, so I'm going to specify my favourite sushi rolls for the remaining three on this list (because sashimi goes without saying!)... so #2 is chopped scallop roll
a good barbequed eel roll
pretty standard house roll (crab, avocado, tamago, tuna and salmon)

4 TV shows I like to watch:

CSI (most often Miami, but also the other two)
Grey's Anatomy
Law and Order
The Apprentice

4 movies I could watch over and over:

Finding Nemo
Matrix (the first one)
Lord of the Rings (all of them)
Ocean's Eleven

4 jobs I've had (I'll list my favourite ones):

Parliamentary Page (aka Glorified Gopher and PR program for the Government of Canada... check out if you can spot me in the goofy group photo I found online)
Graphic Designer and Customer Service at a print shop in Calgary (worked with the most amazing family who owned the shop)
Employee Communications at Campbell Soup (the best cafeteria and cheap Godiva chocolates around)
My current job I love, but don't have an accurate title to describe it :) I like it because I get to work with ideas and people for a God that I love

4 things I want to do before I die:

Travel from one end of Canada to the other
Learn to consistently live out a Sabbath-keeping life, or else I will die sooner with my natural pace of life!
More officially develop and launch a line of inventive wedding invitations
Get married (gasp! dare I utter it aloud? anyone who knows me well would recognize this as a miracle that God is working in my heart...)

4 things I cannot do:

Look at a document without considering its visual appearance/design and/or making a subconscious note about its usage of fonts
Sing harmony without the help of a strong voice beside me
Travel to a city and not call everyone I may know there
Eat without doing something else at the same time (read, talk with someone, watch tv...)

4 books that resonate most with my life:

Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace
What Color Is Your Parachute?
Life Inside the Thin Cage
The Bible

4 things I say often:

"in the sense that..."
absolutely!
no worries
can't think of a fourth... you tell me what I say the most! :)

4 things that attract me to a guy:

Self-awareness that fuels their own continual growth as a person
Other-awareness that translates into caring for others and for creation
God-awareness that recognizes, seeks out, follows and surrenders to the Divine
Walking on a similar path, headed in a similar direction (i.e. complementary calling in life)

Tag, you're it (people I want to see do this, should you feel the urge to procrastinate):

Florence
Shannon
Hengz
Matthea

deep cove kayaking

2006-08-19T05:39:00.000-07:00

Went kayaking with Amy at Deep Cove... fun as usual. Different than out at Jericho. Beautiful in a different way. Much more enclosed, surrounded by forest-clad islands.

Amazing how many waves one motorboat can produce. Couldn't help but think of the parallel to one person making waves in the world around them. Reminds me of the quote by Margaret Mead on the side of that cafe on Main Street: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

stuck again

2006-08-17T22:50:00.000-07:00

Two posts in a day? Must mean I'm procrastinating again... or on the road to burnout. I haven't taken any formal breaks this summer, but then again I haven't been going at a very fast pace either.

My biggest struggle has been predominantly feeling like I haven't been producing anything tangible all summer. I hate that feeling. I hate it because it means that I'm putting too much stock on and giving too much power to the idol of "tangible productivity" in my life. That means deep down I'm really living on the belief that I can't be happy and I don't have meaning until I feel like I am tangibly productive.

Rather, it's been a season of thinking and discussing ideas-in-formulation with various colleagues. The discussions continue as people come back from holidays, but finally I think I am supposed to be entering the harvest stage where I should theoretically be able to produce some tangibles. Yet somehow, everytime I sit down to work, the itch to procrastinate and do everything else but write/design kicks in full gear.

Sigh. I don't know how to get unstuck other than allowing the pressure of external deadlines to push me. The day after the wedding I woke up in time to crank out some last minute documents for two days of meetings... and I wasn't even on time for the meeting. Why can't I work to get things done ahead of time instead of cutting things so close to the wire?

I planned my fall travels for ministry reporting and personal visits to Ontario and Saskatchewan -- alas, but only because there was a deadline on the West Jet seat sale. I am looking forward to it, but it's all the way in November. In the meantime, I hope I can make it until then. Looking to the fall overwhelms me. Thank God for Mary's prayer retreat coming up in a couple of weeks. Without it I don't know if I could slow myself down enough.

The busy-ness with the wedding and finishing up design projects for friends has knocked a bit of wind out of my spiritual sails which I'm trying to gain again. It feels like I haven't journaled in awhile. I haven't been feeding consistently on my spiritual Bread. It's been more touch and go desperate immediate prayer, though I am finding the Psalms are a natural place to pick up from that resonate with my current soul state. I think the saving grace has been others praying with and for me. Thank God my fluctuating feelings (or my productivity or lack of productivity) don't change the way He thinks and feels about me.

a beautiful day

2006-08-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

Well, I survived the wedding... I heard mostly negative things about the experience of being a bridesmaid from other friends, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But I am quite pleased to say it was a positive experience.
As would be expected, we were up late the night before with last minute preparations and heart-to-heart talks. So after not much sleep, the day began with a few hours of getting ready for the ladies. As we hung out at the salon getting our makeup and hair ready, I couldn't help but think how much more work it is to be a girl. Blah. We were running late due to a miscommunication with the makeup lady and also due to how thick my hair was to dry and straigthen. They kept suggesting I volunteer my hair to be in a hair ad. Now if I could get paid for it, I may have a new side business....hmmm....I also mentionned I wanted to retry dying my hair into the bright purple streaks again, but it was met with protests. Gotta think some more about that....

Anyway, after quickly getting dressed, we were on our way in a vintage Rolls Royce chauffered by the owner of the car, a cute little old man named Alf. We took the quickest route which happened to be quite scenic (all the way through Stanley Park) and made it to the photo shoot only about 20 minutes late. A beautiful day to shoot photos at Kits beach overall.

Then off to Grouse Mountain we went. The ceremony was simple and beautiful. Viv and Graham both got a little teary-eyed. The visiting was fun. The food was divine. The cake was the best wedding cake I've ever tasted (custom designed, it was white chocolate blueberry key lime). The sugared blueberries had the texture of the perfect cookie -- crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Even the chocolate party favours were colour coordinated to the theme colours of blue and dark brown. Leave it to Viv to throw such a coordinated and pretty party.

My toast to Viv tributed her for her deep loyalty and commitment to her friends and to celebrating. Relationships and celebrations are the intangible and invaluable priorities of life that make it worth living and fun along the way. From her I learned how to throw a party to mix all my friends together for a good time of celebration to value people and laughter. I'm thankful for the gift of being able to spend this day with her.

summing the summer in images (so far)

2006-08-04T11:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, so as is evident from the absence of any recent posts, I have not been in much of a blogging mood as of late. I'm still not too inspired to write anything, so I thought I would post a few photos to help me remember at a later date what this summer's been about so far.

It's been perfect to just stay in the city and catch up with friends mostly. Really enjoyed the rare treat of catching up with my close girlfriends when Shermeen was in town.

And then of course there is all the catching up with old friends at the inevitable summer weddings . It should be interesting from another perspective this week as I'll be in my first wedding and throwing my first shower for a friend this weekend.

And of course, finally, the kayaking in this city is breathtaking. Ann and I went out to Jericho beach this time and we took our time paddling around and didn't try to bust it out to the extreme. (That's Ann in the photo). What a great way to catch up with a friend on the water. I forgot how green this city is. I didn't get the shots I wanted of the sunset on the cityline... I'll have to wait until a little later this summer when the sun sets earlier.

In between all that I'm not taking any official holidays this summer so have been busy on work stuff and design projects for friends. Glad to have mostly finished some book promo stuff for a self-published friend, the usual wedding design projects and great fun working with my sister to design her business card as a soon-to-be-fresh-grad. Anyone know someone who could use a bright, organized Library Scientist and Information Specialist with a sharp ability to research and write? Preferably in Vancouver so she can be close to her sister :) She is now the third most degreed person in our family! (behind Aunt Paulina and Dad)

Free movie previews seems to be a gift that I have been given this summer, which is unusual for me but a welcome treat. Ann treated me to Superman Returns, and then Mary let me in on free passes for World Trade Center. I love how movies make me think and see life in a different way.

And, a simple pleasure I have missed and caught up on this season is reading!

Fireworks finale of the Celebration of Lights -- combined with a birthday party at Ann's beautiful apartment by English Bay so we don't have to battle the crowds on the beach tomorrow night. We'll see if we get any good shots. Or I may end up subbing in my sister's photos of fireworks from Canada Day in Ottawa -- she has a slick digital SLR and the ability to be creative with it.

I just noticed that I have a tendency to focus on events... to counteract it a wee bit, I will add that there has been a lot of activity in the heart department, shall we say. God continues to take his flashlight into the dark parts of my heart and is consistently doing spiritual heart surgery in there. Growth is good, despite the pain that comes. The surgery is worth it especially when there is better life on the other side of it :)

Overall, good times, good friends, good weather, gorgeous surroundings...I know that I have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms (as I am reminded in the book of Ephesians) but I can truly say I am also blessed with every blessing in the earthly realms this summer as well. God is so good!

my tongue is pasty from too much sugar

2006-06-12T16:28:00.000-07:00

When I came home from NYC on Friday and caught up on my email, there was an e-vite from my roommate Dilys inviting me to her birthday party which was to be held at our house. Yay! Party at our house! I love it when people get together and have a good time, especially when it's at my place :) It was a delightful evening of friendship, belly dancing, weird body tricks, chocolate fondue, birthday cupcakes and way too many other sugar options.

Turns out (not suprisingly so) Dilys has talented literary friends who composed great haikus and even limericks in honour of the birthday girl. Poetry has never been my forte, so my tribute to my roommate for her 24th will be in the form of an acronym of ways she has enriched my life:

D - Dilys engages me in discussions that make me think and stretch my thoughts (in a good way!)

I - These discussions are ever so enriching because of the insight they offer to helping me understand the world around me... Dilys is very insightful!

L - She cleary loves people and has a compassion for others, which stems from her enduring love for God

Y - Dilys may be youthful at the age of 24, but she has that rare combination of also being very wise beyond her years

S - As serious as Dilys can be, every once in awhile, she always cracks me up and catches me off guard when she makes surprising comments that I would never expect to come out of her mouth (like when she says "Dude!")

I'm thankful for you Dilys!
Food photos courtesy of the great eye of Stefanie Coutinho

top 10 memorable things from the Big Apple

2006-06-09T04:57:00.000-07:00

1. Experiencing God's presence and power so clearly at the Redeemer Prayer Conference (the reason that brought us out to New York in the first place). It was amazing to see the fruit of answers to prayers that so many people invested in the conference for months ahead.

2. Yummalum food... the best Italian food I've had in a long while (you know you can't get any really good Italian in Vancouver!), delish deli food and burgers, cheesecake... the list goes on because 99% of what we tasted was super tasty!

3. The amazing creativity of The Lion King. I originally had apprehensions that it would be hokey, but they really pulled it off with imaginative sets and choreography and convincing acting. My favourite animal in the show was the giraffe, of course!

4. The Pajama Game, a top-notch Broadway production starring Harry Connick Jr... Not only was it a phenomenal show, but we had technical difficulties, which resulted in the treat of Harry coming out to entertain us with a candid Q&A time.

5. Catching up with old friends Tina and Jessica, from a summer city mission trip in Vancouver in '99.

6. Visiting Tina's small group study. The people were super friendly and welcoming. The topic on knowing our limits and trusting God for the rest was personally convicting and timely.

7. Enlightening and insightful chats with Mary, my wise co-worker who travelled with me.

8. Hearing the multiple languages at every turn and seeing the diversity of cultures throughout the city.

9. Finding my way around the city, even feeling like a New Yorker at moments -- like the four times people asked me for directions!

10. Circling the air at JFK airport for 2 hours due to weather and air traffic, running out of gas, flying to Toronto to refuel, finally landing back in NYC. I couldn't believe how alive and bustling the airport was at 2am. By the time we survive lineups, we arrive in time to enjoy 5 hours of our $180 hotel in Manhattan before our 9am meeting. Why am I listing this as a highlight? Just for how sheerly ludicrous it is -- only in NY!

yes, I'm still alive...barely!

2006-06-01T04:23:00.000-07:00

It's June... what happened to May?? Here is an uneventful account of an eventful month:

First was the very cool week-long course on dialogue education at SFU
Then there was the road trip down to Birmingham with the roommies
Then the best birthday party ever with the best gift ever (scrapbook full of notes and cards from friends... Words of affirmation are my primo love language) Thanks everyone, especially Rach, Dilys and Becks!) [see the photo on the right on the bottom -- my favourite shot from the whole evening!]
Then getting high on checking things off my to-do-list by making a mad dash to finish a whole bunch of projects, including work related and self-inflicted creative projects before leaving for a week in...
Atlanta -- my first time in the deep South. Learned all kinds of helpful tricks from our ministry partners who run the Church Planting Leadership Assessment there. Bonus: learned some interesting lessons about myself in the process. Briefly toured the world headquarters for Coca Cola.
Back for 5 days in Vancouver, again running around getting high on checking things off my to-do-list, mostly in preparation for...
New York City! John, Mary and I are headed out there to help train and encourage Redeemer Church in prayer. The conference is over in a jiffy (7 hours in 2 days), then Mary and I are trolling the city for 5 days. Good thing we have similar interests! Looking forward seeing God alive and working in a different context...

Phew -- I'm tired! I am quite looking forward to settling down for the rest of the summer to enjoy all that Vancouver has to offer. I do have to make up for kayaking time lost last summer!

But for now, off to pack for the Big Apple...

weekend whirlwind: roommate road trip

2006-05-08T03:10:00.000-07:00

Great roommate road trip this weekend! Thanks to Dilys clicking into "Yes, I'm a tourist and I'm going to take a ton of photos because that's what tourists do!" mode, I also snapped a few pics. Here goes...

First, there was the necessary task of killing time in the car at the border crossing. When our turn was up, the American border guard apologized that we'd been randomly selected for a car check. Funny to encounter an apologizing American -- it's usually Canadians who are the ones who are constantly saying "sorry." Funnier still was when he asked us what kind of music we were going to see live in concert. Dilys simply turned up the volume in response so he could hear for himself!

Then we grabbed some lunch at the main mall in Bellingham. Dilys and Becki had Taco Time, (since we don't get as much Mexican food up in Vancouver), while I had a sandwich from Subway (uninventive I know, but I couldn't bear the greasy feeling of those temptingly yummy mexi fries). Took some goofy photos in a photo booth (will scan shots in later).

Did a bit of shopping at Ross (like Winners, but cheaper). That was a bit chaotic. What a mess. Not worth photo documenting. Got into a short and slightly amusing conversation with the Filipino family behind us who had a garden-sized dwarf from Snow White. It made Rebecca want to get a "garden gnome" for the patio.

And whaddaya know, it's dinner time before we realize it -- time for more Mexican food! We found this great little restaurant. It was a gorgeous old building, with vintage decor, funky atmosphere and service. Tasty home made salsa (token food shot in honour of my shutter-bug sister). I thought it was great that Becki basically had Jack Daniels ice cream with checkerboard shortbread cookies for dinner (with a side salad).

After dinner we had to kill some time before the doors opened for the show we came to see in the first place. Bellingham is quite the quaint little town. I totally loved (and was impressed!) how there was children's art displayed in windows of all kinds of businesses that we walked by (complete with artist's descriptions of their works), even in the window of a billiards club! The artwork really went a long way in bringing colour, cheer and life to the town's streets.

We closed the night out taking in the beautiful melodies of Over the Rhine (I found their piano arrangements were especially simply fabulous and moving). Their tunes are generally more reflective and sauntering in tempo, but they played a couple of new tunes that were a bit more upbeat and "optimistic" (in their choice of words) and quite fun. The only thing was one small observation that struck me a bit strange. I've never been to a show where people were sitting on the floor watching quietly like the folks who were there. I was standing up swaying to the music, trying to let it get in my bones a bit. I would've gotten into it more, but it seemed out of place with everyone else so mellow.

On the way home we radio-surfed and car-danced at times to "lively" music to help with Becki's driving concentration. Somehow that same choice of loud music just didn't seem to be appropriate when we stumbled into the car on Sunday morning to drive to church with the car radio still on from last night...

All in all it was a fun night but man I paid for it on Sunday. I'm so ready for bed. G'dnight!

facing our apprehensions

2006-05-06T05:35:00.000-07:00

Phew! After way too many hours, I finally just finished my taxes for this year. And only a few days late (compared to 3 months late some years)! I am so proud of myself!

I was particularly apprehensive this year as there were some changes in 2005, including the complications that come with purchasing and renting out property. I was determined this year to do the paperwork myself with the goal of actually understanding what was going on, to the best degree I could.

Working through a couple of fairly frustrating moments, with the patient help and good teaching of my dad (thanks to technology as we relied on the phone and some scanned PDFs of the documents), I learned a few tricks to maximize my return. Thanks Dad! That was much more helpful than trying to motivate me by saying, "Your sister finished hers weeks ago!" :) I can't believe I actually created a little spreadsheet to help me figure out the best configurations of various things to claim. I hope I can remember the logic behind everything next year....

It feels good to confront our hesitations and get through it. I was talking with my roommate about that recently. We both agreed one of our unspoken personal creeds was that anytime we identified thoughts of "Oh, I'm afraid of doing that..." we would aim to just do it and get over our hesitations. It's a natural high when you come out the other end.

On that note, on Sunday at the beginning of this week, I was excited yet apprehensive about a week-long course I would be taking at SFU's Centre for Dialogue. The feeling of dread was greater than the feeling of anticipation. I have a lot of distrust of the academic environment and how it triggers the switch deep in me launching me into "performing-to-prove-myself" mode.

I made it through the course with flying colours - literally! The course was on Dialogue Education in Adult Learning and employed all kinds of colourful activities using markers, music, drama (overcame my hesitations drudged up from elementary school activities), playdough, etc. It was so enjoyable to see the brightly coloured diagrams and activities posted on the walls all week.

But the highlight was most definitely getting to know all kinds of colourful people who are doing all kinds of world-shaking work around the globe. When I finally got over my awe of everyone (hard to shake that Asian unquestionning respect of teachers and elders), it truly was a gift to spend the week with them, truly co-learning with them. I learned so much about life, people, the world and myself this week.

I'm so jazzed now about applying all I've learned to the stuff I'm working on now. My friend Renae was so right in offering her suggestion of taking courses to help boost those "hitting the wall" times in work.

Three cheers for how great it feels to confront and make it through the other side of our hesitations! Looking forward to a great way of celebrating by a road trip with my roommates for some cross-border shopping and a concert tonight in Bellingham. Woo hoo!

bit by the travel bug

2006-04-25T04:24:00.000-07:00

I've never been one of those people who needed to do the backpack-across-Europe thing. I've always wanted to drive across Canada and see my own land first as it is vast, varied and beautiful.

But my trip to Vietnam last summer made me want to travel and experience cultures that are different than mine (though I am not Vietnamese, I could relate to the cultural values a lot being raised to think more Chinese than I may realize most days). The Territories of Canada and Africa were first to come to mind as places that I want to experience that are quite different than what I know.

Today I saw The Constant Gardener. There were many excellent elements of the film, but the cinematography was simply breathtaking and gorgeous. Despite the seriousness and despair of the film's depiction of Africa, it still reminded me of my desire to visit this part of the world. I've always thought it to be a beautiful, colourful and lively people, culture and land. And my favourite animal (the giraffe) resides there!

I'm thankful that my job periodically provides opportunities to travel. May will bring a week in Atlanta, and I just received news today that I will be able to go to New York to help with a conference for work in June... I am excited and grateful for the opportunity as I loved the first taste I enjoyed of it back in 2003. I am a light packer and didn't spare any room for extra shoes so I was trekking around town in my open-heeled shoes (clogs) during the blizzard of the century that happened to coincide with our visit. But because of the blizzard, I was able to meet up with a friend whom I didn't even know was in town who had her work cancelled that day.

I think what I enjoy about travelling is that it gets me outside of myself, my usual routine, and my comfort zone to experience God and his creation in new ways. I've seen God tangibly involved in my travels, protecting me, directing my steps, filling my heart with awe and appreciation for the diversity of his creation of people, cultures and lands. In such a vast world to us, it blows my socks off that God cares for each person on this planet so tiny to him.

my kitchen goddess sister

2006-04-22T00:37:00.000-07:00

I know, it kinda sounds like an Amy Tan title, but this is all I have to say so far about my awesome sister. She's simply a kitchen goddess, come down to visit me and bless me with her gooey cinnamon buns from scratch. I mean, who makes cinnamon buns from scratch anymore nowadays in the age of instant-everything?

My sister Flo spent four hours in the kitchen making these cinnamon buns. I don't spend four hours doing anything in the kitchen. There's a reason why cookies are my favourite thing to make -- 7 minutes to beat and put on the pan, 7 minutes to bake, 7 minutes to clean up. To her, it's no big deal, but to me, making anything with yeast just sounds too complicated and intimidating. The more mysterious to me, all the more power to her kitchen prowess!

We took some of these buns to Kat's birthday party and they were quite the hit. All in all, it was an awesome day full of sugar, laughter and celebration.

hitting a wall

2006-04-19T03:08:00.000-07:00

I so should not be procrastinating right now. But I've so been hitting a wall lately, several times.

Ever since the leadership assessment weekend has been over (it was three weeks ago already), I've totally crashed, productivity-wise, spiritually and socially. Not having clear structure and deadlines these past weeks have taken its toll.

But good thing for my sister coming in town tomorrow. I've accomplished more in these 3 days than I have all the past three weeks knowing she is going to be here. I also cleaned up big time in time for her visit. I was vacuuming my room and thought I'd vacuum my keyboard to clear off some of the dust. Oops. Not such a great idea. I lost my left shift key to the powerful suck of my machine.

I'm looking forward to trolling the city with her. She finally caved in and switched over to digital SLR and we are going to take some historic walks around town with a focus of taking photos. After feeling a bit of distance between us, this past week we've talked on the phone for some 6 hours or so (not all at once). Nothing quite like good phone time and talking about boys to bond :)

I was going to take the whole week off to spend with her, but I have to teach a course with Renae and Susan. It's the Basic Christian Story, one that I'm familiar with from having informally teaching it to many ESL students who have come to our church in the past.

One of the walls I'm hitting is having "dead" eyes in looking at material I am too familiar with. I really need a fresh look at the material for this Basic Christian Story course, and for the prayer course that we've been doing for 5 years now. Three years is the usual mark I lose interest and hit the wall. I'm two years beyond it in the prayer course arena now. And I'm not quite sure what to do about it.

I'm hitting a wall too with craving to really meet God. I feel like I am coming to the dinner table to spend time with him, and then when I get up to leave, I feel like I haven't really eaten at all.

I wonder if it has to do with all the spiritual house cleaning I am doing in working on my 12 Step process right now. I've unearthed some destructive roots and pains lodged deep within my heart that I need to let God dispose of that are preventing good things from growing, but I'm not sure how. On the one hand, there's a feeling of a sense of relief to come into the light on some of these things; on the other hand, it's damn uncomfortable .... exposure always brings an intial sense of squinting "ouch! it's too bright and it's hurting my eyes! Make it stop!" I think that's human nature to want to squirm away and stay in the shadows on the things we are most ashamed of.

Overall though, I know I am in a great season of life and I'm really trying to enjoy it, despite the ebbs and flows of wall-hitting.

a different look at easter

2006-04-16T22:27:00.000-07:00

Easter totally came and went and tumbled right by me this year. (I can see the value of maybe trying to observe Lent next year...)

To be honest I've been stuck in church-inertia the past few weeks and have found it difficult mustering the desire or energy to go. I know it's at those times I need most to reach out and connect with my spiritual family, but the inertia has been strong this time around.

I had a majorly hard time hauling my butt outta bed for the day of prayer on Good Friday at my church. I actually skipped out on the first half of the day. But as usual, at the end of the day, after spending the afternoon in talking with others and God, it was exactly what I needed. It was so good to get out of myself and look to others and the world, bringing their needs before God in prayer.

The Good Friday service was appropriately somber and good to remember that this is the day that God died (thanks for the wording, Joc...). It's the day that Jesus, God's son, was cut off from his Father God for the first time since he had been in perfect communion with him since the beginning of time and creation. All so that I would not be cut off from God.

I still feel shallow in my understanding and experience of this, but I suppose this the essence of the faith journey is a lifetime of rediscovering and tasting this truth in new ways. It amazes me that when Jesus came back to life and appeared to the disciples there are times they simply don't even recognize him ("they were kept from recognizing him" Luke 24:16) and it's only "until their eyes were opened" (Luke 24:31) that they can recognize him. I think that's a cue I can take in praying for myself and others, that eyes would be opened to see Jesus as he really is. No amount of trying harder on my part, or on the part of others, can bring those spiritual "aha! I see!" moments.

Easter Sunday our Eastside and Westside groups convened as one church downtown at the Roundhouse Community Centre. I basically ended up missing the service altogether as I was putzing around greeting and directing people, and helping Carla with lunch and Lee Anne with the Easter egg hunt for the kids.

As much as I craved being able to simply rest and take in the service, I quite enjoyed myself participating in other ways. Being outside in the hall away from all the action, there were moments of quietness I found myself having a spirit of prayer for various parts of the service as they went on and for specific people as they came to mind.

After the Roundhouse, we headed back to our home base at the Westside building for Camper's "graduation" (i.e. ordination) service. When I walked in, the room was filled with the fresh scent of lilies. After all the hustle and bustle of hosting everyone at the Roundhouse, coming back to the Westside felt like coming back home. It was like having a party at the Roundhouse for the community, then coming back to the Westside was like having a coffee to really relax after all the guests have left.

That feeling of "ah, I'm coming back home" is one that I think I needed to feel to remind me in light of my church-inertia what I am really missing. I have been given such an amazing gift of friends and spiritual family. "My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."

apology for narcissism

2006-04-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

Our staff meeting on Tuesday was particularly good for me this week. It woke me up from myself.

We started off by praying for a specific situation of sexual exploitation happening in Central Asia and for the larger issue worldwide. Then we prayed for a few key leaders in our midst who are all seeming to be undergoing tough challenges and spiritual attacks of various sorts recently. I particularly and necessarily needed to feel the weight and help carry the burden for others. It was exactly what I needed to get out of my self-focused funk in my little cave as of late.

As I felt the weight of the present trials and difficulties of this world, I was tempted to be too weighed down with the heaviness of magnitude of some of these situations and questionning of God asking why there had to be such pains and injustices in this broken and clearly imperfect world. Yet in my momentary heaviness I was glad for this opportunity to look up from my navel which I had been gazing at too much recently. I've been more aware since that point in this week of my navel-gazing and simply got tired of it.

Last night as I found myself yet again working through and over-focusing on myself, I actually got tired of myself and tired of thinking about myself. So I took a nap. (I had a headache too, which was too easy a reason to complain for myself, so my strategy was to take a nap so I could wake up fresh with a new beginning, which is one of the things I love most about waking up, either from a night of slumber or an afternoon nap.)

Waking up from my nap was like the much needed turn of tide in our prayers for the latter half of our staff meeting. We had started with the heavy burdens of evil and trial in the world and in our own lives, yet we necessarily concluded our meeting by praying for several encouraging happenings and "God-on-the-move" activities coming up. No doubt there is a correlation between all these good things happening in the spiritual undercurrents of our city and the spiritual hits our leaders are taking.

When we face a setback spiritually, the temptation is far too great to be discouraged and dragged down, rather than seeing it as an indication that we might be causing enough flag-waving in the spiritual realm to invite attention to ourselves. In our weakness and despair is always an opportunity to find our strength and hope in Christ. We must lift our gaze to Jesus. It is a matter of survival.

I'm tired of focusing on myself and writing all my blog entries on that topic. If I'm tired of this, there's a good chance you are too, so I do apologize for the heavy dose of narcissism in this blog as of late. If you catch me putting a whole entire post on the topic of me, myself, and I anytime soon again, please please do everyone a favour and stop me from indulging in my self-reflections and spare you of them too. Seriously! Please, and thank you!

saying no, weddings + a stylin' vote

2006-04-08T21:46:00.000-07:00

When my friend Jackie asked me to consider being her wedding coordinator, my first reaction was laughter. Then was a normal human reaction of feeling flattered to even be asked. Then there was my firm and clear response, "Thanks, but no thanks."

Normally I can tend to have a problem saying "no" to inviting tasks, but there are some instances where I don't have to think hard to come to my definitive "no" reply:

First scenario guaranteeing a "no" response: When something is way, way , way out of my area and experience, I will flat out say no.

Now there are certainly those times where it's like "hey, that's something new, different and unknown to me, I'm up for the challenge to try something new and learn." What I'm talking about here are the opportunities that are so clearly not in my realm or reality that they are beyond reasonable consideration, for my sake and for the sake of the asker-of-the-favour.

Coordinating a wedding is one of those things that I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole. I haven't even been to that many weddings, considering the age of life that I'm in and considering the amount of people I know who've gotten married (I have a pretty wide network, but the majority of those relationships are not close ones to garner wedding invitations).

I've never even been in a wedding before as an adult. Flowergirl-hood doesn't count as I was too young to pick up any helpful wedding know-how... making it through without getting itchy from the lace on my dress or turning around to look at anyone in the pews was enough challenge then! I'm missing the inside-out perspective of the goings-on of a wedding. [Woah! Am I hyphen-happy or what?!] Bottom line is I'm too ignorant there to be of any real help!

Second scenario guaranteeing a "no" response: When Mike Woodard (a former director I had in my last job) would ask me to do things, I would say no.

This surfaced in an ironic way during one of my performance reviews. I listed in my version of the review that one of the weaknesses I needed to work on was my inability to say "no." In his version of my review, Mike listed "saying no" as one of my strengths. Well, I don't think I've ever said no to someone as much as him, simply for the reason that he kept asking me to do things that fell into category #1 and fell beyond my scope!

So if you ever want to exploit my weakness in saying no, ask me anything in my area of interest or skill. I'm a sucker for helping out with things I enjoy.

Anyway, I digress... all this to get to the point of this post. I am going to be in my first wedding this summer, and am fortunate to have the bride's friend create my dress so that it's hopefully wearable again. (Thanks Viv for being so thoughtful to this end and not making me wear something ridiculous!). Melissa has put some great work into the designs so far and we are getting close to choosing the winner.

The polls are now open... for those so inclined to voice their opinion, which of the following designs (or elements of designs) do you think is best? Which should I say yes to, and which should I say no to?

a black hole sucking gobs of time

2006-04-07T02:55:00.000-07:00

Yeesh! I can't believe I just spent the past three hours adding my favourite/regularly-read links to the side of my blog. As if I don't already spend enough time online.

After wavering all afternoon, I decided to choose to be social and went for a visit with my grandparents, then eventually had a good time with Jocelyn and her friends celebrating her acceptance to grad school. I haven't had a proper visit with her in a matter of years, yet thanks to technology (namely, blogging, and next in line is e-mail) I don't feel all that out of touch with her. Of course, online is not nearly the same as enjoying her lively intelligence and humour in person! :)

Anyway, deciding to go for both these visits was a small victory of sorts, choosing to crawl out of my little independent-work-filled hole for the night. And then, on the way home, I "passed" another little "test" of sorts (for me considering my food issues, anyway) and managed to let go of my leftover food to a panhandler rather than hoarding it for myself.

And now, off to bed!

reflections from the ballet mirror

2006-04-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

So this morning I started my ballet classes at Kits Community Centre. Might as well post about it since I'm at the office now killing time waiting for my email to get back up and running.

I wondered who might sign up for a Thursday morning class in Vancouver. You never know what kind of weird hours Vancouverites work, since there are so many small businesses, creatives who work their own hours, and so many who take their play seriously. The other day on the bus the guy beside me was telling his friend how he woke up at 11am an worked for an hour, then got on the bus. Sounds like Vancouver to me!

Anyway, so there's 12 people in the class, which is on the large side apparently. The instructor is an older white woman. Then there was other older white woman and a guy (yes! a guy!). The rest? All Asian, most of them international students. Now that is Vancouver for ya.

It was fun to get back into it, but I was reminded again of a few things about myself.

1. I wish I could be an expert now. I'm not particularly patient at waiting for progress and want to be good at everything now. Sadly, my perfectionism and this impatience keep me from trying new things too often, because I dislike the discomfort and awkwardness of beginnings and practice.

2. I hate being told what to do. There was this one woman beside me who apparently is not a beginner who pointed me onto the same page as the instructor. What's she doing in the class again? And why do I always get stuck next to the "experts" in these classes -- like the practically professional calligrapher in the Tim Botts class I took last summer?

3. I'm pretty independent and bluntly anti-social when I want to be and ran off out of the class right after it was over, rather than sticking around and getting into conversation with anyone. Yeah, yeah, I'm on Step 1 in admitting that my over-independence is a problem. Tonight I was going to visit my grandparents and then go to Balthazaar's to help a friend celebrate her acceptance into grad school. But I'm wavering -- I'd rather bury myself in my work at home tonight. (Yes, I'm addicted to my work too).

Just yesterday a friend from Edmonton emailed to ask me if I could host one of her friends in town for a week. Normally I think I am a pretty hospitable and social person. But then these types of requests act as a mirror and remind me I'm not actually that welcoming. I love to host people I know. And I only like to do so when it's convenient for me (this guest would be arriving the evening of my birthday and staying for a week, and I'd be giving up my room). But with people I don't know, I'm just more reluctant, or downright unwilling.

Everyone loves their friends. That's the normal, natural, easy thing to do out of our own capacity. It's going beyond, and loving others outside our natural love-radius -- either people we don't know personally or people we know but dislike -- which demonstrates itself as this other-worldly, supernatural love that comes from God-who-is-love himself. Thank God he doesn't only love us when it's convenient for him.

my pretty pink slippers

2006-04-02T17:51:00.000-07:00

When I was in my first year of university, a friend of mine accused me of being boring and undaring with my choice of shoe colours. She had reasonable grounds for such an accusation because 95% of my shoes at that time were black. The other pair that made up the remaning 5% was white.

My habit of black shoes persisted until recently. During my shopping spree in Seattle, I bought a turquoise pair of shoes which I've been wearing around the house for the time being, until it's warm enough to wear some of my brighter matching tops outside as the summer weather arrives.

Then yesterday, I was quite excited to buy some new ballet slippers... a first pair since those by-gone days of lessons that stopped at the age of eight. I have fond memories of my ballet classes (save the time I forgot to bring my dance gear to school for my after-school lessons, so my Grade 3 teacher drove me home to get it, then to my lesson, but in the hurry I forgot to pack my tights and felt so self-conscious about wearing my purple knee socks in class that I couldn't enjoy myself that day.)

I decided to take ballet lessons, starting this week (hopefully the class has enough people in it so they won't cancel it) for several reasons. I miss the freedom of creative movement; somewhere in the way of adulthood, I've become hindered in that freedom. More than that though, my hope is that ballet will help me get back to that same carefree awareness I had of my body as a little girl. I want to be comfortable in my own skin as much as I can and enjoy this God-given gift that is my body rather than keep working toward some crazy ideal that doesn't exist for me.

take a break, or be broken

2006-03-18T03:00:00.000-08:00

I started this post a few days ago, and I can't even remember exactly where I wanted to go with it. What triggered it originally is something I read somewhere (don't even remember where!) that says something like this:

"Poor concentration, a lack of enthusiasm, taking longer to do tasks and an insistent nagging from family [in my case, friends] are all signs of the need to undertake a basic human necessity rest."

Last fall I felt so convicted by two messages at church about the need for Sabbath rest. If God needed a break, then don't I? Or maybe he didn't need the break, but took one because it's a good thing. That triggered the convictions I felt from the sermon series on Sabbath 3 years prior to that already. Something I clearly need to work on. (Yes, I think I'm addicted to work... that came out in my 12 Steps session the other night...)

So last fall in response to the heart tuggings I felt, I tried really hard, and succeeded to "keep Sabbath" for 2 weeks in a row. A miracle of sorts for me especially I think. It felt wonderful. You'd think the positive benefits would be enough to entice me to try keeping up the good habit beyond 2 weeks.

Well old addictions die hard.

I've been working pretty hard pulling together an intensive leadership weekend away next week, and in my "spare time" on design projects for friends. As my advertising friend Ann said so aptly, "That's one thing about creative people. We always seem to be plagued with projects, either self-inflicted or friend-inflicted. It's a catch-22. Our restless brains remain in an eternal state of unrest, and yet yearns to rest. We're weird like that."

I can feel the slowly deteriorating effectiveness of this pace I'm trying to keep. I know... I know in my head that I need to take a break.

Thank God for friends who make me stop and take a break. Helene, my travelling partner to Vietnam, insisted on spending some time with me. We set a date and decided to take an overnight trip somewhere. We decided the day before we left to go to Seattle. We bought the tickets right before we left and wandered around town for a bit to explore and find a hotel. She said most people would be unnerved of not knowing where they're going to sleep that night. I think her spontenaety is rubbing off on me; it was a good exercise to not plan anything at all.

Came back from the trip with a good break, but not rested as we were on the go. I still have to process the things we saw and did there (in the next few post!)

Anyway, I should get back to work, though I am totally dragging my feet (the motivation of this post is pure procrastination). What was that again? Poor concentration, lack of enthusiasm, taking longer to do tasks... maybe I should take a break instead.

in the spirit of being Canadian

2006-03-09T23:48:00.000-08:00

Apparently Canadians talk a lot about weather. Or at least that's something I've seen The Royal Canadian Air Farce make fun of every once in a while.

So in the true spirit of being Canadian, here is a short post on the crazy weather antics of Vancouver. This morning I woke up to flurries of snow (very unusual for Vancouver... the most likely place to snow in the Lower Mainland is up on SFU Burnaby Mountain). The park across the street was covered with white snow.

I took a nap in the afternoon. I later woke up to gorgeous sunshine and a green park across the street.

Now, close to midnight, there are huge flurries coming down again. All the cars on the street below are covered in a couple of inchese of snow.

This inconsistent and wacko weather that I think is particularly unique to Vancouver reminds me of a news story I saw a few years ago. It was a 3 minute long piece (which is fairly long in the world of TV news) on the weather. And it was the top story of the 6 o'clock news. They showed four different cameras from different spots in the city. One spot was snowing. Another was hailing. Another was raining. Another was completely dry with no precipitation (just a block away from the spot that was raining). This prairie girl thought it strange that weather would warrant the top news spot. But today reminds me how weird it really is.

I'm off! It's kinda fun watching the snow flurries which are as big as loonies now!

an excuse for not posting

2006-03-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

I was walking on Davie last night and was struck at how warm it was, when I noticed there are already some early blooming cherry blossoms! After that miserable month of rain in January, this little Saskatchewan-sun-deprived-gal-living-in-Vancouver has totally been eating up the overall sunshine we've been getting. And with the blossoms blooming, it's spring!

It took the cherry blossoms to make me realize that it's already March! And now I am finally managing to make my first post for 2006. I knew when I started this blog it would be spurratic on the best of days. I've had thoughts I wanted to record and post, but the rest of my life was larger than life (ie. barely just managing it all).

Truth be told, I've been spending much of my online time working on moving the website my sister built for me last fall over to its new proper home. She did the grunt work of defining the site objectives and structure, and setting up the initial pages (I totally hate that part!) I managed to rebuild it using style sheets (I love those!!). It was a real team effort. (thanks Flo!)

So please visit my new little home online for my "hobby" at www.itjustflows.ca

I've been thinking about doing a website for a long time, and even praying off and on. It was a divine fluke/provision for my sister to do the site for her class project and get the ball rolling for me. The time was just right - 3 of the 4 wedding invitation designs on the website I've created only as of last fall. And I needed a break to recover from my overload of things online from my last job working 4 years on an e-zine.

It's snowballing a bit now - more friends getting engaged wanting invitations, and others who want business stationery. At a networking alumni event somoeone I didn't know came up to me and said she heard i do design and have a website. Word spreads fast, I told her, because the website was only new as of that very morning!

We'll see where God leads me on this path... I don't know if I have the discipline to make a living at it, and I would need more training (ironically I've ever only taken one design class). For now, I'm just happy to call it my hobby and have this avenue to serve my friends.

an unexpected post-Christmas treat

2005-12-31T03:01:00.000-08:00

After 9 hours of travel, I finally arrived back safely at my home in Vancouver. I was only travelling from Saskatchewan, which should take an average flight time of 4 hours. I was too interested in taking the latest flight out in the afternoon and failed to notice there was a 3 hour layover in Edmonton (plus the 2 hour delay from Regina).

Anyway, I got home just in time to make the beds and set the towels and chocolates on the pillows just in time for my cousin Christal from Ottawa and her friend to come stay with me for the week. They're in town for a wedding of a high school friend of theirs who happens to go to my church. It'll be fun to go out on the town and ring in the new year with her at this wedding, though it feels admittedly a bit weird to do that with her (she will always be in my mind my little cousin!) Six degrees of separation continues to be true -- one of her friends in Vancouver turns out to be a friend of one of my roommates who was here for our Christmas party earlier this month!

I was looking in the paper for a show to take Christal to... I thought perhaps improv, but the timing didn't work out. Instead, we went to take in the Nutcracker by Ballet BC. This is something I've always wanted to do but not so badly that I've ever looked it up. I thought it was playing before Christmas while I was away, but lucky for me it was playing this Boxing Week and Christal was into it too.

What a treat! I think this beats the live theatre and symphony for me personally. I just love the grace and movement that flow from the dancers. If I can ever get my butt in gear, I want to take dance lessons again as a form of staying active. I look back on my dance memories of childhood with great fondness.

Speaking of childhood dance memories, while I was in Regina this time, my dad somehow dug out our old childhood dance costumes. They were soooooo cute! Most of the great ones were my sister's. The two funniest ones had to be the cute little yellow leotard that had the rows of soft feathers on the bum for the "six little ducks that I once knew" dance (my sister was 3 I think at the time) and the white leotard with gaudy giant silver sequins that my mom painstakingly sewed on one at a time for the dance where they imitated LA show girls, complete with a white fur thing they threw around. What a hoot we had laughing at the cuteness of the costumes (though we weren't laughing at the not-so-pleasant smell coming from the outfits!).

sorrys and smiles won't get us drunk

2005-12-19T16:51:00.000-08:00

After a season of going to see live theatre on subscription tickets to a local theatre with a friend, we got bored with it. So we upgraded to the symphony!

It was a different experience than when I had gone as a teen for my music history classes. Quite enjoyable in fact! The first show we saw was music from the Rat Pack. The maestro for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra Bramwell Tovey was quite humourous and interactive. Being a performance on Rememberance Day, he had all the vets stand up. That was a nice moment. But he also cracked jokes all night and gave background info on each piece so we could better enjoy it.

Then we went to see a child prodigy play one of Mozart's violin concerto. That was nice too. Mozart is one of my favourites. When I used to play piano as a child, I was pretty terrible at learning and getting the notes off the page. So I prefered Mozart -- simpler notes, but the challenge in perfecting his pieces were in the musicality. That I could handle.

Anyway, on the way home from the Mozart concert, I walked by an interesting sign from some of the panhandlers on the street. It said "Sorrys and smiles won't get us drunk!"

It made a good point, I thought. Just because I choose not to give change to someone, doesn't mean that I should ignore them and brush past like they don't exist. There's a basic human dignity that is respected when we make eye contact, smile and say "sorry, I can't help you in that way" or even "hi, how are you doing today?"

Every time I do say "hi" or some other comment to a panhandler, every single time I've received a polite response -- either "thanks anyway" or "have a good day" or "God bless you." I guess it's true like my friend's husband from England said during his first visit to Canada (Vancouver) -- the bums are polite here! Or maybe it's just that Canadian politeness coming out...

modern day freak show

2005-11-09T17:02:00.000-08:00

My roommate was watching Oprah the other day as I walked to the kitchen.

I guess this week is "neurological disorders" week. The show was featuring heart-wrenching cases like the mermaid baby whose legs were born attached together, and a baby that kept chewing her hands, among other cases.

I'm a bit squeamish so I quietly left and went back to my room. My friend who is a massage therapist and thus in the medical profession loves that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I was thinking about it, and pretty much I realized that Oprah was just getting away with presenting a modern day freak show, but with a sentimental twist. As if the attention these people get already in their daily lives isn't enough to ostracize them or make them feel abnormal. Why not broadcast it on national TV?

While I admit to sneaking in a daytime soap once in a blue moon, I guess I never really got the extremity of Talk TV of daytime TV. Maybe there's some sort of odd yet comforting "look how crazy or bad or sad their lives are -- at least mine isn't that bad!" element to it.

I don't get it. I don't know what's triggering it, but it looks like my critical media studies training is resurrecting itself in me again...

film that makes you go hmmm....

2005-10-14T00:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight I finally went to the Vancouver International Film Festival for the first time, just as it was winding down. (Thanks Ann for the free passes!)

We saw 2 serious flicks that leave you with reeling thoughts (no pun intended!).

Their Brothers' Keepers: Orphaned by Aids chronicled the plight of families in Africa affected by the AIDS epidemic which is wiping out the whole middle generation, leaving young children to fend for themselves, sometimes with or without the help of the surviving grandparents.

The film interspersed excerpts from an address by Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa with portraits of several child-led families to illustrate Lewis' comments.

Indeed it was sad to see the extremely poor conditions of these young orphaned children, yet the film still managed to end on a note of hope. The few examples they provided ended up receiving help and having some sort of happier ending. Amazing how "feel good" endings appeal to something deep within the human heart.

But it was sad to consider the millions of other children not receiving the help they need. One area coordinator for a non-profit compassion organization visited one of the child-led families but did not have the resources to help him other than a visit. It makes you want to just drop everything here and go there to offer some kind of direct help.

One thing that really struck me, more as a sideline in the film, was how communal and collective the African culture is. There was one orphaned family of kids that were about 2 days travel away from the village where their grandmother lived. They wanted to go visit her and see if they could move there to be with her. The way this came to eventually be was a village council meeting which decided on behalf of the kids if they could go. Once they arrived at their grandmother's village, again the village council decided if the children could move in.

We are so individualistic in our culture here in North America. I was already feeling this from my Vietnam trip as I observed the communal and interdependent life of the locals there.

And so I continue to unlearn my independent ways in order to make way for a more interdependent way, even while watching a world-issue flick at the Film Fest.

quit trying so damn hard

2005-10-12T00:56:00.000-07:00

This week I've been getting quite distracted with bringing my future business ideas to the front burner. My sister is taking a web design course and will be creating an initial website for my future company. I've been quite happily distracted at that, drafting parts of my business plan and web copy. I seem to only get things done if there is a concrete deadline attached!

As I was thinking about how cool this opportunity is to get my butt in gear on making some steps towards my card company dream, I came to realize a lesson I am slowly starting to learn.

Being the over-ambitious goal-oriented person that I am, often I am setting goals that only set me up for failure (I am terribly unrealistic in goal-setting). But this year, I see that a lot of growth in my life has simply just happened, without planning or intentional mustering up of my energy and self-effort. Sure, it is helpful to have goals to know which direction you're headed, but the actual execution of them is a different story altogether.

With the card company dream -- The Tim Botts calligraphy course fell on my lap this year totally unexpectedly, which should help with some of my future card designs. Then I am working on 3 wedding invitations this year for friends, which broadens my portfolio and gives me enough to show people what I can do. And then now my sister is starting up this website for me, which gives me a concrete deadline to build my business plan which I've been meaning to do for years.

And of course, the other major area in my life that I want to grow in is the whole being overly-independent thing. The Vietnam trip, co-mortgage on the new apartment, and having 2 very social roommates were direct answers to my prayers and desires to learn to live interdependently, yet were all things that I could not have orchestrated myself and were exactly what I needed to stretch me in this area of my life.

Both of these seem to be part of a broader theme/lesson that God is trying to teach me (as usual there is seemingly nothing coincidental in my life happenings). Self-effort and mustering up enough energy to live out my millions of good intentions will only get me so far and leave me exhausted when I tread down that path for too long.

Let's hope I can practice what I am learning to let go and not try so hard to make everything happen (and thus stress myself out unnecessarily!). This way I think I can enjoy the ride more...

an unexpected thanksgiving

2005-10-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

For Thanksgiving this year, I was deliberately planning on lying low, despite knowing there would be many open doors welcoming me to gluttonous turkey dinners, if I so chose to indulge.

Instead, on the Saturday of the long weekend, my two roommates decided relatively last minute to have a Thanksgiving dinner. I figured I could offer to do my 5 minute cranberry chicken. It may not be turkey, but hey, it has cranberry in it. And it's easy to make.

Well, my roommates would not hear of such a thing. They were set on roasting a turkey.

It turned out really nice. While we waited for the turkey to finish roasting, we all sat on the couch and did some reading. It was peaceful to just sit in their company even though we were not in direct conversation.

Then Dilys read an excerpt from a book she was reading to direct our thoughts. We followed with a short time of prayer thanking God for all the amazing things he's given us in life. Then we chowed down on the turkey (along with Stove Top stuffing and gravy from a package).

Then we vegged in front of the TV for the rest of the night.

We realized it was the first time we've sat down to eat together, all three of us, since Rebecca moved in 3 weeks ago.

At some point in the evening, a key realization struck me which I chose to share with the others. I contemplated out loud to them, "You know girls, I think I am finally getting used to having other people around." After 3 years living with a roommate who was hardly ever home, I'd gotten used to living practically on my own.

This is a sign of growth -- evidence of God working in my life. It's a big deal as I continue to work on learning to live interdependently with people, rather than being overly independent which is my default mode. Back in February when I prayed, "Jesus, I am finally willing to begin to learn an interdependent way... please bring situations in my life that will help me grow in this way." I had no idea the answer would come in the form of roommates.

Thank you Jesus for the way that you work so unexpectedly to answer our prayers and grow us to live more like you do.

two sinkfuls of orange puke

2005-10-06T21:16:00.000-07:00

"How could anybody be so sick?" thought one of the staff of the neighbourhood house down the street from me, after two days of cleaning out two sinkfuls of orange puke in the bathrooms.

It turns out it wasn't orange puke; it was really two sinkfuls of fresh squeezed orange juice. Well how did the juice get to be there?

I heard this story at a community meeting tonight about different shower programs for those in need in communities throughout the city. Every Saturday morning the neighbourhood house down the street from me partners with churches and volunteers in the community to provide a hot breakfast, clean towels and underwear, a hot shower, and more importantly, friendship and hopefully the tools to begin thinking and living in healthier ways.

It turns out one of the program participants, after having been fed several times by the program, came to the desire to want to change his eating habits to healtheir ways. So he went out and bought himself a juicer. And he wanted to share it with people at the community centre and give back to others as he'd been given to.

I guess there was juice all over the place -- in the front lobby, in the bathrooms, everywhere!

Anyway, it's neat to see when programs like this can really touch people and make a difference in their lives.

why does it always happen the one time when...

2005-10-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

Last week I sent a parcel Xpresspost. I totally forgot to pick up the tracking slip. By the time I realized it, I was too lazy to go back to the post office to pick it up. I rationalized that the system has never failed me before. I've never had to look up a tracking number due to tardiness before.

Well, wouldn't it have to be the one time that the parcel gets lost? Without a tracking number it's impossible to check. Looks like I lose the 25 bucks that I could've argued back because Xpresspost is supposed to be a guaranteed service.

Why does it always not work the one time you don't do the one basic routine thing that's supposed to save you?

It reminds me of the time I was working at Campbell Soup on their employee newsletter. Every month I was supposed to double check with the HR guy at the Listowel plant about the how-long-an-employee-has-been-around awards (I can't remember the proper name right now -- maybe "employee anniversary awards"?). And every single time I double checked there was never a problem. So one month I decided to assume it would be just fine to print like all the other times.

Well, wouldn't it have to be the one time that there's a guy on the list who's worked on-again-off-again for the company. Man did I get in trouble for that.

I guess that's the way these things work. I suppose that's how I learn. So I will try to be glad for it.

the anatomy of an addiction

2005-10-04T17:56:00.000-07:00

Not long ago my friend Renae asked me if I would like to go on a sugar fast with her. I didn't particularly want to, yet I knew it would be good for me. And in my past experience, having accountability in forming a new habit can be the key difference in succeeding. So I told her sure, I would.

Well each day since then has fallen into one of two categories:

totally forgetting about the conversation I had with her and eating sugar (like chocolate chips or something similar) first thing in the morning and then all day.
2. totally wanting to honour what I said to her yet totally failing 2 hours into the day (again, usually on chocolate chips or something sweet lying around the house).

It seems like the harder I try and resolve not to do something, the less likely I have been to succeed.

I think I am addicted to sugar (and food, period), among many other things. How do I know? Because I can't control it. It has more control over me than I have over it. Crazy that an inanimate substance can have such power over me. But there are many other things that I am addicted to, things unseen -- like getting approval on a job well done, and the rush of getting my way in a conflict.

I think addictions make empty promises, offering to satisfy some kind of real need, but once the rush wears off, leaves you empty.

Good thing I am starting a 12 step course tonight (same 12 steps as AA), as part of a Spiritual Transformation course my church is offering. I tried taking it last year, and the addiction I was working on then (and likely will continue to work on this second time around) was being overly independent and commitment-phobic. In the end my Commitment-phobia won out and I dropped out of the course half way.

The hardest work is going deep and addressing the real roots of our addictions.

Let's hope I make it past step 5 this time.

lessons from a dying plant

2005-10-03T17:47:00.000-07:00

I received a beautiful orchid as a housewarming gift when I had my party back in June.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am plant killer through and through. I've never ever bought myself a plant because I know myself well. Two other friends have bought me plants (one for my birthday 2 years ago, another for my housewarming at my last apartment 4 years ago). I even got quite excited when I saw noticeable growth in one of them.

Alas, it was only a matter of time before I killed them both after a few months of concerted on-again, off-again effort.

I was quite excited to receive the orchids as they are one of my favourite flowers. So simple and elegant. I was thrilled to discover the instructions for care were simple -- indirect sunlight and water once a week. I thought I could handle once a week. And I did for quite some time. I even managed to ask my roommate to water it while I was away in Vietnam for two weeks in August.

I gave up on it in early September. Until my new roommate Becki, who has a green-thumb, gave me new hope this week. She cut the dried, flowerless stems, watered it again, and dusted off the green leaves. I had written it off as dead because the blooms had long fallen off. She pointed out the leaves were still green which meant the plant was clearly not dead yet! She made a comment about different seasons and how it wouldn't be blooming every single day of the year.

Something clicked in my head when she said that. I think I expect everything in my life to be in bloom all year round. I am quite impatient with long term anything in life, especially things like transforming my heart and forming new habits and perspectives. I want to see everything happen now. I want my food and sugar addictions to end now. I want my dream business ideas and career plans to happen now. I want my character flaws to change now. I want to see my friends' problems end now.

How unrealistic that kind of thinking is, and how it only serves to set me up for disappointment and frustration. One of the things I want to learn more is finding (and being satisfied) with rhythm and rest in my life. I want to enjoy any season I may find myself in on any given day.

the miracle of technology

2005-05-18T15:30:00.000-07:00

So here I am doing something unbelievably unusual and supernatural for me. I would even call it a miracle.

Many who know me might associate me with words and technology (due to my last job working on the webzine iamnext.com). To these people, it might seem that starting a blog would be a natural thing for me. Yet I remember when I first discovered reading blogs, I subconsciously swore to myself I would never have one of my own. I figured it was too much commitment and too hard to keep regularly updated. All the more recently I continue to unearth the depth of my phobia of commitment and maintenance. I can barely keep a regular (handwritten) journal of my own; I can barely stay on top of responding to the emails in my inbox (despite the fact that I compusively check email several times in an hour). What makes me think I can keep up with blog entries regularly?

But hey, things change. I think technology (among other things) is changing the way I think and live. Like the way it has changed the way I write... I used to have to do a pencil-on-paper draft whenever I wrote a paper or article. Now, that's been excluded from my writing process. Now, I can't even conceive of handwriting a first draft. I can only compose text while at a keyboard. So technology has changed the way I write in a short time.

While my overly pragmatic entries in my handwritten journal (i.e. "This is what I did today, this is who I saw, etc.") , bore me enough to drop it for 11 months of any given year, I've recently found myself thinking differently about the possibility of online journals. I've found that I've been more observant of things I see throughout my day -- whether it be on public transit, on television, online, or in conversations. Some are things that I wonder if others have thought about. Some are things I wish I could share with my friends about perspective in life. Others are simply inane things I might get a kick out of reading several years later. I think technology, specifically the concept of blogging, is changing the way I think about and process life.

And so here I am, doing a totally supernatural thing for me -- starting a blog. Do expect that the frequency of my entries will match my personality -- extremely on and regular vs. extremely off and silent. Nevertheless, I hope you'll enjoy the ride with me.