take a break, or be broken

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

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

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.