Bathroom Stall Wisdom

You know how sometimes there is writing on the inside of public bathroom stalls, usually put there by super classy girls who want the world to know that L+B=Love 4ever? Tonight I was in a bathroom that had a fair amount of graffiti, and someone had written:

Shut up

+

Love yourself

That struck me as profound. It kind of reminded me of that comedy sketch where the guy is a therapist, and his approach to counselling his patients was to yell at them to "STOP IT!" This bathroom stall message was somewhat like a verbal slap upside the head, "Shut up and just love yourself already."

Message received, super-classy-girl-who-writes-on-the-walls-of-public-bathroom-stalls. Thanks for being so obnoxiously, eloquently right.

In Pursuit

I completed my first hike today. I don't think I've every really hiked before...at least not like this. Certainly not in my adult life. Guys, I'm pretty proud of myself, I can't even lie to you. I've lived in BC for 11 months now and have done very little to utilize the gorgeous playground we've got here. My goal was/still is to get into hiking this summer; fits in well with my overall goal of living a more active and healthy life.

The hike we did today was labelled "moderate," (which for me was quite a workout...starting with an easy hike didn't really occur to me) but was relatively short (3.4 km return). It took us about 50 minutes up and about 40 down. My dad asked me this evening "did you guys get wet?" (because the forecast was pretty rainy today) and my reply was "nope! At least not with anything that my body wasn't producing." We sweated good and hard. That's one of the best feelings, I think.

Going up was hard for me, I can't lie. I'm not in awesome shape yet, and I was the slow one in the group. It's frustrating because I don't like to be that one in the group that has to stop to breathe, but my friends were gracious and encouraging. I only contemplated stopping once and it wasn't very seriously. I was pretty determined to conquer that mountain.

And I did. What a feeling. I felt like I had accomplished something important for my self-esteem, my motivation, my sense of determination. I did it. And I want to do it again.

This is what hard work looks like.

And this is what victory looks like.

You can all pat me on the back now :)

Simple Things

Yesterday, two things gave me immense joy, as I was babysitting the cutest kids in the world...my nieces and nephew.

1. I was putting the girls down for a nap and as I put Morgan into her crib, she started crying and saying she wanted to "walk." I was somewhat confused and kept telling her, "no it's time to sleep, Morgs." She kept crying and wanting to "walk" so finally I said "fine, I'll let you out and you can walk around the room." She walks over to the rocking chair and looks up at me expectantly. The light bulb went off in my head, "Oh you want to rock!" Now that I can do. So I sit down with her in the rocking chair, she lays her head on my chest and we rock. Life seriously does not get any better than that. Every time I said, "Ok Morgie, it's time to go to sleep now," she would reply, "I just want to walk a little bit..." I'm sure I "walked" with her much longer than her parents normally do...but Auntie Dana is pretty much mush for that little girl.

2. As the girls were sleeping, I got to hang out with Caleb (who just turned 5...how did THAT happen?). He was laying on the couch with me and I kept poking him, and every time he would just giggle helplessly. If you haven't heard his giggle, you won't get why this gave me so much joy, but he's seriously got the best giggle ever. I'm grinning just thinking about it right now.

Days like these remind me why I uprooted my life to be closer to my family.

I Love...

I love...

...seeing my nieces' and nephews' faces light up as I walk in the room and they launch themselves into my arms.

...the feel of new books in my hands.

...authors who can string words together like poetry (but not actual poetry).

...anything with a black and white pattern.

...meaningful conversations.

...the mountains and the prairies equally.

...Sunday afternoon naps.

...the point of a relationship where you're so comfortable together that you can sit side by side without needing to talk.

...a good cup of coffee.

...getting the giggles - the kind that you can't get under control and that usually hit at the most inappropriate times.

...driving down the highway on a sunny day, singing along to good music.

...finding new musicians to be obsessed with.

...knowing that I have been chosen by God.

...sitcoms that make me laugh out loud.

In Which No One Wins

We can all remember where we were when news of 9/11 broke. Nearly 10 years later we have news that the mastermind of that attack was killed by a US covert operation.

There were news reports last night that celebrations took place outside the White House and at Ground Zero, that justice had been served. I can understand why people say this, "an eye for an eye" and all that. But my heart was heavy last night. Was justice really served by taking another life? Why do we think that we can serve justice at all in this situation?

Was God pleased yesterday that bin Laden had been killed? Forgive me, but no. I am not saying that any of what that man had done in his life was pleasing to God, but somehow I don't think that rejoicing over the murder of a human being is any more pleasing to Him. I think that God weeps over the state of His children; we are all so wicked and filled with evil. We kill each other and are hateful and vengeful. I think God weeps.

"...as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live." Ezekiel 33:11

I don't think justice was served; I don't think justice was able to be served in this situation, at least not by us. I don't think anyone wins here. And I think God weeps.

This is for Sam because he found my blog

Today I was driving home from work and I passed a girl playing with one of these

These were THE thing to have when I was in grade 2, which was *ahem* 20 years ago.

Blue skies and sunshine

It's amazing how the world looks different when the sun is shining. Like, yes, in the literal sense of "hey! those trees are actually green" and "wow! there's mountains over yonder!" But also in every other sense too. Like, "hallelujah, God has remembered us here in the valley and has given us a break from the gloom" and "hey! I'm not actually depressed, my body has simply depleted its Vitamin D tank about three months ago!"

*I'm all about le italics today. They are helping me add emphasis to the point.

Life's good, folks. School is wrapping up and this is the first year that I'm actually sad about that. I'm not burned out this year! In fact, I find myself regretting the fact that I haven't gotten to know more students! Do you hear the different tune I'm singing from the last two years??

In other news, I had dinner with the fam-jam tonight and my mom made these hella good potatoes with bits of bacon on them and I was all "Mom! These are awesome! How do you make such awesomeness?!" And she proceeded to tell me that once you are done frying the bits of bacon, you mix up a bunch of crap in the bacon fat and put it all over the potatoes. Guys, my stomach likes it not. Bacon fat is so not meant to be eaten.

It is what it is

Not sure about any of you, but I don't like things to be beyond my control. I like things wrapped up in a neat little box, properly labelled and defined and put on a shelf; I always know where the box is and can easily identify it because of it's proper label. So when there are things that refuse to be boxed and labelled and shelved, I get mad.

I've spent some time being mad this week. Maybe much time.

So because I can do nothing else, I have put it into a damn box (so there!), labelled it "it is what it is" and put it high up on a shelf where it will hopefully get forgotten.

It just occurred to me that by "putting it on a shelf" I mean "putting it at the foot of the cross." An appropriate place for it, I think. The only place for it, I suppose.

Say What?

Today I saw "spring bulbs" for sale at Superstore.

It's February.

I frikkin' love this part of the country.

To Be Known

There is joy in being a pastor's kid. I say that without sarcasm. To be sure, there are disadvantages, but there is also an upside.

I became a pastor's kid later than average - I was 15 when my dad took his first church - so I really didn't have the experience of growing up in a fish bowl as many other PKs do. My dad also put me (and I speak in terms of "me" rather than "we" or "us" because my siblings were both out of the house by the time Dad went into ministry) first, before church or conference responsibilities. I very clearly remember him looking me in the eye and saying, "if you don't want to do this, we won't" when our family was in the decision-making process of taking that first church. It meant moving to a different province and I desperately didn't want that. If I had been a more selfish teenager, we would have stayed where we were. The knowledge, though, that I was more important than the church was important.

We've also been blessed with churches that haven't placed many demands on me as the pastor's daughter. I didn't feel judged or watched or held to a different standard. This was good because I had made it pretty clear that they wouldn't get much out of me.

There is, however, a certain level of celebrity when you're a pastor's kid and it gets worse when you're a grown-up pastor's kid. People are somewhat fascinated by us at my parent's newest church; they know details about us, but don't really know us.

The upside of this is that people know who I am there. Now that I am new in town and looking to make connections, it's been nice to walk into that church and have people talk to me. I can walk into and back out of other churches without anyone saying a word to me. So it's nice to walk into a church where people make an effort to make me feel welcome. It's nice to be known.

All that said, though, I miss my friends and my home church deeply - today more than any other I think...

Laugh til You Cry

**Make sure you pause the music player first

Haunted

I have stayed up half the night reading - something I haven't done in a very long time - and I can't sleep yet for fear that what I've read will manifest itself in my dreams. So I will write it down, even though the tears aren't yet dry on my cheeks, and hope that this keeps it from haunting me tonight.

This book was not easy to read and yet I couldn't force myself to put it down. I usually read before bed, but I found myself thinking about the story throughout the day. The story is "fictional," but is one of those stories that rocks you to the core because you know it is an echo of someone's reality - lived long ago, buried deep, but not forgotten. Never forgotten.

It was a novel that followed an 81 year old woman as she slowly - painfully - told her daughters the story of her survival through the Great Terror of the 1930s in Russia and World War II. Did you know that more than 1 million Russians died there? Murdered. 70% of them starved to death. The horrors of mothers placing their children on evacuation trains, not knowing that the trains were heading into the heart of the German invasion. The horrors of mothers watching their children waste away from lack of food and knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it. The horrors.

There are thousands of stories like the "fictional" one I just finished reading. My grandparents and great-grandparents had these stories, maybe not these exact stories, but versions of it from elsewhere in Europe during that awful time. I know they do because I have heard murmurs of the handicapped brother and son who was left behind all those years ago - a memory so locked away that I have heard mention of it only once and even then only after my grandparents had passed away. This history is also my history. That knowledge is heavy and so is the thankfulness that I was not the one who had to survive it; but the fact that someone DID survive it is why I am here today.

What an amazing, and terrible, terrible book. The kind that makes you keep turning the pages, that changes you, but that you never want to pick up again.

Officially Official

Ok first I need to tell you a story. I was babysitting the kids tonight and Morgan(18 months old) was giving the cat, George (affectionately known as Georgie), some "love" to which the cat was responding with swats of the paws. Morgan gets up to walk away and the cat reaches out, hooks his paws around her ankle and trips her. No lie. She picks herself up, turns around and goes, "Georgie! NO!" Darren and I laughed so hard. She was so affronted. The cat defs got the last laugh there. I wish I'd had a video camera.

So I am officially a BC resident. This week I got my BC Care Card (medical coverage) in the mail, got all of my banking finalized and FINALLY got my car insured. It has been an unbelievable process. You see, insurance in BC is uber expensive (because everyone drives like idiots), but you can get a 5% discount on it for each year you have been claims-free (up to 40%). You just have to be able to prove it to them. So I got a claims history letter from Manitoba, but because my car was insured under my dad's name for a few years, my letter only showed that I had 3.5 years of driving history. The result would be only a 15% discount and insurance premiums that were double what I paid in Manitoba. I wasn't ok with that. So, to make a long story short, I (and my dad...probably more my dad) did a bunch of calling around, eventually resorted to calling the MLA and we managed to get ICBC to agree to give me a full 40% discount if I provided a Driver's Abstract. So I FINALLY got that on Friday. The plates are on my car.

The relief is physical. I feel as though a weight has been lifted off me. I will randomly remember that everything is done and I get a little bubble of excitement in my tummy. It just feels so good to be finished the process. Hallelujah.

I also went and got a library card today. I was waiting for my driver's license to come so I could prove my local address. I am so excited to read again. I haven't really had time in the past 3 months and now I have access to a library and I have 4 books to read in the next 3 weeks. Hallelujah.

Living Life at a Very Fast Pace

Well, I keep thinking that life is going to slow down to a normal pace, but we're a ways away from that happening apparently. My sister's wedding is in T-minus 11 days, and then Ben comes to visit, so life may return to a manageable level on Nov 1.

I miss routine.

So I volunteered at work to be one of the First Aid Attendants. If I had known the amount of work it took to become such, I may not have volunteered so cheerily. I was in a full time course all of last week, with monstrous amounts of homework/study in the evenings. Last week felt like a month. There were times when I couldn't even remember what city I was in (that tells me I'm not exactly adjusted to life in new province yet) and I totally forgot I even had a job elsewhere. That's how much brain space the course took up.

BUT I rocked both of my exams (written and practical) and now I am officially qualified to save lives. Or at least KEEP people alive until MORE qualified people arrive.

It was the closest I'm going to get to living out my life-long dream of being a doctor and it was really fun:)

Ahem...*tap tap tap*...is this thing on?

Ok, so I know. It's been awhile. But for real guys, it's been helllllllllllla busy at work, plus I've moved, plus I have no internet at home, PLUS the internet at work sucks (not to mention the fact that I have no time to write a blog at work anyways).

But here I am. Stealing Starbuck's WiFi, which they fully advertise as being free for everyone, but it still feels just a little like I'm pirating the internet waves cuz I've been nursing this vanilla latte for, like, 3 hours now and I'm not giving Starbucks any more of my money, but I'm going to keep on using their so-called "free for everyone" internet waves.

I'm really tired.

But I'm alive. And I love my job. And even though US loans continues to drive me to drink, and I can't seem to win the-battle-to-get-the-desk-slash-office-setup-that-I-want, I still like going to work. All in all, this move has = victory!

For real, even though I love stealing Starbuck's "free" wireless waves, I gotta go to bed. My butt is falling asleep - this chair is really hard.

In Which I Bang My Head Against a Wall. Repeatedly.

I am considering taking up heavy drinking as an extra-curricular activity.

Guys, the US student loan system is taking all my brain cells. Just when I think I've got it semi-figured out, I spend 40 minutes on the phone with them (over my lunch break I might add. TWICE now.) only to find out that I know shit-all about this system.

I have never been so confused or defeated in all my life. That might not be totally true, but I DID almost cry today.

Fear Cancels Faith, Faith Counters Fear

It would seem that I have some fear issues to work through. I've found that over the past few weeks my anxiety has been much higher than normal. That's not entirely surprising, given the major changes happening, but I was a little surprised at how high my level of fear got a couple times and the reasons behind it.

While I was still in Manitoba, I suddenly became very anxious when driving my car. "What if I get in an accident right before I leave for BC?" It doesn't help that I had just put major money into fixing my car for the long drive and I didn't want yet another expense, but I was genuinely concerned that something might happen.

I was a wreck on the back of Ben's motorbike. I don't love motorbikes in the first place, but if I'm going to be on one, I want Ben to be the driver. I know he would never let anything happen to me. But by the time we got to my house that night, I was shaking and nearly in tears. I had been so afraid the whole time that I was literally "steering" him unconsciously (making his job of keeping the bike upright a whole lot harder).

I worried about my dad driving to Manitoba to help me move. What if something happened to him on the way? My guilt would be overwhelming because he had been coming to help me. Driving back I did alright through the prairies, but in the back of my mind, the trek through the mountains was looming.

I've done the trip from Alberta to BC dozens of times in my life. It's always made me a little nervous, but as a child, I just trusted my daddy behind the wheel and was fine. This was only the second time I've done the trip where I was one of the drivers and it filled me with intense anxiety. All I could envision was losing control of the vehicle and there being a fiery crash. I actually freaked out on the Coquihalla Highway and made my mom drive. My anxiety didn't even go down that much when she took over. I didn't calm down until we were safely home. And then I worried about my dad until he was safely home two days later.

I don't know why I would think that God would call me out to start a new life in BC and then kill me on the way there, but my brain just kept thinking "sometimes God doesn't make any sense." When I made the decision to move here I consciously chose to not let fear rule my life and prevent me from making the move. I knew that if I didn't take this opportunity because I was afraid of the unknown, I would never get anywhere. But fear has definitely taken hold in other ways.

I am frustrated that I trust God with certain areas of my life, but not others. I trust him to provide friends and joy here. But I don't trust him to keep my family safe. I have this screwed up idea that because I don't think I can handle losing a member of my family, he will make it happen just to prove to me that I can handle it. Where does that idea come from? I know it's flawed, but it's real, all the same.

I don't want to live ruled by fear. I want to trust the God who passionately loves me to provide for me and give me strength. He's proven himself so faithful to me and yet I doubt him. That makes me so sad.

Brilliance

Look at me blogging away consistently. I'm a machine (or, I have nothing better to do at work these days).

So a number of months ago, my dear friend Ben and I began teaching one another about our respective genders. We wrote long emails and explained things like High Maintenance Women (me) and Gearheads (him). These were invaluable, not to mention hilarious. In fact, I have just re-read some of them and I would venture so far as to say that they are brilliant. We should perhaps publish a book.

Anyways, below is one that I wrote to him about things to never say to your girlfriend. There is a story behind this. Ben and I went camping last summer with my roommate and her then-boyfriend. We were planning to go tubing down the river the next day and on our way out to the campground we stopped at a burger shop for supper. As we were waiting in line I said, "Ooo poutine!" And Ben goes "you can't eat poutine! you'll sink your side of the tube!" He still hasn't lived that one down. So I decided to write him "The Top 10 Things NEVER to Say to Your Girlfriend." Enjoy...

10. "You complete me." - It worked for Jerry McGuire. It won't, and I repeat WON'T, work for you. You are guaranteed an eye roll. Saying nice things is always a good idea, just don't use another guy's line. And don't make it cheesy. Cheesy kills the mood and fast.

9. "You don't really want kids, do you?" - For your information, I have a uterus and I intend to use it. If you aren't interested in having children, you can just move right along. A better question to ask would be "how many kids do you see yourself having?" Then she can answer zero if she doesn't intend to ever grow babies.

8. "I hope you brought money along, because I'm not paying for you" - we do not expect you to pay for us every time, but a line like this, where you outright refuse to ante up, brings you down big time in our books. A lethal mistake is not paying on the first date. Trust me. It's happened. He didn't get a second one (admittedly, there were other contributing factors, but it still sticks out in my mind).

7. "What did you do to your hair?" - This immediately implies that you do not like whatever we may have done differently. Never imply that. If we've tried something different, we're probably feeling a little self-conscious about it and we don't need you confirming that it doesn't look good. That's what our girlfriends are for.

6. "Is that what you're planning to wear?" - Yes it is. Do you have a problem with that?

5. "Do you want to call my mom for that recipe?" - Ohhhhh boy. Shut up and eat what I made you.

4. "You didn't tell me you had a hot sister." - Sorry that must have slipped my mind while I was busy worrying about whether or not you find ME hot.

3. "Are you sure you should be eating that?" - Yes I'm sure I should be eating this. Even if I've told you I've given it up.

2. Accidently call me by your ex-girlfriend's name - do I really need to explain this? This is one slip-up you should avoid at all costs. Because I won't forget for a long, LONG time.

1. "Is it that time of the month?" - Even if it is, perhaps ESPECIALLY if it is, you do not want to know what is coming to you. PMS certainly may contribute to how we act once in awhile, but unless I offer that information to you as a sort of explanation for my irrationality, you should not inquire about it. Trust me, you REALLY don't want to know about that whole business. Plus, by asking about it, you've probably just made me cry. Ass.

Perspective

There's nothing like a farewell event in your honour to make you feel appreciated. I had my "mugging" today at work - given its strange name for the practice of giving the departing employee a pottery mug that bears their name, as well as the institutional logo.

I have often felt inadequate in this job. It quickly became apparent to me when I began that this job required an awful lot of extroversion. Turns out, I'm predominantly introverted. My administrative gifts were definitely well-used here and I quickly found my niche in the disability service area and took a lot of pride in what I was able to drive here. But there was always that nagging sense that I wasn't doing a very good job in the biggest part of my job, the commuter program.

Standing in a room today and having the Dean of Social Sciences stand up to thank me, on behalf of the faculty, for my work with students with disabilities was pretty remarkable. So also was the heartfelt thanks of our Vice President of Finance for my work with the student employment program. He's a tough cookie who questions everything and intimidated the hell out of me for the past 2 years, so to hear him say "I had such confidence in giving you responsibility for this program because I knew you got it and you were taking the program in the direction it needed to go" was....I don't even know the word for it. I was humbled and grateful.

It puts into perspective for me that I was very capable in this position, and maybe I even excelled at it. Not everything fit my strengths very well, but the areas that I invested it, I invested in passionately. My strengths outweighed my weaknesses.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to grow over the past 2 years. I know so much more about myself, my strengths and weaknesses, and I can say that I have loved working here.

Swing Low

It's starting to sink in. I'm really leaving. And soon.

I went camping with my friends over the weekend. I was sitting beside a very dear friend, both of us reading our own books, when I was suddenly overcome with a sense of "gosh, I'm going to miss her." So we had a little cry.

It's also really tough when I start getting glimpses of how deeply this is affecting some people really close to me. Especially when it's a boy. Rip my heart out.

Tonight is my goodbye party (I like to think of it as a "See ya later" party). Honestly, I'm dreading it. It will be wonderful to have all of my dearest friends in one place, but kind of a crappy reason for them all to be there. I know that tonight will invoke feelings of "what the hell am I doing? why am I leaving these amazing people?" I dread that. I know that this was the right decision and that God is clearly leading me down this path, but it's so damn hard to say goodbye.