Eating to Live

“Eat to Live” that’s what my Mom brought me up to do. If you are asking yourself what that is, it’s making making healthy food choices when you eat. Have I always done this? No!

During the course of my marriage my ex taught me how to “live to eat.” The results of that was that I, who had NEVER needed to diet (In fact, at 5’8”and 117 lbs., I needed to put on weight.), gained so many pounds that before my marriage ended I’d gotten up to 197. It didn’t help that I was going into menopause at the time we got married or that I had a job that kept me up all night and asleep all day. My ex was a sedentary couch potato who was a better, if not healthier, cook than I was. He eventually developed Type II Diabetes, although not while we were together. I consider myself lucky to have avoided that dreaded disease.

Eating healthy doesn’t mean you have to diet. It doesn’t mean you have to avoid your favorite foods either. It does mean you should make the effort to eat them in moderation and as often as possible make healthier choices if your favorites aren’t good for you. If you don’t believe me on the healthy choices thing just ask Sandi. That post, her last post in December of 2008, is about how her making one bad choice almost landed her in the hospital. Making healthy choices doesn’t have to be hard. It does mean you need to know what healthy choices are, exhibit a little self control from time to time (This gets easier with practice!), and provide yourself with options at the dinner table so you don’t suffer feelings of deprivation.

I do my choosing by portion control, picking low sodium foods, and trying to avoid fat. I’m not perfect at this by any stretch of the imagination. Breads and crackers are my downfall. Get a package of cinnamon graham crackers around me and watch the pounds pile on. But I try my best not to keep the things I know will cause a weight gain in my pantry. And yes, that includes cinnamon grahams.

I wean myself off of bad choices if I learn I’m making them. I did this with milk in my marriage. He wanted whole milk. I discovered you could bake with 2% milk so I suggested this. We agreed it would be better and the change in fat wasn’t significant taste wise, so after 3 or 4 weeks of drinking that we were adapted to a lower fat milk. Then I suggested low fat or 1% because I needed the extra calcium in my diet and it was a better choice. For some reason when you reduce fat in milk the amount of calcium you get is increased. He agreed again so it was another step down. Then a few months later we went down to skim milk. This worked really well till his sister came for a visit. When she called our skim milk “chalk water” he immediately wanted to go back up to a higher fat content version. We did for a while and then went back down again. LOL You can probably guess from all of the above that eating healthy was a constant battle during our marriage. He was doing most of the cooking and would always be adding a little extra this or that into the food to “make it taste better.” As soon as our marriage ended the weight started dropping off and I went down to 145, a healthy weight for me.

I’m 155 pounds these days and I know I could easily drop the extra 10 pounds if I would exercise regularly. I still retain some of that couch potato habit I gained during my marriage, although it’s actually more of a desk chair habit as I spend most of my time at the computer these days. I’m working on the exercise thing. For some reason I find self control with exercise harder than with food. Oh well, resolutions are as easy to make as they are to break and all I have to do to get back on track is make a new one and I’ll work at it for a few days which is better than none at all. But enough about me.

The reason I started this now pretty long post (It wasn’t intended to be that, honest!), was to share a website that shows you how to make those healthy food choices by providing you with the info you need to make them. It’s Eat This, Not That! a page sponsored by Women’s Health magazine and also Men’s Health. They cover a full range of food choices and places where you might need to make them like eating out or the convenience store aisle. I’ve been following them through Yahoo, and then Google reader. I’ve found reason to share their articles with friends and family. You might find some of their info handy in the grocery store or at your favorite fast food restaurant. Their Best & Worst articles cover everything from gender health to sex. And there are lots of better choices for kids mentioned too. I hope you’ll make the time to check them out. Maybe it will help you make different choices the next time you hit the grocery store. Bon appétit!

A Job and a Half

Life is exhausting these days. Every workday I get up, drive across town to my Census job, put in 8 hours there, race across town to my second job (scoring tests at Pearson), put in 4 hours there, and then I hurry myself home (before I collapse) and unwind for about one hour before going to bed. This schedule has made me so tired that I spent 12 hours in bed on Saturday night.

Don't get me wrong, I like what I'm doing at Pearson. I'm just not as young as I was the last time I worked a string of 12 hour shifts. But scoring tests is fun and I feel like I might be making a difference in a child's education. The pay isn't bad either. It's temporary work. This project is till mid May, so about 4 weeks.

When I originally agreed to take a night shift at Pearson I was told 2 weeks. That changed on the first day of training. For a while I thought about only doing the 2 weeks I'd agreed to, we have that option, but then I heard from HR at the Census job that we may be down sizing the office where I work in a month. So when I told Sandi not to let me talk myself out of the 4 weeks of extra pay, I guess God was listening in. Four weeks working 12 hours sounds pretty good right now. It also means that I'll have possible day projects to fall back on if the Census job lays me off for a bit.

Because all my weekday evenings are filled I've missed 1 choir practice and will miss several more. That bums me out because I like having something social and vocal to do once a week. The choir director just added in several new pieces to our notebooks. I don't know when they are going to be performed and we move through them really quick. Hope I have several weeks to practice on them but probably not.

Sunday I did the bare minimum at church. Usually I go early to see if I'm needed for anything at the early service, have breakfast in the fellowship hall, make choir practice prior to service, and then church and home, after a short stop in to coffee hour. This time I cut the early service out. I've also asked for a sub for this Wednesday night when I'm on the schedule to be Lay Minister at the Healing Eucharist. No can do when income calls. I wish it were the other way around as I get much more from church, but I really think God has put this job in my life for a reason, so maybe it's time to learn a bit of time management.

When my friend, JS, sent me a blank time schedule out of some book she was reading it had something called "sharpening the saw" on it. She explained that was for rest or training. What ever it took to get you back on track and working better than the long hours had dragged you down to. Sunday could have been such a day and to a certain extent it was, but not as much as I wanted it to be. When I entered the sanctuary for choir practice I looked out the back windows. There were two guys walking around the labyrinth towards the gardens. That was when I noticed that they were in full bloom. Suddenly I no longer wanted to be inside. Instead I yearned to be outside getting down close and personal with those flowers. Sigh! I elected to be responsible and stayed inside for choir. Then I went home to call Mom and do the house keeping chores. What a loss! I won't have time to go back there till this weekend. I'm going to have to remember to pack my camera in whatever I use to haul a journal and purse around in because I definitely want to capture those blossoms. Last year I took some pics of the garden at the back of the church. I think it has expanded and someone has planted different flowers this year. If I'm supposed to learn something from all this more than busy time, maybe one of the things I need to learn is how to take those moments when they happen and also keep a fast and furious pace when necessary. That makes me look forward with joy and also the feeling of being challenged. All prayers gratefully accepted.

Peace! Hope! & Joy!

New Year Resolutions & Good Wishes

Many of my friends make New Year's resolutions and are quite successful at keeping them. I'm not all that self disciplined, so past resolutions were often forgotten by the time the excitement of the New Year ended. This year I'm hoping to change that. My best bud, JS, has made two resolutions that are inspiring, and I find myself wanting to make one too. It's been a few years since I partook in this tradition and I think I'm going to go about it in a different way. Instead of making a brand new change to initiate, I'm going to take a change that is starting to occur naturally and make a resolution to continue it through the year. On reflection, I think this is the method JS used to choose her two, so perhaps it's a better method because I always admire her careful and considerate actions.

For the past few weeks I've been feeling tense. This is especially noticeable in my shoulders and I find myself rotating them, my neck, and even grinding my teeth, none of which is good for you and often looks really weird. To try to alleviate this I've been getting down on the floor and doing 10 push ups, 10 leg raises, and 10 crunches. It seems to be helping, plus just doing it makes me feel better. I know that if I keep this up I'll be healthier and do more for my looks, self esteem, and general mood. Yay!

So this year my New Year Resolution is to continue to do those things and perhaps add in something else during the week that contributes to physical fitness. Thanks JS!

Happy New Year all! May it be the best you've ever had. May all your hopes and wishes for it come to pass. And may you be successful in keeping your resolutions.

Scrabble Online or How to Survive Without TV

Sandi and I are playing Scrabble online. This is FUN! We're using the Scrabulous website and playing by email. If the two games we've played are any indication, we are pretty evenly matched. But I gotta tell you, I really worked hard for my win!

Playing Scrabulous is free, easy, and addictive. Sandi and I played the first game slow, over a couple of days. The next one we pretty much sat by our computers waiting for the emails to come in. Being the antsy sort, I kept clicking on "refresh screen" to learn her next move. The only equipment I'll need, besides my computer and the internet, is possibly a Scrabble Dictionary. Merriam Webster is on my computer but I don't think that is considered official. It helps though. When Sandi spelled "xi" I had to look it up. That's when I learned you could use the spellings of Greek letters in play. Amazing! It's been years since I last played and we were pretty simple with the rules then, no proper nouns or foreign words. That was about it. Guess I need to reacquaint myself with the rules.

Sandi being good at this isn't surprising. Looking online for the above image, it's from Wikipedia, I learned that most of Britain is in love with the game. She probably played every other day when she lived there. Another thing I learned was that scrabble is available for cell phones. That sounds like fun!

Scrabble is helping me deal with not having a TV. Mine died Friday. I'm not ready to invest in a new one yet. So I'm looking for things to do to fill in the hours I used to spend watching "So You Think You Can Dance?" and "Numb3rs." This is doable. I've got a friend who only recently got satellite to watch. Before that she and her husband did other things. They did have a TV, but, not liking the selection of available shows...or the ads that go with them, they watched DVDs of series they'd heard good things about instead. The summer we landed on the moon my family went on a month long camping vacation. I survived that with no TV and I can survive this.

There are blessings to be had from going TV-less. They are electricity hogs. Yesterday I unplugged it, along with the DVD player, the digital converter, and the powered antenna. That should cut con$umption a bit. The activities I hope to fill the time with will, I think, make my life richer and more productive. I'll read more, listen to music, and practice my guitar. Maybe I'll get some yarn and try crocheting or knitting. I might even go outside for an evening walk. Cooking, cleaning, playing with GIMP and the photos I've taken, there's lots I can do. One thing I'd really like is to find myself spending more time with people. So I think I'll try to make one or two of the evening events at church.

Peace! Hope! & Joy! And with that Peace some Quiet!

Minor Manipulations

If you look to the right you'll find that I've turned the player off and changed it's color. I think the new color is less "in my face". Hope others like that too.

The reason I turned the thing off was that it was getting in the way of other functions on my computer. It slowed my dsl way down. It's a constant source of music/noise. The player uses Java which doesn't seem to like having multiple applets running at the same time. Add a mail browser to that and things get even worse. It took 10 minutes to check my email this morning. To load the daily jigsaw puzzle required closing two tabs. If performance doesn't improve the thing goes. Does anyone know if there are some Java settings I can adjust to make things work better?

My PC is very knowledgeable about computers and software. He suggested some free photo manipulation software, GIMP, that is open source and works on multiple platforms. I installed it today and tried out a few of the filters. There are tutorials and books showing how to use all the features it has. Those will come in handy as I'm finding myself in need of a digital terms dictionary.

And while I'm thinking about it, it's raining here today. The lovely soft pitter pat of raindrops hitting on surfaces and the smell of damp. Totally peaceful!

Dibs and Dabs of Stuff

This morning I'm grinning from ear to ear. San awarded me the "Just Plain Fun to Read" award. Yay! Thank you San! It's proudly displayed on the right sidebar.



Thursday evening I rediscovered the public library. Wanted something new to read. Didn't want to face the dangers of walking into Barnes & Noble...or any other bookstore for that matter. So I stopped by on my way home. While there I picked up a copy of the latest book by the late Madeleine L'Engle, The Joys of Love. Apparently this had been in the possession of her family and is published posthumously. At my friend Micheal's suggestion, I'm trying out a book by Lois McMaster Bujold, Cordelia's Honor. Michael and I've been functioning as good personal libraries for each other lately. That's a great way to save and keep in touch with friends. The third book I picked up, and am in the process of reading now, is Maria V. Snyder's, Poison Study.

Getting books at the public library has been added to the lifestyle changes list.

With books I'm like a kid in a candy store. It can be hard to choose. When I have more than one new book I sometimes use a method for choosing which to read first. Two or three of the most interesting looking (it's a mood of the moment thing) get into bed with me and I read a few lines or a page from each. The one I get hooked by at the time is the one I start with and read for the next few days. That's what happened last night with Snyder's book. I was hooked in the first paragraph. Wow! Talk about good writing. You wake from a nightmare caused by experiences you lived through. You're in prison. You're walking towards your own execution thinking "how nice to have it all over," and then boom, you're getting offered one of those jobs which might kill you, but while you do it your still alive. Who couldn't get hooked by a book that does that in 6 short pages?

While at the library, I proudly noticed that Susan's book Shelter was on the shelves. Yay, my friend is known locally too!

Michael is teaching me how to play Dungeons & Dragons. This is apparently going to take some time because the game isn't being played yet. He is in preparation still because he's writing the scenario and needs to gather a team of players to play it. What we've been doing towards my part is design my first character. The story is set in an alternate US history. It has lots of cultures in it and I'm a Half Elf, Asian-American, Female Sorceress. So far we've done the creation dice rolls that tell you what your strength, knowledge, and some other stuff are. Then we added the extra points by race and selected weapons I'm supposed to be good with. Those were longsword, rapier, and short and long bow. Now I'm in the process of reading through a list of feats to choose one which I can have as a starting feat. Why they call these feat I've no idea. They seem sort of like talents to me. But I'm new to this and maybe talent has another meaning in the game.

And on a frustrated but also affectionately amused note, now that my desk top has been cleaned and decluttered (for the most part), Hyram has decided that it is his favorite perch again. So he keeps jumping up in the middle of the desk. And I keep shoving him over to one side. His tail flicks a lot and when it disrupts mouse movements I lift him down. He turns around and jumps right back up. So we're in the battle for computing/cat perch space right now. I love that he wants to be close to me. I love how he purrs when he's up here even while flicking his tail swiftly and roughly. But I don't love to have my mouse, in my hand at the time, flicked by his tail so that my efforts to work are disrupted. Oh well! Maybe someday I'll get a deeper desk and have more room for him. I'd give him the entire side of this one but so much of the back edge is lined with stuff that he'd knock off and I'd then have to crawl under the desk to retrieve them. At least Hooboo hasn't decided he wants the space too so there are no cat fights going on while Hyram rests on his new throne. :)

Growing into Loss

When I was in high school my grandfather on my father's side passed away. When Mom called to tell me about it I wanted to attend the funeral, but it wasn't convenient because I was attending boarding school in San Marcos at the time and the funeral was in Kingsville. So the idea of my grandfather being gone was somewhat unreal to me. I never got to consider the expected need for closure with that situation or make any. It was so distant that I didn't even mourn. I tell myself that my grandparents are in my heart and live on there and that I will see them when it is my time to go. It feels like they are on an extended visit and they'll be back soon...that time being unfathomable because it would be when I get to where they are.

If you've got a long, close history with someone this can be a reasonable reaction. It isn't the expected one, but it falls in line with what we are taught in church or myth surrounding death. So the first time I ever grieved was when I had a friend dying of cancer. I still miss her but the pain has settled down to a conversational thought tossed heavenward knowing that she is looking in on me from time to time. I knew her for 3 years and it took me 2 to delete the folder with all her emails in it. Why didn't I feel that way about my grandparents? I guess because I'd always had them close enough to go visit that expectation held on in my reaction to them being gone.

Ever since my first experience mourning the loss of someone I've found it hard to hear of someone else getting ill with cancer or something else that could take this familiar, loved face from my world. It's like the idea of loss suddenly became real. So I had a hard time yesterday when a friend at church said she read the obituaries daily looking to see if anyone she knew had gone on. When someone I know gets sick I get so sad and hurt so inside that I have a hard time dealing with it. I wondered how others dealt with that pain. I know several people I care about at church that are getting on in years and becoming frailer every time I turn around. The idea of them not being there is scary. I wonder what I can do because the idea of cringing and hiding away from the pain that the thought of them passing on brings is instinctive, but the desire to be close to them while they are here is critical to my loving them.

And that's what my friends and I discussed last night in my Cursillo reunion. There are apparently stages of mourning and one of them has some pamphlets that she will give me shortly to read on the subject. It felt really good to have someone to talk to about my concerns over my emotional reactions to pain and fear of loss. I felt like I'd been taken into a group of wise women and was being supported and brought up in a very loving way. We all cried for those we loved and were concerned about losing. We talked about ways we could be close to them while they are still here. I may be making one or two changes in the ways I interact with my church to support my being close to those I love because of that conversation. And I feel really wonderful about the whole thing. Even though I cried I know I am loved and understood by those women, and I'll be better at loving people I know who may not be with me that much longer.

Peace! Hope! & Joy!

More Minor Blog Changes or 50 Ways to be Sneaky With Your Life

On the left sidebar I've added a list of minor lifestlye changes I'm currently making. Some of them are for greening. Some are for health. And some are for personal environment. A few of them are familiar ones you keep hearing others suggest. I swung them to my own idiosyncrasies.

Examples: Instead of parking as far away as possible I just stopped trying to be closest. Or, instead of doing tons of crunches and squats I've changed my desk chair for a balance ball. Thank you, JS! That was a strategy I learned during my student teaching days. It works on abs, legs and thighs, and posture. It also helps you focus or burn energy if you happen to be ADHD. I also take gummy vitamins because I hate swallowing pills. Not every pill comes in gummy or liquid form so I take those I need to with a thick milk or soy smoothie thus adding necessary calcium and other good live/active cultures into my diet. Another source of calcium is added to my coffee while making it into a mocha drink. One bulb at a time I'm making my apartment greener by using CFLs. I can't see any good reason to replace a bulb early. It would then require some form of recycling which has its own expenses. So I just wait...the incandescent bulbs burn out fairly rapidly.

Popular life change philosophies often seem to say you need to push to make yourself better. One my childhood messages would add: "And if you haven't pushed to success you haven't pushed hard enough." I hate that attitude. It makes me want to cringe, sit down, and be lazy. So I sneak these pleasant little changes into my life. Why suffer? Life should be fun! Got a good sneaky idea? Let me know! If I add it to my life I'll include it on the list. Oh, one more way to save and recycle...use those one use soap filled buff puffs for cleaning your face and then scour the bathroom sink with it. Then it's good to toss and you've not used any nasty cleaning chemicals. May a green, peaceful, positive lifeforce be with you! Joy!

Plenty of Activity

Life's been looking up this past week. I've been doing things I haven't done for a while. I'm starting to feel normal and back to my old self. One of the things that has caused this, and probably the most significant, is that I'm changing medications.

My medicine chest includes the usual battery of pills for those who are starting to get on in years and two of them are prescribed by a psychiatrist. For several years I've taken antidepressants off and on. The ADD meds I've been on since I was diagnosed with it in 2000. When my career plans blew up this past spring, I decided to try a different antidepressant at the advice of my sister who's a psychiatrist. She recommended one I'd tried before and it had been ok then, but as I've aged it is no longer good for me. Instead it creates an apathy that leaves me unmotivated and ineffective at home. I can still work but there is no zest or energy in it. The ADD med I was on for a few years was a version of Ritalin. That's a controlled substance so my doctor, and my sis, suggested I try out strattera. I agreed thinking that it might help me deal with motivation which I thought came from depression and not the medication. Wrong! Strattera doesn't work for me. After a month of being on it I found myself daydreaming at work and not being aware of time passing. That's not a good situation. So two weeks ago, when I forgot to take the meds before heading off to work, I decided it was a good time to take myself off strattera and research antidepressants. Here's what I learned.

There are 3 major groups of antidepressants. SSRI's work with serotonin and that is helpful for women because without it they aren't very social. Another group works with norepinephrine which affects motivation and energy. The third group works on dopamine and that's for people who have psychotic episodes. Then there's a set of meds which don't affect any of those neurochemicals and doctors don't really know how they work, but they do. The med I was on affected serotonin, and norepinephrine once the dosage reached a certain level. Strattera also works on norepinephrine but it isn't effective as an antidepressant. Between the two meds I was taking I should have been covered on two of the major neurochemicals. Since they weren't having the desired effect I decided to take myself off the antidepressant too and go back on the one I'd been on before which didn't cause apathy. Since I couldn't see my doctor quickly (VA medical system) I called my sister for instructions on how to get off of Effexor. Following her directions I'm now off that and back on Wellbutrin which does work. Yay! I'm feeling so much better. My energy is up and so is my creativity. In fact I'm sort of going in all kinds of directions mentally because I've been so long with out creative mental stimulation. This past week I got to exercise that creativity and energy. So, there's lots of nice stuff to report.

Saturday I was LEM for Morning Prayer. I spent lots of extra time on that service. I found myself praying for people I knew needed it but weren't on the official church prayer list. I also found myself just talking to God about my life. This was so rewarding. I felt really close to Him and it's really special there in the sanctuary. That set the tone for the rest of the morning. I even found myself singing part of the Office because I'd learned the melody to one of the songs used in it when I attended late service recently.

When I was done with the prayers I went outside and noticed the small garden at the back of the sanctuary was in full bloom. This isn't one of our landscaped gardens but someone's special project. It is beautiful, not large and tenderly cared for. Every plant in this garden is different. So I spent some quality time with the camera and that garden. Not being a horticulturalist I've no idea what the names of the flowers I photographed are but I got quite a few shots and some of them I really like. Some of these flowers are Texas natives and used for xeroscaping. If you know the names of the ones I don't (I really only know the roses) please comment and let me know so that I can update the post with correct names. Thanks!

The garden has several vines along the wall that it sits against. This is one of them. I took several pictures of these intensely colored trumpet type flowers. This is the best one.

Everyone knows a nice rose when they see it. This was first of the flowers I photographed. I'm sorry to say that I was so enthralled with the color that I didn't notice the aging look of the rose. It's gotten pretty hot here in S. Texas and I guess the flowers are going to fade pretty quickly.

This is such a lovely bright color that it excites me. These roses don't have many petals. Their simplicity of form seems to go well with the intense color.

Once I wrote a poem about the garden of my heart. In it I mentioned a blue flower whose name I didn't recall. This was that flower. It is popular here in S. Texas. A huge bush of it was growing at the house I lived in up until fifth grade.

When I lived in Corpus Christie, I used to have a window box of begonias on the edge of my patio. They were a more intense color than these but they grow well in both garden and pots if you give them water and some room for their roots. I don't know the name of the small intensely red flower next to them. It too is good down here in the Texas heat. Can you tell bright colors attract me?
This one is definitely a xeroscape flower. Again, I don't know the name of it but I like the orange coloring of it.

This flowering vine abounds throughout the south. When I got married my soon to be Aunt-in-law helped me manage the wedding arrangements. This was the flower she brought from her own garden to put on the tables at the reception. Wish I remembered the name of it. I love the bright pink flowers and when I again have a yard of my own it will be one of the first plants I get.

This too is xeroscaping. I don't know this flowers name either. This shade of purple is one of my favorites. It reminds me of the choke bush although I know that isn't the name for this flower. But that's how I know it's a native to Texas, or has adapted so well you wouldn't know the difference.

This one must be a cultured wildflower. It reminds me of the flowering weeds that used to grow on the playground of my first elementary school in Mercedes, TX. I'm glad they kept this or put it in. It grows low to the ground in a straggling manner.

Here's a shot of the corner of this garden. You can see the amazing variety of plants and color that this gardener has established here.

Here's the same garden from the other end. It isn't a large plot, runs along the wall of the sanctuary, and wraps around.


This is the view of part of the church from the end of the garden. In the background you can see some of our Sunday school classrooms. The slab in the center of it is our labyrinth. That has turned out to be such a blessing. Almost everyone in the church either walks it or sits on the seating risers around it. Children who are having trouble sitting still through the service are often allowed to go outside by their parents to walk or play on it. I'm pretty sure that one of the reasons this is so often permitted is that you can see the entire labyrinth through the windows that make up the entire wall of the sanctuary, so the kids are never out of their parent's sight. We have two walls, one on each side of the sanctuary, of nothing but glass with the structures holding them in place providing framing. It really is a beautiful church.

At some point, probably when I was starting to go home, I stopped and took a picture of the leaves of this oak tree. Our grounds have lots of trees and this one shelters the rear entrance to the church.

On Monday I got out of the apartment early to drop the rent check off. It was about 7:30 in the morning and pretty windy. The sky wasn't really bright with the sun which was still climbing up from the horizon. So I thought it would be a good time to park by the lake and take some more pictures of it. The lack of recent rain had the water level down really low or I'd probably never have known we had a new type of water fowl living there.

Here's our old but faithful swan. I think it is one of the original because the first pair I saw were this black and when this one's mate died the pair we bought to replace them weren't as beautiful. That pair produced two hatching all of which eventually died and then they too passed on. So this is the only swan we have now. I hope he isn't too lonely.

After he finished grooming he started feeding. Pictures of swans with their heads buried in water don't look as interesting as they do with their long necks up and showing off their beautiful carriage. I titled this one Narcissus because he looks like he's admiring himself in his reflection on the water.

For as long as I've lived at this place I knew we had a white crane living at the back of the lake. What I didn't know was that we also had these long legged water fowl also residing there. If anyone knows the name of this bird please let me know. I've got several pictures of them because they looked so fascinating and were moving around in a very paired fashion that makes me think they must be mated.

The birds are clearer in this one because the focus is better and the light had brightened enough to show their colors. My camera only has 4x optical zoom and then a bit more of digital zoom. I was at the max for some of the pictures here but I think this one was at 7x.

This one is included because it shows the color on the top of the breast of one of the birds. You can't see that in the other shots. I'm hoping that will help with identification. Sorry if some of these pictures come out grainy. Digital zoom doesn't seem to give the same quality as optical zoom does.
Here's the last of the bird images. This was the one my PC liked the best and I do admit that it shows off their long legs really well.

Tonight our new deacon-to-be is getting ordained and I'll be attending. We are really glad to have Matt with us at Reconciliation. This is the same guy who taught me guitar lessons last summer. He is young and full of creative ideas. Everyone likes him and we are just thrilled that he is back. Our pastor is also relieved that he now has an official assistant to help him manage some of his many responsibilities.

On Sunday I'll be attending the 2nd of my "Dinners for 6 to 8" gatherings. This is a great program that our church put together to help people mingle more off campus and make friends. I think it's working and the food and fellowship I've experienced through it are great.

And there you go. The most recent bits of life I've had and the near future. Much better all around!

Bright Colors, Beauty, and Activity Help

It's been days since I posted anything. Sorry about that! I've been in a blue funk! Yeah, that picture above of "Misty Coastline and Sea Stacks" by Corbis/Punchstock pretty much fit my mood. Life can get sad and scary you know? I don't want to sound sorry for myself, but I'm going to be going through an emotional adjustment for a while; and it isn't something I want to do, but part of the reason is something I'm glad to see happening.

My life is still in flux from the not finishing student teaching. That will have to be handled at sometime and soon. I keep meaning to get back to work on redirecting my life but right now I am involved in a job that has me sitting all day scoring tests for Pearson and at the end of the day I'm just exhausted. So I still have the dreaded but exciting job search to kick off and complete.

To add to that, my best friend, JS, the one God put into my life, is going to Vermont to become a priest. And while I love that she has gotten a great job to move her and her family up there (becoming a priest can be a long process), and has a huge house to move into, I'm also gonna really miss sitting next to her at breakfasts on Sunday and taking notes together in Sunday School. Or dropping by for something or other to visit with her, and her wife and kids. I'm gonna have to find someone else to hang out with which will mean I'll probably be bouncing from acquaintance to acquaintance for a bit. I guess right now that's a good thing because I can get really insular when I've found a comfortable niche. But like I said, I'm really excited for her and we've promised to stay in touch even though she will be way up north. So it isn't all bad. I'm not losing a friend, I'm just seeing her off.

On the positive and active side, I'm planning on becoming a Verger for my church. If you want to know what a Verger is go here. I won't be alone in this. There are four other people who want to be vergers and they are all men. Yep, I'm to be the sole woman verger at my church. There will be a course of study to follow and a test to take. I'll be mentored by the present verger, Ted, and Robert, our priest. I'm hoping this will move me further into my church community and get me more involved. I'm already a Lay Eucharistic Minister(LEM) and on Altar Guild, so that will help with my new responsibilities.

A short bit about LEM duty. On Wednesday, I was supposed to help with the Healing Eucharist by supporting out priest as he lays hands on, anoints, and prays over those who attend the service asking for healing for themselves or others. Well, Robert had gone out of town and no one who was ordained showed up to take his place. Neither did our seminarian, Lisa who worked with me last time to do the service when Robert was unavailable. So there I was, in my robes, with three people in attendance. I had to do some kind of service all on my own. Eek! By church rules, I'm not allowed to officiate at Eucharist so we didn't do the communion. I am allowed to do Morning and Evening Prayer Rites. So, that is what I did, combining part of Evening Prayer Rite II with the prayers for healing from the regular healing service. And once I got started it went ok. The scriptures to be read that evening seemed to fall in line with the requests of the people, a sign I took to mean God was in attendance, and everyone was familiar with the service so we were able to do what was needed and tend to all there after a fashion. That was my first time doing a Prayer Service with people in attendance. I was scared at the start but when I was done I felt good about how it went. Now I know that I can handle it and will be ready should it ever happen again.

Ok, so that's activity. On the inactivity side, I've got a 3 day weekend and am resting up. Yes, I could have been scoring and making overtime. But my project has ended, I'm scheduled for another one on Monday, and I felt that I needed the time off to recoup my energy and try to take care of myself for a few days. So that's what I'm doing and why I'm blogging now.

It isn't that I haven't been thinking about blogging. I have been. I've just been too exhausted and blue to think of anything to say. However, I do have a couple of bright pictures to share. They are both Jigzone jigsaw puzzles. One I worked about 5 days ago and the other one I did this morning. So I'm going to embed them here.



This first one just attracted me so strongly. I love it's strong bright colors and maybe I'm crazy but the light seems to glow through the petals of this lovely Icelandic Poppy. So that was the earlier one I wanted to share.



Here's the other one. It's full of flowers and that Butterfly just looks ready to take off doesn't it? I love bright colors. I also love butterflies and all things winged. That winged group includes angels, fairies, dragons, kites, and anything else you can put into the sky. Hmmm...if I believed that I had past lives I'd almost think I might have been a sky creature in one of them.

Please enjoy the puzzles. I get them daily and now use them to share daily bits of news with my mom to whom I send an email of that day's puzzle so that she and I can share them long distance. Cheers!

Exploring Widgets

While bouncing around the news on another site I discovered a cool widget. So I thought I'd add it to my blog. Then I found there were more. So I tried out two. Both were USA Today, one for Top News and the other was Green News. Wow, they looked good except that they were too wide for the column. So I moved them to the other side. That looked better but still too wide. So I started looking for widgets for 3 column templates. I found a few that were closer, but not one that fits yet.

Google has news widgets that would probably fit just right. I just don't want to use Google widgets. For some reason I feel that Google is kind of invasive. Not as bad as Yahoo is getting, but they are headed in that direction. That's just my NSH opinion.

Anyway, back to widgets. I found one that was for Rueters. It doesn't have the cool display that the USA Today ones had, but it does seem to be keeping up with the latest news. And it fits better. Then I found another one for National Geographic. I love NG so that one I may keep even though it doesn't fit perfectly. If it sounds like I'm trying to avoid template editing work, I am. Hopefully I won't have to do any of that.

So, the upshot of all this is, I will be exploring widgets for the next few days/weeks/whatever. There are so many different kinds out there. I found one for books, but it wasn't customizable. There was one with the NYT Bestseller list. Maybe? Hopefully I'll find lots of cool things to add that will entertain and provide good content. If you have one you want to recommend, or like one of the ones I'm trying out, please let me know.

Strength Comes in Many Forms

The latest Weekend Wandering question posed by David McMahon was, "How strong is your faith?" That question has several answers so this may seem a bit of a ramble. Faith has so many different effects on our life that strength can be measured on several different scales, each as unique as the faith of the individual who's describing it.

What is strength? Is it intensity? Is it endurance? Is it a force that creates change? Is it simply a quiet call so irresistible that you can't stay away? I've been a believer for 25 years. During those years, my faith has been measurable on each of those scales at different times for different reasons.

When it was new, it was so intense that it was very much a life changing force. The minute I believed, I was changed. I had a religious experience that let me know forever after that God is real. My attitudes and personal behaviors, at the time consistent with popular culture, turned around and became those of the loving and kind beliefs I was brought up with. To say my life took a 180 is not an exaggeration. The effect of change at that time was instantaneous. I'd be sitting in church listening to the sermon and hear something that resonated with my newly found spirit of belief...Holy Spirit...life. Change was effected without effort. Belief that it was right and fit with God's intent was all it took.

As I grew more experienced in my life of faith, I found things intruding on that walk with God. Most dramatic was my own anger. Nothing can take you away from faith like the belief that you aren't walking right. You get angry, unhappy, pull away from what you've known was right and just withdraw from the things that support you in your faith. There used to be an old saying which went something along the lines of, "If you feel far from God, guess who moved." Yep, anger moves you...far away from that which you no longer feel in sync with. Like Adam and Eve you hide in shame. Does the presence of God stop just because you turn and hide? No, eventually the quiet, soft voice of love brings you back. Why? Because no one loves you like God does. Not parents, friends, lovers, children, pets...no one! God's love is unique in its all inclusiveness. God loves every bit of you and nothing you are or do will make that change.

After experiencing the way anger can change your faith and its functioning, you discover how the world can change it. Being tired means you want to go home and sleep instead of going to Sunday services. Not knowing a soul well at a new church means you don't want to put yourself out to go to functions where there is no one you look forward to seeing. You tell yourself that you can worship God anywhere. While that last is true, there are things one gains by being part of a community of believers that solitude doesn't provide. The life you build for yourself can create impediments to you practicing your faith. Like the husband, that you want to spend time with, falling asleep during service. The length of the drive to the new and interesting church you found. The feeling that maybe you just don't fit in.

When I had gone through a marriage and divorce, a job change, and started trying to rebuild my life, I found myself at a church that kept me there but didn't feed me in all the ways I needed. I think this is called being a fallow field. I'd find myself uninvolved at church, unfed, unfulfilled, and get angry and think of going elsewhere. Why did I not get fed? Part of it was that I was so devastated from the collapse of my life that I literally hid within a crowd. When you hide from everyone and everything you approach life so tentatively that no one can successfully involve you in theirs. You don't involve yourself in the church community. You don't make any effort to fit in and thus you make no connections. Yet every time I looked for a different church I found that while some things were attractive there were things that made me say, "No way!" Nothing else seemed as right as the place I'm at. So I hung around for 3 years with no involvement and no friends at the church I attended.

I'm not sure what triggered the change but eventually my efforts to change my career caused me to feel I needed mentors. I was facing a role I'd never seen myself in...that of leadership. There were lots of people in my church who worked in the career field I was trying to enter. I needed a way to connect with them and find someone who could answer the many questions I had about this new role I'd chosen. God provided a retreat called Cursillo and I found some mentors and moved into the community of my church. Suddenly I was "involved". Within a year I had a circle of friends and then a best friend. I found another role to fill, that of servant, and became involved in the ministry of the Eucharist. God's still small voice was bringing me back to the fold.

Now, I'm a Lay Minister, an Altar Guild member, and have a small select circle of friends whom I love to spend time with and can talk to about almost anything. The creativity of that community is helping me grow and see beauty within where before I'd always looked without for that kind of view. My new experiences in creativity have started my efforts to share myself instead of hiding the gifts God has given me. A network of friends across the globe is building and I'm finding inspiration in the communion of life with others I'd never have believed I could enjoy 25 years ago when this path started.

Endurance...25 years worth. Intensity...enough to break through the barriers a hurting spirit builds. Force of change...building a new self image, developing a community, learning how to love yourself and in the process how to love others in meaningful ways. Creation...so many new things, experiences, knowledge, connections, a whole world that only a God who loves you so much better than you can ever imagine builds for his beloved child. IS my faith strong? I'd say yes. Not because of anything I've done...but because of it's focus and creator. Thank God!

Voila! & Cat Silliness

Yay! The new look is up! Some of my wonderful friends have visited and left nice comments. Thank you, guys!

There was a vision, but it happened in bits and pieces. Terry, of Terry's Playpen, did all the html work on this and he is awesome. He also did some Photoshop image adjusting to get me the great banner image. That image started out as a NationalGeographic wallpaper, so I don't feel any guilt in modifying it for my blog. They had already published it as a download for broad personal use. Yes, we took the name off because there just wasn't room for everything to fit in the small space allowed for an image. That's one of the reasons I'm giving them credit here. Plus, I'm not making money off this blog and don't really intend to. It's for personal use and friendly sharing.

Terry tends to downplay his skills, but the creative work he put into that image is fantastic. He cropped it, rearranged sections of it, carved out the edges of flowers and butterflies. He created awesome translucency on the butterfly wings so that you can see the background through them. He has a really great sense of color too. There are so many tiny detail touches that he put in that I couldn't even begin to list them all. Compare the banner image to the original image below and you'll get an idea of just how much work Terry put into it.

When I said the vision happened in bits and pieces, I wasn't kidding. It started as a request for a tag cloud. I casually mentioned that I was thinking about adding a background pattern. Terry picked up both of those ideas, offered to help, and things grew from there. If I ever wondered how a project goes from small to large, I have an excellent idea now. It's those little tweaks and changes you get when people are excited about their work and spend time making things just right. The background pattern got scratched, the image got implemented, also the tag cloud, and the new 3 column format. Plus there's a custom background color now. Lots of work!!!

One of the nice things with this new look is the 3 column format. With that I can now post awards, such as those Sandi has been giving me, without making you scroll forever to see them. The drag and drop feature of blogger is also much more useful in this format because there's actually room to move things around. I'm delighted!

So, there you have it, "my new look!" In the process of creating it, Terry got some ideas for future tweaks and "how to" posts for his Playpen. Be sure to put his blog on your list of those to visit. He is terrific (pun not intended)(well, maybe it is)!

To celebrate the new look, I'm sharing some cute cat pics of Hooboo. Yes, I know, he tends to get star billing and feels it is his due. Fortunately, Hyram knows he is still the love of my life and assures me he doesn't feel neglected. The other day Hooboo was in one of those playful, exploratory moods where none of his usual toys were quite right. He discovered the fringe on the afghan I have for the sofa. In the process of playing with it he crawled under the pillows piled at one end. Suddenly he was in a "pillow jungle" and started having all kinds of exciting adventures. This made enough noise that I was alerted, grabbed the camera, and came up with some great shots.

Here he is crawling up through the "Pillow Jungle". He didn't seem to mind my picture taking this time. I guess he was just having too much fun with his jungle fantasy.

And here he is, having made it to the top of that jungle climb playing peek-a-boo through the pillows. I couldn't resist taking several pictures of that face. He definitely had his cute on.

Enjoy folks! And have a Happy Holy Week!

There'll Be Some Changes Made...

Hope you enjoyed that wonderful rendition of an oldie but goodie. This post is to let you know that some changes are about to be made to this blog. A totally new look is coming. Lots of work went into it's creation, so the changes may come in stages (for those quick enough to catch them). But, thanks to the wonderful skills of Terry....there'll be some changes made. And I for one think they are gonna be awesome! Hope you all agree.

Morphing the Dream

David pointed out that I'd been silent and he was concerned. :) My good friend, JS, has been letting me pop in to visit as her schedule allows. My sister is calling me every two weeks now. So what's up with me? Well, as the title implies, I'm morphing the dream.

Several years ago, a good and beloved friend suggested I become a teacher. His wife had been using my semi-expertise in computers. "Why not," I thought? "I'm good at it!" So, with the help and encouragement of friends I stepped onto a path.

This was about 2 years after my marriage broke up. I'd never changed careers before. If I had I might have tackled it differently. The path I took was designed to be short. It turned out not to be short. It was designed to get me in a job quickly. There were none to be had. So things went on for a while with me knocking on doors and taking training workshops. They called this the alternative route. I eventually took a job doing something much lower in the teaching field. I became an aid in special education.

My job taught me much. It opened my eyes about the education system. While working in it I found that I really love children. I like teachers. That I love the learning environment, I already knew. One-on-one teaching is something I excel at. Something I'm not good at is arguing. And kids today really seem to know how. I'm also not good with large groups of people be they kids or adults. If I'd thought about the type of person I am, because I already knew some of that, I might have rethought public school teaching as a career.

Because I was challenged and happy, eventually I went back to college and got even more classroom experience. That was so much fun and I loved being creative with lesson planning. There were signs that I was on the right path, good grades, success in lessons planned and given, people who believed as I did put in my path to guide me. Then came the moment every education major dreads, student teaching. That was a different sort of learning experience. In student teaching I felt like I had hit a wall.

Someone once told me, "intelligence is not level across the board." Well it seems that I've met a ceiling. And it is a very hard ceiling. Down I crashed. Determined I could learn from this experience I mustered my resources and bravely, albeit with some trepidation, tried again. Again I hit the ceiling! This time I didn't even see it coming.

The thing that surprised me the most was, I felt relieved to be out of the public school classroom. That doesn't mean that I'm not good at teaching, or that education in some form isn't the right path for me. It just means that I should train small groups, preferably adults who value education, and find a job that will use some of my other strengths. So, with the help of a responsible university, caring friends and family, and my own desire to grow into something I will love, I've decided to look for a new type of job.

What's my new dream job? Well, that is still to be determined, but I can tell you the skills I have that it will include. It will include writing! People keep telling me that I'm good at it and I really enjoy it after I get over the fretting about what I'm going to say part. :) It will include me training others or developing something that helps with that! I am a good teacher and one of my strengths is clear step by step explanations of things, even those that are rather abstract. It will involve the use of computers! After 21 years in the Information Processing field I have gained skills and shown aptitudes that shouldn't go to waste. I'm even good at teaching you how to use them. Put those three tings together and you have a lot of possibilities in many different career fields. And that's where I'm doing my work for the moment.

Right now, Career Services(CS) and I are working on giving me job search skills. One thing they did was have me take a neat personality test. LOL! You know me and tests, right? This one was based on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. I'm an INTJ! That "I" surprised me because I love being the center of attention. The results also said I'd be bored doing repetitive things. Well, heck, I've done them. I always found that the repetitiveness gave me time for mental wandering. Maybe I was bored. I definitely found ways to entertain myself. Another thing CS has me doing is job searches to see if the job descriptions fit my interests. We are going to rewrite my resume and set it up to be customizable for different types of jobs. I also plan on going through one of those simulated interview sessions to make sure I don't have any major impediments in my presentation.

In the meantime, I'm once again scoring education tests for the same place I worked at late last year. Yes, I'm going to look at that company. I'm looking to see if there are publishing firms in the Texas area. I'm also looking at the IP/IT field to see if there are jobs there that I can fit well. So, please keep me in your prayers? I'm morphing my dream in hopes of a better fit.

Moving Days!

We are moving the church services back into the sanctuary today. The repairs are almost done and the pews and carpeting look so much better. There is still some painting going on so the place smells a bit like paint but that will be gone shortly.

Altar Guild members came in and started to work getting the place clean and ship shape as early as 9 AM. When I got there about 10 AM there were a couple of people at work. More showed up slowly. I think every one will be trickling in all day as their individual time allows.

So far we've dusted the pews and woodwork including the altar, narthex and southex shelves, the pipe organ, and the window rails. The kneeling pillows have been put back in place around the altar rail. While all of this was going on our sextant was vacuuming. A good start has been made towards putting books back into the pews. Even our pastor showed up to put his garb back into the correct closet and make sure all his shawls and what not are in the right place. From the way things are going we should be all moved back in by day's end. Tomorrow a team will be setting up for Sunday services in the sacristy. They will enjoy having a ceiling fan in there. It makes it much more comfortable.

Our flags have been put back on their poles and will be in place by the time the 8 AM service rolls around. Our Altar Guild head is ex military, as am I, and we worked at getting those symbols back on correctly. She had taken them home and washed them. It was a trip down memory lane watching her roll the flags and take a pair of scissors and trim off the occasional "Irish pennant". I've no idea why loose string ends are called that, I learned the name in the military.

You can already tell how much better the sanctuary looks. The woodwork gleams. Working on the sanctuary makes you feel good. When you get down on your hands and knees to dust inside the trays that hold the hymnals you learn a lot about the pews you sit in every Sunday. I'd never given them much thought before today. Now I know where all the dust nooks and crannies are and which legs weren't completely bolted to the floor. I also know which pew has a small slit in the wood where two boards were pieced together. Usually there is a nice glue plug, but for some reason there wasn't one on one pew. I don't think it affects anything. It is just that I know it's there and will always wonder about it. After all the work I did in there today it feels more like home, like I own a piece of it. I have vested labor in it and have come away rewarded.

On Sunday morning, I'll show up a little early because my team is doing set up for this weekend. I was asked if I could help on Wednesday night when we are holding a Celtic Mass. This is a really big deal and we want everything to be perfect for it. I have friends who may be coming into town to see this so I had to give a tentative "no." But if they cancel on me, as they did the last time I invited them, then I'll definitely show up to help.

Tomorrow I'm headed over to a friend's house to help her family clean up after their move to an apartment. This is only the first of several moves they will be making over the next few years. I don't envy them the task of packing up again and again. The only good thing about that is you get to keep your clutter to a minimum if you are smart about it. I may be moving myself in April. I need a less expensive apartment and will probably be ready to find one by then. A couple of weeks ago I signed a new lease on the one I'm presently living in. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Rents are going up in San Antonio and the new lease kept my rent from rising drastically. So, if you dislike moving and all that unpacking as much as I do please keep me in your prayers. It would be really nice to not have to move.

All grumbles about moving aside, there have been some good things that came out of my church's temporary move out of the sanctuary. We learned the joys of coziness when doing the Healing Eucharist service on Wednesday nights in the church library. We also learned the pleasure of standing in a line and walking up to our pastor to receive communion instead of him going around the rail. We had the joy of sidewalk cafe dining while the weather was nice. Now we will be able to enjoy once again the wonderful meals our breakfast teams prepare for us every Sunday morning. Change is life and sometimes, life can be good!

Social transitions or back-to-work

Tomorrow I go back to work for the school year. My life is going to suddenly be very busy. I love my job. Working with kids is great. Not easy but always fun, challenging, and often rewarding. Two weeks after work resumes I will also start taking 6 hours at college. This is towards teacher certification. When that happens I will have to prioritize between social opportunities and my responsibilities for the classes. Socializing is stress release for me. It is also part of my present self-stroking system. To culminate the changes that are happening for me socially, my "life group" is ending and will morph into a different group or a different night. So changes are happening right and left.

For many people, certainly for me, having others desire our company and sharing activities of mutual interest says we are OK. Someone commented to me yesterday that mankind is a social animal. He was so right! When I find myself without social activities I get depressed and lonely beyond belief. I also find myself doing a lot of self blame for things that mostly say, "if I don't have friends to go see it is because I am not worthy of them." This isn't true. I AM worthy of having as a friend. I share many of the traits that I value in my friends. I am intelligent, well educated, interesting, caring and have a good sense of humor. Socially I try to put my friends needs before my own when I can. I let my friends know when I appreciate them and why.

Still, it is with some trepidation that I am watching my world shift to meet the needs of job and schooling. I will still have church on Sundays, reunion group twice a month, and the life group can be different. I also have a few social connections that have nothing to do with church or faith and will probably start using them more. This is going to work out better than I am fearing. God has been so good at putting what I need in my life lately that surely he will continue to do so. Then again He may be letting me learn how to function well in solitude.

Solitude can be good or bad depending on your circumstances. When my marriage broke up it was horrible. When I am dealing with stuff, or have had too many people around (yes it happens sometimes) then it is vital. Making solitude a choice when we would rather be doing something else can be hard. If you are ok within your own skin then you can do that without a second thought. Doing it when you aren't is hard and sometimes impossible as you fight with your own self esteem. Phone companies know this. Why do you think they used the phrase "reach out and touch someone" in advertising to such good advantage? Well, I like reaching out but I don't want to feel that I just have to. So this year I am going to be working on something for myself. I am going to be seeking to improve my comfort within my own skin. I am going to seek to love solitude for the things it can give me.

Maybe this ties into that independance dance I did on Saturday. Maybe it is a chance to grow to appreciate myself more. Maybe that is the independance that someone commented about on my last post. Whatever happens with this I know that it will lead to self discovery. And since that is part of what I am doing with this blog I hope the results will provide food for thought and hopefully discussion.