"Growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional." -Chili Davis

Happy birthday Mom. I know what you're thinking. No this doesn't mean I think you're old. It means I think you can still act like a kid. Thanks for teaching me that sometimes the best thing you can do it laugh. We are celebrating with you in spirit and wishing we could be with you in person. I love you and I hope you had a wonderful day.

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures." -Thornton Wilder

Today as I was leaving for work, I stepped out onto the porch and sitting there in a priority mailing envelope was a gift from my Aunt Maria. She had sent me a beautiful handmade messenger bag which she had purchased from Bayanhippo on etsy.com as a graduation gift. Now I graduated in May of last year so this is a fairly belated gift but I was so thrilled to get it. 1. Its absolutely beautiful and well crafted and 2. its one of the only graduation gifts I received. In fact she is one of the few people that actually acknowledged that I did in fact graduate from college. Less than a month after my graduation I got married and that grossly overshadowed what I honestly consider to be my greatest accomplishment to date.  My education is my most prized possession and I was genuinely hurt when people felt that my finding a man to settle down with to be a greater and more important feat. I love my husband but I never considered getting married a life goal, surviving my wedding day, that was an accomplishment but the act of getting married and being married was something that happened, it was never something I went searching for. My education on the other hand has been a priority for many many years; since I was in elementary school in fact. I love learning and if someone would pay me to be a student for the rest of my life I would leap at the chance. Even now I am surprised by the comments I get from people who are confused to find that I am starting my first semester of graduate school and reveling in the bath of knowledge that is being presented before me. So to my Auntie Ree, thank you for considering my college diploma one of many great accomplishments to come. And thank you for remembering and always believing and loving and encouraging me in all things.

"Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first." -Ernestine Ulmer

I love cupcakes. They are of course by definition tiny little cakes but the best think about them is you can eat more than one flavor. Today was a bad day. The neighbors were being rude. Scout peed in my bed. I've been feeling under the weather, we had to repair our 4runner. Everything just happened all at once. I made a passing comment to my husband about how nice it would be to have some cupcakes, because a really good cupcake can make a really bad day not so awful. And guess what, when he showed up home after work today he had a cute little paper box in hand. Inside were two cupcakes. One was red velvet and the other was vanilla raspberry from a local bakery, Babycakes, located just a few blocks from his office. They were amazing, moist and just sweet enough. We devoured them before dinner. Now, I wish we had taken pictures because they were such beautiful little creations. Next time we will, as I am sure we will be returning soon. If you are ever in the San Diego area, I suggest you add them to your must try list especially if you have any sort of a sweet tooth.


Photocredit: Red Velvet Cupcakes from the official Babycakes website.

"Seventy percent of success in life is showing up." -Woody Allen

Remember how I said I was going to post something everyday? Well, I don't think I'm going to do that anymore and there is a reason. While so far I feel the quality of my posts have been good, stuff I am happy and proud to post but as I sat here tonight trying to think about what I was going to write I found myself searching for an easy out. I thought maybe I'll just post a youtube video that I like. I'm home sick from work today and don't really feel like doing anything blogging included. In fact I plan on sleeping as soon as I sign off. That aside, I feel like I'd rather really flush out my ideas, edit, proofread and contemplate before posting things. Does this seem like a cop out? Maybe to some but honestly I just want to be able to read over my writing and feel good about it. Plus, I've got some posts coming up that I've been working on for a while and want to get them organized and spend some extra time perfecting them...

Then again, maybe tomorrow I'll feel differently. So many things inspire me. Maybe I'll work on sharing those inspirations this month. Maybe I'll keep showing up.

" Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of the gods." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

SOUND OF SILENCE

By Raymond J. Baughan

Silence by Pardesi*

Here in the space between us and the world
lies human meaning.
Into the vast uncertainty we call.
The echoes make our music,
sharp equations which can hold the stars,
and marvelous mythologies we trust.
This may be all we need
to lift our love against indifference and pain.
Here in the space between us and each other
lies all the future
of the fragment of the universe

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures."Henry Ward Beecher

For quite a number of years now I have been a fan of Kurt Halsey. His art is a mix of whimsy and joy and pain. I was reminded this as I went through the droves of art and fine art prints that I own (thanks to my father) and found the original piece I bought from Kurt last year. I don't think I have ever been so excited to hand over $60 before (and I have a special place in my hearts for anything related to whales. I find them to be the most incredible, strange and fascinating creatures on earth).

"Transmissions" by Kurt Halsey

As a teenager his work called to the anguish of unrequited love, of awkwardness, of confusion, of excitement and disappointment, of longing. And now as an adult and someone who is earnestly in love it tells the story of what it means to give yourself completely to someone else. To trust them with your secrets and to let them carry your heart in their pocket and how sometimes its beautiful and sometimes its a train wreck. Each drawing and painting are honest and beautiful regardless of their subject matter. Some are playful, others are heart-wretchedly raw. Guy, my husband, and I both love his work so much that we designed our bedroom decor around two of his prints which hang over our bed.

"Harbor"

"Tug"

"Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. " William James

This morning I was jolted awake at 6:19 am by the rolling remnants of a 4.4 magnitude earthquake out of Baja California, Mexico. At first I thought my husband had accidentally slammed the door on his way out of the house but when it didn't stop and all the odd collection of random items on our headboard continued to shake I realized it was an earthquake. Having lived in California for the last sixteen years, earthquakes are not foreign. Often I feel small quakes roll under my feet at work or while sitting on the couch after dinner. Why was this one different? Because Haiti just suffered a devastating and history altering 7.0 earthquake on January 12th, 2010. While I feel back asleep and woke up in my comfy bed surrounded by my three warm and cozy dogs, many Haitians didn't wake up at all and many of those who did had been crushed by the rubble of what used to be their bedrooms. Many people and animals who survived are now without shelter, clean water, food, and medical supplies. How complacent I am in my comfortable heated air-conditioned home, eating organic apples for breakfast and enjoying running water and hot showers. The idea of charity is that those who are better off help those who are in need. As I watch the news I see so many people who are in need of said charity and today my focus lands on the Haitians who are in distress.

What can (you and) I do to help?

++Spread the message with a t-shirt like one of these and inspire others to donate.

$15 @ Fretto Prints, All proceeds go to Parters In Health.


$15 @ .Free Clothing. All proceeds go to Lifeline Missions. (Thanks to Michelle @ Oh, Mishka for bringing this t-shirt to my attention. I love the design.)

++Buy some great homemade stuff from the Hearts for Haiti Etsy Shop. All proceeds go to Doctors without Borders.



++Donate to one of the following charities currently focusing their attentions on Haiti
Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
The American Red Cross
Doctors Without Borders
Partners in Health
Many other organizations are also distributing humanitarian and animal aid in Haiti. Check out InterAction's Website for a full list. (I found this list after following a link from the official White House blog)

"There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." -Walter Wellesley Smith

Credit: Typewriter by SimoRRR

I tend to write in spurts. All of a sudden I am flooded with things I need to put on paper, in this case of the digital variety. Like right now, I have an entire list of things to put on paper (but I need to do my grad school homework). And then nothing. Writer's block to the nth degree. So as tomorrow is the beginning of a new month and my goal is to post something everyday. Whether it be a full blown post or a paragraph, a poem, something that inspires me, some tidbit of information, the beginning of a story, heck maybe even a finished one? Just something worth posting. This is my official and public self challenge. To be honest, to be open, to allow myself to write, to be inspired, to reminisce, to look to the future, to read and to absorb and retell.

" Happiness is a warm puppy." Charles M. Schulz

That is Sadie Jane. She is the newest member of our seemingly ever expanding family, making us five strong. Two humans, three dogs. Guy and I are officially outnumbered. I now have more dogs than I have hands. She is the biggest of our three and has quickly and clumsily climbed into our laps and into a hearts. Originally we got her thinking that our sweet old man, Cooper might be the last leg of his life, having suffered some rather severe confusion for a couple of weeks.The vet said he was just getting old and then we got Sadie as a companion for Scout, our Miniature Schnauzer mix, as she has never been an only furkid. Surprisingly, Sadie's introduction into our home has breathed new life into it and into Cooper who seems to be doing so much better now that his position as "Dogfather" of the house has been fortified with another subject to rule over, from the comfort of his bed under the living room window. Sadie is all energy and awkward love. She is such a joy to have.

And just because all my dogs are seriously adorable.

Scout & Cooper

"Faith is a passionate intuition" -William Wordsworth

Yesterday, my husband and I went for a drive, just the two of us. Windows down, radio off, no friends, no dogs, just to two of us, which rarely happens. As we were meandering down a randomly selected side street we drove past a church and he said something along the lines of “There are so many churches in this city. They are everywhere” which sparked a conversation about God, about faith. We have a very different stance of faith. We were raised in a strangely similar yet pertinently different way. His parents are staunchly Republican. My parents are moderate Democrats. Despite any political differences, we were both raised by devout Christians. He was raised Roman Catholic. I was raised Lutheran. God was deeply ingrained in our daily lives. Prayer before meals, church (or mass) every week, schools of our respective Christian divisions, confirmation, communion. My grandfather was a Lutheran pastor; my mother was the church secretary. We even lived in the apartment above the church office for the first few years of my life. My church tradition is very strong and I find solace in the familiarity of hymns, of prayer, of green jello, of God and also, the legacy of my grandfather that lives on in my faith. He was an amazing man whose fervor for equality has and will always be an inspiration to me but as I got older the hypocrisy of most modern Christian church and the political agenda it supported (which I never remember having been apart of my faith as a child) became clearer and clearer with each passing week. I slowly moved away from “the church” as an organized mechanism and found myself questioning whether I could believe in a God I was told hated gay people, who believed women to be inferior to men, who damned and deemed us unworthy. When I went away to college I stopped attending all together.

Guy and I got married in a Lutheran church, much at the prodding of my parents and we haven’t really been back since. When we joined the church we were married in I reveled in the familiarity of the church, the scriptures, the ritual, but as time progressed I realized that the problems I had with the church were particularly accented in the sermons each week. I was even referred to as an ornament on Guy’s arm at my own wedding and sneeringly called independent by the disapproving pastor. I’m not sure that Guy ever found the comfort in his relationship with God or the church in the way I did and when we stopped going I don’t think he missed it nearly as much as he had missed sleeping in on Sunday mornings. And to be honest neither of us missed leaving church feeling disillusioned and angry every week, especially at the height of Prop 8 (which Guy and I fervently and actively protested and continue to do so).

What I’ve been trying to get to is that I miss my faith. I’m not sure that there is a place for me, a feminist liberal woman who is married to a feminist liberal man, in the Christian faith. That’s not to say that I don’t have a relationship with God or that I don’t believe in the fundamentals of Christ. I believe in empathy, in peace, in understanding, in acceptance, and mostly, in love. I just don’t know where I belong. Is there a place for the justice seeking, human right loving, loud mouthed, strong willed Christians in the world?