New York, New York

At 3:45 this afternoon my flight leaves for the big city. The last 2 times I was there, I was concerned about being a tourist. Stayed in a hotel, visited the big sites, wandered around Time Square, saw broadway shows, shopped, took lots of pictures, etc.

This time will be a little different. I've traveled a lot in my short life and enjoyed every bit of it. But I've discovered that being a tourist is not the way to travel. Most of my favorite travelling memories have nothing to do with seeing the sites, being in famous places, eating in nice restaurants. Here are just a few...

Sitting in a hostel in the Manarola, Cinque Terre, Italy. Playing cards with my friends and some other travelling strangers. Hearing about another girl's experience working for a year with a poor orphanage in Mexico. Talking to a 50 year old woman who was fulfilling her dream of seeing the world, all by herself.

Going to the home of a family in Dundee, Scotland. Seeing their family and how excited they were to have us in their home. Eating dinner with them, eating an amazing birthday cake she made, and later that night singing praises to our God together.

Sitting next to my husband atop the roof of a hostel in London, watching the moon and listening to the people still out late into the night.

At a gelato shop in Vienna, Austria with my friend Jolly, a refugee from Nigeria. Listeining to his stories from his home country, and sharing a part of his life.

On the U-bahn in Vienna, sitting next to a little girl of about 5 named Michelle. I didn't speak much German and she didn't speak any English. But she was teaching my husband and I German from a magazine and shaking her head at us when we couldn't get it right.

In Limon, Costa Rica on my birthday. One the porch of a sweet African-Caribbean woman's humble apartment, drinking some sweet drink and rocking in rocking chairs with some friends and her grandchildren. She came out later with some gifts for me that she'd found in her house. A small stuffed bunny and two shirts. "If you were home and it was your birthday, you'd get presents. Well I want you to feel at home and I want you to have presents," she told me with a proud smile.

Riding bikes in Rivas, Nicaragua, down a muddy dirt road to a taco stand late one night. I was the only one who had my own "bici"; everyone else had two on theirs. We got our tacos and rode home under an incredibly star-lit sky, surrounded by trees and forests like I've rarely seen.

Sewing ribbons to honor kids at graduation by candlelight on a small island in Panama with people of the Kuna Indians. The rain started to pour and we danced in the pouring rain, soaked to the bone, hearing the waves crash on the shore, and having no light whatsoever to see where we were.

Being woken up to Christmas music in the middle of the night from outside the grass hut that I was staying in on the same island, Ailigani. Getting up to realize we were celebrating Mother's Day by waking all the mothers up around the island and singing to them.

Talking to an old man in Scotland who shared his life's story with us for about an hour. He knew everyone that walked by and introduced us, then continued his story. Sweet old man. :)

Playing with my little friend, Sole, a 10-year old refugee from Paraguay, in Vienna. She didn't speak much German so she couldn't talk to the other kids very well, but we both spoke Spanish. So we became good friends.

Meeting a French woman in Vienna who was looking for a few places in the city. She asked me for directions, so I ended up showing her around Vienna. We had a great time and parted as if we were old friends.

Teaching English to some young girls in La Carpio, Costa Rica. Most of them had children and they ranged from 13 - 20 years old. None had finished school, and none knew of any life besides the poor squatter community of immigrants in which they lived.

I suppose I should stop there. But I plan on making many more memories like those wherever I go. This weekend it's to Brooklyn, where I'll stay with my dear friend Jill, hopefully get to meet some of the people/kids she works with, see her side of life in New York, and maybe make some new friends along the way. Until Monday...

Good-bye Stilettos!

I want to know what idiot invented high heels. And then I want to admit to being an idiot and buying them. Even wearing them!

I believe today I've reached a turning point: no more high heels for me.

I've been walking around all day at work in these gorgeous white peep toes. Even hubby said I look great today in them. I've got a good extra 3-4 inches on me. And my feet are screaming at me to stop torturing them! So for the next 1 1/4 hours, I'm going to do everything I can to stay off my feet, then walk to my car barefoot and banish the shoes to a far away place.

Well... maybe I'm being a little extreme.

Ok, the heels won't be banished completely but NO MORE wearing them to work! Only times when I know I won't be walking much or wearing them long.

What Could Have Been

An old friend of mine died this week. And when I say old, I mean I hadn't seen or spoken to Jack since I was 16 or 17. We were never even that good of friends. But nevertheless, I call him my friend.

I met him in the stage of my life where I was just beginning to find that people liked me, that I really enjoyed making new friends, and even that some of the male gender was attracted to me. Jack was one of this oddly, self-proclaimed cool crowd. Rebellious but somewhat charming. If he and his buddies started using a new phrase, everyone else did too. And everyone knew who they were.

One of his friends, a completely uninhibited guy who loved attention, decided he had a crush on me one summer. He didn't hide it by any means, but flattered and distracted me as often as possible. It was amusing to his friends, so Jack and his group tended to hang around me. Of course I was very different than them, and usually didn't know how to respond, so I laughed a lot. I was a "good girl" and they knew it, and loved to play it up. Say that I was too good for them. That that's why I wouldn't go out with his friend.

Of course, I did like the attention. And I liked what I saw when Jack and his friend let their guard down. When they weren't trying so hard to keep their too-cool-for-everything image, they were real people that cared about real things. It just didn't happen very often. They had been hurt too much to let their guard down, and no one had ever given them much to trust in.

I lost touch with Jack and his friend. Some of the others I heard about over the years and saw every now and then. Some of them grew up and realized the lifestyle they had been living wasn't the kind they wanted to live.

But it seems Jack never realized that. Or if he did, he was never able to leave that lifestyle. Maybe he never had enough people around him to tell him otherwise, to remind him of who he could be and the kind of life he could live, to love him and be worthy of his trust. Maybe he never understood the fullness of God's grace and love, and so he kept trying to fill his soul with anything else. Maybe he thought that was as good as life gets...

Right now people are sitting in church building, listening to someone talk about Jack. Maybe they're talking about that chraming smile. Maybe they're talking about the friends he left behind. Maybe they're cursing Satan for telling him the lies, for ensnaring him in the tangles of the drugs that took his life. Maybe they're wondering what could have been. Oh, what could have been.

101 things in 1001 days

101/1001
My 101 things to do in 1001 days

Spiritually:
1. continue reading through the Bible each year (3)
2. pray for certain friends/family daily (1001)
3. pray for certain non-Christians daily (1001)
4. pray with Ross every day (1001)
5. spend some time each month getting to know older people in my congregation outside the church building (33)
6. give at least 1 hour/week in community service (143)
7. finish The Shack
8. finish This Beautiful Mess
9. read God Wants to Save Christians
10. read UnChristian
11. read Jesus in the Margins
12. read Lost Letters of Pergamum
13. re-read Ragamuffin Gospel
14. read Under the Overpass
15. read Redeeming Love
16. open our home to anyone who needs a place to stay
17. never turn someone down who is in need
18. never turn my eyes away from the needy
19. recognize the needs of everyone around me (physical, spiritual, emotional) and be willing to offer anything I have to them
20. spend time alone with God each day (1001)
21. learn leccio divina
22. celebrate some creative holidays (i.e. the day I became a Christian)
23. visit an intentional faith community and make plans to be a part of one

Relationally:
24. read Love and Repect
25. make myself vulnerable in my marriage
26. refuse to argue even when I think I’m right
27. refuse to answer unkindness with unkindness
28. be quick to listen and slow to speak
29. recognize when I’m tempted to say anything selfish or unkind or out of anger, and immediately think of something kind to say
30. do random acts of kindness for my husband

31. tell my husband daily how much he means to me (1001)
32. become the kind of listener who isn’t constantly thinking of what I want to say next
33. have healthy habits already in our marriage so that when we have a family, it will already be a part of our lives and our kids will grow up with them:
a. studying the Bible together at least weekly
b. praying together
c. praying for others more than ourselves
d. memorizing the Word so that it might be written on our hearts
e. spending time specifically in service to others
f. talking about what God does in our daily lives
g. talking about how God’s word affects our daily lives
h. watching a limited amount of TV every day
i. sharing everything we have: nothing is “mine”
34. make friends who speak Spanish and converse at least weekly (143)
35. call close friends at least once a month (33)
36. take dancing lessons with Ross
37. learn to enjoy watching football on TV with Ross every now and then
38. go camping with Ross every year (3)
39. make friends with people who aren’t Christians
40. play in the rain with Ross and get completely drenched
41. be more spontaneous with Ross
42. sleep together under the stars one night

Physically:
43. work out regularly (at least 3 times/week) (429)
44. eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables
45. watch my sodium consumption!
46. find new low easy, low calorie recipes to use often
47. go to the dentist twice/year (6)
48. floss regularly
49. spend at least a few hours a week outside when the weather is nice
50. take Cortez to the park at least twice a month (66)
51. find a volleyball league to play in (if I’m in a bigger city)
52. walk Cortez at least once a week (143)

Ecologically:
53. have a garden
54. eat mostly our own home-grown fruits and vegetables
55. plant trees and take good care of them
56. compost
57. hang our clothes to dry instead of wasting energy in the dryer
58. learn to sew well
59. sew everything I can of my own
60. create and use a good system of toilet flushing with sink water
61. buy mostly non-individually packaged things
62. recycle the usual paper, plastic, and aluminum
63. learn to recycle and reuse a lot of our own things
64. open the windows when it’s nice instead of wasting energy with air conditioning
65. ride my bike wherever possible instead of driving
66. learn to use the public transportation if I’m in a city that has it
67. find a haircut that doesn’t require daily blow drying, straightening, and hair spraying
68. catch rain water and use it to water my garden
69. take my own reusable cup everywhere so I don’t have to waste paper and plastic ones
70. keep my own reusable grocery bag and buy few enough groceries that I can always use my own bag instead of wasting plastic ones
71. buy furniture at garage sale
72. shop at thrift/second-hand stores


Everything Else:
73. find a job in which I spend time with people, use my Spanish, do not feel in conflict with my beliefs on the system, and find ways to glorify God daily
74. save at least $10,000 for a down payment on a house
75. get our last 2 student loans paid off (or at least the majority of them)
76. buy a house and fix it up
77. live with friends
78. have a room/guest house specifically for anyone who ever needs a place to stay
79. work hard at everything, as though working for the Lord and not men
80. limit my personal spending each month
81. completely stop buying from companies who utilize cheap labor in foreign countries, child labor, sweat shops, and who are otherwise socially irresponsible
82. visit Reggy, Jolly, Thompson, and other friends in Vienna
83. visit Susie, Sarita, my Nunez family, Laura, Trevor, Natalie, and other friends in Costa Rica
84. travel to a country I’ve never been to before
85. travel to a state I’ve never been to before
86. start grad school if we’re in a city that has a university with the program
87. re-read all the Harry Potter books before movie #7 comes out
88. finish reading the Lord of the Rings
89. learn a fiddling song on the violin
90. learn to play “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”
91. build a nice patio area outside our house (not rent house) with furniture and cook out often
92. get a girl puppy for Cortez and breed beautiful baby Golden Retrievers
93. watch a sunrise
94. sing with my friends
95. go to a symphony concert
96. watch the entire LOST series
97. finish El Alquimista
98. read Cien Anos de Solidad
99. read 1 other Paulo Coehlo book
100. re-read LASP articles
101. attend the next PAPA Fest

I think I'll be beginning Feb. 1st and then ending November 29, 2011. So, here we go!

No more wasting time!

Ok Kendra, I'm just gonna start blogging without having to put serious time and thought into what I write. Because usually it would take me a few hours to write a post... thinking of what to say, organizing it, giving it a purpose, changing it, concluding it.

But since you're the one of two who will ever read this, I'll just write. Hokay? :)

So when I went to the gynecologist yesterday, even worse than the purpose of the visit was the normal blood pressure and weigh-in session. Ugh. I got off the scale as quick as I could! But it hit me pretty hard. Not only am I the heaviest I've ever been, my blood pressure was a little high! (Ok so the nurse said it was probably because I was a little nervous - is anybody really comfortable going to the gyno? But still!)

No more wasting time. I have to start being healthier. Unlike you Kendra, I can't do the running thing. Can't because I choose not to. But we do have a mini workout room at the Baptist church in town, free for anyone, and I've been a few times. But I'm going to start going regularly. Hopefully I can get Ross to go with me but he doesn't like being rushed - and to do it, we will be rsuhed. But I'm going to do it regardless! Yesterday I stocked up on the quick, low-cal meals and snacks and fruit. That way I can have time to make lunch, not eat the kind of stuff Ross does that are not be-healthier-foods (of course he's never had to think about weight his whole life), and eat snacks when I feel like it that aren't going to keep me from losing weight!

Last night we had our last small group time with the Truth Project. A little disappointing that it's over, but now we get to become group leaders and do it all over with a new group! The Truth Project is a DVD series intended for small group to watch and discuss over 12 weeks. From the moment the first session started, I was hooked! I would love to talk about what it is but I just couldn't do it justice. Check out the website for yourself: http://www.thetruthproject.org/ I think every person who has any desire to follow Christ should be a part of it.

And now I have a new fun thing to do: 101 things in 1001 days. I love lists! But there's no way I'll finish it today so hopefully I'll have a good chunk of it down for next time.