the end of winter quarter

the end of winter quarter means the arrival of spring... and my last quarter in my undergraduate  student career!

let this blog post serve to make a few points... and questions:

• I've grown tired of this blog and all that it holds; it was great and wonderful for college, but when I graduate I will be starting anew, and therefore will probably start a new blog... on a different domain... with a new name. what blog sites do you guys use? any recommendations? 

• come august, I'll be in need of a job. badly. I have my degree in child development (prenatal to age 8), so if anyone knows of any preschool or nannying jobs in the continental USA (specifically the south or southwest!), please let me know. I promise I'm qualified and I'd be so grateful. 

• I finally completed a new years resolution and took yoga classes! and now I'm trying to practice every day. so this is a little bragging point for me, but I am very happy with myself and the energy that I try to hold. 

• I'm back into art! I'm just finishing up a pottery class right now, and I'm taking painting next quarter. it's great. do art. and especially, do art with kids!!!

that's really all! but if you answer any of these questions, I would be so happy. 

thank you, thank you in advance!

giving (material) things up

(does food count as a material thing?)

tomorrow marks the first day of lent.

one year I gave up mcdonald's french fries.
one year I gave up "being mean."
(side note: speaking softly for forty days is REALLY hard (and nearly impossible), but that's a blog post for another, fast-approaching time).

this year I'm giving up starbucks,
because I spend (on average) $10 a day there. it's really easy to eat and drink everything from starbucks when you live in seattle and there's a starbucks on every block. easiest lunch breaks ever!

ah, I love giving things up.
I love giving up old clothes that were expensive but that remind me of young-adult angst.
I love giving up books that collect dust and don't call to me to read them.
I love giving up shoes that don't serve a purpose besides looking nice at the bottom of my closet.
I love giving up boxes of tea I don't drink, blankets that I don't cuddle under, and random sticker books that I received for christmas about ten years ago.

I've been cleaning my life of everything lately.
goodbye to: mugs and bowls that aren't handmade, shopping at stores that sell new clothing, and the "need" to buy another pristine pair of rainboots.

but I don't like giving up things that I have on a daily basis.
icelandic yogurt? keeping it.
mason-jar smoothies - heavy, yet somewhat functional? keeping them.
daily soy chai-tea lattes from starbucks? ...begrudgingly giving them up.

I guess you could say I'm trying to live more simply.
spend less money.
give away more than I consume.

but sometimes this simplicity thing can feel out of hand,
when I look in my closet and realize... oh wait, I actually don't have any clothes to wear to a potential job because I sold or donated them all in my moment of purging.

how do you manage it?
I'm trying to find the balance between having so little and having enough to survive.
do we really need all material things that we consume?

I leave with that open-ended question.

40 Days of Speaking Softly

recently, I read (and laughed along with) this article.
in which a woman takes on the challenge of not being mean for forty days.
she is challenged to "speak softly, medium-soft."

every day, for forty days, you resist the urge to say anything mean.
this includes sarcasm.
this includes making fun of people.
this includes agreeing with people that make fun of people.

as I told Will the other day, "I'm practicing being patient and kind."
(you see, I've always told myself that when you work with kids, you have to be patient and kind.)
but as a human being, shouldn't I be patient and kind whether or not I work with kids?
doesn't everyone deserve patient and kind?

slip-ups are okay.
in fact, in my case, I'm pretty sure they're inevitable.
(last night, having dinner with my parents at the kitchen table, I tried to not say anything mean about anyone for five minutes and ending up sipping lots of wine and nodding and smiling and saying very little at all)

at the end of each day, I'll write down each time I slipped up -- each time I was mean.
and then I'll try again the next day.
with earnest.

we will see how this goes.

2015

start every morning with a simple statement: it's O.K.

when I see it's raining, remind myself that this is what the plants and trees need.

analyze less, accept so much more.

yoga.

therapy.

smiling.

drinking herbal tea instead of drinks that hurt my stomach.

realize that most of the stuff that I worry about never actually happens.
do everything I can to remember that.

"Unconditional love is the outer expression of inner peace." 
-Alaric Hutchinson

barcelona & paris, 2014

(Barcelona, we spent Christmas -- Paris, we spent New Years Eve (my birthday!))

Mm, and now it's back to studying -- two more quarters to take, and then it's graduation!

And now I have tackled you with a plethora of travel photos from the last four months.

and now it will probably go back to emotions, dreams, and life thought ramblings.

thanks for being a part of my travels.

xxo

norway, part seven: the final chapter

ice skating on a real lake (!!!!) 

one final look goodbye to the barnehage

marzipan animal workshop

so much snow.

if you are ever in trondheim, go to this restaurant! some of the best best best food I've gotten in norway.

summed up, what I have learned is to:

"Have the fearless attitude of a hero and the loving heart of a child."

-Soyen Shaku

norway, part six: parents week!

(or as this blog post should probably be called: photos that my mom took that I borrowed from her nice camera)

recharged. refueled. feeling so much love.
“You have within you more love than you could ever understand.” - Rumi

"The art of life is to stay wide open and be vulnerable, yet at the same time to sit with the mystery and the awe and with the unbearable pain — to just be with it all. I’ve been growing into that wonderful catchphrase, “be here now,” for the last forty years. Here and now has within it a great richness that is just enough." - Ram Dass

excerpts of now

twenty. almost twenty-one, but not quite.

this is life now.

lots of autumn walks to coffe-shops. alone. down the hill two miles, up the hill two miles. latte in hand on the way back up.

insulated boots that she wears every day slipping through leaves and past homes painted blue and red and orange -- their doors adorned with twig wreaths.

outside in the dark, she makes kindling for a morning fire. chops a log into fine bits, takes the knife and peels back thin slices. nature's fire-starting-newspaper.

they will drink tea and coffee around this fire. started with one match. she feels accomplished.

sometimes the children's hands are warm, but sometimes they are cold. either way, they are so small, and they fit into her hand as they go on chilly hikes.

she knows what they mean when point and say, "go."
but she also knows what they mean when they run up and hug her in the morning, in their down, puffy jackets.
or when she tells one of them goodbye for the day, and the little girl pauses for a moment… will she get off her bike and give her a hug goodbye?
no, today is an air high-five. "give me five!"
that's the language they know.

"I washed my home this weekend," the teacher says, and it reminds her of her father pressure-washing the house before he scratched away the paint.

she feels like washing everything here. sometimes she washes her hair twice a day. her face three times a day.
her towels a little less often.

she tries to read at night.
the book in her hand is from her mom, shipped from amazon, but reminds her of Barnes & Noble pretzel and hot cocoa dates.

it reminds her of thursday nights, picked up from school, a trip to the bookstore. organic, non-genenitcally modified pizza for dinner. and then for lunch the next day.

it reminds her of falling asleep on the couch, the sound of her mother's snores waking her up, the sound of her father entering the home after band practice, guitar in tote.

it reminds her of home.

the present

it feels so good to sit in this chair and eat this peanut buttered bagel.

it feels so good to have this (tiny) mug of tea sitting on my desk.

it feels so good to have the rain today, and yesterday, and quite honestly most days.

my parents asked me how I am doing: am I missing home? am I losing my mind? how is the town and the preschool and the apartment? 

"you know, I actually feel really good," was something I was so happy to be able to say.

I don't know how to sum up this feeling of peace - but I feel very at peace.

yes I do miss home; I miss my family and fall quarter in seattle and pumpkin patches and the organic section of the grocery store. I really do.

but it's okay to miss things,
and missing things is not the same as holding on to them…
holding on to them so tightly that you can't enjoy the present moment you are in.

that's how I had it the first month.
I was holding on to everything.
So tightly,
that each breath was breathed in for the past and out for the future
and not ever in the moment.

but here I've got a peanut butter bagel and that's all I need right now.

so simple. but for some reason, so sweetly satisfying.

things I am grateful for, part I

1. taking the time to make good food -- healthy food, all things nourishing & natural, full of life. good.

2. the feeling of having long hair -- when I stand up and stretch my neck back, and the strands of hair from my ponytail reach down my back.

3. graveyards in autumn. with the leaves that have fallen on the gravel paths that weave between gravestones. there's something special about quiet graveyards in the fall.

4. children that want to sit on your lap or play soccer with you or have your help searching for acorns.

5. prayer and hope and calm energy that I've never quite managed to establish until now. here's to continuing this path, so that it stays with me.

and on into autumn, may it be beautiful.

norway, part five (photos photos photos)

" The sun is perfect and you woke this morning. You have enough language in your mouth to be understood. You have a name, and someone wants to call it. Five fingers on your hand and someone wants to hold it. If we just start there, every beautiful thing that has and will ever exist is possible. If we start there, everything, for a moment, is right in the world. "

-Warsan Shire