Small Successes

Success is a funny thing. Sometimes it's measured in big purchases (cars, houses), life events (marraige, kids)....and sometimes it's stuggling through a single day that's so difficult you don't think you're going to make it through. Yet somehow, you wake up the next morning and another day has arrived. Those are always my greatest successes of all..

Song of the Day

Hey world
what you say?
Should i stick around for another day or two?
Don't give up on me,
I won't give up on you...
Just believe in me,
Like i believe in you...

~"Hey World" - Michael Franti ~

Looking Back

I was just looking back at my post about remaining positive and my goals for the next few months. Guess what? One of them was "take a cooking class".

CHECK!

I'm so happy that I accomplished something on my list. Moreso than that, it reminded me what a wide world of culinary arts there is to discover. Go me :)

Buddha Leant Me His Hand

I was wandering around Central Market (because that never happens on a rainy Sunday..) when I decided to stock up on some produce. I was immediately drawn to the strangest looking fruit I'd ever seen in the citrus section..

Apparently, this little guy is a Buddha's Hand (which made me want to buy it even more). I winced when I saw it cost me $3.60 for the smallest one I could find, but it was worth investigating. A little bit of research revealed that it is technically a "finger citron". It's primary use is to be candied for pastries and candies. I was like "No wonder this made it into my shopping cart!".

So, in addition to all the tasty treats I'm planning for Matt's birthday tomorrow, candied buddha's hand just made it onto the list. Haha!

I Heart Chocolate!

Truffle Trial #1 after my class last week was a complete (albeit messy) success!

The tempered chocolate mess after filling the molds

Top part of the truffle poured into the mold and dried

I missed taking a picture after piping the whipped coffee truffle centers into the mold and capping them with some more tempered chocolate, but here is the finished product

Yum!

The Best Things in Life...Aren't Things..

Work has been very stressful the last few weeks, as a doctor recently left the practice and we as management staff have to cut hours to prevent having to lay people off. That being said, Matt has worked diligently during the times when I'm not at work to make me feel extra special. All the work we've been putting into our guitar kits (today I'll hopefully get my last coat of paint on and several layers of clear lacquer) and finding some cooking classes to encourage my epicurious side. I was really bummed that my 8 week course was canceled, but I did make it to the truffle class. Matt asked me all about it when I got home that evening and listened intently. We spent the next two nights enjoying all the delectable creations as I discussed the various techniques we had used.

When I tripped over the chair in the living room, Matt was the first to suggest I keep a close eye on my foot in case I really hurt myself. When my little toe swelled up like a grape and turned purple, he demanded I go to the doctor. Good thing, since I had broken it and would still be slowing the healing process walking all over it and wearing tight-fitting shoes. He has since followed me around, reminding me to stay off the foot as much as possible and wear my silly shoe to keep my toe well-supported.

My time, however, was Saturday night. Matt and I were watching Food Network and discussing our day. We got on the topic of our trip to Hotel Monaco a few years ago as a Christmas present to one another. That lead us into a discussion that spanned numberless wonderful memories we've collected together over the last 4 years. Our first drink together at Canyons, our first date at Baccus (which has since closed), and our dreams for the future. After all the "things" have broken or been given away, the only thing left is what matters most, a big mental book of happy memories. :)

Another Year Older

Where did that year just go? I was in Hawai'i this time last year.

When I turned 25, I felt like "What am I doing with my life?" and "Is this all I have to show for all this time?".

Tomorrow means another year has passed, and I feel somehow calmer and at peace with where I am. I know my current job is the same for me as it is for most others there: a stepping stone on the walkway to finding what I was ultimately meant to do. I also know that try as I might, I can't force Matt's injury to magically get better. It has been nice to find things we can enjoy in the evenings and the Drive-In was great for summer date nights.

Then there were all the hurdles last year brought: my dad's mom passed away, Rocky got diagnosed with hip dysplasia, Widget had a urinary blockage, Matt received the final "there's nothing more I can do for you.." from his current specialist.

But all that seems less painful in comparison to all the good things that happened: moving to a nicer, newer apartment, Widget becoming a part of our family, Matt rediscovering his passion for playing his guitars and getting a sound board so he can finally record his music, and me rediscovering my lifelong passion for cooking.

Matt works tirelessly every year to find something I'll appreciate for my birthday. Every year, I try to dissuade him, and every year, he tells me it's not up to me. I've never been disappointed, and each year has a new and different sentimental value to me. This year came with a surprising combination of things. First was a nod to the past (his and mine together). On my 22nd birthday (the first year we were together) Matt took me to Guitar Center and helped me pick out an acoustic guitar. We found me a simple Ovation Electric Acoustic so I could hear it when I was playing it unplugged but also had the option to practice with the amplifier. I love the guitar, but had fallen out of practice in the last year and a half. Matt has been great about re-starting our weekly lessons and harassing me until I practice like I'm supposed to. Anyway, this year he bought me a Stratocaster guitar kit. The box comes with a pre-cut neck and body and all the necessary electrical equipment. I now have a project to keep me occupied on my birthday and a reminder of my past.

On the other end of the spectrum, Matt also set aside some money and asked me to find some cooking classes at a local school. He knows that I've always loved to cook and keeps telling me that I should explore that passion more. I decided to take two classes, one on chocolate truffles that's just a one time thing, and a separate set of 8 classes on "home cooking essentials" at a local technical college who offers programs in culinary arts. I'm excited to have something (besides work) that I can look forward to making a part of my schedule each week. And who knows, it might really be something worth trying for a career in.

I love the idea of past a future coming together like that. :)

Here's to another year of trials, tribulations, laughter, love, and hope.

Only as Old as you Feel...And Look

I have always been called an "old soul". I've never denied this claim, as I feel as it's correct assessment of my character. However, I've really felt OLD-er the last few weeks. I've been cleaning and finding a lot of photos of me from 5, 10, even 20 years ago. I brought a few pics into work this week from me attending Sakura-Con back 2003 or 2004. Hmm...ok, I guess I had told everyone it was only 4 years ago, more like 5 or 6. Regardless, the hospital manager looked at them as said "Wow! You were so young! This can't be only 4 years ago.". Earlier today, D (another receptionist) was looking at the top of my head and pointing out several gray hairs I had acquired. Then a client I know well was mentioning my birthday next month and I realized I'm going to be 26. Finally, it hit me that I haven't had someone tell me "You don't look ___ years old" in at least 2 years. OMG! I AM OLD!

By the time I got home this evening, I felt like I should be drinking a glass of prune juice and watching C-Span until I passed out in my chair.

I need to find some fun, or I'm destined to check myself into an assisted living facility before 30!

Things I do to feel young:

• Drive just for the sake of driving
• Laugh at fart jokes (any Molly farting at work)
• Push/Ride on shopping carts through parking lots
  
• Play kid-focused video games
• Laughing at stupid internet videos
• Eating dessert first (sometimes)
  

Negative Nancies and Positivity Soup

For all of life's blessings and gifts, we seem forever drawn to the negative. I am, of course, including myself in the term "we" as I suffer from the same addiction to negativity that so many others share.

One could speculate that it stems from an evolutionary need to survive. If we learn to identify things that are dangerous or might hurt us, we can avoid them in the future. Don't eat the poisonous berries, don't run in front of a stampeding herd of buffalo, etc. This was a successful method of survival, especially for those smart enough to remember what the "bad things" were.

Our problem in the 21st century is that our baser needs have been fulfilled. The "average" person in the US has what philosophers define as the "basic" needs: food, water, breathing, the ability to reproduce, etc. Most of us even achieve the next few levels of need: safety, loving relationships, a (few fewer recently) a job. What the philosopher Abraham Maslow suggested was that when baser needs are met, focus immediately shifts to the next level of "need". If you have food and water, you want a job in order to keep them. If you have job security, you want recognition and esteem. If you have esteem, you want a raise so you can buy a bigger house and fancier food. We are so focused on the bigger, better, more, that we completely ignore what's right in front of us.

How does the old joke about the optimist and the pessimist go? Something along the lines of "An optimist and pessimist were each put in a room full of horse poo. The pessimist just stands there, complaining sarcastically, 'well this is a load of horse shit..'. The optimist immediately starts digging through the poo. When asked why he's doing this, his response is 'there has to be a horse in here somewhere!'". Ok, I did a poor job at recalling that, but the point is there.

Most of us could have a glass 90% full of clean water, and we look right past it to dirty smudge on the side of the glass.

I suffer from chronic negativity as much as the next person. I have a job with job security, anytime I'm hungry I have food to eat, I have a warm bed to sleep in each night, I even have a loving partner and 3 great 4-legged fuzzy kids...yet my main focus each day is how work wants me to do more than I'm able to accomplish. I come home and complain to Matt, who complains back about his chronic health issues. By late evening, I'm usually plastered to the couch, my mind overloaded with frustrations and injustice that I can't personally do anything about.

I feel a little separated from other people my age in complaints, since my partner is in chronic pain. He suffers every day with this problem or that. He's been to more doctor appointments in the last two years than I've attended in my whole life. He feels like people don't want to come visit him because he doesn't have a lot of new and interesting things to talk about. It's just him, sitting at home most of the day. Watching TV and playing music or video games. We're frustrated that no one can point a finger to a condition in a book and say "This! This single this is what's wrong with you!". His pain and his disc injury don't add up (according to the doctors) so we can't really say they're related. But, hard as it is, we try to remind one another that things could be A LOT worse. There are always others in poorer health. I try to bring him back to the simple things he can enjoy to distract him from his pain (since it really never resolves to the point that he can go out and do things).

So how do we open our eyes to the things we so often ignore? The long and short of it is to reorganize our thought pattern. We live "like the lotus, and in the muddy water" as my first yoga instructor always said. We take the grimy marsh water and grow into something beautiful and strong in spite of it. Instead of "that person was SO rude, I'm going to be pissed about that for the rest of the day", we need to move towards, "I can't control that person's behavior, I can only control mine. I did the best I could at that time in that situation to deal." Think honestly about those less fortunate than you, don't just go, "Oh sure, thousands of people in ours and other countries don't have food to eat or clean water to drink, but I have REAL problems here; I don't have enough money to buy a big house". There is always someone else in a worse situation than out. Somewhere, somehow, it's probably true.

Animals are an excellent example of creatures who revel in the joy of simple pleasures. My dog, Rocky, LOVES his stuffed hedgehog toy. Anytime he remembers, he goes to find it and carries it around in his mouth like a child with their doll. He sleeps on it like a pillow. He tosses it into the air and catches it. His thought process is simple, hedgehog = happy. He doesn't need to be sitting in an expensive house or have his fur professionally groomed for his hedgehog to make him happy. Just it being there is enough. I am jealous that he can find happiness so simply and so completely. But it's inspirational too.

I need to find my hedgehog. Not a tangible object, but an inner happiness and peace that's always within arm's reach.

I need to make a list and remind myself of all the good things I'm lucky enough to have and experience:

• (Generally) Good health
  
• A loving family
• Matt, who stands by me even when I'm being the most difficult person in the world to deal with
  
• Rocky (the dog)
  
• Indica (the cat)
  
• Widget (the cat)
  
• A handful of amazing friends who have been everything from a listening ear on the phone to a shoulder to cry on in person
• Matt's family, who very loving and supportive
  
• A nice apartment with a view of the marsh and a comfortable bed to sleep in
  
• A car that is safe and gets me where I need to go
• A job that needs me and reminds me it's glad I'm there
  
• 3 square meals a day (with snacks, if I'm really hungry)
• A cell phone that allows me to communicate with loved ones near or far
  
• the internet and a computer, so I can communicate with all the people I might not see or call on a regular basis
• Oregon Country Fair
  
• Blue skies
• Sunshine
• Snowstorms (in moderation)
  
• The wind in my hair
• Full moons
• Kittens and puppies
• Music
  
• A guitar, which I need to play more often
• A love of animals and animal medicine
  
• A love of food and cooking
• Starry skies
• Green grass to walk through in bare feet

The list could go on and on. The trick is to print this list and keep it with me in my pocket. That way, when I'm focusing on a single event or a single frustration, I can pull out the list and ask myself "Does this one negative really outweigh the positives on this list?"

I could also make a second list. One I'd like to keep short, and still on the positive side, with things I'd wish for or hope to achieve:

• Matt's health to significantly improve
  
• Take some cooking classes
• Find a way to make my current job less stressful, or find another job
  
• Save/earn enough money to buy a little house. I don't want anything fancy, just a fenced yard for Rocky

Are all those things easy? No. Likely to happen in the next 6 months, 12 months, 2 years? Not really. But they are there so I can remember what I want, add it to the list of what I have, and with a little luck, maintain a better sense of hope.

A Sense of Accomplishment

I must be cleaning the office, I'm blogging twice in one day. I just emptied out an OLD old filing tupperware of mine and came across a picture of me graduating from preschool. Ha! Look how cute and little I was. Same crazy, wavy hair though.

More importantly, I felt like the smartest kid in the world that day. I could write my name, say the alphabet, I knew what a Stegosaurus was, I had it all. The happiest people in the world are children. I know, I know...THIS coming from someone who refers to children as "two-leggers" and pretends to vomit every time I see one. However, I appreciate their sincerity. Their willingness to view the world with new eyes every day. Their imagination. And their unbridled sense of accomplishment at completing tasks we take for granted as we get older (singing a song, making food, running, etc.).

The happiest people in the world are those who don't even know about Xbox 360, plasma TV's, or million dollar houses. It's the people who are surrounded by and appreciate the love all around them. The people who can sit and stare out at the ocean for hours. The people who (like the joke about the yogi) open a gift box to find it empty and joyously exclaim, "Just what I always wanted! Nothing!".

Home Again

OCF was wonderful, as always.

It rained Sunday. ALL day Sunday. It's never done that before.

Way to celebrate 40 years. At least everyone will always remember.

Lots of peace, and lots of quiet, but never both at once. Plenty of miles on the road to think both ways, and nights listening to drumming or rain.

It has occurred to me over the years that I have always been a helpless romantic at heart. Not just in the matters of relationships, but in general. As a young girl, I would put on Sting's "Fields of Gold" and have my Barbie and Ken act out an elaborate montage of relationship development. Ken would see Barbie working at the vet clinic (I had Pet Doctor Barbie. Shocking, I know) and he just had to meet her. They'd go out on dates to the beach or forest and share their deepest secrets. The song would always end with Barbie and Ken slow dancing, knowing they were meant to be.

No lie, I was seven and had this detailed of an imagination.

In fact, on hindsight, all of my imaginary play involved some great and epic love story. If it was a doll, beanie baby, drawing, etc. I always projected my personality on the heroine. She always managed to persevere and find true love despite the odds.

I savor moments years past like they were yesterday, even if the actual event was only a fraction as amazing as it felt to me. I allow the memory to grow and blossom, burned into my memory. I remember singing in the sauna at OCF last year (I never made it this year). I remember watching the sunset on Cape Cod the night we had a makeshift memorial for my grandma. I remember burying a pink Power Ranger in the mud at my friend's house when I was 8 and then the glory of digging it back up.

This is a dangerous practice however. People who live their life with all their love and passion are likely to burn out. Anyone close to me has witnessed my crumbling when times become too hectic. Relationships often suffer also, because I settle on a vision of how things will go automatically and set myself up to disappointment. If it's cold, I quietly imagine my significant other making me a cup of tea and having it handed to me with a kiss as I walk through the door. In reality, no one knows when I'll be home if I'm at work and my significant other(s) past, present, and future usually have more important things to take care of. This, in a nutshell, shows the foundation for the emotional rollercoaster I set myself up for.

Oregon Country Fair memories are always good ones though. Memories of being inches from flames as fire dancers swung flaming poi near me. Memories of the Royal Fair Family Du Carneveaux singing a version of Beyonce's "Single Ladies" with 1 or more of their dancers being a guy in a leotard with a long wig. Memories of sitting in my campsite and admiring all my tapestries by candlelight. These snippets of time are pieces of joy I cling to all year long. The moments that are ok to romanticize, as it makes me happy and doesn't disappoint.

Here's to all the new memories I made this year, and the many more to come in the future.

Almost Free..

I have written countless times about Oregon Country Fair. Everything about the festival in Eugene, Oregon appeals to me. The utopia-esque cooperative volunteer environment, the music, the dancing, the amazing food. But most of all, the undeniable feeling that I belong.

So many people I know and see all around me have their little cliques and social niches. The metal crowd has their spiked bracelets, Iron Maiden t-shirts, and spiked or slicked down black hair. The clubbers have their short skirts, halter tops, spike heels, and bass-heavy music. I could go on and on. Always people who seem to fit enough criteria to be labeled a certain way and fall in with people just like them.

And then I find myself, who manages to have a lot of little pieces that don't add up to a whole classification. Most people call me a hippie, which I certainly respect. However, I'm not a full out natural, Grateful Dead listening, hair-dreadlocked, nose-pierced, vegetarian hippie to the max. I eat meat, I wear a little makeup, I work for "The Man". Hell, as far as most of my coworkers are concers, I AM the "man". I'm not affiliated with any specific religion, ethnicity, or community.

But I digress. My point is that Oregon Country Fair (heron in referred to a OCF) is where all that melts away. No one there gives a crap if I load myself up with makeup, or throw it all in the garbage. I've dressed up as a fairy, an egyptian, a princess, and all sorts of other things just for the heck of it. I've danced with people 1/3 of my age and 2-3 times my age. I've sang in the sauna and played in the sun. All the while, never fearing judgement. At home, I find myself crying because I don't look like girls at some random keg party: thin, high alcohol tolerance, commanding attention from all the guys in the room. At OCF, I have people I don't even know come up and tell me I'm beautiful inside and out. I've given hugs to dozens of people wearing "Free Hugs" signs. I've gotten up on stage and performed with vaudville acts. I am who I feel I was always meant to be there. I smile, I laugh, I work my ass off and feel damn proud of it. I don't take my work "home" to my campsite.

This year has been especially hard. Matt's condition isn't getting any better and I feel like everyone is putting pressure on me to find some way to fix him or find some other partner. Work is more demanding that ever, and I find that no matter how much I try, I've worked 48+ hours a week. I fear my phone ringing or making a text alert noise since 85% of the time it's something about work.

I just have to make it Monday and Tuesday at work, then it's home to my Fair family for 5 wonderful, freedom filled days..