I have beautiful friends. I checked my mail today and found an amazing Mexican lazagna recipe and a bag of cookies!! Isn't that so sweet? I know people like to give those care packages but I never do that so I never expect them either. It was a nice surprise. Thankyou, Sarah B.
This morning Dan woke up even sicker than he was yesterday so I ended up calling his foreman and telling him that Dan can't come in today. Really, I think it's a blessing in disguise. I love it when Dan is home. It makes for an unproductive environment but we both sit around, drinking tea and reading up on our favorite blogs, emails and news. Dan informed me that Sarah R wrote a new blog and like always it is beautiful and honest and inspiring. You should all read it.
This morning happens to be the warmest one yet this spring (isn't that exactly what I've been needing?) so I hung up a quilt on the line (I know its bad for fading but I really want to air it out) and washed two loads of laundry. Even though I'm living in the middle of a campus I decided to save $1.50 and hang my socks and underware outside to dry. I have no pride. I convinced Dan that sitting outside on the porch in my really nice chairs that I saved/stole would be good for him so we bonded for a bit. I'm off to work this afternoon which will be good (I don't mind working at the Beer Store) but I think I'm also working alone so good-luck running my but off trying to keep the line up down. I feel unproductive... but happy. sigh.

Spider Solitaire

I finally won a spider solitaire game at the most difficult level. True, it took me 255 moves but I still won!!!! I love the game. I can't help it. I even play when we're watching TV sometimes. I think that there must be a gene that predetermines how easily addicted to something you can get. There have been games in the past that I puposefully avoided putting on this new laptop because I know that nothing would get done. Last semester when I was just about committed to an institution because of crazy school stress and yet was still playing solitaire, Dan threatened to delete the program from the computer. I freaked! And then started begging. And then started threatening. And he only just mentioned it. I felt like a paranoid alcoholic. But I still love the game. I don't know what I would do without it. (yikes, do I need help?)
Reading through an email from my sister, I realized that there is only 2-3 weeks left of school. a;lsfkjd jlak fds;lk fdask;ljk
breath
breath
;ladskfj;a
breath

So I'm not going to think about it. Instead, I'm going to work my but off. If I think about it some more, I'm going to freak again so encouragement and motivation is welcome, but please don't ask me about it, it only freaks me out and blocks my brain. And don't take offense if do snap at you.
Besides the incredible amount of school stress, my personal family/life stress has been piling on at the same time. Thanks. What good timing. I think Dan deserves some sort of trophy or something when all this is over in a month or two. He's putting up with a lot right now. And he's getting a cold and he's the sickest person in the world when he gets a cold.
In other news, Dan and I are moving. I'm super excited. It's the only thing I can think about right now and be excited about. I am planning my garden and even how/when i'm going to do my freezing and canning. I know that sounds old fashioned and like too much work but it makes me excited. I like it. As my plans become more concrete, in terms of the garden, what, where and how, I am going to post about it and feel free to give suggestions and helping tips.
On Friday night I had a nightmare. I hardly ever remember or wake up from dreams and can't remember the last time I had a nightmare so it was really bizarre. Looking back on it I feel a bit silly but you know how it is waking up petrified. Dan was on Aux. that night so I had called him to say goodnight and then went to sleep. I woke up with my eyes still closed. I can't remember what the nightmare was about but I know it was filled with demons. Normally, after a nightmare I can just talk myself out of it rationally but how do you rationalize demons?! I was so petrified. I didn't want to open my eyes because I was afraid of what I would see but I really wanted to know what time it was because maybe Dan woud be home soon. I finally peaked open my eyes only to find out that I had just been sleeping for an hour and he wouldn't be home for another 5-6. I didn't know what prayer words to form so I just thought about God's love and protection and then, for some reason, at 1:30 in the morning, I heard a bird singing outside my window. Isn't that Awesome? That was all I needed to fall asleep again and when I woke up again, Dan was sleeping with me. I snuck out of bed, had a productive morning and then enjoyed a nice long afternoon with Dan cleaning our car. Sigh. A happy ending.

yup, still procrastinating. What is it that makes us do this? I should be a farmer, they don't get a choice of whether they should get up and go now or not, do they.
At the Beer Store, once in a while, people will come in with bags and boxes of assorted, dirty and stinky beer bottles and cans that have obviously been picked up off the side of the road. Usually i'm a bit disgusted (remember, these get cleaned and reused!!!) but mostly I'm really impressed and thankful. These people (usually old men) go on long walks everyday and bend over and pick up these gross things (i'm not the only one that has to touch them). True, they do get money for them but its one less peice of junk littering the side of the road. Well, I've become one of them. I go for a walk with Chloe everyday and usually I'll see a bottle or can or two here and there but haven't ever felt like picking it up and carrying it home with me. I always wish I had a bag with me or something like that. There is way too much litter out there. Well, yesterday I just couldn't help it. There were six cans all in one area that were obviously just thrown there in the last day. I hadn't seen it the day before and they weren't yet filled with rain water and rotten leaves. I think I've started something because today I found three more and although they were filled with rain water and rotten leaves, I figured, I've already got 6, with these 3 that's almost $1. And I'm going to work today so why not. Well, walking back to my apartment i really feel like i'm breaking the rules carrying beer cans in one hand and a leash (with a dog attached) in the other.
The dog has been doing her job too:

Keeping my feet warm!!!

I just finished reading some of my fav. blogs (Celena's Zoo, NinjaPoodle, and Random Ramblings) and so, even though I don't have much to say, I feel that I need to come here regularly to update on what I have been doing (thanks for the reminder, Celena).
All I can think of is my winter blues. I can't get out of it except by day dreaming about the summer, doing things I shouldn't be (like reading and writing blogs) and generally pretending I'm not where I am. I'm ignoring the fact that I have to finish this semester off yet and that even though it's only part-time I still have a shit-load of work to do yet. I keep staring at my tiny little flower bed behind my apartment and checking to see if the tiny tulip plants that have poked up have grown any more yet. The answer is no but I found a few other ones on the other side (I think they are earlier tulips). I constantly feel like I need to clean my apartment, which is true, but it doesn't have to be done so badly that I can't do anything else because I'm too caught up with the fact that i need to be cleaning!! The weather keeps tricking me. It looks so nice out, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and I've even seen a few robins, but everytime I go outside I still need to be wearing my hat and mitts and the radio says we get a high of ... 0 degrees today. I'm sleeping way more than I need to be (probably an attempt at hibernating), like 10+ hours a day. Maybe I should go tanning or something once a week just to get the light factor in my life and make my skin think that I'm happier. Besides, the itchiness has come back to my legs.
This weekend wasn't too exciting but I shoudn't complain about it. Without the blues thing going on it probably would have been super fun. Sat. I worked at 2:15 but when I came back from a walk with Chloe around 1:45 I found a message on the machine saying I was supposed to be in at 1:15. No problem though. Nobody minded. It was a good shift. I had fun. I worked with a girl that I hadn't seen in a while and earlier in the day I worked with Brad and Mark, my two fav. people to work with. (Although Mark goes a bit too fast in everything... he makes me hyperventilate, he is a genuinely nice man). At 9:30, when I got home, Cass called and asked if I wanted to go out with her and some friends (I think she sensed the blues thing). I did end up driving out to St. Catherines and then back again at around 1:00. I was pooped by the time I got home and think that I actually slept most of the way, even though I was driving at 130 km/h. yikes. I ended up staying up for a couple of hours yet because Dan was on aux. and didn't finish till 3:00 (it was the craziest night ever in Dunnville, was there a full moon?). Sunday we both slept for a lot of the day. We drove out to Dunnville in the evening to hang out with some friends but left relatively early. I can't wait to live close to friends. I mean most of my friends. I do have friends here but they are rarely available to do anything with. Right now most of our friends live quite far from us (on average an hour away).
It's 2:30 and I still need to get my day started so... here goes another try.

I'm back

yah, I haven't posted anything for a while but that's because I feel like I really haven't had much to post. Sure I've had the day to day activities but I think those things could be really boring. I don't have any new pictures and haven't really done anything exciting. I've talked with my sisters a lot, cleaned the apartment really well (it needs to be done again), visited with some older friends, but I haven't gone out or really seen my friends at all in the last week. I went to bed at 11:30 on St. Patricks day. bummer. I wasn't really looking for a crazy clubbing night but I wanted to have a little bit more fun than that. I wore my pointy high heel shoes, for pete's sake (for only the second time!). I guess I'm still a student and all my friends are out in the working world going to bed early. I procrastinated a lot... still am.
Here is one reportable event of my last week. My dad's cousin, Liz Vermeer died this week. She was in her late 60's and died of a horrible disease, Lou Gerig's (sp?) or ALS. I heard it was really a blessing that she got to go. I guess her husband said that she went straight from hell to heaven. I didn't know her at all and hardly knew about the connection. She is my grandmother's (Oma) sister's daughter. She herself had children and grandchildren, plus many other cousins and siblings that I don't know but at the same time I do know her and them because of who we all are. We are all dutch and most of us are Christians (I would assume). I know that Liz was. And so I could go to her funeral and feel completely at home and understand the promise of salvation and comfort that was spoken and sung about. Because her disease was such a long drawn out terminal illness she had a lot of time to think about when she was finally going to die and to say good-bye. I guess she was quite the organizer and so she planned and organized her whole funeral before she died. (My Oma informed me that Liz's mother, Tante Nell, didn't really like that. It's not right.) I thought that was so beautiful. The songs that were sung were so applicable to what she would have been feeling before she died and what we could all be feeling now that she died. "How Vast the Benefits Divine", "Precious Lord, Take My Hand", "How Great Thou Art", "The lord Never Closees His Eyes", "Where's Your Help Come From?", "By the Sea of Crystal" (one of my favorites). What a testimony to faith to sing these at the request of a woman dying of a torturous disease.
So you might be asking, if I didn't know this woman, why did I go to the funeral? Well, my Dad's side of the family is smaller than most and so when it comes to available people to drive my Oma (83) to the funeral, the list is quite short. My aunt had an appointment, my mom and dad (the usual picks) were gone on vacation (backpacking in Mexico!!!), my sister was painting my parents place and it needed to be done before they come home, and my other aunts and sisters live to far away. So that left me. I skipped two classes and canceled a shift at work but I think that I came away with the better deal. I don't think I've ever spent more than an hour alone with my Oma, not even that. I had 3-4 hours alone with her on Thursday. I had to go pick her up (an hour away after stopping at my parents), drive to Grimsby (1.5 hours), have lunch with her (.75 hours), and then drive back to Hamilton, (.5 hours), plus I made her stop by at my place to see my apartment since she hasn't seen where I've been living the last 5 years and I will be moving soon. It was a really good time. We talked a lot, there were no silences. I tried to ask some questions to hear about her past and learn some heritage, she told me about Opa, and when he dies some day (soon I think, 1-2 years), how it was growing up, her relationship with her grandparents, her first sleep over (with a really nasty girl who turned out to be a Nazi lover), her relationship to Tante Nell (her sister) and the cousins, and all sorts of stuff in between. I didn't have to bring her all the way home yet. I dropped her off and my Aunt JoAnn's who took her home. Oma figured JoAnn concocted up this plan of getting these rides just so that we could get her out to visit our places out here. I think it was a good idea. I really don't think that I'll ever be super close with my Oma anymore but I want to say that we did know each other, that she knew that I cared about her. That was my main event this week.
I desperately crave summer. I think I'm still being hit with the winter blues. I need the sun and warmth. I want to get in my garden, or go swimming or do chores outside, have campfires, where shorts and tanktops!!! Ahhh I need summer. So I ordered my seeds for my garden this summer. I didn't get a lot but I got things that I knew I would want to plant by seed, there are lots of things that I think I will probably buy from a greehouse already started (like broccoli and tomatoes, if my parents don't have extras). I'm hoping this might tide me over for a while. This and the fact that I'm starting to see some tulips popping up through the soil!!!

Restorative Justice

Yesterday I was scanning through the Time Out (Redeemer's daily newsletter) and saw an advertisement for a seminar on Restorative Justice by an acclaimed author and practitioner Howard Zehr. As I noted in a previous blog (I can't find it), I have a lazy student these past couple of years and haven't taken advantage of any of the extracurricular seminars, concerts, events, that are offered. I don't even go to the weekly chapel. On a spur of the moment, I decided to go to this seminar since I've heard of restorative justice and find it really interesting. I also would like to volunteer at the jail again soon and make that a part of my life so who knows where restorative justice will fit into my life. I'm glad I went. I felt productive and excited about learning. I also left with a wierd but calming sense of purpose for my life. Although I have been in a slump for a while now, my whole life won't be in a slump and God will use my education and where I am now for where I am going.
Here are a few points that I wrote down from the seminar:
- RJ seeks justice for victims, offenders and communities
-Victims need a sense of safety, answers, a chance to tell their story, an experience of empowerment (after power has been robbed from them), and vindication in order for them to feel like justice has been served
-Offenders need to take accountability and in turn need to re-story their own lives from this experience in order for justice to be done
-Communities need to acknowledge their own obligations in all of this in order for justice to be done
-RJ is more than a program, it is a framework
-like everything else, RJ can have a lot of dangers in it too. All interventions can go astray. There are too many starry eyed followers (especially since Oprah has done some shows on it). Zehr said that he prefers a sceptic than a starry eyed follower.
-RJ reminds us that we are all interconnected. "When I do something wrong, I acknowledge it and make it right". This reminds us of the importance of relationship.
-Trauma that is unaddressed is reinacted. We have to deal with the injustie in the offenders life as well.

As we were getting up to leave I stopped to talk to a lady that I have had a very sparratic but intensly good connection with. I don't really know her or what her job is but we both seem to be interested in the same kinds of things and I've told her about where I am and what I'm doing and she never seems to make me feel bad (even when I should). As we were talking she asked me why I was there. I said, well, I saw it in the Time Out and thought I should come. Without even blinking she said "Okay, that's a functional answer, so why are you here?" Yikes. Got me there. It was good to hear someone make me look deeper. I don't know what role RJ will have in my life but I'm sure it will. I want to learn more about it. Not necessarily to become a facilitator but to know about it, use it in practice, and know who to point to for directions if the need should arise.

Friday

I'm starting to get myself motivated again. I feel like I'm getting things done.
Chloe has been having some problems with allergies (I think) because she was scratching herself bloody in some areas (mostly her ears). I didn't want to go to a vet for that b/c i t seemed like a waste of time and (especially) money to do that. I decided to change her food (mostly because her farts stink) and see if that works. I know that you're supposed to change their food gradually but I didn't bother since if it was an allergy then we can fix the problem right away and Chloe has been a pretty resiliant dog so far. Both the farts and the scratching has gone away so hopefully that works but in the mean time, I asked Celena about what she would do (as a fellow dog owner) and she wrote up a blog on it. Lots of people commented giving there suggestions too. I ended up calling my vet just because I'll be in the area this weekend and thought I should ask if she needs anymore shots. Turns out she still needs one of her boosters and a rabbies vaccination yet. oops. So I've got an appointment for her on Monday (which is really nice because then I can stay an extra day at mom and dads. I mean "can I stay an extra day, mom and dad?"). Speaking of Chloe, I have been letting her get into some bad habits. We have been really lucky with her. She never chews up shoes, house trained immediately an doesn't like the couch. Sometimes when I've been cuddly, I've pulled her up onto the couch with me but she would always hop off as soon as I let go of her. Well, not anymore. We have been pushing her off the couch for the last two days. I caved last night while I was snoozing on the couch.














And this morning, while I was doing the dishes, she quietly disappeared. After glancing at a few of her fav. snoozing places, this is where I found her:




What a guilty looking dog. Luckly, she jumped off a few minutes later on her own. I think deep down she doesn't like it but she knows she's not supposed to so she wants to.






I've been really slacking with my thesis paper that I have to write this semester. I should have so much more done by now. I barely have my topic chosen. After some inspiration from Prof. Stephenson, I decided I want to write about the use of spirituality in therapy as it is being newly rediscovered by the clinical field. At first I thought it might be hard to research and there wouldn't be much out there. Now (since doing some research for Prof. Stephenson on the same issue) I realize I have way to broad of a subject. In the meantime I've been dodging around the school trying to avoid my thesis prof. He found me. I saw him in the office on Wednesday and felt soooo guilty I had a shitty day for the rest of the day. I saw him again on Thursday and this time decided to do something about it. He is there for us students to bring as many rough drafts of our thesis to as we want. I can ask him about research issues, focus issues, editing, anything. And I haven't brought anything to him yet!! And he probably assumes I've just been doing it on my own. Little does he know (who am I kidding, he knows), I have hardly started. So, I went to his office and set up an appointment for next week Thurs. to bring him whatever I have. I've got the car on Monday so after the vet, I'll head back to Hamilton and go to McMaster's library, pick up some books from a list I've already got (pat myself on the back) and browse/power read as much as I can by Thursday. Maybe this weekend I'll also look at some online journals. eek. I'm so embarrassed and nervous that I am going to work my but off until then to have as much as I can for him. Good motivation, eh? I warned him that I wouldn't have much but at least he'll help me work on direction. And I'll be working on it now, right? I mean, I know people that had less at this stage. I'm in way over my head.
Next, I saw a friend/aquaintance at the school who I hadn't seein in a while. She's a girl I worked with this summer who started going to Redeemer this year. She's a pianist and teaches kids to play piano so, just for the heck of it, I decided to ask if she wanted to teach me. So there's another appointment. Tues. at 4:00 for half an hour I've got my first piano lesson in years. I don't know if I'm starting too many things but I know that if I don't have anything started than I won't do anything. I need pressure to get anything done. Besides, I desperatly need a hobby. Something that I love. Dan has aux. that he loves doing. I want something that I love doing. Something that I can talk about with people, where I can meet other people. Something that I enjoy and am proud of. I don't really think that piano is going to be it but it might give me another hobby and who knows where that will go.
So I feel motivated for this coming week, and I haven't even started my weekend yet. This feels good. now, if I can get my place cleaned before we leave, all will be half straightened in my life.

Retraction

I would like to retract all pictures of the girls Dan may or may not have a crush on. I am not trying to dig up shit and there was no serious intent involved in the posting of these pictures. Dan and I are very much in love and I know and affirm that he only has eyes for me. I appologize for any misconceptions of our marriage. (I have now appeased my husband)