.random tidbits.

The other day my counsellor told me that he thinks that if I had been born 30 or 40 years earlier and was Catholic I probably would have become a nun.

Yesterday I was helping a lady at the Pregnancy Centre find some clothes for her really cute baby girl, and so I kept her daughter occupied while she found stuff. She asked me if I liked kids, and I said yes, and then she said, "You need to get married and have some now!" and then she told me "You have a very nice body" and a little while later she said that again to Tina and me. I thought it was amusing.

Let's see, what else...um, I made chicken tonight and it was heel lekker, if I do say so myself. Very excited by the fact that I have leftovers.

Oh! I am apparently very good at crying on command. I was doing a role play at the Centre for Leah to practice, and I totally busted out the tears and had to break character to assure Barb and Leah that I was in fact acting and this really wasn't my story. Thankfully. It was quite the heartbreaking story. It may become a book someday actually...

Ok, I think that's all for now. I'm listening to Weezer's "Undone -the Sweater Song" right now which makes me happy.

The End.

appreciating a second opinion

The other day while grabbing a bite to eat before rushing off elsewhere, my housemate Marley and I flipped on the news. The federal government had just announced their plan for tax cuts.
My initial thought about paying only 5% GST was "sweet" because, duh, I save more money.
But I am so thankful to have been watching it with Marley, because she really checked my thinking. Her response to this news was anger. She got incredibly upset with the government for making this decision. She figures that if we as a country don't personally need that 1% then think of all the amazing things we can do with that money for other countries in desperate need. It's true...we are an incredibly wealthy country, and I believe that with that comes responsibility to provide for others out of our abundance. I realize that this most frequently occurs on a personal level, but wouldn't it be incredible if it happened on such a large scale on a national level?

.love.

Last week I was at the health clinic with my roommate, and while she was in with the stupid* doctor I waited in, get this, the waiting room. Yup.
So anyways, while I was waiting I was doing some reading for a class, but I was also doing a little eavesdropping. Waiting rooms are good places for people watching I have decided. There was a mom with two little kids, who were quite well-behaved I might add. The boy had found a book and was showing it to his mom. I guess there was a picture of a toy gun inside because he felt compelled to tell her, "Mommy, you know what's not dangerous? This gun. It doesn't actually work, mommy. It won't hurt anybody." I guess he wanted her to feel safe.
The cute part I was trying to get to in this ever-lengthening story happened a while later. He suddenly turned to his mom and said, "Mommy, mommy, you know what's not dangerous? LOVING!" and he gave her a great big hug.
At this point I thought two things..."how sweet" and "oh to be so innocent."
Obviously this boy and his mother have a very positive, loving relationship. We are told that perfect love casts out fear, so in his limited life experience love has never caused him pain or been a risk.
But...for most of us, that's not really the case. I have a number of friends who recently went through some breakups, and I am reminded of the risk it is to love others. They are going through some very real pain because of their choice to love another. And I'm not saying it's better to not have loved another; in a lot of ways that would be even more dangerous. I'm simply acknowledging that unfortunately, we do not love perfectly, and therefore it is always a risk. As Jack Johnson so eloquently puts it, "lovin' somebody don't make them love you."
It makes me so incredibly grateful that God loved us, loved me, so much that he chose to send his Son. Seriously, what greater love, and what greater pain? I am so thankful that God said that we are, that I am, worth the risk of love and sacrifice.

* ok, I know that I am not doctor, but I do feel that I can call him a childish name of "stupid" because I think it's pretty clear when someone has been unable to keep any food down or up for a week and her body has broken out into hives then there's something about that that is "not normal" and you don't just send her home, tell her she's an idiot for thinking there's something wrong, and leave her with the advice that she should "make a lifestyle change."