random things that make me smile

since i posted about that which annoys me, i thought i'd post about the stuff that gives me reasons to smile:

• hanging with my nephews and neices and being "auntie mindi" and teaching them how to lick and stick gummy bears to inanimate objects, bake cookies, shop, play board games, and just hang out...
• the commercial with the baby elephant dancing to singing in the rain
• the beach on misty, rainy afternoons
• sunsets from my porch, especially when shared with a good friend and a glass of wine
• girls nite out
• watching old movies on a rainy afternoon--esp. ones with cary grant, doris day or lucille ball
• reading a good book on a sunny afternoon next to the pool
• an unexpected phone call from a friend just to chat
• something that goes really right at work
• watching a middle schooler have an "aha" about their relationship with god

i could list more, but i'll pause here. feel free to add what makes you smile in the comments.

random observations of the annoying

• i don't think that pat o'brien and those reporters on the insider realize they're not actually reporting the news. it's just celeb gossip and reports. it's not actual news, even if angelina is a un goodwill ambassador.
• it seems like the world has forgotten how to drive: on ramps and merge lanes are for speeding up before merging into the flow of traffic; off ramps and lanes are for slowing down after leaving the flow of traffic. you pass on the left not on the right. on freeways, the inside lane is for the fastest traffic and if someone is coming up from behind faster than you're driving, move to the right and let them pass.
• get a handless set for your cellphone or hang up while you drive.
  
• if you don't know what you want when you get to the front of the line, let the next person go while you finish deciding.
• when there's a long line at the checkout, get your form of payment out and ready before they finish ringing up your items.
• please, thank you and excuse me should never be out of style.
• the idea of car stereos and headphones are for you to listen to your own music, not to share it with the rest of the world.
• the networks wonder why they're losing viewers. since it's a little hard to figure out when new episodes are starting and every series has new episodes at different times or all of sudden there's a month or 6 weeks of reruns between new episodes... i wonder if that would have anything to do with it.

just felt the need to vent. maybe my achy ankle is making me crankier than usual. feel free to commiserate by adding the little things that annoy you in the comments.

my embarrassing moment @ sdi

i mentioned in my previous post that i did manage to embarrass myself at sdi. i should probably tell that story.

i'd gone to the lobby to get myself and a friend a soda during a brief break in the closing session (which was nearly 4 hours long). as i was returning i was walking down a short flight of stairs holding the 20 oz sodas and trying to answer my phone. this was too much multi-tasking for my mind and body. down i went, missing the last three steps, hitting the bottom and rolling my left ankle. i was stunned and i almost busted out with an inappropriate word until i realized a nun had seen me fall and was rushing over to help. it really hurt and i really wanted to cry but i tried to laugh it off instead. another staff member from the event came over to help and offered to call and get an ice pack for my ankle which was obviously beginning to swell. i insisted that i was fine and hobbled off as gracefully as i could.

this morning, my ankle was still swollen after rest, ice, compression and elevation. i ended up in the er for it and i have a bad sprain. they put a lovely boot brace on it and have given me crutches to use since the joint can't bear weight. i have either a bruised bone or a hairline fracture as well. they just won't know for sure which until they can re-x-ray it in a week.

klutz girl has returned. i'm just hoping this is the end of it for awhile.

my moment as a groupie

this weekend i attended the spiritual directors international conference. it's the first time in years i've attended an event as an attendee. i was mostly excited but a little nervous. i completed my training in spiritual formation and direction last december. it's been an amazing process, but also difficult. although i'm drawn to formation and direction, i'm not the stereotypical contemplative personality. i have a contemplative side that i can usually embrace but it's not uncommon for me to feel a little out of place in a crowd of spiritual directors. the conference and the weekend were amazing. i attended 3 really incredible seminars that all touched me in different ways.

one of those was a seminar on celtic spirituality. what little i knew of it prior to this seminar often touched me deeply. i was really excited about this seminar and it totally lived up to my expectations and then some. it helped me to understand some things i'd been wrestling with. after the seminar, i asked one of the two presenters a couple questions to clarify what i thought i was understanding. after the seminar, i met up with friends who were attending for dinner and as we debriefed our afternoons, i went on and on and on about the seminar. when we returned to the convention, we ended up on the same elevator as the two presenters. one of them noticed the first timer flag on my nametag and asked if i was enjoying the conference. i commented yes, especially their seminar. she replied oh thanks...jeannie (a friend) told her i wasn't being polite...that i'd pretty much talked about it all the way through dinner. we ended up talking from the elevator down the hall to the main session. they'd mentioned in the seminar that they were leading a pilgrimage to egypt this fall. i asked if they ever did any to ireland. she said yes, they were doing a women only pilgrimage to ireland next year. i think i might have actually squealed slightly--at which moment i realized i was rapidly crossing the line from interested fellow spiritual director to groupie. i was mortified and gained back a bit of composure. she was very gracious and we ended our conversation nicely. i passed her a couple more times during the conference (it was pretty small--less than 600) and we smiled and exchanged pleasantries and i managed to not squeal or otherwise embarrass myself with her.

now i did manage to embarrass myself later in the conference but that's a story for another time.

I meme

I was tagged by ianua

I AM: tired...and doing laundry.
I WANT: to feel safe.
I WISH: I were more sure of myself.
I HATE: bad manners.
I LOVE: my friends and family.
I MISS: my nephews and godkids.
I FEAR: rejection.
I HEAR: silence.
I WONDER: why_________ and/or how to_________.
I REGRET: not seizing the moment and kissing___________.
I AM NOT: brave.
I DANCE: to celebrate happy moments.
I SING: off key.
I CRY: too easily.
I AM NOT ALWAYS: motivated.
I MAKE WITH MY HANDS: yummy things in the kitchen.
I WRITE: for myself.
I CONFUSE: my desire to please with obligation.
I NEED: to feel cherished.
I SHOULD: finish unpacking the boxes in my house.
I START: thoughts but don't always finish them.
I FINISH: cookie dough, usually before I bake all the cookies.
I TAG: andy, lizzy.

the kiss hello

when i posted about kiss, kiss, i was ahead of my time. it was a feature on this morning's today show on nbc. they have a little different take on it than i did though.

fun with food

today was a day without plans and without a schedule so i took advantage of it to do a few of my favorite things. i slept in. i made brunch...pancakes, fresh melon, ham & eggs. i watched food network. i went for a walk. i did a little shopping, including a run to the grocery store.

that is the joy and the curse of the food network...i love watching it, but it always gives me ideas. last week, i had it on while i was doing some chores. that evening when a friend came up for dinner, both recipes were courtesy of food network chefs. today, a new show premiered on healthy eating with comfort food recipes. i tried the mashed potato recipe tonite.

but the most fun i had today with food was picking my own fruit. there are tangerines, oranges, and lemons growing at the house and terrie invited me to help myself. i decided to take her up on it thinking a little orange zest would perk up a cake recipe i made this evening. the fruit trees still have blossoms so the air around them smells sweet. i'd never picked my own fruit before and it made me smile. there's something fun about choosing the fruit and then tugging it right off the tree, especially when the branches shake and you get a little shower of fruit blossoms.

there is one little bummer about my fun with food day--the dishes.

alone vs. by myself

in a recent post, i talked about growing old alone. i was asked in the comments if i had any answers yet. i started to reply in the comments, but realized it was turning into a new post.

i don't have answers yet. i still have a deep desire to be married, to be a wife and a mom. i'm trying to figure out what my life could be if those things never happen--how to take my life off 'pause'--to live fully if it never does. in this process, i've realized i've made some choices. one of those has been to not settle for less in a relationship than i think is right for me. i've seen people i know take really flawed dating relationships and turn them into miserable marriages that have ended in painful divorces. my own parents divorced when i was a senior in high school. it was horrible. i decided then that i'd already been through the only divorce i was ever going to go through. i've stuck to that including calling off an engagement. i've thought for a really long time that even though i know i made the right choice in ending the engagement and not settling, i was choosing to be alone, to be somehow isolated. i'm very slowly and tenatively realizing that i'm not choosing to be alone, i'm choosing to be by myself. being alone has a negative connotation in our society--it implies loneliness, isolation--a lack of relationships and not necessarily by choice. being by myself implies choice and it feels more like it has to do with needing space more than lack of relationship. i truly don't lack for relationships--i know i have family and friends who love and cherish me.

so for the forseeable future, i'm by myself. i really hope that i do meet a man that i will love and respect enough to choose to love him everyday for the rest of my life. until then, i'll hang with my friends and fam and try to make sure that the 'play' button is pressed instead of 'pause'.

repetition

my life last week had a couple strong themes that kept repeating themselves in random places. i was hoping for this week to have a bit less of that. but tonight, i've watched two different sitcoms--both brought up the saying "life is what happens when you're making other plans". it's a different angle on last week's themes. i've felt like god has been silent for awhile. now it feels like the pendulum has swung the complete opposite direction.