escape

Anyone else want to quit your day job, take your 10 best friends and escape to an all-inclusive resort for a few days? That is my latest daydream while I'm at work.

chai tea and pyramids

Well...tonight was another interesting night for me in my little life. Kelly and I were invited by our landlords to come upstairs and join them for some "indian tea" and to chat about opportunities to make more money. Hence the following two pictures:

We went excited to hang out with our landlords (first time really since they bought the house in november), but a little apprehensive about this business "proposition". You see, they are involved with e-commerce, and are working their way to wealth...and tonight, we were invited along for the ride. So here's my question - if I sign on, will you all follow? ;)

Needless to say, Kelly and I had fun, and enjoyed our time together...and now have to decide if our futures are destined to be as e-commerce partners. Sometimes I look at life, and just laugh.

UMA and extremely small electronics.

Well folks, I spent last weekend downtown Vancouver for the 6th UMA event of my life. Basically UMA (Urban Mission Adventure) is a first year requirement for students at CBC. I went along as a "staff" leader (they were low for staff volunteers), and I had a blast. My team was enthusiastic, willing to try things, and overall, I just had a great time. We got to be involved in assisting and learning from a number of different organizations working with the people living in the downtown eastside. Weekends like these always remind me of the bigger picture...the whys of life...and the fact that I am meant to "do" not just to "be" (although just being is very important as well :)) I have most definitely come to the conclusion after this "break" from ministry (working at the Inn and Restaurant) that I cannot be satisfied with working a "day in day out" job for the rest of my life. I need something that has a purpose of seeing people grow, learn and change...I will be highly unhappy in life if all I do is feed people. That's the great thing about the uniqueness and individuality of people - some people are gifted and fulfilled in life by feeding people and setting up a conference center each day. For me, it is not a life-giving job. It is just a job.

Anyways, enough rambling. I put the quote up by Donald Miller the other day because it struck me and I can't stop thinking about the last line...how he wants to keep walking away from the person he was...I want that too! I re-read this quote when I returned from UMA this weekend, and thought, how appropriate! Part of growing and changing for me is going on the UMA weekend...to try and move past that first page of each chapter.

On a totally different note - here's my new toy, the iPod shuffle...possibly the smallest thing I've ever owned that can do stuff. Isn't it amazingly small?

donald miller

"Everybody has to change, or they expire. Everybody has to leave, everybody has to leave their home and come back so they can love it again for all new reasons. I want to keep my soul fertile for the changes, so things keep getting born in me, so things keep dying when it is time for things to die. I want to keep walking away from the person I was a moment ago, because a mind was made to figure things out, not to read the same page recurrently."

surprise!

i love surprises. And tomorrow, i'm doing one for someone else...but they have no idea...and i'm really excited about it.

honestly...i think surprising people (when it all works out really well) is a real adrenaline rush. i'm giddy right now.

ugly kathleen

So...it is now 3:14 am, and I just got home from work. We had the "Abbotsford Hearts for Hospice" Fundraiser tonight at the Ramada, which meant long night...long, long, long night. I felt ugly the whole time I was there. Let me explain....oh how I wish I had a picture for you all.

Usually, our uniform at the Ramada is black pants, white button-up shirt, black vest, and tie (the last two of which the Ramada provides and you put on when you get to work). However, when I got to work I realized that we were very short on vests (i.e. I either had to fit into a size 4 or wear a huge man's vest). My manager affirmed this realization (the only thing that they can think of is that people are taking their uniforms home with them - i ask you, who WANTS to have their uniform at home???). She went off looking for something for us to wear, and in the meantime I also learnt that I would spend a good portion of the evening bartending. So, managers came back with a smirk on their faces (which usually is a bad sign), and we were handed our official "bartending vests" for the night...these old ugly grandpa style vests...green...large gold buttons...men's sizes only, which meant my shoulders looked huge and then the vest tapered to the waist (very attractive). Every time one of the two guys that I work with walked by me, they laughed. Seriously, it was that attractive. My favorite part was when I'd looked at one of the other three girls that were bartending, and that's when I would remember just how ugly I looked in that moment, we just looked that bad.

It was interesting though, to recognize that my mood was changed by this ugly vest. Let me clarify, I wasn't grumpy or disgruntled, but more just feeling gross, like something was very off...and of course being surrounded by ladies in beautiful dresses for this Society night definitely didn't make the green vest any more appealing.

Seriously wish I had taken a picture.