Thankful for warm houses, heat, electricity and lights, the ability to communicate with friends who live far away... all these things that technology brings us. What good inventions we have before us that we take for granted!
That my plans never work out and God's always seem to. It just doesn't seem fair, but then, years/ months/ weeks/ hours later, I start to understand that I had tunnel vision and wasn't able to see what God sees. It makes me wonder how God sees this world - I'd imagine I'm just seeing a thimble-ful of the ocean... Or perhaps it's like the difference between looking at a picture of the mountains compared to seeing mountains in person. Or looking at a picture of someone compared to seeing them. Although I did read a study that looking at a picture of a significant other produces the same neurological reactions that drugs does. Ke$ha was right - love is a drug.
Gift of joy and optimism. I guess this is not something that everybody has. I am in no way saying that I am always happy or always positive (because I know you could all prove me wrong) but I think that generally, I see the positives in the world around me, and I trained myself a little bit but mostly it came naturally. For example, I don't worry about the slushy-ugliness of snow - instead I think of snowflakes that sit on my nose and eyelashes, and sliding down giant parking-lot piles of snow. I think this joy in life is a huge blessing, and I am so glad that most of the time, it is easy for me to access this part of me.
"We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and He devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast." - II Samuel 14:14. If there is ever something to be blessed with, I suppose that verse about sums it up. (Hey! I love it when I can work that phrase into a post.) This was spoken before we knew what God's mean was going to be (Jesus) so it's kind of a nice little pre-emptive promise to David (remember, he's our imperfect leader.)
Swimming! This was already on the list, but that was for me swimming. There is one thing that I tend to feel blessed about more than swimming, and that's making other people swim. I took a job today as an assistant swim coach for a nearby district who is coaching their three high schools with one staff. Practice starts Friday, so I don't have much time to prepare, but I am super-duper excited about this opportunity. I tried telling my roommate about it and she said it didn't sound that fun ("Practices twice a day? Sounds horrible.") to which I responded a little quip about how it will be ten times easier to get out of bed knowing that I won't have to dive in the water. Plus - I get to run with the team in their afternoon practice! The coach was really pleased that I'm a runner because he thinks it helps makes the swimmers tougher, so I'll be running with different groups every week, probably more than once a week (groups run four days of the week, but I don't know what my role will actually be. Possibly running with them four days.) I think this is a huge blessing because the time commitment sounds like nothing to me. I am really excited to work with high schoolers, smell pools every day, work out, deal with headcases like me, and:
This one deserves its own bullet: Early morning car rides in the dark with no radio on are my favorite start to the day. Dark or almost dawn. Few cars. The closest to the smell of nature that one finds in Columbus. Quiet. Tranquil. I cannot wait. And just to reiterate, this is made ten (maybe eleven) times better that I don't have to dread a cold pool at the end of the drive. I paid my dues for eight years, though, so I will not rub it in any swimmer's faces.
Soreness. In anticipation of the interview today, I knew I needed to look the part of a hard-core swimmer, so I lifted weights this morning for the first time since before the marathon. I love the feeling of soreness - it's confirmation that I worked hard, that my muscles are still there, and that I deserve the Bakery Gingham Buckeye cupcake and cookie dough ice cream after dinner... Okay, maybe not always that. But the fact that I am able to work out (time and ability) and that it relaxes me is a blessing.
Baptisms! My church has a baptism service this weekend. I take this for granted, but I'd love if this berakah were realized more in my life, just how much it actually means for us!
Certain aspects of who I am. When I share my ambidextrous-ness with others, the typical response is "Are you right-brained or left-brained?" I then share that I was a math major and English minor. I like using both sides of my brain. For my cognition class, I found a free quiz on which "brain" I am, and it proved the following:
Right Brain/ Left Brain Quiz
The higher of these two numbers below indicates which side of your brain has dominance in your life. Realising your right brain/left brain tendancy will help you interact with and to understand others.
I am both. This makes me smile and think of all the cool things I can do connecting types of thinking and types of material that might not normally run smoothly together. UPDATE: I no longer like this test. Either I am only friends with like-minded people or everybody is perfectly equal, and I also have no psychic friends. Sad day.
Imperfect leaders. That doesn't sound like a berakah, but it is. Think of King David from the Bible - he was a good leader, right? Wrong. He had so many issues - committing adultery and then leading his army into a battle purposely so that the adulteress' husband would die - his children rape and kill each other - doesn't see his wrongdoings, etc. Yet through him, God performed so many good things. I could take this two ways - 1. to say "God can use me too!" (which He can, and does) and 2. to realize that no matter who gets elected, no matter what kind of leader we're following in the government, church, family, anywhere... no one will be a good leader. We are always voting on the leader that we think will bring society to perfection, rid the community of violence, poverty, bad educational systems, etc., and I have previously failed to connect that desire to the Israelites' desire for a king. We are all in search of a King. We are all in search of someone that's going to fix what's wrong. And the imperfect leaders remind us of that desire and that need.
Songs. I love song lyrics and the ease with which they connect me to emotions (which are buried deep-down inside) and certain people, certain situations, and times of my life. I can't hear "I try" by Macy Gray without thinking of a seventh-grade track meet when someone sang it stepping off the bus. I just got the new Taylor Swift cd and like the songs.
Swimming. The smell of chlorine (or clorox, or any bleach.) It is like a relaxant - the smell and the movement. Maybe I will go swimming today...
Remember my "Learning to Pray Like Jesus" class? I almost didn't. I had started to forget how many devout Jewish pray-ers lived a life of berakot (blessings). Their acknowledgment of blessings infiltrated their whole life, not just their prayer life. (There's a brief definition here.) And a little more detailed information here that says practicing Jewish persons are supposed to pray a prayer of berakah 100 times a day. Maybe when I return home, I'll find my notes and be able to give you more details. Or you can click on the label "berakah" to read about it, although some of them are simply labeled "berakah" because they are things I was thankful for.
In the spirit of fall, and a time when I've recognized that I spend very little time deeply reflecting on anything, and a time when it's really easy for me to be happy because it is blue and sunny and time for neutral-colored clothes and sweaters and hot chocolate and applesauce and snuggling under an OSU blanket - I am going to write one post per day this week, recognizing what blessings I have and what I feel blessed with. (For those of you who have seen me really chattery and know just how annoyingly positive I can be, don't worry; the lists will be non-exhaustive.)
I know some will seem very shallow, some might actually appear negative, and some will be so insightful that you'll wish you could have voted for me for governor, but my goal for the week is to put only things that I do feel grateful for or blessed with, and to reflect on the berakot that I list. I'm hoping not all are shallow.
Please leave comments of berakot in your life - or if they're personal, call or text me because I'd like learning them about you.
Today's Berakot:
Free pretzel sticks at Max & Erma's this week with a "good neighbor" card!
Blue skies, crisp fall weather, a new (er, return to an old) office with a window that I can stare out of. And apparently, write blog posts and eat apples instead of getting work done. This leads into another blessing of not having very much work this morning so that this window-cubicle-distraction is acceptable.
Friends who don't mind watching a movie on my computer screen, as it sits on top of a TV tray, as we cram onto a sofa bed. (Yes, we pull out the sofa bed to watch movies. I think four might be our maximum number of viewers though.)
Friends who ask me how I'm doing - and do it so that I know they want a real, true answer. My roommate is careful to do this, and yesterday at church, two girls came up to ask me how I was and said "We know you have an I'm-Julie-so-I'm-okay thing, but we really want to know how you are." I loved it. Except... I was okay, so I felt a little bit like I had to make up a more detailed answer. Okay, as this berakah is evolving, I'm really expanding it to friendships in general, because I have felt very affirmed in my friendships the past few days.
Free doughnuts in the staff room! (or rather... doughnuts sitting out in the break room that nobody is guarding.)
Pretty work clothes. See "trouser pants."
Leadership roles.
Babies!! I love my friend's baby (her name is Ella.) I have lots of pictures of her on my phone. That's what I do when her mommy leaves us alone. Also, I teach Ella about chlorophyll and what makes a triangle a triangle.
Joy - I am an optimistic person (except for in certain areas of my life) and think joy comes to me pretty naturally. I am really thankful that I see positives and beauty in the world around me.
What I've been running:
Finished the Columbus Marathon (that's number two for me), and still like running!
What I've been thinking:
I finally watched the documentaryBabies. I am struck by the cultural differences between the babies in the film. As an American, I think we are quick to assume that we have the right idea and that we have the only right idea. I watch the mother of the African baby wipe her baby on her leg and then clean her leg with a cornhusk. Immediately, we shudder and comment on the grossness and lack of hygiene. But what really determines the best option? Is our diaper plan the best because we are used to it, or is our diaper plan the best for all standards? Okay, I think hygiene might be on our side in this debate - unless you recall that too much hand sanitizer doesn't allow children to build up their immune systems and that is one explanation for the increased amount of allergies. But diapers add to landfills, plastics production, and more. How can we expect other countries to adopt our ways to deal with infant waste?
I think this is analogous to a lot of educational reform issues (did I mention I also recently saw the documentary Waiting for 'Superman'?). Education-people tend to approach educational psychology and pedagogy with the same outlook that they learned through their educational experience. (Similar also to the cyclicality of physical abuse – parents who were abused are more likely to abuse their children than non-abused parents.) It’s not that the errors of our ways are ignored, but that we are more accepting of mistakes or errors in ways that are the norm or that we are used to. We think that our form of education is the best because it’s what helped those who plan the future of education succeed. We think that our childrearing ways are the best, because they are what we are used to. It is difficult for us to accept foreign ideas because we have preconceived notions that generally reflect our upbringing or experience: future experience is based off past experience. If you want to learn more about different styles of learning (but only if you want to), feel free to look at the blog of my cognition class: hooligangrads.blogspot.com or ask me to send you my critical reflection on Waiting for 'Superman'. Bottom line? Guggenheim (the producer/ director) doesn't have the answer either. He is simply, like the rest of us, still waiting for a Superman.
I'll be ordering a hard copy so that I can still talk with you all about my trip, but here are my photos and there are small descriptions with each photo, so I think you will be to
a) grasp the beauty of the Andes mountains
b) see the love in the kids' faces
c) understand what's going on in each photo. Except the photo of the alpaca. He (she?) just wanted to hang out on the soccer field with some friends, so we took some photos. And then he/she spit at a team member who got too close, kind of like our old Aladdin game for Sega.
Hey, so that's kind of cool, Shutterfly! That's not what I was picturing the 4 pictures doing... endlessly rotating through a 4 second slideshow... but I sorted a few out for you.
Yes, Bakes, I am lifting very heavy rocks. Truth be told... they didn't trust me with any heavy construction work. Most of the time, they had me lifting pebbles or cleaning up broken bricks or something demeaning. (Just kidding, it wasn't demeaning.) I am a bit awful at shoveling, it turns out. We had a system of 5 of us rotating through positions to hoist buckets of sand to the top of/ other side of a wall, and when it was supposed to be my turn to shovel... the rotation changed so that I did another position twice. And then later, they let me shovel because "It's good to have different tempos because then we get some rest." (Although, if I am being honest, not only was I slow but I kept injuring those around me. So the slow tempo- shoveler (myself) was only used when the person holding the buckets was very patient, forgiving, and had strong finger bones.)
Picture 2: The roads on a normal day. There were much worse days than this.
Picture 3: Playing juegos (games, not the Spanish word for Legos) with the children. You can see the top of my head in the bottom left. I'm intensely focused on the UNO game.
Picture 4: What trip would be complete without the required OHIO photos?
This is going to turn into a long post because I have a post waiting from a few months ago when I baked some chocolate chip cookies using a new recipe. Verdict? No better or worse than other recipes.
I promised a friend a surprise package - and I don't know what to put in surprise packages other than cookies. So I thought I'd make chocolate chip, because, let's be honest - what other options are there? I decided to test a new recipe from my grandmother. The handwriting down the side of the recipe is the recipe - doubled. That's a great sign. And, to give these cookies a fair test, I wanted to do it without substitutions. Guess how long that lasted?
If you guessed not long, you... are right.
Adapted from: Kitchen to Kitchen, Bev's Chocolate Chip Cookies
1. Sift dry ingredients in a bowl.
3/4 c rolled oats (Recipe says to grind in a food processor, but that was a dish I didn't want to wash.)
1 c whole-wheat flour
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
In an electric mixer, beat 1/4 cup softened butter until fluffy. (I used 5 t instead of 4 because that was the amount left on the stick. But feel that this substitution equals out the over-measured whole wheat flour.)
Add to the butter:
1/4 canola oil
1/3 c sugar
1/3 c brown sugar (Not quite there. I'll just add a little more vanilla. And vanilla syrup. And they will be sweet.)
1 large egg
1 "heaping" teaspoon vanilla (plus 1 T vanilla syrup)
While the mixer is running, add dry ingredients until mixed well.
Stir in 1 c chocolate chips. (Not even sure how to measure what I did.)
My chocolate chips spent too long in the car. And I don't want to run to the store. I tried peeling them apart - messy. But I washed my hands!
Or was that after?
And then I gave up and wanted to melt the chocolate chips and just stir them in to get what I think was about a cup. But I ran into a problem. See, unlike my unnatural fear of dried beans, I have a completely natural fear of melting chocolate. I have almost never done it correctly, regardless of melting method and how closely I actually follow instructions. Julie is trying to melt chocolate? Then it's almost guaranteed it will go from solid to burned. In 15 seconds.
Yep, curse: still on. Bye-bye, chocolate chips. The batter looks okay enough, I guess.
Bake the cookies at 350 for 8-10 minutes, until cookies are firm and golden on top. If you can make 2 1/2 dozen out of this, apparently it hovers around 100 calories. Good luck with that - it's like cooking dessert from Cooking Light: one serving size = approximately one bite. I made about 16 cookies out of this; could've made 20, maybe.
They had a little heartier flavor than the typical chocolate chips. Nothing I'd rave about more than I rave about my other chocolate chip cookie recipes. Got any good ones you would share?
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