CSA!

Many good meals from Farm Fresh To You! (Please check this co-op out! They are incredible. Excellent produce delivered to your door. And if you want to order from them, let me know. I have a discount code!)

I seriously love cooking good, fresh food. There is something satisfying about cooking and sitting down and enjoying food on a real plate.

Here was lunch (I should have snapped a photo):
Butter lettuce and radicchio salad with French dressing (dijon mustard, a dash of olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, salt, black pepper) and a cranberry stilton crumble (would have loved a few sliced almonds or walnuts...but no nuts in the pantry...)
Roasted golden beets with goat cheese
Bartlett pear
Hot green tea

Yeah. I feel pretty great and very fortunate right about now.
And almost ready to tackle that pile of clothes I've been telling myself to organize.
Back to cleaning...

Terrorfying

The tragedy of 9/11 had just passed; churches are full, a nation in mourning.

A charismatic man is the guest speaker for a youth group. An over-protective dad, like many over-protective dads, and he is trying to teach a group of high school students about the "religions of the world," namely about Mormonism and Islam.

He knows a lot and appears to know a lot, shiny and red with excitement. He talks about mountains and virgins in heaven and multiple wives. And then he says this, "You know, Muslims and Christians, we're not that different. And you know those radical extreme Muslims, they would do so much good if they were that radical for Christ. We should all be that radical for Christ."

A room full of high school students nods its collective head. How can we bring them to Christ to be radical Christians? 

And a girl on leadership who is taking notes stops. Did he really just say that? She wants a second opinion and glances around to catch some other confused stare. All she sees are nods. But something about that man's statement, the theory and urgency behind those statements, doesn't make sense. At least, she hopes it doesn't make sense. Because if it does, if that room nodded its collective nod of approval for that ideology, then that was the terror. It is the terror bred from terror. And as the room around her gears up for a spiritual war mis-waged, she knows that some will sign up to fight with guns in a war misunderstood. And so instead of nodding with the rest of that room, she bows her head to pray.

On the Wall

When you don't have any projects
And the layers peel away and you are left with the heart of it all.
Is it terrifying to realize that it's not enough?

"Finding out who you are apart from everyone else is the hardest work of all."
--A quote from my sister's childhood bedroom mirror.

Teeth-lettes Express Themselves

I had another crazy dream.
My teeth were falling out. Well, a little more than that. It went something like this:

One of the teeth on the left side of my mouth sort of loosened and crumbled into sharp teeth pieces in my mouth. Oh my gosh! My teeth are falling out! Not AGAIN! So I run to the restroom (which happens to be a men's restroom) because I can feel blood and more and more shards of teeth-lettes in my mouth and I'm gagging and my mouth is filling up with more and more of this mess. So I get to the restroom and two guys are in there, just hanging out. And I bend over the sink and start spitting the teeth shrapnel out of my mouth but more and more fill my mouth and I can't get all of them out. It's overwhelming and I'm gagging and one of the guys is like, "Hey, are you alright?" So he comes over and the sink is FULL of water and teeth pieces. "What is this," he asks, "PVC pipe fiber glass?" And then he takes a piece (that doesn't look anything like a tooth) and bites it. I'm freaking out because this guy is eating my teeth pieces and I can't answer him because I'm using my hands now to try to empty my mouth. More and more shattered teeth until I wake up.

According to dream2live.com (I know. I just googled, "What does it mean when you dream about your teeth falling out?"), this type of dream is fairly common. Here's the analysis: A dream about one's teeth falling out usually means and symbolizes that the dreamer is having a hard time or a challenge getting their voice heard, their ideas acknowledged or feelings responded to. Now, despite the poor grammar, I'll go ahead and run with this analysis. I've had other dreams where I can't speak even though I'm really trying because of something that I can't expel from my mouth. It was a truffle once; this time, it was teeth.


So, here/hear. There are things I apparently need to say!
I want a vacation.
I miss my best friend.
Working with foster students doesn't always justify a four or five hour commute.
I miss spinning class--often.
I want to write more.
I want to art more.
I like cooking.
I miss my grandma.
People need to stop dying.
I'm tired. Very very tired.
I have clothes on my floor.
I need to make my "Big Girl List" (the list of allt he things I need to do but don't really want to do):
1. Make an appointment with the dentist...