Mondo Beyondo 2009 (my thanks to Andrea)

I've been doing a little internal housekeeping lately. Trying to work through some stuff, trying to throw out some insecurities, trying to draw in some motivation and inspiration and find some joy... and today, huzzah! Online inspiration strikes at the Superhero Journal, and it is called Mondo Beyondo. You can check it out here to get the full explanation.

In essence the creator of Mondo Beyondo says the surest way to start fresh and move forward is to be at peace with what came before. You might have had an incredible year, a dull year, or a truly difficult year. Whatever happened, the aim is to celebrate what there is to celebrate about it and grieve what there is to grieve... Then start the new year off by declaring what you want to draw into your life and let those items entice you into action.

Mondo Beyondo challenges you to answer the following questions and declare the year, in this case 2008, complete.

1. What do you want to acknowledge yourself for in regard to 2008?
(What did you create? What challenges did you face with courage and strength? What promises to yourself did you keep? What brave choices did you make? What are you proud of?)

2. What is there to grieve about 2008?
(What was disappointing? What was scary? What was hard? What can you forgive yourself for?)

3. What else do you need to say about the year to declare it complete?

The next step is to say out loud, "I declare 2008 complete!"
How do you feel? If you don't feel quite right, there might be one more thing to say...


The final step is to consider your primary focus for the year to come. What is your primary intention or theme for 2009? Is it the year of joy? the year of self-care? the year of partnership?

Stand up and say it proud, "2009 is my year of...."


It's basically a way to put the past year behind you and move on with the new one. I know it's already coming up on the end of January but better late than never. I'm going to think on my answers to those questions and my list of intentions for the year to come over the weekend (or maybe a little longer if I get nervous about posting them here..) but thought I'd leave you with the questions in case you might like to do it too.

a few observations of late...

it snowed in NJ on Saturday night. this made for a beautiful run on Sunday morning... the trees all lacy white and sparkling in the sun, the scrunch scrunch of the snow underfoot, the happy scarlet cardinals flitting from branch to branch.

not so lovely... the large and muddy trucks, perched high above their own wheels, roaring up and down the roads (such that their hand done camouflage paint jobs were rendered ineffective... there would be no sneaking up on anything in those babies!)

***

i watched the inauguration of Barak Obama stretched out on my mother-in-law's bed... she called me into her room at about 11am, interrupting my attempt to rescue her desiccated houseplants. so we watched together, commenting on this and that, remarking about the crowds and the good weather, and how sweet the Obama kids look....

she reached over and held my hand... and fell asleep before he finished his speech.

***

my husband has inherited his parents' tendency to accumulate "stuff." their house is full of clutter and bits and pieces and boxes and bursting closets... it annoys him when he goes there, all that stuff that they will never use.

each time we come home he looks around our place, sighs, and says something along the lines of "i'm just like them..." and he does his best to thin out his stuff.

i've come to realise that i too am a stuff hoarder. i had to get rid of a lot of stuff when i was packing up my life to move here. but i still have stuff.

i'm just better at putting it away (aka hiding it) than he is.

***

i'm thinking i've found a new project

my friend David took these pictures whilst on holidays in Rome...


i think they're hilarious.... who ever decided horses need ear warmers? and in Rome? it hardly gets cold there!

now here, here it gets cold (though not like it does back home in Canada.)


so, since i have mastered the art of making scarves (i made six as Christmas gifts), and am in need of a new project... i'm going to try to make these.





i don't know anyone who has horses who might need these, so if you do, please let me know. i will happily send them on to some horse who could use them.

am now off to search the net for estimates on horse ear circumferences and forehead sizes.













Post Script:
Looks like I missed the boat on this one... in looking for horse ear sizes, look what came up near the top of the list. A whole website dedicated to horse bonnets... sigh.




i'm still going to try to make one, just for kicks.

all day trying

~

i lost my baby a year ago today.

i've spent all day trying not to be sad.

i am sad.

so i'm going to bed.

~

collecting

my house smells like clean laundry again... but that's not what i'm here to tell you.

on the way to do other household necessity stuff (like banking and grocery shopping) this evening, we happened by a comic store. and my sweetheart decided we needed to go in to get some idea what his "collection" might be worth.

the store stank of stale cigarette smoke (that can't be good for the value of the priceless artifacts found within the store's reeking walls), boxes of action figures and baseball cards stacked precariously, sleeve upon shiny sleeve of plastic ensconced comic books hung from the walls... and my sweetheart grew a new persona.

at least, it was new to me... he was suddenly collector-guy, talking shop, cracking jokes about such-and-such comic #94, and moaning over the recent early demise of an artist whose work he admired.

when the shop owner realised that i was not taking part, he tried to draw me into the conversation by asking what i collected, saying something along the lines of everybody collects something... maybe dolls or something?

and so i have been trying to think if i ever truly collected anything. not just had a few items of something that accumulated over time because people noticed you had one and thought you might like another for your collection... but something i was passionate about, that i loved so much i had to have more.

maybe i did, at one time... i know i had some cow stuff for a while, but it seems to me that i kind of said once that i liked cows and then they were rained upon me. but i don't remember ever having my special collection of something precious.

all the things i can think of that i ever deliberately accumulated were things to be used. i don't remember ever buying something that i loved and then putting it away so that the sunlight wouldn't damage it, or dirty fingers decrease it's value.

maybe i'm just not a collector.

but then, i suppose i could find a few things that i have collected and put away somewhere safe, where nothing could touch them... old loves, old losses, old wounds, old memories.

i wonder if anyone would want them, if i were to take them out of their time-proof protective covers and put them on auction to the highest bidder.

follow your nose...

as you walk through our little apartment, you can smell the fruits of my housewifely labours of the day...

~ at the front door, the living room is lightly lemon Pledge scented following the first trip round the house with the duster this year.
~ approaching the kitchen the air is filled with the aroma of the hot apples, cinnamon, toasted oats and walnuts of a baking apple crisp.
~ stroll by the bathroom and you'll notice a hint of pine scented cleaning products.
~ the spare bedroom is fragrant with drying laundry, which smells curiously of geraniums (reminds me of my Nan's Boots bubble bath).

i hardly know which room to hang out in, inhaling...

could be that i need to get out more.

caramel at heart

an old friend of my sweetheart's family recently sent me her flan recipe. every time she visits my in-laws she either brings a flan, or makes one on the premises. my sweetheart loves flan, and so i asked her to give us the recipe.

english is not her first language, however... and spanish is not mine. so, i asked my husband to translate it for me. he was doing his homework, so he simply directed me to the babelfish website and this is how the translation came out:

I VARY THE AMOUNTS OF SUGAR MAINLY. THE BEST THING IS TO BEGIN FOLLOWING THE PRESCRIPTION AND TO BE VARYING IF YOU LIKES LESS CANDY, WITH LESS EGG, ETC.

4 MILK GLASSES
1 SUGAR GLASS
6 EGGS
THE SKIN OF A LEMON OR AN ORANGE.

MILK IS PUT TO BOIL WITH THE SKIN OF THE CITRUS. IN THE CONTAINER WHERE WE ARE GOING TO DO THE FLAN WE PUT ONE OR TWO SPOONFULS OF SUGAR WE WARMED UP AND IT MOVING IT WITH CARE, UNTIL ONE BECOMES CARAMEL OF THE CONTAINER AT HEART. THIS IS NECESSARY TO MAKE IT WITH WELL-TAKEN CARE OF NOT BURNING ITSELF WHEN DOING IT. IN PARALLEL BAT IN A BOWL THE SUGAR AND THE EGGS. WHEN MILK HAS BOILED, IT IS GOTTEN UP, CLEARING THE SKIN OF THE ORANGE OR THE LEMON, AND IT IS MIXED WELL. ONE LIES DOWN TO THE CONTAINER WITH CARE, AND THIS MARIA IS PLACED TO THE BATH: HOT WATER IN A PACKAGE IN WHICH THE FLANERA FITS. IT IS PLACED WITHIN THE FURNACE, PREVIOUSLY WARMED UP TO 350 DEGREES DURING 35 MINUTES.

ALSO IT IS POSSIBLE TO BE ADDED WHEN BEATING EGGS AND THE SUGAR, ANY TYPE OF FRUIT KIWI, RAISINS, PEACH… ANY TYPE OF FRUIT IS VERY PLEASANT.

ALTHOUGH IT SEEMS COMPLICATED, IS VERY SIMPLE TO DO. ONLY IT IS NECESSARY JUST A LITTLE BIT OF PRACTICES. I WOULD ADVISE THAT YOU BEGAN MAKING A FLAN WITH HALF OF AMOUNTS, 2 MILK GLASSES, SUGAR AVERAGE, 3 EGGS…




it's a cold and rainy day here, and so my goal for the day is to warm myself up and keep myself moving with care until i too become caramel at heart.

home... sigh, bliss.

~ the scent of incense drifting down the hall while my husband meditates (my favourites are the particularly resinous kind that smell like a pine forest on a hot summer's day)

~ crisp clean sheets on our ever-so-comfortable bed

~ photos of my nephews smiling at me from the top of the piano

~ the houseplants my husband neglected while i was away

~ my books!

~ our beautiful red dresser full of clothes (i had only planned to be gone for two days, and by day nine i was pretty sick of my two t-shirts, one sweater, one pair of cargo pants and one pair of running tights)

~ good peanut butter

~ my knitting, which i really should have taken with me and missed much more than i would have imagined



i'm happy to be home.

life in the fast lane

five lanes of dense traffic flying about at high speeds makes me tense. at least, it does when i'm driving. watching a big transport truck rear-end a little honda civic also makes me feel a little anxious when i see one on my rear bumper... people here drive way too close together for the speeds they go. i was doing 70 miles per hour -- which is over the speed limit, i might add-- and pretty near everyone was whipping by me.

wouldn't want to be rollerblading along these highways, like i did in Jasper.

*

i'm very happy to be home, tucked into my own bed with my sweetheart laying next to me... as much as i enjoy my time with the in-laws, it is a little exhausting.