goodbye, blue room!

friday night was our goodbye party at the blue room. dan and emily came with salsa, guacamole, and chips, i brought cupcakes, and ellen and jim came with a card and gift. ellen introduced me to the wonderful world of gin and cranberry (sippin on gin and juice). we got all of our songs played on the jukebox - all the rap and r&b you could ask for! someone else in the bar was a huge journey fan and put a entire one of their cds on below is a picture of us singing "don't stop believing...hold on to that feeling...

almost as good as karaoke - except people around us werent planning on hearing us singing. oh well. since we know all the bartenders and waitresses and i brought cupcakes no one said anything to us. :)

good time, but sad to see the last of emily and ellen (at least for a while).

Last date

You can't really see it but we are at h&h looking at the hollywood sign for my last time before dinner at the shabu shabu place. Sad!
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last wednesday in los angeles

the girls at work took me out to luch one final time. we went to olive garden, always a winner. our server was mildly cute and had a really nice voice and cara and karla were giggling the entire meal. it was like returning to junor high and i loved every second. i was finisheing up things at work and it was nice to get away for an hour or so and just laugh together.

last night we went to my final scene, the live production team meeting for mosaic. israel cooked great food, we hung out, and after the scene was officially over we busted out the hookah. israel had never tried it before and wanted jeremy to bring it over some time.

i got to see doug and jade for maybe the last time, and everyone else. it was once again a bittersweet time. they gave us a great card with some really beautiful things written in it. we are so lucky to have found this community here.

i love you all!

last girls' night out

tuesday night kris, kim, lottie and gaby met me for dinner at robin hood, a british pub in the neighborhood. we had a great dinner and lots of laughs. it was one more night out on the town and was super fun. we had great food and drinks. the boys came a couple hours later for darts.

i'm trying to come up with more to write about the night (we really did have a great time, and what i mean by great time is...) but i am so overwhelmed with the thought of leaving these people (and so many others) behind i cannot even process it. so suffice it to say this is what i look like these days and it aint pretty.

For Beka

Monday night after the gym kris and I went over to kim's new house and played with the hyfurcater then kris dressed up in all of kim's mom's clothes from the seventies. Hilarity ensued.
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karaoke party time!

last night jeremy and i went out with some friends (mostly from work) to whiskey bend for some karaoke fun. ellen's fiancee jim was amazing on the microphone and he jumped up right away when the list opened. it took the rest of us a little longer to work up the nerve to go up to the stage. gaby was the first one to go of the girls, and i followed sometime after. she sang two different songs: ironic and whoomp there it is! i sang strawberry wine. the beatles were my back up singers, which was weird for a country song but worked out ok in the end. that was the longest four and a half minutes of my life. seriously. i am not a singer and too many of the other karaoke-ers were better than amateur level (and im not even close to amateur level) our final performance of the night was pretty woman. that used to be my favorite song to play on the jukebox at jimmy's diner. we were cracking up too much to actually sing the song but it was super fun. being on stage in a group is WAY better.

final ochsner barbecue

last tuesday night we had a barbecue at lance and kris's house. kris's sister was in town and so was alicia. we had a great time cooking out, hanging out, and feeling good. we played round robin ping pong again, which is always a winner. i got to spend a little special time with owen. this was my second to last time to see him before i leave since the stellers left to go back to virginia and wont return until after the 7th.
kim, alicia and i got a little bit crazy, as usual. they had to leave early to take alicia to the airport to return home... :( it was great to spend time with her at the bbq and at the beach on sunday though.

i love our friends here so much and gonig to miss each and every one of them like crazy when i leave... in 9 days! eek!

sacred pathways tour part 3

sensate: loving god with the senses, literally sight, sounds and smells that overwhelm us in worship

traditionalist: loving god through ritual and symbol

we spent about 30 or so minutes at st. vincents cathedral. looking at the stained glass, sitting in the squeaky pews or kneeling on the creaky kneelers or smelling the smoke from the prayer candles all served to focus the entire group on the reason we were there. it was amazing how boisterous the group was in the parking lot and as soon as we walked into the cathedral we all started whispering and tip toeing around.

in the parking lot after we went through our time of reflection insdie shannon passed around different flavors of honey for us to taste and really think about, using our senses, mainly taste and smell. mine was orange blossom and after really focusing on the flavor of the honey i could taste the orange in it.

the entire day was really amazing, and shannon put a TON of work into making the experience meaningful and real. each destination held new things to see and experience and it was wonderful. thank you shannon!

sacred pathways tour part 2

we went to a womens shelter to serve lunch and explore the caregiver pathway, but unfortunately we arrived too late to help out. we did get a tour of the facility and were able to talk to a couple of the women and learn what they do and how they serve the needy in downtown la. after leaving there, we headed to olvera street for lunch and to explore the mystic and enthusiast pathways. i was very enthusiastic about my tamale and taquitos!

there was a group of dancers doing traditional indian dances in the courtyard. this was a great way to experience how the mystic and enthusiast are actually one and the same (the group decided there were two distinct parts to the pathway described in one chapter in the book).

after leaving olvera street, we headed to la city college to a gallery of political posters based on famous works of art. the two the spoke to me the most were the one based on a norman rockwell painting and one based on the thinker. sorry for the glare. the first one is the political art, and the second one is the original with a short explanation of each. if you click on the picture, it will enlarge and you might be able to read the text.

this one is basically a social commentary on the images the media is presenting to young girls and how messed up we are making them.

and of course the thinker... never the doer. especially appropriate for the pathways we illustrated by this stop on the tour: the intellectual and the activist.

sacred pathways tour part 1

Cover of Sacred Pathways

after the live production team finished reading sacred pathways by gary thomas (a wonderful book that you should all read), shannon arranged a tour of los angeles where we could experience each of the 9 pathways.

we started the tour at the arboretum, where we explored the pathways of the naturalist and the ascetic. there were fields of flowers, peacocks, waterfalls, and tons of other things to see and experience. this (and the huntington library) are two wonderful ways to experience nature and god's creativity right in the middle of the city.

we were also told to spend about five minutes sitting still and in silence meditating on god. i chose to sit in an alcove slightly off the main path by a quiet fountain. it was a wonderful time of loving god in solitude and simplicity. the verse we were given to meditate on was psalm 46:10. "be still and know that i am god."

by the waterfall there was a series of steps that shannon challenged us to walk up, pausing on each one to think of some quality of god that we are thankful for. this was to explore the contemplative pathway, or loving god through adoration. here is some of what i came up with:

mercy

justice

creativity

brilliance

sense of humor

kindness

grace

faithfulness

vision

guidance

beauty

constancy

acceptance

righteous anger

peacefulness

read psalm 63 and see what you come up with

graduation

i didnt get any pictures of the ceremony this year. we held grad uation at night instead of 10am this year for the first time maybe ever but definitely since ive been at dubnoff. friday was an insane day, running around, working on setting up things outside (it was the hottest day we've had in over a month AND windy - yay for taping down all the tablcloths!), assembling the programs, etc. ceci was in charge - i was thankful to just do what she told me. we made it through. i missed most of the ceremony because i was helping cec set up the food. i got to hear the graduate's tahnk you speeches though. thats the kind of thing that makes everything we do all year feel worthwhile. nine kids are graduating - four with their diplomas and the other five with the potential to receive a diploma if they pass the high school exit exdam at some point in the next two years. at least one of our kids is going to college next year.

at the end of the ceremony, after everyone had eaten tri tip and coleslaw and a huge piece of graduation costco cake, we headed to the office bar and grill for a drinkie to celebrate the end of school. there were still several people who didnt know that i am leaving in a week and a half, so they were understandably sad about that. i am too. its such an exciting time but there are so many unknowns out there.

it isnt too dissimilar from some of our kids. when they graduate from dubnoff, a lot of them dont have the family support to help them get through college or tech school, may be incapable of holding down a job or even getting one, and a lot of the services they have been using to cope over the last 10 or more years are no longer available to them.

im leaving all my friends, my family (i dont think cricket is coming with me and jeremy is staying behind regardless), my job, my church, my gym, my routine... everything that is everything to me. being a creature of routine and not so much interested in change or spontanaeity, especially without jeremy with me. so im graduating from dubnoff and from los angeles and heading into the great beyond.

new hampshire here i come! (in 14 days)

15 Books in 15 Minutes

take no more than 15 minutes and think of 15 books that have influenced you and will stick with you forever:

1. the red tent
2. ender's game
3. love you forever
4. outlander
5. a long fatal love chase
6. just listen
7. sacred pathways
8. hunger games
9. the gift of the magi
10. zel
11. the tipping point
12. my sister's keeper
13. the maker's diet
14. the hiding place
15. the velveteen rabbit

these books are all really different and mean something to me for really different reasons.

what are your 15 in 15?

i can't believe this is FINALLY happening!

i bought myself an airplane ticket today. a one way ticket. from lax to boston. i'm leaving jeremy and moving to new hampshire. ok not leaving leaving him, just moving ahead. since my hours were getting cut july 1 and jeremy's job provides our health insurance, we decided it would be best if i moved out to new hampshire, found a monthly rental apartment, and looked for a job while jeremy stays in la and continues working for edward jones, praying an opening comes up in the area of new england he could conceivably commute to so he can transfer and keep his wonderful benefits, and packing up all our stuff.

once i get a job (also praying that happens very quickly) jeremy will get things finished up here and come out with me. we are still discussing who gets custody of cricket for the month or two we will be apart.

thats right, a month or two. yikes. we've been apart for four or five days before and been perfectly happy (you have to give yourself time to miss each other on occasion) but four or five weeks is a lot. i know married people do this all the time (the families of those serving in our armed forces spring to mind - thank you to each and every one of you by the way) but it will be hard.

and i won't have a car or a job or any friends. but i am still really excited. we've been trying to move to new hampshire for over a year now and the stars are finally aligning. i feel like god is calling us out there and i know he will make everything work out for us like he did when we moved to la.

so thats the big news. my last day in la will be july 7. im sad and happy and excited and terrified and a myriad of other emotions all at the same time. eeeek!

twupcakes

if you have every been on the increasingly popular twitter site, the bird and fail whale are very familiar images. the bird represents our tweets (twitter updates) and the fail whale appears whenever there is too much on the site and your request cannot be processed.

keeping this in mind, i was asked to bake cupcakes for a book group i am in. i decided to use these images as my inspiration and came up with the twitter bird and fail whale cupcakes you see below.

not perfect, but since the whales are filled with bavarian cream and the birds are filled with strawberry, i imagine everyone will be happy.

(very belated) ARC review

Any Given Doomsday by Lori Handeland

i received this arc a long long time ago and finally read it while we were in kansas. the good news is that it is first in a series and i managed to wait long enough that the second book should be coming out soon and i wont have to wait!

from the back cover:
dear reader,
i've always been drawn to the paranormal. maybe it's because i grew up watching the outer limits and the twilight zone. stephen king has been one of my favorite authors since i read carrie on the bus home from college.

i discovered urban fantasy with laurell k hamilton. i wanted to write something just like that. i wanted to create stories about one character who rises and falls, moves forward, steps back and who lives and learns and loves like the rest of us - but in a world very different from our own.

elizabeth phoenix resembles you and me in many ways. she's lost things - her partner, her job, a man - but she keeps going on. even when she discovers that the end of the world is bearing down, and she's the only one who might be able to stop it.

of course liz is different too. she's psychic, which has caused her no small amount of trouble in life. but liz is about to discover that she was born for a reason, and the powers she has are only the beginning.

travel with liz from her hometown (and mine) milwaukee to the gorgeous vistas of new mexico, then on to the glittering world of manhattan where she fights demons of biblical proportions. with a little help from the two men in her life, neither of whom is completely human.

if you enjoy books that are scary and sexy, as well as funny - liz will say anything - then you'll love any given doomsday and the world of the phoenix chronicles as much as i do.

all best wishes,
lori handeland

basically liz grew up in a foster care like situation and her foster mother is killed. this is when liz realized her higher calling. with help from another boy (man now) that she fostered with she will fight to save the world from some pretty scary dudes.

it was a fun read, and i think i will enjoy the second one more. the first book in a sci-fi/fantasy series always has a lot of set up of the "world" the characters live in and so moves more slowly in parts. this book had some of that, but still kept me interested in the story the entire time. i'd recommend it if urban fantasy is a genre you enjoy. :)