3 today...

You're 3 today;

the greatest tiny man

in your own special way

took our hearts and ran.

It starts with your smile,
your giggly laugh..

then after a while

theres no turning back.

Always you hold

an outstretched hand,

just 3 years old

apart of God's plan.

Everyone around you
gets so much joy

when you are just, you-

the sweetest big boy.

You're humble; a helper,
just willing to share

like jesus a sheaperd

we see how you care.

So excited for you!

Tiny man of God,

you're life, all things new

He will surely applaud.

You're 3 today,

the greatest tiny man

in your own special way

took our hearts and ran.

so much to read...

Today, almost all day long, I really just wanted to sit and paint, or draw. The darkroom would have been nice as well. All I wanted to do was be creative, listen to good music and not really do anything else.

However, my reality was errands, books to read, tests to study for and classes to attend.

I can't wait for summer.

monday...grocery shopping day

Normally, I rock Stater Brothers. You know the sketch one on Newport Boulevard? I started shopping there because it was cheap, and have been there every week since then. But my roommate always comes home raving about how great Henry's is, and about all the awesome deals she gets there. So today I thought, why not?

So I walk in and immediately feel a bit out of place. Maybe it was the shiny black tile floors, the wide isles or all the women in high heals. I wandered around a bit but didn't see anything to exciting in the produce section. I made for the door, bummed that I wasted my time and on my way noticed the isles of bins that they have. I love the idea of having flour, oatmeal, candy, nuts and dried fruit in big bins for sale by the pound. It cuts back on packaging and garbage that for the most part is pointless. I was excited to see that and bought some granola and peanuts. Other than that though, I wasn't much impressed.

The thing about Stater Brothers is that I like all the things people complain about. The isles are small, like, stinkin small. I constantly play the maneuvering game around people. But you know what? I actually talk to people and joke with moms in Stater Brothers because the close proximity calls for it. People smile as they move past you and old men make jokes as you reach around them for the Pasta Roni. In Henry's everyone just moves around pretending like no one else exists.

Once I overheard in a woman in SB telling her friend "I hate this damn store! They never have anything I want". Well sorry that you want the world and you can't have everything at your fingertips. I'm used to shopping in grocery stores that don't carry everything in the world (Oxford, Sonora). Places like Vons and Alberstons are to me the epitome of the American culture. Personally, just because they don't have a 50ft isle of cereal doesn't mean I am going to stop shopping there.

In Henry's, as I moved toward the checkout stand, I stopped to let a man move around me (he was walking in a perpendicular path). I stopped and another man impatiently moved around me and cut us both off rushing to the checkout. In Stater Brothers we let each other go first, smile and joke playing the maneuver game, and patiently wait in line. Henry's, I don't care what kind of deals you may have. I'll take my community shopping experience over your "savings" any day.

in complete devotion

So, while in San Francisco, my team and I worked with an organization called Re-Imagine. On Wednesday we were to walk a specific route through the city. We were instructed to go into shops, try new foods, and absorb the city. This is the day I met Phil.

Normally I love Pete. Starbucks and I used to see each other, but I was always left disappointed. Pete and I get along, have a strong relationship even but it's long distance and its hard to keep touch. Kean, Kean and I are becoming closer everyday. We love each other, I like how strong Kean is. But over break I had an affair with Phil that I will never forget.

I walked into this Mission district, earthy shop and saw what I had always dreamed of but never knew it. The back wall was lined with freshly roasted beans with names like, Ambrosia Coffee of God, Silken Splendor, Canopy of Heaven and Soooo Good. The woman recommended a coffee that was just what I was looking for. She ground enough beans for my cup and but them in an all natural unbleached filter. She then poured just enough water in and the most wonderful brew drained down into my cup. She then, to perfection, added cream and sugar. She made sure I liked it and handed over to me a cup to good to be anything but sin.

Later in the week I traveled a half an hour to get to Phil again and I would give anything to have a cup right now.

a city of diversity

Me and Carly, in the city.

You can walk down Ellis street, toward the Business district, through the Tenderloin and make a right on Jones. People sit and sleep on the streets. The air smells like cigarette smoke and marijuana. The dirty streets littered with garbage. At the bottom of Jones you will walk through the Civic Center and across Market street. These brick streets are clean, save for the people digging through the trash and the shoppers lugging bags full of $30 shirts and $120 dollar jeans. Just two blocks on 6th street to the Mission district, and you can jump on the 14 and ride down into the heart of a Hispanic neighborhood. Get off on 25th street, and prepare yourself for the busy streets and shops straight out of Latin America, junk spilling out to the street. Graffiti art lines the alleys and makes them beautiful, and storefronts are tagged with gang signs. Just a few blocks, a few turns and you will find yourself in the clean, pristine and colorful Castro district. Full of shops that sell expensive stationary and clothes, deli's and coffee shops. Headed North on Castro street brings you to Market again, and in traveling down toward 6th street are churches, Starbucks, Gap, art stores, clubs and bars and a French Vietnamese restaurant.

This is the city of San Francisco, and just a piece of it at that.

The mission district.

Girls that I love!

.:a book for catherine:.

I have this wonderful friend, Catherine Riley, let me tell you about her.

First, she is the one who is responsible for my semester at Oxford. I went into her room last year, thoroughly depressed with life and she said, "ok you need to look at this". She showed me the Best Semester website and at first I thought, "naaa..I don't really want to study abroad". Two days later I was in her room again asking to see the site. Every time someone asked why I was studying last semester I simply said, "Catherine Riley".

Second, I am so jealous of her mind that comprehends theory. She took one semester and now she can apply any theory in the world to a text, just off the top of her head. A professor and I were talking about her at Starbucks one night last year, she said Catherine just has the kind of mind that works with theory, she just plugs everything into the right places and it works. We both agreed about how great she is.

Third, she keeps me laughing. Always. On the worst days she has me laughing so hard sometimes we disrupt class...apparently. :)

Fourth, before I left for Oxford last term I promised I would steal a first edition copy of a book out of the Library for her. Well, that didn't exactly happen (although with their "security" in the Lower Camera, it probably could have). But I happened to be in Jericho one afternoon, walking down Great Clarendon Street in front of the Oxford University Press and discovered a little thrift store. There I found Catherine's book.

Catherine. We need to have tea.

life is tough.

So, I have done this before. Once I was in the Twain Harte Market trying to pick out the cheapest and best tasting jelly when I was first inspired. There was a mom shopping with her 13-14 year old daughter. Her daughter was throwing a fit, in the middle of the store, calling her mom names and complaining that life "just isn't fair". I think she wanted to go to the movies or go to a friends house. At any rate it was a huge scene and I felt awful for the mom who was being passive and taking all the insults.

I called my mom as soon as I left the store and apologized like crazy for anytime I had ever done that to her.

What brings this to mind was my trip to the doctor today. There was a mom there, probably in her 20s, with her about 3 year old son. I walked in and I noticed his squirmy restlessness but didn't think much of it. Next thing mom is scolding him in that "I don't really mean what I'm saying voice" and he uses her phone to call daddy (with her help). Everyone is watching and its really cute when he says "daddy I'm being a bad boy" and "I love you daddy". But things only proceed to get worse. With lots of empty threats he continues to act up and starts crying. What happens next is what you would expect. A trip outside, some candy to be quiet, and yelling at the receptionist for the wait.

I'm sorry mom. If ever I was three and threw a fit that completely embarrassed you. I love you a lot. :)

tea.

In many conversations since I have returned from the UK comments have been made like "So I'm sure you drank a lot of tea there" and "I'll bet you know how to make tea the right way now huh?". Yes, yes I do.

I choose now to share that with you, in the hope that your tea drinking experience will be greatly improved. Now, the English aren't huge fans of green tea or fruit teas. So mostly this works with black teas like English and Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey, Gunpowder Black, Constant Comment, Mango Ceylon and the like. If the tea has citrus in it, it will likely curdle the milk, no fun.

Step 1) Boil water in a pot or electric kettle. After it boils let it sit for a minute or two. Boiling water actually burns tea leaves, so let it cool down just a tad.

Step 2) Add boiling water to tea bags in a tea pot, let them steep for 3-5 minutes, depending on how dark you like your tea. (I like mine rather dark)

Step 3) Put 1/4 cup of milk in a coffee cup, followed by 1 and a heaped half teaspoons of sugar. (Less sugar is ok, but this is what I do, as does the British man who taught me how to make tea)

Step 4) Put the cup in the microwave for 19 seconds. This apparently warms the milk and helps it to caramelise with the sugar a bit, it will bring out the creamy flavor of the milk better as well.

Step 5) Pour in the steeped tea over the milk (The posh in Britain do this. It came from when the wealthy drank tea out of porcelain that breaks when hot tea is poured directly into the cup, the cream in first prevented it from breaking)

Step 6) Stir once more.

Step 7) Enjoy with a book, a few biscuits (cookies) and a friend.

in which i experience the love that is krochet kids..

I have been blessed to, during my time at Vanguard, know and hang out with some of the guys involved in the foundation of the non-profit organization that is Krochet Kids International. They are a group of guys from Southern California and Washington who love to crochet....what?! When I first met them they lived in a sweet two story beach house on 52nd street and the sand. They surf, they love God and they crochet. Then they were impacted by the need they saw in Africa, and decided to use the random thing they love to do for something bigger than themselves. They went to Uganda, Africa, and employed 6 or 7 women. They taught them how to crochet and now they sell the hats that the women make there in the United States. It has pulled these women out of poverty and given them joy in their lives.

Today, after chapel, Bethany (who recently started a media internship with KK) looked at me and said "do you want to come up to the office with me?" Do I want to come up to the office? Do I? It took me all of a half a second to say yes to her.

We go upstairs (their office is in the same building, Newport Mesa Church, that Vanguard holds chapel in) and Stew is sitting in the office with our friend Ryan. Stewart Ramsey is one of the original idea men behind Krochet Kids and is a total doll. It wasn't 5 minutes before he made me a cup of coffee, and if you know me lately, I am all about a good cup of coffee.

So I am just sitting there, reading C.S. Lewis, doing homework, while Bethany and Stew storyboard for the movie Bethany is making for them during her trip to Uganda this summer. Before I know it, I am dragged into the conference room, thrown a pen and am ordered to write all of my ideas down on the wall sized white board. "There are no bad ideas" Stew said. For the next hour and a half we played word association, answered Who, What, Why questions and started a structure for this video.

Wait a second...Im not an intern, I haven't been to Uganda and all I have is a KK beanie, and an old T-shirt with their logo on it. Yet this is the kind of welcoming love that I am shown. The kind of love their non-profit is founded on.

..the invention of hugo cabret..

For my children's literature class we were assigned The Invention of Hugo Cabret to read this week and last. However, I read it in about 3 hours. From the introduction I was hooked, and this novel is like none I have ever encountered before.

Brian Selznick writes a story about a french boy who because of hard circumstances finds himself living in a trainstation in Paris. His name is Hugo and his story is told through text as well as beautifully drawn black and white pictures. The themes of time, art, writing, and film are all tied together in the black and white pictures, which at times span 10 pages or more in continuous sequence. This is a coming of age story, a finding identity story, one you can get lost in. Whenever someone interupted me while I was reading it, looking up was like coming up out of the water for a breath of air.