Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Next DIY Project

My dad came home with a really sweet DIY project idea...and he's been chomping at the bit to actually do it!! So despite my crazy busy life and the three other projects I have to do as well, he decided we needed to go get the stuff for this project from Lowe's today.

Lowe's & Home Depot (though huge corporation stores and thus not my fav) have become hot spots for me lately.

Here's the project!! (and of course I'll post pics once it's done)


Sunday, November 27, 2011

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving came...and went...pretty fast this year!! It was a great day, with all of us together. As that sort of opportunity becomes even more scarce, it's always a great time to get everyone together and take family pictures :-)

After some baking but before gorging ourselves, we set out on the adventure of getting a family photo. From all the craziness, here are my favs!!

Mom and Dad
Kevan and Lily
Marshall and Jenni
My Brothers
the original four
a fun one
Family Foto
fun family photo!

After the day spent eating and conversating, I headed to work and spent the night with my Sheriff's taking care of prisoners. Just another Thanksgiving for the books. Onwards to Christmas!

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

DIY Me #1

So I have been in a very DIY mood lately. I've cleaned my parents house, been working on baking, started several projects, and started revamping furniture for my room makeover (which won't be complete until I move next month). However, I will say I am but a mere amateur in the world of DIY in some aspects but I am having a blast having fun with these little projects I am taking on!!

I baked five loaves of banana bread the other day, tonight I baked two pumpkin rolls (all the extra is to take to work for my co-workers and the Sheriff's), and I'm still trying to figure out what else to help cook for Thanksgiving.

As far as labor projects, I finished Desk #1 and repainted my lamp. I need to figure out some cute details to add to the lamp but as of right now, I'm not quite sure what to add to it!! But alas here are the pictures of my desk and lamp (before and after). I have another desk, a chair and a high chair all in the works to get done. All thrift store (or free on the side of the road) finds that I need to get done!!

Desk after sanding


 Desk after staining!
 love the imperfection of my sanding job!

 lamp before paint
 lamp after painting base grey...any ideas for fun detailing?!?! 

As I keep getting projects done, I'll keep uploading them. Onto the next thing!!

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Newest Goals

You know how we all go through those little personal ruts in life?! Well maybe it's only me who goes through those fairly often. And they aren't really ruts so much as they are times that I find myself unhappy with one trait or another about myself. Especially when I feel like I'm being pulled down from being in a cheery state.

Well I have felt as though my optimistic attitude was being jaded a little and I hated that. Immensely. There is no reason not to be happy. We all have to live so why not make it a blessed, fun, and happy existence. It's your life. It's what you make it. And we all have to work. So why not love your job and make it a fun place to be?!

Well, I felt like some negativity was getting to me. And I found myself in a rut. I found that I was complaining more than usual, which just spread some negativity around me naturally. I also found that my gossiping was just getting too out of control for my taste.

So here are my newest goals, and I've been working pretty diligently on them and trying to be very conscious and very aware of my actions and my mouth:

1. To stop complaining - really why complain?! It's just bitching, only whinier, which is annoying and just makes you sound immature and people don't want to hear you complain.

2. To stop talking bad about people - there's a difference between stating facts and bad-mouthing. It's a fine line but I'm trying very hard to find that line. Especially on my unit (correctional care) where you deal with behaviorial issues such as manipulation and mind games every day at work. I'm having to learn to way to find a balance between them.

3. To stop cussing - I will never fully eliminate cussing. It's just way too engrained in my language. However, I have almost eliminated the "eff" word...unless I'm really "effing" pissed. The sad thing is that it's just a perfect word for every situation and can be used in every way. I'm trying really hard to not ever use it...at least in certain settings where it can be reflective of me...in ways that I don't want it to be.

4. To keep my positive attitude, despite the world's attempts to jade and beat me down. I don't have to "grow up" to be grumpy and negative. I hope to never be. So I wish people would stop trying to convince me of how much life will jade me. I'm working towards it not!! I love life too much!! And why ever be miserable?! Life is too short and holds FAR too much beauty to waste it on the negative...


Tuesday, November 15, 2011

HGTV!!

So I found a new form of crack...well a few.

I LOVE designing and creating and redo-ing and making things come back to life! Which means that I find inspiration and get ideas all over the place and have way too many projects going.

Well I found the world of HGTV! This channel previously held no value for me when I was younger but the shows that are on it now...oh Lord have mercy!! House Hunters (International even!), room makeover shows, Curb Appeal, etc. LOVE!!

And if you've never checked out www.apartmenttherapy.com you HAVE to!! It's filled with SO much inspiration and stores and wowsers!!

So now my biggest itch in life is the need, desire, want to re-design and re-do my whole life basically. It's like crack to me. And I'm doing it!!

Since I'm moving in a month I'm redo-ing part of my life. Gonna order a new bedspread, paint my dresser/nightstand/lamp, go find a desk at a thrift store and make it fun and cute and make some pillows. Oh here we go!!

I LOVE design and new projects!! Hopefully this time I can finish my projects :-)

Wednesday, November 09, 2011

A Case of the Mondays

Do you ever have days that you feel whimsical? Like nothing could touch you?

Without reason, without cause, do you ever wake up...and despite everything else going on...and feel as though nothing can touch you? Your mood is just that light and that (for lake of a better word) untouchable?

Doubts can fill your every neural crevice..and yet somehow, there are those days, where you wake up and when you look in the mirror, you don't see every nit-picked flaw and "undesirable" personality trait...but rather when you look in the mirror that morning, you can't help but love the person you are, what you aren't, and everything in between. All of a sudden those imperfections don't matter. All those things in life that have weighed heavy on you are sitting in the corner of the area cowering, even if only temporarily.

These days of relief, of unwarranted and unexpected confidence, and sweet relief of oneself are days I treasure.

Monday just happened to be one of those days.

Those calm days where my heart rests a bit lighter are few and far in between sometimes. Playing my own worst critic, I am grateful for the days that I wake up and am not consumed with thoughts of anxiousness over everything, rather I know for certain all is well and all will work out.

Something about Monday afternoon reaffirmed my value as a person.

Though I doubt that sometimes, there are days where I know my worth is incalcuable via mortal terms and is sacred in eternal terms. I just have to be reminded of that from time to time. And when I am, my anxious heart goes calm.

Doubts and fears still exist, for very good reason, but that doesn't matter, because in the end my worth is measured in something much greater than us humans. Mortals cannot make me feel inferior without consent...Monday I remembered I was giving consent to be made feel less than I should be. Yet Monday, God gave me a day of peace. A day to clear the fog and remember, I am a woman to be treasured and a power to be reckoned with.

Just another case of the Mondays for me...

Tuesday, November 01, 2011

May Today There Be Peace Within

May today there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are. Let this knowledge settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

[Mother Theresa]

Health as a Community

Though I am getting ready to venture into the world of nursing and western healthcare, I am learning more and more some of the qualms I have with western medicine.

Don't get me wrong. The United States is renowned for their acute healthcare abilities. But we practice and propagate sick care, not health care. The United States is not known for prevention, rather for treating once we are sick.

When it comes to health care, the biggest question for me is just because we can, or just because we have the capabilities, should we?

I have a dual approach to health care. I believe in education and prevention. I believe in taking from the earth, and following the natural practices that have worked for thousands of years. I believe in being resourceful and adequate, yet being lean and efficient. And I recognize the need for advanced health care and its benefits. But there comes a point where just because we can, should we? Should we save neonates at 20 weeks and should we prolong the end of life, simply because we can? Should we continue to cure cancer? Or is disease the earth's way of controlling our increasing overpopulation?

Healthcare in America focuses on patient autonomy and the individual. In a world of private insurance (don't even get me started on all that venture), we deny universal health care access yet expect to emphasis individualization and equality.

It's all a catch-22. The healthcare field is not black or white, but a million shades of grey.

In my bioethics book, we are reading about health care, ethics, environment, and sustainability. I strive to be a green person. I wish more of us did. But I enjoyed the following passage that addressed the need to view healthcare not as belonging to an individual, but health as a membership in a community:

"Potter was strongly influenced by ecologist Aldo Leopold and geneticist C.H. Waddington. For Leopold, land was a collective organism - not merely soil, but a "fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals." People, he said, are "plain members of the biotic community." Leopold argued that a thing was right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It was wrong when it did otherwise. He thought that ethics and beauty should play an important role in deciding how to live on the earth."

"It is increasingly clear that the world of the twenty-first century requires a new bioethic that bilds on and recontextualizes twentieth century medical and public health ethics. Ethics may embody what we believe and value, but surely must also be informed by what we know to be true. If people are to survive on earth with lives of quality, all institutional sectors, including health care and public health, will need to take a hard look at objective wisdom, give moral consideration to entire ecosocial systems as well as their human participants. A new bioethic will emphasize interdependence and interconnectedness, duties and responsibilities as well as rights, and will celebrate humans as members of complex communities. The alternative is to plan for a past that no longer exists, while ignoring a future that will not be denied."
-Ted Schettler Toward an Ecological View of Health: An Imperative for the Twenty-First Century

I think that our healthcare system would highly benefit if we started looking at it from a community perspective, not from the perspective of "every man for himself." For when we look at healthcare, we look at the whole person. It's not an isolated and personal possession, but rather is something that connects us with others. Wendell Berry (in his essay Health Is Membership) says, "I believe that community - in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures - is the smallest unit of health and that to speak of the health of an isolated individual is a contradiction in terms." We can't ignore the problems that exist within a community, let alone the health of a community. So why do we? Why do we treat it as an individual event when part of what makes us healthy isn't simply the non-existence of disease but our mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being as well...all of which are shaped by the community within which we live?!

Urbane Living

I don't get the chance to hop behind my camera too much...mainly because I don't find things too exciting in my life to photograph and I haven't been in the habit of having my camera on me so much lately. But one day I had my camera and was bored while staying at my friend Eamonn's. He lives in the Wash Park area, which is a hipster-ish wonderful neighborhood that's permanently stuck in the 70's-ish. It's wonderful and so urbane it's not even funny. So I decided to document my evening one night while making macaroni. I know right?! Not too exciting but I had a little bit o fun with it :-)





I need to get behind my camera more often....felt good to just take pictures of mundane and dull stuff. Welcome to my free time ;-)