Ack! I finally got the courage to go to that darn Addiction Recovery meeting for spouses and what do you know? no one was there.  The building was dark and a light dusting of snow in the parking lot showed that no one had been there for a while.

What a bummer.  It really took a lot to get myself there.  I was so bummed that I haven’t called the sister in charge to find out why there was no meeting.  I’ve just been nursing my sadness about not being able to start up with the group.  Maybe I’ll have the courage to call her tomorrow.  I’m guessing they won’t hold the meetings during December.  Everyone is so busy.

That will just mean I’ll have a month to stew over it, talk myself in and out of it.  Want it and shun it over and over in my crazy little cycle.

så va ein t måned øve, og her e oppsummeringen:)

eg har tent masse lys.

Me har spist middag med “en pen dame”.

Me har hatt det kjekt i sykepleielaben.

eg har hatt besøk av lisabeth, me speslte little big planet^^

Me har vert ute og tatt bilder

me har kjøpt røde nasar,

Pynta te jul ooog..

… me har vore forelska <3

Thanksgiving craziness (happily) took my mind off recent woes.  You can’t be sad and hurt all the time – right?  A girl needs a break. But now that the turkey is eaten and countless pieces of pie are solidifying into cellulite on my hips, the blues have started to creep back in.

It’s especially hard to deal with my husband’s addiction to pornography on Sundays.  With the day having a more spiritual focus than the other days of the week I start wondering about our family and wondering if we will make it into an eternal family.

The second councilor bore his testimony today about an experience when he was separated from his family in a time of need.  He felt the weight of being absent and became more determined to work towards being with them forever.  He said, “I don’t want to do anything that would keep me from them for eternity.”

I wonder if my husband feels that way?  During the good times, sure.  But when he’s feeling tempted, when it really counts, I have to assume he pushes me, our children, and eternal blessings aside.  He puts himself first.

Then there was the disaster that was Sunday School.  The lesson was about the armor of God and the discussion about following the law of chastity was nothing short of torture.

Someone prefaced their comment with “I doubt that anyone here struggles with the law of chastity….”

I didn’t hear the rest because it took all my willpower to not blurt out “Yes, they do. And one of them is standing in front of the class leading the discussion!”

But, that not being the kind of helpful class participation my husband/Gospel Doctrine teacher needs, I managed to refrain.  To his credit, on the particular subject of living the law of chastity, he managed to just facilitate the discussion and steered clear of hypocritical testimony. Maybe he felt odd. Or maybe he could see the daggers shooting out of my eyes.

Luckily, before anyone was beheaded by the sharp objects I was mentally throwing to the front of the class, I was pulled out of class to meet briefly with the bishop (for something about my calling — completely unrelated to recent woes) and was spared the horror of listening any longer.

So, Sundays are hard, and rejuvenating in ways, but sometimes they are just plain hard.

Yes, it’s been forever since I last posted.  I apologize.  Anyway, I have plenty of good things to write about in the next few days, so get excited.

Starting now…

For some reason, I’m almost constantly analyzing my level of happiness.  What makes it fluctuate, and all that jazz.  Right now, the main things that cause my happiness level to rise and fall are my friends, financials and the [lack of knowledge about my] future.  Sorry – I had to keep the F thing going.

Anyway…

F #1 – Friends: My friends make me happy most of them time.  Actually, they keep me sane.  Sometimes that doesn’t directly translate into happiness, but I appreciate the fact that they keep me from screwing up my life in a major way.  I’ve been good at picking a diverse group of friends, not culturally (I kinda failed at that), but personality-wise.  Each group/person taps into a different quality I possess.  It keeps me feeling whole, I guess.  Nine times out of 10, my friends keep me in a good mood; but there are those random (infrequent) times when they really bother me.  For the most part, it’s a temporary sadness/upset-ness, but hey – didn’t someone say there’s no joy without pain?  Yeah, I think so.

F #2 – Financials: Holy hell, I’m poor.  Thanks to my two years in hell grad school, I’m now over $70k in debt.  That’s a ton of money to drop in two years – and sadly, I’m not sure if it was worth it.  Anyway, my mountain of debt, “three-somed” with the high cost of living in NYC and my low paying job make “enjoying life” a little difficult.  Sure, I’m creative – I can think of inexpensive ways to have a good time, but I find myself dishing out the cash more than I can really afford to.  This especially sucks when something like a $250 round trip flight to Peru comes along, and I can’t afford to drop $250 at the time.  Or when I really want to visit friends in DC, VA or Atlanta and flights are $275+.  Every time I have to use my poor-ness as an excuse for something, my happiness levels drop (of course).  I’m truly sick of it, but it seems unavoidable.

If there’s one thing I’m learning while being poor, it’s that being poor sucks and I do NOT want to stay this way for very long.  Thankfully, I’m not the type to wallow in self-pity (although it does hurt for a little while) and I have ways of getting myself out of that slump.  First, I tell myself this situation is only temporary.  I won’t be in a low-paying job for the rest of my life.  My student loans and rent won’t take up such a major percentage of my monthly salary.  I’ll be able to pay for bigger chunks of my debt.  This should be happening within the next two years.  Second, what doesn’t kill me only makes me stronger, I think.  Like I said before, I’m totally over this “being poor” thing and I’m in a position to make the necessary changes in my life so I don’t have to continue living this way.  I’m currently working towards that goal (even if it’s slow moving).  I will feel super awesome on the day when I’m more financially stable – within two years, hopefully.

F #3 – [Lack of knowledge about my] Future:  omg.  I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.  Most of the time, I don’t think about this, but when I do – I freak out a little (reducing the happiness level).  Where will I be in five years?  I don’t know.  I could be married.  I could have kids.  I could be living in Costa Rica.  I could be sitting on my ass in NYC (I don’t want that).  What makes me feel better is the fact that it’s okay to not know everything.  I need to focus on the now and the not-so-distant future.

“There are cycles of good and bad times, ups and downs, periods of joy and sadness, and times of plenty as well as scarcity. When our lives turn in an unanticipated and undesirable direction, sometimes we experience stress and anxiety. One of the challenges of this mortal experience is to not allow the stresses and strains of life to get the better of us—to endure the varied seasons of life while remaining positive, even optimistic. Perhaps when difficulties and challenges strike, we should have these hopeful words of Robert Browning etched in our minds: ‘The best is yet to be’ (“Rabbi Ben Ezra,” in Charles W. Eliot, ed., The Harvard Classics, 50 vols. [1909–10], 42:1103).”

L. Tom Perry, “Let Him Do It with Simplicity”, Ensign, Nov. 2008, 7

In one week I will go home to a place that knows me differently. A town that doesn’t really know me at all. I didn’t know myself there, either, it seems. I spent my whole life there, but in 3 months here I am knowing myself and the world more than I ever did at home. Maybe that’s not true. Maybe it’s just the world I am seeing now and am adjusting to. A world I’m trying to keep up with or maybe move against…trying to set waves in a positive motion…

. . .Crises-level truancy/drop-out/pregnancy/drug-use/domestic abuse rates… Social services\tutoring\mentoring\food & clothing give-aways\character-development programs\free counseling\outreach. . .

Although I’ve spent time working or thinking about work for about 30 hours these past two days…I still have to give thanks for my job. God took a chance on me (or maybe I took a chance on Him?) in sending me here, and I’m doing just fine. I feel blessed to go above and beyond for the community center where I’ve spent these last three months. I feel humbled to be given the position I was given…one that is overflowing with the possibility for growth.

Our after school program has history of serving 50 kids + in the past. There’s different accounts as to why it decreases every year and it can be disheartening to hear of the past especially when all I know of The GCC is the present.

So, our average 20 kids a day has been manageable and I prefer to think that the continual decline of the program (which existed before I got there) is not my fault. But, it is also not my crutch. I am hating the idea of complacency as time goes on because it underlies the sentiment of many people around me. I realize my fresh stance on the center plays an effect on why nothing but optimism is how I choose to (try to) deal with the struggles of a non-profit with potential to serve so many needy individuals…on so few staff members.

Anyways, within two weeks we have added probably 10 kids to the program. It tells me that my and Elys’s outreach is not going unnoticed. We spend many volunteer-volunteer hours outside of our regular schedules around the community we are serving. We’ve been to Housing Association events, PTA meetings, Community Network meetings…we’ve posted fliers on bus-stops, in the “projects” (known as courts here), at schools, libraries, and every festival we’ve had access to (which, if you know San Antonio, you know festivals are this city’s forte…there’s one for any occasion). These new members lived in the low-income housing areas and our fliers caught their eye.

Expansion of our program to about 30-35 kids per day is both a blessing and a curse. Amidst 3 staff…we managed yesterday when kids bombarded us with the need to be occupied, attended to, etc.

It felt good to know that our work is being recognized as the other portion of “new kids” was junior high schoolers who’d heard good things about the program from their friends.

It made me feel inadequate, though, when I didn’t quite know how to cater to 10 extra kids. With planning an early-December Christmas party for 110 kids taking the biggest portion of my daily plate, it’s been hard to follow an agenda  for after school.

I felt beat down momentarily when I heard so many “Miss! What do we do now?!”s, but my co-workers picked me back up.

I’m learning that I can’t do it all…I’m learning I can do much more than I ever imagined and I, despite my shortcomings, refuse to stop trying…

Complacency won’t get the best of me.

1 year will be over before I know it…

You will always have ups and downs. It’s a result of living.

Whether one happens more than  the other really isn’t important, at least on a grand scale. Life is relative. One’s most painful failure may simply be another day for another person. One’s most grand success might seem trivial to a stranger.

It’s not what happens. It’s how you perceive it. Most of the time it’s easy. Celebrate the ups, and try to survive the downs. Honestly, I can’t think of any other way to go about your day and your life. We are often told to ignore the pain that failure brings, but then cherish our every success. But both affect us equally. I think in some ways, it trivializes our successes to pretend our failures don’t matter. But we don’t really have another option. If we want to be able to push forward, we have to focus on the positive more than the negative. Allowing both to affect us equally would leave us at a standstill.

But if you notice, I didn’t say we are told to ignore our failures. Only to ignore the pain that they bring. There is a key difference in the two. When we have a bad day, it influences our feelings. While we may not necessarily be able to escape having bad days, we can try to ignore the feelings they bring.
Perhaps ‘ignore’ is the wrong word. Some may want to substitute “accept” as how to deal with things; by accepting your feelings, you are able to get past them. But this isn’t what I’m advocating. I am saying that we should not accept our feelings. This may seem sour to some people. Even as I re-read that idea, something about it strikes me as wrong.

I think that when we are faced with the negative, we should tell ourselves that it shouldn’t get us down. That we should push past the feelings that we feel, and remind ourselves of what successes lie ahead.

The trick is to reject our defeats, and to rejoice in our success.

Enjoy Cloud 9! A new addition to our rental list.

Description:
What goes up, must come down!

CLOUD 9 will take you straight up through the clouds! The higher the balloon rises, the more points you can score. But watch out, the balloon can fall at anytime… how long are you willing to stay on and risk losing it all?

THUMBS DOWN

10 – Traveling time was a bit to long when you get to be old(er)!!  After 14 hours, it was a bit hard to get the mojo moving and groovin’!

9 – Spending hours writing the best blog ever, only to have it disappear!

8 – Losing the charge card!

7 – 4 hour layover in Detroit!!  

6 -  Eating lunch at 11:45 (10 :45 home time)!!  We were hungry, the food looked and actually tasted good, but after we were done, we were tired and full and still had hours to wait for our flight!

5 – Looking for, but not finding, the oxygen bar at the Detroit airport!  We could have used a little bit!!

4 - Because we couldn’t find the oxygen bar, we sort of fell asleep waiting!!

3 - Waking myself up with a snore — it must have been Jerry!!  (at least it wasn’t a fart!!)

2 – Getting to the Orlando airport, waiting for our luggage, and waiting and waiting and waiting!!!  hmmmmm

1 – Long shuttle ride to get our car, since it was $80 cheaper than getting the car at the airport, like we usually do!!

THUMBS UP

10 – After the long wait in Detroit—having a Jack Daniels on the plane ride to Orlando.  It really was the next best thing to a tequila–yummm–Thank you Wayne for the free drink tickets! 

9 -  Having the best weather ever!!!  It has been hot, but breezy—the best of both worlds!!

8 – Finding the charge card in the washing machine!!!   We can go out tonight with a clean card!!  Woohoo  Rum Runners here we come!  Ladies night!!

7 – 10a.m. Bloody Maria in Detroit!   It was made with our favorite mix, and it was probably about 1/2 the cost of the Bloody’s at the Milw. airport!!  Delish!!

6 – Getting a really awesome new patio set today!  Take a look . . .

5 – Walking on the beach at low tide!

4 – Seeing old friends at our favorite eating/drinking locations.

3 – When you are hungry–you eat, when you are tired you sleep, and when you are thirsty (or not)  you DRINK!

2 – Finding our luggage at the Delta/Northwest Airline luggage center!!  Apparently our luggage took a much earlier flight than we did!!

1 – Taking afternoon naps with my best friend (IYKWIM)!!!

Life is Good!!  I’m just sayin’

eg har hatt up’s and down’s som månedsoppsummering, men vil nå begynna med måneden i bilder i stedenfor:)

eg har vert i 18 års dag t Ragnhild

eg har vert på Skambankt!

eg har tatt bilder:)

me har hatt besøk av min søte svigermor <3

det har blitt et-par famileselskaper:)

me har vert på kulturnatt:)

me har gått ein del tur:)

eg har bakt.

ooog eg har lagt halloween-monster-brownies med signe <3

koss har din oktober vert?

Everybody has his or her avalanche some times. I’m having it. And I will be having it until December when the ASEAN-India Working Group wraps up. Hopefully it will be held one day only on the 3rd, because otherwise I will have to celebrate my birthday with all those foreign people I call Excellencies :p

So that’s my new job. I’ve been very productive for the last 3 weeks. I get up early, arrive work by 9 (because I can’t make others have my finger no matter good a witch (or bitch) I am), work (less chatting and facebooking), drink more coffee, leave work at 7 or so, socialize when I need to, go home and check my e-mail and work accordingly, get some sleep, dream about work, get up and here we go again.

So this is my 3rd weekend and the first one I have money ) And what is my idea of a perfect weekend? Making it productive. Sleep! I’ve been having too much sleep my head spins. I’ve watched the latest Desperate Housewives and Supernatural I downloaded. And now what? Reading some background paper on potential ASEAN-UNESCO cooperation, probably. That’s why I call it avalanche. I risk myself buried all the way. If you pity me, please don’t. Just get me a date. A good one, please.

When my mind is permitted to linger, it can be dangerous. I had a less than satisfying day at work today for reasons I don’t want to get into. Not to mention, a lot of personal issues have been plaguing my mind. All the while, I feel alone and irreversibly scarred…unable to be significantly healed based on my recent mind woes. Clearly, I am being vague and that in itself shows you just how difficult it is for me to articulate for myself whatisgoingon. But hopefully one day I can articulate everything I don’t know how to right now.

The below website feels familiar in some ways…and while I thought that being here for a year would seem like a short enough time for me to set my personal, lingering feelings aside…I have a feeling God is telling me I was wrong about that assumption. Some pain doesn’t just go away because we want it to. Most internal pain requires serious attention before it can ever consider itself healed. I am frustrated, though, with rounding this vicious cycle of facing the fact that pain still exists and figuring out how to halt its existence once again. I thought it was said and done. . .

PTSD

I hope I can address what I need to…just like the website said; every time the pain reappears…there is always a chance to heal.

My pain lies in the question of why does the wound stubbornly find its way open repeatedly?

When (if ever) will the healing be permanent?

These petals form peaks AND valleys.

This past week has been filled with many ups and downs.

On a positive note, I have felt emotionally a lot better than I had been. Even though I lack energy I am in a better state of mind. At the book club on Wednesday studying “Love is Letting Go of Fear,” there were some great discussions about meditation and self-talk. I for one have had a lot of bad stuff programmed into my head. I have been trying to get some positive affirmations to replace those bad thoughts. One person suggested on doing a meditation on how I feel about myself, and using positive affirmations to balance the good and bad with one another. Take for instance, I sometimes feel like I am a horrible mother. On the opposite side of that thought, I can tell myself that I am the best mother for my son because I truly do love him and hope for a better life for him. I also can say that if I was a bad mother, then the authorities would have taken him away and that I am completely and utterly incapable of giving him a nurturing, loving environment to live and be. I know that is not the case. I just feel like I could be a better mother. I also feel on some days that it would be easier for my son to have a better mother than me. Someone told me, “do you really think someone else can care for your son in the way that you do?” Hands down, I had to say, “no.” I won’t go over all the reasons, but it made me think in a new light about how I am a good mother. The fact I worry about being a good mother shows I care, in my eyes at least. Anyways, this positive self-talk has been actually pretty helpful.

Some affirmations I say are:

• I can have peace in the here and now.
• I love because God first loved me.
• I do love Tien-Tien more than anything in this world.
• I am a beautiful person inside and out.

There are more, but I am going to spare you.

I have inflammation in my lung’s membrane lining. It is quite painful. I have noticed it for the last three or four days. Today the doctor gave me predisone, a steroidal anti-inflammatory. I guess this is why I have lacked some energy.

I truly have tried loving myself more than I had. I am choosing to see me taking care of myself as a way I choose to love myself. I also say, “this person showed me they loved me by recognizing I was there, and they said hello to me to acknowledge my presence” or “I showed I loved myself because I took time to put on makeup and fix my hair.” It is simple things to think of, but quite a new perspective on how I want to reprogram the way I perceive the world in and around me. I might not see how I have love for myself throughout the day, but when I take time to reflect upon things that happened I can see them come out. Like tonight writing this blog, I am thinking about how I loved myself enough to be seen by my primary care doctor as a follow-up for pleurisy (the diagnosis for the chest pain I have been experiencing). So, all in all, I have been experiencing many more positive things in my life than I had ever (perception based).

At the art place, I have several projects in the making. For clay, I am working on a sculpture of myself (pregnant, even though I am not) and will be attaching wings. I don’t have legs or feet, but the sculpture is really turning out beautifully. I am actually surprised. The sculpture should be down in a week or so, and then I can paint it with acrylics or glaze. I also made a leaf bowl. I have yet to glaze it. I made a wreath for Christmas-time. It is made of woven dried vine without any leaves. I have some gold holly looking berries on it, and plan to be adding on some red holly to it and a beautiful bow. I can’t wait to see it finished. I am also going to make two large mosaics. One is for a small writing desk, and the other is for a wrought iron table my father uses. I haven’t the design at all yet nor the tiles glazed for it. I hope to have those completed within the next month or two. I would love to do an oil pastel painting of a flower scene. I would also like to do a painting of just crocus blooming. I love crocus. Flowers are my absolute favorite. I just am trying to learn how to paint them…maybe I can decoupage dried flower leaves onto a canvas to make it into something quite beautiful to see. That’s it on the creative side of me.

I would love to do a painting of the tree picture above. I absolutely love the colors and brightness of it.

I surely am tired. I am going to bed.

Hare geneee HTS-an? That’s what I thought when I heard that word. HTS (Hubungan Tanpa Status) or friends with benefit, open relationship or whatever you call it is not a relationship. At least in my dictionary. It’s not a relationship if one party keeps guessing, wondering where this is going. And it sucks if the other party thinks it’s normal if they sometimes share intimate moments such as holding hands, hugging, gazing at each other. Well, define ‘normal’. And define ‘intimate’. OMG, this is exhausting, right?

For you who are in a HTS and feels happy, I can only say, be honest with your feelings. And stop asking questions. Because when those questions start to pour, you’re done. You will ask him those questions and you’ll end up beat and depressed (more likely). Just enjoy the ride, avoid risky conversations about love, relationship and commitment. And don’t expect too much from him. If he can see you today, that’s good. If he can’t, that’s even better. It serves as a reminder that he’s not your boyfriend and you can’t expect anything from him.

Last but not least, don’t kiss! You can hug him, lean on his shoulder, sleep in his bed (or vice versa), touch him affectionately, call him ‘dear’, ’sweetie’, ‘hunny’. But don’t kiss (and forget the first base, second base and so on). You don’t get to the first base. Remember, you don’t even share the field!

This week has included a lot of ups and downs.

Downs:

My dad was not able to come in town to visit and go to the Austin City Limits Music Festival.

I was declined from Blue Genie Art Bazaar.

Ups:

I was accepted to the Cherrywood Art Fair.

We have made some great progress on getting our new place all set up.

It’s been quite a whirlwind week for other reasons too, hopefully I will get to share more of those in the upcoming weeks.  One thing that has kept me sane and happy this week has been the new soundtrack to Where the Wild Things Are.  I can’t wait to see the movie, but the soundtrack is my new favorite thing.  You can stream it here..

Perfection!

Up’s:

• å bu sammen med alexander
• å gå på skolen
• fine venner <3
• besøk fra flekkis
• WILFRED!<3
• ny jobb
• loppemarked
• har fått tatt mange fine bilder

Down’s:

• aalt for mye å gjer på skolen
• masse regn og vind
• det begynne å bli kaldare
• sykkelen lage rar lyd xD
• atte båsfolkå ikkje tar med seg båse vårt!

e foresten o med i fotokonkuranse på fotoverden

ka e dine up’s and down’s for månden som va?:)