So it's cold

I know for most of my Canadian readers you are already digging in your pockets for your 'smallest violin in the world' and your stories of 40 below and polar bears, but now is the time you cut the Kiwi some slack and let me feel cold.
Because for a half Chinese, half Hobbit such as myself, -8 with a windchill to -13 is really cold. And ice isn't fun either!
Ok enough of that.
Things here are going well, busy busy busy, especially as we prepare our students to head out on field assignment on Christmas Eve!! yipes, who thought of that idea? oh yeah, me. doh.
It's the season of Christmas parties and snow fights and carols and candles. We had our church candlelight christmas carol service on Sunday, and even though I was (literally) enrobed the entire time in my rather frumpy blue yellow and white choir robes it was a really good night, full of music and love and reading the Bible! So good for my soul.
Why is it that we so underestimate reading the Bible? I have been really trying to check myself in this area and apply myself more, and my dear friend Gwen has been helping me a lot. She is doing her thesis project at St Stephens University and part of it is writing a devotional, focusing one day on each chapter of the 4 gospel books. 90 days for 90 chapters. I have been one of the guinea pigs for the project, and the simple application of the Word of God has really had a profound effect on my morning routine and the rest of my day. Why did I never apply myself before? Why am I STILL slack sometimes? Why is it always the things that are best for us that we let fall by the wayside the fastest?
I'm excited it's nearly Christmas. It's a good time to reflect and learn and rest and revel in the love and friendship that we have in our lives. It's a sip of cold water along the way (though maybe hot water would be better for me right now) and can bring refreshment we never even though possible. It'll be my 4th Christmas away from NZ, strange I know, but if I am somewhat on to it, you Kiwis should get your Christmas cards before Valentine's :)
Gotta go get ready for work.
Lots of love
Hillary

what!?!?

Two posts in one day?!?! holy cow, it can't be right.

Today I have been thinking about how annoying it is that boys can just turn off their brains whenever I want. Like that Seinfeld sketch where he says that as a man he is simply 'walking around, looking around' thinking about NOTHING. like really truly NOTHING. Not girl nothing where it's really something but we just don't want to talk about, but actually really nothing.

Boy nothing. I still don't get it.

Today has been emo, and busy, and I'm tired, feeling like I was very busy, but didn't get much done, and I really am waiting to move on to the next phase, the next season, the next SOMETHING.

So I have been meditating on a prayer today, mulling it over, turning it round, and frankly, well, I love this prayer.

I used to pray it when I was younger, and today, I desperately felt the words.....

Dear God,

So far today I've done all right.

I haven't gossiped, and I haven't lost my temper.

I haven't been grumpy,nasty or selfish.

But in a few minutes, God,I'm going to get out of bed

and that is when I'm going to need a lot of help.

Amen

Yup, it's time to go to bed again....

It's the most wonderful time of the year....

Or so they say.

Why is it that Christmas has become this huge swirling vortex of money-spending-line-jumping-pushing-demanding-frenzied-consumption that is sucking out all the goodness and fun from what was supposedly the most wonderful time of the year?

I recently joined a Facebook event to celebrate 'Buy Nothing Day', and have been really enjoying some of the conversations that have come out of this. Sure it could be yet another band wagon to jump on, but if I'm going to be on a wagon this is a pretty good one. And I'm totally guilty of randomly buying stuff just because it's 'cute' or 'fun' or 'perfect!' or 'just what i NEED!' But here's to change and broadening horizons right??

There is a section of the page where people have contributed art work, illustrating their feelings about the cause. My favourite is this one:

There are some other really interesting ones on there too, check it out.

And see, now I'm waiting for everyone to say one of two things:
1) you're just a grouchy missionary who doesn't want to give people stuff and has no money so of course you're whinging about buy Christmas presents
or
2) you're just a hippy grinch of a missionary who is using Jesus to back up whatever cause you feel strongly about today.

Now I am the first to say that everything on this blog is just 'in my humble opinion' and I'm totally open to discussion, so please if you want to talk leave a comment and we'll get something going here. And you know what, it's strange to be here, feeling this strongly about something, especially when I LOVE gifts.
Yup you read right. The anti Christmas Grinchy missionary LOVES gifts!!! Now how does that work?
Well check out this other piece of art work from the same site:

Gifts are great. gifts are fun. I've been planning Mark's Christmas gift for 5 weeks now, I'm desperately trying to put together little things for family, friends and supporters, all across the world, and while I have the added financial considerations to make given my choice of occupation right now, what better catalyst for really getting off my butt and doing some of that creative stuff I keep talking about.

And don't tell me you can't be creative. Don't tell me you can't make or bake or sew or draw or sing or build, or even hug for the people that you love. You have something to give.
Before you swipe, take a deep breath and count to 20 and see if there could just be a way around buying that one more thing.....

Grey day in Vancouver....

That was an intentional spelling mistake. A spelling mistake placed as a tribute to the newest DVD addiction for Jana and I, Grey's Anatomy. We are systematically going through all the episodes in chronological order, all started because I got a voucher for 2 free rentals at Rogers Video. 11 episodes later.......

Anyways
That was a really emo post I did last week wasn't it? Well I mean, emo and sick aside (they prayed for me in staff meeting this morning, and I haven't coughed for 2 hours! a new record for the month) I still don't think it was unjustified.

I had kind of forgotten about it, until Crystal commented this morning (thanks for helping me feel like someone out there might be reading my rantings occaisionally) and reread it to see what damage I had inflicted on cyber space. It's not so bad

In other news, I joined my church choir yesterday. Now this may seem silly to some of you, or perhaps a little nerdy, but it was great fun, and so good to hang out with some of the fun people at church that I normally don't see very much. We have a great conductor (Janet is a musical legend) and we have a fun selection of music to learn over the next few months preparing for performances etc. The first big performance day is Thanksgiving, so it's not much time to practice. I'm 1st soprano again which is a bit of a shock, but I felt great after the 2 hours I spent in our funny old church hall. See Mr Gordon, I knew I could amount to SOMETHING musically.......

BTW, for any of you reading who are wondering how Mark and I are doing, we are good, and I just thouhgt I'd take this opportunity in public to say how awesome he is, he suprised me at work on Wednesday night, and invited me over for a candlelight dinner, and after we were done, put some music on and danced!!! We love to dance, and even though we haven't brushed up on our ballroom skills recently, we laughed a lot. And then I bought him an icecream cuz I lost a bet about the quickest way to walk to church (he beat me by 150metres). Ahhh, love.......

Speaking of Mark, I've been adopted as team photographer for the Scribes Rugby Team (east van proud baby!) and will be taking lots of pics (probablyin the rain) this saturday in Richmond. anyone wanna come keep me company while the boys are on the field getting muddy? I'm gonna bring pies............

Hiatus...

Though, I guess that isn't really the correct term given that to consider this a break would have meant that there was regularly something happening here, and the absence of such could have been termed a hiatus....
Sigh
That's just semantics I guess, born of late night emo....
I wish I would post on here more, keep to my wish of keeping you updated, filling you in, keeping in touch, doing my share... but then sometimes I wonder if I have anything real to say, or if I say anything too real if I will let the wrong thing out of the bag, let my guard down too far, and someone out there will see right through me....
It's been a long time since I wrote on this blog, and even now I think back to a conversation I had with a colleague here who said "I always read people's blogs here now, I find that there's one story I get face to face and one that they write on their blog. One has to be a lie, cuz it's always the opposite of what the other one is...I just have to figure out which one...."
I don't think it's so much a lie, just the safe warm blanket of anonymity...(thank you mission impossible writers) and the fact you can say whatever you please without having to see a quivering lip or a pitying eye or someone's baffled wonderment at the oddness of your behaviour or situation.....It's a selfish cathartic noise....release.....putting yourself out there without instant reprisal....
I'm sick, and some of this rant probably comes from the combination of Buckleys, vicks, throat spray and Advil cold and sinus gel tabs (2) that i just took in an effort to sleep. this post though is evidence to the aforementioned medicines ineffectiveness.
It's strange. After 3 weeks of stress and busy and worry and thinking and trying desperately to trust and wait out the storm, now in the calm that lies after, I'm just left feeling sick and spent, and wondering now what to do. The thing about a fight is that you are so busy watching for the next onslaught and anticipating the next move, ducking and slashing, that the stillness of peace, and the settling of dust, make you even more edgy than you began.......I'm back to the feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop..waiting for what you really deserve, are scared to admit, that you are really found out......

It's a newsletter

Well it may have taken me the entire first half of the year, but I have finally finished my newsletter.
If you want to receive it and haven't then flick me an email, or post a comment on here with your email address.
Much love, Hillary

Creativity...

So I know it's been a while since I've blogged, I keep having these little bursts where I will suddenly post every day and then it's hit and miss again, but here goes for starting the trend again. Sadly though the trend is restarting because of a severe case of creative block.

We are planning a promo tour again, this time a couple of weeks in the greater Vancouver area, going to Christian schools.
It's a great time, and always fun to talk to the kids and hear all their ideas and dreams and know that not all that long ago I was thinking the same things.

I hate feeling like this, the sun is out and I'm in the office, I am here by myself right now, and the cement walls are cold, my injured foot is aching, and I can't seem to focus. Wow, whinge somemore Hillary....

I think the thing is often that I feel insecure, and so want help, but then am too proud to ask for help, knowing that the people I can ask are all obviously better than me at EVERYTHING and therefore feeding all the crappy insecurity lies that are spinning in my head. Wow, convoluted huh.

On happier things, Mark and I have been going to the gym now for just over 5 weeks, 3 times a week, for about 1 1/2-2 hours at a time. Some days we would throw in a bit of jogging/rugby ball stuff, but mostly we just go, plug in our iPods and let the sweat flow. I'm doing a lot of cardio stuff, where Mark is doing 90% weights to bulk up for rugby, and so we don't really see much of each other while we are there, but it's been good for us. The discouraging thing at the moment is that while I am feeling a lot healthier (my insane skeleton shaking cough is gone) and am sleeping well and eating really well, according to my 1500calories a day plan, and yet I'm still not seeing the 'wow i am happy i feel and look skinnier' results that i want. i know i should be patient, but i think it's just been one of those days. Gah.

The strange thing is how quickly anxiety can turn into relaxation and vice versa in a few short hours.
It was my birthday on Sunday (wow 24 already) my third birthday on Canadian shores, and it's hard to believe that all that time has already gone past, and looking back at what has happened, it's been a very full three years.
Mark took me away for a long weekend, to a small town called Kelowna, in the Okanagan Valley, about 4 hours drive from here. Was the most relaxed and rested and taken care of that I've felt in a very very long time. We had a great time. Thanks for being amazing Mark. I love you!

Ok, back to work, maybe when I actually get this video done, I'll post it on here and you can all give me some feedback. That would be helpful I think.

Here's to being happier tonight.....

The thing with advice...

So the thing with advice is that you don't want to accept the good stuff, because it almost always hurts, and it usually means that something has to change. I am ok with change. Though it's a challenge. Like building character and losing weight, it takes time and effort.

Oscar Wilde put it, 'you should always pass on good advice, it's the only sensible thing to do with it', and in another play Mrs Cheavley chided someone for giving her advice, saying 'you should never give a woman anything she can't wear in the evening.' But then, that's just silly isn't it.

Sometime though you have to work through things, make the mistakes, hear the advice, ignore some of it, try things out and just learn the hard way. And yet, advice from a friend, the word of a sage, the suggestion of a parental type or the hug of a caring boyfriend, can just make those decisions and thoughts a little easier.

All this to say I listened to a song from my past today, almost entirely made up of pieces of advice, things the writer wanted to tell us, the class of 1999.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering
experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not
understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and
recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….You’re not as fat as you
imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing
bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm
on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with
people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes
you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with
yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you
succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your
life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they
wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year
olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children,maybe
you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky
chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t
congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your
choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s. Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people
think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever
own..

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

(Brother and sister together we'll make it through
Someday your spirit will take you and guide you there
I know you've been hurting, and I know I've been waiting to be there
for you. And I'll be there, just tell me now, whenever I can.
Everybody's free.)

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for
good. Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the
people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go,but for the precious few you
should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and
lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you
knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard; live
in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will
philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize
that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were
noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one
might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will
look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the
ugly parts and recycling it for more than
it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…

Music for the heartstrings

So I don't know what your thoughts are on music downloads, intellectual property rights, copyrights, or any of that, and I'm not really feeling like opening a debate right now given I have a fairly rhythmic headache at the moment, but I thought I'd draw your attention to a website, and dedicate my playlist of the day to all of you out there, a soundtrack for my tired head and pensive heart.
www.seeqpod.com is a little website I was introduced to yesterday, and it really is quite lovely. Since reformatting my dear lappy 'Marvin' and rechristening 'Ernie' I haven't had a chance to put any of my music back on my computer and the lack of musical accompaniment in my life has been taking it's toll. And now, there's Seeqpod. It's a searchable database of songs, where you can log in for free (very simple 5 line form) and then you can search songs, create and save playlists, and listen to the songs online. It's not completely full proof, I couldn't find my favourite J-Pop classic Shizuka Na Hibi No Kaidan Wo but, then again, maybe that's asking a little too much.
So below is the playlist of songs that I've been working to, enjoy.
Love, Hillary


SeeqPod - Playable Search

Sigh......Vancouver

So now that I have opened the valve of blogging thoughts, it's now beginning to make my fingers twitch on a regular basis towards my bookmark for blogger, and I'm feeling the urge to write more to my hopefully still faithful readers.
Thanks for the comment Philip. I'm glad someone still reads this.
Today has been interesting. I really feel like I'm leading a double life sometimes. I have two halves of me that live in tension, feeding off one another, and growing together, but never quite syncing to make me complete. Two very distinct halves that have forgotten how to interact completely. Why is that?
I was reading a couple of other blogs today, and have borrowed the following video from my amazing Mark's blog and can't help but share his joy in marveling at this little piece of our beautiful Vancouver online. It's a sweet reminder on an otherwise slow and blustery day of the amazing place I am fortunate enough to live in, and how much I am sure that my life is here, even if I'm not always sure of what that life will always look like.
I'm going to start remodeling this blog, and update links and stuff, and hopefully even work out a way of posting my newsletters! woah. Maybe. We'll see.
Enjoy my lovely city for today...

Love
Hillary

2008.....really?

So I know it's terrible that my last post was well back in December, and it's already March, but I'm going to turn over a new leaf and start again.
My computer is rendering, meaning that it's kinda hard for me to do much else right now, so here goes.
To summarise and get you up to speed again...

1. I am back in Vancouver after 2 months in NZ.
2. I am back in YWAM Vancouver, tying up a lot of loose ends, aiming to be running, full steam ahead by April.
3. I am still living in the same beautiful house, with my beautiful mishmash house family, trying to keep on keeping on living and learning together.
4. I am trying to make some big decisions about what is going to be coming up next.

I will be updating this more regularly, maybe by marking on my calendar and BLOGDAY you know, like tuesday or wednesday, to make sure i'm more regular.
We'll see....
Here's some pics of life back in Vancouver now, for NZ pics, check out Facebook.
Love
Hillary

Stu, Jacqui, Melissa, Thomas and Mark and I all eating our faces off at Memphis Blues

Mark, his cousin Jen and me all at Canada Place when she came to visit