saturday sampling.

hello??….

is anyone still there??….

i’m peeking my head around the corner, nervous that my audience has permanently left…

i have lots to catch up on and i’m very aware of that. i have some good excuses for my silence as of late, one of them being the WINTER OLYMPICS that i’m completely riveted by. i’ve been working a ton since returning because i’ve basically been gone all of February on two trips (and being pretty sick inbetween)…thus, by the time i get home i’m exhausted and all i want to do is sit and soak in the Olympic glory; the victories and defeats and the undeniable energy that comes when you think of every athlete’s story and these life-defining moments we get to witness. i really do wish they happened every year but i suppose it would lack the splendor that comes with it every 2 years.

i’ve been thinking about a lot of things (Seattle does that to this girl…), trying to supress the 10pm “productive streaks” i’ve been getting (clearly not working tonight as i’m posting this after midnight-eek), and trying to turn my “glass half empty” attitude about the SNOW/rest of winter to a “glass half full” perspective.

 tonight on the Olympics, they did a special interest piece on the Canadian Mounties. absolutely and totally iconic. we used to watch a show growing up called Due South about a Canadian Mountie and his crazy adventures with his dog. it was such a good show. anyway, one of the news ladies went “undercover”. she spent a few days at the training academy and said the high, even in the spring, at this location will only reach 4 degrees.

tap, tap….did you hear that?! 4 degrees. it sounds miserable. so anyway, as it happens every winter, my battle against the snow continues in my heart. ha. that came out way more dramatic than intended but what i wouldn’t give, some days, for sun, iced coffee, and a beach. i’m just sayin….

i had a few hours to kill the other day before work in Denver so i stopped in at B&N. my favorite. in looking for a book i had seen in a magazine that had piqued my interest, i stumbled onto this book.

after cracking the cover, i found myself not wanting to put it down and bought it. i’ve been writing in it ever since. i cannot in good conscience recommend it yet since i’ve only just begun but i think his premise is one worth thinking more about. i’ve included an excerpt from the jacket below:

Despite the calls for massive spending and “stimulus,” if the current financial crisis has taught us anything it is that it is imperative to save, not just spend bailouts. In fact, over the years thrift has become America’s lost or forgotten virtue, rarely mentioned and never celebrated, despite its true historical significance. In Thrift, Theodore Roosevelt Malloch looks at the history of thrift from its roots in the Scottish enlightenment to the no-waste credo of Sam Walton. Thrift, Malloch argues, provides the resources to ultimately stimulate prosperity. Even if the government manages to shock our economy back to life, Americans will require discipline, accountability and farsightedness — all natural products of thrift — to right its course for generations to come. In an age when corruption and ineptitude have crowded out thrift, Malloch’s important book is lively, topical, and immediately useful.

our family’s situation has been weighing heavily on my heart and i’ve been really moved by exerpts of Ps 33 & 34: “But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield. In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. May your unfailing love rest upon us, O Lord, even as we put our hope in you….I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called, and the Lord heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles. The angle of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”

also these passages from Isaiah 30: “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him! O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it”.

my grandma send me a note last fall tucked into a yellowed envelope with “To my dear Emi” scrawled on the front. these verses have been a constant encouragement to me amidst my own personal growth and journey this last year as well as our family’s. it remains, to this day, stuck in my Bible at the reference’s spot: “See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along the away and to bring you to the place I have prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to what he says.” Ex 23:20-21

i promised myself i wouldn’t feel guilty when i didn’t write because i don’t write on here out of obligation. this is the space i’ve carved out, from the very beginning, to help me think through things. it has become a space to share things with my audience, whoever you may be…

i’m fighting those feeling of guilt but i won’t give in because that will forever change my approach to all this… so albeit random, that is my Saturday Sampling for you.