Community! (a post riddled with videos to get my post across)

Yesss, dysfunctional, varied personalities, bunch-a-folk alll together...in one world. In one big room called world. Ready?

This is life.

It's what we've got, so we have to make it...good. I mean, people will try to gt in our way, try to make us feel dumb, or like we are crazy, or stranger than we really are, but that, what those people think (sometimes including ourselves) is not what matters...

We were made for more!

Trust me, or at least trust Switchfoot.

I am finding that the mere fact that we can't really get away from...people, means that we were made to interact with them...people...those people. other people. Yes, THOSE people. IT is worth it to make it work with as many people as possible. All of the insecurities that I carry inside of myself, dictating how I treat other people, well, they have to DIE.

We have to die to our own agendas and embrace community. Bring the peoples of the word together, under the banner of love, redemption, TRUTH, and the movement towards healing, and wholeness.

This needs to happen on an individual level to really work in the grander scheme of things. 

I love getting together with folks to play games...Dutch Blitz...bananagrams...Telephone pictionary, SETTLERS!

!I love getting together to talk about the story of love that God left us in His Word (s) I love praying together, singing together, laughing, EATING together. You get it? I love all of that. I love riding aorund in cars, grabbing drinks at the local bar, DANCE PARTIES, JAM SESSIONS, weddings...and spontaneous hangouts.

Camping...geez, the list goes on. and my point? 

My point is that I need connection to people that is positive and life affirming. Tea dates and games nights are a good place to start... :)

What about you? where can you start? How can you put yourself aside for the sake of building community with others?

:) Brave

Sigh...
  I have just been feeling a lot lately. :) Emotions, like the waves upon the sand, washing away all logic and blurring my eyes disabling them, distorting what is in front of them...sometimes...sometimes, all I can see is what is in front of them.

 This poor blog is moving away from nutrition of the mouth to nutrition of the heart. I have said over and over again, that I am not sure that I can handle being friends with another really attractive guy that is just going to be wonderful for a few months and then ride off into the sunset with another woman.

i am forging what seems to be a temporary but lovely friendship with just such another. How can I resist such opportunities to laugh, to smile, to feel like. a. nat.ural. woman... Men like him make me feel that way. It has only happened 2 other times in my adult life. The way he smiles at me, interacts with me, hugs. me.

Seriously, I feel so alive and cared for, nurtured and adored all in a moment's time. The feeling lingers  and it is very strong....those arms are...so strong. ;)

So, how do I not enjoy "his" company? Well, I don't, I just...do. We are two adults who's paths have crossed and we have just a tiny bit in common, enough to keep us connected and occupied.

Engaged.Otherwise ...

He is very engaging. a story teller, he shares from his memories of adventures, and scary situations, emerging a brave soul, who has learned how to be European. He is French, you know, and speaks it fluently.
...not gonna lie. totally a heart-melter. haha

It's just a language, but the language of looooveee.. haha

 Snap out of it!

Besides, He speaks to me in English.

I feel like an adult around him. He treats me with respect, and appreciates my encouragement. He laughs at my humor and validates my craziness. Of course I am only a lil bit crazy at first. :) He is the low key laid back sort, and I revel in that. He is not high strung, but passionate. I have learned much about him, just by observing him at work, and interacting with the peoples... interacting with me.

He is a family man. loves his brother and his parents, and he even finds them interesting.

I keep getting closer...closer to my other. so close, but sooo far away.

But I always have this:

Until then, there is now. Live it.  -LaurenJ

I get so emotional baby! (Beware, this is totally a pity party)

Oh my goodness! I have been full of so much emotion lately. I think I am mourning the change in some friendships, the fact that I am without a job and 2 months behind in rent. ( God, thank you for my parents NOT kicking me out on my butt! Amen), maybe it is my feeling of just wanting a partner, a companion, someone steady who not only adores me, but enjoys spending time with me, consistently, who pursues me. There is something to being pursued... and I know that my God, my creator, pursues me, insanely so, and there are no words...except that as a human being, as a woman, for some unshakable reason, I still want to be pursued by humans. Call me crazy...or call me maybe haha

My girl Sara Watson has been super great with pursuing me in our friendship rhese days and I am grateful for her. I suppose it would be nice to be pursued by a man to which I am attracted. So, basically, I just wish that I did not WANT to be PURSUED.

IT has always been my thinking that my life would be: A. Way less dramatically emotional  and B.overall Easy as pie, if I just did NOT want EROS love. :) Agape love is awesome and overwhelmingly a apart of my life. I think there are some other loves, but EROS, for some reason is in the forefront of my plagued brain. I can;t shake it. Eh, whatevs'.

So, yeah, I was walking from one location to another on a beautiful Monday, and I had just left my friend who has recently been downshifted from budding intimate friend to group friend (Hey, it happens, life changes things) and I was mourning that, while simultaneously listening to my Ipod, which at a precise moment of me noticing that there was a funeral taking place at the church up ahead, Adele decided to start singing a sad song and my eyes welled up with tears.

Seriously? Sigh...

so, I cried while I walked, mourning so much in those moments, until it passed. I won't tell you what time of the month it is, though this particular emotionality sprung up before this time.

I don't know. Prayer for peace? confidence in my identity not being in my love life or healthiness ( or lack thereof) Believing that if, for some reason , I do end up living wiht my parents forever, at least I won't be a cat lady.  Revelling in the love that covers me already. Erasing the notion that I am no enough for ALL of the males who have ever rejected me throughout the ages (yes, I said ages...haha) That I am still waiting for a man with courage to love me fully and see in me something EXACTLY ZERO men have seen in the last 34 years. I mean, THIS guy will be a winner. I determined that he will most likely be THE ONE. There must not be more than one crazy son of a gun who would tke a chance on this AMAZING woman.

apparently not.

So, for now, I release all of the emotion that is driving me batty!! Enough! Summer is basically here in WNY and it may look different from all other Summers, but I will be sitting in the park reading " The Life of Pi" and other used books from West Side Stories. Maybe, I will make a friend with someone who has a pool. :) I should probably just drive to the "beach" Perhaps I will camp out in the backyard in my new tent. I can convince somebody to do some stuff with me. It's a weird year, y'all... I get used to the way things are and then they change,and there is a period of adjustment, and that is happening right. now. ugh.
 Cheers! have a great day! Thanks for reading.

A new story...

I picked up my one copy of an UTNE reader, and flipped it open from the back, and there was a lovely little article by the founder of UTNE, speaking about the birth of a new story for our world coming out of ll of the truama we are eperiencing. I liken it to birthing pains.Here are some words that echo what I have been experiencing lately: Eric says, "I believe we are being called at this time toawaken, to become fully ourselves, the unique individual each of us was born to be. I also believe we are being called to create families (caramel babies!!!) and communities based not on common blood, ethnicity or belief systems, but on our shared humanity and spiritual kinship..."

Wow! That is an excerpt from the March-April 2013 edition of the magazine. Eric hits it on the nose, I think. He is speaking to the uniting of people for a common good, which bled right into the article I read after that, by Martha Bayne, Soup Night At the Bar, in which she describes a place where people from all different walks of life come together for the healing experience of sharing a meal, and the door is wide open for the opportunity for life-transformation.

FOOD. POWERFUL. HEALING.

There is something so big, so grand, so beautiful about shared meals, cooking experiences, and time spent thinking, dreaming and learning about food. Coming to an understanding about food and how it affects us as humans, from every aspect, every perspective,... all angles, is something that will move this world closer to its new song, its new story. Obviously, understanding food relationships from ALL angles and points of view is impossible, but the more we understand, the more we can healthily relate to one another and our world. :)

Imagine if Monsanto had a heart...but they don't.  11-year old Birke pwns Monsanto!

But we do...have hearts. So let's open them up to the people around us, to the hurts and joys of our neighbors. Let's risk our comfort and open our homes and dinner tables, churches and lives to our neighbors. Eat a meal with  new friend, serve a meal to a new friend. Grow some food with friends, with strangers, watch your world, our world change. :)

FOOD. LIFE. FUTURE.

Is this our new story?

Happy Birthday...

So I started this beautiful 34th birthday week, cleaning up trash outside on the West Side of my town, Buffalo. It is a little like treasure hunting. I definitely made some money (10 cents) and Iani gave me a cute little glass bottle labelled as a holder for magnetic ointment...hmmm...hehe.

Treasure...

My life is full of treasure, why it is in itself a beautiful, glistening gem. I am surely blessed. :)

I was talking to Iani this morning about food, obesity, my relationship with food, my proposed future relationship with food, my break up with Pork, hopefully leading to the serious reduction needed in my consumption of simple carbs and other sources of mostly refined sugars...

My life is full of potential and I don't want to waste ALL of it. ( inevitably I will miss some of it) I believe that I can be an actual pursuer of physical health. I believe that though I am a big girl, genetically, that I can be a apart of the process of shaving off unwanted excess weight, releasing my body into a realm of healing that I have needed for years! hmm...

It's time, you guys! I want to feellll lighter, and breathe deeper, and walk longer. I want more out of my life. I have deprived myself for so long, for what? Momentary ideas of pleasure. I am so emotionally connected to food and more detrimentally, FOODSTUFFS!ugh.

Well, I am excited for the remainder of this year. I can't wait for all that I am to experience! :)

So, happy birthday, to me. I love you, LaurenJ. You are worth MORE. Pursue it.

Happy birthday to me!

To know or to KNOW

My beautiful, talented best friend, Chef Mary Poehnelt, called me yesterday for a chat and I launched right into a monologue about a book that I was reading (The Unbearable Lightness of Being) It is an existential novel about, in my opinion, the levels of knowing and/or being known, and how that affects our lives...
  All of the adults involved in the plot had dysfunctional ways of relating to people and the world around them, and it never seemed o get better. haha. I was mostly in awe of the romantic relationships between the characters, and infidelity (abundant cheating) aside, these people were married to, or in relationships with people whom they thought they knew...or thought they THOUGHT they knew. haha
     The main married couple, Tomas and Tereza were nearly complete strangers with strangely opposite, yet dysfunctionally compatible reasons for being married to one another. Reading this fictional work, made me upset. As I was reading, I realized that the author was revealing to me more about the inner workings of the lives of the characters, than they EVER knew about each other...and they were married for 7 years before, eve I learned all that was hidden in the minds and hearts of these individuals. sigh...

Mommy issues, ex-wife issues. Issues, we all got 'em. (A true and funny play that I saw with my aunt a few years ago)

It got me to thinkin' that there are so many levels of knowing, of being known. It is strange that a man can be in a relationship, pursuing a woman and wooing her with gifts, and dates and laughter, and well, I guess it takes time to get to know someone, but how much does she know about him? How much does he know about her ( I am guessing he know more about her, cuz she is a woman and she probably shares a lot about herself.) I just wonder how long a person, and in this scenario, a woman waits to learn more about the man? It takes them awhile to open up, anyway, and you wonder if the woman wants to get to know his other friends, so that she learns about him from them, or at least hang out with him in his element, to see how he interacts with the people he is closest to. Or maybe...isn't it just easier to be wooed and let all of that important stuff just sit by the sidelines? yeah, I guess so...

I also thought of regular ole' friendships, and, for instance, how my best friend lives in another state and so our relationship happens in memories, phone calls, letters and emails. I don't really know her in the day-to-day context of life, the way I know my geographically close friends. But there is a level of knowing that I share with her that is unsurpassed by other friends. It is all very interesting and makes my brain topsy turvy, too. I try not to think too deeply about some things, because my imagination is way too connected to reality and hypotheticals play a huge role in my journey to insanity/feeling emotionally uneven. So, I focus on what is in front of me, what and who are real right now, and I accept all in its present form and relate accordingly. I do not have the mental or emotional energy to analyze relationships to death. I tend to get lost in predicting the end of my friendships or the fate of them.

Who am I to assume I know how future thangs will go down? Clearly, I am not the Lord of my life or anyone else's, so I trust He who is and I stay true to me. That is hard enough without adding in extra things to OVER think about. :)

Meanwhile, I am sick of not being motivated by health or family, to...cut out refined sugars, stop inviting junky junk foods into my system.. I seriously believe that if I could do those two things, that my life, as a whole. yes, the WHOLE thing would improve :)  Prayers and people calling to see what I am eating would be great. hha

If only I'd...

So, I found this link: Potato pizza crust and got excited about using my spiralizer:

( This is a picture of someone else's spiralizer, but I have the exact same one. It was a birthday present a few years ago)

So, I followed the instructions, as best as I could... This is what I made: 

Potatoes, cheddar cheese, pasta sausce, fried eggs and assorted crumbled ham and bacon)

I thought it looked so pretty! Then I cut into it to serve some to my papa...

It was greasy and salty and the Easter ham pieces and low quality bacon, were not helping. yuck! So, I told my dad to just eat the egg! sigh, The idea was nice and it made for a puuurdy nest of potato and such. haha The eggs were good, organic with a dash of pepper and parmesan cheese. You should totally try to make this, though...

So, if only I'd had mozzarella cheese, maybe the potatoes would not have been so greasy...If only I had not sprinkled  so much salt, then...and I wish that I had not resorted to using the canned HFCS (High fructose corn syrup) laden sauce...sigh... (but after it not being so great, I am GLAD that I did not waste a can of organic diced tomatoes... I should have taken a picture of the amazing leftover turkey and veggie soup that my family and friends scarfed down last Thursday. Also, the chocolate quinoa cupcakes, um...yes please. I will be making THESE again!! yummo! 

I think that I would like to live without regret, but the truth is, I have made a lot of choices that were less than ideal. Maybe I used cheddar because it is what I had, but what do I continue to engage in regular unhealthy eating patterns? Why do I vomit emotion on the Godly, beautiful single man friends in my life? Poor guys... If only I'd learn to  actually trust Jesus with ALL of my life, then my chances of chilling out and calming down, rise!

So, I move forward regrets and all. I surrender, release, and let go of all of my past poor choices, and I accept, with open hands the good, better, best that God has in store for me!

PS> I am going to keep saying this until it happens! :)