Fountain Fountain

Feelin' better today thank goodness, although work was super stressful.  Went to yoga last night and it was just so HARD.  I am really flexible, by far the most flexible in the class.  But I am just terrible at balancing, honestly, ridiculously bad.  And I'm not very strong either.  It's so annoying because no-one notices that I can do the flex stuff but man, they can see when I wobble around and fall spectacularly over.  SHAME!  But it's gooooood for me, good to learn to do something for the joy of it, not to be the best.  Not that yoga was that joyful last night, painful yes!  

I did just make the best cookies - peanut butter and chocolate chip.  Aren't they lovely?

And to all a good night

Feelin' sad today.  

Lost!

Oh yes, lost.

Well, I'm busy knitting an entrelac hat, and it's coming along nicely!  Should finish it this weekend, so there'll be pics soon.

I had a totally insane week work wise, and I'm totally shattered.  I'm in that precarious place between hope and despair at the moment - hope is so fragile and scary, and I am not very brave.  But there's not much point without it, so I do what I can to be brave.

I have, for the first time in my 28 years, a double bed.  It's crazy, the room in that thing!  And my room finally looks like a grown-ups, rather than an over-grown child.

It's an interesting time for me at the moment, two good friends got engaged, lots of babies in my life.  It's very exciting and joyful, but be lying if I didn't admit that it raises some questions for me.

I'm not old, obviously, despite the horrified look I got from an 11 year old recently when I told her I was turning 30 next year.  There's plenty of time for marriage and babies.  However, when your peers start that process and it's no-where in sight for you, there is a grief.  I know that it might not ever happen for me, for whatever reason.  Maybe those moments wont be for me.  I am certain that whatever life I lead, it will be good and fulfilling and joy-full, but it might not have those joys.  It scares me, and it hurts me.  Part of me feels like I'm getting left behind.

I'm not moaning, honest, I know that I have lots of benefits that come with singleness (like spontaneous trips to Sydney, lots of shopping, no real need to be sensible with money) and I know I'll totally get over it.  And I'm absolutely definitely happy for my friends.

But honestly, it's scary when life turns out different to how you thought it would.

Can't let that be my last post

Weight, urgh, who cares.  I have bigger things to worry about (pun).

SO, my latest knitting conquest: entrelac knitting:

Isn't it fantastic?  Looks like it's woven but it's actually very simple once you get going.  FUN!  I'm loving knitting right now, but I do want to try some other crafts!  Like embroidery or sewing or something.

Things I love right now: Clinique 3 step skin care, Poetry books, Twitter, Etsy, scarves and coming home to a warm house.

Starting again, again.

I had yoga tonight and we were focussing on the principle of being in the present.  The teacher asked us just to accept things as they were in this particular moment.

It really struck me actually.  I'm starting out again, again, on my weightloss journey and so it seemed particularly relevant to me.  I am in the midst of a difficult emotional journey and so it seemed particularly relevant to me.  I'm at the start of training for my first half marathon (run), I'm in the midst of a new spiritual journey, I just finished my first year at work.

I lay on my mat, trying (unsuccessfully) not to fall asleep during the meditation, and I held in myself the moment I find myself in.  

I've failed at weightloss about a million times.

I'm sad and grieving.

I'm very tired physically and emotionally.

I'm proud of my progress at work.

I'm fitter than I've been in ages.

I'm writing the best poetry I've ever written and it might get published.

I'm growing and exited about God in new ways.

I'm bigger than I ever wanted to be.

I've got a lot of weight to loose.

I'm on new medication that might help me loose weight like normal.

I'm figuring out how to make life work every day.

There are great things and hard things and I lay there on my mat and for the first time in ages, I didn't judge myself.  I just accepted where I was.

Felt good.

Flume

Whenever I go somewhere stone-esque, I like to build a cairn.  People used to build them to show people the way, or to mark a pathway, or to leave a sign that they were there.

I like that, so I build them.  Plus, I love the process of building them.

Here is my latest one, at Greymouth Beach:

More new work

Some from the Marathon weekend: here.

Slow dancing in a burning room

Did another halfy this weekend – over on the Coast, it was extremely beautiful! Did it in 3 and a half hours again which I had hoped to beat. However, I did pretty well because kept a good pace throughout.

No photos this time! Was too horrible to look at let alone spend $10 so you’ll just have to use your imaginations.

Determined never to walk another one though, it just takes so long and that is demoralising. So, to that end, I did my first hill run last night. I’ve done a wee bit of running in the last few weeks but have started this program that Simona used. It will be good to have some structure to my running. So it was just 15 min on the hills, which isn’t much, but you start low and build up. I went up Harry Ell and just ran for 15 min and then walked the rest of the way. I was quite happy with my progress after that because I found the 15 min fine and did the whole track in an hour flat, which is half an hour quicker than a couple of months ago. Muscles a bit sore during the run because of the event on Saturday I guess.

In ten weeks time I’ll be running two hours! Well, that is the plan. So I’ll sign up for the Hanmer Half Marathon in May and should be able to run it by then.

No yoga last night, my teacher is teaching an immersion course. I hate missing it but I think Warrior II would have been totally out of reach with my muscles as tired as they are. She gets us doing these hideous lunges, man they are horrifying. Anyway, quickly improving at yoga which is very nice – nice to be good at something for a change. Running is always a tad demoralising because other people always whiz past me – I’m very slow!

Better go, do some work.

NOT the most flattering angle

But nonetheless. This is pre collapse and vomit stage!

Me, doing the Sarah Ulmer Brand Half Marathon (21kms) walk. 3.5hrs was my time, and one to beat.

Sing a song of sixpence

Two songs that are very meaningful for me at the moment:

Oh Love That Will Not Let Me Go

O Love that will not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Brilliant. I kind of think, why bother to write songs after that one has been written. It’s so perfect.

The other song is by a band called Bon Iver.

It’s a good song but the line that gets me is this:

Come on skinny love, just last the year.

I am so into that lyric. I completely feel like my love has been worn thin, my love for God, my love for life, my love for myself…and I find myself saying,

Come on skinny love! Just last the year!

That’s where I’m at.

New work

Here

Ella

I made some cute booties for Ella.

Monthly Post

New month, new post.  

Check these guys out.

Re: my 'fail' post.  I don't remember now what it was that made me post it in particular.  What I do remember is that I was feeling frustrated at how hard it is to live a normal life.  I've lived for four years with the most full on study load, and any time things kind of collapsed in one area (e.g. didn't do the dishes for two weeks, didn't do the washing, house a mess, ate bad food, broke...) I knew it was because I was studying.  I was busy, tired, overworked, underfunded.  The reason why things didn't get done was because I was so focussed on doing the 'one thing' really well.

I said to myself, when I finish, it will be different.

I would like to announce that it is not different.

I am still busy.  I still find it hard to balance the budget, keep my room tidy, keep up to date with the washing, exercise, spend time with friends and family, eat properly, do the shopping, be creative, knit, ride my bike, write poems, read books, watch the West Wing....there is so much to DO.

I AM NOT COMPLAINING.  I am really not.  Life is actually a hundred million times easier now I'm not studying.

All I'm saying, it's hard to keep all the balls in the air.  It's hard to do everything.  It's hard to have the life I want.

Plus all the emotional things I supressed for four years while I had no mental space to deal with them have begun to surface: I hate my body, some of the relationships in my life are difficult, I feel not good enough, I'm scared of not being good enough, I can't deal with emotion....etc.  Nothing overwhelming or unusual, just the usual run of the mill stuff that everyone goes through.  I'm just not used to actually dealing with it.  

I know how to put in the box labelled "After I Finish" and store it in the garage.

I just don't know how to deal with it right now.

It's just an adjustment, that's all.  Just learning now to be normal.

And sometimes I have a normality fail.

Normality Fail.

FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL

It’s so hard to be normal.

Thoughts aTwirling

I'm still fasting shopping and this weekend was the hardest yet.  I've not been bothered by it really, until Friday and Saturday and Sunday.  Gah.  I REALLY want to get my hair cut and I REALLY want to by a new bike, bike shorts and helmet.  Gah again.  However, it's a good exercise in learning the difference between need and want.  Painful for me, but good.  It's very humbling actually, or humiliating.

Several reoccuring thoughts.  Me and Simona have decided to stop saying negative things about people.  Not that we like talk about people all the time, but I guess we're both quite normal in that we like to vent about people - you know, our neighbours revving the damn car in the driveway again, so and so was rude at the shops etc.  Anyway, I think it's clear that talking negatively about people or organisations is basically a waste of time and achieves nothing.  If you can't say something nice, say nothing.  We've implemented this rule then not to say nasty things and when we want to or start to we say 'grace and peace'.

It's a good process!  I like saying grace and peace because it basically feels to me like I'm surrendering that person or organisation or whatever over to God.  Just like saying, oh that's none of my business, I'm not going to judge, here You deal with it as you see fit.

Freeing actually, very freeing.  But really annoying to because I like to vent.

The other thing is this memory that keeps coming back to me - from last year.  Last year was my Masters year and it was so freaking hard.  So hard.  I wrote an average of 5000 words per essay and that's at least three per paper and three papers per semester, plus almost 40 000 on my dissertation.  Which I handed in for the final time on Friday, YAY!  Anyway, it was a tough year.  I think the people in my life knew it was tough because I was never around, but I don't know if people really saw how miserable I was, because I was never around.  I guess it was easier for us both to cope by just hiding away the misery part.  It was hard to hang out with people because all I had in my head was my study.  I just didn't have any other words to say.  

I know I let lots of people down last year and maybe the year before that too.  I never went to family things hardly.  I let my friends down all the time.  This year has been amazing and just freaking so good, but also it's been hard to find a balance again - between hanging out with friends and still needing time at home.  I think I haven't been very good at it but I think I'm getting better.

The memory I keep coming across is that me and Simona used to sing this song, Sadie, quite a bit towards the end.  We would just turn our backs on the laptops and sing really loud this song.  One time I remember singing it and Simona just crying and crying, and me just not knowing what to do for her.  I just kept singing and she kept singing and crying.  It was torment and it was beautiful, all at the same time.

This is the song:

Sadie, white coat,

carry me home.

Bury this bone, 

take this pinecone.

Bury this bone

to gnaw on it later; gnawing on the telephone.

'Till then, we pray & suspend

the notion that these lives do never end.

And all day long we talk about mercy:

lead me to water lord, I sure am thirsty.

Down in the ditch where I nearly served you,

up in the clouds where he almost heard you

And all that we built,

and all that we breathed,

and all that we spilt, or pulled up like weeds

is piled up in back;

it burns irrevocably.

(we spoke up in turns,

'till the silence crept over me)

Bless you

and I deeply do

no longer resolute

and I call to you

But the water go so cold,

and you do lose 

what you don't hold.

This is an old song,

these are old blues.

This is not my tune,

but it's mine to use.

And the seabirds

where the fear once grew

will flock with a fury,

and they will bury what'd come for you

Down where I darn with the milk-eyed mender

you and I, and a love so tender,

is stretched-on the hoop where I stitch-this addage:

"Bless our house and its heart so savage."

And all that I want, and all that I need

and all that I've got is scattered like seed.

And all that I knew is moving away from me.

(and all that I know is blowing 

like tumbleweed)

And the mealy worms

in the brine will burn

in a salty pyre,

among the fauns and ferns.

And the love we hold,

and the love we spurn,

will never grow cold

only taciturn.

And I'll tell you tomorrow.

Sadie, go on home now.

Belss those who've sickened below;

bless us who've chosen so.

And all that I've got

and all that I need

I tie in a knot

that I lay at your feet.

I have not forgot,

but a silence crept over me.

(So dig up your bone,

exhume your pinecone, my sadie)

Choice as

Gah, I love these: Kiwi Psalms

Psalm 47

Give a round of applause everyone

Don’t pack a sad – celebrate!

God is awesome, ay.

He subdued all those nations that were a bit of a worry,

Kinda like what the Warriors did to the Roosters.

He gave us a hand and made everything sweet as.

 

God has come through, and the crowds are going wild.

Get the guitar out and have a singalong.

Praise him at the top o’ your lungs.

 

For God is a total beaut.

Sing to him as loud as you’d sing along to the Exponents.

God makes everything good as gold, and he’s in charge.

He has the best seat in the house.

The big cheeses from Kaitaia to Bluff line up to say how awesome he is.

God is choice.

Psalm 130:

When I’m not feeling that flash I call out to you, God
God, hear my voice
Listen up and help me out
I’m having a whinge; but I need your help!

If you, God, kept a record of my stuff-ups
I’d be up the creek without a paddle
But with you there is forgiveness
And so I respect you heaps

I hang out for God, I’d spend yonks waiting for him
His words are straight-up, aye (not like Winston)

Like I said, I hang out for God, I’d spend yonks waiting for him
More than Waikato waits for a quarter-final
More than Aucklanders wait in traffic

So, Israel, trust this God, eh?
He doesn’t pack a sad; he always loves us and that’s choice
With him there’s redemption; the full deal!

He’s gonna sort out Israel
And redeem them from all their stuff-ups.

By Sarah and Rhett Snell, respectively.  Hat-tip Jonesboy

Argh

Not shopping is HARD.   Hello, my name is Sharyn, and I'm addicted to shopping.  And eating things I shouldn't way to often.  I was so good today, eating fruit and left overs and I had a good tea - just some chicken and coleslaw and pom poms.  it sounds bad, but it's good trust me!  And then I eat Banana bread.  Banana bread is not bad, but couldn't I go even one day without eating fat and sugar?  For crying out loud!  I have a problem!

Nevermind.  It's good, much better than I've been and I guess improvement is the key.  

I'm doing this new praying thing at the moment and it is kicking my spiritual butt into shape.  It's so GOOD.  I'm really interested in meditation so it's a form of meditative prayer, where I'm empty my mind and find the god within.  Just kidding.  I have been praying a series of short prayers over and over.  And it's amazing, i have to say a whole bunch so i try to keep a move on, you know, so I get to sleep before midnight, but I just keep slowing down because very time it's fantastic!

One of them is the Our Father, the Lords Prayer and I realised as I was saying it, Jesus said this!  This actual prayer!  Not in english, obviously, but still!  Amazing, it totally blew me away.

I've read this book lately called Eat Pray Love about this woman who went on a spiritual quest for a year, it's very funny, she is great (reminds me of you Helen, if you happen to be reading).  But one of the things she said was that one of the names for the Spirit was  Beloved.  I freaking love that.  The Holy Spirit is such a urgh name.  

Read the Shack.  It's, well, read it and then talk to me (as my Mother wisely said).

To bed.

Shopping Fast

I know, I know, fasting is supposed to be secret, between you and God, but I'm distainful of "supposed to" and I need the accountability.

I've decided to fast shopping.  This is the thing, shopping and over eating are my two great faults as a human being.  There's nothing wrong with shopping.  There's nothing wrong with eating.  But I have an unhealthy relationship with the both.

I need to shop.  I think I'm addicted.  I have realised this even more because the thought of not shopping for the six weeks I've alloted makes me feel panicked.  I know, it's silly, but it's real.  Part of this the realisation that I'm rich.  I've become quite snobby about rich people.  I think they should give more of their money away and they shouldn't have so much stuff.  I realised the other day, thanks to a Mars Hill sermon by a guy called Kent Dobson, that I AM RICH.  I am one of those rich people.  When it says in the bible that it's hard for rich people to be part of the Kingdom of God, I realised that that verse is about me.

It was quite a shock to the system.  Rich people live in Fendalton or Cashmere.  Not in Barrington.  But of course, I am, literally, richer than 90% of the world's population.  Of course I am rich!  Who am I kidding?

And consumption is not bad, it's not bad to like nice things and to want to look nice.  It's just not good for me the way I feel about consumption.  So, upshot is, I'll stop shopping (excluding groceries and birthday presents) for six weeks (until the 2nd of November).  The money that is in my account I will divide up - 1/3 to pay off my debts, and 2/3 to a charity.

That's the challenge!  Scary and hard right now, but I think it will bring me a measure of freedom in the long term.

Gah!

Check this out. 

I have a serious thing for birds.  A serious thing.  I am always, always, distracted by birds.  Always curiously touched by birds.  One of the main things that always captures me is that they exist in their own world, in a parallel universe kind of. 

The other thing I like is that they are INSANE.

Check out the video above.  There's so many more. 

I know it's a terrible philosophical argument, but I cannot help but believe in God when I see things like that.

Seriously.

Mercury Rising

Irritated by slow internet.  I think we've exceeded our limit for the month or some such nonsense.  Grrrrr.  

Talked to my friend tonight a lot about singleness, a pet thing of mine.  I think I was confusing because I find it difficult to articulate my feelings about this at the moment.  Sometimes words just don't work as they should.

So I've become part of a new church community that is actually working for me.  I've moaned for so long about not being able to find a church and not knowing what to do about it, it seems only fair that I tell you at last that the good news is I have resolved that particular thing.

I don't know how much I want to blab about it on the internet for all and sundry to judge just yet, it's kind of this precious thing, but suffice to say it's GOOD and it's what I've always wanted church to be and I don't know what will be, but I've learned one important lesson in life:

Let it be what it is.

Indeed.  Anyways, just checking in really.  Just saw on Facebook that a man I once knew has just died.  Feel the weight of it right now so I think I'll leave it there.