Spring has Sprung...

Early morning, and a couple hours later!

Yea! the first flowers... shows the squirrels didn't get all the bulbs.

Flat Life

You're going to love this... hee hee... i'm chuckling just thinking about it. Watch it to the very end. Brilliant!

fusch

adopt your own virtual pet!

this one won't die on me. And you can feed him!
I was going to go for the llama, but he couldn't spit.

this made me laugh

(i can golf too. here's proof)



Who knew you could cleanse your soul for $4.98 a tube?

from the corners of my basement

We're busy redoing our basement and in the shuffling, sorting and purging, I found a few treasures.

Although I was advocating for wood panelling, we decided to go with the "African outback". We're planning on making matching outfits, like the lady in the picture. Don't worry, we'll have a leopard print scarf for the visitors to wear so they feel like they fit in. Or some long grass they could hold. Rifles need to be checked at the door, however.

...love extravagantly

1 Corinthians 13 (The Message)

The Way of Love

1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2 If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.

11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.

12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!

13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

what i love about England

CHEESE!!!!!!!! (this is a link... and it's funny)

single cream, double cream, whipping cream, cream cheese, sour cream, coconut cream pie, clotted cream, creme fraiche, cream tea...

we've eaten loads of dairy... yummmm

Chingese

wow, my third post in a 24 hour period! Inconceivable!

This is my latest addition into my chinese vocabulary which includes my name (Sau Ling) and my all time favourite expression, "go go die, dy dy seo" meaning "big brother big, little brother small."

yut, yee, sam, sam, yee, yut, yut, yee, sam, say, mm, lok, chut, say, sam, yee, yee, sam, say, say, mm, lok, chut, bak, gaw, sup.

(in english) 1 2 3 3 2 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 4 3 2 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

comfort from a cuppa

Tonight was to be a night of salsa dancing and fun with Amanda on her birthday.... (happy birthday Amanda!)
Instead, I had the excitement of spending the evening at the Accident Collision Reporting Center. Thankfully, my dad came too (not his first time dealing with this stuff, on account of us kids...). Even more thankfully, I was not at fault.

On a semi-related topic, I think some of the bravest people I know are new immigrants. How hard it must be to leave everything you know and everyone you love .... to come to a place where you are alone, your education (if any) isn't recognized, you can't speak the language, and must struggle for so long to find firm footing. How brave.

strawberry-banana flambe french toast.

(just pretend this was posted on thursday. i wrote it in my head on thrusday).

today was a blessing of a day. I called my Linds, and (be still my heart!), she had just stepped off the plane in Toronto. She was able to take a later flight back to Tbay, and I wasn't working... so we met up for a nice long brunch date.

And so, today I have been fully blessed.

skating with the chings

So, last night was a fun skate party with the Chings. Back to our house after for a rowdy round of our new game. Lots of hot chocolate, tea, chinese buns, and cake. Who could ask for more?

sunday school show

These wild boys make class interesting.

Me, with some of my sunday school class on the day we did a little Christmas presentation. Joseph (where's mary?? well, er... never mind)
We'll miss you when you move to Cameroon!

Ode to Kristin and Val

Thanks for 9 1/2 years of sandbox fun. (and for the great gifts.)

It's December, yet we've had more rain than snow. Feels like England. So here is a reminder of what it's like to have a white world once again.


The Snow

It sifts from leaden sieves,
It powders all the wood,
It fills with alabaster wool
The wrinkles of the road.

It makes an even face
Of mountain and of plain,
Unbroken forehead from the east
Unto the east again.

It reaches to the fence,
It wraps it, rail by rail,
Till it is lost in fleeces;
It flings a crystal veil

On stump and stack and stem,--
The summer's empty room,
Acres of seams where harvests were,
Recordless, but for them.

It ruffles wrists of posts,
As ankles of a queen,--
Then stills its artisans like ghosts,
Denying they have been.

Emily Dickinson

White Bison

The majestic white bison, lord of the plains.

my first american turkey

Heather, my dad and I drove to Minnesota for thanksgiving the other week. Here are some pics from the trip. (my only requirements were picking up hot chocolate from Target, and getting some delicious Wisconsin cheese).

walking off the pumpkin pie...

Janelle is the "trains" queen. She and Heather cleaned up during that game.

umm.. delicious Christmas cookies. we had fun decorating with the cousins.

All hail the cavity king. Mark and Janelle loved the sprinkles. Too much? Never!

In Minneapolis for the Holidazzle Christmas parade.

Black Friday... and heather and i were at the stores by 6 am to get all the great deals. It was all stuff we needed, really. (actually, i'm a little embarrassed by this picture)

moo

I was checking out the blog of an old camp friend, Mark, who is in Indonesia right now. I got so excited when I saw this pic, I just had to steal it. This is pretty much the best ice cream shop in Ontario. It has a huge cow on the roof. (Hey, CHiPs, remember stopping here on the way home from the canoe trips…good times) Mark, it looks like you're having an adventure and a half over there!

how to's of lolly-gagging

I’m up late tonight working on my teacher’s college applications. I have known about them for a looong time and I half hoped it would be different this time, but of course, I have left things to the very end. You think after all those sleepless nights I’d have learned to be all those scary words like diligent, proactive, organized, industrious… But no, instead I have perfected the art of procrastination. For those of you who have never felt the 4 am buzz from brain-overwork and sleepiness, here are my best tricks.


PROCRATINATION 101

During the month/week/day before the due date:
-Read books, lots of them. Preferably ones that don’t teach you anything. Or, if you’re not a book person, watch low-budget movies and full house reruns. It’s amazing how entertaining they are.

-Sleep, because you know you won’t get to sleep later.

To do once you’ve decided you Must start working:

-Clean your room, or do some other dull task that now holds untold appeal.

-Email that person you’ve been avoiding for the last 3 years.

-Creating a killer play list. After all, it’ll help you to study.

-Keep a glass of water handy. Whenever you struggle for words, or need a distraction take a sip. When the glass is empty you get to take a trip to the kitchen. Bonus breaks to use the washroom. It’s amazing how much water I drink when writing an essay.

-Eat sunflower seeds. They take so stinkin’ long to eat, plus it’ll make you thirsty (see last point).

-Complain to anyone still awake about how stupid you were for leaving everything to the last minute.

-www.popcap.com beat your high score.

-Keep a candle burning nearby. Candle wax is so entertaining. (And for those non-procrastinators, you may not realize how riveting it is to watch a candle burn).

-Bang your head against a wall. Or throw something. It helps the creative process.

-Post on your blog.


HAPPY DAWDLING!

Note: I am proud to say that this time i demonstrated restraint. I only thought about what I’d write in this post but didn’t post it till after I was finished my assignment. Amazing. And I’ll actually get sleep tonight. Wow.

things that have inscape

I've been reading a beautiful book called Lament for a Son by Nicholas Wolterstorff. It is a father's honesty about his sons death, and I highly recommend it. Here's what he writes in the Preface:

"A friend told me that he had given copies of Lament to all of his children. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "Because it is a love-song," he said. That took me aback. But Yes, it is a love-song. Every lament is a love-song.
Will love-songs one day no longer be laments?"

You can tell from that just how beautiful, and Romantic, the book will be.

Wolterstorff, (or Nicholas, as i feel close enough now to call him) speaks of the poet G. M. Hopkins's notion of inscape-- the combined characteristics that give a thing its uniqueness, perhaps its essence. (more on inscape)

Like Hopkins, we also had a tree that was full of inscape. It was an apricot tree that we planted sometime after we moved into where we now live. We grew with it. It never produced much fruit, but I loved it anyways. It started leaning terribly, but that only added character. Well, a few summers ago we rebuilt the back deck. And the tree was considered in the way. My brother had fun with the chainsaw... and (I am not ashamed to say it) I cried. I would be lucky if this is the extent of my sorrows or losses. Or maybe not. It is, perhaps, a greater glory to share in the sufferings and sorrows of God, and to grow through them.

There are a few others trees with inscape that i know well. The Emily Carr tree on my bus route to High School; the "joshua tree" tree on Morningside Ave (which is really nothing like a joshua tree at all. But that is what it is called in my head); that huge white pine at camp; the jumping tree that leans over the canal, also at camp....
I love things with inscape.

little known fact

Although few realize it, Pizza Pizza does in fact have a mascot. His is the Dough Dude and no, he is not a slice of pizza (although i admit, it'd be ridiculously hilarious). I'm told that the Dough Dude got to play soccer with a bunch of other mascots at intermission during a sporting event. He was knocked over by the mouth wash. Or was it the giant m&m? I'll have to double check that. There is a whole world of mascotting that i never knew about until i started working with Pizza Pizza promotions. (and no, i have never had the... er... "honour" of wearing that costume, thankfully)