last night i saw a falling star....or a plane crashing, i am not sure which.

photos by Tiff

there is a dilemma. last week i decided that when working with the children to error on the side of compassion, because i had had some incidents of being extremely firm and it did not make me feel good at the end of the day. but now i have changed my mind again. because compassion didn't necessarily work either. so i don't know where that leaves me.

i want a new tattoo and am very very excited about it. it is drawn on me and the more i see it the more i like it. i hope it will signify and remind me to live intentionally and with purpose.

when i came to the coffee shop this morning they knew who i was and how i liked my coffee. splendid.

i am having trouble regrouping after last saturday of work and i am not sure how to make myself okay by three today. i am starting with a book and coffee.

i borrowed megan's bag and everytime i see it here beside me i instinctively look up and around for her but she is not here, clearly. silly me.

jessa, eli, tiffany, and i went to boulder yesterday and spent the whole day browsing without finding anything--or what i mean is we mainly stole ideas we could do ourselves. i love doing that. and Eli is such a gentleman, sigh, so sweet and such great company.

do not be ashamed of the miracle inside of you

This week went by very quickly but i find myself completely devoid of brain power or energy now that i have reached the end. yesterday (saturday) was not a good day for me.

Thanksgiving was lovely and quiet and cozy. perfect really. i like being relaxed with people i like and just hanging out and talking and being silly.

i am so glad its the weekend, sometimes it feels like i am holding my breath all week and then suddenly i can breath again.

i am wearing pink tights today and i feel like a super hero who decided to use her superhero tights in an everyday outfit, Edna 'E' Mode would be furious.

the sky is very blue and mountains white. mountains are pretty.

we watched the old dr. doolittle and geoffery holder, who plays william shakespere the 10th seemed so familiar we imbd'ed him and he was punjab in annie!! ahh and the narrator in the new willie wonka.

that is amazing. even more amazing, the lady next to us said her little girl did not want to watch the new dr. doolittle on the way to grandma's house this holiday and she said she would walk instead of watching it and since grandma's house was only a quarter of a mile away they let her. good choice little lady, the old version is the only one worth watching.

and then that makes me think, how crazy is it that you watch movies in your car, i mean on one hand ingenious but on the other hand i really loved car trips because of the time spent reading, coloring, watching the scenery, and listening to books on tape (and fighting with my brothers) are the next generation of children going to be completely devoid of creativity and imagination? i weep for you oh children of the new millenium. throw out your portable dvd players and ipods and make your own plays and your own music! oh for the computer illiterate days of old!
come on people!

also, how awkward are spontaneous coffee shop conversations where it becomes obvious one party was eaves dropping on another and then you feel psuedo obliged to keep talking after the inital comment was made. er, okay, stop talking to me now. the same thing happens on airplanes. this mom and her daughter had matching black, knee high boots and they kind of scared me.

my spell check isn't working (speaking of the curses of computer assistance) so please forgive the inevitable errors.

so while typing in the web address for facebook the other day i was off by a letter and was transferred to the most humorous website. www.facdebook.com

it's logo/ catchphrase is 'what you need, when you need it' but the list of things you might need are as follows:

russian bride
mail order bride
dating service
christian singles
cheap car rental
russian wife
russian woman
find friend
chat

i mean really.
amazing. you can rent a car and get a bride.

tiffie and mohegan are fantastic. its rather startling to realize how few days megan and i see each other. like, we hang out thursday, friday, saturday and thats it. we might see each other days but mostly we just see the shadow of each other. now tiffany is our link.

however they just conspired to throw orange peels at me in a public space. really ladies, friendship over. stop laughing.

i am feeling restless, tired but i cannot sleep, a bit anxious. zardonne. and i don't like it. and i don't know how to fix it.

i am very excited abou the holidays though. i have recipes planned, am thinking about where to put the christmas tree, what i want to do for my birthday, all the lovely people i will get to see soon (i.e. my fab fam)

someone thought i was someone else today. this happens to me a lot, as i have joked often (too often) i am the universal friend donor. i remind everyone of someone else they know. this sometimes makes me feel vague and unmemorable. how interesting to be someone that always evokes memories of someone else but not yourself.

i like being good at everything i do but do not feel good at my job, which i am hoping is just in my head but either way its humbling, a feeling i am not comfortable with. i think i need to spend some time with humilty for a while. just sit with that reality that i don't know everything nor am i good at everything and i (duh) have some serious failings. sigh.

i will write later when i am in a better mood. i think the lack of light in the world does not have a good effect on me. i need more vitamin d.

tiffany is here and we have had a splendid time playing thus far. activities of yesterday and today:
walk in the park
food on the deck
broadway thrift stores and antiques
lunch with jessa and eli (who also hung out with us on broadway and beading)
bead store
caribou to watch megan work
drive by of downtown

so far so good. it is great to have her around and we have been scheming about crafts all day.

i just drank a caffeinated beverage and i already have the shakes, excellent.

i think i am the only person in this coffee shop right now. splendid.

i watched munich last night and thought it was great. the first time i watched it was very very confused because there were people wall papering while i watched it, very distracting. Megan, i out one netflicks dealio in the mailio, so it is not lost, fyi)

i am feeling very reminiscent of Prague this morning, mainly i think because so much of my time in Prague was spent in coffee shops, thinking and reading and writing, which is what i have been doing this morning.

i woke up naturally at dawn this morning, which i take to be yet another sign that my farming destiny is awaiting me. where is my land! oh where is my land!

and i looooovvveeee coffee. it is happiness in an inanimate, edible (er, sippable) form. delightful.

nope i was wrong there is someone else here, he just sneezed and scared the bajeezes out of me. i am wearing earrings i made (thank you shawna for inspiration, always) as usually i am inordinately proud of myself. well done, oakes, well done.


i googled 'very important things' and this website was the first on the que.
http://with-gusto.livejournal.com/

apparently he takes old ads and writes sometimes funny sometimes not funny onion-esque blurbs to them. my favorite is june 10th 2004.

i am very disappointed in this year of being 23. i had great expectations for it. but now that it is almost over i cannot really recollect anything of significance that has occurred. shame. and, as i was discussing with friends earlier this week, the number 24 disgusts me. really. 24 is too fluffy, symmetrical, pink, round, and even. ugh. i may make up a new number/name/symbol for that year of my life marked by the number that may not be mentioned. from now on it shall be @$. on december 18th i shall turn @$. excellent.

i am reading an excellent book that gives me goosebumps and makes me wonder in awe at God. there is so much i do not know.
"He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" Mic. 6:8

My Father is a genius. No, really. he has saved me many times this week, from giving me directions when i am lost (for serious, he asked me where the sun was, uh right in front of me dad, then that is west, ahhhhhhh. the moon is on your crypt side) and fixing my wireless connection all the way from NC. Is there no end to his greatness? truly, i have an amazing gene pool.

My cat is a reflection of my life: a disaster. a story of Vashti who is also known as Kitty, Stinky, Pookie, and on occasion, Toilet Cat.

Part One: The Cat Burglar

One day lady one* and lady two* lived in a house in the mountains with a cat named Mirabelle* lady one and lady two were puzzled because Mirabelle was not eating her supper and usually this particular cat has a particularly insatiable appetite. The two ladies puzzled over this mystery without finding a solution.


However, one day lady one and lady two came home from work to discover that the cupboard where Mirabelle's food was stored had been opened and all the food bags were opened and rifled through!


oh my, said lady one. yes indeed, said lady two. we have been greatly deceived in the character of this kitty, lady one and lady two said together. without another word the two ladies set to work cat proofing the cabinet. tupperware is a beautiful thing the ladies mused.


from then on, though Mirabelle tried oh so hard, the kitty food was safe from the kitty. (until the clever kitty learned how to knock the plastic containers to the floor, thus effectively removing the lid and spilling the contents)



*The names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent

Part Two: Random Acts of kitty violence


The toilet paper massacre is not an uncommon sight in the mountain home, when the kitty gets in touch with her predatory roots and attacks all things unsuspecting and fluffy.

The destruction of mosquito netting and the capture of an innocent doll.


yes, she may look innocent, but mischief illumines all her features.

i am sorry for my lack of blogging my wireless internet thingy is not working and i have to get a new one, add it to my list of things to do.

yesterday i went and hung out with the youth group at first plymouth, which was a lot of fun. i like kids and hanging out with kids. for a moment i thought, oh my goodness i cannot relive the horrors that was highschool but then i reminded myself that i am now confident and capable and not (as) socially awkward. geez christa go start a conversation with an eighth grader and everything was fine. the youth group is also excellent because they play some of my favorite games, like sardines and ultimate frisbee.

megan is applying for a job at the tennyson center and i really really hope she gets it--it would be amazing for her and then i would pseudo replace her by getting a part time job at caribou and thus we would both be happily happily employed and productive.

i have decided that i can only be truly happy if self employed and living on a farm.the end.

i have been having these bizarre and kind of scary headaches that enable the hypochondriac within me to freak out (brain tumor? vascular disorder?)There is a point in my childhood where i distinctly recall wishing that i had cancer or some disease (morbid and selfish, i know) so that i could do what i want without feeling like i am trying to live up to someones expectations - everyone would just say, look at how well she is doing, its a miracle she is alive, and i could be gently heroic while self-righteously, arrogantly acknowledging that i would not have to explain any of my plans, choices, or decisions to anyone and i could just live, because that would be enough.

megan and i are having a coffee shop date and i have missed her so so much! i am glad that we have some overlapping schedule time.

i think we are both really tired, megan more so.

my cat wakes me up every night between three and four am, it is very confusing and i just lock her outside of my room where she cries the rest of the night. i have dreams that the cat is actually a child that i work with and i am trying all my strategies to figure out what is going on with this child/cat to figure out why they are acting out and being agressive and negative towards peers and authority figures. Vashti, what is going on in your psyche? do you need a therapist? stop stealing food!

i keep lamenting the state of our social life but megan has reminded me that for being here two months we have done pretty well. true that. and Tiffany is coming to visit and i am very excited about showing her around the mountains.

i spent a good amount of time painting yesterday and it was fantastic. i am amazing (please note that this is a sarcasm laced comment)

i must now return the computer to mohegan. peace.

hello. i blogged a bit ago but inadvertently deleted the whole thing. boo. now i try again.

the cat is stealing food: story to follow

my halloween was deliciously low-key, with Jessa and Eli and soup and Charlie Brown and a nap on their couch pre- Megan pick up. Lovely. I am really tired but thankfully have a bit of a day to re-coop today before my saturday marathon shift that just about kills me every time.

yesterday a black cat walked in front of my car and i saw and old school hearse with a man in a tux with a ruffly shirt driving it. fantastic.

i got some new books at the library, i plan to read them all very quickly, hopefully. i have a huge stack of books i want to read but my reading has come to a stop recently. i need to hop on that.

i feel like i usually have a lot to say during my week and i am like, i should blog about that. and then i forget.

i am going to make polenta gnnoci today--i will let you know how it goes.

at the gym today, the man made me do pushups and i almost died. like my arms were moving millimeters and i was counting it as a pushup. meanwhile some super woman was doing pullups like she was born in the gym. i silently loathe her. i may or may not have collapsed on the floor, i cannot confirm nor deny. thank God for my sense of humor which enabled me to peel myself off the floor.

so i drove down to the alamosa for the weekend and it was great! the drive on 285 is so beautiful and the valley is stunning. it is a bit surreal to be back but nice too. met some of the new volunteers, they are cool i guess(i mean not like LAST year's volunteers) and a surprising amount of Southerners, one from Georgia, two from Virginia, and one from south Carolina. interesting. and we watched the end of the world series and the Rockies sad effort. boo. i am now in milagros, a place i used to frequent so often and am about to head to the shelter to say hi. thats it for now. more later

who needs an alarm clock when you have a cat?

i joined the gym. which is great. but now i am painfully aware of my need to be there. a lot. but overall it makes me happy.

i am excited because this is the first week that i am actually working the schedule that they said i would have. so no early mornings! so i am at the coffee shop, i slept in, and i plan to get all my errands done and then go to work. its like i actually have a day!

i think once my schedule settles down i am going to get another job. i could work mornings in a coffee shop or something, something relatively mindless.

i remember this first time that i actually became excited about faith. it was at one of those EV free youth conferences my youth group went to every other year and i heard Tony Campolo speak. and he challenged everything about our lifestyle and the way we live and think. i don't even remember what he said but that my reaction was utter excitement that here was some tangible demonstration about faith that i could see and experience myself. i remember lots of disagreement within the youth group and i thought, this is even better, we are actually talking about something!!

i guess i get a similar feeling now that i am reaching semi-adult like places in my life where i feel finally empowered to decide my path, what i will do, and where i will go. and it is exhilarating! i mean for the most part i get caught up in the daily grind and concerns of life but then there are days like today when the possibilities seems endless and i cannot wait to get started and sort it all out!

thats all i got

i was working on a sewing project today and it was lovely. i was in the quiet and my mind could chew on things while my hands stayed busy. the cat actually ventured upstairs to keep me company, a rarity, and of course she was rather troublesome, leaping on things as i made them and trying to eat the tissue patterns i was working with.

i remember my mom trying to teach me to sew and my frustration with not be able to do it on my own or be able to make it all come out right the first time. i got so angry! my poor mother. i also remember carrying up knives from the kitchen and sliding them across the patterns on the fabric so that they would lay still while we pinned the pattern to the fabric. i remember being amazed at mom's sewing skills, she whipped up a petticoat for me in minutes on night before going to see the Nutcracker for my birthday. it was white muslin with lace on the bottom. i remember it specifically because i was also wearing my pink sailor-esque dress and while we were waiting for the show to start i went up to look at the orchestra in the pit and another little girl asked me if i was in the show, because of my dress. i realize now that this possibly could reflect a questionable sense of fashion but i was thrilled! i looked like i was in the show! (at that time in my life i was convinced i was going to be discovered and that i would soon become a famous actress. i remember fantasizing for the rest of the night that because i was so suitably dressed, if they had needed someone to be replaced on stage that evening i would be the first they would go to. naturally)

I find memory fascinating, one because i have so many great memories and two because i have so many random memories. its as if anything you concentrated on particularly hard, no matter how mundane, will be stuck in your brain forever.

i am a coffee shop after 8 pm - Alamosa, take notes!


i am waiting to see if there will be a social gathering this evening, as part of my project to be more socially active. but really i just want to go home, eat dinner, finish sewing and go to bed early.

i should have been a pioneer.

i just remembered this, something i heard at first plymouth, a quote from John Robinson,
'.. I am very confident the Lord hath more truth and light yet to break forth out of His holy word.'

i love the mysetery of God and the fact there is so much unknown about life and God and find it so refreshing (though challenging) to let go of trying to figure it all out and instead to trust that there is 'more truth and light' to come.

it snowed again. i shoveled the driveway, well most of it until i got bored and went inside by the fire. thus the existence of the ice on the top of the driveway that i didn't get to. oops. note to self, shovel it all.

megan and i watched cold mountain (appropriate)last night, so so sad. i didn't cry but sighed a lot. we talked about who would have been a better Ada then Nicole (because she is blonde while Ada was distinctly brunette, and Nicole always poised and graceful while Ada is supposed to be inept and awkward, always) we thought that it should have been Natalie Portman or Maggie Gyllenhal, both actresses who can portray accurately the change in the character. whatever nicole, good try. (p.s. thanks shawna for the soundtrack, oh so lovely)



one of the children at work needed a halloween costume and i quickly volunteered to do so, given that i love to sew and have no social life to speak of. The little person wanted to be a cat ballerina and this is what i came up with, you cannot see the tail, which has a pink bow on it, so so cute, i almost kept it.

megan and i went to a 'degrees for the public good' fair and i collected lots of info about lots fo different degree options and am still feeling like an international development or international health degree is the direction i want to go. it is time like these when i ask the question, why am i in the states right now? i need to leave as soon as possible. one of my biggest fears is getting to comfortable and settling down when my exploring is not done yet, waking up one day and realizing i am not where i want to be at all! not that i know where i want to be but i am slowly discovering where i don't want to be, which, is a bit of a step forward i guess.

i am feeling incredibly socially challenged lately. first, work is overwhelming but i don't want it to take over my life. but at the end of the day i am so tired and again, overwhelmed, that i just go home. sigh. i will work on this, this is my project.

you learn so much about yourself when you do something new. especially working with kids. why does it seem so hard to not obsess over my discomfort and put others first? i have never felt so transparent before, so very very aware of all my failings and weaknesses. but i guess the thing is, is that they, the kids or staff, are not asking me to be perfect. they are asking that i be present and compassionate. but most of the time i feel angry. i really really really hate being laughed at and there has been many times already when a child is laughing at my inability to control them. which again, it is not my job to control but to try and guide and teach. i am just so thankful that i am able to leave work each day and drive into the mountains.

the most i ever learned about God was when i wasn't with christians....

megan and i were watching LOTR: return of the king and our conversation floated to fantasy archetypes and how harry potter reflects the LOTR themes a bit, but then pretty much every fantasy film has these consistent good vs. evil, the hero within us all themes. then, before my eyes, i was able to see grey's anatomy in LOTR. Meredith is frodo, mc dreamy is sam, who is faithfully, loyally (for the most part) trying to help Froedith get to her end goal. Christina is gollum (stay with me) who has slain a beloved one in the pursuit of her goal(the ring/ a career/ inner turmoil what not) Froedith sees herself in Chrisollum and hopes that they both can survive their burden. Izzy and George are Merry and Pippin, respectively (i won't describe all the parallels but they are totally there, i especially like equatting izzy's denny incident with merry and the globe thing that he tries to look in and is burned by, i forget its name) there was some debate of whether Bailey was arragon or gandalf but i think arrogan because Baily is a warrior. and thus LOTR becomes LOTER (lord of the ER. don't scoff you know you love it)

as many of you know i loathe voicemail. i think i have some misplaced negative associations with voicemail. to me it represents one responsibility i can avoid with little consequence, symbollic of my dislike of all responsibilities that must be constantly attended to. I don't know, i always imagine that each voicemail is not a friend but a little evil voice telling me what i have to do, what have i failed to do, what i am not good at. i have recently discovered that my brian is also like my voicemail, full of little voices i don't want to talk to but soon gets so full that there is no room for anything else until it gets emptied out. and that takes so much effort.

i really like watching british films or american films and being able to identify which Jane Austen film adaptation the obscure british actors have been in. for example, in the importance of being earnest, the actress that play gwendolyn is fanny in mansfield park. And an actress from Scoop also played the role of a sister in both Mansfield park and Persuasion. And the dude who is the bad guy in Tomb Raider two is the main love interest in Persuasion. Movies like Emma and Sense and Sensibility are, of course, easy and don't really count, because hugh grant, colin firth, kate winslet, and emma thompson are really easy to place. duh.

megan and i are having an adventure today, we are getting coffee, and checking email and then we are going to hit the road. it is sunny and drippy outside as all the snow is melting. i love snow and winter and fall.

Megan has mentioned in her blog that we are thinking of moving into town. this largely has to do with the fact that if we stay in the mountains megan will have to buy a new car, which would be very unfortunate. so we are hunting for affordable places and i am really hoping that there will be some great public transportation options and a grocery in walking distance.

i feel like there was more i was going to say but i cannot think of it now. hmmmm. that is all then.

we have had our first snow. and i didn't crash and die. i take that as a sign.

today i am tired and weary and have been trying not to cry all day. sometimes i feel so full that a kind word or glance will just release the floodgates of tears, which is embarrassing when i don't really know anyone but just start sobbing in public. ahem. excuse me. so i left quickly and am now enjoying anonymity at the local coffee shop. sometimes i feel like i am desperately looking around me for understanding, a friend, or a hug. the people that know me best are so far away. but how lucky am i to say that i have people that know me.

megan woke me up today to see the snow and i decided to drive into town early to get online and take care of emails and such and on the drive into town i realized that the membership class started today. oops. but thankfully due to my earliness, i arrived right on time! its a miracle. it was great to meet some new folks and hear about the church and the more i hear the more i like it. i like the phrase' united in essentials but diverse in non-essentials' when talking about statements of faith. and that it is a non-creedo church, acknowledging that God cannot be contained by our conception of faith and is greater than any creed we may come up with or create. God's truth is still ultimate and absolute but cannot be contained. nothing gets me as excited as envisioning an adventurous God that i cannot even comprehend. that there is hope and peace available beyond the limits of my mind. i also love a vision of heaven that is a continuous journey, not unlike lewis' the great divorce.

another phrase i liked:
we are decidely christian and unconditionally welcoming


my heart is so heavy today on the behalf of others- my friends that i love and the hard choices before them, the children i work with that cannot believe in anything good in the world or themselves, the uncertainty i feel in my own life (which is so little compared to these other things)

i have to figure out how to fill myself with peace and quietness in these new places. i think i might build an altar today. a little bit of ritual could be good for me right now. and paint and glue sticks.

ways to impress your supervisor: do an excellent job driving a 15 passenger van full of kids, only at the end i stopped at a green light. she looked at me and all i could think was, why is she looking at me like i am crazy, what am i missing here. and then i got it. i am an idiot. but i did get to go to the circus.

i really hope at some point in my life i will get to go to cirque de sole. no animal mistreatment and lots of acrobats and more tasteful costumes than barnum and baily.

i went home to nc and it was great for a mini get away and BABY TIME. here are some pics. i think the majority of the time i held Amelia she was making expressions of boredom, disdain, and/ or horror. (she is a smart one, she can do all three at once)

my job is really hard but i keep reminding myself it is the hard things that are worthwhile. i hope so anyway. i also got a random email about grad school applications from one of the grad schools i inquired too for more info...hmmm grad school, am i ready for you? i have loved learning about cells and basic math again while in the classroom this past week. i am not going to lie, my over achive/ competitive nature totally kicks in and its all i can do to not ask for a handout from the teacher so i can finish the assignments too.

other notes, i ran by the grocery store this morning to pick up secret treats for secret someones to go into secret packages and there was something weird going on, like safeway corporate was in the house because everyone was on their grocery store A game. i had like five people say hi to me as i was just walking by, i was in my own world searching for the right aisle and everyone just kept saying hello, which is great, but odd. i suppose they could have been talking to someone else, but i don't think so. it took me so off guard each time that i could only offer the belated afterthought response greeting, a sheepish hi under my breath because i am uncertain why they are talking to me. i did wash my hair this morning, maybe i was exceptionally attractive this morning and people couldn't keep themselves from trying to draw the sunlight of my attention to themselves.