First, let me just say that I am not a mountaineer, but I think that this is less due to a lack of will and more a result of my environment growing up. When you’re raised on the East Coast, there aren’t really a whole lot of mountains around to climb… Hills to hike maybe, but not true mountains. However, for years I have been fascinated by climbing. If there’s a book written about it, I’ve probably read it. If there’s been a movie, documentary, or TV show made, I’ve probably seen it. Even the completely unrealistic, cheesy fictional ones. I also enjoy pushing myself to see what I’m capable of. For example, I refused to take any seasickness medication before going out on my first big sailing trip because I wanted to see if I would actually need it. Turns out I didn’t. I did the same thing when I went to Peru to hike the Inca trail. I didn’t take anything to help with altitude sickness because I wanted to see how well my body would adjust on its own. Turned out it adjusted pretty well, although I did have some issues the one night when we stayed above 14,000 feet. I want to run a marathon this year for this reason. In the same way, the challenge of mountaineering is extremely attractive to me. Pair that with my adventurous spirit, throw in my love affair with mountains and the outdoors, an interest in climbing seems like a natural byproduct.

As many of you know, I was born in Bend, Oregon and I have come to believe that this somehow encoded a love of mountains into my DNA. I adore them (they’re not part of the illustration on my blog by accident!) and can’t underscore enough how much I look forward to living back among them again. But since my parents moved me to the Philly area when I was a mere 6-months-old, my affection for mountains lay dormant until the first time I saw some in person.

I was 20 and was headed to Seattle to attend the Christian Writer’s Conference at Seattle Pacific University. I had first flown to San Francisco and spent a few days with my family there before flying from San Jose up to SEA. I had a window seat and was looking out at the clouds when suddenly noticed a particularly large object jutting up through them. It look me awhile to realize I was staring at Mount Hood. I was so overwhelmed with its beauty that my eyes immediately welled-up with tears. Pictures and movies hadn’t even come close to preparing me for the actual majesty of an in-person mountain.

Alaska was where I became truly addicted to them, though. There is nothing like being up in a small plane and looking out to see nothing but miles upon miles upon miles of a rippled mountain landscape coated in snow. There is something so awe-inspiring and quieting about them that words alone fall short in conveying. In Alaska, you also have the added bonus of being literally surrounded… Some volcanic (like Augustine and Redoubt), but more just the ranges of them that run down to the sea. One of my favorite places to go when I needed to get away for a minute without going far was up to Flattop. Flattop, so named for its flat top, is a mountain just on the edge of Anchorage and part of the Chugach Range. It’s a great hiking mountain in the summer especially, but there’s also a fantastic vista point not far from the parking lot where you can see for miles…all the way up to Denali on a clear day. I used to love to drive up there on winter mornings when the whole of Anchorage was encased in an ice fog. On the drive up, the fog would be dense and heavy, but it would start to thin near the top until suddenly you emerged in the crisp, winter air and glorious sunlight. The city below would be completely cloaked and you could imagine yourself alone in the world. To echo some of Ben’s sentiments from his post, I have always experienced God in the mountains in a different way than I have elsewhere.

Biblically, this makes sense to me as well.  God seems to have a special place in His heart for mountains. I love how He always had His temples among his people, but when He chose to take up residence with the Israelites in the desert and speak to Moses, it was on a mountain. Jesus also had a thing for mountains. The gospels speak repeatedly of him going up into the mountains by himself to pray…sometimes he would stay there all night (Luke 6:12). He also did a lot of his speaking from mountainsides (but I suspect that probably had more to do with acoustics).

Shortly after arriving in Alaska, my friend who moved with me had decided she wanted to go home. Those first few months there after she left were some of the loneliest I’ve ever known as I tried to figure out what my new life would look like 5,000 miles from everything I knew “home” to be. But the great paradox I learned is that it’s in loneliness that I feel the least alone for it’s in loneliness when I am most reminded that I am not alone.  God is there.  As David writes in Psalm 139:7-9…

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

Even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

It was also during this time that God used the mountains as perspective givers for me. If things weren’t going well, or if I was feeling overwhelmed with life, I would just drive out to where I could spend some time with the mountains and in prayer. It’s extremely humbling to stand on (or even next to) something so majestically huge with the knowledge that it was formed by our God through His power alone (Psalm 65:6). He is indeed an awesome God.

I wrote the following poem on 10/14/96 during my first few weeks in Alaska…not surprisingly, it begins and ends with mountains:

The mountains stretch out
Across purple skies
To the end of the world
Or so it seems.
But they do stretch far
Far
Far out of sight.
Beyond comprehension.
Beyond confusion.
Beyond dismissal.
Beyond betrayal.
Beyond lies.
Beyond fear.
Beyond feelings of hopelessness
And loss.
All my fragments
Of ragged dreams
Are swallowed up
In the magnificence
Of jagged rocks
Blanketed with snow.
The enormity
Of the mountains
Makes problems seem
Insignificant.
Small.
Trivial.
Resolvable.
So I sit
In stillness
And focus
On the mountains.

Partly what I love about not just mountains, but the wilderness in general is the peace that’s there. I feel like peace is often so hard to find today in our crazed tilt-a-whirl lives. In an attempt to obtain it, I will sometimes purposely leave my cell phone at home (gasp!). I love when I go on trips that cause me to abandon my connections to the world. I have found that when I extract myself from the craziness of life, turn off my cell phone, and just allow myself to be quiet, God is able to speak without competing distractions, and I find I am often more apt to hear Him. The wilderness gives me an excuse to do that.

John Muir once said:

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world.

When I had gone back to AK for a visit in 2002, it was a particularly clear day and Denali was so stunning, I decided to go on a flight-seeing trip out of Talkeetna up to the mountain.  It was kind of last minute, and outside of the regular tourist schedule, but I found someone to take me and ended up with a bonus – the pilot was flying the first climber of the season out to Denali base camp and I got to ride along. On the way back, the pilot told me about someone he had dropped off on a glacier near Denali for several weeks over the winter. I had actually read an article about it so was even more interested when the pilot told me he had been their “taxi” to and from their adventure. To be left in the middle of the mountains in Alaska would probably be a nightmare for some, but it sounded like heaven to me.

There has been a lot of judgment flying around from the so-called “armchair experts” who are, in my opinion, awfully brash – throwing their dogmatic opinions at people and on topics about which they have little knowledge and no personal experience. While not a mountain climber myself (or at least not currently), I still can understand the drives and the desires that motivate them… I also know the joy that comes in doing something you love, even when discomfort – or even danger – are involved. I think I realized this the most acutely on the second day of the Inca Trail. It was the day I both looked forward to and dreaded with the same breath. Most guidebooks even referred to it as “grueling”. We were coming up to the highest point of the trek at 13,770 feet – Dead Woman’s Pass. We were tired, sore, hungry, wet, and cold. I remember stopping for a breather at one point and saying to one of the other members of my group that I was walking with that, even though I was as physically uncomfortable as I was, I was also incredibly happy. “At this moment,” I told her, “there is absolutely no other place in the world I would rather be.”

That’s a fantastic state to be in. One day, I hope to reside there permanently… For now though, part of my journey is learning to live in contentment with where God has me. But He also knows my heart…better than anyone else…and He understands the irresistable song the mountains sing to me and maybe one day He will place me among them again. Perhaps then I’ll start to climb them too.

To begin with, I titled this “Online Dating Sucks” because…well…it does. Sucks like a big ‘ol freaking Hoover.

One of my biggest beefs with the whole process is that I feel that the online venue allows for people who might otherwise lack the social skills to enter into a dating relationship in the normal course of life. This is not to say that it always attracts socially inept individuals (case in point, myself) but it does seem to cater to them. After all, how easy is it to meet women from your hiding place behind a computer? You don’t even have to be yourself if you don’t want. No one’s going to make you be honest. No one’s going to call you out on not being true to who you really are. No one’s even going to know that the picture you posted is a 10-year-old glamor shot from the mall and doesn’t even remotely look like the non-airbrushed you who, incidentally, weighs an additional 40 pounds and no longer has hair. I’m just saying.

Again, I understand that the online thing works and has worked for a lot of people. For me however, it has yielded less-than-favorable results.

In addition to the “protection” that online dating provides, I also feel like it lends to microwaving something that really ought to be slow-cooked. You may or may not like someone within the first few seconds of meeting, but that doesn’t mean the jury should immediately render a verdict. Most recently I discovered I had an attraction to someone that I had known for months and would never have thought I’d be interested in…but getting to actually know him was what changed that. Online dating doesn’t allow for this. Instead, I think we lean towards calling the jury back prematurely rather than looking to maybe begin a friendship. Seriously, where’s the fire people? Stop running around with your hose! (No dirty pun intended) Why not calm down, relax, and enjoy the ride!

But that is not what happens.

Allow me to elaborate by sharing with you my typical online match-up experience which has gone something like this…

• In a fit of optimism, I join eHarmony (or match.com or the like, but for the sake of this example and the fact that I’m on eHarmony right now, I’ll stick with that).
• I see a lot of profiles and a few of which I actually like.
• One of us reaches out through eHarmony’s “Guided Communication” process.
• We take a few days to work our way through all of the Q&A sessions and end up finally going back and forth through site-handled email.
• We exchange phone numbers, and then someone makes the first call.
• We talk. It usually goes well because, let’s face it, it’s hard for a standard small-talk discussion to go badly.
• We decide to meet up (usually sooner rather than later) for dinner/coffee/what-have-you.
• The night of the “big date” arrives with little (if any) fanfare.
• Afterwards, the guy typically proceeds to fall off the face of the planet…or at least they seem to.

The End.

Sometimes I’m disappointed when this happens. Most of the time I expect it. This last time out was no different. Experience has taught me not to get hopes up. That if you must be optimistic, do it with caution signs. “Danger: Potential Flaky Guy Ahead”. Yeah, you ain’t just whistling Dixie.

As I said in my previous post, I was cautiously optimistic about this last guy. On paper, he seemed great. Said all the right things, did all the right things…with gusto, I might add. In our conversations he even implied that, while we may not be each others “perfect match,” that was no reason to think that we wouldn’t still be friends, at the very least. It seemed to fit… Our interests were similar. As were our personalities. And, while I really don’t think that ending up with someone just like me would be a good idea (how would anything ever get done??), I definitely thought there was friend potential. My mistake.

We had our date last Friday night. I didn’t sense a true click (read: chemistry) like you do when you meet someone you think you could see yourself with, I still finished the night thinking, “Gee, that was fun. He’s pretty cool. I definitely see friendship” only to find after the weekend was through that he didn’t feel the same way…or at least, that’s what I assume. See, after receieving dozens of text messages and spending hours on the phone, since our outing, he has barely seen fit to respond to any communication from me. Well, whatever.

The thing that pisses me off really is that interested or not, to disappear on someone is just rude. It goes against everything your mother (hopefully) taught you about basic, polite social behavior. How about a little respect fellas? Why not at least say, “Hey, didn’t really feel a connection, but I still had a nice time hanging out with you”? What’s so difficult about that? I mean unless your dinner/coffee companion threw a drink in your face and called your mother ugly, there’s really no excuse to not at least manage a pleasant “Adios” after the date is done for the sake of closure if nothing else.

But the sad thing is that this is what I’ve come to expect because this is what happens again and again and again. If it weren’t for the fact that I have solid friends who would tell me if there was something I was doing that provoked this behavior, I might be tempted to think that it is somehow about me. Something I’m doing or not doing that’s screams “It’s okay to blow me off” to these guys.

Thankfully, I’ve also had relationships in the past that have lasted (none of which were begun online, I might add) and so I know I’m capable of being in a relationship and being a good girlfriend. I am. Promise.

Even so, since the only common denominator in these stories is me, it’s difficult to not feel like somehow I’m bringing this on myself…but how can you really know? That’s where you come in.

I’m really hoping that this post finds its way onto the computer screens of not just my extended circle of family and friends, but that some other women out there who have maybe had similar or otherwise frustrating experiences with the online dating scene and may find my thoughts resonating with them.

So please forward the link to anyone single women you know, or if you are one, I’d love to get some feedback or hear other people’s stories…and not the ones that are all about someone you know who met their husband/wife online. I’ve had enough of those. Right now I just need to know that I’m not alone…and/or crazy.

I’ve done enough venting, but thanks for listening. Now it’s time for you guys to weigh-in…please! And while you do, I’m going to sit back in a chair on my fabulous patio in the warmth of late Spring, enjoy a beer, and be thankful that I have such a great life even though there’s no man in it (online or otherwise)…yet.

Sidebar: I just was distracted by watching Chena bury some item of great value (at least to her) in the folds of a towel on the floor. But it’s cool, she’s a dog. It’s what she does. Still, kinda funny.

Anyway, despite my little online explosion the other day, I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m really doing pretty well – this especially for those of you who don’t see me all that often and might not know what to think when I don’t post for weeks and then suddenly come out with a message like I did on Monday.

But I’m good. I’m busy, I’m happy, I love my dog, I’m healthy, I have hardwood floors, I have a new patio door, I’m getting a new patio to go with it next week, and I’m employed. I’ve been thinking it over the past couple of days and decided that, despite any guy thing (or lack thereof) I’m not about to be bullied by happiness.

I should probably explain that last statement.

Dave Ramsey says in one of our FPU lessons (and he may have been quoting someone else, I don’t know) that if you’re not careful, happiness can become a “bully in a schoolyard”. Always drawing a line in the sand, but as soon as you step over that line – as soon as you obtain what you’re after – it moves. But happiness is not really the greener grass on the other side of the fence. Happiness is where you are right now, regardless of incidentals.

I think I started to learn this lesson somewhat when I was in England. I was frustrated with being in the UK – especially being so far out in the middle of nowhere. But I also knew that it was a good time in my life…something I would look back on and appreciate – although there were many times when I couldn’t wait to be “looking back” on it instead of living it! Still, I knew that this was the case, so I made a concerted effort to find things that I loved and appreciated about Leamington, Warwickshire, and the UK in general. Even now, I think back on that time and remember fondly my fabulous flat on Clarendon Square, the amazing Irish butter, Muellers Crumble Corners, riding my bike to work, walking everywhere, taking weekend trips into Europe, being so close to Stratford that I had a membership with the Royal Shakespeare Company at a “locals” rate… I could go on and on. So despite the fact that it was rough year (and I know I complained a lot), I still could appreciate it and still do. So much so that I’d go back for the right opportunity.

That whole concept of completing the phrase, “Happiness is [fill in the blank]” is really kinda difficult to do. Happiness is…uh…what? How can you define happiness if it’s a moving target? And there’s the rub.

Happiness isn’t that thing just out of reach. It’s not the marriage and kids you don’t have. It’s not the job you wished you’d gotten. It’s not the car you drive (or wish you drove). Neither is happiness a particular thing that happens once or many times over. Happiness is now. Happiness just IS.

If we don’t stop tying our happiness to the having or attaining of specific things, we’ll always be bullied by it and we’ll never find true contentment.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that sure, I’m missing some stuff from my life that I’d like to have, but ultimately, those missing items don’t necessarily detract from my ability to still see and enjoy and love and find happiness in where I am right now.

Paul said it like this in Philippians 4:11 – “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”

Rock on Paul. That’s what I’m talking about.

But the real reason I’ve been spurred to write this morning is due to a story I just saw on Good Morning America.

I’m not normally a morning show watcher (GMA or any others), but they caught my interest this morning when they previewed a piece on Twitter they were going to do. Being a big fan of Twitter, I naturally was interested to hear what they were going to say (they think Twitter’s great, by the way).

But then Twitter wasn’t all that attracted my attention. They went on to discuss a dating compatibility tool that uses – get this – DNA.

That’s right my fellow singletons – for just $99 you can give GenePartner a swab of DNA from your cheek and have them run their tests to provide you with your given genetic compatibility with others looking for that “special someone”.

Hm.

GMA went and followed a couple on their first date where they had them do their DNA testing before having dinner. The results were then revealed on GMA this morning with the couple sitting in the studio. This particular couple came out with a 90% match which only seemed to solidify what they had already discovered from their date. So they already knew they liked each other. If this couple had been doing this on their own, this means that they’d have spent $99 to find out what they already knew.

A few things about this make me uneasy, but I’ll just share a couple of them.

First, what if it had gone the other way? What if they’d be out on the date, liked each other, but then the DNA results came back to say that they weren’t genetically compatible. That alone may not have been enough for them call it quits right away, but I can’t help but feel like knowing that in the back of their minds wouldn’t undermine their possible relationship. Think about it – what if you were married, engaged, or even seriously dating someone and you and your partner decided to do this DNA compatibility testing for kicks and it came back that you weren’t genetically compatible. How much would that suck?

Another thing that troubles me about this is it further shows what I see as a burgeoning trend among our single society to run after so-called scientific methods of finding your “perfect match.” While I’m far more inclined to listen to what a psychologist would say about the kind of man who would be good for me, I still would rather leave it up to my friends, family, and God to bring me the right guy across my path.

And maybe that’s the difference. Maybe in the absence of a belief and trust in God to hook me up with the man I should be with, scientific methods work as a substitute. They certainly seem far more concrete than what many see as an ambiguous God who surely has far more important matters to attend to than finding me a date for the weekend, right? Or maybe some of the motivation stems from the GenX-ers fear of divorce. We are the first real generation of divorce, after all… Perhaps as a result of that, we’re searching for new ways of making sure the one we pick is the right one for us – after all, who really goes into a relationship wanting to divorce? Perhaps those from broken homes think that they can avoid this fate if they have enough unbiased, third-party input into selecting their mate. I’m totally speculating here, but there might be something to that…

I’m not trying to say that some of these scientific approaches couldn’t help…God is the master scientist, after all. At the very least these types of tests and things can probably teach you something about yourself that you may not have already known which is certainly valuable.

eharmony, for example, has an interesting personality test that it uses to find your matches for you. So while eHarmony failed to match me up successfully with anyone in the 6 years (and hundreds of dollars) I spent with them, I still found the personality test output interesting. And, while some of the matches they sent me were dogs, there were some good guys as well. Of course the ones I liked never called me back… If we’d had a DNA test in hand that said we were genetically compatible, would that have changed anything? I doubt it. We had eHarmony’s endorsement that we were compatible from a personality standpoint and clearly that wasn’t enough.

The fact is, you either feel it or you don’t and no amount of scientific testing or results can change that. All it can really do is potentially affirm a choice you’ve already made, but I don’t think it can make you try against your gut reaction. I speak from experience on this one.

So maybe this makes me naive, but after all the online dating I’ve done over the past decade, I’ve come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, I would rather put my faith and trust in the God of the universe to take care of my needs – emotional or otherwise.

It’s that time of year again…  Time for cookies, trees, gifts, snow (if you’re lucky), songs, mistletoe, ornaments, lights, and joy at celebrating the birth of Jesus.  It’s also time for yearly updates.  Every year I receive tons of letters from my friends telling me all about the seemingly endless amounts of awesome things their kids accomplished – Johnny took his first steps, Billy said his first word, Jane walked on the moon, Susie found the cure for cancer…  And each year as I sit and read through these letters, I’m struck by just how much I have NOT done.

Or at least, the past few years have been like that.

Prior to 2005, I typically felt like I had a lot to say come December.  I was moving to or living in or traveling through amazing places – Alaska, Europe, Asia, New York City…  But then I moved back to Bucks County – not far from where I grew up – and the excitement seems to have ceased.

I debated as to whether or not to even write something for this year having felt outdone by just about everyone else out there…after all, how can you beat out someone taking their first steps?  But after some thought on the matter, I decided that perhaps it was more important do go through this exercise for 2008 because it would help me focus on finding the things that were worth mentioning.

So in the name of hoping 2008 was worth it, I give you…

2008: Year of the Rat

(I’m not making that up – check the Chinese calendar if you don’t believe me)

Let’s begin with 10 “stills” in my life (because it would be more depressing to end there – not that they’re all negatives or anything, but you know what I mean):

1. I’m still in Pennsylvania
2. I’m still single
3. I still live in the same townhouse
4. I still have the same fabulous roommate
5. I still have Chena the Amazing Dog & Brighton the Great Bird – Chena turned 2 this year and Brighton turned 10
6. I still work for the same company
7. I still have the same job…or in this environment, perhaps it’s most meaningful to say I still HAVE a job
8. I still have debt
9. I still love coffee
10. I still hate raw tomatoes

Below is a summary of 2008…such as it was:

January

I went to Atlanta to visit my family while Jo & Josh were there. I also found Dave Ramsey and decided set New Years Resolutions to lose weight, start living on a budget, and begin a plan to pay off my debt.

February

I started my budget.  I also found out that my foot which I broke in Vermont in 2005 was, in fact, still broken so I was going to have to treat it by wearing this weird bone stimulator (no, it’s not like that – get your mind out of the gutter)  10 hours/day for 6 months.  Yay.

March

Gas prices really started soaring, but I still managed to budget in a trip up to Boston to visit Esther & the girls for a long weekend over my birthday.

April

I started attending a Financial Peace University class that was being held locally and I found an amazing church…FINALLY.

May & June

Absolutely nothing of note took place.  Nothing.  May & June were a total waste this year.

July

I discovered I had a nest of yellowjackets my attic.  That was it.

August

Like its predecessors of May & June, August failed to contribute anything of interest for 2008.  I think I saw a movie.

September

The most exciting month all year!  I went to Seattle to visit Jel & Co.  A blast, as always, made even better by the fact that we had a full week to relax & hang.

October

Not as fun as September, but pretty.  Great foliage this year.  I also had new hardwood floors installed on the ground floor of my home. Oh, and I handed out candy to a lot of princesses & vampires with a few Harry Potter’s thrown in.

November

The removal of all the election paraphernalia from yards & TV was a highlight of my month, second only to the birth of my first nephew – Ronan Powell Rogers.  Yay!  And then of course there was Thanksgiving.  Yum.

December

I calculated that by the end of this year, I’ll have paid off 52% of my unsecured debt (36% of my overall debt) thanks to my budget, Dave Ramsey, and God.  I’ve lost 20 pounds of the untold amount I put on after moving out of NYC – still some to go, but I’m on the right track!  I got a Wii & a Wii Fit.

I really can’t underscore the importance of this task.  It’s huge and has required a lot of sacrifice which, in turn, has made for a relatively boring 2008.  And perhaps I should go ahead and warn everyone now that 2009 & 2010 will be going up against 2008 on that front.  In 2011, I’ll be sure to give the title of Most Boring Year to one of these 3 contenders because, let’s face it, until I get my debt paid off, I may not being doing much else between now and then…although I do foresee a trip to North Dakota to see my nephew this coming year and perhaps a smaller getaway or two if I can manage it – we’ll see if that budget will allow me that!  I became a moderator in December of last year for the GAP Adventures travel forum called The Watering Hole which, while a technically a volunteer position, carries with it some other nice perks like credit towards GAP trips which I might be able to leverage towards this end.

In closing, I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  I sincerely hope your 2008 was more interesting than mine…  But now look out 2009 – here we come!

I know, I know – there’s no rule that if someone befriends me, I have to accept. In fact, Facebook has been kind enough to not notify someone if I choose to ignore a friend request. It also doesn’t send any sort of notification if I decide to remove someone I previously accepted. Great. Thanks Facebook. But that doesn’t quite take away the fact that these people are still out there and, if they were to find me, could still send me messages whether I respond to them or not…and I’m not the kind of person who can easily ignore a message.

So what brought this on?

One of the curses of being tall is that cooking (or doing dishes) at standard-height counter tops will eventually kill your lower back. Mine now kills (man, am I getting old). While I’m waiting for it to stop spazzing out like it’s being attacked, the activities available to me are somewhat limited. Naturally sitting in an ergonomic chair at the computer is one of the least painful, and lends itself to doing things like surfing around on Facebook.

So today I found myself perusing Facebook specifically looking to see if any of my exes (particularly the one who is more prone to stalker-like behavior) have joined up. So far, I’ve been lucky. My goal is mainly to block them once they do (you can’t block someone on Facebook until they join). However today while hunting for one of them, I stumbled across a whole group of people who I knew outside of school during those years between 16-18, or as I affectionately call them, “The Dark Years”. I was actually considering adding some of the journal entries from those days as blog posts, but upon reading through them, they were so dismal and unsettling, that I decided it was best they never see the light of the Internet.

Those were the years of my life that I recognize for their importance in shaping me to be who I am today, but were still years I’d rather not relive, revive, resurrect, or apply any sort of smelling salts to. Sure, they were key in making me who I am, but I am also in no way the same person today that I was then…and may I just say, THANK GOD FOR THAT!

Okay, fine. So don’t add any of these people to your Facebook friends then. Simple, right? Wrong. So wrong and so not that simple. While looking through this chunk of people that I have not seen, spoken to, nor heard from in nearly 17 years, there are some (2 to be exact) that I would actually like to reconnect with.

I know, that seems to go against everything I was just saying about that particular group of people, but these two are different. They weren’t part of the darkness in the same way I feel the others were. They didn’t ride on the backs of hellhounds when we would meet and hang out. Rather, they are people who I have wondered about, thought of, and even searched for on occasion. The problem is that this whole group – Dementors and all – are connected on Facebook (which I actually think is a little creepy). Therefore, if I connect with one of them, I open myself up to being connected to all (or having to explain why not).

I know I don’t owe them any explanation or anything else, for that matter, but to ignore them if they were to reach out, would just seem mean…and I’m not mean. At least, I don’t think I am generally speaking. And it’s really not their fault…it was a weird, freakish, hellish time for me, and they just had the misfortune of being there for it.

So, to contact, or not to contact? That is the question. Of course it may all be a moot point because I’ve already sent a note to one of them as I’m dying to know what’s been happening these last couple of decades, but…well…I guess we’ll see if the others catch on or not.

A pitfall of social networking sites for sure. I also find it difficult to believe that I’m the only one who has encountered this problem where, you’d like to fully put your past behind you…or your behind in your past (you say tomato…), but the Internet has made this all but impossible.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

However, seeing as this election was really a historical event more so than any other election has been, I do feel the need to at least comment about that aspect of it.

Come January 20th, we will have our first black president.  This is freaking huge and I don’t think the importance of this can be overstated.  Americans have finally shown themselves to be, as a majority, past the racial issues that divided us as little as half a century ago.  That is a big, massive deal and it’s encouraging to see that.  I have heard some say that this will go a long way in improving the rest of the world’s opinion of us as well.  Cool.

I was also encouraged by the number of people who came out to vote.  Every election I feel like I hear the phrase “record voter turnout” – can someone quantify that for me?  Are we really making a new record with each passing election?  If that’s true, then perhaps we are on our way to having nearly every American over 18 voting.  Right on.

I’m a major advocate of voting.  I believe in the democratic system (although the whole electoral college thing escapes me) and I believe that you have no right complaining if you’re not willing to go out and make your voice heard when you have a chance.  I’m just saying.

Before I sign-off and try to get some work done, I just want to close with a comment to the Christians out there who are unhappy with the outcome of the election.  As a Christian myself, I believe that we are called to be respectful of anyone who is in a position of authority whether we agree with them or not.  God is sovereign and I truly believe that whoever is in office is the best man (or woman) for the job in God’s big, strategic picture.

To quote Romans 13:1 (I just love Romans):

“Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”

So no matter what your opinion is of Obama personally, he has been given this position by God and will need our prayers over his term in office.  He certainly will have my prayers as he takes on a job that carries more weight than I can imagine.

God Bless America!

What this sometimes translates into is my having to say “no” to myself… I’m okay with this most of the time, but every so often, there’s something that comes along which I have a really hard time saying “no” to.

Right now, I want a Wii.

I’ve never been a particularly big video game player. Growing up, the only video games available were the giant man-sized consoles in the arcades sporting Pac-Man or Space Invaders. Eventually we started seeing Atari show up in my friends homes. Then Nintendo came out with their original gaming system. Everyone was playing groundbreaking games like Frogger, Q-bert, and Tetris. Once Mario Bros hit the scene, it was the birth of a whole new addiction for us GenX-ers and life would never be the same for any future generations.

I never had Atari, but we did get a Nintendo system when I was in high school. I enjoyed playing some of the games, but it never turned into an all-out love affair like I’ve seen happen with friends (particularly guys) over the years.

But this was before the Wii.

From the time the Wii was introduced, I was intrigued. The fact that there was a system where more than just your thumbs would be involved in the action looked like fun. Add to that, the Wii Fit. Can’t find time to go to the gym? Can’t afford the gym? Hate workout to tapes? Enter the Wii Fit! You can practice balance, take yoga, do aerobics, or even go skiing…all with the Wii Fit. How fabulous. I really want one. Bad.

Here’s how my inner circular dialogue on this subject is going:

“Can I get one?” I hear the inner-me asking. “Please please PLEASE?!”
“No. It’s not in the budget.”
“Well, can we PUT it in the budget? Please?”
“No…not right now.”
“But winter’s coming… We need to workout. We need to have some sort of activity…”
“I know…”
“So the Wii would be perfect – it’s way cheaper than joining a gym, and we can play with it regardless of the weather…”
“I know…”
“So why can’t we get one?”
“Because it’s not in the budget.”
“Well, can we PUT it in the budget?…”

And so it goes.

I’m actually debating trying to get one off of Craig’s List used…I’ve put out a few feelers on this.  If I could find a good enough deal, I think I’d give in to myself and pick it up.  Maybe.  The fact is I was going to try and budget a gym membership back in because I really am feeling the need to get more exercise than I currently do. The Wii would cost more upfront, but would be less over the long-run so from that standpoint, it makes sense.

Then again, it’s still about $300 I don’t really “need” to spend right now. ARG!

This past month has been a rough one for the budget. I’ve blown it pretty much all over the place and now am assessing the carnage. Things have also been tougher at work… While we’re not laying anyone off, we’ve been working hard to find ways to scale back on spending. Corporate travel is at a minimum. Hiring has been put on hold. Bonuses may be looking a bit malnourished compared to last year. And who knows if we’ll even be seeing raises.

Compounded with increased costs at home, this all translates into less money in my debt avalanche to throw at my mountain. Sigh.

Since I’m trying really hard to find other ways to save money, the idea of shelling out a few hundred extra in one shot does not appeal to me. I need to prioritize. I need to figure out what’s important and then focus on that.

From Dave Ramsey’s perspective, top priorities are easy:

1. Food
2. Shelter
3. Clothing

Well, I have plenty of food, I’m not living in a box or in a van down by the river, and I’m not naked so that’s good.

Next on the list would be things like utilities, etc. That’s one area I’m working on shaving some off of. Not electricity or water, but cable/internet and cell phone. Collectively those items are costing me $200/month which seems absolutely insane to me…and that’s with a deal on the Internet right now where I’m only paying $19.99/month. I called Comcast and they basically told me that if I dropped myself down to a basic package, I’d still be paying $92+tax for JUST cable with my current internet deal. Are they insane? I mean really – is this what people are paying these days? How on earth does anyone afford it? Tack onto that my cell phone bill which is averaging about $80/month. Granted, it’s my only phone, but I still think that’s nuts. I could switch to the much ballyhooed “Comcast Triple Play” but that would still end up being close to $150/month (with tax) for cable, internet, and phone with the additional boxes. So much for the advertised $114.95/month pricing which would seem misleading at best.

Apologies – I didn’t mean to get onto such a long cable plan tangent, but just trying to voice my frustration at trying to make the best budgetary decisions. Sometimes it’s an easy call (e.g. should I go out to dinner or not?) but other times the many facets of an issue can make it way difficult (e.g. should I get a Wii, a gym membership, or just buy fat-pants?)

Anyway, all this is to say that the budget is about balance…and trying to find it. What I’m discovering that this is a lot easier said than done.

So the question remains: Is there a future Wii for me?

I just don’t know.

But I digress…

In the midst of this cleaning frenzy, I came across some fun memorabilia – trinkets of the past, if you will – including (but not limited to):

• A photo taken of me & Jel the week I moved from Alaska – good times
• A coffee mug with the words “Safety First” from my trip to Thailand
• My last handwritten notebook journal and
• A bunch of “mix CDs” (which were post-mix tapes from high school, but pre-iPods & playlists).

Because music is a great thing to have on when you’re cleaning, or doing anything that keeps you from focusing on something steady like a TV screen, I popped in the CDs I’d found and let them play themselves silly.  I had no idea what was on them (I wasn’t much for labeling back in the late-90’s and early 2000’s when they were apparently made) and so I likewise had no idea what a ride I was in for.

I never cease to be amazed by the power that music has to evoke memories. Like smells, music can put me back in time and space to a particular place in an instant. As the CDs worked their way from beginning to end, I found myself completely transported – barely aware of the furniture, books, and boxes I was surrounded by.  I was at the mercy of the tunes.  The music had taken over.

Suddenly, I was…

• In the car with my sister (Jo) at Great Adventure in the safari, the giant head of a giraffe poking through the sunroof (Rusted Root – Send Me On My Way)
• Dancing in the snow with Jel at Beluga Point in the middle of the night (Depeche Mode – Personal Jesus)
• Working out at Dragon’s gym in Leamington Spa when I lived in the UK (Robbie Williams – Let Love Be Your Energy)
• Sailing through the Greek Isles in July 2001 (U2 – Beautiful Day)
• Camping with my sister outside of Denali National Park (Counting Crows – Round Here)
• Driving through Anchorage in the snow my first winter there (REM – Leave)
• In the beach bar on Relax Bay in Thailand (Dido – Here With Me)
• Hanging with my friends at the Willow Grove Mall in Junior High (Def Leppard – Pour Some Sugar On Me)
• Running around the reservoir with Jennifer in Central Park (U2 – Veritgo)
• Rockin’ out with Kristy in the car while driving around really cool places like Quakertown, Pennsburg, and East Greenville, PA (EMF – Unbelievable)
• Watching TV n the UK with Kristin when she came to visit (Element 4 – Big Brother Theme)
• Doin’ the dance with Jel in the car or at The Last Frontier…and most recently at her house in Edmonds (Will Smith – Men In Black)
• Seeing U2 in concert with Es in the post-9/11 “Elevation” tour (U2 – Elevation)
• On the Youth Group retreat up at Kutztown University, summer of 1989 (Cheap Trick – The Flame)
• Sailing in Thailand (Coldplay – Clocks)
• Seeing REM live from the front “row” in Seattle during the Bumbershoot Music Festival with Jel in 1999 (REM – Lotus)
• Hanging out in Memphis with Es (Live – Selling the Drama)
• On the Amtrak ride from Philly to Seattle when I moved up to Alaska in 1996 (REM – How The West Was Won & Where It Got Us)

I could go on and on and on.

In looking at that list, I can’t help but wonder where on earth the time goes.  Seriously – it just flies.  But that aside, I know that no matter what, I need to hang onto these CDs (or at least the playlists) so that when I’m old and gray and sitting in a retirement home somewhere, all I’ll need to do to relive the best moments of my life will be to play through one of these bad boys.  Pop in a CD (or put on a playlist) and my mind will be off and running.

Of course I’ve got a lot of years left and since I’m still collecting memories this way, I figure I’m going to have some crazy long-ass playlists by then…

Hopefully the technology will be able to keep up.

In case you’re interested, here is an interesting article I found which discusses music’s other superhero-like capabilities: http://www.livescience.com/health/081015-music-power.html

Apparently in addition to provoking memories, it can ease pain, influence mood, boost immunity, overcome fatigue, increase intelligence, reduce stress, anxiety, and depression…to name a few.  I don’t know if I can think of anything non-drug or alcohol-related that can claim all of that.

So what’s everyone waiting for?  Pump up the jam!

This is my world, and on this day where the Dow dropped 678 points, I just felt the need to vent a little, so here it is.

I have been in financial services for just over 11 years.  Not terribly long in the great scheme of things, but certainly it’s long enough.  Long enough to know what’s going on.  Long enough to be saddened by it.  Long enough to know that we’re headed into really dangerous waters…especially if the government keeps sticking its big, fat nose into places it doesn’t belong in the name of trying to “fix” it.  The fact is that government intervention is not the way out of this mess.  The government is not some sort of beacon in the night.  They are not – and cannot – be our savior although it seems they believe they’re up to the challenge.  Did I say “dangerous waters” before?  Perhaps “shark-infested” would be more appropriate.

So we have a market acting like it has bipolar disorder, an underlying real estate fall-out with unreal foreclosure rates and the banking industry has turned cannibalistic in order to avoid total failure.  In the past few weeks we have seen the collapse of companies with century-long track records and household names come crashing down (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Merrill Lynch to name a few).  In my life and my 10 years at Merrill, I would never have expected that to happen…but who would?  Then again, we know this kind of thing can happen (can you say “Enron”?) so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, but I tend towards optimism.

Then as if all of this wasn’t enough, we have a presidential election in less than a month.  I don’t think they could have planned a worse time to be listening to politicians make empty promises.  While we’re trying to work through a major financial crisis, I come home to find my mailbox stuffed with direct mail campaign pieces (for Obama mostly) which surely couldn’t have been free to produce.  Is all that really necessary?  Even in watching the debate this week, I found myself getting frustrated.  At one point I wanted to scream at them, “Could you two just stop your pissing contest for two seconds and freakin’ LISTEN!”  Sorry – I don’t like politicians much…can you tell?  (As a sidenote on the election and politics, I found a really cool website resource called OpenSecrets.org – check it out).

Anyway, so there’s a lot going on.  It can seem overwhelming.  In fact, I’m sure it IS overwhelming for a lot of people.  A lot of people don’t really understand everything that’s happening in the markets – all they know is that their 401(k) is going down in value like a rock right now.  The sad thing is that ignorance is the mother of fear and fear’s best friend is rashness, and when money (or the loss thereof) is the reason for the fear, I think it shoots people into a whole ‘nother orbit of emotion.  I was watching Fox Business News tonight and they had a panel of financial experts with phone lines open.  One woman called in and said she had gotten so scared she sold all of her mutual funds today.  I cringed.  While I don’t want to be cavalier about people’s fear because it’s certainly real enough, if I’ve learned nothing else on Wall Street, it’s that when it comes to your investments, emotion has no place in your decision-making process.  Emotion will cloud your judgment and make you do things like sell all your investments at the bottom (or near bottom) of an already bad market.  I felt so sorry for that woman because I honestly believe selling everything was the wrong move.  Suffice it to say, I’m leaving my 401(k) alone.

In any case, there are lessons to be learned here for everyone – from John Doe to Congress.  Good ‘ol Johnny boy needs to learn how to better manage his personal finances (hey, maybe that Dave Ramsey guy knows what he’s talking about…go figure!)  And Congress?  Well, Congress needs to stop trying to act like a bunch of socialists…and that goes for our future president too – whoever he may be.

So that’s 2008…and it’s not over yet.  I’m not sure this is quite the way we would have WANTED to have the year remembered, but there it is.  The media is screaming (because that’s what they do) and the sky indeed may seem like it’s falling, but I’m not worried because at the end of the day, I know the One who is holding it up.

For now, I’m praying.  Praying for our government, for the election, and the economy.  Praying for sanity and for opportunities.  Most of all, I’ll be praying that one of the things we’ll all see is how unstable the world really is at its core, and therefore how foolish it is to put trust in it. Instead, we need to put our faith and trust on something solid, steady, and unchanging. We need to build our metaphorical houses on the Rock because there it doesn’t matter what winds may blow (or what markets may fall) – the Rock doesn’t move. And I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in this storm.

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.” (Matthew 7:23-25)

Through work and on my own, I’ve been through multiple classes (including Myers-Briggs, DISC, and some others) and find that it helps me to understand other people as well as myself.

For those who may not be as familiar, ENFP (“The Inspirer”) actually stands for Extroverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving. In essence, ENFPs are all over the map. Our interests are many and varied which I think helps us in being able to relate well to others because chances are there’s going to be some interest we have in common.

I think being a “people-person” predisposes me to interest in personality types and what they mean. Some shy away from personality tests because they prefer not to be “labeled” and that they’ve seen too many people use their personality types as an excuse for poor behavior.

Personally, I don’t find these to be valid reasons for personality test abstinence. A so-called “label” is whatever you make of it – just like stereotypes. For example, I’m blonde and while that may indeed subject me to some ridiculous stereotyping (”Why did the blonde get fired from the M&M factory?”), I’m not about to run out and dye my hair because of them. I also think that if someone is prone to making excuses for poor behavior, they’re not going to stop just because one of their excuses was taken away – they’ll just go out and find another one. But whatever.

I have been an ENFP my entire life…at least I suspect as much. I took my first Myers-Briggs test when I was about 12 as a result of my grandfather who used to insist that anyone entering the family take the test to see how their personality differed from their soon-to-be spouse (I think everyone came up as exact opposites which made me wonder if they hadn’t, would my grandfather have refused to let them marry?) Anyway, I came out an ENFP. I took the test again at 18, 22, 25, and 30. Each test still showed me as an ENFP, although I watched the scores for each letter grow over time so that rather than slowly becoming more “balanced” between each type indicator as some do, I actually became a stronger ENFP. Today I am a more-or-less textbook case – perhaps I should be studied.

Some of what you can learn about yourself can have you feeling pretty good (e.g. ENFPs are warm, enthusiastic people, typically very bright and full of potential.*) Other things you get to learn about are your weaknesses (e.g. ENFPs sometimes make serious errors in judgment. They have an amazing ability to intuitively perceive the truth about a person or situation, but when they apply judgment to their perception, they may jump to the wrong conclusions.*) Hm. Something to work on.

One thing I’ve learned is that, unlike most Extroverted types, my specific combination needs some alone time. This was a relief to discover this after recognizing my desire to sometimes say “no” to going out with people which I thought was supposedly contrary to how extroverts in general behaved. I have also found on vacations that my limit for spending non-stop time with others is roughly 9 days. For instance, on my Thailand sailing trip with 14 other people on 2 relatively small boats, I got up 9 days into the trip, grabbed my iPod, and sat on the bow of the boat for several hours alone that morning without speaking to anyone. I needed that time to get myself recharged and centered – it felt great.

However, I think that results from things like Myers-Briggs or DISC are pretty useless if you aren’t given the direction or tools to know what to do with the information once you have it. At Merrill Lynch, they employed psychologists who conducted team-building workshops which were great. There are other tools and coaches out there who use them to help you discern what career path (or new career) might be a good fit. This is one of the things I’ve used it for – to help give me ideas about where I might want to focus my attentions in the future.

Should I go back to school and become a brain surgeon, or should I consider getting a job at SeaWorld feeding the dolphins?  Perhaps I’ve missed my calling as a professional glassblower, or maybe I should go back to being a waitress.  Maybe I would really blossom in the paint-color naming department of Sherwin Williams, or do I stick with my current role as a Project Manager for the rest of my working life?

I actually think I will always be a project manager whether in my current capacity or not.  Life is full of “projects” (a.k.a. things we have to complete from start to finish) and since ENFPs get bored easily and therefore are generally not good at follow-through, being a project manager now I’m finding is a great help in training myself to finish something I start. That’s great, but the question still remains – What is around the next bend on my Yellow Brick Career Path?  If only I had a periscope to see.

So anyone else want to share their 4-letter code?  No stereotypes – I promise.

* All quotes referencing the ENFP MBTI® personality type are taken from the BSM Consulting website (http://www.personalitypage.com/ENFP.html)

Okay, first and foremost, I want it to be clear that I did NOT go to see this film because it was some sort of Christian movie.  In fact, I had no idea that it was until after it started, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Around 10 o’clock this morning, I got a call from my grandmother asking me if I’d like to go to the movies with her.  She said she never goes anymore, and that there was some new film out she wanted to see called Fireproof .  I agreed, of course (who among us could say “no” to their grandmother?) and looked up the times for the nearest theater on Fandango and we decided to catch an afternoon showing.

As for the film, Fandango didn’t have much to say about it, and I knew nothing.  Being a Dave Ramsey budgeter, I hardly ever go out to the movies anymore and then being a Tivo owner, I no longer watch commercials so had not seen any trailers.  So in essence, I was a totally blank slate going into this with no preconceived ideas or expectations of any kind.

The story centers around a firefighter named Caleb Holt (Kirk Cameron) and his wife, Catherine (Erin Bethea), whose marriage is on full-speed towards a divorce until Caleb’s father challenges him to hold-off on proceedings while he completes a 40-day “love dare.”  Caleb reluctantly agrees, but finds it increasingly difficult as his wife appears to slip further away as a doctor at the hospital where she works begins to vie for her affections.  Caleb presses on, however, encouraged by his father and a fellow firefighter and eventually the story meets its inevitable happy ending.  The film is supported by some good comic relief in parts, and a decent score as well.

My first thought was that the people on screen (with the exception of Kirk Cameron) really couldn’t act very well.  Then I started to see the major Christian references and quickly picked up on what kind of movie this was.  Suddenly my grandmother’s interest in this film made a lot more sense.

Great, I thought, I’ve just unknowingly signed up to watch some sort of weird, cheesy, God-flick.  Flashbacks of elementary school visits to “The Christian Cinema” in Ambler flooded over me coupled with the time I rented Left Behind (admittedly not one of my better movie choices).  I sighed inwardly and decided to just relax and see if I can’t at least enjoy some aspect of it.  At the very least, it would be kinda fun to see one of my favorite junior high crushes on the big screen for the first time since LIke Father, Like Son in 1987.

To my near-complete surprise, I found myself enjoying the film.  The acting which at first seemed contrived, actually got better as the movie progressed…or I just stopped noticing that it was poor (which is probably more likely).  I liked the characters with the exception of the doctor (whose only real contribution seemed to be that of the worst acting overall) but really found myself hoping for the happy ending.

Acting aside, my main criticism of the movie would be that it went on long after what I would have thought to be the natural end.  I understand what they were trying to communicate in that excess time, but really feel it was unnecessary.  The writers could’ve given the audience a little more credit to infer the rest themselves.

My other criticism isn’t so much specific to this movie in particular, but to these so-called “religious message” films as a whole.  I appreciate whole-heartedly what they are trying to accomplish – and indeed I would love to incorporate “The Love Dare” as part of my marriage (should I ever have one someday) but I just don’t understand why Christians feel the need to be so insanely blatant in their storytelling that they end up painting themselves into a niche corner and risk potentially turning off those they most are attempting to reach.

I’m not saying that as Christians we shouldn’t be upfront about Jesus and our faith in Him.  Not at all.  But I think that if people feel like they’re being preached to when they haven’t gone voluntarily into a church, we may not really have the impact we’re trying to.  However, if we were to just put down the Bible-shaped bat some use to beat the world over the head with and instead just show others Jesus by loving them right where they are, the results just might be surprising.

I don’t want to be too hard on Fireproof – I basically really liked it…it’s a sweet love story and I would recommended it for anyone who is in a relationship, ever has been in a relationship, or ever thinks that they may one day be in a relationship.  All I’m saying is that I think it may have drawn in a wider audience if they had spent a little more energy on character development and let the story of love, humility, sacrifice, service, forgiveness, and redemption speak for itself.  All of these things are amazingly attractive even without being framed within a full-out alter call because they are all attributes and side-effects of knowing and loving our God.  If we show the world these in our everyday lives – from the way we treat each other to the way we approach difficult situations – then we’re showing the world Jesus whether they recognize it or not, and then watch them come looking for more.

But maybe that’s just me, so take it with a grain of salt (or pepper, if you prefer), but Christian or not, I still would say go see this movie.  The story really does stand on its own; and the underlying message of love being a choice backed-up (and at times made possible) through action rather than simply feelings-based is a strong, solid one worth the time and money.

Just for fun, I’ll leave you with a link to what the New York TImes reviewer had to say about it – always good to get that objective third-partier’s 2 cents…

FIreproof: Putting Out Housefires, Reigniting Passions by Neil Genzlinger

Saturday was the day.  We were originally shooting for September 13th, but the weather had called for rain and so rather than risk it, we postponed a week.  Weather-wise, it was worth the wait.  We had a beautiful day – the kind where you want nothing more than to be outside, so what could be better than being outside while making a few bucks off your junk?

I was up at 5am, out the door by 5:30.  After a quick stop at Dunkin’ Donuts for a veritable jug of coffee and a dozen donuts, I made it to Shanna’s in time to start unloading the car and setting out the boxes and boxes of things I had managed to pull out of my attic and identify as unused, unwanted, and undeniably ugly…well, some of it anyway.
What I also found funny was how Es’s article really hit on what is so bizarre-yet-true about yard sales (and eBay, for that matter):  The things people will (and won’t) buy.  It makes no sense.  At all.  There were things I pulled out of my attic and stuck little pre-priced stickers on I thought would be snatched up within the first half-hour while other items I considered to be grotesque would surely sit as unwanted on the yard as they had in my attic.

Not so.

Instead, cute little candlesticks I picked up ages ago and have never used were barely glanced at while people were purchasing things I couldn’t imagine a possible use for outside of a gag-gift or cruel joke.  Among the hideous items were these repulsive ceramic cat figurines I used to adore as a child (okay, so I didn’t exactly have great taste at 7 – does anyone?)  Nor am I clear on why exactly I liked them at all.

To start with, I’m allergic to cats.  Strike one.  And these in particular looked like they had been crafted by people in China who may have never actually seen a cat.  Strike two.  Then adding insult in injury, they were painted with the most putrid shade of brown.  Strike three.

It definitely makes me wonder why anyone would have given them to me in the first place, not to mention why I’ve kept them so long after I came to my senses and stopped displaying them.  The best excuse I can come up with is that they had just been forgotten in their bubblewrapped existence packed away in the rafters with more of the same.

Still, thanks to someone else’s odd taste in collectibles, it was nice that all these years later these ugly cats actually managed to put a dollar in my pocket.  Collectively, my odd and unwanted items didn’t exactly bring me wealth, but a little over $80 which is more than they were giving me sitting in my attic.

I also did sell some good stuff that I hoped I would.  My giant, wire mesh drawer unit was hauled away for $5.  I also had someone offer me $15 for all of the CDs I had out.  The binoculars with a built-in digital camera which I had gotten from work walked away for $15.  And then of course there were things I had no intention of selling whatsoever that people still asked me about (”Hey, how much for the puppy?”)

Like Esther, sold or not, I refused to take anything home.  I wanted it ALL gone…even the cute little candlesticks.  So what remained ended up getting shuttled over to Good Will where I hope someone finds my candlesticks cute too and gives them a nice home.

As for the cats, considering how quickly they sold just off the yard, it does make one wonder if I could have made more off them on eBay, but I don’t really care.  After all, a bird in the hand, right?

So, how do you sell an ugly cat?  It’s not hard – if you set it out on your lawn, apparently it will draw buyers in all on its own with little-to-no effort.  Just be careful what else you set out there or you might end up accidentally selling your dog or kid…unless, of course, you want to.

Today I’d like to share a guest post from Deb. Deb lives in the Philadelphia suburbs, blogs at The Writer Bee and is part of The Well community. At the bottom of the post, I’ve linked to a few of my favorite posts she has shared on her blog. I hope you enjoy this as much as I have… Read the rest of this entry.

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” – Jeremiah 29:11

The saying that “hindsight is always 20/20” is an interesting one because people typically use it when referring to things they think they should have done like, “Oh, if I had only invested in Microsoft when it first went public…” However, I think it’s also something that applies at times to understanding God’s providence and protection of us.

Sometimes things happen and we have absolutely no clue as to why – for instance, you miss a plane and end up taking another flight, but unless the plane you were supposed to be on doesn’t go down in flames, there doesn’t seem to be any obvious reason as to why you missed that one particular flight. Other times, I think we’re shown reasons why something happens the way that it does – like God gives us a little peek into His plan and, while there may be thousands (or even millions) of reasons why something happens the way that it does, we are shown one or two of those reasons that perhaps impact only us.

I am having one of those moments.

This has so far been one of the craziest most historical weeks I have known since I started working in financial services. As the sub-prime mortgage market continues to wreak havoc on the industry, we are all watching the decimation of companies like Lehman Brothers while Merrill Lynch is consumed by Bank of America. AIG is next on the chopping block if someone doesn’t step in to save the day by helping them raise the capital they need to stay afloat. There’s something really sad about watching companies of 100+ years disappear…even sadder when you realize that it could have been avoided if not for the over-leveraging of debt. Hm…perhaps Dave Ramsey is right – perhaps too much debt and risk is not wise! I see “leverage” in reference to debt as fast becoming a dirty word in financial circles. For a taste of the impact this is having, consider that Merrill Lynch stock closed yesterday at $16.59. Lehman Brothers was at $0.18. Imagine if you worked there and your retirement account consisted of mostly company stock. Can you say, “Enron”? Scary, sad stuff.

That’s what’s happening now, but let me take you back to 2006…

Merrill was trading around $80. I had moved out of NYC to take another role with ML in Princeton in October 2005. I had been with the company for almost 10 years, but due to circumstances beyond my control, I ended up leaving the company. It was a tough decision – I had been with ML a long time and had a lot of connections and loyalty there, but after much thought and prayer, I knew it was the right thing to do. As a result of my changing companies, I transferred my 401(k) out of the company which forced me to sell the bulk of my stock holding and purchase mutual funds instead. In an effort to also have a stake in my new company, I sold about half of what little ML stock I had left and purchased shares of the new company (since this is a public post, I’m not going to say where I work now, but most of those reading this already know).

From where I stand now, I look back on the series of events that after a decade moved me away from Merrill Lynch only a year before things started to fall apart. Merrill began their write-down’s from the sub-prime fallout in late 2007 and has been struggling as a company ever since. There have been layoffs, salary freezes, and bonus cuts. It has not been an easy time over there – every time I go to look up one of my friends, I can never be sure whether they’re still employed.

By the end of 2007, Merrill was trading at $58. By August of this year, their stock was hovering in the $20’s. Meanwhile, because of the company change, I ended up getting out of almost all my Merrill holdings (which included about half of my 401(k)) at $84. Wow.

Again, I don’t want to go into details about my current company, but suffice it to say that we are standing strong. Even in this environment, we are hiring. Last year we saw raises and increased bonuses. We have stood out as one of the true industry leaders. We have been (and will continue to be from what I can tell) part of the solution and not the problem. Where my friends and colleagues from other firms are worried about their jobs, I have security I would have never imagined in an industry environment like this.

I could have never predicted this, but that’s where I see the hand of God. He knew that this was coming down the road. By moving me out of Merrill Lynch when He did He knew that I would be secured in a way I could have never foreseen or even imagined. I’m not at all trying to say that if I was still with Merrill that He wouldn’t have had a purpose in that – His sovereignty oversees all situations and circumstances – but the fact is that He didn’t leave me there.

I also find that these moments where I get to see 20/20 increases my ability to trust Him through the times where things might not turn out so obviously well. I praise Him when they do (e.g. saving me from Merrill), but also when they don’t (e.g. still single at 34 – what the heck?). I guess you could say it all helps keep things in perspective.

So when I find myself in a situation that doesn’t make sense or that seems like the world is crashing down around me, I can pull from what I know to be true about God and His love and rest in the fact that His ultimate purpose and plan for me will not “leave me out to dry” eternally. He will come through (Rom. 8:28). He is always there (Matt. 28:20). He loves us beyond measure (John 3:16). What more could you ask for?

God rocks.

Laughing to myself, I instructed Tivo to play “The Final Goodbye” and found myself sucked into watching an hour of Kelly, Donna, Brandon, David, Dylan, Andrea, and others reminisce about the show which ended in 2000 after a 10-year run.

“Beverly Hills, 90210” was a show of the 90’s – a decade which served partially as a transition from the big hair, neon clothing, and leggings of the 80’s to the more sophisticated less concerning styles of the new millennium, but it was also the decade where my friends and I more or less grew from teenagers into adults and 90210 was the show that grew with us.

We were technically a year older than the 90210 class who graduated in 1993, while we all threw our caps in 1992. But for all intents and purposes, we went through high school, college, and even a chunk of our 20s with that show. Most of my friends and I were at least 24 when it finally had its last curtain call.

One of the things I loved about the show was that it had been a constant for me through a lot of change. During the 90210 decade, I had graduated from high school, moved to Tennessee, Alaska, and Manhattan. No matter where I was, dealing with the adjustment and change was always a little easier when I knew that I could see some familiar faces every Wednesday night. Sounds crazy I suppose, but when you’re surrounded by change, the littlest (and strangest) things can sometimes serve to help make you feel more at home. The show actually ended only a couple of months before my move to England so it came at a good time since I wouldn’t have been able to watch any current episodes had there even been any.

After the college days, there had begun an email list comprised of 90210 addicts. Most of whom had been classmates of Esther’s at Wheaton, but some were my friends as well. For those of you who remember, Wednesday was 90210 night so first thing Thursday morning, someone would get the ball rolling and we would bat around emails between us discussing what we thought of Donna’s latest hairstyle, Kelly’s newest boyfriend, or whatever the current love triangle was involving Dylan. It was frivolous. It was silly. And it was fun.

Feeling particularly nostalgic after watching the “Goodbye” special, I decided to pull out the Outlook archives and see what (if any) emails I might have kept from that era. I was shocked to find a number of them and thought I’d share a bit.

Just to give an example, below is a portion of a letter I sent dated 22 Sept 1995 where I commented on some 90210 observations that Es had first made about the 1995 season premier (I guess that would have been Season 5, right?). Even if you didn’t watch the show, or did but can’t remember all of the storylines, this is something of an amusing read anyway…

Okay, I have some observations on your observations of 90210:
1. I don’t like Kelly’s hair either.
2. Donna’s I do.
3. I hate the pumpkin-smashing Ray. He looks like some sort of rodent. He needs to pluck his eyebrows and get bigger eyes. He always looks like he’s staring at the sun.
4. The plane scene was a complete and total “When A Man Loves A Woman” take off!
5. Kelly’s guy: Potential jerk and what’s with his haircut?
6. Never too much of Donna’s mid-drift can be shown, it seems.
7. Claire’s hair: Definite 80’s style anyway but at least the stupid little barrette thing is over.
8. No concert I’ve ever been to has served dinner up front….then again, I’ve never been to an elevator music concert, so I wouldn’t know.
9. What I want to know is will they change the opening credits when Dylan leaves? (He won’t die.)
10. Jim and Cindy are clueless and really far away.

Hey, I also have a theory. I think that someone on the writing staff at 90210 is prejudiced against the East Coast. Valerie’s from New York and she’s a total bitch. Kelly’s new guy, Colin, also from New York and he’s turning out to be a jerk… I think I may be onto something here.

The show ran its series finale on 17 May 2000. We had one final round of emails on the following Thursday morning, but the one in particular I wanted to throw out there was from about a month before the end. If I remember correctly, I think we had only recently heard that this was going to be the last season of 90210…ever. The following is what Es sent around to the lot:

From: Esther Baird
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 10:41 AM
Subject: issues

Ok – I am just going to be very sad when it’s all over. I know it’s so cheesy but when they do those “How do you say goodbye” little blurbs during the 90201 commercials I get all choked up. I am just DYING for Kelly and Dylan to get together and David and Donna. I can’t wait. But I can’t believe it will be over soon. I loved all of Donna and Camille’s little backless tops. I want one this summer!

Also watched PO5 -which I’ve not been as into – but it’ll be sad to see them go too and there’s only two left of those.

On the 90210 front, I have NEVER liked Matt.  Sigh – I can’t let go because it’s such a tangible connection to our fun-filled easy care-free days.

What if 10 years from now they do a 90210 reunion and show everyone at age 35. Ha ha ha. We’ll be like our parents when they do those Cagney and Lacey or Mary and Rhoda reunions.

Well, we’re not quite at 10 years yet, but it has been over 8…and while the characters from 90210 would all be only 33 at this point, we are teetering on the edge of 35.  So with the next generation of 90210 about to air its first episode next month featuring some of the original cast (including Brenda, if you can believe that!), I think Esther’s email begs the question… IS this like Cagney & Lacy trying to make a comeback after a Rip Van Wrinkle-like slumber? Are the shows we watched growing up (and us by extension) really as old, pathetic, and archaic as those weird 70’s show reunions seemed to us?

Please say it isn’t so!

“And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”  Abraham Lincoln

A new friend of mine from The Well wrote a post today that resonated with me and, as I started to just type out a comment on her blog, I realized I had more to say than one probably should cram in that tiny comment box. Not pages and pages of thoughts, but certainly enough to warrant their own post, so here they are in all their semi-disjointed glory.

I’m not going to summarize all of Dorie’s post (you can read it yourself if you want), but in essence I think she’s been facing some tough questions as a result of watching her grandfather’s recent physical struggles. Since my grandfather just passed away a couple of years ago, I can certainly relate to where she’s coming from on that point. Additionally, I know that the passing of time and growing old in general has been something that has both thrilled and frightened me. Still does.

At the end of her post, Dorie says:

“So now I’m left with questions. How do I live my life? Do I need to change the way I live now in order to ensure my own happiness sixty years from now? Will the decisions I make today impact my ability to die with dignity?”

Wow. Talk about some really good, but really hard questions. I think we all go through times when we wonder what our lives will look like in hindsight from down the road as much as we wonder exactly what’s down that road. Anyone who says they haven’t thought through one or both of these questions is most likely in some form or stage of denial. For me, it’s been a persistent part of the “Who Am I Anyway?” essay I’ve been spent the last 34 years of my life writing…with more many more years to go.

In my senior high school yearbook, we had profiles we wrote for ourselves that I suppose was sort of a precursor to the resume. In it we could list out our accomplishments and memories over our high school “careers”. One section called for us to tell of our “Future Plans”.  This is what was listed in mine:

College, marriage, happiness, heaven.

I smile when I read that now and wonder what the 18-year-old me would have thought had someone come and told her that her so-called future plans were not going to go the way she anticipated or land her where she’d thought. Not even close. Instead, she would attend some college, live in Alaska, England, New York City and travel the world over. She would make a lot of mistakes, have a lot of heartache, but a lot of laughter too. She would date, but not marry [yet] and, finding herself still single at 34, would be okay because of the wealth of friendships she had been able to acquire through the years.

Dorie also says that she hopes she’ll “keep growing and changing well into retirement. I would hope that I would continue to do one thing that terrifies me each day until I die.” I know I would hope the same for myself, but I’ve also found that the older I get, the more cautious I’ve become. This is not to say that I wouldn’t still do things that scare me, but I’m definitely losing that total fearlessness that I think is only accompanies youth or great naivete. Some fear I think is healthy – it can keep us from making poor choices, as long as it doesn’t become so crippling as to keep us from pursuing our dreams.

CS Lewis says,

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.”

Amen to that!  If nothing else, I have learned not to try and predict my life or where I may go and what things I may do.  Staying open to possibilities and opportunities has been (and will continue to be) an essential part of what makes me me.  I doubt I’ll ever be so old that I’ll not be willing to take on a little risk in order to try out something new.  Keeping in mind that the hardest things I’ve done or been through in my life so far have also led to the best experiences or the greatest times of growth.

All this is to say I don’t have the answers to Dorie’s questions – I think there’s only One who does – but what I can say is that I find the most comfort in focusing on the eternal as opposed to just the here and now. That’s the perspective I try to view my own life and circumstances in, and I hope to continue to remind myself of this as I grow older and watch my physical body cave against the push of time, taking on wrinkles, gray hair, and God-knows what else.

Since we are so limited in our vision – so nearsighted – we tend to just look at the present. It’s when the present is weighing us down that we need to stop, lift our eyes up and center our attention on the One whose hands are always holding us. He is the only thing unwavering in this sea of life which is ever-changing and unpredictable. For myself, I find I need daily reminding of this. And, since this is a lot easier said than done, continuous reminders are certainly necessary… If repetition is the mother of habit, then the more I do something, the more second nature it will hopefully become.

Now I’ve rambled quite enough, so let me end by saying that keeping perspective is the key for me when times get hard and I feel like I’ve been struck by a sandstorm while wandering in the desert. That is when I most need to (but often least want to) focus my attention on God, His big picture (even when I can’t see it). When I do this, I find the easier it is to keep everything else in perspective – including the passing of time and all of the good and fun and difficult and sad things that it brings.

So if I were asked to write that “Future Plans” section for a yearbook today, would I even dare attempt it?

Anyhow, I’ve had a lot bits floating around in my head from the day and thought I’d spending a few minutes trying to get it out on paper (or glowing monitor, as the case may be) might help me finish sorting through them.

Those of you who know me are well aware of how keen on building community I am. I think this may be one of the reasons I’m drawn so much to the PNW where the culture is much more about the outdoors and with people around town…not in lock-down at home in front of the TV or the computer.

Some of this started with my time at Redeemer where being community-minded is a way of life. Redeemer is also where I really began to see, not only the importance of community, but the biblical basis for it as well and how, as Christians, we are not only called into community with each other, but called to serve the community around us, Christian or not.

In the city it’s one thing. In suburbia this is a whole ‘nother ballgame. In fact, I’m starting to feel that it isn’t just another ballgame, it’s another sport altogether…like croquet, or synchronized swimming. And as important as it is to build and reach out to one’s community within the city (which is certainly no easy task), it is just as important to do the same in suburbia…but I think suburbia is a more difficult landscape. Allow me to explain.

Now I should probably preface my comments on this matter by saying that I look through the colored lenses of a single adult in her mid-30s, so I probably see the suburban landscape a little differently than someone who is living the typical married-with-2.3-kids-and-a-dog suburban soccer mom life (although I do have a dog). But I think that my vantage point is therefore somewhat unique.

To start with, suburbia is incredibly insular. By comparison, New York City can also be insular, but I think a greater opportunity exists to interact with one’s community in NYC. For instance, if I needed to go to the store in Manhattan, I would go down the stairs of my 3rd-floor walk-up on East 88th Street and take a stroll over one block and down to 86th to reach the nearest grocery store. While on that walk, I might run into people I knew (that happened more frequently than you’d think), but I would at least be in the company of others walking, some of whom I might even say hi to or ask a question of. A run to the grocery store now means I leave my house, close myself up in my car, drive 2.5 miles to the nearest grocery store. Assuming I manage to avoid getting into a car accident, a trip to the store now involves absolutely zero human contact.

In the city I felt I did more talking, more relationship building, and definitely more walking. My apartment was a shoebox, so I didn’t typically spend a whole lot of time there. Sundays meant walking to church, going out to dinner afterward with friends, and then walking home with some of them because we all lived within a few blocks of each other. Hello community.

Here in suburbia it often feels to me like so much is done in a vacuum. Public transportation is severely lacking and there are seemingly no sidewalks in Bucks County, so everyone is driving to work, driving to the store, staying in the house because it’s hot out, or staying in the house because it’s cold out. Getting together with others seems to take greater effort and more planning… Mostly I think that stems from those with children which only makes sense – I’m typically able to do last minute things, but I’m not concerned with shuttling little ones to piano lessons or getting people dinner.

But I think that this just makes community that much more necessary…not to mention needed. I once heard someone speculate that they believe one of reasons we’ve seen such an increase in depression with women over the last 50 years was partly due to the lack of community they (or I should say we) experience even just with each other. Women tend by nature to be more relational than men and are in need of relationships with other women. 50+ years ago, there was more of that going on – women lived and raised their children together. They had bridge clubs, quilting bees, and other ways of interacting. There’s still some of that alive and well today – seems that playdates are a big thing for stay-at-home mom’s with small children – but there certainly isn’t as much as there once was and the mental and emotional health of our communities certainly suffer as a result.

As a single adult in these crazy ‘burbs, I have come to recognize my need for community on a larger scale. Without it, life becomes very lonely very quickly. This was even a recurring theme in some of my commentary-like posts last year (Laments of a Suburban Single, Home Bittersweet Home, and Smug Marrieds). I think my understanding of my personal need for community is partly because I was “spoiled” by the community I had in NYC (if any of my New York buds are reading this, know that I really miss you guys!) which has served to show me just how important and valuable community is to my emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

It’s odd, really… As connected as we all are today with the Internet, laptops, wireless, and iPhones, these great strides of technology have also served to further enable isolation. Al told us today of a guy who changed his name legally to “Dot Com Guy” and didn’t leave his house for an entire year living solely off the Internet to pay his bills, get his groceries delivered, etc. just to prove that he could do it. How insane is that? As much as I enjoy the Internet, I don’t believe that there is any online community that can ever replace the joy of having good friends over for dinner. Not on your life.

After a day like this, I of course get fired up and want to just run out an cancel my cell phone, shut off my cable, start up a bridge club, and begin hanging out on my front porch, but I know that we can’t really run back to the 1950’s because, well, it would only really work if everyone else did it too. It was like that in NYC during the blackout of 2003 – the lights went out as did the air conditioning, Internet, TV, everything. Suddenly everyone was outside. Whole blocks were having parties because the food in their fridge wouldn’t keep, so they put it out for everyone to eat. What a unique experience, but unfortunately it only lasted a short time. So apparently we can’t bring back the 1950’s for good (not that we would want to – personally I think Wally & The Beav can stay happily in Mayberry or wherever it was they lived). But there must also be practical ways to begin reaching out to our communities in 2008.

I don’t really have the answers, so I hope you didn’t read through this whole post looking for some! I do have some ideas, but I’m still working them through so I won’t share them quite yet.

One thing I will say is I think first we have to commit to being purposeful with our interactions and look for ways to serve our communities. This is much easier said than done, but I think when we seek out opportunities and then also act on them, we are first of all showing others Jesus by loving and caring for them. I can’t think of a better way to grow and build a community than that.

Anyhow, so I picked up on from the library that I’ve heard him talk about quite a bit on the radio and even heard him mention it during my most recent FPU class – 48 Days To The Work You Love by Dan Miller. Now I’m not at all thinking of changing careers or even jobs in the next 48 days, but In trying to think more long-term, I do want to begin evaluating where I really want to be, what I really want to do, and how to ultimately get there.

So as I work through this book, there are questions at the end of each chapter. I thought what I might do is try to answer them here and would welcome feedback and input – especially from my close friends & family – as to whether or not I’m on the right track. Naturally I value the opinion of those who know me best in this since there’s a forest full of trees and I may not see all of them when looking at myself.

That said, here are the first chapter’s questions and my answers:

1. Who gave you your first job? What kind of job was it? How much money did you make?
I think my first job was probably a babysitting job, but as for a “real” job, I did have a job working the summer of my freshman year in high school for a family who sold and shipped Amway products. I had to open the store, take in orders and do inventory, ship the incoming orders out, and keep records of everything. I was largely on my own – the family hardly ever checked on me, so I had the place to myself and just had to complete the work I was asked. I don’t remember how much I got paid, but I remember enjoying the responsibility and self-management it provided.

2. From looking at your work life so far, what as been of the greatest value or worth?
I think I’d have to say the broad range of experiences and types of work it has provided me.

3. If your job changes, does your purpose change?
I might answer that differently if I felt I truly knew what my purpose is, but that’s a question I’m really struggling with right now, so I’m not sure. I guess I’d say that no, my purpose wouldn’t change because, even once I identify what that purpose is, I don’t believe a job change would (or should) impact that.

4. Do you think your current job will exist five years form now?
Definitely.

5. What would be the key characteristics of an ideal job or career?
Fun, adventure, ability to define ones own path, self-management, no glass ceiling, personal fulfillment.

6. When you daydream, what do you see yourself doing?
Running my own business and traveling as often as possible. As far as what that business is that I see myself running, it honestly changes with almost every daydream, but I do have a basic pool I pick from that I could see myself doing.

7. What have been the happiest, most fulfilling moments in your life?
Moments when I feel I managed something of great worth or personal growth. Moving to Alaska (and surviving), for example. Living overseas. Each step up in my career path so far. Purchasing my first home. Completing personal projects (home renovations, DAR application and approval, etc.)

8. If nothing changed in your life in the next 5 years, would that be OK?
Absolutely not. If nothing else, I know I need change in my life. I know a lot of people are scared of it, but I find I tend to thrive on it – even when it brings stress. So, if I was told that nothing in my life would change for the next 5 years, I think I would feel some life drain out of me.

Let me explain.

Last September I was visiting a friend out of town and, while waiting for her in some doctor’s office lobby, I had picked up a health magazine and had started reading a fascinating article on the benefits being found in dairy products from grass-fed cows. You mean organic? No, grass-fed. And yes, there is a difference.

In brief, cows that are raised on pure-pasture diets (read: absolutely no grain or horomones – in other words, the way God intended) create much less milk than the average giant corporate dairy farm cow, but everything coming out of what the grass-fed cow produces (cheese, milk, butter, and yogurt) is far healthier. Grass-fed dairy products contain more beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E for starters. They also have less fat, fewer calories, more balanced output of Omega 3 and Omega 6 fatty acids, and carry as much as 500% more CLA than grain-fed cow products.

CLA stands for Conjugated Linoleic Acid which, studies are showing, may lower the risk of cancer as well as heart disease. And if that isn’t enough, they’re also finding it helps reduce body fat. Most of the references out there are highlighting the weight-loss benefits – let’s face it, there’s big money in peddling products to help burn fat – but I think the other two far outweigh.

Tack onto all of this that to support the grass-fed dairy industry is to support sustainable farming which, in our green-conscious society, makes for a nice side benefit.

Okay, so back to my story about the amazing milk that I started off this longer-than-intended post…

So I read this article and immediately set out to see what I could find out about possible grass-fed dairy products in my area. Naturally there are no products on the shelves in the grocery stores, so I started looking for dairy farms. I live in Bucks County, after all – there must be a dairy farm still in existence around here.

Sure enough, I found one. Birchwood Farm Dairy is located in Newtown not 15 minutes from my house and they supply a full-range of grass-fed products from their Jersey cows which munch happily on the pastures covering the farm. Thrilled, I headed over there to buy some milk only to discover that I had to be put on a waiting list! On one hand, I thought this is great because it shows that their supply isn’t as great as their demand and high-demand is a good thing. On the other hand, I wanted some milk.

Instead, I went on the waiting list.

My waiting ended last week when I got a call from the farm saying that they could move me onto their pick-up list if I was still interested. Yay!

So last Saturday I went over to pick up my first gallon of insanely fresh, grass-fed milk. Let me tell you – this milk is the most incredible milk I have ever tasted. It’s almost sweet and dessert-like…and yellow! Yeah, apparently milk isn’t supposed to be that pure white color we’ve all gotten used to. Who knew that cows raised on genetically engineered corn and dried hay would produce milk that’s less nutritious, less tasty, and then also be the wrong color?

Anyway, I can’t say enough good things about this milk. It’s a little more expensive, but man, is it worth it. And of course it’s just me, so it’s not like I go through milk that quickly – a gallon will likely last me a good 2 weeks so I’m set for a twice-a-month pick-up. Incidentally, I also tried some of their cheese. Double-yum.

A quick word of advice – if like most of America, milk is a staple in your fridge, check out Eat Wild – their site is filled with interested facts about grass-fed products as well as a directory of farms by state. If there’s one near you, go check it out. You’ll be doing your health, the environment, and a local business good.