i am moving... again.

i started a new blog based around cooking and my adventures in learning not to ruin everything i touch when it comes to food!

you can find me here at Mix This Get That

:) In case anyone reads this and is curious!

Monday morning

Monday morning, originally uploaded by SparrowEmily.

a weekend of exploring. future homes, towns, schools. sleeping at our parents' houses. waking up to the geese and tons of fog. sometimes it really is that simple.

Tonight was the first night you could really feel it~ the little chill in the air. I was sick, so I curled the red blanket around my shoulders and read some homework on the veranda as the sun set. It even smelled a bit like fall.

not much time going on here today, but i need to say something, don't i?

going for no caps too~ just kinda feeling it today....

school started yesterday. i have spent the last week being self-righteous to people who got completely freak~out stressed at the start of the semester. i thought "i am so into school. i never get stressed at the start of it, i get excited. it must be that they aren't really cut out for school." (i should note this self~righteousness is a common theme lately... and let's just say that book I was talking about explains it all--- shame and perfectionism lead to judgement and expectations and people fall short {i fall short} and then i get more self-righteous and judgmental. so attractive, isn't it?) ANYWAY, guess who was that girl getting all freaked out on the first day of school yesterday? this girl! i have an independent study assignment carrying over from the summer on a book i read three months ago (and have since read at least a dozen books) that has me off the deep end. i have an english course that makes no sense to me, reading a book that makes no sense to me, with classmates that make no sense to me. i have a statistics class that in itself isn't stressful, but it is full of first and second year students. this means a lot of going over things i already know and reviewing things i already understand.

today i start my syntax, semantics, and style course which is supposed to be my fun one. wish me luck!

it is official: school has swallowed my life already.

I have been sitting, processing, dealing a lot lately with my issues of competition, possession, shame, and perfection. I am not quite ready to write about any of it in detail as I just started processing it all, but I am seeing more and more that somewhere along the line I was taught or learned that I had to be the best, I had to stand out, I had to be perfect. I don't remember ever being fed this idea, in fact, my parents raised me with nothing but unconditional love and support. I am digging back to try to see where this may have been planted to no avail. I am however, more clearly seeing the way it plays out in my life today. I can more clearly see the pain it causes not only for myself for but other people as well. I know I am not alone in these beliefs, but it is so rare that anyone ever discusses it that I can't help but feel a little alone in the feelings. I am seeing people that are learning to stand up and say "you are expecting too much from me" or "that is more than I can feasibly do right now." I am seeking them out and I am finding a bit of comfort there.

Really the whole point of all this was to say that my friend Andrea has gotten me so into this book, I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't) and it is INCREDIBLE.

Fall

Just a quick note to share this post over at curious bird....

I am so into fall. SO INTO IT. Kyle and I generally think October is the best month (it is Kyle's FAVORITE month as he so often reminds me). I think if you could have a power season, ours would be fall. There is such an energy to it all. The calming down of summer frenzy heat and build up to winter hibernation. The smell might be the best part~ the ciders, pumpkin, apple, spicy smells. OH, and the cooking... did I mention that my favorite things to cook are pumpkin? Pumpkin soup, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake, pumpkin bread.... Apple too~ Jewish apple cake, apple pie, apple crisp. It is so exciting to think about. The start of school gives me this feeling too. Unlike most people, the general overwhelm of starting school again doesn't get to me. I get excited and have such trouble keeping still with all the energy of preparing the semester. I plan for papers and projects and let autumn cover me whole- when I can come home from class, bake a little, curl up with a big cozy blanket and do homework. It is all too much~ too exciting.

Mondo Beyondo

As I mentioned in my last post, I am taking an online course from my dear, amazing, beautiful friend Andrea called MONDO BEYONDO. So of course, one of the first assignments was to create our own mondo beyondo lists. Rather than explain it here, you can read about what this list is on Andrea's blog here.
So, here it is.... my list, in no particular order:
- go to Paris
- live in Italy
- be happily, healthily married
-build my own home
-have a career i love in education reform
-teach!
-live in Hawaii
-learn to surf... well.
-live by the sea
-create something that moves people
-travel the world studying education policy and find a system that works for everyone!
-PhD
-let go of jealousy
-learn to REALLY cook
-be a fearless mother
-have an open, healthy relationship with Kati (my sister)
-speak French (more than I do)
-take responsibility for myself, dont always put it on others
-work in display at Anthropologie
-learn to chop firewood, mow the lawn, self-sufficiency things
-be more kind in answering my phone
-control my shopping
-stop judging
-know flower names
-know birds/ bird calls
-TRIBE... a real true one!
-have my own studio
-have a library in my house with a sliding ladder
-make dresses
-be kind and giving but give to myself FIRST
-share myself fully, genuinely, openly
-write a book (did i really write that? yep. i did!)
-show my art/photography
-live/work space (work from home with travel)
-be able to travel (ie: without getting sick or freaking out)
-financial freedom
-beach house!
-house on European coast (preferably on the Mediterranean)
-compassion for others
-fresh cut flowers at all times
-dog
-learn letterpress printing
-write/work for a magazine
-vermont, for a time...
-learn to ski/snowboard
-know more history
-my blue bathroom
-learn to really garden
-create a real HOME~



so that's it right now. i didn't number because that is overwhelming. and a lot of these things are more "to-do-before-i-die" things. some are more mondo beyondo than others, but all of them are true and rich....
:)

Good morning world! I just spent nearly a half hour typing a blog entry that I tossed out. And another fifteen writing a second that I scratched. It was real, genuine, true, messy.... Perhaps too much so. I am struggling deciding how personal to get on here. People are actually starting to read it and I don't want to create drama. I don't want to write things that certain people will see and I find myself censoring to the extreme just in case. I am feeling my way through and learning what is enough and what is too much. I will get there eventually.

For today though, I want to say that the sun came up beautifully on the side of the building in front of it. I am getting ready to go write my mondo beydondo list for andrea's online course. I am going to make some tea and really let it go. I am needing to spill a bit.
I wish the same for you~ a litlte bit of honest spilling.... It is so necessary sometimes.