captain vegetable

Hubby is good at challenging me. In fact, it's one of the things he does best. Not merely challenging, but actually succeeding in changing my mind about something. My mother tried for years with very little payoff. Sorry, mom.

My mother now observes Andrew challenge me on THE EXACT SAME ISSUES as she has since I was in grade school - and get away with it - with a mix of delight and chagrin. I suspect it has something to do with his extreme hotness.

The latest has been regarding vegetables. We all know we should eat more, they're good for us, too much meat is bad, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, but it's been an uphill battle of convincing me since I consider myself to have carnivorousness (it's a word! I looked it up!) in common with our pets.

He explained to me the Hallelujah diet (it's OK to snicker):

The diet in its current form focuses on health and nutrition from a biblical standpoint. It follows vegan principles and consists of living (raw) foods, juices, and distilled remineralized water. A daily ratio of 85% raw and 15% cooked foods is followed.

Which neither of us are keen on following in its entirety, but it reminded Andrew of this scripture in Numbers:

The LORD heard you when you wailed, "If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!" Now the LORD will give you meat, and you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month—until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it—because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, "Why did we ever leave Egypt?"

Hopefully he'll post more about this because it's interesting to hear the revelation that unfolded, re: nutrition in a desert climate, how meat would have tampered with digestion, and how God wasn't so much cursing the Israelites as much as informing them of the consequence of their demands.

Today, when packing my lunch for work, I added two grapefruits, four yogurts, and an apple. They should go down nicely with my chicken and rice. On a related note, I've had this song in my head since last night's discussion:

white hot

I'm not about to turn my blog into a fashion commentary as well as a place for theological, biological, marital, and poetic analysis. I just thought I'd post some pretty pictures.

My brother accused me of just liking "new, pretty, white" things. It's true. Andrew can verify. When we go shopping, I must have him forcibly steer me away from any collections of white. White shirts, dresses, scarfs, shoes.

The Sartorialist posted some delicious shots of white worn on Governors Island in NYC. Like Scott, I am prone to notice white against lush, green backgrounds. Although white is synonymous with winter, I've always matched it with the heat of the spring/summer season. I'm convinced it sprung from childhood.

Anne introduced me to the White Way of Delight...
...and the white dress she wore to recite The Highwayman at the White Sands hotel...
...I remember snowball trees behind Bendale Bible Chapel...
...and feeding swans at Ontario Place...
...the DON'T PICK THOSE, IT'S ILLEGAL trilliums at the cottage...
...and, growing up, some of my favourite pieces of white...

midwives, doulas and water births

Mom, mom-in-law, spiritual mothers, eager friends/babysitters, brothers from other mothers, and sistas from other mistas:

NO, I AM NOT PREGNANT.

I am, however, interested in writing a post about birth. Speculation being what it is, I felt it necessary to preface this post with the above disclaimer. [pause for open-mouthed looks of incredulity and feigned exclamations of: "Who, me? Oh no, I wouldn't have assumed..."] Of course not. Not you.

I've been following two blogs recently, a daddy blog and a mommy blog. Before you Google either term, I'll warn you: most of these blogs are dump sites of tawdry drivel from parents who firmly believe the sun rises and sets on their precious spawn. NOT SO with Ryan's blog or Heather's blog. Disclaimer #2: The colourful language used by both authors might not be suitable for persons under 16. The colourful detailing of pregnancy, birth, and lady bits might not be suitable for anyone unmarried, unpregnant or ever wanting to have kids. Ever.

A post on Heather's blog and a morning spent navigating the labyrinthine pages of Wiki, and I became somewhat familiar with the terms "membrane sweep", "cervical check", "cerclage", and "effacement". I leave out links to these terms on purpose. Google image search with MUCH caution.

Since hubby and I have opted to go the road less traveled in terms of birth control, in favour of my healthy, natural hormonal functions, it's now no surprise to see how well I'm taking to the idea of a healthier, more natural method of childbirth. My favourite, so far, has been the water birth option. It could my my extreme love of swimming or the memory of the vivid illustrations from The Water-Babies that I read when I was younger, but I'm smitten. BIRTH IN A POOL? EPIC WIN.

I have a friend who is a midwife, another who is training to be a doula, and Andrew's mom works at an OBGYN office and I plan on questioning them all to PIECES once I really get on this baby train, in the same way I researched the heck out of something as supposedly second-nature as lovemaking and birth control. Anyone out there with advice or anecdotes about birth? My nerd instincts are kicking in and I'm feeling the urge to read medical terms.

Good thing I married someone who's idea of pillow talk is whispering sweet grammar in my ear. Two peas in a pod, we are.

nostalgia

I've officially survived 29 years. That means I'm technically into my 30th year now, but I'm OK to wait for the official OMIGOSH, I'M NOT IN MY TWENTIES ANYMORE moment to hit in 364 days, thankyouverymuch.

In this photo I am the awkwardly prepubescent age of 12. My family went on an outreach to Panama for a month when I was in sixth grade. That's a wild iguana. The face on my brother, Simeon, who was 7 years old at the time, had never been made before and I have never seen him make it since. It's the I DON'T TRUST YOU, IGUANA face*. I also love how we match. I'm sure it was unintentional because, no, my parents weren't the type to dress us the same. But there might have been a sale on yellow cotton garments at the Tigerbrand in Cambridge, Ontario that year.

Some things haven't changed in 17 years.

• I still love sundresses. I'm wearing one now.
• I still love yellow. I'm wearing a yellow cardigan now.
• I still love travel. The heat, the food, the sleeping arrangements and the bugs didn't bother me even at this squeamish preteen stage.
  
• I would still be more concerned about beaming at a camera than a reptile a few inches from my face.
• I still don't know why I wear a bra.

Most of the girls on the team that my parents were leading (late teens and 20s) couldn't stand the thought/sight/knowledge of the huge insects we routinely shared living space with. Granted, some of the beetles were the size of my hand. And could fly. But the day that we found this iguana showed me something: the size of our fears shouldn't matter. Here was a 3 foot iguana, from nose to tail (which was small in comparison to most of the other, unreachable, ones we spotted lounging in coconut trees), and it froze when handled. IT, God said, was scared of ME.

Over the past week, I've been reminded about how strange and silly it is for us to fear. It paralyzes us, makes fools of us, routinely upsets our plans to move forward in life. Fear is the opposite of love, and my God is MADE of love. He cannot exist UNLESS he is love. And he's conspiring IN MY FAVOUR. "So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?"

* Although it did bear an uncanny resemblance to his I DON'T TRUST YOU, ANDREW face, when Andrew and I first started dating.

"Light, space, zest— that's God!
So, with him on my side I'm fearless,
afraid of no one and nothing."
(Psalm 27:1, The Message)

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.”
- Yoda

as good as it gets

**Spoiler alert!***

[Marriage is a lot of work. It requires a phenomenal quantities of prayer, work, time, effort, selflessness, and more prayer to be the spouse that makes your spouse be the best they can be. Enviable marriages do not fall out of cereal boxes.]

One year down, and on to the next! Andrew and I crossed the milestone in the comfort of the 4-star Montréal Hilton (the 'Ilton) Bonaventure downtown. We spent our elongated weekend traipsing from restaurant to restaurant, aimlessly strolling in and out of shops "with no particular destination in mind". The weather lingered in the mid-20s, didn't rain, and provided a breeze enough to prevent us exerting ourselves in any way. Bliss.

More blissfull still was spending time with La. We did all the things that give us a particular sense of joy, including a few hours of Arthur Burk's audio teaching on financial curses, playing "Would You Rather"*, picnicking, watching multiple episodes of Heroes and SNL, dreaming about the future, and people watching.

It's a long way from that first spring when things started to bloom, but it feels similar. I could spend a lifetime learning more about him and there would still be more to learn.

He's easily the hottest man I know, he's my best friend, he's the continuity my life had been missing, and he's still the best thing to wake up to in the morning.


* a variation of the game "Which Is Worse" popularized by the film So I Married An Axe Murderer:

Harriet: "What's worse?  You go to your favourite
restaurant order your favourite meal, take a bite and
under the steak is a scabby Band-Aid.  Or...."
Susan: "Or being electrocuted.
Tony: "And?"
Susan: "That's it. I was electrocuted once. It was horrible."

the truth about cats and dogs

We recently had, as Kate Graham aptly put it, twins. An eight week old chocolate lab named Solomon:

and an eight week old tabby named Oberon:

Yes, that means that one is the king of wisdom and the other is the king of shadows and fairies. On purpose.

They're both pretty much the cutest and best behaved pets in the world (considering their eight week long state of existence) and they provide much more entertainment than cable. I've noticed certain similarities between them and their caregivers, namely, Andrew and me.

1. They both can fall asleep in a room filled with people. Like me. (although Oberon seems to wake up easily and be fully alert, like Andrew, and Solomon takes a while to operate basic movements once "awake", like me)
   
2. They act cranky if they're hungry. Like Andrew.
3. Oberon is a fan of provoking Solomon and gleefully staying out of reach. Like me.
   
4. They have green eyes. Like Andrew.
   
5. They want to be in the middle of the action. Like both of us.

the way we were

Recently my old Hotmail account was hacked and The Spaminator sent a grammatically errored message to everyone I've known since I was eighteen (my husband fault's my easy-to-figure-out passwords: "A computer figured it out."). While using my crack skills to change my password to another noun I disovered my old MSN profile, including this saavy shot:

and this telling profile:
Things I enjoy about this discovery:

• I look goth. I was, in fact, never a goth.
  
• The photo taken at the Oakvillian home of my university friend, Nik, probably in 2001. Back in the age of land lines.
  
• I owned leather pants. I remember submitting this picture to "Hot or Not" around the same time, and a separate photo of a close-up of my face, as a social experiment. The leather pants scored supremely "hotter" even though my face is barely visible. What that thin shine will do to boys...
• I just remembered what inspired the purchase of leather pants.
• This is one of the few shots of my short hair phase. It was shorter than this at one point, but nearly all proof has been lost.
  
• I think I'm opening some sort of chocolate snack. Since I'm at Nik's house, not my own, I was allowed.
• Chances are, I'm on the phone with my mother which means that I was keeping the chocolate snack a secret.
• Although my profile seems scattered (was I 25? was I 23?) it probably has something to do with the dates that I updated it. "Suffering from acute joy and hope"? Really?
• The Keats quote is from La Belle Dame sans Merci. I was studying Romantic Poetry in university and had fallen quite madly in love with Keats. Which was nothing compared to my love of Longfellow.
• La Belle Dame inspired famous paintings by Sir Frank Dicsee and John William Waterhouse. Incidentally, Waterhouse's painting is a fairly accurate depiction of how I try to kiss Andrew.
• I still have many of the same interests.
• I feel much older and much happier now than I did then.