The Weight of Waiting by J.Heap

A friend of mine from college, Justin, posted this today on facebook, and I thought it was worth repeating and sharing.

"I am reminded of the weight of waiting; the heaviness of anticipation. And how much harder the waiting is when you can close your eyes and see so clearly the outcome of which you dream and wait for.

It is so often the waiting that is difficult; not the struggle. Struggle & triumph always win the headlines. But to be in true waiting means you are also acknowledging that some part of some thing is out of your control. Beyond your power. Not a waiting by choice - that would simply be delaying. But if you are the one waiting...then really, you are, by very nature, not in control.

I mean.
If you could simply reach out and change the course of history, then waiting it would not be.

So to those of us living life in waiting, no matter that which you are waiting for, may you continue to dream. And to hope - for hope is the very canvas on which reality is created. And all this, with great expectation.

And may you not give up too soon. May you not give in too early. Sometimes five minutes may feel like an eternity, but I assure you, even five years will go faster than you or I can comprehend.

They always say, if it is worth having, it is worth waiting for. I wonder if too many of us settle for something immediate instead of waiting for something incredible.

So. Here's to waiting. Drink deep. Cheers."

Silly Husband, you can't fool me!!!

When I was in college, my roommate was an avid camp counselor for "abstinence camp". When she returned from a weekend at the camp, she brought me and our other roommates fun souvenirs. The one thing I got was a t-shirt that lists the top ten reason why "i'm worth waiting for." I was thinking the other day that I've had this particular t-shirt for over 7 years... almost 8. Anyway, Ken hates this shirt... It has a little "sperm" on the front, that says "I'm worth waiting for". He despises this shirt, especially now that we're married. So, from time to time, I wear the shirt, just to get his goat! :) He hates the shirt so much that he's threatened to burn it or to get rid of it without me knowing. Well, this time he almost had me. Except for the fact that he forgot that I clean our house, so if he hides it, I'm bound to find it sooner or later.

Two weekends ago when I was preparing to paint our bedroom, I was moving the chair (the orange one in the photos) to the center of the room. It is an older chair and has arm covers and a headrest cover. I took these off the chair and thought the that they would be best placed under the cushion of the chair, to keep them from getting in the way or lost. As I lifted up the cushion of the chair, there lies my t-shirt. Nicely folded under the cushion. Just waiting for me to find it. And I did! :)

When I mentioned it to Ken, he first acted like he didn't know what I was talking about and then burst into laughter and was so proud of himself for the hiding job... that it lasted a couple of weeks :)

He's so funny... But I have my shirt back and will continue to wear it with pride!

Will we survive the week??

Already, this week we've met the challenges of having a toddler (ok, he's not a full blown toddler yet, but he's well on his way).

Monday: Finn loves the fridge and the pantry and loves it when the doors are open to show the goods inside. Lately, I try to open it as little as I can, because I have to focus on getting him out of the way so that I can close the door when I'm done. While making his breakfast on Monday, I opened the fridge to put the applesauce back, and as I swung the door open, he made a mad rush for the door, and they collided. Oh, I felt so bad. He had a little mark down the middle of his forehead, and on the side of his nose. And I was so paranoid, I woke him up from his nap early to make sure he didn't have a concussion. Luckily, the only thing we had was a cranky boy from not having a long enough nap.

Tuesday: We were a bit more careful with the doors on Tuesday but had a new encounter that I'd never really had before... Finn loves goldfish crackers. After lunch today, I gave him about 5 of them to munch on. Granted, he doesn't have molars yet, but he takes them between his 4 front teeth and munches them to pieces while eating them. Today, he didn't do that. He took the first one, bit off the tail and put the large "body" piece in his mouth. All of the sudden he made a face like he was throwing up. I leaned him forward to tap on his back a bit. And then pulled him out of his seat and walked him over to the sink, all while tapping his back encouraging him to cough. I think he dislodged it, and then lodged it again as he cried and then stopped and was trying to throw up again. Finally, he spit out the full goldfish cracker onto the floor. Oh, close call!! Needless to say, he didn't want to eat any more lunch right then, so we ate a larger dinner instead.

Later that night, daddy was to be watching him while I was making dinner. He crawled into the kitchen and was trying to open the cabinets under the sink. He got his little finger stuck under the cabinet while he was pressing the cabinet closed with the other hand. Poor baby!! Oh, how crappy it is when you can't figure out how you got yourself into that spot. Shortly after that, he started choking again on something. Oh, MY!! Since I wasn't watching him, I had no idea what he might have put in his mouth or what he was near to figure it out. He choked a bit and then swallowed what ever it was. And unfortunately, daddy had no idea what it was. I'm sure if it was something indigestible, I'll know in a day or two.

Will we make it to Friday without making a full trip to the ER or emergency clinic?? Oh, Lord, I do hope so!!

Michael Phelps

He's amazing!! I can't even believe the outcome of last nights race... Even thought I knew the outcome before watching the race, I still had butterflies that the US Men's team wouldn't beat the others. (That's the kind of crappy thing of living on the west coast, the outcome of games, reality tv and other sporting events normally are broadcast 3 hours later than the east coast. So last night, I was promptly advised by CNN Breaking News that Michael Phelps had won his 8th gold medal... That was at 9pm PST, but his race didn't run here until 11pm PST.)

Anywho, it was an amazing race. I was pleased to see that he wasn't cocky about winning but that he was humbled. And that his teammates honored him, even though they'd done it together.

It was very exciting!!

Congrats to Michael Phelps!

I was listening yesterday to his "cridentials". Here is what I learned... If you didn't all ready know. Information recaped from: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/showsports.aspx?id=SPOEN20080061934&ch=8/17/2008%209:04:00%20PM

• Michael is 6'4" tall with a wing span of 6'7"
  
• His lower body, interestingly, is shorter than that of an average man of his height.
• Phelps has an upper body of a 6'8" person but his lower body seems to be of someone who is only 5"10", which also make the perfect plane in water.
• He has double jointed ankels, that allow him to whip his feet as if those are flippers and break loose (although his feet ar 3 sizes smaller than those of Ian Thorpe, his great rival, that said he couldn't reach 8 medals, and watched from the stands in Beijing).
• His unique constitution also produces less lactic acid than others which means Phelps takes less time to recover.
• He consumes 12,000 calorie every day and trains 96 km every week.
• Bob Costas mentioned that he's received over 10,000 friend requests on Facebook in the last week... including Will Smith, Miley Cyrus and other top celebrities (they all want to be Mike's friend!)
  

Isn't that fascinating?? Wow, he was really "made" for this greatness!

$40 under budget photos

Here are some photos from the redecoration that I've done in our Master Bedroom. First we'll start off with a photo of Finnegan, because he's a sweetie. Here he is enjoying one of his first corn-cobs. Look at that bite! Taken like a true summer-loving-corn-cob-enjoyer... Yummy!


Here are some "before photos. These were taken when we moved in 2 year ago. Nice, white boring walls!!


Notice the beautiful orange chair that is about 30 years old, that is still with us!!


Now, the after photos... This is a bouquet that I made for the room. I really like it but think I might move it into the bathroom for some contrast (the bathroom is a sea-foam green with purple and pearl white accents)



The vanity.
This is the mirror that I chose. It was huge. But $20 cheaper than I thought it was gonna be, and then I had a 20% off coupon! AWESOME!!
In this photo you can see that the ceiling is one shade lighter than the walls. And actually, the wall color is darker in person. Anywho, the curtians were something that I just stumbled upon. And fell in love with. I'm not much of a "gold" person, but I really liked them and they really set off the room!
A few of my tea cups are hung in the room... I didn't want to have to buy a lot of decorations. I knew I had some things that would work and look nice and elegant. And these definitely helped out!
Here's our orange chair. He dresses up well, doesn't he?

Oreo even approves of the bedroom!

Girl vs. Fireworks

There are two stories out there about being duped. Yes, we Olympic watchers (on our favorite NBC station) were duped... not once, but twice. The story that is dominating air-time on our NBC stations is the story about a chinese girl that was replaced by another and allowed to lip-sync during the opening ceremonies, because the girl who could sing, wasn't "cute" enough. "It is an issue of national pride." as the story quote. Here are photos of the two girls.

• Actual singer Yang Peiyi
• Lin Miaoke

In the same token, there has been another "switch-aroo" that's happened with the coverage of the opening ceremonies that has not been widely talked about... because the news crew that created the switch, is the one who is reporting the games. Don't get me wrong, my station of choice has always been NBC. But it's things like this that just get to me... Essentially the gist of the story is that during the Opening ceremonies, it was too dangerous for them and the cameramen to get as close as they would have liked, so they digitally enhanced the film before broadcasting it. The story quotes "The faked fireworks were actually set-off at the stadium, but because of potential dangers in filming the display live from a helicopter, viewers at home were shown a pre-recorded, computer-generated shot."

Although I understand the reasoning a bit more with the fireworks rather than with the girls, it's still deception...

What are your thoughts?

$40 under

So, I took the plunge and decided on a paint color and started painting our bedroom. As most of you know, I am very indecisive and I've literally been thinking about doing this for MONTHS. But had so many things to consider... the bathroom color that was already done, the color of the furniture and the vaulted ceiling. Then I found out Ken didn't want something dark. Oh, so many decisions. My computer loving husband just wanted to keep our white walls, but I would not have it. I need color in my life. Color invokes emotion... but I suppose for a computer engineer, emotion is hard to come by :) Anywho, back to the story... I decided to paint a color called "Vintage Grape". Actually, it is a bit darker than Ken would have preferred, but I showed him a picture of it, and he said he liked it. I asked him again later to make sure and he said yes. But now that it's up, he says it a bit too dark. It took the weekend to paint the ceiling and the walls.

But how do I feel about it? I feel that the room isn't even in my house. It doesn't even feel like the same room. Its very romantic and warm and comfortable. The furniture is even in the same spots. And to make it even better, I am $40 under budget, now that I'm all purchase. I even purchased my splurge item - bed side lamps. As soon as I put the last piece of artwork up, I'll take and post photos.