Do so now, or forever hold your peace.

you know how those automated voices on phones, and language learning programs can make anything sound funny? well have you ever wondered what really inappropriate words sound like when uttered by a computerized mouth?
mama got me started on this, i was bored, sitting in my apartment and talking to her on the phone when we got to wondering what the french word for Vagina is, don't ask me how. this then led to me googleing it for lack of anything better to do... it's "Vagin" if you want to know, pronounced "Vaa-shzin." after i got off the phone i noticed a little speaker phone button next to the word.. i meant to click the french one to figure out how to say it, but i accidentally clicked the English instead... there, in the dead silence of my apartment, there rang out a solitary computerized woman's voice, "VAGINA!" i about jumped out of my seat and then died laughing... at this point you are thinking.. i can't believe i'm reading this, who would do this? you would. you know, in all honesty that you would have clicked that button voluntarily just to hear what it sounded like. it's only natural... and you still have an opportunity to go with that instinct. here i've posted the link to the vagina translation... scroll down, and find the speakerphone icon next to the English word.... CLICK IT. you know you want to... and it is so worth it.

you will always regret this if you don't click the button.... let go of your dignity and give it a try!

http://en.bab.la/dictionary/english-french/vagina.html

and please, let me know if you actually followed through with this important decision by commenting on this post.

Change is good.

I have made a big decision. I have done it, and the thing is i have such a peace about it, the minute i decided i felt like it was no big deal, like there really was never a decision to be made at all. these are extremely rare emotions for me to be having.

I think i mentioned before how all along i really wanted to do my associates degree instead of the certificate program i'm in now... well, i went and looked at the schedule with my advisor... and, well, there's no way in hell. i've been praying about it, mostly the money part because it's SO MUCH! i really was confident that God would pull through in some miraculous way like he has been doing and i would be singed on for another year of bliss. but this was not the plan, (probably because God know that i THOUGHT that was the plan and couldn't help from snickering at me when he changed it behind my back) it was never the plan. as i sat in that little cubicle with my my advisor a light bulb went off. i started telling her about how much i wanted to be a food stylist and that there is where my real passion lies. she looked at me and said, "you know, both of your food stylists here at the school don't have a degree at all." and with a twinkle in her eye she excitedly started pulling up class schedules and filling in papers for classes i could add on to make myself better equipped... it was a flurry of satisfying commitment. i signed things, and confirmed things, and made calls to financial aid, hoping to god my loan would cover this. the whole time i just knew that this was perfect... this is what i wanted and i didn't even know it, but i knew it now! i'm so excited i can hardly stand it! i'm now going to be taking a series of intense food photography courses along with all my regular ones, and then after that chocolate and confections since desserts are such a huge photographic field right now.http://www.learnfoodphotography.com/2009/10/11-mouth-watering-dessert-shots-to-make-you-hungry/

God always surprises me.. he knows me better than myself! how can that be?

other than that things have been busy, it's either high or low here. i'm either hardly eating cause i don't have time or money, and running from class to work, and barely sleeping. or i'm lounging on the couch at home, doing homework, eating WAY too much (see, it balances itself out!) and watching netflix on demand, which has now become my best friend. everything still seems to hold onto that bittersweet note i was talking about earlier. never quite whole... i miss mama, i desperately want friends, i love my new life, i miss my old life... all of the above. change is good, change is good, change is good my whistling radiator tells me.

Bigger and Better

Does anyone ever feel like maybe we settle for less. i mean, how grand could our lives really be? or more importantly, how blessed. are we asking God for little things we could probably do ourselves? are we asking Him for anything?

I went to church today, the new one i found which i love, but it's far away for someone who relies Solly on public transportation. i finally made the trek after missing it for three weeks in a row and was REALLY glad i did. the pastor talked about asking God for the impossible. one thing he said reached out into the audience and grabbed me by the throat. he said "don't tell people you can't get that job because you don't have a degree... yes you do! you have all the 'degree' you're ever going to need" i thought, i've been running around exhausting myself trying to find this job, be this person, go this place, and maybe, as the pastor says "i just need to stand still and watch God move around me." i mean... i haven't been doing it ALL wrong. God has lead me to be very proactive, and confident in a way he never has before, sometimes we just need to go for it, and not look back, but we also need to stop running before we wear ourselves out and get some help. i WANT God to plan this out for me. i know i would do a sucky job of it. i also want to ask bigger, ask better. God has the world at his fingertips... he wants to share it with us. why am i so hesitant to ask for the dream job, or the money to be able to go to school an extra year, or the super-human strength it is taking to get through every day in a new place all by myself.
i guess that's the gist of it, i'm NOT all by myself. i never have been. from the moment i was born, i popped out being loved fiercely.

so even when i'm walking to class and a car whooshes by soaking me with muddy city water (yes, this did happen, even though it only seems to in movies) and even when i'm so tired i forget to get off at my train stop and ride five extra, even when i come back to my apartment and no one's there to ask me how my day went except that ever-leaking facet... i know, somewhere in the back of my teeny little mind, that this all happened for a reason. this was all part of "The Plan." this is what it looks like to be "standing still and watching God move around me."

Evening in Chicago

I drove up here yesterday with my 10 year old daughter, Naomi, to see Rachael this week. She missed her mama. :-) Woke up this morning to a beautiful sunny day. Took Rachael to her bridal consultant training early this morning. It's another one of those "God things". Another girl at her work had been tapped to go but an unforseen family circumstance caused her to have to go back home to California and that left the spot open for Rachael. It always makes me wonder what God's doing in the life of the "other person".

So, today found Naomi and I with a few hours on our own to spend as we chose. First stop, Starbucks for my iced tea addiction and newspaper reading. Naomi likes to do Sudoko. I don't understand that! We then went to a wonderful vintage clothing and general paraphenalia shop that looked like someone's garage castoffs, where Naomi found some old Betty and Veronica comic books and I found a 1940's looking top. We picked up Rachael after her work and went to a bookstore to rummage through the clearance books and find ones we couldn't do without. Found Julia Child cooking instruction dvd's and I bought them for Rachael to keep her company on the nights she's feeling lonely. We came back to her apartment and watched a movie and colored my hair. Then to the grocery store to stock her tiny little kitchen and finally to drop her off at her school for evening classes to spare her the bus/train ride there.

This day was filled with nothing at all out of the ordinary. Except that, at the end of the day, Rachael hugged me and told me how glad she was that I had come.

And so, Rachael....I read this morning in Romans ( TheMessage translation) to not let the culture around me drag me down to the level of their immaturity but to let God bring out the best in me! He's doing that with you, with me in all of this!

I'm so immensely proud of the woman you are becoming! I love you!

Mama

Lobster Salad

Today was a high, defiantly.
it was the day that I, Rachael Belanger, got to go to the 2010 Chicago Bridal Show!!! I guess i didn't say anything about this earlier, but it's true, because of my job (in training to be a bridal consultant) i got a free ticket to the show. i had to "work" at it of course, but i would have gone even if it didn't pay!! it started out with doing something i've always wanted to do. this would be walking up through a giant line of anxiously waiting people and shoot straight under the crimson rope. yep. it was a thrill beyond belief to be someone important. the fact that i purposely dressed like Anne Hathaway in the movie "Devil wears Prada" also helped.
aside from eating lobster salad, rubbing elbows with the president of Chicago's leading fashion company, and standing at the edge of the runway submersed in pumping music and flashing aqua lights i managed to impress my boss and the head of wedding registry for Bed, Bath, and Beyond with my extrema selling skills.

I weaseled my way into the hearts of around 70 women tonight. they are now bride's to be with registry's at my store. the head lady spoke to my boss and told her that i was one of the best she'd seen. my boss then took me aside and asked if i would be available to go to the training conference for bridal consultants this week. i can't believe it!!!!
I am constantly reminded that everything happens for a reason. the fact that i was even there tonight was a result of one family emergency and another emergency room visit for two of the other girls ahead of me, leaving me in the throws of wedding show bliss.

i guess more that anything tonight i surprised MYSELF. i would have never guessed that i could do what i did tonight. i was proactive, quick, persuading, and overly confident. not me, but also, very me. i think i'm evolving into a different, and better, version of myself. i HAVE to be this person. to survive here, to survive where God planted me, i need to be better. i don't always feel better, but then i get pushed on stage and suddenly i'm dancing. imagine that.

Towing the line in Chicago...:-/

Well, folks, fresh blown back in from Chicago.

Here's the highlight of the trip. As we're driving TO Chicago last week, I get a weather update on my phone. 12 inches of snow expected. 12 inches of snow. 12.

So, we get there, park, hug, dash upstairs to see what Rachael has done with the place......just surreal, to visit your daughter's apartment for the first time. There are familiar comfort things from home and new things from Chicago. "This is her life now", I think to myself. I am visiting HER life. A part of me felt left behind. A part of me feels a surge of incredible pride that almost comes out of the top of my head!

I wake up the next morning very early, feeling like a child on Christmas morning, and tread lightly across the strewn bodies of my children across the floor of the one room we are sharing to go look out the window. It is absolutely quiet and still and white!

When everyone is finally up, dressed, fed and we have our plan for the day we go out to the car to begin our day. Except. There is no car. There are lots of CARS. Just not OUR car. We are standing where we left our car. We look left. We look right. We look at each other. And I start laughing! Rachael, however, is NOT laughing.

I approach a man cleaning the snow off of his car and ask him if it's normal here in Chicago to find one's car gone. Oddly enough, he said "yes". It turns out, they sometimes move your car if it violates any of the 389 random "this is not acceptable here but you have to figure that out yourself" rules in the city. They do, however, kindly place it somewhere close by. Usually. So he advised us to fan out and start looking.

So, Rachael and I go in different directions, me chuckling merrily to myself as I go. I stop and talk to people cleaning off the sidewalks and they all tell me that I've probably been towed. And give me a number to call. So, we call. Boy, were THEY helpful and kind. About like boyscouts gone sour. After a series of calls back home to get our vin number and license plate number so we can prove it's our car, they did verify.....Yep. They had our car.

For the next few hours, we recreated our own version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles schlepping around on various trains, buses and in snowdrifts to get TO the car. Then, another several hundred minutes standing in line in a room filled with little tiny spanish speaking men acting as, for lack of a better word, bodyguards, by the in and out doors of the towing yard, a big angry loud man who said they damaged his car and a smattering of other people all having fun getting their cars out of hock too! It's fun to make friends!

I was happy to contribute $160.00 to the revenue of the City of Chicago. And they, then, were happy to give us our car back. With all that hilarity, we decided to go back to the apartment. And park the car.