palmtreeprincess's Xanga

new season

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:09:26 GMT

Hey Friends,

Smiles and love to you!

Just realized I haven't been on xanga in a gazillion years. So I will update you a little. I'm not taking classes this semester... and so instead I am working in a day treatment program with adults playing bingo and uno and pool and eating lots of food and going on fun outings and so on. It's pretty great. I'm working with a very special population with hopes of discerning my level of interest in counseling/social work. Interesting... and fun too!

I'm still working at the Cheesecake and still tossing my salads and using the pepper grinder at home and what-not. And I'm in a book group, so I'm still on the study and trying to grow in the Lord. :)

It is a nice season, and I have enjoyed the rest from the study and the classes and the homework. In the mean time... work has been nice and it has been great to spend a lot of time with friends and family!

So, that is that. I will need to write more later, but my minutes are becoming shorter and shorter and as I had always hoped this nice little xanga journal is gradually becoming an old season... and new things are still ahead!

Thanks so much for reading!!

In the summertime... :)

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:36:49 GMT

Dear Friends,

Smiles and love to you!

I have taken a very long four month break from my regular xanga posts! That is a first in about four years for me! Wow!! :)

What have I been up to? :) Lots! Too much to probably share all in one post. So, I will let you in on a new adventure that has been taking up a very large amount of my time this Spring.

Check it out! www.seminarianblog.com

I tend to post an article every other week there. I am working with several friends from my school and it has been a huge blessing to me to go through the editing process and to support the other writers in their specific areas of interests and ministry.

Summer is my favorite season...so naturally, that finds me spending a lot of time in my convertible soaking in the sunshine, and sometimes at little teatimes in gardens... and so on and so forth. :) Lots of things have occurred that I would love to write about, but I haven't quite found the words to express it in written form. A lot of my stories have been told and re-told to my various friends and family.... perhaps to never be written down at all, but simply shared!

With that said, have a blessed summer, dear friends! Thanks so much for reading my journal!

Jen

And so she danced...

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:20:53 GMT

Tonight, it was icing outside and so I made dinner, and about half way through, I just started dancing. I couldn't help myself. It was just me, in the house, and so I danced, and danced, and danced. I thought about what you might see if you were able to open up my heart and take a peek (just like God can) and what would you see there? Would you see a beautiful palmtree, or maybe a piece of scrumptious and succulent cheesecake? Perhaps you would see a pointe shoe. Perhaps you would see my deep love for you! Who knows? :)

I re-read part of my journal tonight and found quotes from Kierkegaard and a song that I had written about Jeremiah all before I started seminary. Sigh. I used to have so much sweet time for reflection and writing and what-not. I am looking back and cherishing the free time that I had prior to beginning my studies. My studies have been amazing and I'm so grateful for the time that I spend in them, but I'm also looking back on my time off with great joy as I return to my old writing and think of old times working and running and the friends that I made there.

Sigh...I made kona coffee tonight, mmm, with really frothy vanilla soy. Parfait.

I look forward to lake rollerblading this Spring. :) In the mean time, there will be lots and lots and lots of dancing. :)

Out!

"One is silver and the other is gold." :) -from Make New Friends, my fave girl scout camp song.

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 04:25:43 GMT

Okay, I do believe that someone is making the way through all of my old posts and it's inspiring me to re-visit some of my old thoughts. This post is from January 5, 2006. I can't believe that it has been two years ago. I suppose at the time, I was working at a Caribbean restaurant and sub-teaching at a small Christian school, and just starting to make new friends in the Lou post-graduation about seven months. I think I spent the first three months out of school back and forth between K-Ville and Cali, so I had only been home about four months and wrote this girlie-girl post. One thing that I find striking about it is how I look forward to wearing my future husband's hoodies and hats. :) haha. I do love running around the Lake when it is a bit chilly and wearing a hoodie. Aww. Sweetness. And I love reading other people's books, so I look forward to marrying a hoodie-wearing-theology-studying kind of guy. I sure hope so. :) haha.

Things that make me feel pretty... :) hehehe...

I love being a girl.

-ballet flats... ;) Yes!

-wearing my hair down and with a couple spiral curls at the ends...

-cream skirts and pink roses and blue cardigans

-smiling at everyone I meet

-giggling, always giggling

-eating like a bird...fresh fruit, carrot sticks, celery, mocha frappuchinos, etc.

-running in a hoodie at sunset around a lake just because it is beautiful

-singing in my car/dancing in my car

-worshipping and star-gazing at the same time

-writing notes on pink paper in the shape of hearts

-writing poetry, journal entries, songs, etc.

-harmonizing with Bebo :) hahah...

-being nuturing to children because it just comes so easily

-kissing baby Clayton's furry head and watching him smile at me

-hanging out with my girls and friends who inspire me, refresh me, and pump life into my very body with kind encouraging words and loving care

-dreaming about that special someone and knowing that someday I will borrow/read all of his books, and wear all of his old hoodies and hats...

-'cause reading theology and wearing hoodies makes me feel especially pretty... :)

The Philosopher's Dream: The Paradox

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:04:28 GMT

A paradox is the philosopher's dream. :) I like to think of it as snow on the island. :) This song is full of delightful paradoxes. It is by Jordan Sparks, and I love it. :)

"One Step At A Time"

Hurry up and wait
So close, but so far away
Everything that you've always dreamed of
Close enough for you to taste
But you just can't touch

You wanna show the world, but no one knows your name yet
Wonder when and where and how you're gonna make it
You know you can if you get the chance
In your face as the door keeps slamming
Now you're feeling more and more frustrated
And you're getting all kind of impatient waiting

[Chorus:]
We live and we learn to take
One step at a time
There's no need to rush
It's like learning to fly
Or falling in love
It's gonna happen and it's
Supposed to happen that we
Find the reasons why
One step at a time

You believe and you doubt
You're confused, you got it all figured out
Everything that you always wished for
Could be yours, should be yours, would be yours
If they only knew

You wanna show the world, but no one knows your name yet
Wonder when and where and how you're gonna make it
You know you can if you get the chance
In your face as the door keeps slamming
Now you're feeling more and more frustrated
And you're getting all kind of impatient waiting

[Chorus]

When you can't wait any longer
But there's no end in sight
It's the faith that makes you stronger
The only way you get there
Is one step at a time

[Chorus x2]

Palms, Praises, and Squirrel-Hunters! :)

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 03:28:36 GMT

Smiles and love! :)

Hello Friends! :)

I'm happy to announce another great week and take some time to Praise the Lord! :)

Sigh....

School is off to a great start! I'm so excited about my schedule this Spring! I'm lovin' it! The weather lately has been pretty exciting as well going back and forth between spring-showers and snowstorms and lovely breezy almost summer-like days! I have enjoyed it immensely. Two of my classes were cancelled last week so I still haven't been to my history class yet this semester. My other classes started off very strongly and I'm super-excited about my Christianity and Imagination class and my education class called Teaching and Learning! I gave my first mini-lecture yesterday over a book called God Our Teacher and talked about how we should care for our students because God so wonderfully and attentively cares for us. It was a lot of fun! I danced around my house all morning practicing my speech for my afternoon class and I was sooo excited about giving the talk as I practiced in my car on the way to school, and then I re-wrote my outline during the class before it so that I could remember my points even further, and all this time being soo excited and ready to speak in front of my class and then when my teacher said my name and I took my place in front of the class-- my whole body started shaking and I prayed to God that I wouldn't pass out before I finished my speech--somehow my teacher recognized my fear and told me to think happy thoughts and so I started thinking about palmtrees and Bora Bora, my favorite place in the French Polynesia with delightful stilted huts going out over the clear-blue waters, and then I began my speech and to my amazement-- it was sooo much fun! I looked at my classmates and they smiled at me and nodded when I asked questions and it was incredible! :) I loved it-- and so now I can't wait till my team-teaching experience that I get to do on a book by Parker Palmer ( I know! ) and work with this woman who was in my class last semester and who has lots of teaching experience and I know that she will be absolutely AWESOME to work with on this project! I posted a note in the forum for our class stating my interest in the book and it was her interest as well! The book is called The Courage to Teach (that reminds me, I need to order it online tonight!) and we will be presenting our project on April 14th. :) Sigh...I'm so in love with my Education classes! I'm delighted to be in Seminary and I am so looking forward to the rest of this semester! :)

I spoke with my mentor today on the phone and she is sooo encouraging! :) I can't wait to meet up with her again next week and hear about her adventures this past month! She works for Mission to the World and served as a missionary in Ukraine just prior to starting her seminary studies and she is hoping to return there soon with her husband (whom she met at Seminary, actually on her first day of seminary, cute story it is!). They visited the Ukraine recently and I can't wait to hear all about it and see the pictures!

Picked up my books today from the Bookstore and that was a good feeling-- and I tried to start reading my History book tonight and I think it is probably going to be my biggest challenge. It kind of reminded me of taking History of Christian Thought 2 in my undergrad and how challenging it was to read about the monks and the nuns and how hard it was for me to take in Medieval Love Poetry which sounded so sad and so hopeless sometimes to me. However, I need a good History tutor, someone who LOVES the subject and can help bring New Testament History alive to me. I started with the first sentence about the last king of Persia being named King Darius and I just started zoning out. It was hard for me to care about King Darius because I know nothing about him other than his name. Hmmm.... I usually try to read textbooks in funny voices to entertain myself if I'm having trouble being captured by the writing style itself, but sometimes it distracts me from the actual content. Hmmm-- and I need to remember the content-- so basically, I need help with this class-- and it hasn't even started yet. :) I need to get creative with it and try to LOVE NT history and theology. Theology-no problem- the history-- sometimes the way that History is presented is an obstacle and a challenge to me and sometimes intimidates me such that I don't want to take the energy required to jump in and keep it all linear and remember the important things because I don't have enough of a background in History to really know what is truly a main point or something significant to remember. :) Hmm....pray for me, friends! :)

Other than that-- we had a squirrel inside our house today that somehow found its way in to the exhaust fan above our stove (poor little guy!) and our friend (our super-squirrel-fighting-hero, we'll call him Squirrel-Hunter-Joe) came to our rescue ("our" being three very scared women at the sound of the fan-eating squirrel with growly growls and scratchy feet and probably (if we could have seen them) glowing eyes!). Hunter Joe captured the squirrel with a straw and a hanger (lasso-style) and allowed him to be set free unharmed. Praise the Lord, the squirrel survived after spending the WHOLE DAY inside our exhaust fan, poor little guy! This is even after my sister read to the squirrel from Psalm 89:48, "No one can live forever; all will die. No one can escape the power of the grave." :) And we had a moment of silence there for the squirrel, but praise the Lord, we didn't have to shoot it (which, I confess was my idea, and the only way that I thought we would be able to remove the squirrel from our home, where squirrels do not belong, but fortunately, Hunter Joe is much more creative and inventive than I am!) :) Fortunately for Squirrel. My sister even started singing a song, American Idol try-out style (as we were watching the show tonight as well)..."Rabid Squirrel on the loose....it's gonna get ya, and take ya picture!". I have the funniest sister ever and I'm so thankful for her because I DO love to laugh-- and around here, we laugh a LOT. :) Praise God.

It has been a lovely day! I'm so thankful for my family and for the funny little things that happen in our country home. :) I praise God for school...oh yes, I forget to mention two other things that I'm super excited about...well, three...

One being...SMALL GROUP- on Mondays, Miss Molly and I have been meeting up weekly and we decided to start a small group...sigh...praise the Lord...and so it is still taking shape, but we are encouraged and have prayed and smiled and praised the Lord-- and we have invited other women to come join us as well-- and so we are looking forward to growing in the Lord and enjoying the friendship of other ladies at our school this Spring!

Secondly-- I LOVE the Psalms, and my sister and I are in the same Bible study on the Psalms of the Ascent (120-134) for the next four weeks with some ladies from my sister's church near my home (so that I can meet some more ladies out in the country, and have people to meet up with for tea when I am at home!) Lovely!

Thirdly -- I am so fortunate to have visited the Jewel Box recently with Miss B, and it was AMAZING! Palmtrees everywhere and I cannot wait to go there AGAIN and sooooon! I'm starting to really enjoy this city and the friends that I have made here. I know when I first came back two and a half years ago, I had no idea what this adventure would bring, but I'm thankful to be here and happy to be on this journey that has taught me so much and blessed me beyond words. :) Smiles and love and most of all, Praise be to the Lord! :)

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 06:56:20 GMT

smiles and love. :)

I often quote this lyric from Lifehouse, "I'm somewhere in between--what is real, and just a dream." I started to love this song a little over a year ago when I heard it on my way back from a visit to my college town just a year-and-a-half past graduation and two months before starting my seminary studies. I think it is an appropriate way to describe how sometimes I can think/dwell/mull over something for days and days and dance in between that line of missing and hoping...feeling things that were real, and then being caught up in something that is not real. I remember coming back that weekend and going to dinner and eating blue salad. It was a great salad and I remember almost cancelling the dinner because I was holding on to something that I did not want to let go--and being in my college town only made it worse by stirring up old memories and emotions. I took a moment to lay down in the grass and look at the stars, all under the pretense of my "nightly jog" down the street and away from my friends and just re-thought over what had happened in my college days and tried to cross the line between then and what was actually happening at the time. I was mixed up in a state of missing something that I had known, and pulling away from something that I could not yet know. I was caught up in between missing something that had been real to me at one time, and hoping for something that had never been real to me at all, and there I wrestled with merely a dream. Dreams can be so real, and yet at the same time, they can be so elusive. I think that is what makes the place, the line, the place "in between" such a hard spot to be in because you are constantly caught up in the challenge of hope-- of hoping for something that you cannot yet see, and it's like trying to "miss"(long for, remember, in a sense know something that you have not yet known)...it takes energy, it takes courage, it takes strength...and it takes vision to be able to see something that you cannot see...and sometimes that hope, that waiting, that longing for, that achy dreamy heart...comes close and for a minute, you almost feel as if you have found what you are looking for... and then you remember somthing that you have missed, or that you miss, and the cycle begins all over again, and you find yourself perfectly in between...somewhere real and just a dream......

island fruit and baby love :)

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 05:27:17 GMT

Mmm...I'm sitting here enjoying an entire grapefruit. It's so nice because I turned twenty-five this year, and not only did my car insurance rates go down, but I've also developed a liking for this wonderful island fruit that is packed with vitamins c and a and is the perfect 70 calorie snack...light enough to be taken in at anytime. The first one I ate on Christmas Day for breakfast, as the last piece of avoided and neglected fruit from my holiday fruit basket, a wonderful gift from my mom. I was starting to get sick and new that I needed the vitamin c, so I dared to eat it, and to my surprise and delight, I am now a huge fan of the grapefruit. Praise the Lord. :)

This has been a good week. Wow. Sigh. I'm just so deeply encouraged and feeling loved today. I'm thankful for the friends that I've been blessed to spend time with this week. I really did have five special tea times set up with friends from long ago and far away and to my delight, lots of great conversation ensued. I have been trying to make the most of my holiday break from school and taking time out to watch movies with my fam (I LOVED watching movies for six hours with my dad on Christmas night...we never have six hours of uninterrupted solid time to hang out and laugh and talk and what-not. He works very hard and has his own business that leaves him on-call 24/7, so only on Christmas Day did the man turn down calls himself and send out his croonies...is that a good word to describe his employees...I dunno...but I love them for working on his behalf and I cherish the Christmas time I spent with my dad.) Praise the Lord. :)

I've been getting to know my niece this month as well. She is learning to crawl and she has the most precious baby girl voice. I love it. My sister is an awesome mom and this baby is blessed. I got to give her a baby bath last night and she was so slippery and cute; it just made me want to be a mom. I fed her dinner as well and I second-thought my dream of always having twins. One baby is a lot of work-- and I've only tasted a small glimpse of the toil, to me it seems but joy still, and so, I know that moms everywhere are to be praised for the way that they constantly care for and love their little ones all their lives through. :) Praise the Lord.

Hmm, I have been praying a lot about career and life and what the Lord would have me to do. I'm so thankful for the times when things are clear and I feel moved by love to do something with fervor and passion, hmm, or maybe when I just feel the need to complete something because I so enthusiastically began it. And so it is with seminary, and so it is with my job right now....hmmm. In anycase, I'm thankful and encouraged, delighted and overjoyed by the friends who have pursued me and encouraged me in the realm of writing. This week alone, five friends, have encouraged me in writing...and it means more to me than I can even say. :) Thank you, friends. And thank You, God, for being so incredibly good. Praise the Lord for the holiday and praise the Lord for time to sing, time to look at the stars and wonder, time to visit with friends, and time to read crazy-huge novels and watch goofy movies and time to get to know more of my family and to pray for and pursue the life that you so joyfully and so abundantly give to me. :)

Praise the Lord. :)

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 07:37:04 GMT

Praise the Lord... :)

Smiles and love...

-four seminary boys and a muggie. :) Make me smile.

-five coffee dates in one week. Craziness...but I love it! :) New friends from school, old friends from work...old friends from school, and new friends from work...time with the gal-pals...etc, etc, etc.

-movies, movies, and more movies...Sense and Sensibility and Little Women, Home Alone...almost twice, and Maid in Manhatten...of course, a Cinderella Story and a j-lo...oh yes, and The King and I...mmm, falling asleep during The Jungle Book...you, you, you, I wanna be just like you, I wanna walk like you, talk like you doooo... :).

-giggle time with GK

-dinner with B-land...

-the love that wells up inside me when I hold a little one and kiss a furry head... :)

-new year's with Chiao-Chiao...and tofu...mmmmmmm.

-finally feeling comfortable with my new job...of six months...and starting to enjoy the late-nights and meeting all kinds of new people constantly...trying to relax a little... :)

-turkey...all things turkey...turkey burgers, turkey dogs, turkey turkey...hmm, Turkey, the country. :)

-Haiti... :)

-coffee from Hawaii

-my older brother...

-my younger sister...

-the love that never fails...the Lord who loves me...the adventure that keeps me coming back for more... :)

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 04:45:06 GMT

Happy New Year!!!