Barbara's Random Thoughts

I wish I were blogging more frequently, more thoughtfully, and more entertaining-ly. I feel like I am failing you, my faithful (5?) readers, and I am sorry. If only...if only so many things.

-If only I were not so busy at work.
-If only I had wireless internet at home, enabling me to blog with ease instead of having to visit the local café or park. (Yes, I seem to be able to poach wireless internet at the park. Shhh.)
-If only it didn't seem that life is crowding in on me from all sides, everything requiring my attention and making me want to retreat rather than think or deal with anything.

You get the idea. I hope to be back to better blogging soon. (I revel in the alliteration of that sentence.) In the meantime, you literary types can play with this.

Ok, back to work for me.

Labels: meta

The headlines regarding Pluto's new non-planet classification are cracking me up.

Pluto left out in cold in planet realignment

Astronomers demote planet

And the rather harsh:
Pluto's Demotion is Well Deserved and Long Overdue

But never fear! Though the position of Ninth Planet has been eliminated, Pluto has been invited to apply for a newly created position of "dwarf planet."

Gosh, this sounds familiar...

StatCounter has a new feature--a Google world map of your (or in this case, my) blog visitors. Fun:




















Apparently, I really need to expand my readership in the Southern hemisphere.

Labels: meta

"You can't just fart out a book and expect us to publish it!"
--Anne

Labels: quotes

we'll collect the moments one by one
I guess that's how the future's done
--Feist

Last week, I got an email letting me know my application for NC has been approved. The info packet (with a ton of forms to fill out) came over the weekend. Yesterday, I got an email from the team leader in SA letting me know the start and end dates of next year's program.

Piece by piece, things are coming together.

It's weird, because finally hearing the dates made it seem like reality rather than just an idea. I pulled out a calendar and started looking at weeks and months and when to leave. I even started to look up flight schedules and discovered there aren't any for dates that are more than a year out. My return date is more than a year away. Hmm. That'll be interesting.

Wednesday night, I went to a women's dinner at church, and one of the women at the welcome table remembered me from a group we'd both been part of in the fall. She greeted me with: "Barbara, right? You were going to go to Africa, I think." My answer: "I was. And I did. And I'm going back." It was exciting to share a little with her about all that's taken place since the experiences I'd talked with her about back in December.

A lot has happened over the last few months, and there's a lot more to do. If I start thinking about it, it gets a little overwhelming. Fundraising, forms to fill out, letters to write, visas to be obtained. (I have to get an FBI background check for that last one--!) But the rest of this will happen in the same way things have come together thus far: one step at a time. As much as I'd like to have everything settled, now, it'll come--each piece falling into place when I need it. And not before.

At this same dinner on Wednesday, a passage from Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place was mentioned:

Father sat down on the edge of the narrow bed. "Corrie," he began gently, "when you and I go to Amsterdam--when do I give you your ticket?"
I sniffed a few times, considering this.
"Why, just before we get on the train."
"Exactly. And our wise Father in heaven knows when we're going to need things, too. Don't run out ahead of Him, Corrie."

A small reminder for me, but a good one.

Labels: mission

It's been so long since my last post. Sorry. I've been extremely busy at work and both busy and lazy outside of work. Most nights last week I didn't get home before 7:30 and all I wanted to do was watch Alias while importing CDs into iTunes and then go to bed. So that's exactly what I did. Things have slowed down a little bit this week, and our new assistant starts next Monday, so hopefully there is hope for my work schedule.

Here, for your reading enjoyment, are some things I haven't blogged about.
















Kayaking in Monterey Bay. (Picture swiped from Jason. Yes, I am holding a sandwich. What?) We paddled around and got to see otters up closer than we were supposed to. Best wildlife sighting of the afternoon: seeing one otter, just floating, hanging out, resting his head on another otter's stomach.


















Beach bonfire in Santa Cruz. I haven't done a beach bonfire in I don't know how long. I've missed beach bonfires. Other fun that day: getting lost on the way to every single place we went to. Getting lost can actually be fun in a Mini convertible.

















Katie, a friend from my South Africa trip, came to visit. (This is us in Pretoria, because I was lame about taking pictures this weekend.) Among other fun activities, we had a not-entirely-successful trip to SF: got stuck in crazy traffic, couldn't find parking, got turned around, successfully drove up very steep hills*, wandered through the Japanese Tea Garden, and met some of my work friends for dinner & drinks & dessert. (And goodbye to Jessica. Snif.) Oh, and I was told by a random strange man in Golden Gate park: "You have beautiful feet. But not that beautiful." Ok.

*Yes. I myself drove us up crazy steep San Francisco hills. In my car. Without completely freaking out and rolling backwards down the hill and killing both of us. That last part being key.



















On Sunday afternoon, we saw Rebecca at the Stanford Theatre. ("And another thing. Please promise me never to wear black satin or pearls, or to be thirty-six years old.") It was my first Hitchcock and I very much enjoyed its twists and turns.

On the reading front, I must say that I am not entirely enjoying The Dive From Clausen's Pier. Interesting themes + an entirely unsympathetic and not very interesting narrator = apologies to my book club. Sigh. Maybe it'll improve in the last quarter of the book? I need better book club suggestions. I think I may begin choosing books I've already read, just so I know what I'm getting people into.

There's my catch-up. I'm hoping to be in more of a writing mood soon.