three strikes doesn't necessarily mean im out

i am a chameleon. i can always fit where i am. i can find happiness.

switching time and even though it took a little longer than i expected i have switched. beauty in the waves - beauty in sunsets - beauty in the white of the sand is now replaced in beauty of the city.

counting your blessings name them one by one. we went on a blessing hunt over thanksgiving with my class. hunt for those blessing, keep your eyes wide and treasure them when recognized. it's time for a beauty hunt and the city is my playground.

i take the train to work now. i love it. i anticipate it. i grow from it. tonight on the way home i had to remind myself to put my book down and take in everyone around me.

i love people watching. i believe that we grow through each other - my train ride is growing time. "why does that person seem so sad." "that person must be talking to the love of their life." "this must be the best day of that person life." "everything in that persons day must have gone wrong - the worst day of their life." train riding has brought me to the conclusion that there are more miserable people than happy in this world and there is nothing right about that.

my corner grocery man comes out every morning to feed the pigeons with his day old bread. i made rachel slow down the car the first time i saw it so i could take in the beauty. now i can't wait to walk by it each morning. one morning i think i might be very late for school so i can take part.

i love when people just sing. i don't consider it a sign of craziness. i consider it a sign of freedom. today i got to walk with a guy that sang to me for a good block and a half. i smiled the whole way. beauty.

christmas shopping is a must. last week i hated the thought of it. this week im looking forward to it. im ready to buy things. im ready to warm hearts through gifts. this years theme will be "a picture isworth a million words." if i had to choose an elf friend to go shopping with, one that would bring christmas cheer yet still desire christmas savings it would be jill renee weber. she is way on top of her game.


come walk with me in humboldt park. sit with me by the water. feed the pigeons with our day old bread. fill your lungs deep with the crisp air.



the city is my playground. chicago is home base. i think that im going to sit on home base for a little while.

i was sitting, waiting, wishing

i think that i love to be alone. i think that i forgot that because there was a while there that someone was always around. i think it's good to be just you and your thoughts. turn the off the noise and just rest. it might just make us a little stronger.

i forgot who i was for a second and i didn't have alone walk on beach so the waves could whisper their reminders to me. people ask if i miss the bahamas. everyday. i honestly don't miss teaching... i miss the abandoned nature of it. the adventure of it. the slow pace peace of it. mornings drinking tea and reading on my back porch as the sun rises over the water. my mornings that the dolphins stop by to say their hello. i miss my treasure hunts for shells and sea glass. i miss laura and i solving the problems of the world, or at least the problems of this girls heart, with white sand between our toes.

i can commit - i committed to a whole bag of fig newtons just tonight. i think im going to wash it down with a hot cup of cinnamon ginger root tea. my ginger jar just came for me - with love from india. don't worry i will be there to give the love back one day.

im sitting right in front of my kitchen window which looks directly into my neighbors kitchen. at one point i caught myself no longer grading papers but grading my cute neighbor as he took his rug and hung it over his banister. that's right im staring right at you...and yes, im still eating my fig newtons.

del barber - who the heck is this guy and how come im not his supportive girlfriend. thanks ellen for leading me his way. check him out - im not saying he is anywhere near getting in the way of jason mraz for a virtual romance but i have spent all evening listening to his myspace page.

welcome to my apartment...

my bed is big enough for at least three four or five if we want to make a snuggle puddle - super sleepovers are on my top favorite things to do on a friday/saturday/sunday/monday/tuesday/wednesday/thursday night.

19 days till christmas. i count down for the kids which would be the only reason i truly know. what do i want this christmas. how about a romantic walk in the snow that ends with a hot cup of tea.

it's hard to be soulmates with an international superstar.

it does not feel like i have just had four glorious days off, let me state that just off the bat.

thanksgiving comes thanksgiving goes. thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

isabella wins for best thanksgiving spirit and around the table ideas. i tried my dang hardest to be the winner of thanksgiving cheer but that little girl has a competitive spirit that i haven't seen since i peed my pants so i wouldn't have to move to win a hide and seek game at the age of 6. hats off to her.

friends - love them - need them.

i never thought that leaving a "thanks for letting me crash on your floor in a coma like state but now im going to slip out the door in the wee hours of morning so i can make it to church on time" note could be considered a booty call note. p.s thanks for watching out for my out of the trash picnic table - i will be there soon to pick it up.

moving time next weekend. helpers please contact me asap. mandatory no shirt rule for all boys. just kidding that's gross...cough.

jill weber - keep up the good fight. the fight for good music. the fight for free music. the fight that will bring you through the cold lonely nights and bring rest to your soul. don't let a small memory space get you down.

jason mraz had a winner of a blog the other day. check it stat. www.jasonmraz.com.

on a serious note. checking out churches is the past time of my sundays. one thing i have recognized is that we truly are a family of god. i walk into different churches each week and though there are different levels of comfort and styles that appeal to me one thing remains true and that is we have a common bond and it's recognizable.

i would like these to be my next students. im have started to seriously research this.




joe your wicked because you gave me a challenge that i can't forget. i feel like i can't let you down - i must quite my job.

jazzit cafe has the best ginger cinnamon tea i have ever had.
one day i am going to adopt husband or no husband.
i think that my shirt is to tight today.

stay tuned.

new baby - old friends - country living - antique finds - with a sprinkle of emmaus time.

there are a lot of times in my life when i am overwhelmed with blessings. i felt that this weekend.

welcome to the world jorja grace. i can't even begin to imagine how much fun and love this baby girl is going to get.

emily and mark are my favorite go to visit pair. shopping for antiques and then completely taking them apart and refurbishing them was the theme of this weekend - with chili and coffee in the middle.

i love small town living. i love driving down winding roads listing to good music on our way to see a favorite tree. i love the fact that my friends have favorite trees and know that sharing those trees with me will bring me joy.
















i don't feel good tonight. i don't want to go to school tomorrow. i think that we should all quit our jobs and search the world for favorite trees with coffee in hand, good friends and good music. just my opinion.

thank you for understanding derek - shopping - he gets it.

i have heard that you are not suppose to go shopping when you are hungry because you will end up buying everything that you never really needed or wanted.

i have decided that this is a basic rule when dealing with the opposite sex.
don't go shopping when you are hungry because at some point you are going to come home and say "how the heck did i end up with this."
make sure that you are full folks so you don't come home with crap.

got the new damien rice cd 9 - thanks colby - i just want to stay home from school and listen to it over and over. putting a person into a trance and giving them the desire to neglect their job might let you consider the cd a success.

a love tuesday night volleyball - period -

ellen moore will be entertaining oprah this evening with her piano playing.

leaves are almost gone - it blows my mind that i missed this for two years. fallen leaves have a mighty smell.



picture taking is back on. i don't know what i was not doing it for a while. derek are you going to find me a real man's camera soon?

If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.

i will now have moved four times in three years.



my pen is still warm from signing my 6 month lease.

falling leaves. low ropes courses. lack of flexibility. two asleep on a loveseat. peace to my soul.

"to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
e. e. cummings.

...i hope one day you'll join us and the world will live as one

and though most of the world has probably figured this all out already it has just begun to hit me.

i was sitting in the middle of jiffy lube yesterday watching men in suits and ties looking miserable in their much too tight leather shoes. what drives the noose of a tie around their necks was what i couldn't get off my mind. why are people sitting all day long in offices where the world can not be seen and all i could come to is their main goal is money. i want to grab them and tell them that the world is so much bigger than that. that there are lives to change and people to be reach. there is a world to explore and beauty to be taken in. instead we are all sitting in jiffy lube waiting for our $19.99 oil change.

having desks thrown at my on a repeated bases and being told "the hell withchu" has also brought me to perhaps a life changing conclusion...

i have begun to realize that most people in my life circle react out of past hurts. fear drives a person to decided the way that they are going to be mistreated before it even happens. the new questions that i have been driven to ask is "why is this reaction happening and how can i show that there is a better way." my 11 year old student already believes that in life you have to fight or you will die. i told him that by the end of the year im going to make him a lover not a fighter. just a simple goal really. i imagine changing lives by loving but is it a reality when the rest of their lives are drunken moms, missing dads and "survival" being the only thing on their minds. maurices number one responsibility is to protect himself and his family according to the paper he wrote yesterday.

my friend kyle once gave me a book called traveling mercies. in it there was a section that i think about all the time. it said that...

brokenness is life's nature: that lives and hearts get broken - those of people we love, those of people that we will never meet. it said that this world sometimes feels like a waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less ok for now need to take the tenderness possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the healer comes.

the world is a funny place when the people we need so desperately are also the ones that cause so much pain. it makes you think about the only one who provides that love that does not defer.

i am addicting to myspace for truly one reason and one reason only - the music you can find is AMAZING. i could spend all day jumping from band page to band page listening.

i really enjoy watching foreign films with ellen erin and nat. i really don't enjoy having to leave the movie before it ends. will those boys ever become a successful chorus?

the love train.

trains are my new favorite mode of transportation - how long to do you think a person could survive just riding the rails? i would like to discover this.

columbus's raping and pillaging of the land = no school for this girl. bike rides and thrift store shopping with a little thai food in the middle seem to make up the day. hurry to the village discount they love columbus and make all color price tags half off.

wisconsin autumns warm my heart - let's see how iowa's compares next weekend.

i want land one day - land where i can wake up make myself a cup of coffee and look out over it as the sun rises.

my friend jason would say

"Sunrise and Sunset are the best hours of light for your body and mind because it is light you can actually ingest by looking at it, into it and it into you, absorbing its remarkable resources thru your pupils. Other times of day the light will just burn your eyeballs out..."

i would say i have a big crush.

wisconsin in the morning awakes my soul.

have i mentioned that i think that erin english really is great and even more i really enjoy the erin/ellen team. they may just change the world one day with a bucket full of love and understanding.

steven bill im sorry that my post have been obnoxiously obscure and ridiculous i think that has just been my life lately - guess it ALL comes out in xangaland. do you know that i miss you guys in an obnoxiously obscure and ridiculous way?

you may say that im a dreamer but im not the only one

farmers market blues

happiness would be the oak park farmers market. i would not want to spend my saturday morning any other way...not even sitting on a beach under the hot sun.

as my bags increase and my arms grow tired from carrying my freshness i can still find the energy to flirt with the good old boys of the world and say thank you for spending your days in the field working harder than most people i know.

largest apples in the world were bought today- that is maybe not a complete fact but they do make a complete meal.

today i was driving with colby and i was telling him how i just would like to get out of here. his comment was "im pretty happy here." it stopped my wandering heart in it's tracks. i think because i want to see it all that i forget that this is a pretty good place too. settling time perhaps.

...the drops of rain make a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling

bono's wisdom

I avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something to do with having a father who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country where the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle line. Where the line between church and state was… well, a little blurry, and hard to see.

I remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays… and my father used to wait outside. One of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was the sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

For me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native land… and in this country, seeing God's second-hand car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for cash… in fact, all over the world, seeing the self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain corners of the religious establishment…

I must confess, I changed the channel. I wanted my MTV.

Even though I was a believer.

Perhaps because I was a believer.

I was cynical… not about God, but about God's politics.

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.

Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor.

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them. "If you remove the yolk from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places"

It's not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It's not an accident. That's a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] 'As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.' (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.....

...A number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my life. In countless ways, large and small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying, you know, I have a new song, look after it… I have a family, please look after them… I have this crazy idea…

And this wise man said: stop.

He said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.

Get involved in what God is doing—because it's already blessed.

Well, God, as I said, is with the poor. That, I believe, is what God is doing.

And that is what He's calling us to do...

"...following the light of the sun we left the old world."






-christopher columbus

i smelled fall today.

my goal for this week is to take in a complete sunrise and sunset - preferably over water.

this little one... ... is the newest jardine

trading sweatshirts and skin that itches.

camp reminds of me of a life i love more than a lot of things.



"hey do you want to switch sweatshirts"

"do you want to switch sweatshirs?"

"yes"

"ok"



i believe that you learn a lot from people. the scarey part comes when you start to rely on them. somestimes bad judgement calls are made but i think on a whole life is blessed by good friends.

rachael yamagata is my continual rainy day friend. amy i think of you every time she plays. why the heck haven't we played?

yes my secret crush on jason mraz hightens - i think i love him for his mind

I returned to my digs a raw and organic foods fanatic who can touch his toes for the first time as well as do things with my mind and body that I'd never dreamed"Tan" is a sanskrit word meaning "Stretch" or "hold." All summer i'd been signing emails with the line, "The meaning of life is the perfect tan" long before i knew it's ancient interpretation. Words like Tantra and Attention come from this root. My meaning of life now has more depth thanks to this discovery. Beauty as expected,continues to be only skin deep.

I came home to a beautiful house with my favorite bed only to sleep in a tent night after night to keep the awe hanging over me. In the islands the sky is so wide when you look up you realize you're really looking out, into space, reminding you that life isn't linear, instead you're actually stuck to the side of a massive rock floating out in the middle of nowhere. It's humbling to look at it that way and it brought me to the massive conclusion, there is nothing to know other than joy & happiness.

im hooked on my classroom - i have thought about my kids all weekend. i wish everyone could meet them because they have such a special way of making the world seem so simple and beautiful - well expect for the one who tried to punch me on friday...


im not going to go away for a while because i don't think i will ever settle in here if im always leaving. once rachel told me that im always saying goodbye because i was constantly leaving somewhere. is this now my time to just stick somewhere? one weekend i promise i will stay around to see a weekend in chicago...just not this one coming.

i want an adventure - i haven't had one in so long. - my skin itches for it and im not feeling completely whole without it. it's a different life when you can get away to sleep at a top of a lighthouse like was possible when the itch came before.

as the tan fades.

should i be embarrassed that i check myspace multiply times a day and can be accused of leaving ridiculously long comments...

volleyball with old friends is like waking up from a long coma. dancing with ellen as the ball sails past my face and kimmy turning in disgust sends me to bed smiling.

i have work friends...i love new friends.

rain makes me want to cuddle - im glad the weather is clearing.

i can't remember the last time i was in water. tonight i think im going to fill the tub till the water is near overflowing and float.

letter writing is the goal of this new month - if it can make me so elated to get a letter it must have the same effect on others and im down with adding a little elation to others.

matt costa has been a constant - seems like the perfect listening solution to just relaxing.

i wanted to put some pictures on here but then i realized that i haven't taken pictures in a long long time...there is something universally wrong with that.

raindrops keep falling on my head

my big responsibility for the day was to be creative and make my classroom feel like home. a day with crayons, glue, construction paper, markers, and imagination.

it was so rainy and cold that i put on a fleece to walk to school - fall is coming and my heart is growing.

i think that im beginning to play the piano again - it's like coming back to an old friend.

milking my third cup of coffee and appreciating rachael yamagata and other mixed cd's from amy.

light the candles - turn up the music - it is letter writing time.

today is ok by me.


...a leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as i walked

anais nin.

...i’ve had enough to break me in two
to tear me apart
what am I to do?
what else can I do?

so sing me a song
let me hum along
at the top of my lungs
i come undone
what else can I do?
what can I do...







- crowder

a confession of an obsession

i went out with paul and kimmy for dinner yesterday and paul decided that what im going through is culture shock right now - it was so good to hear because i thought that i might just be going crazy. i think it's ok because i don't know if i ever want to get use totally to the u.s again.

confession time - so i have this colossal crush on jason mraz. it all started when i saw him in new york but then this summer jill had his live video and i might have watched it a couple....100 times. it might have all passed expect it just happens that there is video of jason on youtube.

so there it is - jason...


the first step of recovery is admitting that you have a problem.........but don't be suprised if one day we wed....and i think that we would be very happy together.

drinks made to order.

family vaca - always a blast. i think that my soul feels most at peace when it is near crashing waves. i honestly almost started to cry when i first heard the ocean.

a week full of sunrises and sunsets - eating the most amazing food and ice cream ice cream ice cream - getting to know my family not just as cousins and aunts and uncles but friends - seeing people hit rock bottom but also seeing people who have been through it come along and offer a hand - watching lost...or trying not to fall asleep to lost - running away from sea lice - running to the ice cream man - running on the beach untill i have blisters on my feet - waking up for sunrise and knowing that the coffee is already brewing - reading reading reading - 32 people in 1 sweet beach house -







i still don't know what God is planning for this life of mine but i will keep living looking for those hints of direction.

steven bill - i was just thinking of you guys today and then i saw your comment. i don't want you to go back to marsh harbour without us either. i honestly hate thinking about.

sweet home chicago really is .... sweet

I have
*seen my future classroom
*talked with my future special ed mentor
*paid off my entire student loan
*gotten a cell phone (which i need numbers for so please send me your # cause i have lost all)
*unpacked all my bags
*gone on 3 bike rides around my neighborhood
*gone running in portage park
*eaten indian food
*watched a marlene monroe movie with dad
*jumped on the tampolene with miles and isabella
*cried a whole lot because i miss the bahamas and my friend laura

but i still love this city.

im leaving on a jet plane...really leaving.

now i was sitting waiting wishing...

west palm beach here we are. i know that really it's not all that far from the bahamas but it is a world away from it.

first stop...
starbucks.

most embarrassing moment...
having security take me down because i had a knife in my carry on. even more embarrassing would be when i tried to explain i had it because it was my favorite dinner knife.

saddest luggage moment...
when sonia got in a fight with our pilot out of marsh harbour because he said our luggage was to much. "come on now - they had to pack their lives into 2 suitcases" - would be the comment that made laura, jessica, and i all break into tears.

people i will miss the most...



and our mama



im no good at saying goodbye - is that something that you ever become ok with?

shake a friends hand shake a hand next to you shake a friends hand and sing la la

two days to go untill the bahamas is just a thought of the past. laura and i were talking about all the people who came to visit us SO we thought that we would send out a little thank you to those. you guys - it honestly meant so much that you could come and see this part of our lives.