Protests against CPE...

Check it

So check out my classmate Liu's website...it puts my blog to shame.
The link is on the side, and here as well:
http://www.weblink.idv.tw

Liu...je n'ai aucune comprehension de << 日安！普羅旺斯 >> mais j'aime bien le "font" chinois! :) Pardon-moi...mais peut-etre tu peut traduire le titre en francais, ou meme anglais? Merci pour m'a invite!

St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin

Happy St. Patty's Day!!!

I'll Have My Sugar-Free Cake and Eat it Too

Sometimes I envision myself as this type of senior citizen.....Always decked out in some eccentric gear, still trying to cling to my glory days as a fiery red-head, running around pinching everyone's cheeks...And I'd go on those bus tours where they end up at a casino in Atlantic City playing slot machines, because heck, why not? I think that would be a goood time. Well, for a while at least. Maybe that'll be like my 3/4 life crisis. Then I'll go back to shopping at Talbots, my bad dye job will grow out and be replaced by noble white hair, and I'll spend all day long gardening and talking about summers on Martha's Vineyard.

Don't order any black things...be radiant...wear violet and purple.

-George Bernard Shaw

This little gem in purple just stood there and listened so intensely...so contently.

Milk and Cereal

I love granola...I do...I have to tell myself that I am only allowed one bowl a day. Because honestly, if I could have it my way, I would eat it for every meal. You think I'm trying to pull a fast one on you but I'm not...I love it that much. I've been buying Muesli at ED (similar to ALDI's...) because I get more bang for my euro...But Monoprix (department/grocery store) sells their own granola with nuts in it which is even more delightful...so I wouldn't be surprised if Monoprix granola starts making guest appearances in my diet.
Every morning, I wake up, brush my teeth, and head straight to the kitchen to pour myself a bowl of granola. Enter in MILK.

Du lait, if you will. I was raised in a place I like to call BLACK AND GOLDSBURG (I love the STEELERS!) aka Greensburg, where we like to buy milk cold. This has been standard for me going on 21 years now (my entire life)...something deep within me expects to buy cold milk. You can imagine how disconcerting it is to come to France and see non-refrigerated shelves and people's shopping baskets laden with sterilized milk that promises not to expire until april 10th. It's just not right...it's just not ok. I ignored these shelves and people for quite some time, always making a beeline for one of the lonely refrigerated milks in the case.

UNTIL, dum dum dum, a crisis of monumental proportions presented itself. One night, in preparation for my granola experience the following morning, I ventured out to buy du lait. Except all of the other Americans must have beat me to the punch! Both Casino and Monoprix were plum out and ED doesn't even sell refrigerated milk!! What to do...what to do...either sacrifice my granola ritual or 21 years of conditioning...So I betrayed everything right and good in me and bought the sterilized milk, ok? That, my friends, is how much I love granola.

Oh that Oswald

Oswald Chambers is incredible. I just feel like everything he wrote is sooo relevant to what I'm experiencing at the very moment I read it. It amazes me. So I just thought I'd post a few quotes by Chambers that have really reminded me that when I get distracted by anything: trials, longings, and just life...I need to fix my eyes on the Lord because only He can unfold my heart...

Jan. 22: "The very thing we lok for, we shall find if we concentrate on Him...the difficulties and trials--the casting about in our minds as to what we shall do this summer, or to-morrow, all vanish when we look to God...Rouse yourself and look to God. Build your hope on Him. No matter if there are a hundred and one things that press, resolutely exclude all and look to Him."

Jan. 23: "The golden rule for your life and mine is this concentrated keeping of the life open towards God. Let everything else--work, clothes, food, everything on earth--go by the board, saving that one thing...Let other things come and go as they may, let other people criticize as they will, but never allow anything to obscure the life that is hid with Christ in God."