fondest memories

there are some experiences in life that cannot be explained in words. the only people who understand how meaningful the experience was are people who shared it with you. my trip to kenya was that sort of experience.

upon arriving back home after 2 months of a life-changing adventure, all i could talk about was what i had seen, heard, tasted and touched while in africa. i was super excited and wanted to share with everyone i talked to what my trip had been like. as all returning missionaries soon find out, my excitement was not shared by everyone. after awhile, i began to see that people no longer cared to hear my stories. i learned that everyone else had been leading their normal lives while i was gone and, though they showed interest in seeing pictures and hearing a few stories, they understandably wanted to continue to lead their normal lives and thought that i should get back to leading mine. so i stopped talking about it. i bit my tongue many times before the words "this one time, in kenya" came out of my mouth.

i have kept bits of africa close to me over the past 9 years since i was there. i used my turkana basket as a hope chest and now it stores my childhood memories. my little wooden giraffe that i bought in nairobi is proudly on display in the living room, though he is missing an ear. my all time favorite picture of me and kelly on a camel taken in mombasa is enlarged and framed and graces my dresser in every house i've lived in. and, once in awhile, i'll take out the memory album i created, blow the dust off, and page through the pictures, re-visiting the little mountain town of kabartonjo.

there were 8 of us young canadians who followed our experienced missionary "parents" into the vast, unknown, gorgeous country of kenya to share God's love with highschool students. all the good intentions of keeping in touch with the other team members hadn't really been successful until the whole facebook craze began. though i'm "facebook friends" with 5 of these people, i never really connected with any of them. until laura.

from the moment we found each other on facebook, laura and i have been writing to one other regularly. thrilled at the fact that we now live in the same state, we've been planning to visit one another and, on tuesday it finally happened! though i hadn't seen laura in nearly 9 years, i wasn't a bit worried about having anything in common or what we'd talk about. sure enough, though we managed to catch up pretty well on the past 9 years, the day was filled with wonderful reminiscing. its funny how certain memories stick out in my mind from that time, and laura of course has completely different favorite memories.

we remembered meals of ugali and sukumo wiki, goat stew, chippatis and lots and lots of chai. we remembered the students who we ministered to, the friends we made, what the town looked like on market day with fruits and vegetables piled high on the sides of the street, goats and cows and chickens wandering the roads. we remembered chocolate bars that tasted mildly of moth balls, our visit to a pokot tribe and the cute missionary named jeff there who we all had secret crushes on.

we remembered when our matatu broke down at the side of the road, mosquito netting, getting our hair braided and having to wear those horrid long skirts. we remembered our three delicious days in mombasa at the end of the trip and how decadent everything felt after living in such poverty for so long. we remembered so much more, but i won't bother to write it because to you all it doesn't mean much. but i can't tell you how happy i was to have someone, for one day, really understand and remember with me. it was marvelous.

the only thing i would change about tuesday if i could is to rewind to the point where we went to starbucks. i definitely would NOT have ordered my mocha made with soy milk. it was a first for me and also a last. thank you, laura for trekking down to my neck of the woods and remembering with me :)

snowy pictures

what God sent on Valentine's Day

excuse us as we get giddy about snow, but we just don't see a lot of it down here in these parts.

skinny b!tches r us

i picked up a copy of this book at a borders bookstore before christmas and read the first few pages. it immediately sort of shocked me not only with the unique way in which it is written, but also with the way it actually turned me off junk food for awhile. and this after only reading a few pages! not for the easily offended, this book throws around filthy language as if its thinking about becoming a rap song and is full of in-your-face, stomach-churning information about all of the disgusting food we eat without a second thought. after requesting it from the library ages ago, it finally came in and i'm currently on the chapter entitled: "the dead, rotting, decomposing flesh diet" in which the authors use the term "carcass" instead of meat. stomach-churning, indeed. the next chapter is on dairy and i'm seriously considering eating all of my precious yogurts before reading it just in case it turns me off of them as well.

the authors, who from their photo on the back cover definitely look like 2 skinny (and gorgeous) b!tches, are basically promoting a vegan lifestyle, which i don't expect myself to begin following any time soon. honestly, my husband would NEVER be on board and i'm really not the kind of martha stewart who finds it easy to whip up 2 separate dinners each evening. however, i am getting a lot of good information that i never knew before (like exactly why sugar is the devil and how dangerous aspartame really is) and i hope that it will influence my food choices in a good way.

i also finally searched for and found my missing weight watchers points calculator, so i'm attempting to start afresh on counting points. yesterday i made the mistake of eating all of my points in the earlier part of the day, which resulted in a ravenous heidi in the evening who ended up pigging out on italian wedding soup followed by a dark chocolate purdy's heart sucker (lovingly sent by my mom for valentines day) followed by overwhelming guilt that i was eating past 8:00pm. *sigh*

i've got to do SOMETHING different here because these extra 10 lbs that i didn't have before i got pregnant with tristan are just hanging on for dear life around my middle. i really, really, really want to be rid of this ridiculous muffin top before i am again procreationally insemenated because i do believe all of those girls who tell me if i don't lose them before then, they're mine to keep.

one great new motivator is the new blog, "healthy chicks r us", which my friend leah and i started. there are currently only 4 members of this private blog and every week we weigh in and share our highs and lows with each other throughout the week. if any of you are interested in joining our fabulous chubby club, let me forewarn you that the entry fee is steep: you must post a "before" picture of yourself wearing only your skivvies. we all had to do it and we're all looking forward to posting those "after" pictures some day.

for those of you who are already "afters", please comment and let me know what your method was for kicking those stubborn pounds off of your body for good. i'm extremely open to ideas right now :)

phonephobia

"hi, my name is heidi and i am afraid of the phone." ha ha ha, you all chuckle good-humourdly as you sit comfortably in your desk chairs, waiting to read the disclaimer. but i assure you, it is true. i am afraid of the phone.

i suppose the fact that i didn't use the phone much as a kid didn't help. in fact, my mom took a picture of the first "official" time i used the phone. i called my grandma and said, "hi" and she asked me a few questions, which i politely answered, then said "okay, goodbye." i was 7 years old. it makes me laugh to think that tristan is barely one year old and the telephone is already one of his favourite "toys."

after that initial phone call to my grandma, i can remember painstakenly dialing (on a rotary phone, mind you) the number of my cousin lisa's house. we called each other up often in the summer and our calls basically involved the same words every time. "do you want to play?" "okay." "your house or mine?" "um, yours." "okay, bye." and off i'd go on my bike to visit her. ah yes, those were the days. simple conversations, no awkward silences, no difficult questions.

by the time i was around 12, i had moved past only the purely necessary play-date phone calls and would call my best friend in the next town to see if it was snowing at her house because it was snowing at mine. then 13 hit. oh dear me, i never saw it coming. i had recently "accidentally" stepped on my purple and turquoise framed glasses, forcing my parents to seriously consider getting me contacts. i had also just discovered the miracle of lipstick, and i had 2 cool friends who used the term "hanging out" instead of "playing together." these two friends, for some strange reason, loved to talk on the phone and they'd often call me up "on the other line" using third party calling so that all three of us could chat together. it was absolutely terrifying. i had no clue what to talk about. i mostly listened to their take on who was going to break up with who and who else had a crush on who. ( i feel like there should be a whom in there, but i've no idea where to put it). when i did open my mouth, it was usually in order to insert my foot. i clearly remember the day when they were chatting about how gorgeous cindy crawford was and one of them asked me, "do you think she is prettier than niki taylor, heidi?" and before i could think of a clever answer, i just blurted out what was going through my head, "who is cindy crawford?" i honestly didn't know, but that was obviously the wrong answer and i didn't live that one down for awhile.

as i grew up, the telephone became more and more necessary. though my parents didn't allow me to date until i was 16, i still had "boyfriends" who called me and whenever they did, i never knew what they expected me to say. "do you want to hang out after school tomorrow?" was a question i could answer. "so....um.....yeah......what are you thinking right now?" was not. though i loathed that horrendous ringing monster, i knew that it was essential if i wanted to maintain my social status. and so i used it as sparingly as possible.

and then God created email. oh! wondrous email! the internet had been around awhile before i set up my first hotmail account and discovered what the web all had to offer, and when i did i couldn't believe that it had taken me SO LONG to use something that could replace that dreaded telephone! i no longer had to call a restaraunt and be put on hold just to ask where they were located. i no longer had to call someone to set up a coffee date and wonder just exactly how to say goodbye. now, we all know that the internet can't really replace having a good old heart to heart on the phone, but it sure is great for all of those short little pointed conversations.

of course, i thought the telephone was the most marvelous invention when josh and i were engaged and living in two different countries. we'd talk on the phone for hours and hours, never really running out of things to say or questions to ask. and now that i live so far from friends and family, i'm still very thankful for the phone.....and yet.....somehow, it still frightens me.

the fact is that i don't really like to call other people, even if i really like that person. those of you who call me and leave a message and wait FOREVER for me to call you back are all nodding your heads right now. i just suck at the phone. if a friend calls me i ALWAYS without fail have an initial moment of panic, where i think "what am i going to talk about?" i'm not sure why i still have this odd fear because i really enjoy the conversations i have with my friends when we do chat. to be honest, i would be completely fine with letting the machine get every single call. except that i feel like i have to answer just in case josh got in a car accident and is in the hospital or something. but otherwise i would never answer the phone. and i would lead a very quiet, very boring, very unsocial life.

and so, my dear friends who haven't given up on me despite the very one-sided telephone connection, thank you for calling.