breaKing bread..

today at church the pastor talked about the table and its importance. that the table experience & breaking bread is essential to connection. just this week i was talking to mark about eating at the table with my family and how it usually is a must. in high school, my curfew was ... six oclock. yup..good ol six oclock. even the HELLA cool folks i'd kick it with at the library (gellert .. just to be exact .. haha) knew i had to be home by 6 in order to eat dinner with my fam.

and yes in high school i considered it to be the main murderer of my so called social life (yes again at the library) to sit down with my mom, dad, grandma and random family member that decided to drop by that day .. even if i wasn't hungry .. even if i had eaten .. even if i was in trouble .. that was the rule .. i had to be there.

i hated it. i hated being called out while doing homework or talking to my current *special friend* to eat fish (haha that was grandmas favorite thing to cook) .. but when i went to college and started creating a family of my own ..i realized how important and meaningful it was. how rare it was for fams to still eat together. and like most things i hated as a "pinay pride in teenage angst" (ha)..i have realized the importance of my beloved curfew and i thank my parents for it ..

and for the purpose of dinner time or "KAIN NA!!!!!!!" (my mom screams from the kitchen ... although now she just calls me on my cell .. yes .. from downstairs .. haha) i begin to remember .. solidify .. and share stories from my table. im really unsure of why .. especially here .. i guess i've always wanted to share my dads stories (if you know me .. you'd know i love telling stories about my dad) .. i've always wanted to write them down ... so .. might as well do it now and share it with the world :)

so..here goes :) enJOY the bread :)

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an easy one. and if anyone reads this .. im sure you've got your own. the table with my cousins. damn .. me, jill, jordan, and dan .. either at jills house in vallejo .. or at natoris (a japanese buffet where we used to pretend the battered shrimp were free willys...and where jordan was told to stop going to the buffet .. hahahahha).. or at any other restaurant .. we were infamous for not acting correctly .. if you can really define incorrect manners. but what i do remember was that not matter what we had to finish our food. and THIS was the bane of our existence ..the thorn of our flesh .. so in turn, we invented creative ways to respond....

FAMOUS CLARIZA TABLE TECHNIQUES

1. "JUST CHILL." chili from tlc was one of jills nicknames back then..and this is what we did at the table when we didn't want to eat anymore and our parents said we couldn't leave til we finished ... in our own little distorted way ..we thought that if we just waited long enough .. they'd forget we had to finish our food, receive a magical dose of compassino for their poor kids and let us gO!!!!


this technique never worked.

2. THE SPREAD AND SMILE. haha .. this is where we only had rice left on the plate sooo ..we perfectly spread out the rice left on our plate. hahaha .. not too much on any side of the plate but evenly enough so it appeared as if it was just scraps left. haha we were EXPERTS at this .. and YES! we did this without any previous training or teaching from each other ..it was as if ..it was in us..included in the fabric of our design ... PRAISE GOD! because this, worked wonders..

but not all the time .. so the times we just had too much rice left .. we had to pull out the acting skills.

3. COUGH AND GO. heheheh ... this was when (omgoodness i can't believe we did this) .. me and jill would stuff our faces with rice. like foreal. just put hella rice in our mouths and then cause ourselves to gag and "cough" up what we "couldn't" swallow. and the trick was to cough just enough for the parents to acknowledge that we couldn't swallow our food but not too much to make the parents come and take care of you. after the coughing, we'd then proceed to spit it out into a napkin, wait til their attention wasn't on us .. and run to the bathroom to drop it into the toilet. hahaha .. hella slick right!?! hahaha ... this was the hardest operation of them all ..but it got rid of the rice fast and efficiently plus a lil sympathy from our parents .. hahahah

i remember hiting the beaded curtain at jills old house trying not to trip or fall with all that rice .. oh the things we did! (now i can't stop eatting! haha) i even think one time the toilet didn't work or we forgot to flush and my cousin dan saw .. he threatened to tell on us .. but thankfully he didn't .. what a kind soul that man..haha

and so it was .. our techniques at the table helped us each and every time .. and recently we were all laughing about it (the cousins) and the parents over heard us ..and surprisingly they didn't even know! haha .. thats JUST HOW WE DO! haha...

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haha .. well dont know how to end one of these blog things .. but maybe with a question? what if we compiled all our secrets @ the dinner table and sold it as a book to becoming parents? eh? eh? haha .. do yall have any to share?? does anyone even read this? haha .. well we'll see ..

******
til more stories invade my fingers ..

God bless .. ingat ..
`bienOwie

God never wastes a hurt ..

so im reading this book that heidi gave me (thanks heids!) .. its called pathway to purpose for women (by katie brazelton). i thought it was perfect especially for a time such as this where i have no idea where God wants me to be ..

althought i had some qualms (yes i said qualms) about the book .. (its pretty typi Christian flowery frou frou God is super! writing) .. there are parts that strike a cord with me, my heart, and my questions. the first chapter was about reconciliation and forgiveness .. and this week i realized that i am starting this new year right. by making peace with people and past relationships, refocusing on whats really important, and ready to go wherever God wants me to be.

this chapter was about finding purpose in your everyday. dianne said is best when she reminded us that our "everyday is extraordinary." and so i have been living. i may sulk every now and then but lately i've been seeing how God is amazing and perfect even in the days i dont even leave the house. like times i get to see my grandma smile and hear her laugh (it really is life giving). or when i get to finally respond to an email of a friend. cook dinner for my fam. take time to actually spend with God. study for the gres. bake. clean for my family. lately i've been seeing these days as long awaited rest. im finally doing me. and i like it.

the book also reminds me that God is seeing how I can find and experience Him on the daily and through the small things so that He can entrust me with bigger things in the future .. everyone is blessed with talents and skills and i know that God will reveal to me with impeccable timing how i can use them .. also that He has already given us roles to play .. as daughters/sons, friends, partners, cousins, ect. and those roles are just as important as leader, community inspirer, worker, etc .. so we shouldn't overlook them and we should also learn how to praise God through those tasks ..

to make a week long revelation short .. im learning to love my unsettled time here .. seeing God in everyway i can .. being real with myself and enjoying as much as i can .. esp through recharging myself .. these past 9 years of ministry (in and outside of church) have been hard .. so its nice to just ....be. (haha..stupid treK)

tomorrow me and mark are meeting with a leader from p.y.c (pilipino youth center?) of vallejo .. on our first visit there he asked us if we wanted to do a workshop this monday .. haha ahm like..do you know who we are? do you know where we been? lemme chill first homie! haha .. and at night imma check out a Bible study from justus' church .. gotta check my stereotypes and apprehensions about mainstream Christianity at the door foreal .. but im praying for good things .. i know God is at work today tomorrow, and for the rest of this confusion we call life ..

til peace (can be) easy ... i end it with a verse from the Bible and quoted in the book im reading (beautifully if you ask me)..

"But blessed is the [wo]man who trusts in the Lord and has made the Lord [her] hope and confidence. [She] is like a tree planted along a riverbank, with its roots reaching deep into the water - a tree not bothered by the heat nor worried by long months of drought. Its leaves stay green, and it goes right on producing all its luscious fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8

God bless..
`bienOwie

hmm...post grad depression begins......now.

haha .. so .. i'd like to say im back. but if i did refer to a "back" it must infer that in this location lies a starting place .. somewhere i came from ... somewhere i associate leaving .. but i dont.

im here. thats better ..

im here. in the ac. eww. haha .. no one tells you life after college is like .. hmm..let me rephrase that..no one tells you that life after ucsd kp life is like this... i miss san diego. the weather. the people. the conversations. the peace. i thought i'd never say this but san diego became home. especially after my parents moved. me and dunn both agreed ... we felt like we belonged there. even in la jolla .. ive grown accostomed to feeling out of place .. and threatening to all the hohum white people who feel i dont belong there .. haha ..weirdly enough i felt safe in my displacement.

visiting sd is like visiting an old loved one you're not supposed to love anymore or you're trying to be friends with... haha .. being in their presence is a weird mix of emotion caught between not wanting to be there because "youve moved on" and feeling the most comfort you've felt in a long time. you know all its secrets so you lay comfortably in their presence and at one surprising moment you realize that that person, or san diego, has more to offer than you explored ... but you know it can never be the same .. the reality is that san diego..or she .. will always be there as a memory but never again a reality like it had been .. damn .. what a breath of bittersweet fresh warm (not 20 degree) air ..

here.

im lost. trying to stay positive..trying to be set in this mentality.

my plan thus far: to study for the gres and work to pay for my travelling plans. haha. but i kinda like it.. i like being able to wake up and do what i want to do .. taking care of things i've pushed aside for the past 5 years for kp .. like blogging. ha. and watching movies. the hardest part has got to be living at home. i hate it.

free rent + free food = free access to nowie. anytime. anywhere. anyway. i am the resident counselor. food preparer. utos extrodinaire (sp?). every moment is free game to ask nowie to do something or to start fighting with nowie. about politics. about what im doing with my life. about what i should do. its like a war zone. with a billion people involved because this house is NEVER empty. im trying to get used to it..trying to acquire a family mentality .. the reality of household chores, problems, and routine .. but im trying ..

im praying for peace and purpose .. that God will give me peace with today and what is has to offer .. and that He will continue to guide me to where He wants me to be .. also praying for a home church .. and for folks to make this feel like home .. im far from it .. but im on my way.

`bienOwie.