Like the sentiment...

Angry Little Girls by Lela Lee makes me laugh.  I came across these books in a bookstore last year.  Sometimes I find myself nodding my head in agreement when I read the comic strips.  (It also makes me wish Calvin and Hobbes was still being published.)  I want this!  

The next stage...

I am quiet
calm
unfettered
silent

I am thinking about birth
moms
the beginning of new life

I would say there are few spiritual moments in life
and the birth of a child is one of them
but this way of thinking no longer applies to me

I think there are many spiritual moments in life
every day
but there is something to be said
for the external and apparent moment
of the birth of a child

I am reminded at this moment of an interview I once heard with author Isabel Allende
I searched online and found this (part 2)
This speaks to me to this place from which I want to live my life
The world does not seem to care about this
But I care
In this space my world is no longer
pushed around
by immature boyfriends
by family hysterics
by the outside world trying to push its value system upon me.
In this place I am not sucked into other's dramas and issues
I do not seek to change those around me
I only seek to grow myself

Marianne Williamson once said...
"...as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others."

This is all I can do for those in my life--
develop as much as possible
into the person that most resonates with me.

Oprah Winfrey once said...
"The whole point of being alive
is to evolve into the complete person
you were intended to be."

and

"We can’t become
what we need to be
by remaining what we are."

My new favorite blog

(Photo Source: Smitten Kitchen)

Emma sent me the Smitten Kitchen blog yesterday and I'm in love. The photographs are vibrant with bold colors. I'm filled with such joy upon opening this site. I'm determined to recreate one of these cakes.

My Verdant Kale

This is a shout-out to one Oregonian thriver.

I sauteed some kale tonight for dinner. Little olive oil, garlic, Sriracha, and kale. As I tossed the kale around in the wok I thought about my introduction to it when I waitressed one summer in college at a chain restaurant where it was served steamed. It is quite bitter and in my eyes quite gross prepared this way. A few years later on one of my many grocery shopping excursions I decided to give it another try. I figured put in the hands of a wonderful, experienced cook like my mom maybe I would see it in a different way. Sure enough mom sauteed it with garlic, olive oil, and some soy sauce (I now use sea salt) and I fell in love with it.

I'm writing about kale as Day 1 of my weekly homework assignment about color. As I watched it cook I thought about how it was dark green, but with an ashy white color on the back of its leaves...but when sauteed the green lifts and turns from a dark forest green...so dark I forget at times it is a shade of green to a bright, more definite green, closer to the middle of the color wheel green. I'm feeling a corny metaphor coming on here. As the kale succumbs to the heat and wilts, giving up its former structure through its metamorphosis we experience its vibrancy and tastiness. I'm sure there is a lesson to be learned here about self-esteem and transformation. And that is the end of this episode of Reading Rainbow kids. Cue the NBC Star and the words "The More You Know".....

I'm such a smart ass sometimes :)