"Morning", Kenya, and A Wizard

Have you noticed I haven't made many posts this year? I've been a little overwhelmed. Here's why....

Besides starting a new job as a Nurse Practitioner, completely changing hospitals, and getting through the holidays...there's been a few things going on. All good of course, but even good stress is still stress. I think they taught me that in a psych class. Or maybe a patho class??? Anyways...not the point...

"MORNING":

For the past 3 weeks I have been battling "morning" sickness. But my mornings last about 22 hours a day. 

No really. 22 hours.

I've tried it all: crackers before getting out of bed, sprite, ginger ale, ginger snaps, peppermint oil, peppermints, eating frequently, eating light, lots of fruit, lemon water, protein, preggie pops (which actually worked but I can't suck on a sucker 23 hours a day...). I finally got the hook up with the all too famous Zofran, and it's done the trick. (Along with eating a handful of something every 2 hours) However, it's taken away feeling sick, but I still walk around with an occasional gag out of the middle of nowhere. But I'll take it. And the baby making fatigue is pretty extreme. Praise the Lord I work 2 days a week!! 

Our first doctor's appointment was surreal. We saw our little growing baby and the tiny little arm and leg buds. Mom things he/she looks like Darth Vader. I hope that doesn't mean he/she will have Davis' head. The horrors of working labor and delivery are still too clear in my mind.

KENYA:

In less than 2 weeks, Dad and I will be headed to Kenya to meet our Church To Church partners in Nakuru, Kenya! I just received my packet from Compassion International with my visa, itinerary, and plane tickets. Along with it they sent 2 children from this project to be sponsored by our church! So if you have been waiting to get involved with Compassion, now is the time! Or if you have loved your involvement already and want more - you can sponsor another child! Dad and I will have the wonderful opportunity to meet these children and can take them gifts or pictures from you.  One thing I'm eagerly looking forward to is meeting our 2nd sponsored child Samson. He lives somewhere between Nairobi and Nakuru and I can't wait to meet him face to face!! He's the 2nd of our 5 sponsored children, and I love so much getting letters from him. He's an "older" child so he actually writes his own letters - in English too! Hopefully the "morning" sickness will be subsiding by then....

A WIZARD:

In my classes with Betty Buckley, I have moved on to a wonderful piece of work: The Wizard And I. At the end of March there will be 3 concerts at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth featuring her students. This is a talented group of performers that you won't want to miss. And watching Betty Lynn teach is a joy in itself. She's a Wizard, herself. Of course, the "morning" sickness has put a little damper on class....but I'm pushing through. 

It's worth it in the end. I'll be so happy I could...melt.

Oh My Gosh No Way!!

Seriously, is it 2011 tonight? Geez louise.

Somehow I missed Christmas.

And I vaguely remember taking a trip to Europe recently??? What in the world?!

Don't get me wrong, 2010 is free to go. But I just can't believe it's actually here!

And goodnight Elizabeth there's a lot coming up really really soon. (And even more to prepare for....but I'll tell you about that after we get to January.)

So....I leave for Kenya in 3 weeks and 4 days....here we go! On this trip, dad and I are traveling with a staff person of Compassion International and a few church leaders from another group to meet our church partner in Nakuru, Kenya. We're very excited to see where this partnership will lead and what God will use it for.

When we get back I'll be hitting it hard to advertise concerts supporting the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. These concerts will feature students of Betty Buckley at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth. You'll want to be there. I'm singing. :)

Happy New Year! Here's to a good year!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone (in the usual Broadway song and dance style)

Put 5,000 Slaves On Standby

Aida!!! I love it. Best musical ever. Maybe 2nd only to the original Beauty and the Beast cast.

Taking place in 3000 BC Egypt, the pharaoh's ministry advisor opens by telling his son (the captain of the guard played by the talented Adam Pascal) to gain power and "put 5,000 slaves on standby - build another pyramid."

Humorous. Catchy. A little sad. Especially when you think about the probability that the slaves he was talking about were Israelites. But we'll skip over that for the tongue-in-cheek sarcasm put to perfectly timed melody and a firey orange back drop with a hint of fuschia in the morning sky.

The real point of this is how we encourage - yes, I said ENCOURAGE, not allow - the continuation of slavery today.

There are 2 huge share crops that promote the use of slavery IN and OUT of the USA. The one I'm most concerned with at the moment is coffee.

Understand upfront, I am a lover of coffee. My husband loves coffee. We drink it every morning and sometimes more than that! So don't think I'm going to start off on telling everyone to drink nothing but tap water. (Although I'm an advocate for that as well! Good use of natural resources and gives you the daily fluoride you need!)

A few facts about slavery and coffee:

1) The world market average for 1 pound of coffee beans is $0.60

2) The USA consumes 1/5th of the coffee in the world

3) Coffee prices are at an 8 year low for the farmers, however consumer prices are higher than ever leaving the farmers in poverty

4) Slave labor is used in the production of coffee including child labor

We can be smart about how we buy and drink coffee. And honestly it's easy. Fair Trade coffee is becoming more and more available to the consumer. What's Fair Trade?

Glad you asked.

Fair Trade was begun and approved by the UN in the late 1980's-90's in order to pay small farmers what they were worth. Currently, a fair trade farmer makes at minimum $1.26 per pond of coffee. Note this is more than double what the global average is currently. Small coffee farmers receive prices that are less than adequate for their product forcing them into a cycle of debt and poverty. Fair Trade takes out the middle man (the coffee trader between farmer and corporation) and requires adequate payment for products. It is a viable solution to this crisis and ensures consumers that the coffee they drink is being purchased under fair conditions. Keep in mind, the majority of the world live on less than $1 a day. You are in the top 12% of the world if you make $43,000 a year in your entire household.

So maybe you don't buy into the fact that slavery is very much still real. Try this: It's also good for the environment. Small farmers are the best stewards of the land. Fair Trade farmers don't have the capital input to clear forests, buy chemical fertilizers and pesticides. They generally grow small plots of mixed-crop, shade grown coffee organically.

Even if you don't get all warm and fuzzy about the polar bears and the oil covered ducks, I employ you to get righteously angry about using children to harvest your coffee. Especially when it costs you $5 to drink it.

Would you drink a cup of coffee if it was handed to you by a homeless child without shoes and a swollen belly? It sounds harsh, I know. But this has to be personal to us!! So would you take it? Or would you toss it and feed the child? I wouldn't ever drink it again. I would be sick at the site of it. I would never ever get over the fact of how selfish I am. But I beg of you to see, this is in fact what we're doing. Maybe the coffee you drink isn't harvested by that child. But it's harvested by his parents. Or his grandparents. Or his older caretaker sibling.

So here's how to get Fair Trade coffee. First, look for the Fair Trade symbol on the bag:






If it's not there, it's not Fair Trade. We purchase FT coffee at the grocery store. You can even buy it at Starbucks. They offer 2 types of FT coffee as whole bean bags. Please take note, the (RED) coffee from Africa is NOT FT!! Although it's supporting the AIDS initiative, it is reinforcing slavery.

PLEASE ask your local Starbucks BEFORE you order if they will brew your drink with Fair Trade coffee. They have a "yes" policy, so if it's in the store, they have to do it.

You can also order FT in bulk from www.larrysbeans.com. A friend just showed me Drink Coffee Do Good that you can purchase fair trade coffee from online. Duncan Donuts brews FT in the store and SOME of their bagged coffee is FT (although I've yet to find it for purchase). Some versions of Folgers and Millstone are FT but look for the symbol!! Here it is again!



Great websites to go to with more info on Fair Trade:

Global Exchange

Fair Trade Coffee

I know this sounds extreme, but this is personal to us. We WILL be held accountable for how we treat others even if we are ignorant of this. I am terrified to think what faces I'll see in heaven whom I refused to help for the sake of my own coffee indulgence.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone (in the usual Broadway song and dance style)

"One Thing Becomes The Next"

Betty Lynn Buckley is quite possibly the most gifted person I know. And I'm proud to say....I know her. She can sing "do be do's" and still mesmerize the class.

During class last night she said something that clicked with me. An "ah-ha!" moment, if you will.

"One thing becomes the next."

She's referring to different moments in a song. They are all connected ideas and thoughts and images although they are unique from each other. It can also apply to the energy of a song. If your energy with one idea or phrase is huge, and say the next image is meant to be more reflective, you can't rush to it. The energies must connect. Being a "master communicator," she teaches us how to evoke emotion and share entire experiences with our audience. So this idea that in a song one thing becomes the next is huge. Each idea or phrase is a new idea, a pearl. And the performer has to string those pearls together. The string though is delicate. It's made of silk, and it can break easily. But when done correctly, it's beautiful. Breath taking. Emotional. Luxurious.

The big "ah-ha!" came to me though when I realized how true this statement is for outside performance. One thing becomes the next. We're stringing our own set of pearls together. Some are round and shiny and beautiful. Some are dark and oval and dull. If one thing really becomes another, I guess the question we should be asking is...

What am I starting with?

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodnight

Tomorrow is my very last day at Children's Medical Center. After almost 7 years, it's time for us to part. And it's weird.

I start a new journey in December. Well, sorta new. Trauma is trauma no matter where you are - at least in the world of halflings. So that's not new. But it is a new place, a new role, and a new way of doing things.

I'll miss quite a few things - my second family - who at times I saw more than my own family. At times, was even closer to them than my own family. Definitely built lifelong friendships with a few of them. Laughed, cried, and been hysterical together. And I learned more from them than I could possibly imagine. I hope I was able to do the same in return. I will be so sad to leave you girls (and the occasional guy- Marshall, Stinky...) but extremely excited about the new opportunity ahead. So with that I say (sing)...

Adieu, adieu, to you and you and you...I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly. Goodbye...

We're Gonna Paint The Town And All That Jazz

Scadoo

Chicago here we come!

This week is the training event for church leaders for Compassion's newest ministry, Church To Church. We're excited to be linked with a church in Kenya, and we'll have more detailed info this week!

A trip is being planned for the key leaders after the first of the year, and a subsequent trip will be open to members of Celebration that will be planned for late summer or early fall of 2011. If you're interested, go ahead and get your name in. Without having met the church yet, we're not sure exactly what the trip will entail, but I can tell ya, you'll wanna be a part of it.

Having traveled with Compassion International in the past, I learned so much about the heart of God's people and how the global church is effectively empowering the poor.

Our involvement with C2C will bring not only an immense opportunity for personal growth and a challenge to be involved and aware about how our brothers and sisters across the globe live, but it will also bring hope and encouragement to a church who is striving to reach their community for the name of Jesus Christ....

And all that jazz.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone in the air (in the usual Broadway song and dance style)

Fighter Pilots, Kelly Clarkson, and The World Series

October 30, 2010 is a day I will never forget. Thanks to a very dear friend of my family's, we were fortunate to go to Game 3 of the World Series - the very first World Series home game in franchise history for the Texas Rangers.

Being long time fans, my family had an early start to the day. Dad and Davis had work to do, so they missed our "pre-show" Series fun and met up with us later. We started off the day by going to Jason's Deli for lunch. At the table next to us were a couple of guys in Air Force Pilot uniforms.

I whisper, "Hey bro, what do you bet those guys are flying over the game today?"

Of course we strike up a conversation with them and find out that they are the lucky ones chosen to time the flyover. Luckier than the pilots flying over, if you ask me. Jason ("Hollywood") stood at the dugout and Brian ("Vapor") stood on top of the scoreboard. They timed the flyover down to the second! Real nice guys. Ashley walked by the table and caught a "sneak" shot at Jason to which he said to Zack, "Women are silly." And Zack replied to the handsome soldier in uniform, "You two should know that better than most men..." Of course Z was encouraging Ashley to take off her wedding ring and flirt with them to get a ride in their jet. Silly bro.

Real nice guys. We saw them later at the game. So jealous they were on the field the day of a World Series game!! What an honor!

After lunch we were all so excited!! We basically RAN to the field from Lincoln Square. We sang, we cheered, we did the claw!

We got to the stadium early for BP along with about 2000 other crazed fans. The energy was incredible...

An incredible moment happend during the first pitch. Nolan Ryan threw the first pitch to catcher Ivan "Pudge" Rodriguez. This was very special for us since we grew up watching Nolan and Pudge.

There was so much red and blue in the stands it was breath taking! Before the game even started the crowd was nuts. We chanted "Let's Go Rangers" through the entire Giants lineup!

Here's Josh Hamilton's introduction

Then one of my favorite parts of the whole day happened. Kelly Clarkson sang the national anthem. As you know....I'm kinda into the performing arts. So hearing her sing one of the most difficult songs of all time, on a day like this...wow. Amazing. And she knocked it out of the park.

The game was
so exciting! Josh Hamilton's home run was huge. There's nothing like a guy circling the bases to red fireworks and The Natural. Warms your blood.

The Final Out was more excitement than we could even stand. Oh my gosh...I still get crazy when I watch this video.

I'm so glad we were there for the Ranger's only World Series win. Next year boys....next year...