juicing!

i’m in the middle of a three day juice cleanse. i really like this challenge and the feeling of my body being rejuvenated by nutrients from the earth.

{i did a six day cleanse nearly two years ago, and i can’t believe it’s taken me this long to do another. i finally bought myself my own juicer.}

another thing i like about juicing is the fun of making up random combinations of fruits and vegetables. so far i’ve made orange-grapefruit-cucumber, cantaloupe-carrot-pineapple, apple-pear-spinach and honeydew-kiwi-celery. there’s some strawberry-carrot-mango in my fridge for tomorrow and i’m also excited to try sweet potato-red bell pepper-apple-ginger.

although i am sometimes really, awfully bad at it, i super believe in mindful eating. food and the human body are both so glorious!

six things i’m loving lately

1. january in palo alto
the weather was positively glorious this weekend. on saturday i went on a bike ride with a friend from our neighborhood through the luscious, sun-drenched, tree-lined streets leading to downtown palo alto. we ate lunch outside on a pretty patio – it was just so lovely! i took a long run along the alpine trail in portola valley that evening at sunset. sunday morning i woke up and hiked in the hills above that same trail, and it was balmy and verdant and so pleasant. not bad at all for the last week in january.

2. running and my body
i am training for my second half marathon, which i will run on february 8 in san diego. i am just amazed by and so grateful for my healthy body. like most (all?) women, i often wish my body looked differently in some way or another, but – seriously! – it is magnificent! i love love love the feeling i have after finishing a long run (i don’t always love the feelings before finishing!).

3. following humansofny on instragram
i had seen the humans of new york website before, but now that i follow the project on instragram, i get to peek into the beautiful and diverse lives of strangers every day. i just adore reading tidbits of people’s stories, and feeling an undeniable connection of the human family, just from simple images and words. here are a couple of my recent favourites.
  

4. oatmeal/almond butter/banana “cookies”
i have seen all kinds of recipes for sugar-free, gluten-free cookies, and have tried quite a few, but i finally found one that i really love and that really works!
mix: 3 super-ripe bananas, 1 tablespoon vanilla, 3/4 cup almond butter (can also use peanut butter), 3 tablespoons maple syrup (or a mix of maple syrup and honey), 2 cups oats, 1/2 cup almond meal (can also use any type of flour), 1 teaspoon baking powder, and a dash of salt (can also add chocolate chips)
bake at 350 for 15 minutes!

(recipe adapted from here)

5. hearing about my students’ middle school love drama
i’ve reached a level of trust with several groups of students at my school that allows them to let me in a little on their love lives, which is awesome. “ms. eyre,” they call out to me at lunch, “jennifer got back together with salvador. he told her he couldn’t eat or sleep unless she took him back!” one student is keeping me updated on his romance with a girl that goes to another school – “ms. eyre, my girlfriend told me she wants to hold hands, but i don’t feel ready yet. i’m not going to do it until i feel ready.”

6. this song and this song and this song
the first one - i didn’t even know it was one direction until i was hooked! and the second one – it’s constantly on repeat, because it feels like it is soothing my heart. and the third one – it’s just so devastatingly beautiful; it’s what i listen to when i feel it’s important to feel deeply sad for a little bit. hits the spot.

here’s to a sunny, rejuvenating weekend and a i’m-determined-it-will-be-awesome week ahead!

middle school bathroom stall inspiration

it was the p.s. that really convinced me to love myself :)

every single day lately, i feel a lot of struggle to get out of bed
(before the sun comes up!) and get to work.
but every single day,
the second the first “good mornings” are exchanged with my students,
i am glad i am awake and there.

streaming grace

saydi and i went to see “graced with light,” an art installation made up of twenty miles of colorful ribbons in san francisco’s grace cathedral. i got to play with my new camera (eeek sooo excited about it!) as we walked under the cascading hues wrapped up in the gentle peace of the airy, hallowed church. those colors, that light, those patterns – they just soothed the soul.

i loved the way the sun outside sent spattered dazzling colors onto the cold, achromatic stone while the tints and tones of the ribbons seeped through the empty, ebony nave. it reminded me that brilliant color and gleaming light can infuse any darkness.

as i stood surrounded in color in a place named for grace, i felt hope stream like the ribbons.

{i just learned that another element of this installation is video projection, which happens during the weekly yoga on the labyrinth class at the cathedral – so i’ll have to go back!}

sisterlove

on saturday morning at 7am, the buzzing of my phone woke me up. it was my sister saydi, calling from boston. i figured she forgot to factor in the time change, and i drowsily silenced the call. when she called again, i was a little annoyed that i wasn’t left to sleep in when i have such early weekday mornings! when the phone rang the third time, i groggily answered, “hey sayd, is everything okay?”

she told me that she had just booked a plane ticket and was leaving her house in half an hour, and that she’d be here at 8:45pm, if that was okay with me.

what an act of pure sisterlove!! saydi woke up, read a sorrowing email i’d sent the night before, arranged for the care of her husband and four children, and went to the airport. i am tremendously touched by her decision to come, and enormously imbued with love and strength from her visit.

i still can’t believe this happened! and i’ll never be able to belive how blessed i am to have this sisterlove.

on sunday we walked the dish, explored stanford campus and attended the end of a beautiful service in memorial church. it was such a pretty, bright day. saydi listened and empathized and taught and loved and shared and made me laugh. it was just such, such a beautiful thing to be together in this place in time and space.

i’ll forever cherish this time we spent together.

we went to church looking like sisters – colorful clothes and the exact same bag. after church we went straight to the beach and made it just in time for the most glorious sunset. gosh it was incredible. these pictures just don’t do it any justice! the last hues of day crawled over the waves and the mist and the clouds and the sand and it really was like a little slice of heaven on earth. 

on monday, we went to the city, and we couldn’t have ordered up a better day. we ran nine miles from the ferry building, along the piers, past the marina and crissy field, across the golden gate bridge and down the hill into sausalito. it was so exhilarating and awesome. we took the ferry back and being on the open bay with all that wind in our hair was so invigorating, so curative and emboldening.

we ate delicious food at the ferry building and then drove to the tippy top of nob hill to check out the ribbons installation at grace cathedral (more on that later). we sat in the park on the grass under the sun and talked. we went home, showered, and shared my favourite meal in the world.

and then, all too soon, this miraculous, exquisite weekend was over.

i just feel completely at a loss for words to explain what this weekend with my sister meant to me. i am so blessed and so grateful.

healing from heartbreak and heartache

this week, i have needed to focus a lot of attention and energy to healing.

there has been, recently, a resurgence of my heart’s flowing wintry river of grief. i have felt as if i am in the middle of an extremely painful furnace of sanctification. and while i’ve felt scathed, scalded and charred,  i have also experienced the wonder of not being consumed by those flames, and can feel them purifying me. in this blaze, i am miraculously healing.

part of this healing is choosing to claim peace over understanding. my heart and mind cannot understand all the complexities that have brought me to this great hurt, but:
the peace of god, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds…
-philippians 4:7

yes, there are so many things i don’t understand. but there are few things i feel i can believe for sure. and the peace of those things passes understanding and allows the flames to refine rather than consume.
**first, i believe that god is aware of me, and that he will continue to watch over me and he won’t let the good get away. i believe in redemption – that if i continue to strive to be golden hearted and lean into the sanctification no matter its connected pain, all the things that seem so wrong to me now will be made right. i believe, even though it’s so hard for me to imagine or conceptualize, that there are better things ahead for me. somehow, quite incredulously it feels now, i believe that, deep into my bones.
**second, i believe that love is always beautiful and good, and never wasted. i will not attempt to forget, erase or discount any of the beautiful, sacred, romantic, magical, lovely experiences i have had preceding my broken heart. instead, i will always cherish them as mine and continually strive to glean lessons and memories and goodness from them. i will not allow a heartbreaking destination to negate in any way the wondrous, spectacular journey. no matter the ache it has caused, i am so very, very grateful for for this wild ride, and its good will always outweigh its bad.
**third, i believe i can choose hope and refuse bitterness. this has taken some quite grueling work for me (for a few weeks i could hardly see a baby or hear of a marriage without welling up with a yearning that cut deep and sore; i have been tempted to feel angry or jealous or cheated or defeated), but i believe i have the power to decide to triumph with optimism rather than wither with spite.
**lastly {and probably most passionately, as i have expressed before – i really have to remind myself over and over}, i believe in beauty for ashes. i believe, amazingly, that all of this will be worth it, and that one day i will be truly healed by that peace that will no longer need to pass understanding, because i will understand – if not all, enough.
what, therefore, may seem now to be mere unconnected pieces of tile will someday, when we look back, take form and pattern, and we will realize that god was making a mosaic. for there is in each of our lives this kind of divine design, this pattern, this purpose that is in the process of becoming, which is continually before the lord but which for us, looking forward, is sometimes perplexing.
-neal a. maxwell, but for a small moment (such a good talk)

every morning now i tell myself with all the conviction i can muster: i am going to have a really awesome life. great, great, great love is ahead.

promised land

 

on the morning of january 1, 2014, i read the last page of the book of mormon. over the years, i have kept a list of completion dates in the front of my scriptures, and i have now read that sacred, treasured, beautiful volume sixteen times in my life. it just feels like it gets better every time. i have had incredible experiences over the course of those sixteen reads that have very thoroughly convinced me that the book of mormon is authentic and is holy, and that testimony has allowed me to gain faith in many sublime truths.

i was thinking today about the ways that the book of mormon has impacted my life, and about the lessons that i have learned from its content and narrative.  i realized that one central message in those pages is a truth i’ve often considered: hard is good. the text is full of stories of sanctification from hardship, beauty for ashes, redemption borne from suffering … and the existence of the book itself is an example of something miraculous and wonderful emerging from much affliction.

one of my favourite examples of the hard is good  theme in the book of mormon is the story of a people called the jaredites who made a long and very difficult journey across a wide ocean.
”…and it came to pass that they were many times buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountain waves which broke upon them, and also the great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness of the wind…”
faithfully recognizing that good must indeed come from this hard, “…they did sing praises unto the lord…did thank and praise the lord all the day long; and when the night came, they did not cease to praise the lord…”
and while they continued to be tossed by wind and waves, god watched over them, helping them to get from hard to good: “…no monster of the sea could break them…and they did have light continually, whether it was above the water or under the water.”
and eventually, they made it. “…and they did land upon the shore of the promised land. and when they had set their feet upon the shores of the promised land they bowed themselves down upon the face of the land, and did humble themselves before the lord, and did shed tears of joy before the lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over him.”

i don’t know what my promised land will look like.
but i believe in it.

{i shared some other inspired thoughts on the concept of beauty for ashes here}

 

you get to choose

yesterday was the monday of all mondays. coming back to work after two full weeks off? yuck. i went to sleep on sunday feeling pretty overwhelmed. real life sure smacks you in the face after a long break!

but i immediately remembered how much i love the students at my school when i arrived on campus at 7:20am. and i was feeling fresh with new years' resolutions under my hair. i decided it was going to be a good day.

and, even though i lost my keys and became stranded, it was a good day, and today too. i am buried in new books for our school library that i picked up (for free!) before the break. somehow i've become a librarian. and i kind of love it!

i've noticed that the thing i tell students most often is "you get to choose" - you get to choose if you behave well or not, if you work hard and succeed academically or not, if you are respectful or not, if you have a good day or not. and i've realized that i need to keep telling myself the same thing. 

very in love with my hometown

also during my week in utah:

-went to three movies! i hardly ever go to movies in the theater. it helps when mom and dad are paying :) i saw saving mr. banks and the secret life of walter mitty with my parents and a late night showing of catching fire with catherine.

-visited with dear high school friends (and their babies), and then took a run to hire’s big h – the classic east high spot.

-slept in and spent lazy mornings at my parents’ house snuggled in the mountains…had great conversations by the fire.

-strolled around the galleries of park city’s main street and enjoyed a delicious meal at a darling cafe with my sweet mom.

-attended music and the spoken word at the conference center. i was so full up that i felt like my heart was going to burst. the music was spectacular (and the choir sang one of my very most favourite songs which is very tender to me), and the prophet was there!

-went to my best-friend-from-the-womb jane’s saturday morning pilates class. it was so fun to see her in action!

-shared a cafe rio pork salad with my mom – nothing better.

-had a reunion with my jerusalem study abroad group. it’s amazing how even after so much time and distance has separated us since that celestial experience, when we are together it still feels like family.

-stopped by my friend kerianne’s for some herbal tea, green smoothie and lovely catching-up conversation. every single time i talk to keri i walk away quite truly amazed at what a beautiful beautiful human being she is. loved seeing her.

-made a quick loop around temple square with my mom to see the lights. it was just before 10pm (when they turn the lights off) and quite cold so not crowded! there’s just nothing, nothing like the lights at temple square. i love them so so so much. 

-drove to ogden quite late and then stayed up even later talking with my sister saren in her awesome house by the fire and the christmas tree.

-took a morning hike through the snowy mountains with my phenomenal oldest sister. 

-went to lunch in downtown salt lake with saren and jared and their kids to celebrate jared’s birthday!

-then we went to tracy aviary in liberty park. i had never been there and it’s pretty cool! we saw lots of cool birds and then walked right alongside two huge peacocks.

-checked out the utah museum of contemporary art, walked through city creek and explored the joseph smith memorial building, then walked outside just in time to see the temple square lights flip on!

-went to a broadway musicals sing-a-long at the assembly hall and then took one more loop with the kids to enjoy the lights:
 

-attended my cousin aubrey’s missionary farewell. she is headed to ecuador and i am so so excited for her. listening to her speak made me want to go on another mission.

-cross-country skiied with my dad.

-slept over at my parents’ downtown condo and woke up to gorgeous sunrises.

-went skiing at park city with julie! i hadn’t been on the slopes for seven years and i was sure i’d be falling and frustrated. but it really is like riding a bike. i had sooo much fun and loved being with julie and the scenery was really really stunningly beautiful. it was a sparkly blue day (not much powder, but lots of sun!).

-went to north salt lake to see where jane lives and to cuddle her baby boy max. wish i would have taken a picture!

-had a (becoming quite traditional) girls’ dinner at the dodo with the best friends. we sat down to order at 6:30 and stayed until 9 chatting. it was the best.

-had a sleepover with dani at the condo and then went to breakfast in the morning at this darling place around the corner. it was so good to see dani – it had been over a year! love her so much. 

i’m in love with salt lake city. always will be! it was so good to be home.