Friday, March 24, 2006

Your Passion

"Your true passion should feel like breathing; it's that natural."-- Oprah Winfrey

Wouldnt you think you would always know what your passion is? It seems like you should be born with that knowledge, or at least have some sense of it from childhood. I didnt. If you had asked me 10 year ago I would have said my passion in life, what I was meant to do was work with children. It's what I planned on doing. But life changes sometimes and somehow once I graduated from college and stopped being a nanny I never worked with kids again, save for one brief stint back with that family. I dont think I really discovered what my passion was till 2002. Even then it didnt shout out at me. Richard and I started volunteering at the rescue and it was quite intimidating at first. I loved animals but didnt have a cat at the time and there was so much I didnt know. But somehow it slowly got to be more and more a huge part of my life. We both got more and more involved, taking on more roles in the organization. We rescued/fostered our first cat and then got out first official foster with our rescue (Baby Boy. I still havent posted his story. It's still so emotional for me. I will. I just need time.) . Once we moved into our own home one bedroom was immediatly made into a foster room for Fred and Barney & then within a months time we had another bedroom & and a bathroom as foster rooms. (Our realtor couldnt figure out why we wanted a house with at least three bedrooms when we have no children. We thoroughly confused her.) We rescued our first kittens that summer and I took over kitten intake. This wasnt just something we were doing one day a week anymore. Our house revolves around rescueing and fostering cats. I didnt go looking for my passion in life. It wasnt like I felt like I was missing something. I wasnt running the streets yelling "Passion! Show me my passion!" But it found me and once it did it fit. I dont think think about how I can be a rescuer. It's who I am. I dont know how not to be.

When you tell people you foster cats they always look at like your just a little crazy. Once they find out that we dont just foster kittens, that our adults are usually ones that need special cats, either due to medical problems or socialization issues they look at you like your alot crazy. All they get is that it's alot of work. I wont lie and say it isnt. At one point last summer we had three seriously ill cats in our house and two in need of major sozialization. The strongest feeling I remember from last summer was just utter exhaustion. It does take it's toll on you. But the rewards are amazing. Those two cats in need of socialization? Well Star and Nimbus have been on the desk with me for most of this, Star laying next to me and Nimbus leaning against my chest. Fred and Barney are doing ok. Their medical issues are chronic but we're on an upswing at the moment and more importantly their happy. We lost Baby Boy last July but the time I had with him outweighed any effort I could have ever put out. I got to be the person who helped heal a soul that was hurt. I got to watch a being that was scared and unsure blossom into a content, confident, alive being and I was part of the reason why. You cant even put a price on that.

This world is a pretty screwed up place. There is beauty but theres also alot of pain. We as humans inflict so much pain and suffering on each other its amazing we have survived as long as we have. Animals are the victims so many time of our selfishness, stupidty and cruelty. Being a rescuer I get to help just a little bit, to heal some of the hurt in the world. I may not be working towards world peace but I'm working towards healed souls. Is it my passion? How could it not be?

Thursday, March 23, 2006

But how's the food?

I started this last year actually. Richard and I go out to eat once a week. We get fast food every Friday but we actually go out to a restaurant one night during the week. The night used to be Monday's but since our Bible study now meets on Monday the night now varies. Anyway, last year I made a list of several restaurants in the area I wanted to try. I actually had a list of 25 and we ended up trying 13. All but 3 of those were places we ended up really liking. I have a list of 18 this year (4 of those were carried over from last year) and so far we have tried 3.

Taste of Thai -
This place was nice but it definitely made it clear we are not fans of Thai food. We had tried it awhile back at a difference place and were so-so about it. It's just not our fav. But if you are fans of Thai it's worth checking out.

California Pizza Kitchen -
We lived in California and never tried this place. How odd are we? One opened at the mall closest to us and we stopped to look at the menu. It didn't look too bad so we decided to try it. Their white pizza is to die for!

Buffalo’s Cafe - We just went here tonight for dinner and it was really enjoyable. The food was good and reasonably priced. It was a really layed back and relaxed environment too. We'll be back.

I love trying new places. You never know what they will be like. Admittedly sometimes it is disappointmentnt but overall we have enjoyed the places we have tried. We have found alot of places that friends who have lived here much longer than us never knew existed. I try and take joy in the little things in life. Theres alot more of them than the big things.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

My Top 10 "Currents" Meme

1) My current girl crush is ... None
2) My current boy crush is ... Jensen Ackles, though it's really the character he plays on Supernatural.
3) My current fandom is ... BtVS/AtS will always be first with me. CSI is one I enjoy alot and LOTR.
4) My current favorite song is ... Extraordinary by Liz Phair
5) My current favorite movie is ... Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
6) My current pet peeve is ... the slow speed of organizational politics
7) My current weakness is ... pistachios
8) My current biggest flaw is ... procrastination
9) My current favorite book is ... Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
10) My current guilty pleasure is ... Footballers Wives-No redeeming qualities whatsoever but a heck of a lot of fun!

A nice girl like you.....

I was surfing around tonight and ran across another blog that dealt with animal rescue. So much of what the woman's blog said rang so true to me. She works with a small rescue (as do I) which never has enough money (yep) or enough space (yep, yep). She gets frustrated with people and mad at the cruelty and neglect she sees. (oh ya) Rescue can take over your life. I certainly didn't start out thinking I would become as involved as I did. I started really because I lost Oreo, my beloved baby, German Shorthaired Pointer who we adopted when I was 11 years old. She was with me for almost 17 years, turned my husband into an animal lover and was the most amazing baby. She left this world in 2001 and in reading alot of web sites on animal rescue it struck me for the first time how many animals lost their lives every day because they weren't wanted. And here I was, ready to give God years off my life if he would give me just a little more time with Oreo. Ironic, huh? When we first started volunteering with a local cat rescue it was one night a week, only helping out at our main foster home. We started fostering about 6 months later. We fostered very small scale to start with and when we moved into a larger house it grew from there.

Most people don't really get why we do what we do. Why doesnt a nice girl like me have babies instead of cats? The two of us would make wonderful parents. (Um, we are. They have fur but their our babies.) I have gotten some really strange comments when I tell them I volunteer with a cat rescue ("What are you rescuing them from?" is my personal favorite.) and almost everyone feels the need to tell me if they are a cat or dog person (Personally I'm neither. I love both. I have more cats than dogs because that works for us. I work with a cat rescue because it's where we started and the rescue we work with has beliefs and ideals that mesh with ours.) and how they got their own animal. I think it's great the amount of people who adopted their animals but it frustrates me how few people do anything aside from that. We were discussing philospophers the other night in Bible study and how talking without action accomplishes nothing. If more people were willing to foster just one animal we could save so many move lives......

Sitting here on the couch with Coal and Clara next to me and Rollo on the foot stool by my feet I am still amazed by my "not highly adoptable" kitties. People just don't know what they are missing.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Oscar Night

It was a wonderful Oscar night at our house. We got take out Chinese food, played Oscar bingo and made all our predictions of the winners. It was a close one this year. I won-13 right to Richard's 12. I was so glad Reese Witherspoon won for Best Actress and I really wanted Joaquin Phoenix to win for best actor. I am thrilled Crash won as well. I love the Oscars!

Thursday, March 02, 2006

What's On TV

So the Olympics are over. :( I love the Olympics and hate when they end. I loved the snowboarding (Snowcross was my favorite) and was really into the ice dancing this year as well with all the drama (The Italians amazed me!). There were alot of upsets in the women's figure skating which made it exciting if a little heartbreaking. Now we get to get caught up on all the shows we have been taping while the Olympics are on. Wanna know what's on our to watch list?

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
CSI: Miami
CSI: NY
NCIS
Cold Case
Survivor:Exile Island
Without a Trace
Criminal Minds
Touching Evil - Nobody does better mysteries/police drama's than the English.
How I Met Your Mother - The first sitcom to make us laugh in years.
Numb3rs - Much more Richard's show than mine.
Lost - More my show than Richard's.
We're also watching American Idol and The Amazing Race but we're actually up to date on those two.
I also have my shows I tape and watch on my own. I love Medium and Supernatural and I am really into ER at the moment. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it and started watching re-runs and got hooked again. I tape Ghost Whisperer and Close to Home as well. My biggest guilty pleasure on television is Footballers Wives.

That's a heck of a lot of television isn't it? Can you tell I suffer from insomnia? It gives a girl alot of free time to catch up on TV.