My Favorite Things: Winter Edition

Here are some things that help make winter oh-so-delightful! (After the depressing end of the holidays).

Fingerless gloves - My favorite pair was knit for me by a friend in China 12 years ago. I really can't believe I've held on to a pair for that long. They were perfect for teaching in classrooms without heat, and they're perfect for windshield scraping and chilly steering wheels.

Aquaphor - This stuff has CHANGED MY LIFE! I've had dry lips since moving to GA despite good hydration and copious amounts of Burt's Bees. I asked my dermatologist what she recommended and she gave me a sample of this stuff. Amazing! I haven't had the slightest chapping since then and I only have to apply it a few times a day. Her bottom line was avoid anything wax based and avoid lip gloss (which apparently is awful for your lips).

Rabbit hair socks - These are another item that made the cut when packing to come back from China. My pairs are still all from there, but you can find them on Amazon and I'm sure other places, too. Toasty and soft and will make your feet so happy.

Ugg wool-lined slippers - And if you want your feet to be deliriously happy? So warm and toasty that you don't even particularly care how the rest of your body feels? These slippers are worth the splurge. They were a Christmas gift to me and I wear them as much as I possibly can. I can't tell you the number of times I'll stop and look at my feet and the door and my feet again and then sigh because I just really can't wear my slippers to work or church or Kroger or wherever. This link is to the style that I have. I normally wear a 6.5 but mine are a 7 and with the wool and my rabbit hair socks it can be a snug fit.

Creamer in hot cocoa - Did you guys know this was a thing? I had no clue! And then I heard a coworker talking about it and read it in a book in the same week, and thought that was definitely a sign I should try this. So far I've just done a basic creamer, but it's been deliciously yummy. Since I don't drink coffee, I'm a novice in the world of creamers, so let me know if you have a recommendation on a flavor I should try.

What helps you make it through winter?

Winter Reading List

Here's what I've been reading the past few months.

The Martian by Andy Weir
This is absolutely my top number 1 recommendation right now. If you read only one book on this list, I think this should be it. Even though there are likely some that are more eloquently written, this is my fave. A highly engaging, compulsive read about a parallel timeline where we're sending manned missions to Mars. One guy gets accidentally left behind (explained in the first few sentences of the book) and becomes The Martian - the one person from Mars. Most of the book is set up as a captain's log style journal about his efforts to survive on Mars. As crazy as it sounds, it really doesn't come off as that far-fetched in the book. (Soon to be a movie with a pretty awesome cast - with Matt Damon in the title role).

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
I read most of this book on Halloween in between trick or treaters and stayed up late, late, late to find out how it ended. I couldn't stop reading it. (Sidenote: I'm beginning to wonder if all of these books actually are compulsive reading or if maybe I'm just a compulsive reader). It's hard to talk about my thoughts on this book without potentially giving away the ending, but this book made me feel ALL OF THE FEELINGS at one point or another. It's basically about a quadropelegic who wants to end his life and his relationship with his care taker. I read it while the news was filled with the young women who had set the date that she was going to end her own life, so the novel rang with an eerie sense of reality. It definitely made me question what I think about physician-assisted suicide and whether or not as a Christian there's an ethical stance I need to take. Come talk to me if you read it so that we can debrief.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The lives of a young, blind French girl and a genius of a teenage German radio engineer ultimately collide around D-Day in this exquisitely written book. The prose is absolutely gorgeous, and the characters (at least the good guys) are delightfully engaging. It's been a long time since I've read something this beautifully written. But, you know, it's World War II, so sad stuff happens along the way as well as things that are very hard to read about. However, it's well worth the read.

Paris in Love by Eloisa James
This memoir is by a sometimes Shakespeare prof and sometimes romance author writing outside of either genre and yet still touching on both. She took her family on sabbatical in Paris for a year and the result was this deft, clever memoir put together from facebook and twitter posts along with a few longer essays. It may sound weird to assemble a book in that manner, but it works here. Each little blurb is like a perfect of picture of exactly what was going on at the moment. And she portrays with biting humor what living in the City of Lights is like with an American teen and tween in tow. Bonus: It's the perfect book to read when interruptions are likely.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
I purchased this book last summer in preparation for a fall schedule with several international trips. This is a big, thick big (at least it has a lot of dots next to it on my Kindle) and seemed like it would be conducive to helping me ignore the fact that I was trapped in a metal tube flinging around the earth for 16 hours at a time. Some people rabidly recommended this book to me. And others were like "meh." Romance? Adventure? Kilts? And it's on sale! What's not to love about this book (is what I thought to myself). Except then I started reading it, and made it about 2/3rds of the way through, and am kind of like "meh." So maybe I'll finish it one day, but also, I'm OK with not finishing it. If you're interested it's on sale for even more now (which is always annoying).

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
I actually haven't started this book, but I went ahead and purchased it when the Kindle version was on sale for $3. It's on several book club lists, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's apparently based on the true story of a female Southern abolitionist and the slave she was given as a child. It's supposed to be epic, and sweeping, and empowering, and lots of other good things. I do hope to read it soon.

Serial
If you're one of the seemingly few people left in America who haven't listened to this podcast yet, then I encourage you to hop online and start downloading it without delay. It's great for listening to on a long drive, or on the treadmill, or commute, or while doing dishes, or folding laundry, or going to get the mail. Listening to this podcast is the first time I've ever wished for a longer commute. It's the true story of a high school senior who was murdered in 1999 and the ex-boyfriend who was convicted of the murder. But was he wrongfully convicted? Sarah Koenig sifts through evidence both old and new to try and answer this question. While it's technically not a book recommendation, it's certainly proved to be a good conversation starter. Make sure you know someone else who has listened to the series so that you can trade theories. There's lots of additional podcasts and online articles on the topic as well.

What are your reading recommendations?

Update on Trip to Asia

Hi Friends,

So one of the big lessons I learned from this trip is not to plan future trips during the latter half of November. To put it mildly, there was a lot to dive back into after we returned from Asia - the last 6 weeks have seen three major holidays, three family birthdays, two bridal showers, one wedding, two trips to FL, one to TN, a new boss, end of year financial processes, and 4 days with my car in the shop. And the last 6 weeks have NOT seen me send out an update to those who faithfully supported and prayed for this trip, but that's about to change. 

This trip to Asia was harder than the previous trip to Europe for so many reasons. Asia is REALLY far away which seems obvious, but that travel time takes a serious toll when you're going back and forth in a week.  There were little things that added up to just make this trip more complicated in ways that the previous trip wasn't. 

The good news is that your prayers sustained us and we saw what mighty things the Lord is doing in Asia. We were able to meet with so many different ministries that are doing amazing things to reach out to the women, children, and men who are victims of the sex industry in Cambodia and Thailand. 

We helped provide meals to those who've traded work on the streets for shame-free employment. We visited centers that provide childcare and medical care and counseling to those who have left prostitution. 

We prayed for those who go on outreach in the bars and clubs where they seek to reach both the women who are sold and the men who buy.

We listened to the tear-streaked testimonies of women whose own families pressured them into selling themselves so that hale and healthy fathers and brothers don't have to work. 

We learned that just as I saw in Europe, the marginalized, the state-less, the poor, and the immigrants are those most easily swept into the trafficking machine. 

One of the most eye-opening things I learned on this trip was the role of Thai Buddhism in the perpetuation of the sex industry. This particular brand of Buddhism is such that sons, teenage boys, are the ones who can earn merit for their parents to have a better situation in their next life. So young men aren't sent to work. They're sent to the temple to serve the monks and earn their parents favor for their future lives. The financial responsibility for the whole family falls on the eldest daughter. She's responsible for earning money for the family, and when you're from the village, that usually means heading to Bangkok for barely-scraping-by jobs in construction or more lucrative but shame-filled jobs in the sex trade. 

A director of one of the ministries that we met with, New Beginnings, shared a story about a family with three sons. They had no daughters to earn money for their family. Not knowing what to do they went to the Buddhist temple and sought advice from their local religious leader. The advice they received? Choose one of your sons to turn into a lady-boy (transvestite) - start him on hormone therapy and treat him as a daughter so that he can go to the city and earn money for your family. 

In both Europe and Asia I've seen the complicity of families and culture in perpetuating the sex industry on both sides of the equation. parents or boyfriends who sell their women in order to gain a more comfortable life for themselves. And fathers in culture where taking your teenage son to the brothel is an acceptable way to introduce him to sex. 

How do we fight against this? How do fight thousands of years of culture and family and even religion? And can we really call it "rescue" if rescue means you have to leave behind your family and culture and everything that you've ever known? How do you convince women that they have more worth and value than they've been told for generations? 

I believe the answer to this is the gospel. The good news of Jesus Christ is the only thing powerful enough to fight an onslaught of culture and heritage and family pressure and generational sin. And I am so proud to work for organization that believes in bringing the gospel to people by living among them and planting churches with a long-term view to transform communities - not through moralism or good works or "just stop doing this already", but by love and grace and forgiveness and freedom from shame. And I am so thankful for my co-laborers who are on the ground in Phnom Penh and Bangkok and are continuing to labor towards communities that are no longer ravaged by lust and greed and shame but communities that are instead ravished by the Holy Spirit. 

Thank you again (and again and again and again) for being part of what God is doing to bring light into the darkness and an end to injustice. My gratitude for you and your partnership in this endeavor is boundless. Thank you.

Please let me know if you have any questions. I've included some resources below if you're interested in learning more on this topic or learning more about some of the ministries and NGOs with whom we worked. 

Love,

J

Setting Goals: The 2015 Edition

Since moving back to the States 5 years ago, I've tried to start each new year with a fairly extensive list of goals for each year. 

The list is headlined by an overarching vision or theme for the year and is then expanded in various categories which include the following:
Spiritual
Work
Medical Health
Food/Exercise
Finances
Relationships
Hobbies/Skills
Writing
Learn Something New (part of a special goal to learn a new skill each year)
Social 
Home Improvement

Ok, I know this looks like a lot of categories, and IT IS! The full list of goals takes up two typed pages. However, some of the goals are reminders, some include detailed information to make the goal as specific as possible, some linger on the list from year to year in hopes that this will be the year that goal gets met, and some aren't necessarily meant to be met in a hurry, but it's a good place to keep track of even longer-term goals that I have.

Once I have the list, I format it to fit in two columns situated landscape-wise on a printed document - like pages from a book. And then that page gets trimmed along the edges to be easily inserted into my goal journal. This is a specific journal I have that I try to look at every few weeks just to see how things are going. Have I made any progress? What steps have I taken? How do I feel about any progress or lack thereof? The journal is a great way to make these goals interactive throughout the year. The first page of each year's journal section also includes a list of overarching prayers for the year. 

And look! You can see one of the home improvement goals in the background - clear up piles of papers that form on all stationary items. 

The exercise of working on defining the goals each year is a really great way for me to bring into focus ideas that might be floating around. It was through this practice that the Year of No New Clothes developed (which maybe isn't building a strong case for those who might be considering a goal-setting habit). 

It's also amazing every year to look at the lists, both of goals and prayers, and to see that someone got met without any further conscious effort on my part. That's always awesome!!

Of course, the opposite is also true. When I went to work on this year's list, I opened the document from 2014 (Ok, and I did a total crap job with this in 2014, and it's something I felt as a loss throughout the year, kind of like I was rudderless). Anyway, I opened last year's goals to see what I had written, and at the beginning of last year I was starting a new position at work that I was nervous about and wanted to do well, and my work goals reflect that - they were so sincere and earnest and just desiring to be really good at my job. And while there's good in that, I have to admit that a year into the job those goals just made me let out a snort of derisive laughter. All this end of the year reflecting has made me realize that my job was incredibly stressful last year and that work kind of consumed all of my energy so that there wasn't much left over to work on other goals. And that's fine - for a year. Not forever. Taking a year to learn a new job in a year where there's a crazy amount of transition going on around that job - that's just what 2014 took. 

However, that's not an ongoing theme I want to develop. So my work goals for 2015 are VERY different. They're more along the lines of set up good ongoing practices, focus well, and look for ways to minimize workload. Basically, work on the things I can control to make it less stressful. 

Here's a little behind the scenes look at some of the categories - 
My Learn Something New this year is going to be hiking GA. My goal is one hike/month or 12 hikes this year, because let's be honest, there might not be a whole lot of hiking going on in a cold, wet January. 

I started setting Social goals when I lived in China because I worked from my apartment. If there was a day where I wasn't teaching, then I could spend all day inside lesson planning and grading. So I started setting goals for a minimum amount of human contact each day. It was really helpful, and so I tweaked it a bit when I moved to a new city and was challenging myself to get out of my comfort zone and get to know new people. That's one that I don't really have to consciously think about anymore, but it's still helpful to check in with that one now and then - have I fallen into a rut? Am I spending more time with books than people? Being an introvert I find social goals very helpful!

Home Improvement - yeah, while I hate actually doing stuff like painting and decorating, I enjoy the results. So this had to be a category so that I would make some forward progress (no lie - paint samples on my wall for a year before I actually painted). 

And finally, this year one of my big goals is to focus on writing. I really want to spend time developing this skill and in order to challenge myself I'm going to be launching a series of posts that I've been thinking about for awhile. This year my goal is to write about 50 Things Every Single Women Should Do (or Should Know). So that's roughly one post a week. Or more likely in my case - regular posting for the first 6 weeks, and then 44 posts in a 2-week period of December. 

More to come soon!

Reflections on 2014

1. What did you do in 2014 that you’d never done before?


New position at work
2 new countries (Singapore and Cambodia), plus return visits to some favorites (Australia and Thailand)

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 
Being out of the country at the beginning of 2014 really threw off all of my goal setting for the whole year, so I didn't really set goals like usual. I have a resolution to learn something new every year and 2014 was going to be Hiking in Georgia, but instead it got to be Learn Overwhelming New Job. So yeah, 2015's target is already picked out. 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? 


Yes, several coworkers and some sweet friends. It's been awhile since I've been to see brand new babies in the hospital, so that was fun. 

4. Did anyone close to you die?


No, thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?

Australia, Singapore, Cambodia, and Thailand (twice!). And I got to revisit the Hong Kong airport as well as multiple trips through the Seoul airport. 

6. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014?

2014 was rich in stress, so I would very much like 2015 to lack that, so that's kind of the opposite of the question. But however I need to word it, my answer is less stress!

7. What dates from 2015 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?


Jan 1 - New Years in Sydney
Jan 4 - Best Friend's Wedding in Sydney
Jan 8 - Birthday in Sydney
And then the rest of the year happened... :)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?


Work stuff

9. What was your biggest failure?


Other work stuff (I would also like 2015 to be less about work)

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?


I was sick several times at the beginning of the year and out of work for several days which is unusual. Guess what I'm blaming? Work! Well, and maybe all the travel as well. :)

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Tickets! All the kinds

12. Where did most of your money go?




Travel, car repair, and medical expenses

13. What did you get really excited about? 

Travel!!!


14. What song will always remind you of 2014?


Taylor Swift 1989 album

15. Compared to this time last year, are you: 
– happier or sadder?
 

– thinner or fatter?


– richer or poorer? 
I think happier. I'm definitely looking forward to 2015 and being able to start a fresh page, though. 
Pleading the 5th (and blaming the stress)
Ummm...the same-ish

16. What do you wish you’d done more of? 


Hiking, going to concerts or live music

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?




Complaining, Eating

18. How did you spend Christmas?


In the traditional way with the Merry Parade of Parental Homes and lots of Christmases along the way

19. What was your favorite TV program?


Parks and Rec
Brooklyn 99

20. What were your favorite books of the year?


The Martian (oh my gosh, go read this now!)
Hyperbole and a Half (same as above)

21. What was your favorite music from this year? 


Well, my favorite thing I listened to was probably Serial, and we're already established that my music tastes match those of a 14-year old girl

22. What were your favorite films of the year?


Umm...I can't remember which is weird. I don't think there were any that totally blew me away. I have higher hopes for 2015

23. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?


I had an awesome day turning 30-something in Sydney - brunch, a massage, friends, a great city, dinner out = fabulous

24. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?




Hmm...not sure

25. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?


Try new things

26. What kept you sane?


Reading, Eating, and my Bible Study group

27. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014. 
 

Not all the areas of my life are going to go well at the same - work isn't going to be fantastic at the same time eating and exercise is perfect and my daily quiet times are incredible. Some of the things are going to suffer from lack of attention some of the time. And it's OK.