Check It Out

Some links I've come across worth sharing:

• HandPicked Nation  Great site for the self sustaining household.
• The Happy Movie  Turns out making money, work, etc only contributes 10% towards our total happiness...
• Airplane Hangar Wedding  Beautiful theme, shades and tones.
• MW Works architecture+design  Fabulously clean west coast design.
• The Queen of Versailles  A "shake your head" kinda documentary.
• La Belle au Bois Dormant  (Sleeping Beauty) Subtitles are available.  Documentary where the behind the scenes practices of the main dance sequences make me ache just watching it.  Hard and intricate choreography.  Fantastic insight to the amount of work, pain and strength involved. 

It has been an extra busy past couple of weeks.  People we know as well as ones we are related to were in the hospital for last minute surgery, chemo, falling off horses, dying (died), experiencing total vehicle brake failure.  Emotional Upheaval! 

At home, we've been fighting head colds, nothing serious a la above, just irritating.  Otherwise just the usual.  D's been busy experiencing weird interview techniques with other departments and getting psyched up with road bike races he wants to do this summer.

My ballet teacher decided on the day I didn't get around to stretching prior to my class (of course) to see just how far she could push my leg towards my face.  Nasty business it was.  I'm pretty sure my face turned an amazingly non flattering shade of puce.  And I am not jumping high enough either during the Grand Allegro. 

Took more than 2+ days to be able to walk easily again.  And recently it seems like my bow hand, has developed a mind of its own and is suddenly moving around all over the place.  Not desirable when you are trying to play anything, especially Minuets.  There are days where everything sounds off a hair no matter what I do.  So frustrating!

Piano is starting to feel really really easy compared to violin.  I don't ever remember having to practice as long or as hard as a novice pianist.  It's almost worst knowing what the piece is supposed to sound like and not being able to reproduce it.  And apparently I tend to stop breathing when I'm getting ready to play...

D reminds me that I do bring this on myself.  Occasionally a few choice words do manage to slip out of my mouth...not at him, rather towards myself in frustration.  I am human after all...

I have to remind myself that learning and growth is not always easy or pain free or else we'd all be excellent at everything without having to work at it.  He doesn't know how to deal with the "artistic me" and has requested a manual.  Wait til painting classes start is what I'm thinking...

Well, the BIG trip of the year is now upon us.  Yes, it comes pretty close on the heels of Prague but timing is of the essence with this one. 

I'm going to act all mysterious and everything and not say where we are going.  There are some potentially tricky logistics involved so I'll just wait until we return to put it all together.  Back in a couple weeks.  Stay well, everyone.

Early Thoughts -- Grateful / Not Grateful

I'm Grateful for:

• my luck in being born when and where I was -- I could have been one of 15 people living in a hut with no electricity, water or toilet, doing back breaking work all day -- Instead I've been blogging about being sore after dance and music lessons
• for reliable and plentiful water supply -- The water documentary said it best -- It doesn't matter who you are or how rich you may be, after 7 days without water, your eyes too will bleed... 
• being able to afford to support farmers who are doing it "for the right reasons" -- Good reminder that nothing worthwhile is always fast or inexpensive -- D wants to learn how to farm
• being able to have an affordable education -- Coffee farmers in Ethiopia who maybe make cents a day value education so much they are willing to sell the shirt off their backs and put the funds into building a community school for their kids young and old

I'm Not Grateful for:

• being given so much choice in a supermarket because it leads me to believe getting all that produce any time of year is no big deal when in fact it costs too much -- I'm guilty of wanting strawberries in the winter and recently, I had a very large papaya sitting on my kitchen counter in an attempt to eat more fruit
• being told something is "good" for me when in fact it has been genetically modified with harmful consequences -- And law suits are going on pressuring farmers who don't want to switch over
• the cheapness of water as it lulls me into thinking it isn't worth much when in reality it is in extremely short supply -- How Coke is less expensive to drink than water in Nairobi -- Do we really need to be loading people up with sugar and caffeine?
• how it is "necessary" for large corporations to "always" show a quarterly profit when not exceeding expectations can still mean millions in profit but often results in stock price drops -- D asked if we need to start looking into investing in more ethically run companies as our "want" of ever growing investment income comes into play here... 

Recommended Documentaries

D managed to throw his back out and we took the forced down time to watch some documentaries. 

Normally he can't handle more than one or two but surprised me, partly due to him not being able to move all that well for a couple of days (luckily it was the weekend) and also because the subjects touched us both deeply. 

Books on the matter are great and I've read my share of them but seeing and hearing the issues hits home in an entirely different way.  I would highly recommend the ones below:

• Senna:  No Fear, No Limits, No Equal
• The End Of The Line
• Food, Inc.
• The End Of Poverty? (think again)
• Blue Gold
• Black Gold:  Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee

We are committed to doing even more to ensure we are buying products that are fair trade, ethical, organic, local and non GMO.  The above programs made us feel extremely uneasy (nauseous). 

Our budget will be changing to reflect our increased commitment to our environment and to improving the lives of our fellow humans.  I plan to elaborate a bit more on those changes in future posts.