Everybody hurts

For some reason I felt prompted to write a bit about pain and experiencing it.
I think we need to learn to not be so afraid of it.
But frankly the ONLY possible true way to really get through it and actually survive is God.
Jesus, God with a big G, not some mystical force.
God knows I've gone through some serious pain and it's funny how different things hit us differently. For instance losing my mom wasn't all that hard compared to the emotional pain and trauma I dealt with when I had my bladder surgeries. Why? I have no idea. I'm not saying my mom's death didn't hurt but maybe either because I suppressed it so deeply at the time and the grief came in stages or I may not even be fully done with the process but my bladder surgeries sent me for a serious tailspin that I can say I've finally "seen the light of day" on it.
But on the other hand I think we need to be reminded of pain and serious tragedies. Words will never be enough to capture it and I think we need to see true horror once in awhile to remember the goodness of life, the strange necessity of pain that draws us closer to God.
I've had 2 recent experiences with that; just finished watching The Pianist the other day and the godforsaken tragedies that happened I couldn't comprehend til I watched the movie. Of course I knew the holocaust was horrible and all that but I had never seen it before with my own eyes, words cannot and will never do justice to the horror.
Another one was the Passion of the Christ. Now I haven't seen the whole thing yet but the clip of the crucifiction of Christ stunned me beyond words. He went through that unspeakable pain without a word? without rebuttal? I mean I can't even explain it here!
I know I'm kind of jumping all over the plate with this but we need to face up to our pain. To more importantly give them up to God. Truly. I was reading this amazing book and it described perfectly that pang of guilt you feel when you've forgotten to do something very important but you didn't wanna own up to it but you KNOW it needs/needed to be done.
Thank GOD He gently reminds us and then it's our choice to deal with past and present pain. I'm learning that there's a reason you felt that pang in that moment, something awakened you to the pain and unmet desire. Not so we can go crap man, that hurts; well I'll take care of it later. No, God's asking you to deal with it now, to say hey this hurts, help me to deal with this.
 I could basically write a whole book on what God's been teaching me and speaking to me about, it makes my heart burst in a good way.
If you don't truly know God, He's waiting to know you, to take your pain. He knows your pain feels unremoveable. It IS unremoveable until you let Him deal with it. He's not going to force His way, but he hates watching you hurt, just like we hate watching our loved ones hurt but we can't do anything until they ask us. Here's the crazy thing, He's using that pain in hopes that you'll come to Him asking for help so
He can provide real healing. Is He giving you that pain? No, but He's allowing it, just like some daddies do so that the kid will ask next time for help, for strength that they don't have
And the book I mentioned? It's called Walking with God by John Eldredge.
I recommend it so so much. It changed my life and I've grown up in church! I believe it'll change your life whether you've been a christian forever or just starting at or wherever you are in relation with God.

How to be a stepford wife

Well...not really haha.
I'm not an obsessive cleaner even though my ancestors are like known for it (we call it dutch cleaning, when it's so far beyond clean, it's like heaven and untouchable, it's a funny inside joke amongst us dutchies, especially the younger generation)
annd I'm far off track as usual
While I generally dislike the act of cleaning but yet like clean stuff, there's something awesome about knowing you conquered a cleaning thing that's generally known as difficult. And I've found lately cleaning to be almost therapeutic, maybe that's why they have ingrates and never do wells do it.
anywho
So I was in a cleaning frenzy and I decided to conquer the bathtub/shower (it's one of those combined ones, a shower within a bathtub) and I had given up hope on ever effectively really truly cleaning the walls of it (don't we all at some point? we just try to keep it manageable)
when behold, I recalled that I had bought some of the clorox spray cleaner with natural ingredients (Clorox has a line of "natural" cleaners that I quite like, with nice smells instead of the weird overly perfumed smells like the other products)
I grabbed it and sprayed it on all the walls and let it soak for a few minutes. Took a sponge and wiped it down and it was CLEEEAN! like beautiful shiny magazine clean! (which with my tub, is hard because the people who lived in the house before never EVER cleaned anything they owned ugh)
Effortless, easy, and beautiful. I was quite happy!

moisty shmoisty

Yeaaaah I bet that's not even a word!
I just didn't wanna use the zoolander line about how moisture is the essence of beauty.
Anyways
Now for a little makeup review, or rather moisturizer review.
Now whether it's because I don't care enough or what I'm generally not the best at makeup (although to say I'm slathering on blue eyeshadow and bright pink lipstick) it's just I have the very bare basics down but otherwise, I count on the knowledge of my friends or the beauty world.
Well apparently part of good skin care is using moisturizer. I always was like naaah, I got oily-ish skin, that's just gonna make it worse.
Well after reading a post over at http://www.bachmanssparrow.com/blog/ I was convinced I should look into moisturizer.
But oy! I don't wanna spend the money or the research about something I know nothing about!
Cut to a late night shopping trip at CVS pharmacy (I actually needed some toiletries) I randomly spotted Alba moisturizer. Something prompted me to buy it. It had natural ingredients, and was oil-free which I read s the key for oily skin types.
I have been using it for the past few days and I absolutely love it! It has a light "hawaiian" scent, and I do mean light; cuz if it was any stronger I'd chucked the stuff by now, I'm very picky about smells, especially if it's gooing to be on my skin all day.
It literally feels refreshing everytime I put it on! and it's not even advertised as refreshing! haha
And it has kept my face from getting oily and shiny and from those weird dry flakes on my face
So extremely highly recommended and love.
And it's only $12!
Most likely found at your average drugstrore

Melons, Friends, Jugs.

What do those have in common?
Names for boobs.
(here is where I do my apologizing for the last time for lack of updates)
Now normally I'd leave my reviewing for my friend emmaly over at danceinthebayarea.blogspot.com but she was a dancer in it and hey its my blog, and dance shows are a part of me (having been a former dancer)
I have watched this piece since it's inception piece and it's been a true journey. The amazing thing about the choreographer Malinda Lavalle is that theres an amazing sense of guts and intsinct in her pieces, very rarely is something overworked, it just seems to emanate from her.
I'll give my thoughts on her journey with this piece. (oh yes I will!)
The first time i saw it, it was like a little 5 minute piece but it totally grabbed my attention and honestly even shocked me a bit. It was girls manhandling their boobs to a soundtrack of machine guns. My first reaction was shock but as I dwelled on it afterwards my reaction was honestly glee. I loved the audacity and the originality! And a soundtrack of machine guns?? Brilliant beyond words!
Then she brought the piece over to the RAW (resident artist workshop) over at the Garage in San Francisco (small venue but great for exploring your dance options)
This showing was longer, more in the 15-20mins range. The piece was still delightful but honestly on reflection was overworked to a degree, but hey that's part of exploring choreography. Instead of just manhandling boobs to be like guns there was an element of the "whole woman" that act of "OMG do I look pretty?" and the dominance fight of who's boobs are better.
Malinda also has amazing talent of understanding rhythm. It's almost like a drummer in a sense because she can set perfect movements that go with the music so perfectly that it makes you smile in delight.
Then the culmination of the piece at the Garage was last night.
Let me tell you, it was brilliant!
My honest and visceral reaction was to respond verbally to everything I saw. Some people actually did. not just by laughing or gasping or what have you but to physically say a word or sentence in response, which was interesting, I've never had that reaction before.
The dancers subtleties are amazing and unique to each of them, there were some moment where Malinda tapped into that, such as Maggie's fierceness and audacity. She's the first one to turn around and say tits, right in your face, matter of factly. Joy's facial expressions that have an amazing range beyond even most actresses I would say. I could go on and on and I love it, Malinda truly tapped into their personalities so they really came across onstage, even though it probably helps I know most of them personally.
(side note, this is why I can't be a reviewer, I ramble waay too much)
But this piece was effortless, amazing, audacious, hysterical, and thought-provoking.
There was shouting of boob names, audacious dance moves, cat fights, pillow fights, girly girl squealing and conversation, show-girl style dancing, stars on bras, a random pillow posing moment and more.
I truly hope a video of this gets put up and should you ever hear Malinda Lavalle's name in anything, it is a must see

You so fem

Well I'm on a roll! and also I just saw that I misspelled bladder in my post yesterday so forgive me
A thought just came to my mind as I was browsing some of the blogs I subscribe to and something caught me and it's actually something I've kind of noticed for a little while now.
Heels. The fem ideal.
Now nothings against heels or the 'fem ideal" (hey hey rhyme! yes I'm a dork)
But it's something that's kind of been drawing my eyes is in basically all ads girls are wearing heels. I like heels, I love wearing them from special occasions but honestly they are not by any means realistic to my life. Are they realistic to anybody's life other than like the office woman or the glamorous women?
But yet it seems to be truly "fem" and dare I say even beautiful the girls are to be wearing heels.
Why I'm blabbing about this I'm not sure, it just caught my eye.
I mean yes when I think of the "ultimate beauty" version of myself I'm wearing heels. But by the same token it's almost demeaning in a sense because what about the rest of the time? Heels aren't good for your body.
It's funny I have tons of heels but barely any cute flat shoes, I'm usually wearing wearing flip flops or my toms shoes 98% of the time
Anyways just a little curiosity I thought I'd point out

Health care is more like not even there

I just wanted to vent a bit about what's going on in my life. I don't wanna over-dramatize it because really, by the grace and mercy of God, what I'm dealing with isn't that bad and when I needed it, I got the best help ever with kind doctors.
But what's just so frustrating is the inconsistancy and lack of standards and not really caring the health care system is. Now for the more serious cases I imagine it's better but yet not really.
I've been blessed with finding a naturopathic doctor which is what I believe a doctor should be, an educator and teacher about your overall well-being and health and how to maintain it. Fortunately there's a great facility in SF with fantastic naturopathic doctors but as far for other places in this country, I don't really know. all I can say is look into it!
But what really frustrates me is the modern western general hospitals/doctors that majority of people have to deal with. Unless it's a dire emergency they really don't care too much to truly help you and give you peace of mind. what I've experienced is more of a "well you made it through the emergency, our bodies are meant to recover completely so here you go, a back up antibiotic with no refills, an appointment every 6 months and no real way to reach me in-between; good luck!"
Which frustrates the living crap out of me! Hello people! I have a chronic condition! It's not just a baldder infection that went wrong, it's a whole history here people!
I'm treated as somewhat of an animal actually, now that I think about it.
But as I've said, in my moment of real need, God supplied fantastic doctors who did the right thing and genuinely cared.
I've also been blessed with an extremely close friend who knows the medical field, wants to be a doctor that reforms the system, knows how to research and find things for me that help my problem.

I can't imagine living in constant fear every day questioning whether or not I'm gonna be ok. Yes I admit I do have freak outs and sometimes even panic attacks but they are getting less and less as I learn to trust God because He is my ultimate healer and He has placed good people and resources around me. Yes the journey gets long and extremely frustrating and sometimes I say what progress has been made? What good is this? For what reason? How long do I have to endure this? But I know that God is going to take care of me, He is taking care of me, He is in charge, He has ALL the power I need, more than any meds or doctors.
Thanks God.
Hope this brought some enouragement or something....

Just go stuff it

Ok I know it's been awhile, I admit, my gung-ho chilled out and I found myself with nothing to really write about. I will try to do better, at least a once a week update.
Anyways my topic of the day is shoes!
I don't know if any of you have ever had the dilemna of super cute shoes that just don't fit quuuite right or the shoes are a dream but give you blisters in a certain area preventing you from wearing them as much as you'd like
I have found the solution!
Lamb's wool and moleskin (hooray for animals apparently!)
I had vaguely remember reading in a dance magazine I used to subscribe to that dancers could use moleskin to get a tighter fit on a pair of pointe shoes (you know those shoes that enables them to stand on the top on their toes? and no they're not made of wood, just paste) so I thought I'd try that but I knew when it came to regular shoes there had to be more.
Here was my scenario - I had some super cute heels that were actually a size too big (but they were on sale! and cute! and they fit in the store!)
So when I wore them my feet were constantly slipping out of them. I thought if I wore socks that would help. I did, but not a whole lot. Then I tried stuffing kleenex in there but that was uncomfortable and numbed my toes and still didn't work.
So I was at Rite Aid wandering around the feet care aisle seeing if there was anything that could work.
I saw a pack of lambswool (sorry that's the dancer's spelling of it haha) and I thought I could try it because it's soft but fluffy. And the moleskin could be used at the back to grip my heels.
So I got home and stuffed the toes with lamb's wool and cut the moleskin to size and stuck it on the back of the shoes and voila! It fits with comfort!
Thankfully these are just heels that I will only be wearing for occasions, not as a regular thing.
If you're going be wearing super cute heels with the idea of it more of a regular thing, they do need to fit properly (all shoes do really) but this is a solution for the pair that you're only gonna wear like once a month or so.
And as for shoes that do already fit but give you blisters (even after they've been broken in) just cut the moleskin to size and place in appropriate area and sweet comfort abounds