Something New and Delicious

I was feeling a bit restless today and wanted to try something new, so I looked on pinterest for ideas.  I have been up since around 3:30 (to be fair, I went to sleep fairly early last night), so my body was saying, I don’t want to do anything, but I know I have to do something.  Nobody ever does nothing.  At the very least, they breathe, and that is something, isn’t it?

I found something to do – or rather, something to make: No-bake energy bites.  Sounded interesting, and when I went out to the kitchen to see if we had all the ingredients, I was delighted to find that we did.  I am not really a fan of no-bake cookies (probably because I once had too many of them in one sitting – that is how I get turned off by many foods), and the energy bites are similar, so I was kinda cautious at first.  But I did end up making them.  Every now and then, you have to try something new in order to get away from the old, right?

No-Bake Energy Bites

(makes 18-20 bites)

1 cup oatmeal, 1/2 cup peanut butter (or some other nut butter like almond butter), 1/3 cup honey, 1 cup coconut flakes, 1/2 cup chocolate chips (actually the recipe calls for mini chocolate chips, but we didn’t have any so I used regular), and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Mix all ingredients in medium bowl until thoroughly blended together.  Put bowl in refrigerator for a half hour.  Once chilled, roll into individual balls (yeah, right…  I shaped them with my fingers, which is why they look so uneven in the above picture).  Store in airtight container and keep refrigerated for up to one week.

I ended up with 33 bites, and they won’t last a week in this house.  Maybe they would if I was the only one eating them, but I’ll be nice and share with my parents.  After all, they bought the ingredients.

Akiane

When we think about think about talent, we often think that someone has to be born with it.  And it doesn’t occur to us that a child of an atheist would come to demonstrate faith in the biggest way imaginable.  But it does happen.  How do I know?  Because it happened to the girl in the picture above.  Her name is  Akiane (I think it is pronounced Ah-ki-a-nuh) Kramarik.

The first time I heard of Akiane, I was reading “Heaven is for Real” by Todd Burpo early last year.  In the spring of 2003, the author’s little boy, Colton, suffered from a near-fatal illness and had visions of heaven.  After Colton was recovered, his dad kept showing him images of Jesus, and Colton kept shaking his head and saying no, that doesn’t look like him.  Finally, Todd showed him Akiane’s painting of Jesus, and Colton said yes.

Akiane was only eight years old when she painted the above portrait of Jesus, called Prince of Peace.  Today, she is seventeen, having spent her childhood having visions and painting and dictating/writing poetry from age four.  Her mother was an atheist, her father a lapsed Catholic.  Akiane’s gifts seemingly started out of the blue, with no coaching or lessons.  She’s a self-taught artist, home-schooled, raised in poverty, and eventually, through her paintings and visions, she helped convert her entire family to Christianity.  You can view more of her work here.

Akiane was once asked what she would say to God if she could ask him just one question and he would answer, and she said she would ask him what the purpose of extreme suffering is.  But, I think we all know what the answer would be, at least on some level.  This world was never meant to be our permanent home.  We were created to be more than we are because God is more than this world.  It is like C.S. Lewis said – “You don’t have a soul.  You are a soul.  You have a body.”  Sometimes, when we suffer here in this world, it is our own doing, but more often than not, it’s out of our hands.  But this life is just for a little while.  We are on loan to this world.  That doesn’t mean that we should not help make it a better place.  We definitely should – otherwise, what is the point?  We could sit on our hands all day, refusing to care, refusing to help, or we can make our lives mean something.  I choose meaning.  I choose hope.  Hope is what Akiane wants people to come away with after viewing her artwork, after reading her poetry, after reading about her childhood and her life as it is now.  That is what I strive to embody with my own life as well, through my writing and also through compassion for others.  We may feel completely alone sometimes, but all we have to do is reach out and grasp somebody’s hand (physically or even spiritually).  We are not alone.  We just have to stop acting as if we are, that’s all.

Gratitude (Carpe Diem)

Time seems to crawl sometimes.  Years can be packed into weeks, and even days.  And other times, it seems to go too fast.  January has been like that for me.  It seems ages since New Year’s, when in truth it has only been 27 days.  Really?  According to my internal clock, it should be July (partly because I am so very excited about being in my BFF’s wedding, going to San Diego, etc.  In reality, though, I am glad it’s not July because there is still so much to do).

What am I grateful for this week?  Today is actually a very sunny, beautiful winter day here in C-town.  We have company coming over tonight.  My cousin Connor (he is a senior!  In high school!) is playing basketball against our home team.  My aunt and the rest of her family are coming.  My grandfather is also coming and staying all weekend.  I’m excited.

I am grateful for time.  I know it is kinda funny.  Time isn’t guaranteed to any of us, but that is what makes it so precious.  Buffy Summers says in the very first episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Seize the moment ’cause tomorrow you might be dead.”  Of course, in Sunnydale, the truth of those words is profound – even outside of the make-believe town.  (Of course, I like it even better when Willow later tells Buffy, “Carpe diem.  You said that to me once” and Buffy gets a confused look on her face and asks, “Fish of the day?”  Willow smiles and says, “Not carp.  Carpe.  Seize the day”).  It’s so easy to take everything for granted, but if we really stop and think about how lucky we are to have the things we do, I think the world would be a much better place.

Robert Brault, an American operatic tenor, once said it like this: “Life is short – God’s way of encouraging a bit of focus.”  If we had all the time in the world to get stuff done, nothing would get done.  Deadlines are there for a reason.  Maybe that is why I joined the Ultimate Blog Challenge on Facebook in the first place.  Before I started this blog, my writing life was suffering big time.  I wasn’t writing every day.  I wasn’t honing my craft.  And for someone who wants to be a published author so badly, it wasn’t good.  So I’m taking the leap.  I may not know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I don’t have to.  The future may be predestined in ways I don’t fully understand, but it’s up to me to live up to my potential.

St. Jude’s Math-a-thon

This week, I discovered something that I am kicking myself for not discovering sooner – months ago, years ago, it doesn’t matter.  St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital has an education-based fundraiser that has been going on for the past thirty years.  My local schools are not a part of it…  not yet, anyway.  They will be ASAP if I have anything to say about it.

It is a math-a-thon, and basically it is for grades K-8.  St. Jude’s has made it the largest education-based fundraiser in the country.  Participants obtain sponsorships (donations) from family and friends, and they complete a math curriculum supplement, which is designed to go along with teachers’ curriculum.  There’s a Funbook with math problems which students need to get pledges to solve.  This curriculum was “developed by Scholastic, the world’s leader in educational technology and children’s media.  Each Funbook level meets national standard requirements that will help your students practice and prepare for standardized testing,” the website says.

The following is from the website’s about page.

Getting started
To get started, a representative from the school volunteers to become a coordinator. Becoming a coordinator is easy and absolutely free, and St. Jude will send everything you need to get started. Call 1-800-FUNBOOK (386-2665) to register your school or fill out the registration form.

Benefits
The benefits of Math-A-Thon add up to help a good cause. Students who participate will have the opportunity to:

• improve math and comprehension skills
• solve age-appropriate math problems
• understand the importance of helping others

This all equals help for St. Jude patients battling cancer and other catastrophic childhood diseases.

How it works

1. Students are shown the Math-A-Thon DVD and take home the Sponsorship Envelope with the attached Permission Slip.
2. Students return the signed Permission Slip to the coordinator.
3. Students obtain sponsors and then complete their Funbook by solving a variety of math problems.
4. After completing the problems, students collect donations from their sponsors and return them to their coordinator.
5. Students and schools earn prizes depending on total funds collected.

Do the math. Help save lives. Sign up today by calling 1-800-FUNBOOK (386-2665) or filling out the registration form.

Despite the fact that I LOATHED math when I was in school, I am really excited about this.  I told my sister to look into it.  She wants to be a math teacher, primarily in middle school.  If I could just ignite the flame that is awareness about this, then I will be doing my part.  Will you do me a favor?  Help me spread the word about this?  Share this on your facebook feeds and tweet it and reblog this or write your own about this fantastic fundraiser.  Check to see if your local elementary schools and middle schools are participants, and if not, then bring the idea to them.  Pediatric cancer needs to come to the forefront of society, so that we can stop it., so that one day, no family is devastated by it.

The Sierra Rayn Foundation

I have talked before about donating to legitimate charities whose funds go directly to pediatric cancer research and/or paying off hospital expenses for a family in dire straits.  A high school classmate of mine is starting to highlight a nonprofit on her blog once a week, and I think it is a pretty good idea.  And I think I should do the same with foundations that are fighting to cure childhood cancer and other diseases on a weekly basis.  There is no such thing as too much publicity for such charities.  The more they are talked about, the more awareness there is, and the closer they get to their end-goal.

So the first one I’m going to highlight is The Sierra Rayn Children’s Neuroblastoma Foundation.  This nonprofit was started in honor of Sierra Rayn Chamblee, who was diagnosed with stage IV neuroblastoma when she was 21 months old.  Sierra fought so hard for eleven months, but at the age of two and a half, she passed away.  Her mother, Gen Chamblee, pushed on with the foundation, determined to make her baby angel proud and help end neuroblastoma.  ”Sierra fought so hard and smiled through it all,” Gen has said.  ”No child should have to learn to smile through such horrible pain.”

The foundation helps fund clinical trials and research through New Approaches to Neuroblastoma Therapy  and they also help (financially and emotionally) families who are battling this devastating disease.    The foundation’s mission statement is as follows:

he Sierra Rayn Children’s Neuroblastoma Foundation is a non-profit 501c3 foundation committed to finding a cure for neuroblastoma through research, education, awareness and advocacy. We hope to educate the public about this very aggressive and painful disease, that is dramatically lacking in awareness and funding, and help others on this journey. We also are working on helping pass legislation for childhood screenings.

You can visit their website here for more details and ways you can help.  I believe in this foundation, not only because it stems from a mother’s undying love for her child, but also because it already has done so much good in raising awareness and funds for research.

Yes

Yes to sleep.  Yes to insomnia.  Yes to getting stuff done.  Yes to doing nothing.  Yes to doing everything I can to raise childhood cancer awareness.    Yes to curing all the diseases.  Yes to doing what I want when I want to do it.  Yes to obstacles.  Yes to God.  Yes to not being afraid of failure (it’s in God’s hands).  Yes to pushing past my own pain to reach out to someone else who needs me, who needs God.  Yes to not judging.  Yes to writing.  Yes to pouring out my soul.  Yes to doing it for myself, just because I can.  Yes to fighting for what I believe in.  Yes to making a difference.  Yes to taking the time to really getting to know a person and understanding what makes them, them.  Yes to having a open heart.  Yes to believing in myself, in the God-power within (apart from him I am nothing).  Yes to controversy, not because it creates arguments but because it widens my horizons.  Yes to challenges and yes to challenging others.  Yes to making my own rules and breaking them.  Yes to relaxing.  Yes to strength, not just of the body but of the heart and mind as well.  Yes to problems because I have the opportunity to overcome them.  Yes to listening first and then speaking.  Yes to finding inspiration in everyday commonalities and doing something creative.  Yes to marching to the beat of my own drum.  Yes to standing up to what I believe in, and quietly letting things go when I have nothing to say.  Yes to behaving like an adult.  Yes to recapturing childhood.  Yes to the realization that where people can certainly offer their opinions and ideas and share their beliefs, what I believe and how I live is completely up to me.  Yes to making plans and then doing something completely different.  And yes to cuddling with the dog.

There’s magic in everything

It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe in something.  The world is full of magic – if you can’t see it, then you are not looking hard enough.  Do you ever wonder what makes the wind blow?  I don’t mean on a scientific level.  Ask anyone who knows me – I am rarely a factual person, except when it comes to matters that are important to me, like childhood cancer awareness and faith and just life in general.  I accept most things as true, because to some people, they are true.

For a while now I have found myself shying away from the topic of theology and religion and even some social issues.  I have had frustrating conversations before, when there is no winning on either side.  These days, I tend to let these things go.  I don’t commit to such conversations anymore.  People believe what they believe, because they’ve been raised that way.  Some people, like me, explore.  There isn’t just one way to look at things, no matter how many people tell you there is.  If that was true, then everyone would believe in the same thing and there would be no conflict stemming from religion in the world.

It’s impossible for people to to look at something and see the same thing.  A child can draw or paint a picture and tell you an elaborate story about what you see as random squiggly lines and tangles of color on the page.  People interpret art in different ways.  Two people can read the same book and come away with a different message.  The same is true for a book you read as a child.  When you grow up and read it again, the story is different. Our ideas and perspectives change with age and experience.

When I was in second grade, my teacher read a story to my class that I instantly loved.  It was a strange and sad story, about a young woman who always wore a ribbon around her neck, and the man who loved her kept asking her about it.  She kept putting him off, until their wedding night.  That is when she told her new husband that he could untie it.  But when he did, her head fell off and she died.

I remembered that story a few years ago, and I found it again.  It wasn’t as magical as I thought.  It was disappointing.  I remembered gorgeous, full-paged colored pictures, but what I got instead was black and white sketches in an I-Can-Read-Book.  Seriously?  Major disappointment.  Was the book my second-grade teacher read to us just a figment of my imagination?  The story itself was less poetic than I remembered it.  It was simpler, somehow.  I wanted it to be Romeo-and-Juliet-esque, and it was a little bit.  No happy ending.  The groom is left bereaved.  He doesn’t even kill himself after his bride dies.  He lives without her.  Maybe someday, I will explore this in my own fiction.  I’d like to take this story and make it my own.  What happened to make the young woman decapitated like that, and how did she get from there to the ribbon?  She must have had nanoseconds to get the ribbon and tie it around her wound.  Did it happen to her as a child?  Hmmm…

The words of that story never changed, but my memory of it did.  Maybe it was the same book, but maybe not.  I’m still hung up on that beautiful picture book I think I remember.  But as we get older, our memories tend to change and even begin to lie to us.  It was the same story, but it wasn’t what I remembered.

I picture her with darker, straighter hair but other than that, this looks about right.

Books, Books, and More Books

I am in the middle of quite a few books right now – “Turtle Moon” by Alice Hoffman, “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert, “Whedonistas: A Celebration of the Worlds of Joss Whedon by the Women Who Love them” (collection of essays), and “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Loving our Dogs ” by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen, edited by Amy Newmark.

I have to admit…  I am only reading “Turtle Moon” because Jodi Picoult lists it among her favorite books.  It’s interesting enough.  Only 9 chapters, though they are long chapters, more than a few pages.  I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that it is the first Hoffman book I’ve ever picked up.  Don’t worry.  There’s more on my library reading list.  ”Turtle Moon” is kinda odd – Hoffman waited 87 pages before introducing a supernatural character – one whom she calls “The Angel” or “Bobby.  Bobby’s been dead for about 20 years (a casualty of a car crash)  and he haunts a tree.  The fact that Hoffman calls Bobby “The Angel” instead of “The Ghost” is confusing at this point.  He haunts, so therefore, he is a ghost, right?  I’m only on chapter four, so I don’t really have anything else to say about this, except that the boy on the run with the baby is interesting.  Haha…  sparked your interest, didn’t I?

I think I am setting a new record for the amount of time it takes me to read a book with “Eat Pray Love.”  And by record, I don’t mean, the fastest read ever – I mean the slowest.  I picked it up at the beginning of last month (yes, I carried it over from 2011), and have been reading it off and on since.  It doesn’t really hold my attention for too long, sadly.  I mostly use it to fall asleep at night.  Good thing it is not a library book, or else my inbox would be full of overdue notices.  I borrowed it from a friend.  I do like one thing about the book though…  every now and then, there are hidden gems:

 ”To find the balance you want,” Ketut spoke through his translator, “this is what you must become [referring to an [a sketch of a] “androgynous human figure, standing up, hands clasped in prayer.  But this figure had four legs, and no head.  Where the head should have been, there was only a wild foliage of ferns and flowers.  There was a small, smiling face drawn over the heart”].  You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that is’s like you have four legs instead of two.  That way, you can stay in the world.  But you must stop looking at the world through your head.  You must look through your heart, instead.  That way, you will know God. (page 27)

And so I keep plugging along at this book, though I have lost my place in it dozens of times and sometimes it is weeks before I think to pick it up again.

The third book, the one with essays on the worlds of Joss Whedon, is one I am really enjoying.  Joss Whedon is the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse.  This book is proof that I am not insane – that I’m not the only one who loves the Buffyverse or even the Whedonverse.  I knew it before, because Joss keeps coming out with new ideas, new shows.  None of them have had the success that Buffy and Angel had.  And maybe there’s a reason for that, but for the life of me, I do not understand it.  Firefly and Dollhouse were good.  I watched them faithfully.  Maybe not on the same level as the first two shows, but man, people should have given them more of a chance.  Joss has been doing movies too – he got Serenity out of Firefly.  He did BTVS season 8 motion comic (yes, the show lives on and on and on…  The Buffyverse is still very much alive) and he produced the upcoming Avengers movie.  JOSS WHEDON FOREVER!

My dog Buffy inspired me to start reading “Chicken Soup for the Soul: Loving our Dogs” yesterday, when I received it from the mail order library.  I read the first story in it – about the dog who met his master’s train every day faithfully, and when the master got a new job and moved across the country and left the dog behind, the dog still went and met the train every single day.  He got sadder and sadder and more despondent as the days and weeks and months went by and his master didn’t come home.  Finally, a worried friend contacted the guy, and he immediately flew back and waited a few hours for the train he usually took.  The dog was waiting for him, and oh!  I can just imagine the reunion.  I was bawling like a baby by the time I finished that story.

BELIEVE

Audrey’s Hepburn’s famous pink quote inspired me to write the following:

I believe in all the colors of the rainbow.  I believe laughter is the best medicine for the soul.  I believe in hugging, hugging a lot.  I believe that although people may seem weak in the moment, that’s when they’re gathering their energy together to be strong later.  I believe that while being happy in this world may take time and work, in the end it will be worth it.  I believe every moment counts.  And I believe, too, that tomorrow is another chance, and that we shouldn’t waste it.  And in miracles…  I believe in miracles and God and angels.  I believe in magic.  And I believe that anything’s possible if I just believe it is.

For as much heartbreak as this world has, it also carries hope.  There’s hope in the sunrise in each new day, and hope in every sunset.  There’s hope behind every smile and every loving act.  Hope is what lets us continue on, even after our hearts are broken and battered.  And then there are the people who give us hope…  like the high school girl named Angela Zhang who came up with a possible cancer cure.  Her idea eradicated tumors in mice, but it will take years to know if it will work on tumors in humans.  Like the article that was written about Angela says, “[There's] no need to worry about the future…  it’s in good hands.”

There was this one quote from Grey’s Anatomy’s neuroblastoma storyline this week that touched my heart.  Maybe because, regarding childhood cancer, it is so true:

This is not general surgery on a miniature scale. These are the tiny humans. These are children. They believe in magic. They play pretend. There is fairy dust in their IV bags. They hope, and they cross their fingers, and they make wishes, and that makes them more resilient than adults. They recover faster, survive worse. They believe.

Children believe in magic, yes they do.  All I have to do is look at my own niece for that.  She’s going to be three next month.  When I talk to her and play with her and color with her, she always ends up giving me some of her magic.  This is what the bald Barbie movement is really about – giving magic back to children who are sick and suffering.  It may be just a toy to some, but I just know it will mean the world to these children to have a role model who looks just like them.  And true, this would be a childhood cancer awareness product, and on the box, there would be a gold ribbon.  Part of the reason Mattel is balking at making the doll is because part of the proceeds will have to go to St. Jude’s or CureSearch (by the way, please donate to one of those places if you are thinking about making a donation.  There are lots of other charities that give all their donations to research, but  please, please, please do your own research and find out what your donation is being used for – if it isn’t ALL going towards research or the care of a little cancer patient, look elsewhere).  This bald Barbie would be the beginning of the childhood cancer awareness empire.

And the first part of the above quote – “this is not general surgery on a miniature scale” – speaks so much truth for such little words.  Children are given scaled-down adult chemotherapy drugs, and that is why the side effects of these drugs are so bad in these children: blindness, hearing loss, stunted growth, dead nerves, etc.  What happened to me wasn’t – and still isn’t – the norm, but it wasn’t in the least bit surprising.  They did not know what they were doing back then, and they still don’t.  That is the main thing that has to change before anything else can.

I know I’ve let myself be sidetracked this week, and didn’t do a gratitude list, so really quickly, here is what I am grateful for:

1) I am grateful that my cousin Carol and her husband BJ had a healthy baby girl on Sunday.  Rory Gale is adorable and I cannot wait to see more pictures of her.

2)  I am actually grateful for Andrew Becker and his ignorant blog post earlier this week because it strengthened the resolve of the childhood cancer awareness groups.  It also got childhood cancer stories in the news!  It’s just the beginning.

3) I never thought I’d say this, but this year, I find myself feeling grateful for the snowmaggedon (my uncle Cary’s word for it) we had here this past week.  It makes the house seem more cozy, and I don’t have any desire whatsoever to get out of the house.  And I am grateful for the fact that I don’t have to.

Warning: Grey’s Anatomy Spoilers (neuroblastoma case)

Last night’s “Grey’s Anatomy” was… good, as a whole. But I’m just going to dissect the childhood cancer storyline.  The episode was subtitled “Hope for the Hopeless.” and the neuroblastoma patient was an 11-year-old boy named Wes (I follow a little boy named Wes on facebook who has neuroblastoma and who has just been declared NED – No Evidence of Disease!) whose mother was lying to him about why they were at the hospital.  I like the fact that it was mentioned on the show that neuroblastoma is more often present in younger kids – kids younger than Wes.  Wes’ mom hadn’t told him he has cancer – his back hurt really bad and she just told him that the doctors were going to fix it.  Wes still had his hair and he didn’t look chemo-ravished, which was disappointing to me.  Derek – Dr. Shepherd – didn’t even want to take the case… he said there was a less than 5 percent chance he could remove the tumor, and he told the other doctor on the case – Dr. Lexie Grey – to flip a coin to help them decide what to do.  Really?  Yes, yes, I realize that this is a TV show and Dr. Shepherd does not exist outside of “Grey’s Anatomy,” but…  really?  Flipping a coin to help you decide whether or not to operate on a patient – especially a child – whose life depends on it is just callous.  Worse than callous, even.  That was a HUGE mistake on the part of the show.

Lexie soon found out that Wes did know about his tumor, despite his mom thinking otherwise.  He had overheard some doctors talking about his case at the last hospital he was at.  He couldn’t tell his mom he knew because it’d break her heart.  Lexie told him that she has been working with Dr. Shepherd for a while now, and that he was the best at what he did (man, if these doctors were only real…).  So they opened him up, poked around a bit, and then Dr. Shepherd decided that the 5% chance just became 0% and ordered them to close.  Lexie protested twice, saying she had promised that they’d try.  Derek ordered her to leave the operating room, which she did only after glaring at him.

The next and final scene of this storyline was a cryfest, of course.  The mother finds out Wes knows that he has cancer, and isn’t afraid to die because then, he will be with his daddy in heaven.

If the patient had been younger than 11, I would’ve probably been okay with the mother not telling him about his cancer.  I mean, do you think my parents told me?  Of course not!  I was a baby.  They didn’t have the words.  But when a child is older, like “Grey’s Anatomy’s” Wes, it just doesn’t make sense to me.  Kids pick up on things, and as they get older, it’s really hard to hide things from them, especially something as serious as cancer.  And if parents don’t tell them what they need to know, the kids will pick it up from some other source.  I am not a parent, and will never be in this lifetime; however, if I were a kid of 11 or 12, and found out that I had cancer from anyone other than my parents, I’d be very upset.  But perhaps Wes couldn’t afford to be mad, had no time or energy or whatever.  I’d buy that.  And I’ll say one more thing:  what I really liked about this episode is that they didn’t have a miracle cure for neuroblastoma.  This cancer is a seriously horrible disease, and if they cured it on television before they cured it in real life, well, that wouldn’t sit well with us either.  TV doctors are just that, TV doctors, and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.