| Sunday, April 29, 2007 |
| Moviestar |
Today I gave an interview for a documentary that the crisis centre is putting out.. it was crazy.. like full on studio with a big michrophone hanging in your face and a green screen in the back. And they powdered my face before shooting. Weird experience, but cool.
And yesterday Craig and I went to his cousin's in Maple Ridge. Craig was bottling beer while I watched their kids. Here's some pics from that time. Nothing much else to report. Here's something to think about - in 3 months from now we will be arriving in St. Catherines, ON. Wow times flies.... I haven't really begun to think about what it will be like to move away from this place I have called home for 5.5 years. I've more just been excited about the new things that will come with that move, like being closer to family. But I am also leaving behind some family here, which will be really sad.   Labels: St. Catherines, vancouver, Vancouver Crisis Centre |
posted by jamie @ 9:53 PM  |
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| Friday, April 27, 2007 |
| School Update and other things |
Thought I'd give you an update on school. The other day I got my 'financial package' in the mail for Niagara University. It was a pretty good offer, essentially cutting my tuition in half, and then offering the rest in loans. I am still waiting to hear back from the online school though... I just don't know if I can make the commute across the border everyday... I only have till May 7th to decide.. yikes...
Well I can't think of anything intelligent to say so that's all for now.
except that here's some designs i've been working on.. if I owned a graphic design company this is what I would call it. Maybe someday...?  and of course I could never get sick of sticking the words 'chaos' and 'order' into things..  Labels: Empire State College, Niagara University |
| posted by jamie @ 8:35 PM |
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| Tuesday, April 24, 2007 |
| A Hard Day's Work |
I feel like all those years of searching for my dreams and passions and finding my purpose and all that, has left me with high expectations that I should only be doing things that 'bring me life'. But what about those in-between times when you can't really do your destiny/dreams/passions, because you simply just have to pay the bills? I feel like I am in one of these transition times. My job does not 'bring me life'. It actually tires me out..it doesn't come naturally, it's not operating in my strengths, and though I don't doubt it is an extremely important job to do, I don't really feel like I do all that much. Well, let me re-phrase that.. I do a heck of a lot of work... more hours than any other job I've ever done except staffing a DTS. But the work is not the kind where you come home from a long day and feel like you accomplished something. It will all be waiting for you when you get there in the morning, in fact more work will have come in over night through the fax machine, email, and answering machine. It's really never-ending and it's hard and I give Rita (my boss) mega props.
All that said though, I don't feel like I'm in the wrong place, just because it doesn't 'feel' good. But it does make me look forward to the next phase of my life, which will be going back to school. I am narrowing down my school choice to Empire State, which is the predominantly on-line school. With my visa in process, it just makes sense to stay in Canada and not cross the border twice a day. I haven't said no to Niagara University yet, but I probably will in the next couple weeks.
Well that's all for now, except that I just want to say that the greatest thing in my life right now is my dear husband Craig.. He's kind and loving and funny, and I love hanging out with him. So even if I have a hard day at work, I know I can come home to him, and that makes me happy. |
| posted by jamie @ 11:48 PM |
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| Saturday, April 21, 2007 |
| Blog Land |
Lately I have been thinking about what I have dubbed 'blogland' (along with many others, I'm sure). It truly is it's own world...and I have found that generally, blogs that have a specific focus seem to crate the most traffic. I often think, 'who besides friends and family, would really care about reading my blog?'
Take for example, my friend Heather, over at Our Life Voyage. She is a mother of 'multiples', or twins as probably most without twins would call them. (multiples just sounds cooler though!) She has found this on-line community of women who are all mothers, dealing with similar things, encouraging each other, relating to one another. And most of them have never 'met' each other - but it seems to make no difference in the friendships that are developing. I use this as an example because I have been over at Heather's blog a lot lately, helping her out with a new template. But another example would be another friend, Jamie. His blog, Emergent Voyageurs, has a focus of the 'Emergent Church'. What does that mean? Well, read his blog..you'll find out. But it's also part of a large community of people who all have their own blogs and discuss similar topics. It's made having 'online friends' cool without being weird, like in the days of chatrooms.
So basically it comes down to this. If you want to get noticed or be part of a large blogging community, you gotta get a focus. If you don't care, talk about whatever you want. I feel sort of stuck in the middle, but to be honest, I really have no focus to talk about. So until then, I will continue to talk about nothing, and amuse my friends and family with my rambling about 'what I did today' and pictures that I've taken of myself because my husband wont ;) Either way, I think blog land is cool, and I'm glad I'm in it.Labels: Blogs, Emergent Voyageurs, Our Life Voyage |
| posted by jamie @ 4:53 PM |
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| Friday, April 20, 2007 |
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Here it is - my first graphic design 'job' (well, job in the YWAM sense..not the paid kind, haha) It's for a YWAM conference that Randy and a few others are hosting next year having to deal with how we affect cities, and how they affect us. Should be pretty cool!
Tonight I have my Crisis Centre volunteer appreciation night, at the WISE hall. I went to this last year as well, it's just a really nice time where the staff give away awards and prizes to the volunteers. I have been with the Crisis Centre here in Vancouver nearly 2 years now. That seems crazy to me.. I remember how scared I was to take my first call and how I had a really mean person in my 2nd week and didn't want to do it anymore after that. Good thing I got back on the horse! Since then I have been involved in 2 serious interventions (both in the middle of the night!) and called the ministry of children and families twice. I seriously recommend it for anyone interested in getting involved more in Vancouver and looking for training and experience in this sort of field. It's been great!Labels: Randy Parizeau, vancouver, Vancouver Crisis Centre, YWAM |
| posted by jamie @ 8:24 PM |
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| Wednesday, April 18, 2007 |
| Go Hokies |
I just happened to catch a bit of the press conference that some of the Officials of Virgina Tech gave and I have to say it really upset me. I've never disliked the press's questioning more than I do now. How dare they say to the men and women who are devastated at what just happened in their school could have done anything to prevent this?! I'm sorry but everything always looks more clear in hindsight... I personally do not believe there was realistically anything more that anyone could have done on a campus of 25,000 people with over 100 different buildings. I was in tears watching as the journalists threw their accusatory questions at the front of the room while the speaker fought back his tears... Do they not have the ability to realize that these people are hurting more than any of them can comprehend right now? Do they not have even one ounce of compassion? Is their tiny tid-bit of news more important?
Part of my strong emotion is due to the fact that my family has strong ties to VT. Both my parents graduated from there and to this day still fly the big VT flag in their front yard, that you now see plastered over the news. It's always been a household name in my family. I'm so heartbroken over this tragedy.Labels: Hokies, Virgina Tech |
| posted by jamie @ 4:51 PM |
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| Thursday, April 12, 2007 |
| Hurry Up and Wait |
Well it's off! My "Application for Permanent Residence within Canada, as well as the Application to Change Conditions, Extend Stay, or Remain in Canada" are in the mail. It's taken months to get everything together, and now I simply wait. I can expect to hear back from them in 8-10 months to see if Craig will be approved as a Sponsor, and then it will be another 4-6 months after that before I will actually be considered a perminant resident and be able to get my card. So I am looking at hopefully being a landed immigrant by maybe August 2008. Wow, that's a bit depressing... Oh well, atleast it's on it's way. And with all the prayer and hands laid upon it today, maybe it will jump to the top of the pile - who knows!?
Labels: canadian immigration |
| posted by jamie @ 1:13 AM |
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| Monday, April 09, 2007 |
| mmm |
 Here's my easter-egg-peanut-butter-cream-cheese-covered-in-chocolate super yummy dessert I made for Easter dinner last night....mmmmm
And if you haven't already seen it, check out my friend Pam's new Little Promises webpage! |
| posted by jamie @ 6:56 PM |
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| Saturday, April 07, 2007 |
| happy in-between day |
Go Leafs!
this is the cry of my husband's heart today as it's a very important game this afternoon (so I'm told ;) Like our matching hats?
Anyway, today is a weird day for me. It's not 'good friday' and it's not Easter sunday.. it's this weird in-between day where I keep thinking it's sunday because I had yesterday off...and then I remember it's not. And if you think about it, this day would almost have been worse than yesterday for the disciples and Jesus's family. I mean of course seeing him murdered would have been horrible..but, if they had gone to sleep at some point on friday after he died, imagine the terrible sinking feeling they would have felt once they woke up and realized it wasn't a dream... You know how there's that moment right when you're about to wake up, and it's like you don't realize yet that your life will never be the same again. I have felt this feeling before, it's not a good one at all.
No wonder Thomas, one of the disciples, had a hard time believing that Jesus really had risen from the dead. First of all, it's 'impossilbe' and if someone said that the day after your best friend died, you'd probably want to hit them. If I had been alive back then, I would have said I had to see it to believe it, too.. not only just see it but feel it... I'd want to touch the holes in Jesus's hands...and the wound in his side. I get that.Labels: easter, good friday, Jesus, Maple Leafs, Thomas |
| posted by jamie @ 6:23 PM |
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| Wednesday, April 04, 2007 |
| Follow-up of "what NOT to do" |
I thought I'd let everyone know the update with my "Natural Cures" scam I was lamenting about a few weeks ago in this post.
So I finally filed my 'fraudulant bank charges' paperwork, and after waiting a few days I heard that my bank had repaid me the $11.95 and cancelled any future attempt of Kevin Trudeau or Natural cures to try and take money from my bank account.
Now I actually got quite a few hits on my blog from people who were searching tags and posts for "Kevin Trudeau" or "Natural Cures", so this note is to anyone that happens to come across my blog due to searching for more information on this. ***Please do not ever buy anything from this company. They use just enough truth in their statements to hook you in so that they can get you interested in their material and you have no way of knowing they are scam artists unless you happen to have heard it from someone. Just search in 'Scamclub.com' and you will find other people's counts of being scammed, as well as my own.
peace,
jamieLabels: Kevin Trudeau, Natural Cures, naturalcures.com |
| posted by jamie @ 8:31 PM |
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| Monday, April 02, 2007 |
| Winkie, the One and Only |
Hello YWAM friends,
incase you haven't heard already, I wanted to let you know what is going on with our dear YWAM Legened, Winkie Pratney. For those of you who don't know him, he is one of the infamous YWAM speakers, he even spoke at our base a couple years ago. Unfortunately, he is not well. He is in S.Korea right now, and went to the hospital for what they thought was a hernia surgery. Turns out they've had to remove much of his digestive system, and now he is on life support and his organs are failing. It's very critical and serious. Go to his official blog for regular updates. Please be praying, he is only 62 years old!Labels: Winkie Pratney, YWAM |
| posted by jamie @ 10:37 PM |
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| Sunday, April 01, 2007 |
| My Sabbath |
Greetings friends. I love saturdays. They are my sabbath, my day of rest and my day to get things done, but not so much so that it feels busy. There's a happy medium between being bored, and being relaxed. Today was a good day.
I worked on my immigration a lot hopefully in the next year and a half, I will be a perminant resident of Canada! I will be able to come and go and not w. My original goal was to have it in the mail by the end of March (today) but it's not quite there yet. However we are only waiting on one letter from Craig's boss and once we have that (hopefully monday) then I believe it will be ready to go in the mail.. wow.. it seems like this day would never come. I felt buried in mountains of paper work, each thing waiting on another thing waiting on another thing... I can't beleive that one day, I wont have to worry about crossing the border or renewing a visa.. I will be able to bring home a paycheck and go to school without paying extra! Wow... Here's a pic Craig took of my working on assembling the packet together. I just counted it - 66 pages..can you beleive that? 66 pages of applications, photos, letters, income and bank statements, photocopies of birth certifacates and passports... Crazy.
 It was a beautiful day today as well. Sunny and warm..we did 2 loads of laundry, Craig grilled steaks for dinner (a salmon steak for me of course) and then we took a long walk down to sciece world (about 4.5 Kilo meters). Good good day.Labels: canadian immigration, science world |
| posted by jamie @ 1:31 AM |
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