Mini Fall Break

I have a four day weekend! woo hoo!

So, my goals for this four day Fall break:

- experiment with two new chocolate chip cookie recipes
- experiment with homemade pumpkin spice latte recipe
- finish the 2nd part of my "Biography of a Bilingual" ASAP
- finish my 2nd "Techniques for Teaching ESL" paper
- make blueberry pancakes
- visit thrift store, keep my eyes out for cute boots
- collect dead pine beetle wood for our fireplace from forest
- roast chestnuts from neighbor's tree in oven (or over open fire?)
- help Nate and Sarah clean out their old apartment
- celebrate Christi's birth with her family
- write Kate in our pen-pal journal
- play guitar
- assist at Cumleys' photo shoot
- borrow the Cumleys' vacuum
- take a stroll in Cheesman Park
- take similar stroll in Botanic Gardens

~~~~~~~~ I LOVE THE FALL!!!! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Along the Way

I first fell in love with this poem five years ago in the bathroom reading section of some pretty inspiring people. And then I lost this poem and meanwhile I began to lose inspiration. I feel drained and I miss all of the "free time" I used to have for reading, contemplating and writing. And I found this poem in a tattered and taped-up notepad from days gone by and I know that I have to stop complaining, even in my thoughts, I have to learn to appreciate this season of life and how it fits in with all of the other seasons and how this current job situation isn't the point, but LIFE is the point, the JOURNEY is the point and thanks be to GOD for being with me and showering me with glimpses of His beauty and glory ALONG THE WAY.

As you journey through life,
choose your destination well,
but do not hurry there.
You will arrive soon enough.
Wander the back roads and forgotten paths,
keeping your destination in your heart
like the fixed point of a compass.
Seek out new voices, strange sights,
and ideas foreign to your own.
Such things are riches for the soul.
And if upon arrival, you find your destination is not exactly as you dreamed,
do not be disappointed. Think of all you would have missed if not for the journey there, and know that the true worth of your travels lies not in where you come to be at journey's end, but in who you come to be ALONG THE WAY.