New Job !!!

I was recently hired as an adult ESL teacher at ELS Language Center on the Front Range Community College campus, and I never knew you could love going to work so much! Seriously, I LOVE MY JOB. It's semi-temporary and dependent on student enrollment. So, I'm hoping for a high enrollment next month so I can still teach! I have 2 classes, each with 8 students. The students come from: Brazil, Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Gabon, Vietnam, South Korea and Venezuela. It's amazing getting to teach language, which I love, and to be able to interact with people from all over the world! I'm clearly in the "honeymoon" phase right now, or who knows, maybe I've found my long-term education-niche.

CREMA Coffee House

CREMA Coffee House has been a Denver hot-spot for a while on upper Larimer (between LoDo and Five Points), but our friend, Jon Power (formerly of Olivea and Root Down), has recently designed a menu and begun serving breakfast and lunch as well! We were delighted to patronize Crema this morning for breakfast. The coffee is prepared French Press style, and it was about as exquisite as I have ever had, EVER. The breakfast/lunch menu offers simple, creative, gourmet and affordable options. You must check it out!

Phases of Happiness

In Gretchen Rubin's book, The Happiness Project, she proposes four stages of happiness to eke out the most from any experience:

1. Anticipation - talking, planning, dreaming, preparing, searching for background info on the net, looking at pictures of the proposed destination, what's called "rosy prospection"

2. Savoring - the moment as it unfolds, being present, pausing, looking around

3. Expressing - You can relive the experience as you tell people about it. Say it aloud. Express gratitude.

4. Remembering - through photographs, videos, reminiscing, memory book
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This blog mostly involves phase 3 and some 4. It brings me joy to express my happy experiences. It helps me not forget and causes me to be more present, more cognizant of sweet and precious moments.

Denver Now Recycles More than EVER!

Denver used to just recycle Plastics #1 & #2 whose openings were smaller than the whole container (basically bottles). I secretly used to hate seeing people put other types of containers in the recycling bins because I knew Denver was so strict, but now you can recycle all Plastics #1 - #7! Hooray!! Visit website: Denver Recycling

Eats, Shoots, and Leaves

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

So, punctuation really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

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This is the story on the back of the book, Eats, Shoots and Leaves: the Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, by Lynne Truss. I look forward to reading this when I get the chance. I was reminded of this book last night, when at church on the overhead screen, a line in a worship song stated, "its raining, its raining, its raining." And it admitedly distracted and disappointed me.

The New Book Club

So, I've dreamed of being part of a Book Club for ages, but I never really knew of any, and I didn't want to start my own without any other experience. And, well, I am so thankful to have met Tim and Abby who recently moved to the neighborhood and brought with them a well of creativity, thoughtfulness and authenticity. We're reading the Classics, which I am generally not as drawn to, but they have proven to be delightful indeed. Here is a list of books read so far, I joined in July:

March - Great Gatsby
April - Jane Eyre
May - Fahrenheit 451 ( I think)
July - Alice in Wonderland and Candide
August - Great Expectations
September - The Alchemist and The Awakening

And the marrow of the experience is: Responding to the novel in some creative, meaningful way (food, art, song, anything it inspires you to do), which you can share with the group when we meet. There's a blog for the Book Club on the right, but it is a bit outdated.

For Whom the Bell Tolls

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

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John Donne wrote this while on what he thought was his death bed (it wasn't) as he had been struck by the plague. And he constantly heard the bells tolling for someone's funeral during those times. He was saying that it didn't matter whose funeral it was because we, mankind, are all the less with this man's passing.

::

I think of this passage because our downstairs neighbor passed away last week. We came home on Friday to a terrible, all-encompassing stench and policemen all around the building. Of course we commented that it smelled like death, but you never think that it actually would be ... It wasn't until today that I discovered that our downstairs neighbor had passed away five days prior to being found. I just saw the lady in 204 on the rooftop on my birthday and we small talked a bit. And to think that in the past few days I had made a loud step and felt self-conscious about disturbing her downstairs, and I didn't even know that she had passed away...

ORR family Vaca!

In August we got to spend a week at Matt's parents' new house in North Myrtle Beach!! It was everything you would hope for in a family beach vacation! I'm serious, my heart overflows with warm memories. We got to spend ample time at the beach and the water was the perfect temp - so I probably spent more time in the actual ocean than ever before. We ate lunch and dinner outside everyday and sometimes breakfast too. We rode cruiser bikes around the neighborhood, we went swimming and hot tubbing. We played tennis and bocce ball. We went for walks in the woods, along the beach, along the golf course. It was so relaxing and rejuvenating. I can't wait for the next Orr family vacation.

Umcompahgre! 14,314ft

During our road trip we also summited Umcompahgre Peak (the 6th highest mtn. in CO). It was so spectacular I thought it deserved its own slot for pictures.

SW Colorado Roadtrip

Matt and I both had a busy summer full of reading, writing and showing up to class. I admit that Matt's terms and books were much bigger than mine. But we finally got to have a break at the end of the summer and we wanted to head for Southwest Colorado and to be outside as much as possible. Within the first day we: floated down a river, had a picnic in a park, picked up a hitch hiker and summited the highest sand dune. It was perfect. Here are some photos:

backpacking Crater Lake Trail in San Juan Mountains

camp site near Lake City

same camp site

soaking in the last bit of sun at Crater Lake

driving along the Alpine Loop between Silverton and Lake City

fresh, organic strawberries!

along the Alpine Loop

reading Grapes of Wrath in the sunlight

reflection in Crater Lake

we backpacked 13 miles in two days.
it was so GREEN!