Friday: Cocoons

This week, all has been quiet.  No, I don't mean quiet in my life or in the world or in my office, or even at my house.  I mean quiet in my mind.  I have been laying low, being still, breathing, thinking, imagining. 

I have found that I go through these periods in my life.  They are off and on like a light switch.  I don't know what brings them about or what makes them go away... but they always seem to happen.  I wasn't even going to blog today, to keep up with my blog-less pattern I have been maintaining all week and with my quietness, but then it suddenly struck me - i figured out what was happening to me and I felt that I had to blog about it.

These periods that I am talking about are periods when I want to hibernate.  I dont really reach out to many people and I mostly feel like staying in.  My phone gets lost in my purse, next to my bed, and I dont think about it very much.  I am not constantly reaching for it. My creative side usually comes out more during these periods and I become very reflective. 

I have a habit of becoming angry at myself during these times.  Guilt also sets in.  I feel that I am not keeping up with my friends as much as I should.  Not calling my grandmom or aunt to say hello.  I look at other people being friendly and outgoing and think that I must be a mean grinch because I am not acting that way. 

What spurred this blog post was my facebook surfing.  I was just feeling that angry guilt with myself and admiring someone for how outgoing they were, when the word "cocoon" popped into my head.  I dont know why or where it came from, but it occurred to me that I am cocooning during these times.  These periods are not bad (although I will have to work on not being angry, guilty, or forcing myself out of these times), they are merely a time for self-reflection and a time to connect with who I really am again.  To go back to my roots and remember where I came from and what I am about.

When I emerge, I will be different.  It may not be noticeable to the human eye, or even to myself.  But I will come out more grown up and sharpened in some way.  I will be able to love more deeply than before and appreciate others more.  My light will shine brighter.  So there you have it folks, I am going through changes in my life and need to rest in my cocoon until I can re-emerge more polished than before. 

Once I come out of these periods, I constantly want to chat with people.  I am on the phone and meeting with people, and letting myself out into the world.  It is amazing how long I have been struggling with this part of me.  Now I can see it in a positive light.

Can anyone relate?

See you when I emerge... :)

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encourage one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near.

Hebrews 10:23-25

xoxo Cori

Wednesday: Gobble Gobble, Cont'd, cont'd...

so, for whatever extremely frustrating reason, my whole post would not publish... hence, the continuation of today's post for your enjoyment :)

If you stuck with me (thank you:)), I would also like to share with you an opportunity to recognize the blessings we have here in American and share them with some people who are not so fortunate. People in Haiti are still suffering in a major way from the cholera epidemic.  This is a disease that is so easily cured, but they do not have the resources to make it happen.  Here is an article from Christ Fellowship's website. At the end I have included a link for more information on how you can give.



Palm Beach County, FL (November 20, 2010) - - - Haitian Educational Community Association is pleased to announce that on Monday, November 22, 2010, a Multi-Faith delegation will be responding to the human suffering and Cholera Crisis in Haiti.

With every hour that passes, people are dying and the disease continues to spread. There are over 1100 deaths known and reported to date and with the recent hurricane flooding the spread of this deadly disease has accelerated.  We cannot stand-by and watch the death toll climb. HECA has the cultural knowledge and relationships throughout Haiti and knows that they can make an impact.

The antibiotic (Cipro) is the most cost effective solution, and typically sells for $29 per infected person. HECA has found a supplier who is responding to the crisis and will provide the antibiotic for $3 per person.  A portal is being set up for the public to donate to this endeavor, for subsequent trips and will be announced as soon as it accessible.

The delegation is privately-self funded and is responding with their limited resources. The team will deliver and assist in dispensing the desperately needed antibiotic immediately.

The delegation consists of Mayor René Varella of the City of Lake Worth, Dr. Pierre Paul Cadet, a physician practicing in Palm Beach County,  Pastor Leo Abdella of Christ Fellowship Church, Mr. Stephen Friedman, The Jewish Friends of Haiti, Mr. David L. Alexis, a real estate broker,  Marcia Gonzalez , News Channel 5 WPTV and representatives of the Catholic Church have come together to respond to the Cholera Crises in Haiti.

To give, please visit: http://gochristfellowship.com/help-people/outreach/haiti-earthquake-relief/

as always,

love

Cori

 

Wednesday: Gobble Gobble, Cont'd...

Well I know that Thanksgiving was last week, but since I did not get to blog about it then, and since today is supposed to be inspirational and SINCE I would like to perpetuate the theme of giving thanks, I would like to share with you some nice little sayings for the thanksgiving and holiday season...

"The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!" -Henry Ward Beecher

"Thanksgiving, after all, is a word of action." - W.J. Cameron

"If you want to turn your life around, try thankfulness. It will change your life mightily." -Gerald Good

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, "thank you," that would suffice." -Meister Eckhart

"Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow." -Edward Sandford Martin

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to
live by them." -John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Blog cont'd on next post...

Tuesday Vintage Fashion Update: Currently Trending, Jackie O?

UGH! I so love the fasion trends of the 50's and 60's. Dont you?! 

If I had to choose any decades, I would choose the 50's and 60's.  I have been fascinated with the look since I was a little girl.  Watching older movies and seeing pictures of people from these times.  I think the looks are timeless.  Everything from the make-up, to the hair, to the clothes.  Everything.  I think of Jackie O.  Her look is one I can only dream of.  I love everything she wore... so elegant.   The 50's and 60's prove to be more conservative, but in a way that accentuates curves and is very appealing and classy.

Lucky for me, and for those of you like me who so admire the style of these times, the trends are coming back.  Take a look at some recent runway fashions that are predicted for the winter season.

I love the knits, A-line dresses, pencil skirts, wide leg pants (as well as skinny).



Jackie O - My Fashion Icon

 

she simply fascinates me :)


hope you enjoyed todays update :) have a great day!

xoxo cori

Monday Life Update: Leftover Turkey

Happy day-after-four-day weekend everyone!

Yes, as Eminem would say, snap back to reality....back to the daily grind that is our lives.

What a nice four day weekend it was though.  Rick and I were busy running around like crazy but we got to spend quality time together and time with the family as well.

Here is the weekend run-down:

Thursday: I made my foray into Thanksgiving cooking with sweet potato casserole.  I think it turned out to be a success.  Next year I have some ideas to spice it up a little... perhaps some pecans or crust.  Something to make it a little more interesting, more than just potatoes and sugar. Then it was off to the St. Johns for feasting where there was no shortage of delicious foods.

SHOUT OUTS: Thanks to Alissa for her delicious pies (especially the pecan... mmm so good). Thanks to Caryn for her squash soup (though I am not an adventurous eater, trying something new was nice). Special shout out to Clare for her awesome crescent roles (the best rolled crescents I have ever experienced) and thanks to Papa Maffett for washing the dishes :) and I know other people made food but I cant remember who made what! Everything was delicious.




The Thanksgiving Feast

 Friday: We were crazy enough to venture out into the black hole that is black FRIDAY. NO, we were not up at 4AM and we did not camp out the day before. We did however make our way to the mall around 12pm. It wasnt bad at all. I was imagining people pushing and shoving and running each other over.  But we got a parking spot right in front of the entrance!! Now that is a black Friday Miracle. Honestly though, there werent many good deals. Maybe we were just too late? Did anyone else notice this? Cause it didnt seem to me like the stores cared too much to entice us with sales.

Friday night we got to eat some turkey gumbo soup thanks to mama maffett --- it was delicious. Made special with thanksgiving leftovers. Then we saw Love and Other Drugs, which was good.  I was expecting a hokey lovey dovey chick flick, but there was actually some depth to it.  There were parts that were funny, some thought provoking, and some moving. There was an unprecedented amount of nudity, which shocked me.  I am sure this movie set the new bar for the amount of nudity that can be shown in a movie without having to make it x-rated. If you are not into nudity, I wouldnt suggest seeing.  Especially not with your parents or grandparents, if that kind of thing makes you feel awkward (flashback to seeing sex and the city I seated inbetween my mom and stepdad).  Otherwise, I would suggest seeing it.

Saturday: We got to take ALL 3 dogs (summer, jake, and bowden) to the beach.  People stared at us like we were crazy as we got twisted and tangled between leashes and were screaming at the dogs not to run into the streets... The pups had a blast though of course. To dogs, the beach is pure heaven. I would compare it to a night at the breakers being waited on hand and foot with a complimentary massage for a human.

Then of course FSU beat the Gators.  I am still working on being an FSU fan.  I did see some hints of it while watching the game I must say. There were times I wanted to get a little competitive.  I think in a few years I will be a hardcore fan and look back on these times of cluelessness and laugh. At church people were congratulating Rick left and right.  At first we would say thank you and start talking about getting married, until we realized that they were congratulating Rick on FSU's win.

Sunday: Rick and I hosted the first ever Maffett Family Dinner at Rick's house.  Despite having a bachelor sized array of plates, silverware, serving dishes, etc, we managed to make it work :) We had to improvise a little bit but all in all everyone had a good time.

So, in short, that was our weekend.  Hope everyone had a blessed Thanksgiving and that everyone gets a good start to their week!

Peace :)

Cori

Friday: Bible Thumper's Anonymous?

I was skimming the pages of Cosmo recently, and saw something that struck a cord.  Crosses.  They were scattered all over the page.  Some were in the form of major bling, some were bedazzled, some were small and some were large.  They were on the page obviously as a fashionable item. But it occurred to me that what the cross stands for is not considered so fashionable.

Seriously?

What is this twisted image our culture has?  The rappers wear crosses bigger than their heads and then they sing about murder and sex and drugs.  Rockers are not excluded from that.  Neither are Christians, by the way (we are all sinful beings and none of us is perfect).  But what I am getting at is the cultural delusion.  We see people wearing crosses as fashion statements with no idea as to what the cross symbolizes, and then people who carry their bibles with them are made fun of or are thought of as bible thumpers, etc.  Um hello, crosses and bibles stand for the same thing.

What is up with that? Why are "bible thumpers" so uncool? Jesus was uncool too by the way. He was in no way fashionable.  The bible tells us that he looked lowly.  There was nothing attractive about him.  I am not saying that being Christian should be cool, I am just saying that this ignorance has got to go.  You cannot wear a cross and then consider someone who loves Jesus a "loser" or what have you. 

So where did this come from? When and how did crosses become a cool, edgy, fashionable thing to wear? What is going to happen if this trend continues? Will the cross lose it's meaning to society altogether? The way it was laid out on the page of Cosmo leads me to think so.  It leads me to think that people who do not even believe in Jesus will begin to wear crosses because they look good.

Well I am going to stop rambling and hope that what I said above makes sense.  I'd like to hear some other people's thoughts too...

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

xoxo Cori

Thursday: To See Saw...

Yep, I was gone for a while.  More like 2 days.  But I missed ya'll and I missed blogging. This week has been a complete blur.  For reasons that I cannot unveil to you right now (stay tuned), I have been a little stressed but for a good reason (again, stay tuned).  So, I have spent my lunch breaks from work worrying about this stress causing thing, and therefore not blogging.  But now I am back.

And I want to talk Saw, yes I said it, Saw 3D.  Rick and I saw Saw last night.  Has anyone seen Saw yet? It is insane.  I mean, some really sick and twisted person had to write and create this movie.  The scenes are so horrifying.  The weird thing is, they look pretty fake.  The make up on the people who have been brutally bashed is really not good.  The blood doesn't even look real.  So on the one hand you can laugh and say ha ha oh look at how fake this is... or you can let yourself get all caught up and be completely horrified (I was the latter).  Oh and if you were wondering about the 3D part, you can barely tell it is in 3D. That was kinda disappointing since you have to pay like 3 bucks extra for that lovely feature.

Here is a Synopsis:

As a deadly battle rages over Jigsaw’s brutal legacy, a group of Jigsaw survivors gathers to seek the support of self-help guru and fellow survivor Bobby Dagen, a man whose own dark secrets unleash a new wave of terror...
The first theatrical feature to be shot exclusively on the cutting-edge SI-3D digital camera system, SAW VII 3D brings the horrifying games of Jigsaw to life like never before.

Anyway, what I really want to discuss is the idea behind the movie (sorry to give it away to anyone who has not seen).  The idea is that this crazy killer, jigsaw, goes around and kills people who did/do bad things.  He kills them in ways that resemble the bad deeds they performed, to teach them a lesson, so to speak.  He basically knocks the people out and sets them up in these crazy intense puzzles/traps, where they usually end up dying.  Jigsaw has some proteges, basically the lucky peeps who made it out of his "puzzles" alive.  So on the one hand you want to say, hey, this guy is trying to get a point across, maybe there is a good bone in his body.  But on the other hand you want to say, you idiot, you are killing people because they told a lie? and you want to call him a hypocrite because what he is doing is pretty darn bad.

So this idea of teaching people a lesson, righting their wrongs, by basically killing them, its like this sick jisaw guy's idea of a good deed. I am interested in people's views on this.  Should we be teaching people lessons (not by killing them obviously)? Doesnt everyone tell a lie once in a while, hurt another person, the list goes on? Whose job is it to right people's wrongs? If you believe in God, you have to say that only God can judge people because we are ALL guilty.  But humans seem to have this inescapable urge to let people know when they have done something wrong and teach them a lesson.  What is that all about? We are so slow to forgive others, yet we expect immunity for ourselves.

Luke 6:42:  How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Just some deep thinkage for your thursday afternoon :) hope you enjoyed!!

xoxo Cori