Cookie Gifting.

Everywhere I have ever lived I have known my neighbors. Maybe not as best friends (though it has occurred) but I can at least identify them when they drive through the neighborhood. Things are a little different living in a high rise flat building. I do not know many of the people who live in my building and I can only identify a handful of them by sight. I really want to at least recognize a few of my neighbors ... so I devised a plan.

That plan included: Thanksgiving, cookies, cute ribbon and a little note. Tonight, I rang doorbells. As I was getting my shoes on to go I laughed and thought I wish I had kids so they could go and deliver these for me. Haha. I could make them do the delivering just like my Mum used to make my brothers and I. Alas, no such luck.

I ended up giving out all but one of the bags that I had made. It was so funny! I got to use the sentences I had been working on all week (all four of them) and I even deviated from those in conversation with two people. Oh life's simple joys. The quest to meet my neighbors is off to a good start. I am counting on a few more holiday treat sharing moments.

Sunshine Sunday.

Today was a great day.

I was dreading it last night ... but I faced it anyway. Really, what choice does one have?! The dawn comes no matter if I want it to or not!?

I awoke to a bright sunshiny day! Wow, where did that come from? It was amazing and beautiful to walk to church in the sunshine (without a raised umbrella). Along with the sunshine came the songs How Great Thou Art, This is My Story and To God Be The Glory. After lunch, some of us from church went to the Planetarium. Aside from the great time doing that; I think I filled my Russian quota for the day!

And to top it all off I found a new purse! Fabulous, really!

Why Thank You.

The amazing people at River Bend Church in North Carolina sent me a box of goodies for Thanksgiving! It was chocked full of wonderful delights and a few things to make my cooking life a little easier. I am especially excited about the hair gel! Although, at this point I am not sure anything will tame the mess I have going!?

Thank you so much guys for the package. It brightens my days to know that you are thinking of me as I think of you all. My Uncle S picked out the card for the box ... haha. I died laughing at it.Happy Thanksgiving back at you guys!

But I Love The Sun.

One of the best parts of Madrid was wondering around the city ... in the sun! The weather was beautiful and the company was fabulous. J and I played tourist one day and I enjoyed hitting the major spots in Madrid. Madrid is a huge city and I could not imagine actually living there. It was full of people, buildings and traffic the entire time we wandered around. It just felt so much bigger than Kyiv. Turns out that Madrid has an estimated population of 3.2 million and Kyiv 2.8 million. Amazing.

I suppose living in Madrid would come with necessary adjustments and the large population would be one of them ... along with learning to eat dinner around 9:30pm! Haha. Spain has such a different culture from Ukraine - maybe that is why I liked it so much. It is more complementary of what I am familiar with.

Did you notice how bright and sunny all these pictures are?! Yep, I loved it! Haha.

Interruption.

I interrupt the ever entertaining and colourful posts about Spain to bring you this!

Tomorrow, 17 November is National Homemade Bread Day. In honour of this great day ... and because we both like bread ALOT ... my friend L and I are having a bread exchange at the seminary. I made my first ever homemade loaf of honey oatmeal bread (or any loaf of bread for that matter).

Boy, oh boy! It is delicious. Good thing we are sharing our bread tomorrow - I am not sure I could keep away from it for to long!

I Like The Rain.

Especially when it comes with good times with my friends. It was raining when I arrived in San Sebastian and raining when I left. If I had to estimate how often it rained I would say somewhere between 85 and 90 percent of the time! As a collective group I think we lost three umbrellas to the winds ...

I do not have the words to describe how much fun I had in San Sebastian with E. It was a much needed time of laughter, singing, fun, spontaneity and rest.

I am sure someone will think I am crazy ... but one of the food highlights for me was Golden Grams breakfast cereal! That and all the patatas (french fries); they eat them with everything and with free ketchup! The breads were fabulous: soft, moist and flaky. The water was delicious! Haha. It wasn't brown coming out of the shower and I could drink it straight from the faucet. It was so fun to speak English with my friends all the time and it was nice to realise that maybe my Spanish has not gotten as bad as I feared.

I will always have such fond memories of being in San Sebastian with E.

Sweet Success.

Race day arrived with nervousness about the weather, the route and significant questions as to my sanity. I could not decide if I was really ready for the rain, the wind and the hills?! But thanks to the pushing and prodding of my girls - I managed to get myself out to the starting line.Me and my entourage! They took their jobs very seriously and worked to encourage me, to get me pumped up and they even made an attempt to shield me from the rain (that one did not work out so well). I think they enjoyed getting into the spirit of the race and were just as pumped about it as I was; which is a good thing because it took them nearly as long to get to the finish line by foot, train and bus as it did me running!In the final moments before the start ... there were thoughts of home. The girls cleverly decorated my fashionable trash bag with just about every Las Vegas phrase they could think of.

This picture was taken just after topping out at the crest of the longest (not steepest ... nor even close to the last) hill section in the course. My mind was racing in all different directions as I crested the hill ... I remember most of them (is that normal?). There were several thoughts about the having focused to much on the weather and not enough on hill preparation; there was the lingering smile of reaching the top in a "take that" manner! This was directed at the spectator who called me out by name and told me to focus and get my backside up that hill (not a direct quote - but you get the idea); there were the thoughts of shock that I was really running in France and Spain and there were the ever present thoughts of my loved ones who were supporting me from so far away. I ran with them in my heart.

And best of all ... I finished! Woohoo. (I was SO thirsty, I could think of nothing else) My official time was 2:07:13. Not to bad having spent those two hours running head first into the wind, along with enduring several rain showers, chugging up hills and trying not to roll down the other side. I was (okay, okay ... and still am) pretty pleased with myself.

45 B/SS.

Bib Number: 16084

Start Time: 11:22 am (GMT +1)

Final Prep Run: 5 miles done along the beach. Fabulous!

Forecasted Weather: Rain/Wind; Percip: 100%; High 56F

Oh man! Its gonna be fun ...

A Roller Coaster.

One moment I am experiencing the jerking movements of the chain on the tracks - pulling me up from the bottom of the hill; in the next I am sitting on top of the arch with a magnificent view of the world and its possibilities and then suddenly I am plunged back down the hill to the bottom of negative thoughts and experiences.

Imagine you have a wonderful birthday party with beautiful women, who are willing to step out of their norm for you. You can even share the evening in a language you don't speak nor understand much and it is okay with you. You laugh, joke and tease. Through the evening you share a bit of yourself and they share a bit of themselves. You go to bed thinking, "maybe this isn't going to be so bad after all." There is your up.

Then you wake up on Monday morning with a list of things to accomplish for the day. One glaring item on your list is a trip to the post office because you need an envelope to mail something special. Imagine this is a task you have put off for quite some time because it is scary - but you are leaving soon and it needs to get done. Time to be brave and go buy an envelope. On your way to the post office you check your dictionary to make sure you know the word for envelope. It is not in there. You panic a bit, but tell yourself you have been in the post office before, you are excellent at charades and can simply point if it comes to that. You walk into the post office only to discover that they are rearranging everything and have taken the "examples" of envelops and boxes off the walls. You debate with yourself as to weather you should try to get an envelope or just leave ... your sense of duty and independence win out and you stay (not without waiting for the entire post office to clear of other patrons because you are severely embarrassed by the fact that you have lived in this country for nine months and cannot put together the words to purchase an envelope). The attempt at buying an envelop goes terribly bad and after several tries you say something to the effect of never mind and thank you and walk out. The tears of your defeat are contained ... if only by the biting of the wind and the snow flurry that has waited for you outside. There is your down.

Now you get to spend the next twenty-four hours dreading the fact that you have to order yourself a taxi in order to get to the airport on Wednesday. Down again.

At least if that works out you will be on a plane to somewhere slightly warmer, with a foreign language you might understand and wonderful friends you cannot wait to see. Maybe there is an up coming soon.

The constant up and down is tiresome to me. It seems to dominate so much of me lately and I do not like it. I do not like being in a constant power struggle over my emotions, my reactions, my attitude and my face. Every time I seek help to let something go, I do. But guess what category the next down falls into ... and then suddenly it is in my hands again and not in the hands of my Father. If I were unbiased in introspection I might say that often times though I take things back into my own hands they are easier to return to their rightful owner. And maybe even less of it returns to me each time (except in the language category and that just gets worse).

I do not know what the solution to this is. Perhaps there is not a permanent solution. Perhaps the point is to journey on the road to realisation of the struggle; to simply treasure the better moments deep in my soul and to move to unashamed and constant dependence on giving the downs over and over again to the One who can handle them.