This is my Snowy Moldovan Fairy Tale.

This morning I woke up to snow!! I love how Gura Galbenei looks. It is so different, so fairy tale like.

I am in love!! Walking to work this morning was great, not only was I not occupied in trying to skip over the mud, I was crunching through crisp snow. How perfect timing, just in time for Christmas Eve.I am waiting for more snow to flag down some children to go sledding. I was told that is the best time to bond with snow enthusiast children. I too miss those times.

It's Christmas

This is a present to me from the 4th graders. They invited me to their Christmas party on Sunday, but due to the Peer Support Network meeting in Chișinău I wasn't able to make it. So they gave it to me today.

The 4th graders, though this picture was taken last summer.

I've got to say, there is something about being a teacher here that I love, the moment when you walk into the classroom and have all the students stand up and greet you. They still catch me by surprise every time.

At home, my host parents and I put up our tree. Several weeks ago I asked my host dad if they were going to put a tree in the house. He said that they haven't done it since their children left the house, but this year they will put it up again because they have me.

My host dad putting up the star.

I am happy that there is some Christmas cheer in my life. Moldovans celebrate Christmas on January 7th, therefore I will miss Christmas eve and Christmas day food and opening presents excitement this December.

One thing I never thought I would never miss from working at Pier 1 is the Christmas music. Now I get some spark of happiness in my soul just to hear a lil jingle. Crazy!!

However, this Saturday I will start my journey via a 20 something hours bus ride to Prague and will spend New Years there. That I am excited for.

I WISH EVERYONE CHEERS AND JOY IN LIFE! MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEARS!!

A Collection of Words I Live by

You can get over it.
All you gotta do is survive.

Pain is there for a reason.

Don't try to be Perfect,
Do try to be Better.









"I am a leaf on the wind!
Watch how I soar!
-Wash, Firefly

"Existence Precedes Essence" -Sarte

"For it isn't enough to
talk about peace.
One must believe it.
And it isn't enough to
believe in it.
One must work at it."
- Eleanor Roosevelt


"When you
can't run...
You crawl...
And when you
can't crawl...
You get someone
to carry you."
-Firefly

"I could quit...but
here's the thing...
I love the playing FIELD!"
- Grey's Anatomy

"Success is a journey,
not a destination.
The doing is often
more important than
the outcome."
- Arthur Ashe

"All those years I've been feeling
like I was growing into myself.
Finally, I feel grown."
- Oprah Winfrey

"It is sweet to let the mind unbend on occasion."
- Horace

"Speak your mind even if your voice shakes."
- Maggie Kuhn

"Life is like getting dropped off in
the middle of the woods, and then year by year,
gradually walking home."
- April Fowles


"To repeat what others have said,
require education,
To challenge it, requires brains."
- Mary Pettibore Brooke



"I would rather have regrets about things
I did than about things I didn't do."
- Haider Hamza

"To fly we have to have resistance."
- Maya Lin

"If you are going through hell...
keep going!!!" -Anonymous

"Everything has a purpose, even this,
and it's up to you to find it."
- Dan Millman


"Knowledge speaks but
Wisdom listens."
- Jimi Hendrix

"Each morning we are born again.
What we do today is what matters most."
- Buddha


"When we feel stuck, going nowhere...
even starting to slop backward...
we may actually be backing up to get a running start."
-Dan Millman

"Tell me my most attractive feature is my
SELF-CONFIDENCE!"
- Women's Empowerment Manual

Successful Peace Corps
"The single most influential element of your Peace Corps service is yourself. You will determine whether your service was good or bad, worth it or not, successful or a failure.
It is up to you to make it what it will be, it is futile to blame outside things, because all of the answers already lie withing yourself."
- unidentified PCV

"I think life is what you do with it.
How you decide to live it.
It can be simple or not.
If you are happy and living
how you want to live,
responsibilities can be a joy,
not a job."
- Me 12/26/02 found written on the back of a gas receipt












Let us learn to appreciate there will be times
when the trees will be bare, and look forward
to the time when we may pick the fruit.
~ Anton Chekhov



"Besides the noble art of
getting things done,
There is a nobler art of
leaving things undone.
The wisdom of life
consists in the elimination
of nonessentials."
- Yin Hutang

"Pay attention, because you don't always
know where your opportunities will come.
A door may open where you didn't expect.
Pay attention to the people you meet,
pay attention to what people do.
You walk in a forest and see nothing,
but if you pay attention you see a universe."
- Diane Von Furstenberg


"One's first step in wisdom is to question everything,
and one's last is to come to terms with everything."
- George Christopher Lichtenberg


"All of us tend to put off living,
we are all dreaming of
some magical rose garden over the horizon,
instead of enjoying the roses that are
blooming outside of our window's today."
-Dale Carnegi


"The truth is that there is nothing noble
in being superior to somebody else.
The only real nobility is in being
superior to your former self."
- Whitney Young

"Take chances, make mistakes.
That's how you grow.
Pain nourishes your courage.
You have to fail in order
to practice being brave."
- Mary Tyler Moore

"The purpose of life is to discover your gift.
The meaning of life is giving your gift away."
- David Visccott

"It is only when we no longer impulsively
need someone that we can have a
real relationship with them."
- Anthony Starr

"If you love someone, set them free."
- Richard Bach

"I need not base my mental health on other's emotional support."
- Me with help

Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh's books:

Following the Breath
Breathing in, I calm my body
Breathing out, I smile.
Dwelling in the present moment,
I know this a wonderful moment!

Breathe you are alive!!!

To breathe is enough to always
be happy, to always be in love.

Walking Meditation
The mind can go in a thousand directions
but on this beautiful path, I walk in Peace.
With each step, a gentle wind blows
with each step, a flower bloom.

Interconnectedness
The feeling of alienation among so many people today has come about because they
lack awareness of the interconnectedness of all things.
We can not disconnect ourselves from society or anything else.

Looking deeply, we can contemplate one thing and see everything else in it. We are not disturbed by change when we see the interconnectedness and continuity of all things. It is not that the life of any individual is permanent, but that life continues. When we identify ourselves with life and go beyond the boundaries of a separate identity, we shall be able to see permanence in the impermanent, or the rose in the garbage.

Being Alive
Just to be alive is wonderful, and you feel intensely happy.

Loving
When you have the courage to open your heart completely to love, a miracle happens. You start perceiving the reflection of your love in everything. Then eating, walking, talking, singing, dancing, showering, working, playing-everything you do becomes a ritual of love. When everything becomes a ritual of love, you are no longer thinking, you are feeling and enjoying life. You find pleasure in every activity you do because you love to do it.

I don't need to justify my love.
I love you because this is my pleasure.
Love coming out of me makes me happy,
and it's not important if you reject me
because I don't reject myself.
In my story, I live in an on going romance,
and everything is beautiful for me.

Brașov Art

These are a collection that we came across on a fence on one of our walks. Thought I should share for it is one of those things I cherish from our trip.

Being Me

I am ONE among many
unique and different in my OWN entity

Life's Zenith Point

Wrapped up in thoughts of self, full of wants and desires
Swirling, winding, circling all over...
I am in my empty vessel

A slight touch, it goes tumbling
Rolling, bumping, thudding its way,
No where determined

Yet still so determined to reach a destination
An ending point in the future...my destined future
All possibilities are open to interpretation

It is upon me to uncover all inquiries
From the highest point looking down
Directly from life's zenith point

Ironic Happenstance

Yesterday I attended a funeral held outside for 4 hours. Even through frozen limbs and full of self awareness of how my body try its best to fight the cold, it was hard to see my Mayor and his family say goodbye to his mother.

It was my first funeral here in Moldova, and was told later that it was done differently from a traditional Orthodox funeral. In fact it was performed according to the Seventh-day Adventist religion. The difference lies in the fact that this one was held outside and not in a church, there were no religious flags or candlesticks, and no wine were served at the Masa after the burial service.

Instead we went to a ceremony at the house, were people could say goodbye to her in the sala (living room), later through many carols she was brought outside while the rest of the service continued with speeches. After two hours of that, she was loaded onto the truck and everyone from the house followed the truck to the cemetery. More speeches took place leading up to the very last moment when the family said goodbye to her before she was laid into the ground.

Through 4 hours of witnessing this, I had many running thoughts, due to not being able to understand all that was being said and to see a 76 year old woman lie peacefully in her casket surrounded by her loved ones on what would have been her birthday.

Last night I came home and wanted nothing other than to move my body and warm up and to feel movement. I did Taebo and Yoga, which helped me to connect to life. Then my host mom was worried that I would get my cold back from being outside so long, she made me soak my feet in hot water in a tub with a blanket over it for the rest of the night and told me I do not need to leave my room. That was my treatment, which I didn't complain. I resorted to watching P.S. I Love You and cried with all the feelings I was holding back throughout the day.

Then something happened, we did not have running water. We had only a bucket of water that was being used in the Casa Mica to use between the three of us. I woke up the next morning to still no water and needed really bad to wash my hair. Then just like that all my problems disappeared.

Never in my life have the essentials been withheld from me; food, water, air, love. Today water, the everyday essentials, I did not have. I'm not talking about the fact that I can only shower once a week due to not having hot water on a daily basis, but about not having water at all.

This just made my day. I am happy and appreciate life, because not only am I alive, I've had water all my life. I never had to worry about it taken away from me. How lucky am I??

The ABCs of what Eden wants in life?

This is an effort to discover myself....

a. Happiness with little triumphant struggles along the way
b. To keep on learning something new
c. To always feel connected to nature, earth, people and life
d. To be an unconditional loving, respecting, encouraging and supportive person in all the roles I partake in life
e. To experience love with all that it encompasses... joy, pain, sorrow, laughter and tears
f. To gain respect, pride and love from my family and friends
g. To keep on discovering the root of beautifulness in everything
h. To continue reinventing myself, in other words, keep on improving as a person
i. To be a person who knows want she wants
j. To be a person who fights for what she wants
k. To be fulfilled in life, meaning to know that I took all that life is able to give
l. To always challenge myself
m. To have it in me to challenge others around me
n. To speak up
o. To know when to give up for the right reasons
p. To know myself and accept that there are definitely things I am not able to accomplish or do
q. To accept my past history and be proud of where it lead me and how it made me the person I am
r. To be able to know what is bothering me and deal with the root of the problem
s. To want to be ME regardless of how I feel at the moment
t. To accept people as they are, but to know when to not accept their behavior in which hurts me
u. To experience different corners of the world
v. To never stop laughing
w. To appreciate the people in my life, even the ones who failed me, for they teach me something
x. To turn my own failures into lessons in life
y. To be able to teach and guide those that need my help
z. To succeed in all endeavors that will lead me to fulfill all that is on this list.

STRENGTH!!!

I am trying these days to find that spot of awesomeness INSIDE OF ME to keep on busting it...It sure is hard when you lay in bed for hours on end and can't ever seem to close your eyelids to have some rest. Past memories race through with a mixture of current agendas that seem to be put on hold until who knows when. Why does it have to be so hard. Why do I have to wait and wait and WAIT...is it cause I have two years to give or is it that people just don't want it ever?

I need some rest...some peace IN MIND. You would think that since it's the soul reason in me being here that it would be the root to all my existence here??

All that is peaceful now is my nightly yoga routines and all about bees and letting my brain do its wondering in hopes to find the answer.