rain in guelph

dear friends and family,
i am writing you all from the public library in guelph. it is saturday and i just came from the market. my backpack is full of yummy local food and i am content.
i attended a yoga retreat last week. so every morning i biked to melina's house, the yoga teacher, and we medidated for 30 minutes and did yoga together. it was a nice group of 7 women. i really needed that space in the morning to calm my mind and find the balance i felt in costa rica. my mind was constantly rushing and throwing these issues at my heart. all theses decisions that i am suppose to make. I am still not home yet. meaning I haven't find a room yet that fit my criteria. and although i am trying to be patient and trusting I am tired. I am longing for a place to feel home and safe and settle. I am also not a hundred procent where I want to be in my job search and so my mind was just taking over in the last couple weeks drving me a little crazy. I know in my heart things will move and and work out but I am tired. I am tired of having my stuff spread all over town at different people's houses and I am tired of not knowing what contact address to give. I am tired at looking at rooms, trying them out and not feeling safe at the places i am.it really teaches me that home is something special.
i am trying to get my schedule changed that way i will only work during the week. i am watching rowan only once a week and then i want to try to find a job that really fullfuls me on another level . meaning dishwashing is fullfilling in many ways. don't get me wrong. for example by now i can totally read the dishwasher and its moods. i know even before the green light shuts off that the circle is complete just cause the sound of the motor changes.i am a professional now on how to coordinate all the other tasks around me. so now i can serve coffee, ring another costumer through, make more coffee, open the dishwasher so the dishes can cool off, wash the cheese grade machine that the kitchen likes to throw in my sink when there are already a million other things in it, clean the trash cans in the bathrooms, get more ice for the drinks, run downstairs and grab 8 tomatoes, 5 avocados, 1 bucket of tofu, 3 green onions, cucumbers, fruit salat and toilet paper. i use my hands, head, shoulder and arms to balance all the things will scrubing the floor on my way up. that's what i call multi tasking.
what i like most about the job is actually interacting with the costumer. that's what i really enjoy. by now the machine that is used to ring people through and i are on a semi-peaceful stand. before i would put things in and order stuff and it would just not do it or do sometung differnet or i wouldn't do it the right way and had to do it all over again while people were waiting in line. that is fun. and then all the different ways to pay. in the beginning i would look over my shoulder and check if the costumer has cash on her and if so i would run her through. if not and she was holding a credit card i would simply turn back to my dishes and ignore her working ficiously. casue there are different ways to handle the different cards. visa is dfferent from debit. one time you have to put the end in forst and then slide it through the other time you just need to slide it through twice.
oh well. my time here is almost up.
i am sending you all love and peace.
today to my sister in vietnam and my opi whose birthday is today. and to stream for being so wonderful.
jewels

abundance of happiness

dear friends and family,
I am sitting on the 2nd floor on Meadowview, Norah Jones is playing in the background, I am on the balcony overlooking the backyard. a wind is blowing and it smells like rain and thunderstorm. the sky is white and the trees are dancing in the breeze. I am happy. I walked Auma, the husky this morning and while we were exploring the park near by I suddenly couldn't help but smile! I just love the time before the rain starts to fall. the air smells sooo good and feels so soft. almost like it is touching me gently, kissing and embracing my body. mhm, feels good.
i am off today. that feels good too.:) I was looking at a room yesterday. Sue, the woman who will be renting it out to me made a really cool suggestion. I could come over and stay for a while and see how it feels. So I will be moving in on Thursday for a couple days/week. She has Parkinson and attends a special treatment. She doesn't take any medication but rather follows a chinese medicine treatment plan. I like her. The street she is living on is pretty cool and there are lots of interesting people. We'll see.
On Saturday I attended another poetry slam event and this time I performed one of the pieces I write myself. That was amazing. I missed being on stage. I missed performing. It felt so good. And once I was done and back in my seat I just wanted to go back up and do another one.:) It is very interesting to listen to all these different people and their views and opinion. Some of the people who perform really have a good feel for language and they can play with it really well. I love how language can be so beautiful. I almost wish sometimes I could drink the words cause they sound so sweet and wonderful.:)
Anyway, I am sending you all my blessings.
Today for my little sister who is flying to Vietnam in 4 days!!!
And for stream and tania for just being awesome!!!
Love you lots,
Jewels

wonderful sweet Rowan!!

meadowview - summer - sun - blue sky - breeze

hello dear friends and family,
I am enjoying a work-free friday afternoon in the backyard of my current home - meadowivew. the sun is shining , there is a breeze and i am sitting in the shade of a beautiful old and tall tree. it smells like summer and heat and summer holidays. i kept thinking this morning while picking beans that this is how a perfect day in france (hello dear la tranche fans..:)) would look like. relaxed and beautiful. i was volunteering this moring for a local project called 'backyard bounty'. it is a farm with no land. at least not in one spot. people sign up who would like to gove some of their backyyard land to this prpject and then the project turns that space into beds. it was my first time today that i volunteered and it was just so nice to be back on the land and in nature. while i was picking purple beans i was remembering last summe. the smells of the purple bean plant brought me back to vancouver island and whole village. so many good memories.
greetings,
jewels

our journeys

dear friends and family,

days pass and become weeks and then months. it has been a month since i moved to guelph. and so many things happened. as i kinda watch the changes and events happening and shapening my life kind like a observer i feel relaxed and safe. i trust. sometimes that feeling is stringer sometimes not. i was honered to attend a memorial service for june gilbertson the woman i house sitted for. june and michael and her their daughter meggan went to ireland to see their relatives. june has cancer and while in ireland her health started to get worse and they decided to come home earlier. so i had to move out and over to mary-kate and her husband mike's place. mary-kate is their other daughter. while on the way over here june died on the airplane. half-way through heaven in the sky over ireland the counrty where she was born. i cycle closes. it was amazing to see and observe this family grief and at the same time celebrate her life. june touched so many lifes and all these lifes all these people came by or called or wrote as soon as they heart the news and shared their stories with june. it was very sad and there were many tears but at the same time that time was so full of love and passion for life and for june. last sunday was the memorial service and it was the most beautiful service i have ever attended. full of june, love, friendship and life. celebrating a woman's journey with all the people she has touched. and there were many. we cried and laughed together and it was so amazing. and so inspiring. it gave me another confirmation to lived this life, my life the way i like it and to the best i can do. i thought to myself i'd like to have people say the same thing at my memorial service. that i lived in community, shared, helped, inspired, hugged and loved. and embraced life and nature and the universe just like june. so my j in jewels or julia as my family knows me stands for june. as a loving reminder and to remember that i have a purpose.

so now i am house sitting for ben and christy as well as mary-kate and mike who are all living in the same house. they are all gone. ben and christy to ireland and mary0kate and mike on a canoe trip.

i am looking at different rooms at the moment and it is great as the whole community seems to try to help me find a spot i like. it is a challenge sometimes to remember to trust and simply surrender when these thoughts come up trying to convince me that i should have a room by now or it just won't work out. but it will. i will see another 2 tomorrow and i am emailing with another 2 people. i will be working saturday and sunday but will have off monday  and tuesday becuase rowan is also canoeing. so that gives me time to look at the different rooms.

how is my job? well, dishes seem to get dirty every time i enter the room and well they keep getting dirty until i leave the kitchen...;) i know my way around by now and also know the other people who are working there and they are fun. it is still very busy and i am not sure how long i will be doing that but we'll see. 

sending you all love and passion for this beautiful life we are all invited to live!

hakuna matata - that is for my friend jule who just started her time in africa. for a beautiful time there and an amazing experience!!

jewels

work day number 1

ui ui ui, wow my first shift lays behind me. 8 hours of washing, soaking, rinsing, scrubing, carrying and putting away dishes. cubs, and plates and glasses and pans and pots and cutting boards and spoons and forks and knifes and cubs and plates and... you get the picture..:) apparently it was a low day. oh well. so while i was up to my ellbows in dishwash water trying to save pots from tomatoe sauce, pesto pasta and the like i got an introduction for how to make coffee. oh you haven't done that yet? well here it goes...it is very easy. just put this into that, dont' take that one but this one, don't push it too hard, push it hard, left, right, up down and go for it...mhm... ok. and back to my dishes. every five minutes i needed to ask someone where to put something or where i find this or that. then an erand to the local store, ok we buy this tofu not that one, this soya sauce but not that one and don't take any other dressing that this one. ok. and off we wenrt to the next store to get another kind of tofu. then back to my dishes. hi jewels, can you get some tomatoes. sure where do they live? well, if you go down the stairs, turn left then right, then up and down and look through your third eye there is a box with tomatoes. you can't miss it. sure. alright down i went, actually found the tomatoes brought them up without squizzing them and the cook was happy. and back to my dishes. somehow every time i thought i got control over it there was another pile. so i started to philosophy about that. isn't our life like washing dishes? every time we think we figured it out, we got what we want, we are finally happy and content we realize there is another pile waiting for us, all dirty and laughing in our faces? isn't there always another challenge once we got over the one that seemed the biggest EVER?? you have time to think when you wash dishes that is very postive. unless somebody needs something or wants to widen my horizon about kitchen duties. which i appreciate but my brain was already high from the bleach water and all i could thing of was 'soap, rinse, bleach.soap,rinse, bleach.soap...' oh did you talk to me? sorry, what?:)
the time went surprisingly fast though. my shift was from 1-9pm and only around 5 i was in a deep soapy hole and thought time just doesn't move anymore. everything was moving sooo slow exept the dishes which seem to happy pile up one after another. around 6 i took a break and had something to eat. yes and i used a plate. ha. knowing that i will be the one who will clean it. sigh. the people are pretty cool and it was fun to work with them. some get annoyed earlier of my questions and confused looks some seem to have infinite patience. and then around 7:30pm i suddenly had this happyness shot creaping up my body into my head. probaly cause the end was nay.:) i started to sing and dance and the dishes seemed to clean themselves. like in cinderella. by then i smelled like bleach, had bleach all over me and acutally felt like a bar of soap myself. my fingers had disolved by then, my nails were so soft i could bend them into funny shapes like horses and flowers..;) my skin was so soft from the hot water that i just needed to touch it and it would burst open. oh yes, speaking of hot water. the water coming out of the tap was FREAKING HOT!! but not hot hot like, oh, wow that is hot. more like 'f***, i just burned off my little finger!'-hot. there is a little sign over the two sinks that says acording to law number blab blab blub you have to soap the dishes and the rinse them with hot water no cooler then 43celcius. 43CELCIUS. that is like stepping barfeet on sand in the sahara. man was that hot. and it didn't get better the more dishes i cleaned and therefore the more i burned myself. no. it just kept being painful. so i decided i will buy some cloves today. with a bright colour and smilies on them to cheer me up.
when the day was finally at end and the garbage bags were on the curb i wasn't that sure if i wanna come back on wednesday. it's freaking busy and i am standing the whole time. i have no clue what to say if a costumer comes a along and the waiter in charge has mistericly disappered(which happend a couple times). 'can i get a coffee?"'aehem, sure, yeah why not. don't we all love coffee?' 'so, can i get one now?" 'well,... actually...no. cause i have NO IDEA how to do it and even if i knew i couldn't do it cause my hands sunk and went lost in that FREAKING huge sink over there. yep, that one with the millions of dirty dishes piled up at each side growing by the second. which reminds me that i have to go back and unfortunately have to stop talking to you. but i think soon there will be a person appearing who claims to know how to do it and will happily assist you.'
ui ui ui. first days are kinda interesting. it is a real good experience for me cause i like to know how to do things and be in charge and do stuff on my one. now i have to ask about every step i take and don't take etc. and it's kinda overwhelming to tell the truth. i was very exhausted and just wanted to eat, not wash ANY more dishes no matter how many are piled up at home and go to bed. and i did.
so today i am not watching rowan which is really cool and i take the day off. i will buy some happy gloves and try not to freak out over the fact that i forget to empty the coolhouse-garbage cool water bucket yesterday at the end of my shift. that bucket likes to overfload and well, i forgot to empty it. i remembered it at 8 am this morning and felt this soapy awareness creaping up my throut. oh well.
so, yes dishwashing is fun and deliberating and joyfull.:) you rock, baby!:)
sending you loving soaps, aeaeah, soapy love...mhm...i mean bleach clear blessings,
jewels