Me, My Mac and i

My Mac has recently been feeling a bit sad. It's 5 years old now and was starting to feel a little laden down by all the junk I had her loaded with. So time for a little refresh and back to factory (2006) settings. Later in the week it's going to get Lion installed and will be fighting it out with brand new editions again, but until then it's fun spending time on c. 2007 Mac. Particularly because, prompted by the death of here maker, I am simultaneously looking back on Steve Job's career and the history of Macinosh. Having a 2007 mac for the week is a bit like an experiential history class. As I write in basic TextEdit, because I haven't re-installed Windows for Mac yet, i think how far we've come since this little baby was born. This beautiful little white Macbook 13 inch, pre-dates iPod touch, iPhones and iPads. When it was new, there was only one Apple store in England (one i once cried on the phone with). Yep this mac, and the macintosh company at large, have come a long way in a few short years. So what made me get a mac back then? I'm not really sure. Other than I was fed up with computing as I knew it. I was fed up with viruses and breakdowns and slow motion loading and gray everywhere. I was tired of bulky laptops and batteries that didn't work. I remember my last laptop, before it finally died, i sported it with a white apple sticker stuck on the lid. wishing. I had recently been given my first ipod a few months earlier, the last one available at best buy in the black friday sales. i realized then how simple Apple products were to use and how reliable. I once spilt so much coffee on my ipod that it freaked out with the caffeine and seemingly died. But, after a warm bubble bath and a sauna it was (and still is) right as rain. I had been given £1000 anonymously a few months previously to help with the ministry school year I was doing. Though things were tight I had been saving for the school, I had a job and the British Pound was strong. I was making ends meet. Just. The money was an amazing gift and I knew it had a purpose. So instead of flittering it away, I saved it, waiting. In February 2007 my PC laptop finally died. I worked from home back then and supported myself that way. I needed an emergency replacement -fast! I temporarily hijacked a friend's new macbook to test drive one for a few days and was thoroughly convinced. I then knew what that money was for! Once transferred to dollars it paid for the Mac exactly. I ordered one and had it shipped to Oregon, because I couldn't afford sales tax! This baby mac was the first in my family. I had found a new religion. The Mac paid for itself in 2 months of work, which i wouldn't have been able to do with out it. Best investment ever. 5 years later I know it was the greatest purchase I've ever made. It has lasted 4.5 years of full-time work and home use. It's gone through 4 hard-drives, 2 keyboards and a few re-sets like this one. But it's still going strong. I love my Mac! My computing world had gone from black and white to color instantly. It was so user friendly and unsnobbish. this machine was built with me in mind and i didn't need a degree in computer science to pick it up. it was so intuitive, i had to thank it daily for being kind to me. I remember back then the mac club was a little smaller than it is today. Mac users would still give each-other a respectful nod as they nursed their machines in coffee shops. I remember trusting Mac users implicitly 'would you mind watching my stuff while i nip to the bathroom?' (a logistical problem by all who work from Starbucks) was only ever aimed at Mac users. i had joined the brotherhood for sure. A lifelong family of enlightened and slightly more free-spirited people with a loyalty to the Mac faith that last a lifetime. For none of us would ever 'go back'. I'm currently watching Youtube videos about Steve Job's and Apple. And I'm struck time and again by His ethos and lessons for life and not just his commentary on commputing. This one struck me particularly about what we need to remember about ourselves: There were too many people at Apple and Apple eco-system that were playing the game of 'For Apple to win Microsoft has to lose' and it was clear that you didn't have to play that game because Apple wasn't going to beat Microsoft, Apple didn't have to beat Microsoft, Apple had to remember who Apple was, because it forgot who Apple was. So yey for Jobs, yey for my Mac and yey for being us and remembering who we are.

Balance.

I could hit many different things in talking about balance. I think balance is my belief system, my ethos, my goal for life. Not balance that looks like compromise, not even finely balanced thin narrow road kind of balance and not quite ying-yang kind of balance either.

This is not about a bit of evil in good or vis a vis. Or not willing to fall off a tight-rope, not even moderation. More like, variety. Doing all the things you love. Embracing all of who you are and all that life has to offer.

What made me start thinking about balance this week was diet. I have done the Atkins diet, plus a lot of working out, off and on for the past year and successfully lost 14lbs and toned up some. I love being able to wear more of the styles and clothes I want and feeling good about myself.

But, i also love to eat all the wrong things as well as a bunch of right things. When i look at a croissant i think 'life is too short not to eat this'. When i look at a pretty pair of shorts i think 'no food is worth not being able to wear these'. It's a conundrum. When i look at a treadmill i think 'I'll just diet more' when i look at a cake i think 'I'll just work-out more'.

I thought recently "When I'm 70 or 80 i'm just going to eat whatever I like" but then I thought 'what if i get hit by a bus before then and miss out on all the cake eating!!!??" that would be awful. Plus i have a belief that I should live life to the full, through all of it, not waiting for a 'someday'. I'm a little stuck between a piece of cake and a pair of skinny jeans, I need a solution.

How can you enjoy life to the full and look good doing it? You can't have your cake, eat it and banish the cellulite too...or can you? Maybe you can. Maybe it's about some positive choices brought on my some smart questions. Maybe positive choices is the kind of balance i'm looking for.

like...

I'm never going to be a waif, so what weight am i happy to live with and accept?

What clothes do i need to accept i can't wear and which ones can i boldly go for? Can i play with color instead of hem length?

What treats are do I really want in my life to make it that little bit richer? What foods can I actually live without?

What do i love to do that is physical to cut down treadmill time? How can I make exercise richer, more varied and part of my lifestyle?

So far I've realized that I need a bike with a basket to make cycling fun and a practical car journey replacement, a dog to go walking with, fun classes not just gym sets, heels to make my legs look longer than the gym can ever do, croissants on occasion and cereal daily because they make me so happy. On super special days a little cake, juice, pizza, bread or dessert won't kill me, but i can skip potatoes, rice, pasta for good. Then there's the stuff in moderation - beans, lentils, butternut squash - all the things i love in the winter - i can have, just not in huge quantities and not everyday.

The next adventure is discovering the good, good food all of me will relish. What tastes are out there that I will adore and so will body? Is there ever an end to finding out what good food and good recipes are out there? Maybe you can have your cake and eat it to when your cake is the most exquisite fruits and tasty spices and rich recipes littered with the good things of the earth.

Then there is the movements that are gaining momentum that can teach me and my taste buds a thing or two about what is both yummy and what does me good too. Ice cream made from creamed bananas and not creamed cream; juice made from spinach and mint and ginger instead of cola, nuts and fruit instead of crisps and candy...these things i have discovered make me and my body more happy, than their pale predecessors. A few weeks ago I ate my last macdonalds, the 'treat' had become such a pain (in my gut) that I realized this was no-longer a treat at all and could be lost from my life very happily. So what I'm saying is: here's to adventure in variety and redefining what looks like food glory.

Balance - I'm trying to find it by asking the question: what do i REALLY want in my life? ...and going with that. Hmm we'll see if the scales agree its possible... ;)

Inspired by French Woman Don't get Fat.

Celebrate what's past to change what's present.

WE STOPPED A TSUNAMI TODAY!!!!! Is what I wanted to shout from the facebook podium on Friday. It started, we prayed and it stopped. I think, that is remarkable on biblical proportions.

Predictions put the entire Pacific Rim at risk, low-lying pacific islands were going to be submerged, Hawaii swamped and California, my homeland, was going to get hit hard.

I thought of happy days strolling around LA’s waterfront; Venice, Marina Del Ray…and realized what a 6ft serge in sea level would do. I had seen it before. I was there after the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. I walked streets inland where the water mark on the buildings was well above my head, I stood on the Ocean front were townships had once stood and where there was nothing now but sand. I was watching the pictures live pouring of Japan, the horror. It had to stop and I knew we could stop it.

We saw it happen last year with figi and previously with California. So we knew this time, if we prayed, we could stop an ocean-wide wave carrying the power of multiple atomic bombs. It sounded crazy, except if you’ve seen it stopped before by prayer, prayer is the most obvious reaction to take.

After all if God can hold back a sea to let people cross on dry land, He could hold back an Ocean and preserve the dry land.

So we prayed. Prayer shouts were going up from friends all over the world. We knew the drill: the wave must stop and peace must reign over the Pacific.

I could see as we united with heaven and great angels were placed in the path of the serge, they took the impact, the wave halved and halved again in power and size.

Buoy readings across the Pacific were reporting back the diminishing wave, blowing every prediction out of the water. It’s power was dissipating before our eyes. What could have been unmitigated disaster fizzled out, I believe, under the power of us, the rulers of earth uniting with Heaven to create peace on earth and goodwill to all people.

I thought all this, but didn’t shout it from the facebook podium. It felt crass. In light of the horrific toll the Tsunami had already taken on Japan, celebrating a victory for the rest of the Pacific, felt like celebrating a healing in the middle of a cancer ward.

Today, with Sky News playing in the background, I’m re-thinking. It may still be crass. Amongst news of radioactive waste, food and energy shortages, grief, destruction and global economic panic, remembering the wave stopped can feel irrelevant and insensitive.

But, I’m remembering, that’s what we do. Where I come from we celebrate healing in the middle of cancer wards, we grow out legs in front of wheel-chair users, people with hearing aids heal eardrums. And we celebrate every victory.

Where I come from we celebrate every miracle, even surrounded by great need; because it’s the celebration of one miracle that causes it to be repeated. The stories of divine intervention and cooperation with heaven lift our eyes to possibility, to hope. It restores a big picture, that there is good in the world and not only suffering. But beyond that we know, that telling the stories of what God has done, releases the power for the miracles to be repeated.

It is irresponsible to not to remember what He has done, when winds are sweeping radioactive material into the atmosphere. We need to know we can stop the winds like we stopped the wave. We need to gather courage that prayer works and celebrate the victories as they come. Because if we don’t, we may just sink beneath the waves of bad news. For Japan’s sake, for our sake, we need celebrate the power of prayer and the power of our God.

Finally it reminds us to stand up and be counted. It reminds us that we were assigned to rule this world and bring peace to the earth. If we don’t know how we effect the world, we will sit stare at the TV instead of change what we are seeing.

I would never have told that wave to stop, if I hadn’t heard of it being done before. We need to celebrate the victories so that we are encouraged to do it again.

Celebrate what we did with God and then pray that the winds will change.

#3 something creative.

Straight from my iPhone...genius modern technology let's me blog from the weirdest places... Like right now.

Hello crew. So in the vain of upholding my NYR to blog more (#4) I thought I would make it easier on myself by setting up mobile blogging. Which turns out to be easier than setting up mobile banking...something I've tried numerous times and failed lime a technologically challenged grandma. So here it is. First post from a weird place.

Oh and I bought myself flowers for the second tome in as many days. So #23 is going strong. and I painted s giant canvas yesterday. So that's #3. Tick. Yey for me. How is that resolve coming on for you?

Peace. S.

Sent from my iPhone

Praline

It was my dad's birthday and i remembered that when we were little he used to love my mom's chocolate praline which she hasn't made this side of the millennium...so i resolved to rummage and find that old recipe. And so I did. On a little scrap of paper, in typewritten print, the following little recipe. What i didn't remember from the past was just HOW amazingly good this stuff is. Divine. Decadent. Deliriously good. This is a chocolate fix better than chocolate:

Praline:
1 1/2 cups of plain biscuits or nuts (or a mix) bashed up with a rolling pin/recently emptied bottle of scotch
2tbs brown sugar
2tbs syrup
2tbs cocoa
3/4 cup margarine.
Topping:
200g/6oz good dark chocolate - I used lindt 85%

Praline:
Melt the margarine over a low heat, then remove from heat and add the other ingredients except the chocolate. Stir well. Pour into a greased cake tin and press down evenly all over. Put it in the freezer to cool.

Topping:
Meanwhile, melt the chocolate in a glass bowl over a pan of water. Pour over the praline and put the whole thing in the refrigerator for several hours.

You can cut and serve like brownies or, like i did, use it as a really rich desert and serve with raspberries/cream/icecream/hot chocolate sauce...........

Make it - it's easy peasy - then thank me later :)

the resolutions...

Read the previous post on New Years Resolutions here.

Well you have been patient, as only my blog readers can be. So here goes, at the start of a new year these are the things I want to incorporate into my life this year...along with 1)get an amazing job 2) Get an amazing apartment and roomate 3) Get a life again ...oh yes the honestly bit, yes ok and... 4)meet the man of my dreams, get married, live happily ever after and have lots of children ...(well ok not the last bit...well not for a while anyways)

So my actual little life changes, which i have some control over are:

1. Bake an abundance of pretty cakes
2. Try a new recipe each week
3. Do something creative each day
4. Blog & Journal
5. Get outside more
6. Update my wardrobe
7. Get pro make-up advice and products
8. Take time to take care of myself
9. write movie reviews
10. Write Ollie the owl books
11. Take zumba classes
12. Study film business
13. Buy an album from a new music artist each month
14. Read an overview of American history
15. Read a novel for fun.
16. Put together my wall of photos.
17. Buy plastic boxes to organize my stuff again
18. Get a pet
19. Buy a movie theatre subscription
20. Loose 7lbs
21. Explore England.
22. Get contacts and new glasses
23. Have more flowers in my life
24. Move closer to my dreams


There you have it my friends. What are you resolving to do, change, include in your lives this year?

Peace. S.

Resolve #23.

Resolve

- verb (used with object)
1.
to come to a definite or earnest decision about; determine (to do something): I have resolved that I shall live to the full.

Origin: 1325–75; ME resolven (v.) < L resolvere to unfasten, loosen, release, equiv. to re- re- + solvere to loosen; see solve It is still January so the prerequisite blog on New Years Resolutions is still valid, if a little tardy. Blogging, as you may have noticed, hasn't been high on the agenda recently. But then neither have most of the things that are important to me. Which begs the question: why do things that are important to Sarah Bainbridge not get on the agenda of Sarah Bainbridge? If I can't live my life by what is important to me, then who will? I am not being truly me. I miss out on the joys of my heart and you miss out on me. So I'm resolved (again) to put all that life coaching and life experience into practice. I am resolving once more to do what is in my heart to do and be the leading lady in my life. Of course, the practical necessities of life need to still be competed. But, there has to be space in my life for living. If not life is merely a series of chores is it not? I just need a little resolve... New Yesrs Resolutions get a bad wrap. But that's when the goals are linked to performance and failure to guilt. We have arisen in revolt against the pressure and guilt inducement of the NYR. We have burnt them like books; defiant. Columnists have declared 'No shan't!' like petulant teenagers and felt smug about their own defiance and resistance to the ideological controls of the proletariat... Well maybe not, but a distant, deliberate, lack of resolve has been duly noted. Thing is, when we lack resolve to be ourselves, to fully live and overflow, we are not resolving to be free from resolutions, but rather determining our own constraints. I'm resolving to embrace resolve again. To fight to be me and fully me. To win the prize of a life fully lived. To know that these little important things are all important parts of me. I think a smattering of NYR may be a little step in the right direction. Resolutions are opportunities to make happen what we dream of. Little dreams, big dreams, dreams that float like mobiles over our cribs, waiting to be grasped. So here goes, in the year of dreams come true, what will I resolve to welcome into my life?

Leaving La La Land

August is here. The month in which I leave America indefinitely has arrived. Will it be forever is the question in my head. Will it be a short reprieve or the end of an affair. What do you do when your great love is a state and your love in unrequited? Do the normal fixes work? Time, alcohol, shopping, chocolate, new hair style? I don’t know but I know I will need help.

Today I was mostly blissfully unaware that it was my last day in LA, a god style mercy because he knows my penchant for the nostalgic and melodramatic and the whole day would have been a lot worse if I had looked at everything “for the last time”. But I discovered in telling Angie (who I spent the afternoon innocuously running errands around IKEA and Lowes) that I was leaving Thursday and she told me that ‘that’s tomorrow’. I realised I’M LEAVING TOMORROW!!! My thoughts flashed to my host family and the puppies and that I want more time with them. I thought of the special moments I’ve wanted to repeat and thought I would have a chance to.

Something rather wonderful happened on my return home. I realised I had Athalia’s rug in my car and I wanted to return it to her so I pulled over and found out where she was and drove to meet her in east Hollywood. The Basilea girls where there and they prayed for me. Athalia nailed it, praying that I would feel the father’s presense and love for me. That I wouldn’t have a broken heart or broken dreams, but that I would know that this is not a full stop or the end of the story but just a part of a continued story of God making His promises happen in my life – so to wrestle with Him and embrace the journey.

I cried. They hugged. I knew it was true and I needed to let go. So there we stood in front of a bar on Hollywood Blvd with my heart breaking and my dreams fragile in my hand. Weeping, I knew the truth in her words – this all comes back to trusting Papa. Trusting him with my greatest love – the USA and my greatest dream – Hollywood. What is my choice when it looks like I have no choice? What is my belief when it all looks over? When I am forced to leave this place and this dream – Hollywood – what do I think? Will I believe that a comeback is possible or will I believe that it’s over before it started.

What a prayer with such friends, in the place of my dreams.

I said my goodbyes and got back in my trusted stead and just started to cry again as I drove through the bright lights of Hollywood Blvd, back ‘home’ for the last night. It was good to just release the complex emotions that had been circulating somewhere inside of me for a week or two. Wailing is good, when Papa is right there with you.

I suddenly felt like putting the radio on and this song came on: Dreams by Van Halen. I’d never heard it before.

This is what I heard:

Standin' on broken dreams
Never losin' sight, ah
Well just spread your wings 

We'll get higher and higher
Straight up we'll climb
We'll get higher and higher
Leave it all behind 

So baby dry your eyes
Save all the tears you've cried
Oh, that's what dreams are made of
'Cause we belong in a world that must be strong
Oh, that's what dreams are made of.

I knew I was entering a new season. I am about to grow up and start putting a little fight in for my dreams. This is not the time to sit back anymore and let what will be will be. It is a season to take what I learned about rest and trust and being a little girl and melding it into the kind of personality that has backbone and strength and tenacity. The kind of woman that I was born to be, the kind of woman who can not just work in Hollywood, but rock it.

The missing link

Please read 'the story so far' for the missing and really essential part of my story that fits in somewhere here :)