Mi parce

I miss my cat. Parcero escaped out of an open window the end of July, and never found his way back home. I dreamt about him again last night, that he just showed up.

Parcero staring at a candle flame, entranced

He was such an awesome cat. He was friendly and inquisitive. He would ride around on my shoulders and run to the door to greet me when I came in.

Our other cat, Misha, is stressing me out. She has scabs all over her body and isn't responding to meds. The vet thinks she probably has an auto-immune problem. She's had a round of shots and is getting a twice a day topical spray treatment. She's miserable and no one wants to touch her because she is so gross. If she doesn't respond to these new meds soon, the vet says she should be put down.

:(

It all just makes me sad.

When I don't like me

"Do you ever have days where you don't like yourself?", I asked my friend, sitting at the island, watching him cook lunch. "Sure," he told me, "days where I like myself, days when I don't, days when I think I'm ugly and days when I think I'm good-looking. Women aren't the only ones you know."

Misery loves company, so that was good to know, but it didn't really change my attitude. I was tired of being me: the tablecloths that I never got around to cleaning and returning to a friend, the new light bulbs I hadn't put up yet, the garage that didn't get swept out over the weekend all externally representing the clutter I felt in my mind and heart.

I felt unworthy- unworthy of grace (that's what makes it grace, isn't it?), unworthy of the privilege of serving God and seeing him move, unworthy of the love of friends who want to be with me even when I don't want to be with myself. I felt like giving up on me- a lost cause who would never really be transformed to look like Christ.

And that's when I felt God ask me if I wanted to live by the lies I was telling myself, or the truth he spoke about me. Here's the truth- God sees me as a precious jewel, buried in the mud. I look at the mud and reject me. But God never does- he sees the value of his precious creation, dirtied by sin. He won't be satisfied until he's taken me from the mud, cleaned me off and polished me to reflect his glory. But he won't abandon the jewel because it's dirty. He won't leave me in the mud. My value to him is not reflected in how good I look, but in what he made me to be and nothing can ever change that.

I wish that gentle reminder were all that I needed, but I wallowed a bit more in the mud of self loathing. But finally, home alone at last, I shut my door behind me and praised God. And turning my eyes from me and my unworthiness and to him and his glory made all the difference. I didn't need to focus on my worth in his eyes, I just focused on his worth, and when I was done, I knew I was loved and treasured, washed clean in the blood of the lamb.

So, if you're feeling worthless, valueless, ugly, a lost cause, remember this- In God's eyes you're a beautiful jewel, buried in the mud. His desire is to dig you out, scrub you off, and polish you. Your fear, your lack of self-control, your short tempered response, your selfish choice, doesn't make him turn away from you in disgust. He won't reject you because you're not perfect. He came looking for imperfect ones to wash in his son's blood. He defines your value- not your actions. We can't be worth more, but neither can we be worth less. So, don't be content to stay lying in the mud. Turn to him, and lovingly, patiently, he picks you up again, cleans the mud off of you, and delights in the jewel he created.

My latest project

With my Chinese party over, my afternoon decoration making project is over too. So, on Monday when I found myself with some time on my hands, I decided to see what I could do about the chairs in our living room. They were donated to us and were dirty when we got them; being used as step stools during our painting and cleaning when we moved in probably didn't help. This is what one of the chairs looked like on Monday.

I headed to the new mall by my house and bought 2 brown duvet covers and some cute pillows and came home and ripped out seams in the duvet covers. Tuesday after work I walked downtown to where all the fabric stores are to buy beige colored ribbon and then got to work on transforming our chairs.

Step 1- Center the fabric over the chair

Step 2: Tuck the fabric into the cushion

Step 3: Pull the fabric tight around the arms

Step 4: Sew the crease on the arms of the chair in place and strategically tack the extra fabric on the sides of the chair in place.

Step 5: Tie a ribbon around the chair

Step 6: Add some bows and a decorative pillow

Quite the transformation, isn't it? Our living room is looking more and more home like. Now I have to figure out what to do with the other couch. . .

Chinese Mid Autumn Harvest Festival

When I was home in December to visit family, I decided that despite the fact that I would be missing my family's Chinese New Year celebration, I still wanted to celebrate Chinese New Year, so, in my crowded luggage, I packed my 12 pairs of special chopsticks, ginger candy, Chinese snacks, and my Chinese dress.

The weekend of Feb 4 was the first weekend of Chinese New Year. In the States, my family had a party at home, went to the Chinese New Year celebration at church and the local Chinese association. Here, I moved into Torre Fuerte which still had a lot of painting and cleaning before it would be ready to host a party in. By the end of the month we were to the point where we could think about hosting parties, and then B&C moved in with us and all party plans went on hold and shortly after they left, Sara and Stephen went back to the States for the summer and I didn't want to have the party without them. So, finally, with most of my housemates here and the house looking good, I decided to pick back up the party idea, but I couldn't very well celebrate Chinese New Year in September. So, I looked for Chinese holidays and discovered that today is mid-autumn harvest festival (or moon festival).

So, invitations were sent out

decorations made

help recruited for cooking

and on Saturday Torre Fuerte hosted its first ever "Fiesta de la Luna China"

Our house was fuller than I've ever seen it, with over 40 people there. We played games

ate lots of delicious food (on the menu: dumplings, beef and noodles, fried rice, garlic ginger green beans, sesame chicken, sweet and sour chicken, egg rolls, and curry)

And chatted

When the majority of guests were gone and there was space enough, we finished off the evening with dancing. After all, what truly self-respecting Chinese Mid-Autumn Harvest Festival doesn't end with some salsa, merengue, and vallenato?