Laborolaborare, laboravi, laboratum: Latin 1st Conjugation Present Active Indicative 1st Person Singular = “I work”
Amo, amare, amavi, amatum: “I love”
Confundo, confundare, confundavi, confundatum: “I blend, mix, confuse/confound”

This post will probably not make a lick of sense to many of you, but to the few who understand…. I will also warn you that there is no conclusion, though perhaps you can comment and make one.

I had a revelation recently. A very mundane revelation. I realized the other day that I am still in school and pursuing medical training so that I can work with the people I love to work with and do something that I love to do – and get paid for it. And that has seemed the most noble and perfectly correct path for me to walk on. Not being independently wealthy, or familialy wealthy, or any other kind of wealthy, I can’t afford to do humanitarian aid and voluntary work every day for the rest of my life. So without intentionally cognating, I pursued medical (which I enjoy) so that I could support myself (which I need) so that I could pursue needy people (whom I love). Make sense?

Revelation (not of St. John, but of Nicole’s slightly slow cranium):
With all my assortment of past jobs (waitress, secretary, baker, hardware-girl, construction, teacher, and *coming soon*: spotted owl researcher [more on that later]) it never occurred to me that I may have to choose a career that I didn’t love, that didn’t inspire and touch me – a career that wasn’t my discerned calling. And in a moment I realized that most adults probably don’t have the luxury of combining those two. “Do what you love, love what you do” is that realistic? “If you can’t do what you love, love what you do” are much harder words for an idealistic optimist like myself, but perhaps more accurate. After two years of teaching (something I never had the desire to do), I have found that in God’s good providence and sovereignty I was stretched and grown through working at something that didn’t thrill me. He has allowed inspiration along the way, but the hard kind, the kind you have to look for. He has bestowed joy and contentment (not saying I always accepted those….). And as I near the end of my foreseen teaching career, He is granting fulfillment and peace that this was His plan for me, not a deviation from my path, but a continuation on that path which He laid for me before I was born, that path which will be just a tad more illumined because I first had to work and then find how to love that work.

I warned you there wasn’t a conclusion. Just thoughts on a life that never stops being enlightened.

By my dearest loveliest 1st-3rd Grade Students writing about their life dreams:

“I want to go to Egypt. I want to see pyramids. I want to be a zookeeper. I want to be a Christian. I want to go around the world in a year. I want to be a famous writer. I want to be an artist. I want to be a teacher and write books.”

“I would like to be magical. I would be a famous car designer in Philadelphia. I would like a hover-board whith rokets. I would also like a dragon egg.”

“I want to find Giza and the tomb of faro [Pharoah…} Khufu.”

“I want to biuld towrs and houses and statuse of sand.I want to biuld a hole city with thowsends of peaple.”

“I want to have super powers and fly in the sky. I want to have a pet dragon.”

And my favorite:

“I would like expecially a lambrginy with rockets.”

I love dreams.

I can now present and offer you my photos in a more user-friendly and attractive format at:

http://www.nicoledem.smugmug.com

For friends and family of St. Andrew’s Academy, please email or ask me to get the password for those albums.

I wonder how long you’ve perched there, and if you sing along in praise of our common Maker.
I wonder if you tell your friends, or bring your children here to worship.
But mostly I wonder why you look so austere and possessive, wondering
what I am doing here.

Through the branches of a tree I see the world. The sky must really exist, way up there, but the obstructions seem so great and looming, as though they want to curve you away from the clarity and expanse of the air. I squint, trying to see the heavens above more clearly than I see the barked branches that vie for my focus. I know that the heavens above encompass all, that they are vast and beautiful and the things they contain worthy of constant pursuit. But damn the branches in the way, the fruit which hangs enticing my soul to be overwhelmed by the weight of sin and death.

May I never forget that Love which has pierced this darkness and straightened the crooked path and the Light which even now shines through the brambles and grants a glimpse of the eternal. May your Lenten season allow you to see your sin alight with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Wintertide?? We are soooo past the tide part.

And my favorite scene which is all-too familiar for me right now:

Groomsmen (photo taken by Photographer David Linder:

Phil & I

Bridesmaids:

Bride & Groom:

Apparently I was amused…

And it was gorgeous. The Groom, the Bride, the whole thing was absolutely lovely. Only a few pics for now (as I was in the ceremony, I couldn’t get any of the actual proceedings):

A very pleased mother and son:

Dad & I dancing (I probably stepped on his toes at this very moment):

Though looking rather despondent, Timmy actually woke up sick as a dog and suffered through looking dashing all day:

This is my only-slightly-older sister:

Stephan & I:

Bella Mama:

For the first time in years, my whole immediate family was together for Christmas. And seeing that Phillip is getting married January 5th, this may be the last of “just us”.

We revisited our childhood with a multiple-hour-long game of Monopoly:

Because we’ve always been too poor to buy a new game, our game pieces were quite varied (Energizer battery, quarter, penny, etc…). “We were ‘appy though we were poor”….(name that quote and get ten dollars!!

There was much laughter:

Some were left with very little: