Holiday sights

This week marked only the second Thanksgiving I've spent away from my family, the first one being three years ago when I was in South Africa. No one in our household was traveling for the holiday (though we'll all be gone over Christmas), so we celebrated over a Thanksgiving potluck with new friends at our church.

All of us had the day off work on Friday. As Germans unaccustomed to being forcibly compelled to wait until after Thanksgiving to get into the Christmas spirit, Anna and Franzi wasted no time in Christmas-izing our house.

Daniel and I spent last night at the home of some friends from church as our "weekend away" (something we're technically supposed to do once a month, but we skipped October due to all the other traveling we'd been doing). We're lucky that our housemates don't give us much of anything that we need to escape from.

Snowy day outside.

Roaring fire inside.

 It's so cozy I can hardly stand it.

Though I missed my family, it's been a pretty great holiday. Now just a few weeks until we're in VA for Christmas!

Olympic Training Center Tour

This past weekend, we had the privilege of a visit from Susan, the director of the Service Adventure program. One of the many fun things we did together over the weekend was visit the U.S. Olympic Training Center!

This is one of three main Olympic Training Centers in the country. Chula Vista, CA mainly hosts athletes training for outdoor summer sports; Lake Placid, NY covers the outdoor winter sports. Colorado Springs gets the indoor summer sports.

Obviously we had to test our long-jump skills while waiting for the tour to start.

Walking between buildings on the 35-acre complex.

First stop: the shooting range. I didn't get a good picture of the training room because people were cleaning, but we did appreciate this sign. ("Please do not tap on glass. Please do not feed the shooters.")

Here we learned that Olympic sharpshooters train to fire not only between breaths, but between heartbeats.

Perfect day. Plus, snow-capped Pikes Peak in the distance.

Next stop: the wrestling gym.

This is the dorm-style building where the athletes stay for anywhere from a week to multiple years. Apparently Ryan Lochte is here right now, no big deal.

In another gym, there was a "Rising Stars" event going on for men's gymnastics. We got to see some insanely athletic, talented, and muscular 9- to 15-year-old boys in action.

 Here we are out front, practicing our sporty poses by the sculpture. (Daniel's luge-ing.)

And interacting with the props and cardboard cut-outs in the Olympic Hall of Fame room. We'd make a good bobsled team, right?

Yes. The answer is yes. Also, that eagle.

Teeny tiny, four-foot-nine Mary Lou Retton!

So much fun. Adding "Olympic Training Center" to my list of reasons why everyone should come visit the Springs immediately...

Heart in hand

Heavy-hearted tonight for the mass killings in Paris. There is darkness in the City of Light and the world is weeping. Praying, hurting, wondering, and just maybe -- barely -- hoping.

My heart is heavy for many reasons. Of course, first for the human beings who were senselessly killed and for their families and communities. There is nothing that can be said about that that is not already being said and felt around the world. But my heart is also heavy because of the hatred that caused this and the hatred that rises up in its wake. For the continuation of anti-Muslim sentiment perpetuated by events like this. For the cutting and poisonous words and thoughts that will be born in response to this.

And there is another layer, which I hesitate even to mention in case it sounds like I'm trying to minimize the pain and severity of this night. But I am also heavy-hearted because a European or American killing of a hundred people catches millions of eyes and hearts and motivates change...while millions are still slaughtered in the ongoing Congolese genocide, for example. Violence and systematic oppression occurs daily around the world, and too often, those who are most dramatically affected are also dramatically underrepresented in the public eye. My heart weeps for the African people who the world has forgotten, even chosen to ignore.

Tonight my heart is too heavy to carry on life as if normal, and for that, I am actually glad. I need to be genuinely affected by the suffering of others, beyond just that initial moment of shock and perhaps a twinge of sorrow. I need to be plagued by the sense of wrongness and injustice and the need to speak out in word and action. It has been said, "The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe." (Joanna Macy)

I have to believe the words of the Harry Potter Alliance, especially on nights like tonight. The weapon we have is love. I have to believe we can move forward in love, joy, fearlessness, reconciliation, and a spirit of ubuntu ("My humanity is bound up in yours"). Because I am beginning to believe that it is the only way. Without these things we will lose our humanity -- have lost our humanity countless times before throughout human history. We as human beings must allow tragedies like this -- and the innumerable past examples -- to move us forward in love. To hold on to one another. It is the only way to salvage a broken, hurting world.

May it be so.

NaNoWriMo Stats

We're about third of the way (11 days) through National Novel Writing Month! A few stats to show you where I am...

Word count so far: 6162, including a rough outline, character trait descriptors, and random idea list

Worst day: 161 words on November 4. Pitiful, I know. But my biggest goal for this project is to write every day. (I don't even have a goal set for the total word count.) And I've done that.

Best day: Today! 1329 words, thanks to the NaNoWordSprints twitter.

Best writing music: Hans Zimmer's Inception soundtrack. 100% hands-down. Cannot recommend this highly enough.

Best writing inspiration: 10 Prompts to Get You Out of a NaNoWriRut

Hardest part of writing: Getting my characters to talk. I can write descriptions till kingdom come, but my dialogue is awful.

Next story goal: Writing a riddle, to be delivered by a new character I'm calling The Enigma.

It's been a fun adventure so far! I feel like I'm finally getting to know my characters and figuring out my writing routine.
Wishing the best of luck to all other writers, whether you're doing NaNo or just the usual. Happy wordsmithing!

Fair trade, Fairer world

This weekend, we had the exciting opportunity to assist with our church's annual Ten Thousand Villages sale!

Here we are unpacking and setting up on Thursday night.

Currently there's no Ten Thousand Villages store in Colorado Springs -- the closest store is in Denver. So nine years ago, Paula (member of our Service Adventure Support Committee and all-around stellar human being) decided to organize a sale of TTV products in order to improve access to fair trade, increase knowledge of fair trade practices, and generally support the organization.

Here is everything all set up!

The event took place Friday afternoon and evening and continued Saturday morning and early afternoon. It attracted quite a crowd (over 130 paying customers on Friday alone), and though I haven't heard any sale totals yet, it was obvious that a lot was sold.

The six of us in the Service Adventure household volunteered in various ways -- greeting shoppers, recording purchases, cashiering, refilling coffee and snacks -- but we still had plenty of time to soak in the beauty of handmade crafts and art. And eat cookies. 

Even more than the fact that it was fun, it felt great to help with this effort to make the world a better place by giving artisans (especially women in developing countries) a hand up.

That glass pendant necklace slightly left of center, with the abstract tree? LOVE. If I could condense my NaNoWriMo story into a necklace, it would look like that. Sadly, I already own such a large number of necklaces (many of them from TTV originally) that it could be considered overkill. I love them all, of course. But I left this beauty for someone else, and by Saturday afternoon, it was gone. 

In the end, my own purchases stayed true to my foodie persona: spicy hot cocoa with cayenne pepper, and a box of one of the newest tea blends: Rooibos chai! (I've already sampled them both, and they're great.)

Overall, this weekend was an invigorating and inspiring experience. Never having been to one of these before, I didn't expect so many customers, nor did I expect so many who had never even heard of Ten Thousand Villages before. It was wonderful to introduce new people to the fair trade lifestyle and share with them why it's so important.

So in light of this, I ask you to consider the sourcing of your future purchases, especially as you begin choosing holiday gifts. Opting for fair trade is a small step in which you can be assured that you are making a difference. And you'll get better quality products, too!