27

Today I turn 27 years old.

27 isn’t really a monumental age—It’s kinda this weird middle ground age where you are officially in your late 20’s... It’s like you’re basically 30… which can be a scary thought!

I find my birthday can sometimes get lost between the hectic completion of the holiday season and the onset of easing back into routines. I can recall the year as a teenager when everyone forgot my birthday (with my parents as the exception). I can also recall the year my husband planned an amazing surprise birthday party for me. It used to be all or nothing but, as I grow older, it tends to have found a lovely middle ground I like to call ‘low key’. 

Low key is nice. I’m a weird mix of an introvert and an extrovert. I can be outgoing in a social situation where I’m one-on-one with someone new or with close friends, but I can also be 110% content portraying the fly on a wall during an eventful evening, standing in the midst of buzzing conversations from those chattering around me. This is why a low-key birthday is pretty great. It’s chill, easy, and all the attention of a large amount of people isn’t focused on me—which tends to weird me out pretty fast.

Be that as it may, it’s nice to be celebrated! This is the fun part of having a birthday! Taking the time to celebrate individuals just for being born—just for being themselves! If we truly saw ourselves the way God does, we would think every day is our birthday! With that thought in mind, taking some time one day a year seems like a great idea.

Celebrating someone on his or her special day can be an amazing thing. I think the most important part of celebrating someone is to honour them in a way they find special. Lavishing someone with gifts when they are against consumerism may not be the best idea! In the same light, a simple happy birthday text, when you know an individual is 100% gifts or quality time as a love language, also perhaps isn’t the best way. If you know someone well enough, you can do something small that will show them you believe they are worthy of celebration. That small act can leave a significant mark in making them feel special on their day.

Growing up in my family, birthdays were always celebrated. As a kid I can recall my mother making me an epic birthday cake with a marshmallow bunny on it, or a cake shaped as a teddy bear (enter; where I get my creativity in the kitchen from!). She created a poster that could be used year after year with the simple switch of a number (crafty and economical), and would go with the staple balloons and streamers. One simple gift was all that was given and, looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Birthday parties with a few friends would be thrown and, without fail, almost every year an epic snow storm would happen around my birthday to really attempt to throw a wrench into any already made plains. Reflecting on birthdays past is fun and makes you realize what really makes you feel special—and how you would like to be celebrated in the future.

This year for my birthday, a couple of my close friends took me to an old-fashioned tea house. We drank tea out of fancy china and indulged in freshly baked scones with homemade jam. It was lovely. It was very 'me' and it was nice to be celebrated. The attendees both gave me cat cards that meowed happy birthday-- which are sitting on display as I write, smiling at me from across the room. It's like they are begging to meow to me... which actually just freaks out our real life cat.

     

For myself, looking back at the birthday’s of years past, it’s knowing someone took the time to think of me which makes me feel noteworthy on the day of my birth. Kind words written in a card, a text message with more than the letters ‘HBD’, a small gift chosen specifically because the giver thought of me when they saw it, or a friend who isn’t a baker baking birthday cookies. As I always tend to say, it’s the little things that make the biggest difference.

When the birthday of a close friend or family member comes up this year, I encourage you to really take a moment and think about how you can show the person in your life how much you appreciate them, how special you truly believe they are, and how you are thankful that there is one day a year made specifically to celebrate their unique awesomeness given to them by God. A birthday happens just once a year, take the time to make people feel as precious as they really are.

When The Homeless Refuse Your Apple Pie

I want to start an open, honest, respectful conversation on a topic I feel doesn’t get much attention—especially in the way I seek to bring it to light.

The homeless are everywhere we go—from the streets of the cities we live in, to the inner workings of systems and places we don’t even know exist.

When I was in school in Toronto I would walk from Union Station to school. The evenings are when I would see the most individuals homeless or begging on the street for change. As a student, the chance of having cash on me was very, very rare. On the other hand, the chance of having a freshly baked good to offer was basically 110%.

This is commonly how a situation would play out:

I would walk down the street and an individual would ask for some change.My response would be ‘no, sorry, but I have some bread/cookies/buns/pie if you want!”

Fill in the blank time! I want you to fill in the individual’s response to my offer of baked goodies. What do you think they would say?

I think, as a very generalized answer in hopes of finding a common response of what most would expect, we would assume the individual we are offering our goods to would gladly accept. I mean, freshly baked anything is delicious, right? Most of my friends feel that way. When I bring goodies to my husbands coffee shop, and offer his staff and friends I see some form of deliciousness, the usual response is how excited they are to have something sweet and freshly baked to enjoy. When I go to a friends place for any sort of gathering with handcrafted and freshly baked treats in hand, people are generally excited and eat at least one of whatever I showed up with.

Now let’s go back to the original scenario— 50% of the time someone accepts my offer, and the other 50% is all rejects.

I’ll be honest, at first it would shock me people would say no.

In my head I’m thinking ‘aren’t you hungry? I’m offering you delicious, freshly baked food that you can eat. I wouldn’t say no and I have a fridge full at home.’

How ridiculous of me to think that—how inconsiderate, how dehumanizing.

There are a few specific times where I offered food to people and their no response has stuck with me…

- I offered a man an apple on my walk home from work one day since it was all I had. He said no because he was allergic to apples.

- At 2:30 in the morning while biking to work a lady yelled at me, asking if I had food for her. I offered the woman a couple slices of bread (which I was going to toast at work) and a banana. She took the bread but not the banana because it was cold and she doesn’t like cold bananas.

- I was walking home from the bus stop after school and had some fougasse (think baguette-type bread but shaped like a ladder or a leaf and filled with rosemary, thyme and olives). I offered it to a gentleman. After describing what it was, he tore off a piece to taste it. He said it was too dry and went on his way without the fougasse.

The one response that stuck with me the most was on my last day of the semester…

-I was walking to Union Station in blizzard conditions and a lady was asking for change. I offered her all I had—a box of various choux paste products; cream puffs, paris-brest and eclairs. She said no but explained it was because she would rather eat a nutritious meal then eat the sweets I was offering.

I can easily remember the moment I realized that, by assuming a homeless individual should be grateful and accept what I have to offer, I was completely dehumanizing them and turning them into these hollow vessels capable of nothing more than to say ‘please’, ‘yes’, and ‘thank-you’. I removed from them the very things that make them who they are—their choices, their preferences, and their taste buds.

None of these individuals were disrespectful to me. Yet, in my wandering thoughts I was being disrespectful to them. An act, which started as a way to help someone, turned into a selfish thought process of ungratefulness and a definite lack of viewing someone as God sees them—an absolutely amazing person, whose passions and interests were given to them to make a difference in the world. Each person is someone who is created to do amazing things, and as someone whose palette preference attribute to the awesome person they are. The same way I don’t like green peppers (they taint everything they end up on!), the gentleman didn’t like the bread. How I could live without eating rice and beans, the lady could certainly live without eating cold bananas. It’s all the same, yet, as soon as someone is asking for food, we typically expect them to take whatever we have available.

I can’t say I know what I would do if I was on the opposite end of the situation. If I was the one asking for change and instead, an individual offers me a slice of pizza covered in green peppers and olives. I dislike olives and green peppers more than any other foods. Would I accept it and power through because I’m hungry? Would I gratefully say ‘no thanks’ in hopes of gathering enough change to buy something I actually want to eat, or hope someone else offers me something more appetizing?

I don’t know what I would do. But one thing I do know is removing an individual’s personal preference makes someone feel worthless, meaningless and unimportant. No one wants to feel that way—not you- the individual reading this, not me- the person writing this, and not the individual asking for change or food on the street you pass as you are going about your day.

Next time someone refuses what you have to offer, I challenge you to ask them what they would prefer—maybe you can get it for them, or maybe you can make a note of it for next time you see them (especially if it is someone you see often enough on your daily commute). One gentleman sitting at Union Station prefers black tea to coffee. It’s a small fact, but imagine handing him a hot coffee on a cold winter night… now imagine handing him a hot black tea instead. While the thought of handing him the cup of tea brings a smile to my face, imagine what it can do for him—not only will the beverage warm him up, he will feel like a real person whose likes and dislikes were thought of—He has value. He is important. He is human.

2015: Dreams, Themes and Goals

I like dreaming.

I prefer dreaming to reflecting probably about 95% of the time. I really only prefer reflecting when it’s masked with reminiscing about happy memories, and sentiments of ‘this should happen again’, ‘I loved this’, or ‘wow, what a great time’.

This preference is both exhilarating and debilitating, depending on the scenario I find myself in. Example; when thinking of all the possibilities 2015 can hold, this dreamer preference is pretty fantastic—There is no end to the things I can visualizing myself accomplishing in the New Year. I can try absolutely anything, succeed, and find a sense of self in the variety of futures I can imagine and place myself into… I’m basically living out everything on my Pinterest account.

While all this dreaming is simply marvellous, it is only when matched with reflecting on the year past I am able to pin point what it is I should actually be doing; where I should be focusing my time and energy, and creating a vision for what I want to see happen in the new year. This reflection needs to take into consideration all moments during the past year which were monumental to me; the good and the bad, every event that was life changing in some way.

These ‘life changing’ episodes are different for everyone. They can be the moment you realized, despite your best efforts, you still genuinely dislike olives, the times you realized your life isn’t going to continued as planned, and even the times you felt lively crafting a handmade card or playing with your cat. All these little moments give insight into what makes us feel alive, what fuels us and where our true passions are—which is where we need to spend more time channelling our energy. Start identifying them in your own life as I continue.

Now, yes, OK, playing with your cat is the best thing in the world, but let’s look a little deeper into that. Why is it fun? Is it because you weren’t doing anything all day? Is it because you were having a bad day and that quality cuddle time with your furry friend made you happy? Seek out the reasons behind the things you either enjoyed or disliked and you’ll find where to establish the focus for the New Year. In this hilarious (yet oh so true) cat situation, I enjoy fun times with my cat when I’ve been really busy and need a bit of a break. What I learn from this is my life needs to involve easy ways to take a few moments to recharge and re-energize after a long, busy day. Keeping some easy and creative projects around, like say knitting that winter scarf I’ve never started, leaves me an opportunity to knit a few rows which will de-clutter my mind and leaves me feeling like I am accomplishing something fun that I enjoy doing, but don’t always have time to do. Hanging with my cat fits into this same category, as well as reading a book or magazine.

Take a look at the rest of life’s moments that stand out as monumental from the past year and examine them for their deeper meaning. Write them out and soon you’ll find yourself easy themes to help navigate your goals for 2015.

When I look back at 2014 I realize I had a year of ups and downs, challenges, overcoming those challenges and, overall, making a lot of decisions that change the course of any plans that were once had. A few themes that stand out for me are how I thrive when I get to be creative, make beautiful things and capture their beauty the best I can, when I get to spend meaningful time with those who hold value in my life (even if it’s a short amount of time), intentionally growing my faith, and helping people in some sort of way whether in the form of travelling over seas, or helping friends with areas of need. 

Follow me on Instagram: @LoveInspiresChange

In shorter form, my themes for 2015 become:

- Creativity

- Relationships

- Faith

- Serving

- Health

A theme has more rooting to it. It creates an expression of following passions and living out the deeper callings of your life, embedded by God, to keep you moving in the direction to be His light to the world in all you do. My chosen themes, while somewhat vague, give me an amazing focal point for the New Year. Anything that doesn’t fit itself easily into one of the above themes is not going to serve me well. It’s kind of like creating a filter for yourself to live your best in 2015, which is pretty amazing.

My 2014 goals were accomplished, and I’m looking forward to growing on them and sifting all my dreams through the theme filters I’ve created to create an amazing 2015. I can already tell you a few of my goals:

- Blogging to take more of a lead role (which easily passes through every filter!)

- Baking to continue to be a focus, including collaborating and sharing my creations via my blogging platform and customers

- Take at least one workout classes (instead of just working out at home like I always do!) 

- More dedicated Faith pursuits (attend conferences, studies... you name it, I want in on it!)

So this year, as you dream, reflect, and visualize where you want to go in life, I challenge you to figure out the themes of where you thrive, and pursue all your goals and dreams with your themes shining brightly, guiding every step.

Cheers to an absolutely amazing 2015!

*Interested in setting goals? Check out my post last year on Positive Goal Setting

Front Of The Bus

I spend two hours of my day commuting to and from school. I walk down to the end of my street, flag down the trusty 16 GO Bus, and head to Union Station in Toronto. When I arrive at Union Station I walk, on average, 13 minutes until I arrive at school where I spend hours learning about baking to then reverse the journey back home. While embarking on my commuting adventure I’ve made a point to make mental notes about the wonderfully interesting individuals I’ve had the pleasure of observing and interacting with.

On days I travel back to Hamilton alone, I generally choose to sit at the font of the bus. It’s easy to get on and off, and since I tend to have a lot of stuff with me from my baking lab, the very front is a seat with the most space for all my baked goods and schoolbooks. As soon as I ask if I can sit beside the individual who also chose to sit at the front, and we cease our general chit-chat about having a lot of stuff and how it’s easier to sit up front instead of wander to the back of the bus, I expect the pleasantries of small-talk to subside and for each of us to go about our own activities— which for me, is sleeping.

While this may be the end of small talk, my expectancy of sleep is often met with the reality of conversations extending the length of the bus ride, with snacks shared and adventures revealed. 

One of my first experiences sitting at the front of the bus led me to meet a lovely older lady who shared her vegetable tray with me. It was funny—she opened up her snack and just offered me some. She told me how she didn’t like celery (which was perfect as I love celery) and there we sat—eating vegetables on the bus while she shared with me how she was going to Hamilton to meet with some immediate family before they all headed south to visit extended family. While my first thought was ‘I wanted to sleep’ (wow, how ungrateful!), it changed to ‘Man these are good veggies’, then finally transitioned to where I was genuinely surprised this kind lady would want to share her food with me—just a random girl sitting beside her.

One recent experience in particular I found to be the most amazing.

I sat down next to a lady at the front of the bus and after the generic small talk I offered her a freshly baked cookie. She retrieved a piece of Kleenex from her purse, took a chocolate dipped vanilla shortbread cookie from the box, and very politely started eating it. We briefly chatted about how I am in school and began to discuss her: her life and her recent life-changing experience with her daughter. She is a children’s book author who moved to Hamilton after living in Pennsylvania for a while after she fled from Afghanistan with her family. She moved with her husband, who has a heart condition, and her daughter. The most random detail of our conversation was how we share the same name. I found out, where she is from, Aelea means ‘a woman of great distinction’.

Being a refugee, fleeing from Afghanistan due to the war, her life has been full of unbelievable trials. Being an author, she has a way with words, and was asked to share her story at McMaster University about immigrating to Canada—the challenges she faced and the ones she still encounters. While speaking with no emotions held back, she looked out into the audience and found a face she recognized—her teenage daughter was sitting in the audience with tears in her eyes.  As a mother, she hadn’t shared her struggles with her daughter—she has been strong for her child, never letting on things were hard, never showing her personal battles to keep her daughter feeling safe, secure and welcomed into this new country and new place they decided to call home.

Her daughters’ words to her after the presentation were simply that she didn’t know. She had no idea her mother was going through these things, how she faced challenges, and how she was continually overcoming them in the countless ways she was.

I don’t know why she chose to share this story but I’m glad she did. It’s eye opening, inspiring and challenging when anyone shares a personal story with the glamour stripped away and naked honesty standing there speaking every word. The conversation shifted to how her daughter loves baking, and she asked if she could buy a box of my cookies. I gave her all I had and the bag I was carrying them in and when I left she said, if it were God’s will, perhaps we would meet again.

Sometimes I don’t have the opportunity to have in depth conversations—the bus driver who see’s me standing under the tree and pulls over without me having to wave the bus down can leave the same impact as the person I’m sitting next to who shares mints. The observation of the lady who gets off a bus and gives her transfer pass to a young mother waiting with her child at the stop says more in her brief actions than any words I would imagine uttering to her or her to I. The lady getting onto the bus to audition for a gospel choir elective at University is someone who shared with me one piece of her unique story.

All these people, whose interactions are small in the grand scheme of my day, week and semester, make the commute worthwhile. Everyone can leave an impact, even without words, and it’s important we look for those moments, listen with intent to those who are speaking, and always sit near the front of the bus—because it’s those little moments I don’t want to miss.