Monday, April 19, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
we once were LOST...
Since there are only a few episodes left in the epic series known as LOST, i thought it might be fun to see how much we've changed along with the "losties" over the past 6 "seasons" of our lives.
ABC's LOST premiered in 2004. I remember watching the pilot and thinking, "Wow, finally a good show on TV!" As usual, we were in the process of moving, and had (as usual) just sold our couch and easy chair to lighten the load, since we were moving into a smaller loft in downtown Colorado Springs. So we sat on the floor and watched the show and couldn't stop talking about it for days.
Through thick and thin, we've hung in there with the characters and haven't missed an episode. But, just like the characters on the show, we are completely different people now than we were then.
Here's a recap:
**2004 jen+tommy**
• ate meat. lots of it. i grilled steak, chicken or burgers at least 3-4 times a week, and we often ate pepperoni and sausage pizza. egad!
• we smoked. alot. at least a pack a day for both of us. at that point it was 6 years for me and 10! for jen.
• our main hobbies included going to bars, the shooting range and hiking. we thought we were healthy, but....
• we blamed everyone but ourselves for the condition of our life, in everything from financial standing to happiness to "security"..
• i was very angry in general because i'd been out of college for 3 years and was still working as a landscaper and janitor. design was just a glimmer in my eye, and jen's art consisted of stained glass mosaics and hemp necklaces. she was working as a waiter at Carrabba's at the time. i also felt "trapped" in colorado springs and that i would never be able to move, as if "someone" was holding us back other than ourselves...
• we had no spiritual practices whatsoever, although i was starting to develop an interest in buddhism and was reading quite a few books about it from a historical and philosophical standpoint.
So then, just like on LOST, the plane crashed, we were left stranded on a deserted island, and we had to "sink or swim" so to speak...6 years passed...
**2010 jen+tommy**
• 100% vegetarian, 90% vegan. our favorite meals now consist of grilled vegan burgers, stir fry veggies, sweet potato lentil soup, polenta casserole and Ezekiel bread. Mmm! Never felt better on the inside. It all started with practicing mindful eating, and really thinking about what you're chewing up and how it got to your mouth. Then, jen's sister cindy came to visit (vegan) and taught us more about why it's bad to eat meat, eggs and dairy - all in a very peaceful, non-judgmental way. The closer was going to hear alicia silverstone speak about her new book, The Kind Diet, and then meeting her in person afterwards to discuss being vegan and how great she's felt ever since.
• we've moved 8 times since 2004 and have lived in 3 different states besides CO, including south florida, right on the intercoastal; lowell, mass, just outside boston; portsmouth, nh, a cute, cozy new england postcard town located on the tiny NH seacoast.
• we quit smoking in 2008, while living in florida. jen now jogs over 5 miles per day and we both do yoga at least twice a week.
• i finally hooked up with a design agency in florida, worked at the office for one year, then moved out of state, keeping my job, and i now work from home 100% via skype and email. jen is now able to stay home and pursue her art career full time as well.
• we bought, lived in, fixed up and sold a cute 1950s home for a nice profit - "coincidentally" right before the market took a dive in CO...
• our hobbies have changed to include walking around towns and cities (flaneuring), meditation every day, reading spirituality books and/or listening to podcasts on metaphysics and spirituality, and attending various spiritual and religious groups such as online kabbalah courses (sunday night), jewish shabbat at the local synagogue (fridays), lectures at the local christian science church (wednesdays) and group meditations and discussions at the local buddhist sangha (tuesdays).
• we no longer blame anyone or anything for the conditions our lives are currently inside, whether they seem positive or negative. we've learned that we can either choose our path or someone else will choose it for us.
quite possibly, the largest catalyst for all this change was when we watched 'The Secret' on Dec 30, 2006. keeping in mind that the film is merely intended to be a starting point, not an end result, that was really the key turning point for us that launched our using the law of attraction (and all the other laws) to create the life we wanted - more importantly, it opened up our desire for spirituality, which i think was the real goal of the filmmakers anyway.
you see, as you start acheiving your goals in the physical universe and getting what you think you want, you start to realize that those things can't ever fulfill you. thus, by satisfying your earthly desires, your desire for spirituality becomes greater as well. this gives you the fuel you need to seek -- and believe me, if you seek, you WILL find.
we're living proof.
ABC's LOST premiered in 2004. I remember watching the pilot and thinking, "Wow, finally a good show on TV!" As usual, we were in the process of moving, and had (as usual) just sold our couch and easy chair to lighten the load, since we were moving into a smaller loft in downtown Colorado Springs. So we sat on the floor and watched the show and couldn't stop talking about it for days.
Through thick and thin, we've hung in there with the characters and haven't missed an episode. But, just like the characters on the show, we are completely different people now than we were then.
Here's a recap:
**2004 jen+tommy**
• ate meat. lots of it. i grilled steak, chicken or burgers at least 3-4 times a week, and we often ate pepperoni and sausage pizza. egad!
• we smoked. alot. at least a pack a day for both of us. at that point it was 6 years for me and 10! for jen.
• our main hobbies included going to bars, the shooting range and hiking. we thought we were healthy, but....
• we blamed everyone but ourselves for the condition of our life, in everything from financial standing to happiness to "security"..
• i was very angry in general because i'd been out of college for 3 years and was still working as a landscaper and janitor. design was just a glimmer in my eye, and jen's art consisted of stained glass mosaics and hemp necklaces. she was working as a waiter at Carrabba's at the time. i also felt "trapped" in colorado springs and that i would never be able to move, as if "someone" was holding us back other than ourselves...
• we had no spiritual practices whatsoever, although i was starting to develop an interest in buddhism and was reading quite a few books about it from a historical and philosophical standpoint.
So then, just like on LOST, the plane crashed, we were left stranded on a deserted island, and we had to "sink or swim" so to speak...6 years passed...
**2010 jen+tommy**
• 100% vegetarian, 90% vegan. our favorite meals now consist of grilled vegan burgers, stir fry veggies, sweet potato lentil soup, polenta casserole and Ezekiel bread. Mmm! Never felt better on the inside. It all started with practicing mindful eating, and really thinking about what you're chewing up and how it got to your mouth. Then, jen's sister cindy came to visit (vegan) and taught us more about why it's bad to eat meat, eggs and dairy - all in a very peaceful, non-judgmental way. The closer was going to hear alicia silverstone speak about her new book, The Kind Diet, and then meeting her in person afterwards to discuss being vegan and how great she's felt ever since.
• we've moved 8 times since 2004 and have lived in 3 different states besides CO, including south florida, right on the intercoastal; lowell, mass, just outside boston; portsmouth, nh, a cute, cozy new england postcard town located on the tiny NH seacoast.
• we quit smoking in 2008, while living in florida. jen now jogs over 5 miles per day and we both do yoga at least twice a week.
• i finally hooked up with a design agency in florida, worked at the office for one year, then moved out of state, keeping my job, and i now work from home 100% via skype and email. jen is now able to stay home and pursue her art career full time as well.
• we bought, lived in, fixed up and sold a cute 1950s home for a nice profit - "coincidentally" right before the market took a dive in CO...
• our hobbies have changed to include walking around towns and cities (flaneuring), meditation every day, reading spirituality books and/or listening to podcasts on metaphysics and spirituality, and attending various spiritual and religious groups such as online kabbalah courses (sunday night), jewish shabbat at the local synagogue (fridays), lectures at the local christian science church (wednesdays) and group meditations and discussions at the local buddhist sangha (tuesdays).
• we no longer blame anyone or anything for the conditions our lives are currently inside, whether they seem positive or negative. we've learned that we can either choose our path or someone else will choose it for us.
quite possibly, the largest catalyst for all this change was when we watched 'The Secret' on Dec 30, 2006. keeping in mind that the film is merely intended to be a starting point, not an end result, that was really the key turning point for us that launched our using the law of attraction (and all the other laws) to create the life we wanted - more importantly, it opened up our desire for spirituality, which i think was the real goal of the filmmakers anyway.
you see, as you start acheiving your goals in the physical universe and getting what you think you want, you start to realize that those things can't ever fulfill you. thus, by satisfying your earthly desires, your desire for spirituality becomes greater as well. this gives you the fuel you need to seek -- and believe me, if you seek, you WILL find.
we're living proof.
Monday, April 5, 2010
welcome back, me!
i'd like to welcome myself back to the blogosphere with apologies for leaving such a huge gap between the most recent posts. we've been busy exploring (both externally as well as internally), and with the weather turning upwards again i thought it was high time to get back on the horse.
but busyness (business?) isn't the only reason for the shortage of posts in 2010 - i must admit i've been a little gun shy with writing lately.
we never intended this blog to really "become" anything - i'm not even suggesting it "is" something now - but when i saw that there were over 1,200 people per month that were stopping by regularly to spend a few minutes reading our latest posts, i guess i got a little stage fright. ;)
i started thinking that the things we were doing around new england were not "blogworthy", and thought only if we go on an wild african safari or take one of sir richard branson's space flights would i have something that was interesting enough to write about that other people would want to read. (this goes completely against the logic i used to write the most boring blog post ever back in april 2009.)
at any rate, i decided that the best way to break out of my slump and get back to writing again was to remind myself of the main reason we started this post to begin with - to let our friends and family (mostly out west, granted, but more and more here on the east coast) stay updated on what we were doing out here if they're interested. i decided it wasn't fair of me to censor our activities just because I sometimes didn't think they were very exciting, forgetting that some of the things we do might be truly interesting to someone else, especially someone who's never been to the northeast.
most of the blogs i read aren't anything special, either, but i still reasd them and appreciate their candor, sincerity, honesty and most of all, consistency.
anyway, here's to you, mom - if you're the only one who's still reading, that's fantastic. ;) it was your old daily email updates in florida (the adventures of jenny) that actually inspired our blog to begin with. since our first blog post, we've gotten to know jack kerouac (kind of), given visitors private tours of boston and cambridge, swam in walden pond, met famous authors and movie stars, become vegetarians, been hugged by an actual saint, moved two more times, cruised around boston harbor with pirates, seen a UFO, walked paul revere's trail, had a sam adams across the street from sam's actual grave, visited a syrup farm and a dairy farm, picked apples from an actual orchard...the list goes on. i know you've enjoyed many of our posts, as we've enjoyed writing them (including the random spiritual off-shoots) so we'll keep at it. ;)
to the rest of you, if anyone else finds our sometimes-weird-but-most-of-the-time-pretty-normal lives interesting, we're glad to share them with you, and we're glad you've stuck around long enough for the blogging drought to finally come to an end.
next post: three beaches in two days as we search out tommy's first slushie of the 2010 beach season!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)