Walking the Labyrinth

This past Saturday I went on a retreat with my Mom called "Honoring the Sacred Within."  I have not been in a retreat setting for years, and it was something that I felt that I really needed amidst the chaos of things right now.  One of the highlights was walking the labyrinth, similar to the one above, only it was indoors and on the floor.  A little background on a labyrinth, "the winding path that is walked today is walked in prayer and meditation dates back to 12th century European cathedrals particularly in France and Italy.  Many feel that the Labyrinth allowed for miniature pilgrimages in substitution for the long journeys to Jerusalem expected of penitents.  The Labyrinth is viewed by some as taking one to a holy place.  The ancient tradition is silent prayer in motion, a blue-print for the sacred meeting of mind, body, and heart."

Now I would like to share my experience. 

I started out by writing a request for God on a slip of paper.  This was helpful for me because it gave me something to do with my hands, and for anyone who knows me, this is essential.  Then I started walking - one foot in front of the other - all good, right?  Well I bumped into two of the other ladies also in the process of walking the labyrinth.  Just for the record they were walking out of the labyrinth as I was walking in.  This caused me to start worrying that I was doing something wrong, which has been a common thought as of late.  I forced myself to realize that thought was ridiculous even for me, and so I let it go.  Once I did that I started telling myself to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and I will get where I am supposed to be.

This thought led me to wish that my life came with bumpers like at a bowling alley or on the labyrinth - something to keep me on the right path.  There are times where I wish there had been a "straighter" course to Danny or a "straighter" line to Denver; perhaps that would make things a little bit easier.  Yet those diversions, those mistakes, those life experiences helped shape who I am.  And that is okay.  I realized while walking that labyrinth that it is okay if life is not always straight - it is still good.  I am grateful for the path that I am on in thanks to God working in my life.

This retreat was a special time spent with some amazing women, many of whom have had a very profound impact on my life.  There was also one very courageous and sweet man that I had the pleasure of meeting that day.  He thinks it's very cool that Danny and I are getting married at Coors Field.  Plus he really likes my parents.  So he and I are all good!

All that is Spike

Spike and I recently celebrated our three-year anniversary.  Three years ago my world was changed for the better, and I hope the same can be said for him.  He came to me from the Colorado Pug Rescue, which provides the following information (and more) for people who are considering a pug.  Their belief is that a pug is not right for everyone, and so they want to educate people so that you know what you are getting yourself into.

DID YOU KNOW...

• Pugs shed a lot.   A lot does not really even begin to cover it.  Spike has left remnants of himself everywhere I have ever gone.
• Pugs snore.
• Pugs were bred to be companion animals. They NEED to be with their people. They can have behavior problems if they can't be with you. This means they can seem "clingy" or "needy." If you want an aloof, detached dog, you don't want a pug!   See the picture above for proof.
• A pug's bulgy eyes are susceptible to injury and to medical problems caused by dryness.

The last point speaks to his one eye.  For those who don't know the story, his first owner had allowed an infection to progress when he was brought to the CPR.  The rescue was in the process of raising the funds to fix it when it got poked by one of his little foster brothers.  As the story goes the really sad part is that was his good eye!  The one he has left has a ruptured ulcer on the tip, and so he sees about 85%.  The Spike-Monster really does seem to do okay for himself.  Danny and I do our best to take care of the eye he has left.

Spike-bike is my little boy, and is one truly spoiled pug.  It is so easy to love something that loves you so unconditionally.  He loves me just for walking in the door - how cool is that?  My Mom got me a great magnet that says, "I want to be the person my dog thinks that I am."  It's true - every day I try to be worthy of the love of my Spike.

Did You See that Shot? DUKE!

Oh how I love Duke Basketball!  It is especially fun when the loser is UNC!  I have been a Duke fan since the day that I was born due in large part to the fact that my Dad went to Duke.  It could also be said that my sisters and I were taught about the finer things in life from a very young age.

Watching this year's Duke Team has been a roller-coaster of emotions.  This team lacks a true star, although Austin Rivers is quickly moving into that category.  They also struggle with an inside presence, but I have come to expect that over the years.  I mean Steve Wojciechowski in all his 5' 11.5" glory works with the big men.  While I love Wojo; he was one of the toughest gnats I have ever seen play, an inside game was not his place.  This team also continues another unsettling Duke trend - "live by the three, die by the three."  Yet, these guys are one of the scrappiest bunches I have seen in a long time.  This is what makes them so much fun to watch since they don't appear to ever really be out of the game (there's that three point shot rule again).  Case in point the shot shown above marked 3-pointer number 14 as UNC led by 10-12 points for most of the game. 

I think Coach K (Coach Krzyzewski) said it best, "this team could go very deep into the tournament, or it could go out in the first round."  I am going to hope for the former.  This year's Big Dance will also be especially exciting since it marks the return of my own Alma mater - HOOSIERS!  They are another enigma of a team, but you know that is what makes it exciting!

I am a Planner: Deal with It, Please

Seven months from today Danny and I will be getting married.  What I am really thinking as I type that is, gracious I have been at this wedding planning nonsense for five months!  FIVE MONTHS!  In some ways the time has gone by really fast, but at other moments it feels like an eternity.  And some days I feel like my buddy Marvin the Martian up there...  I have developed pet peeves that I did not even know were possible leading up to planning a wedding that I hope will become a distant memory after I am Danny's wife (still not ready to call myself the future Mrs. Pechie). 

Here is the run-down:

1. Wedding Favors.  Please do not even bring this one up to me anymore.  No offense to anyone, please; but I have never understood their purpose.   I will be grateful for every one's presence at the wedding, but I will say it with words not a little trinket that people may/may not want.
2. Centerpieces.  This has been a source of serious anxiety for me, especially when I completely lose perspective about what is really important in life.  The root of the issue - I am allergic to flowers.  While this has thrilled many a man in my life since he did not have to spend money on flowers for me; it can be problematic when designing a centerpiece since 99.999% of centerpiece design ideas incorporate flowers.  I finally found something that Danny and I are both really excited about that does not include flowers!  It does include something kind of silly, but hey we're silly.
3. Poor Customer Service.  Okay, truth be told this is a long-standing one; but it has been exacerbated as I deal with wedding vendors.  Do they understand I am trying to pay them money?!  The latest example has to do with my veil and tiara.  I have always wanted a tiara, and I was so grateful when my parents did not question this decision.  I digress.  The veil and tiara were supposed to arrive in the store two weeks after being ordered.  We are now on week 7.5.  Did the store inform me that these two items were on back-order?  No, they just let me sweat it out.  My veil came in last night, but my tiara is going to be another 2-4 weeks.  What if I had waited until the last minute?  This leads me to my biggest pet peeve of all...
4. Oh You have PLENTY of Time.  My absolute favorite is when they throw in a dear afterward, as if the pet name is supposed to make me feel better about this person making me feeling like an idiot for planning ahead.  When people say this they are failing to recognize a couple key points: (a) You (the vendor) are one aspect of this wedding.  I have about 100 other aspects that I am dealing with; would you care to help with those too?  and (b) I do have a job and a life outside of this wedding.  The summer months are always crazy from a work perspective, and so I am trying to be prepared so that I have a job to go back to after my wedding. 

I think I am done now.  I am so lucky that Danny understands me.  God love him, he took me to Barnes and Noble the day after we got engaged  to get a book and a magazine with a timeline in it so that I could start the planning process.  I sure hope that I have not crossed into the "Bridezilla" Zone just yet, nor do I want to.  I have plenty of people around me to tell me if and when I do.  The greatest comfort I take in planning ahead is that it has allowed us to change our mind on certain things, or find something we liked better.  Most recently those centerpieces! 

Phew.  I feel better, thank you for reading.  The next post will have to do with sports, I am sure.  I mean hello, did you see the shot heard around Tobacco Road and beyond?  GO DUKE!

 

Everyone Can't Be in Your Front Row

I will be honest,  I am that sappy hopeless romantic who loves Valentine's Day.  Even when I did not have a significant other to spend that day with, I have been lucky enough to have  someone special to be my Valentine.  My Beth was my Valentine many a year, and she always made me feel loved.  Isn't that what this holiday is supposed to be about?  As the holiday approaches this year I find myself thinking a lot about relationships.  Not just my relationship with Danny, but all the relationships in my life.  I am no relationship expert, believe me; I just know that I am very blessed by the people in my life. 

Yet, I also find myself mourning relationships lost over the years.  I am horrible with break-ups of any sort, but I have come to realize that I cannot keep everyone forever.  I did find a lot of comfort in this passage that a colleague of mine recently shared with me.  He received it as he was mourning the death of a very dear friend.

Everyone Can’t be in Your Front Row

Life is a theatre - invite your audience carefully.  Not everyone is holy enough and healthy enough to have a front row seat in our lives.  There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance.  It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you let go, or at least minimize your time with draining, negative, incompatible, not-going-anywhere relationships around you.  Pay attention to:  Which ones lift and which ones lean?  Which ones encourage and which ones discourage?  Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill?  When you leave certain people, do you feel better or feel worse?  Which ones always have drama or don’t really understand, know and appreciate you and the gift that lies within you?  The more you seek God and the things of God – the more you seek things honorable – the more you seek growth, peace of mind, love and truth around you the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the FRONT ROW and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.  You cannot change the people around you…but you can change the people you are around!  Ask God for wisdom and discernment and choose wisely the people who sit in the front row of your life.

-Author Unknown


Even if you do not like to celebrate Valentine's Day, I do challenge you to celebrate the special relationships in your life!  I also ask you to think about who is in your front row? 

Let Them Eat Cake (Pops)

Non-traditional.  That is the best word (albeit hyphenated) that I can use to describe the wedding that Danny and I are planning.  Creating an event that suits us has been more important than letting tradition or "shoulds" dictate what will happen that day.  I got a very supportive email from a family friend telling me to do what we want that I reference regularly when I start questioning our direction (thanks, Priscilla!).

Ironically one of the first traditions we threw out was the massive wedding cake concept.  I say ironically because I am a big fan of anything chocolate and/or sugary, but I am not such a fan of wedding cake.  Solution: cake pops (cake on a stick)!  I was quite relieved when Danny agreed to that idea without a fight.  We saved our fighting for other decisions, apparently.  Perhaps I will talk about that later on, but anyway for now I am talking about cake!  My exposure to cake pops has come through Starbucks.  Yes, Starbucks the land of many decisions provided me the inspiration for our wedding dessert.  I am a big fan of the birthday cake flavored cake pop and the peppermint brownie cake pop!

So I went on the search for a maker of cake pops.  Through a friend I found a very talented baker in Chicago, but she proved to be out of our price range.  After all, I am a girl on a budget here.  Rather disappointed, I turned to my wedding planning savior - GOOGLE!  I actually discovered that there are not very many places in Denver that advertise making cake pops - in fact, I found two.  I am not used to being ahead of the curve, but on this front we just may be.  Danny and I decided that we liked the look of one over the other.  This led to a tasting yesterday for us and two very nice volunteers (hey, free cake) at Lil' Bite Kakes by Kim.  The business is run by a husband and wife duo who are doing this as a side business.  It was so wonderful to stumble upon people who are willing to work with us to create the dessert we want.  Plus they taste so good - bonus!  I am absolutely over the moon that the idea I had can actually come to fruition!

The NFL Season from My Perspective

I want to work for ESPN.  This is not a secret; even my current employer knows it on some level.  Since that is highly unlikely, I may need to sprinkle (even shower) this blog with sports related musings.  I will try to clearly identify them up front so that my non-sports loving followers, or casual readers can skip over as needed.

The 2011 NFL Season was almost the season that did not happen.  An eleventh hour compromise allowed the season to take place.  On the eve of the conference championship games I would like to talk about four teams.  Three of my four are not playing tomorrow (but probably should have been), and the team that is playing is one that I could do without.

New England Patriots.  The New England Patriots went a very quiet 13-3 this season playing with one of the worst defenses I have ever seen.  Still when you have a future Hall of Famer in Tom Brady and surround him with weapons such as Rob Gronkowski, you can make up for it.  Last week they ended Tebow Time with a vengeance much to the dismay of the city of Denver, which will be a separate post at a later date.  Tomorrow they will play the Baltimore Ravens.  The team I thought at the beginning of the season would represent the AFC in the Super Bowl.  Now I must admit that I had them playing the Green Bay Packers.  So let’s see if I can go .500.  This leads me to the shock of the season…

Green Bay Packers.  The reigning Super Bowl Champions went a very impressive 15-1 throughout the 2011 regular season.  In their pursuit of a perfect season they overshadowed everyone.  Of course Aaron Rodgers and his annoying State Farm commercials helped with that cause.  But I digress.  The team seemed pretty invincible up until Kansas City, and their anemic team, put a whooping on them in Week 15.  Yeah Chiefs!  In Week 16, the Packers decided to rest Rodgers giving their number two QB, Matt Flynn an opportunity.  Well he sure proved that he could play; let’s suffice it to say he will not be a number two for long.  The Quarterback succession in Green Bay is really quite irritating for a non-fan, such as me.  In my years of football fandom it started with the worst of them all, #4 aka Brett Favre aka Danny’s Man-Crush, which led to Aaron Rodgers who won a Super Bowl, and a solid back-up waiting quietly in the wings in Matt Flynn.  The two weeks of rest may have been the demise of Mr. Rodgers, or perhaps he was spending too much time perfecting his annoying touchdown dance (the championship belt across his waist) since the Packers lost last week at home to the red-hot New York Giants led by Eli Manning…

Indianapolis Colts.  Speaking of the Manning Family, let’s talk about Peyton.  Now I am not a Peyton Manning Hater.  I don’t even hate the Indianapolis Colts.  I just think it is a team that lacks foresight in their front office.  Since drafting Manning the team appears to be operating under the delusion that he would neither get injured nor would he ever age.  Well this was the year that both those things happened.  The result?  A dismal 2-14 season that saw at least three different quarterbacks come in and try to lead the team with little to no success.  I just do not understand how you do not have a clear line of succession in place?  The team has also fired much of their front office, as well as their head coach.  The timing of the coach’s firing is a bit suspect since many of the high profile coaches have already accepted positions with other teams.  The Colts franchise literally rests on the neck of Peyton Manning.  Well, that and a little luck; Andrew Luck that is, who should be the Colts choice with first pick in the 2012 NFL Draft.

Chicago Bears.  When you talk about luck, you can certainly say it was not on the side of the Bears this season.  My beloved Bears looked at the onset like this could be their year.  While the defense has always been their staple, the offense looked like it had something going for itself.  Jay Cutler would be leading a Mike Martz designed offense, the offensive line seemed to be semi-competent even formidable at times, and a solid run game in Matt Forte.  Well then it all just fell apart.  Jay Cutler went down with a thumb injury, which would have been bad enough since the Bears considered themselves grateful to have one solid quarterback, more than one was just too much to hope for.  Then Matt Forte goes down too.  No team, I don’t care who you are, can be asked to make up that much offensive production with back-ups.  So the Bears season came to an end without a trip to the play-offs.  Mike Martz decided to take his “Greatest Show on Turf” offense elsewhere, but there is always a silver lining.  Jerry Angelo, the Bears General Manager or as he was known to me – the bane of my existence, was fired.  I came up with a song the day that he was fired that is sung to the tune of the “Wicked Witch is Dead” from the Wizard of Oz.   It went something like this, Ding Dong Angelo’s Gone; the Wicked Jerry Angelo is Gone.  I love that movie.

Here’s hoping the four remaining teams (Baltimore – New England and New York – San Francisco) give us some enjoyable football tomorrow!  For those of without a team to root for, it’s all we can hope for at the end of the season.