Five Minute Friday: Fly

The very plane that brought us to Thailand almost 4.5 years ago.

This imperfect post below is a result of taking a blind leap of exercising my writing skills through Five Minute Fridays. Hundreds of other bloggers around the globe take just five minutes every week (ok...maybe I am not that consistent!  but...working up to it) to write for only five minutes on a one-word prompt that Lisa Baker gives at her site.  Interested?  Click here to get the details.

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Fly...

I get two kinds of mental pictures when I hear the word, "fly."

Picture one:

Soaring...freedom...puffy white clouds and an endless sky.  Maybe even Superman makes an appearance in this mental picture.

Picture two: 

In order to reach my family and friends who live across an ocean or two, I have to fly.  I have to spend a zillion dollars and plan for months and FLY to be able to see them, reach them.

One picture elicits incredible freedom and exhilaration and aaaahhhhh...a sigh of relief.

The second represents a barrier of time and space and a wall between locations on this big and wide planet.

They represent wanting to fly towards space and be away from people for moments upon moments...and in my more homesick and people-sick moments...flying represents my need and craving for the people I miss.

Fly...

STOP

Tying Strings With Tickle Fights

Kyla, my smiling beauty, mid-tickle-fight.

Lately, I have been trying to perfect my ability to tickle-fight.

If you have kids, or just even an annoying or immature co-worker, then you understand that sometimes leading people can wreck your good attitude.

Even though I have four little blessings, sometimes amid whining and making lunch and messes and dirty diapers and noise, I sometimes forget that they are in fact little blessings instead of little terrors.  Can't relate? I know I am not alone.

So, in an attempt to war against the bad attitude (mine) that is just waiting to creep out from under my peaceful exterior, I have tried to make my kids' smiles come out instead.

I read once in To Train Up a Child about "Tying Strings (click for a short video)."  The basic idea is to tie "strings" of fellowship, joy, smiles, laughter, great memories and great love, with your kids (or anyone else, really).  You can do this by creating experiences and emotions that draw your heart and your child's heart together; as if they were tied to each other.  Because we all know that there are times when the strings we tie are then cut apart.  

Strings are cut with angry words, a roll of the eyes, too many "no's", sarcasm, and not enough time to look them in the eyes and engage with them.

I can list all of the above so easily not because I just see it in others, but because I see it in myself.  So, I can choose to re-tie the strings I have cut with smiles, loving touches, turning off my iPad and making eye-contact, listening to the rambling stories and about a million things more.  I am sure you can think of a few to add to the list.

And, every day, I have committed to tie more strings than I cut.  To keep them close.  To keep their heart connected with mine.  When they grow up, what is going to keep them from breaking free just as soon as they're able? ...The strings that I tie today.
  
So, bring on the tickle fights.  They are an instant attitude-breaker and a joy-bringer.  Try it!  Or, tie some different strings of your own (and share some of your ideas in the comments below).

Blessings,
Alina

10 Easy Steps For How to Draw Attention to Yourself in Thailand

These tips have come from my own (embarrassing) personal experience, and from watching other foreigner's personal experiences as they live in and visit Thailand. 

If you ever find yourself hopping a plane over here to our neck of the woods, you'll thank me, or not, for sharing these tips with you: 

10 Easy Steps For How to Draw Attention to Yourself in Thailand 

1. Be really, really loud. A lot. In public places. Especially when in a conversation with someone else.

2. Have white skin. Works every time. This is especially effective if paired with blond hair and blue eyes. Mercy on your soul if you have all three. You might have just become the most popular person in the room. Ever. 

3. Show a lot of skin. Sleeveless shirts and shorty-shorts are a must to accomplish this attention-getter. 

4. Have lots and lots of babies. Any number higher than two will shock others regularly and cause them to think you run a preschool in your own home. 

5. Forget to use a straw when drinking out of a bottle or can. Hey, didn't you ever read the article about the bacteria on the tops of those containers? Drink from a straw and live. (And you simultaneously avoid awkward dribbles of Fanta over your chin. It just makes sense.) 

6. Pick your teeth in public. Don't discretely cover you mouth, either. You lose points for that. 

7. Wear your shoes inside. 

8. Spit, loudly and with great distance. 

9. Hug your spouse/significant other in public. Better yet, a smack on the lips will really turn everyone's heads. 

And lastly... 

10. Whatever you do, don't smile. Keep those smiles to yourself. Everyone will be very sweet and concerned for your welfare. They will tell you to just forget ("mai ben rai") your troubles and cheer up. But, if you sincerely don't want the masses confused by your permanent frown, then cure your melancholy nature and just take a look around you. You are in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and it's people's own smiles are too contagious to resist. I dare you, just try.

Five Minute Friday: Truth

Truth

No more hiding.

Ever since I chose to walk in truth instead of keep everyone in the dark, everything under wraps…I have no more reason to hide.

Sure, I might disappoint someone, but at least I am walking without chains.

Because, you see, keeping lies and fibs and half-truths creates chains that seem unable to be broken. Another un-truth leads to another which leads to another. I was tired of the cycle.

Whenever I found out that He will continue to love me, continue to be faithful, continue to not turn away His gaze…I could finally get real with Him, myself and with everyone else. Instead of walking in darkness, I chose the brighter path, though narrow.

Yes, there are consequences. I don’t have to seem to be as shiny and as orderly and as perfect as I wanted everyone else to see me as. I am just me. Broken. Needy. Ignorant. Desperate. Dumb, even, sometimes. I need someone to show me the way instead of me thinking that I already knew it.

He lead me into all Truth. Jesus. And now, you can, too.

STOP

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I didn't even want to post this because it isn't perfect. There are incomplete thoughts and so much more that I could have written. But, when I considered the whole nature of trying to walk in the truth of my imperfection and the whole vision behind Five Minute Fridays, I had to post it anyways.  

This year, I have committed to myself to be more genuine whenever I write here at Ordinary Life in the Wild.  Thanks for giving me a chance to get real.

Blessings,

Alina

Back to the Blogosphere

This beautiful girl was a good excuse for taking a break from blogging.  Charis Tirzah, you are worth it!
photo credit: Katie Friesen photography

Let's face it.  It has been awhile.
  
Since I becoming pregnant with our fourth precious child, Charis, my blogging almost screeched to a complete halt.  Hey, halts are good sometimes.  Seasons change, like Ecclesiastes 3 proclaims, and slowing down is pretty natural.  Besides, a woman's got to nap when she's making a human being.  For me, nap time was usually blog time.  You understand.

Now that the lovely Charis is here, I feel like the fog in my brain has lifted and I can think clearly again.  Though, my "clearly" is relative.  If you know me well, I am pretty spacey as it is.  

But, where my blogging online quieted, the blogging in my brain got louder.

You see, there is another voice that seems not be quieted.  Call it another personality...my creative side...whatever.  I have tried to turn it off for months, but I can't!

When I would visit a new place, discover new wildlife here, laugh at some ridiculous thing my children did, or discover a fun new thing in our home-school day...I would dream up the way I would blog that experience back to you.  I have had an inner dialogue with my Blogger page and although I wasn't typing it into the computer, I was imagining how I would share it with the world if I simply had time and the mental space to do it.  There are countless things that I could have shared in these past months, but I chose to say "yes" to others things that were rightly vying for my attention.

After much prayer, I am convinced, though...I simply have to blog.  In this season of life, it is a way for me to share with all of you about all the things that happen in our lives that get lost in a Facebook feed or drown in the ocean of an email inbox.  Even if I don't get the same amount of reads that I did before this year's hiatus, I can at least hit "post" and offer up that blogging voice to whomever has the time and interest and space to read about the ordinary things that make up a big part of our every day.

Thank you for reading and for sticking with me.  

Blessings, 
Alina