I am sitting across from a group of newly hired employees at a local Tim Hortons. They are having their orientation and I am cringing for them. I hear the manager rattling off company policies and procedures that are in the league of the CIA. She informs them that there are “cameras everywhere in here” and that she can even watch them from the comfort of her own home, hyping it up saying how she called the shop late at night one time to tell the kid working the counter to tuck his shirt in.

She needs them to sign their background check forms, in case there are any known bagel thieves on her hands, and in an odd twist I hear everyone answering about what kind of belly button they have.

They are given their uniform, so that they fit into the kitsch of the corporate world and she dismisses them.

How easy is it for us to lose identity?

We are confronted over and over again of images of how things should be, the velvet curtain is pulled shut as the chaos and beauty and conflict of life is going on behind the scenes. We too often live as we are told, think thoughts we are bred to think, Spew out words that are only pleasing to the ones hearing them, and form this identity that is not us, but is what we are because of the influence of the fast, and “correct” world that we live in.

How easy is it for us to just go along with things and not questions why?

We didn’t stop questioning when we were 3 years old, so why are we doing it now? Over and over again children are relentless with getting to the facts. Maybe at this age we won’t be asking “why is the sky blue?” but we should definitely be asking questions until we feel satisfied with why we do things the way we do, why we believe the things that we do.

Life is a constant project of finding out who you are and relishing in it and sharing it with others.

That's all for now. Shalom xo

Nini's friend, P'nelle...

My mom knit this awesome Crocodile scarf, and my niece who could probably tell you the class and family of this species loved it. She prefers playing with her collegiate grade skeleton, or reading about Dinosaurs and bones. Last night she got out the skeleton and I would point to the bones and have her repeat the names.
So cute to hear a 3 year old say "ulna" "femor" and "patella" :)

Preparing for a New Year..

Rosh Hashanah is on the way.

Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year, commemorating the creation of Adam and Eve, the first human beings. On Rosh Hashana, the Books of Life and Death are open on the heavenly desk. On this "Day of Judgment," we each stand before God and offer our best case for being "created anew" -- i.e. granted another year of life.
The morning before Rosh Hashana, we perform "Hatarat Nedarim" -- annulling all vows. This enables us to enter the new year with a clean slate.

Rosh Hashana asks us to remember how much we are worth to God, to our families, to our friends, and to the world. We feast as an expression of the joy we find in our life. And that understanding must precede the Yom Kippur emphasis on our failings that prompt us to fast and to cry over our imperfections.

This article is about living life to your fullest ability, to conquer you dreams and make change.

http://www.aish.com/h/hh/gar/57642657.html

A new year, full of loving God, family, friends, and everyone we come in contact with.. L'shana Tova!

The Chernobyl Sunflower Project

Sunflowers can clean up nuclear waste. I find it so beautiful...

This sunflower project is one of many international efforts at phytoremediation-the use of plants to absorb pollutants from air, water, and soil. In the United States, both government agencies and private companies, including Exxon Corp. and DuPont are testing a variety of plants to see if they can do some of the dirty work of cleaning up such pollutants as radioactive material, lead, selenium selenium (səlē`nēəm), nonmetallic chemical element; symbol Se; at. no. 34; at. wt. 78.96; m.p. 217°C;; b.p. about 685°C;; sp. gr. 4.81 at 20°C;; valence −2, +4, or +6. , and oil.

Many plants, it turns out, have a taste for these stubborn contaminants.

The Chernobyl sunflower project began in 1994. That summer, researchers from Phytotech, a phytoremediation company in Monmouth Junction, N.J., and their government and university colleagues installed the rafts.

Together, they held 24 sunflowers and dotted a 75-square-meter pond located 1 kilometer from the Chernobyl reactor, says Burt Ensley, Phytotech's president. The plants preferentially absorb cesium and strontium from a mixture of metals, he notes. The plants don't metabolize the radionuclides, but the cesium stays in the roots and most of the strontium moves to the shoots. The company disposes of the plants as radioactive waste after about 3 weeks on the pond.

Ive got my eye on these lately..

Russian Nesting Dolls

This Judith Lieber crystal cupcake purse is gorgeous. I can just drool over it, since I don't think I can afford a $4000 purse anytime soon :)
I LOVE this Obama Chia Head!