When I was 10...

So for my Feb. 12th daily authentic self adventure...I found some photos of when I was 10 years old or at least around that age.  For me, it seems like sooooooo long ago that I was 10, which it really was long ago.  I love looking back on pictures because it really makes me understand and be grateful for the AMAZING childhood I was blessed with.  I did so much as a young person and have such an awesome family that was and still is close and super loving.  I loved growing up with my brother and sister...and even though we did have a differences...especially when we were all going through our teen years...we were all really close and still are today.  I was even close with my cousins.  We had an annual New Year's Eve party (that we waited ALL year for) where we would write a play and then perform it for the parents/grandparents.  In this picture we are performing to the cassette tape of "Alvin and the Chipmunks" (I asked for that for Christmas!)  So great, always so much fun when we all got together.  I'm surprised I am not in more theater related stuff.  We were always performing!

  I lived in a super nice house in neighborhood that was FULL of children...it was quiet, had great bike paths and we actually had neighborhood cookouts!  All the kids were friends.  During the summers we would ride our bikes to the local UDF to get ice cream.  We probably did that on a daily basis.  I always thought that my room was little...but actually it was probably the right size for me, I was a tiny thing.  Because of my LOVE (extreme love) for all things Disney...my room theme was The Little Mermaid and then it went to Pocahontas.  I also remember being upset about having a twin bed instead of a double like most of my friends. :)   At school I had a best friend that I would spend every waking moment possible with her.  We lived close enough together that we could again ride our bikes to each other's house.  For 5th grade I had my first male teacher...and LOVED him.  He was really a great teacher.  I was always writing notes and passing them and folding them in special ways.  I remember doing an Andy Warhol inspired art project in art class and I was a lumber jack in the choir performance.  I do remember the smell of play dough, but probably more because I still work with it NOW!*

I was playing soccer in a Rec League.  This picture was my first team that I was a part and I might be a little younger than 10 but pretty close.  I think this picture describes me pretty well.  The way that I am posing shows my personality.  Can you see it?  I loved being active.  I also don't remember having any one doll that I loved loved loved.  I did however super love Barbies.  I had so many of them.  I loved dressing them, naming them, making them dance, decorated their Barbie house.  One year for Christmas we got Barbie horses...I thought I could play for the rest of my life and NOT get bored!  I don't remember my favorite color...it was probably blue.  I think at that time I wanted to be a teacher.  I did a lot of pretend teaching, even going to the educational stores to get posters, stickers, etc.  I gave a lot of spelling tests.  HA! 

This picture was my school picture for 1994 when I was 10.  This was what I thought my coolest picture.  I thought I had an awesome outfit, my earrings were hand-crafted, and my hair-my brother told me I should wear my hair like that! HA!...When I think about being 10, I remember no worries, that all my dreams were possible, that I could watch two other older people do things before me...my brother and sister...so I never did things the first time.  Interesting how I still find myself thinking about doing things that my brother and sister have already done.  If I could go back to when I was 10...I would still tell myself to do everything like I have done (even though at times it's easy for me to think about all the things I would do differently) because it has made me who I am today-Pretty cool thing to think about.  Even if I still have some digging to do to re-discover my authentic self.

Just a Spoonfull of Simple Abundance...

Every once in a while we all find ourselves needing the extra help in our journey of answering the ginormous question of “Who Am I?”  Along with the guidance we receive from praying, Biblical devotions, etc. there sometimes is the little added bonus helper to really help stretch us to ask ourselves all those crazy important self questions.  Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach is definitely that little added bonus for me.  It has been such a blessing to read through the daily lessons about finding and revealing the Authentic Self.  So much of what she has written about makes complete sense to me…almost like she was reading my mind.  So I have (again) been enjoying this book and the daily adventures.  

January was fabulous-getting together all the materials for my personal treasure map took weeks actually, but it was so great to put it together and really have something visual finally in hand that represented all these things that I constantly “think” or “dream” about.  It’s a little bit easier to believe when you see it all together on paper…or like it’s really the first step in moving towards that direction of the path to the authentic self because it’s on paper…not just in my dreams.  So I enjoyed that.  It's just so exciting to keep reading to see what the rest of this crazy cool journey will hold.

You are a child of God

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Marianne Williamson

Once Upon a Time You Trusted Yourself

I love this new idea of blogging on Sundays... it reminds me of Amanda's saying "Sunday FUNday!" :)

It's been really great to read Sarah Ban Breathnach again. I love her ideas like the Gratitude Journal (found mine yesterday actually, it's a tiny light blue notebook with an elephant on the cover... last entry February 2010, so - perfect time to get started again :)), Personal Treasure Map, Daily Dialogue and the Illustrated Discovery Journal.


On February 12 she asks us to find a (smiling) photograph of yourself when you were about ten. Send this little girl your love and remember what you were like at the time - when you still trusted your instincts.

In some ways it doesn't seem that long ago for me... even though so much has happened since I was ten - including traveling and moving out & back in twice :) - I still live in the same house, with my parents, and I still have the same bedroom I used to have (except that it's a little bigger now). My room used to be a combination of bright red, blue and yellow. It was already filled with Star Wars stuff, ABBA CD's and (library) books. My best friends in elementary school were Nienke and Suzanne. Nienke & I have known each other since we were 2 and 3 years old, and we're still in touch today. We used to play by writing each other letters in a notebook that we passed around, signing our entries with nicknames (Carrie, Kelly & Nicky). We were outside a lot too, looking for berries and drawing 'nature' as we called the bushes in our backyard.


I started playing the piano when I was 8. I had been asking for a drumset from the age of 5, obviously because of my idol Karen Carpenter (Nienke was the one who got me into the Carpenters actually). Unfortunately, my parents thought it would be too noisy and saw the headphones of our digital piano as a more appealing option. I guess I was sort of okay with the piano, but I started loving it after a year or so - when my new teacher Erzsike gave me a Walter Carroll book (Forest Fantasies). Amazingly beautiful! I felt like a concert pianist.

I never really played with Play-Doh... did you? I've always loved coloring, drawing, painting and crafting though. I don't remember if my favorite color was blue back then already, but I feel like it might have been. My favorite subjects in school were probably History and English. I remember my history book quite well. It had words printed in blue - you had to memorize those for the tests. But above all I loved reading... authors like Roald Dahl. When I was 10 I actually experienced for the first time what it's like to truely fall in love with a book. I was drawn to the cover of Aischa (Federica de Cesco), I was wishing with all my heart that nobody would choose it before it was my turn... I felt like it belonged to me. And surely, it was still there when I was allowed to pick a book. Such an amazing reading experience! I still own a copy today and I have read it many, many times since then.


My favorite doll... well, my one and only doll is Lotje. She had been around for a while when I got her - she used to belong to my mom. I've had her my whole life and when I was little I carried her around by her hair, poor thing. She's actually still stitting in my room right now! :)

Reading list

Sooo, just some first suggestions for our reading list... :) We could blog about Brida (Paulo Coelho) for this month, and abour Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis) for March. Other books that I thought about were:

- The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
- Christy, Catherine Marshall
- The Golden Tulip, Rosalind Laker

And 'Simple Abundance' of course, by Sarah Ban Breathnach. But since that's a daybook, it'll be a project for the whole of 2011! Hopefully we'll be overflowing with gratitude, simplicity, order, harmony, beauty and joy by the end of december! :) Actually, just reading January has inspired me a lot already.

At the moment I'm also (re)reading Musicophilia (Oliver Sacks), This is your brain on music (Daniel Levitin), The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafón - really beautiful so far) and How did I get so busy (Valorie Burton - perfect title, isn't it? ;))

Anyway, just let me know if you think we should add any of this to the next few months... and you probably have some of your titles to add! Do you want to come up with a list for 2011?

I'm getting Brida from the library tomorrow. Excited to read it again! It'll be my first time in Dutch, haha.