Monday, December 22, 2008

It’s still here!

It’s been a LONG time since we had snow on the ground for a week straight. We’re sure having fun with it though! Here are a few more pictures:

Even hats are picking up windblown snow these days

Meet Larry, our neighbors new kitten. He doesn’t seem to mind the snow at all, but he’s only 4 months old. That might change.

Larry is very friendly.

This shoveling job doesn’t look like much, but it represents 40 minutes of work.

Happy (more) snow day

The softest thing on earth
overtakes the hardest thing on earth.
The non-existent overtakes even that
which has no interstices.
From this one recognizes the value of non-action.

-- Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, verse 43

Sunday, December 21, 2008

The great snow of 2008

Despite the dire predictions we are warm and with power. Here are a few pictures from our snowy house on the hill.

The kittens spend most of their days inside; occasionally we find evidence of their trips into the snow

This is one of my favorite houses in the neighborhood. It looks especially nice in the snow.

The extent of our holiday decorations, and only because Nick got this in the white elephant gift exchange on Friday

We braved the roads to go to North Bend’s outlet mall yesterday afternoon. We returned home just as the storm started to roll in.

I sent Nick to the store in the middle of the storm for more soy sauce. He snapped this picture of our street on the way.

The main road between Redmond and Kirkland isn’t much better.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Meditation - Days 3 & 4

I’m checking in to let you all know that my meditation experiment is still going strong. I just haven’t had much time to write in the last few days thanks to finals. (I’ll be done on Friday. Yay!)

Saturday’s meditation was a bit of a challenge. I thought I would have 15 minutes to meditate in the morning before going to school to study, but Nick’s dad (who was sharing a ride with Nick and me to Seattle that morning) arrived at our house earlier than I expected. I ended my meditation after only 3 minutes. Not thinking that was long enough, I committed to finding time later in the day. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to meditate again until right before bed. True to my promise though, I set the timer for 5 minutes and did it. Whew!

Sunday was the complete opposite; I had a lovely 15 minute meditation – my longest yet! I spent the first 5 minutes centering my mind and the last 10 minutes in mindful meditation, just focusing on my breath.

Before starting, I thought a bit about the boredom problem, specifically when and why I get bored. When I get bored is easy to pinpoint: it happens when I start to crave some new experience (something other than focusing on my breath) or when my attention is no longer distracted by something (and I can’t invent a distraction). When I’m not distracted or can’t find a new experience, I get bored.

The more important question, probably, is whether I should do anything about it. As a society we don’t value “slack time” very much, but embracing slack time and the resultant boredom is probably good for me. If I can’t tune into my own boredom without trying to make it go away, how can I expect to become sensitive to my other emotions and feelings? Winning the little battle against boredom in order to feel good in the moment then is a limited strategy. Like a long-term investor, I should probably just ride the ups and downs without getting too neurotic about it.

So, what to do? I’m going to continue my commitment to the 30 days of meditation (bored or not) and simply pay attention to the quality of the experience – without judgment or the desire to change it.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

It’s time for Christmas music

To avoid having my blog get hijacked by notes and thoughts about meditation, I thought I’d share a little Christmas music. It’s not your traditional version of The Nutcracker, but it’s worth a watch. These guys are something else, especially Greg Pattillo, the flautist.