When Not Good Enough is More Than Enough

"A thousand times I've failed

Still your mercy remains

Should I stumble again

Still I'm caught in your grace

Everlasting, you light will shine when all else fades"

hello there,

I have had the most discouraging of days, weeks, months, years. I'm being slightly melodramatic, yes, but the idea sticks. Most of my discouragement manifests itself around one particular aspect of my life. But when one thing brings you down, suddenly you find fault in all the other aspects of your life. And one weakness suddenly cripples your ability to believe you're good at anything. 

My university experience has been, to say the least, not entirely the most positive experience of my life. Now, it has not, in any way, shape or form, been negative, but positive is surely not a word I am going to use to describe my time at university. It has been four of the most overwhelmingly stressful years, plagued by insecurities, uncertainties, and a complete lack of direction. Not really the theme you want to inherit when attempting to find a course for the entire rest of your life. 

As the four years have drawn on, my discouragement has only increased, as I lost my will to put forth the energy, commitment, and attention into each and every reading, course,  and assignment, I couldn't shake the feeling that I wasn't good enough to do any of the things I wanted to do. In the past few weeks, the most recent one in particular, I was crippled by the overwhelming anxiety that I was, most definitely not good enough. Not just in terms of my education, but as a friend, with my job, at pursuing my passions, basically every aspect of my life. 

And then it dawned on me. 

I really wasn't good enough. 

Why People In Social Services "Hate" Their Job

hello there,

I've heard it many times. Countless times over the years as I chose the field of work I would study at university and again and again after I entered that field of work and again and again as I continued studying it at university. 

"Why would you want to be a social worker, they're horrible"

"Why do you want to work with youth, they're rude and disrespectful?"

"Why do would want to work in social services, they all hate their jobs?"

And I get why you think that, I thought that myself for a time, and after years in social services I realize that it is our fault you think that way. Well, sort of. Not really. You see, people think that social workers, youth workers, etc., are horrible people who hate their jobs because they have to deal with horrible people who are horrible to them because they're lead to believe it's true. But the truth is, social workers, youth workers, etc., are broken people who have a broken job and work with broken people who challenge them because we live in a broken world. 

Albeit within social services, workers work with difficult people that have the power to bring out the worst in their workers, but that's just part of the job. I for one, know I am guilty in creating the stereotype the world has come to believe of social services workers. And the truth is we do it, because after a hard day, it's the easiest thing to do. 

You hear us complain. You hear us talk out our ill frustrations towards the people we work with. You hear our anger. You hear our resentment. And it makes sense why you think we hate our job. Because the truth is, we do. We hate that our jobs exist. We hate that there is a job for us to go to everyday. We work because our world is broken. And so, you hear us talk about the things that are easy. Because not only is it easier for us to talk about, it's easier for you to understand. 

Because looking at the swollen bruises of a young man's face, bruises that caused his eyes to be closed and bloodshot, bruises that were placed there by the young man's father, simply because he had no love for his son, aren't easy things to talk about. 

Because we don't want to relive the conversation we had with the young girl who told us that a member of her family sits her down on the couch every morning and makes her watch him masturbate. 

Because we want to pretend we didn't just cry for an hour with a girl, merely a child herself, who had just lost her unborn child and begged us to explain to her why god doesn't love her. 

Because we don't have an explanation for the young boy who can't understand why his mom chose her abusive boyfriend over her only child. 

Because no matter how many cries we pray, we still see the people we love chose drugs over salvation and watch them slowly recede before our very eyes as they turn into people we can't even recognize and we have to realize that our love isn't enough for them. 

Because we love the young men who beat and abuse the women in their lives because that is the only "love" they have ever know. 

Because when you hear sad stories, you think 'what a shame', and you move on. When we hear sad stories, we see faces, and we go to work and we meet with them.

So you may believe that we hate our jobs, and there are countless days we do. But sometimes the thing we hate most about our job, is how much we love it. 

-m.o

Dear Moms/Sincerely, Your Future Daughter

hello there,

I've been perplexed in light of recent events, and in a matter of a few sentences I will, without a doubt, be treading in some fairly deep and stormy waters. Now, first and foremost I want to make it clear that I am not a mom, I am not becoming one in the near future, I don't claim to know anything about being a mom, I'm not belittling the job of being a mom, I think there is nothing more remarkable and beautiful than being a mom, I love moms, I have the best one, my sister is a mom and she's one of my favorite humans on the planet and watching her grow as a mom brings me great joy and fills me with the utmost amount of respect for what it means to be a mom. I think that the passion that moms have is the strongest form of human resiliency known to man kind. 

I especially love when moms stand up for something they believe in. Conviction is one of the greatest leaders of social change and empowerment. Conviction towards a certain topic is what drives people to do extraordinary things and make influencial change to better our world. And the purpose of this blog post is not to question the topics of the issues and concerns moms are fighting for. I am however questioning the topics that we, as women, as a whole, aren't fighting for. 

In light of recent events involving the debates of public breast feeding I have once again been reminded of the power moms have to facilitate social change. If you get enough moms together I know there is nothing they can't do together. Moms are just that good. And while I think breast feeding is a beautiful, natural and intimate exchange between a woman and her child it doesn't strike me as the greatest social concern we, as women, have. Now I am by no means belittling those women who's strong convictions have lead them to bring this to the public eye, in fact I encourage them, because as we've seen there has in fact been a change of heart of the misspoken individual involved. This is important. When the voices of people gather they will be heard. In this instance the situation has been flooding blogposts around the continent, meaning many more voices will hear the concerns of the people. So I am not discouraging moms from taking these stands, but I am challenging them to take it a step further, not necessarily with this particular example, but with other topics that women suffer because of. Imagine if all the people out there debating this topic started raising awareness regarding other issues that are devastating our society.

You see while moms take to social media to have their voices heard in regards to issues surrounding parenting and being a mom, there are even more voices not being heard. And those are the voices of your daughters. So although advocating for your right to nurse in public is a valid debate, it's not one that the child in your arms is going to be concerned with in the next two decades of her life. I'm not suggesting you stop advocating these rights, I'm hoping, no asking, no begging that you could take this energy, this passion, this drive, this zeal, and take it a step further, because although there will be a day where your daughter is nursing in public and some uneducated person is going to comment on it, there will be scenarios in your daughters life far more detrimental to her existence, and you, her mom, can play a role in changing that, so that things like breast feeding in public could be her biggest concern. 

Because although there will possibly be a day where your daughter calls you saying some jerk told her to cover up while she was nursing your grandchild, there's going to be other concerns weighing much more heavily on her, and it's these concerns that I hope you driven moms can direct your passion towards because if society continues on as it is, being asked to cover up will be the least of your daughters concerns. 

For instance,

While your son is working in manual labour, making $20-$30 for 14 weeks every summer to pay for university, your daughter will be selling her body to customers ordering side salads with dressing on the side in her most desperate attempt to make a few extra bucks in waitressing tips on top of the minimum wage she's making every hour of every weekend of every week of the year just to put herself through university. 

And while attaining a degree equivalent to that of your son, your daughter will then (try to) enter the work force and if she's lucky enough to even to get a job, she will be making 70 cents to every dollar her male "equals" will make. 

Or how about the fact that your flawless, innocent, beautiful little baby girl will one day grow up and believe that she's fat. It won't matter what shape or size her body is. She will. Without a doubt. At some point in her life she will look into a mirror and say "I'm fat". And in that moment there will be absolutely nothing you can say or do to convince her otherwise. 

Or how about that little angel of yours, who as a child is going to want to grow up to become a marine biologist, or a doctor, or professional athelete? Cause one day she's going to realize that it's not cool to take science classes; and that because she's a woman she should be a nurse and not a doctor because she'll be expected to have kids and it's too hard to be a mom in med school; or how it wouldn't be a good idea to be a pro athlete because being strong is seen as being masculine and if people view her as masculine she won't be seen as a dainty woman and what man is going to love her then?

So you can stand outside restaurants and demand that one person's lack of understanding receive recognition or you could be standing outside the media companies, the businesses, the corporations, the institutions that will one day tear your daughter down and make her believe that she deserves less than the incredible things she is capable of achieving. You can stop society from believing that breast feeding in privacy is the only thing your daughter is capable of. 

Because if you can take that conviction and drive you have to advocate for your right to bare breast, then imagine what you could do for your daughter. Cause instead of your daughter simply sitting in some man's restaurant exercising her right to breast feed her child, or exercising her breasts in the restaurant to pay for college,

she could just own the restaurant...

-m.o

An Inspirational Nook & A Metaphorical Succulent

hello there,

it's been a while (does anyone who reads my blog watch Brooklyn Nine Nine? You know whenever someone says something unrelated and Jake responds by saying "the name of Amy's sex tape", that's what I think of every time I start one of my blogs with "it's been a while", because we all know this blog ain't seeing a whole lot of action (inappropriate joke, i know, i'll see myself out)(i'm going to hear about this)).

So...

Hometown Tourist | Othello Tunnels & Jones Lake

hello there,

It's me again, Maren Olivia. It's been a while (which is what my blog should actually be called...). I finished my semester, I'm still alive but I'm barely breathing (cue The Script lyrics). I'm excited to be back here with you kind folks, blogging, snapping, and rambling as I do. I've got some exciting things planned, mainly mini trips, which I plan to post here. I'm mostly excited to be back doing what I love, which is exploring new places and going back to places I love! The last few months have been an exhausting, mental grind and I'm ready for a change of scenery. Metaphorically, and literally.

As many of you may know, I have a thing for travel and exploration, in particular of the local variety. Meaning, I'm sort of a hometown tourist (you may remember this from my last hometown tourist blog). British Columbia is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and what it has to offer, is endless. There's no limit to its beauty which means there's no limit to what I can explore. This past week was no exception. I took full advantage of my school free week and took full advantage of what BC has to offer.

On Tuesday my dear friend Alicia and I decided to head out to Othello Tunnels in Hope, BC. For some reason I had never been so I figured it was a good place to start. Silly us though, we didn't check the conditions and unfortunately when we got there we learned that the tunnels were closed for bridge repairs. Fortunately we managed to explore around a bit and snap some pictures but we'll definitely be heading back to see the rest of the tunnels.

Because we didn't get to spend as much time at the tunnels as planned we had a few hours to spare.

Enter Jones Lake.

Othello being closed turned out to be a good thing because Jones Lake turned out to be an amazing thing.

Sorry.

Understatement of the year.

Jones Lake was one of the craziest things I had ever seen.

Stepping out of the car and walking down to the lake was like stepping in a post-apocalyptic alternate universe. Tree stumps growing out of slippery clay, surrounded by snow capped mountain ranges. But be weary of the drive up, you might want a 4x4 and not a '96 Honda Accord. I can't do the beauty justice in words, or even in photographs, so just take my word for it and go!

It was a great day of exploration, even in the misty rain, and I'm so excited to share with you my next adventures! Make sure to keep up with this blog for a summary of my trip to D'Arcy, BC this past Friday and my upcoming trip to Pemberton this week. For updates make sure to follow me on my social media (Instagram: @itsmarenolivia, Twitter @marenolivia, Snapchat @itsmarenolivia)

happy exploring!

-m.o

P.S. if you have any recommendations of places I should go this summer please leave a comment bellow and give me some ideas!

[MarenOlivia in the Kitchen] gluten free, grain free, egg free, dairy free, sugar free blueberry muffins

hello there,

Yesterday morning I woke up far earlier than was necessary, and thought to myself,

"wow, it's been almost two years since I've eaten a blueberry muffin, I'm gonna make some blueberry muffins". 

*goes online and finds zero recipes for gluten free, grain free, egg free, dairy free, banana free muffins*

And so I decided,

"I'm going to make my own blueberry muffin recipe"

So I jumped out of bed and headed to the kitchen.

First step: start cooking some quinoa. I've learned over the last year that cooked quinoa makes for a fantastic and moist baking replacement (if you're into baking that doesn't rise in the oven that is...). Then I thought to myself, 

"OH! I should blog about this, this is totally the type of thing people blog about"

*grabs camera and takes a picture of seeds boiling in water*

Things were getting wild.

After grabbing a bowl full of frozen blueberries from the deep freeze I made my way to the pantry to scope out what potentially usefulless ingredients I could use. Pecans? Oh sure, why not. Coconut flour? Ya, it's probably a good idea to put some form of flour in baking. Gluten Free Rolled Oats? Take it out, just in case. 

Back to the kitchen.

Butter? Duh, all good baking requires butter. Coconut milk? Well I'm like 90% sure you usually put milk in muffins sooo... check! Maple Syrup? The answer is always just, YES. 

Let the  baking begin! Made the odds be ever in your favor. Hunger Games Level: "Maren versus Muffins".

While the quinoa was cooking (now if you don't know how to cook quinoa it's easy; 2 parts water to 1 part quinoa, bring water to boil, add quinoa, bring temperature to a simmer) I took to the trusty kitchen aid, where after microwaving the frozen butter I beat it up in the mixer till it was soft and very much not frozen anymore (now I'm not entirely sure where the jury stands on butter as a dairy product, for the purpose of these muffins I have decided butter is not a dairy product. However if this doesn't coincide with your personal beliefs I suggest making up your own recipe because as far as I'm concerned the only thing worse than gluten, grain, dairy, egg, sugar, banana free muffins is gluten, grain, dairy, egg, sugar, banana, and butter free muffins). Then I added the milk and maple syrup. Really I should have super precise measurements but to be honest, I just did what felt right. Next I added the coconut flour, and in hindsight, I'm not entirely sure why I did because honestly I put so little in, I'm not sure if it had any effect on the muffins what so ever. Then I mixed everything again. I'm no professional baker but I think theres like a limit to how many times you beat batter and I think I had already exceeded it. Next I added baking soda and baking flour. Why you ask? Well again, I'm not too sure, but it just seemed like something you always add to baking and while I hadn't really used any flour and wasn't sure what I was expecting the baking soda and powder to assist rise, I added it anyway. Then I added a dash of salt. Now, this is optional, I did it because for some reason every single recipe known to humans includes "a dash of salt" (at least), regardless of the fact that if you don't add the "dash of salt" your baking tastes absolutely no different than if you had added it. But nonetheless, I added "a dash of salt". 

*Beat it again*

Now I was pretty content with how things were going and looking. My quinoa was finally done cooking and the rest of my batter was ready (or as ready as this made up concoction was going to be). I added the cooked quinoa to the batter and yep, you guessed it, I beat it again. Now came the time to add the blueberries and pecans. I had previously smashed the pecans while I was waiting for the quinoa so they were ready to go. Next I added the blueberries. NOW, here's an important little life hack for you all. If you add blueberries to cooked quinoa or if you add frozen blueberries to batter and then beat them (okay if you add any fruit to batter and beat it in a mixer) it will turn your batter blue. Spoiler Alert: blue batter turns slight grey when you cook it... So i suggest letting your quinoa cool, using fresh blueberries, and stirring with a spatula as opposed to beating if you don't want to have blue batter. Unless of course you're into the whole mutilation, murder, and cannibalizing of smurfs, then, by all means, mix away!

I felt that at this point my batter was ready. I filled the muffin tins with little muffin liners, I had preheated the oven to 375 degrees, and I filled my muffin tins just to the top of the muffin liner, keeping in mind my muffins were not going to rise. I sprinkled a little oats and sugar on the top of the muffins for aesthetic effects (again, keeping with the trend, there was no formal reasoning behind this, I just did it). Then I popped them in the oven and let the waiting game begin. Because I didn't really know what I was waiting for I ended up checking on the muffins basically every five minutes. They ended up staying in there for about 30 minutes, but to be honestly I can't entirely remember how long they were in the oven for. Definitely somewhere within that 20-30 minute mark. Now keep in mind, when you're cooking with quinoa it doesn't pass the toothpick test because it's too moist. So just follow your heart, maybe pray about it a little bit. 

Now I'll be honest, I get about 95% of my recipes online from blogs. They're easy to find and free. However, they all follow this really weird framework which includes multiple fancy photos of the exact same things from different angles, staged in a way which makes you wondering if that's how people actually eat their food. And then intertwined within these fancy photos is a long write up about the food and perhaps how the flavours were first brought together while vacationing in Tuscany and it was the most genius thing to grace their oral pallet since before Martha Stewart went to prison so my, oh my, they just had to tell us all about it. But really what you want is the recipe and nothing else so, like me, you just scroll down through what feels like an infinite number of photos just to get to said recipe only to find out it's absolutely not what you were wanted. Well, if that's happened to you before then I apologize cause it's probably happing again. Don't worry. The muffins are edible. Okay, I need to stop calling them muffins. "Crumbly Pucks" is probably a better term. They don't taste great but they don't taste terrible. If you have as many allergies as I do, these muffins are probably about as good as it's going to get. So without further adieu  here is my recipe for Gluten Free, Grain Free, Egg Free, Sugar Free, Banana Free, With Butter, Blueberry Pecan Muffins:

Oven Temp: 375
Makes: 2 dozen muffins (that are the size of a WagonWheel) (the treat not an actual wagon wheel)
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 20-30 minutes

Ingredients:

3 cups Cooked Quinoa (I think next time I'll just do 2)

1 cup Butter

3 tablespoons Maple Syrup (I think next time I'll add 4)

1/4 cup Coconut Milk (I think next time I'll add 1/3 or 1/2 cup)

1/2 cup Coconut Flour (I think next time I'll add 1 cup)

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

"Dash Of Salt"

Blueberries (don't know how much)

Crushed Pecans (again, don't know how much)


To Prepare:

reread my entire blog post cause I pretty much explain it all there, but to summarize;

Beat all the ingredients together.

-m.o

March Playlist

hello there,

here's a little playlist I randomly decided to put together to kick off the month of march

enjoy!

-m.o

Listen to the full playlist on my SoundCloud here: March Playlist)

10 Reasons You NEED To Go Travelling

hello there,

Travel. The type of travel I'm going to talk about isn't the five star, all inclusive, one week holidays we take with our families. I'm talking about travelling travel. The live out of a back pack, different hostel every few days, new country every week, see the world kind of travel.

There are 7 continents, 5 oceans, 196 countries, 2,469,501 cities, over 600,000 towns, and 7,125,000,000 people in the world. You are one of those seven billion people living in one of those three million towns or cities in one of those 196 countries on one of those seven continents.

If that's not reason enough to persuade you to travel, then perhaps these reasons will;

Supreme Court Rules on "Dying With Dignity"

hello there,

Today the Supreme Court of Canada legalized Physician Assisted Suicide (also known as Dying With Dignity). And while much of the nation is cheering, my heart is breaking. There's multiple angles I could take in discussing this extremely controversial topic and just writing this makes me uncomfortable, let alone posting it. For the purpose of keeping this blog post short(er) I'm going to look at this from two different perspective. (A) being what does this say about our faith in God and (B) what does this mean about our progression towards a better discourse concerning mental health.

Bits & Pieces | Fear

hello there,

I had the most peculiar of experiences the other day. I had taken my horse for a ride down the road, as I do at least twice a week, when all of the sudden he came to a sliding halt and threw his head in the air. My body flung forward with the change of momentum, as his metal shoes scraped across the concrete road. Immediately he started snorting and had spun around and bolted before I even had the chance to do something. Within two or three leaps he had managed to cover the distance of about 20 meters, right down someone's driveway. At this point he stopped bolting but continued bucking, throwing his hair in the air, spinning, all the while trying to bolt. Sensibly, I saw the best option as dismounting because I figured I either choose to get off then and there or leave it too late and fall off. From the safety of the ground I continued to hold on with all my strength, knowing full well the only place he wanted to go was home. At this point his body had gone rigid and he was shaking from head to tail. If anyone has ever seen a mammoth animal that stands on 4 spindly, awkwardly long legs shake, you know that it looks like they're going to fall over at any moment. He was so terrified I could actually see his heart beating. His snorts were deafening.

I looked around to determine what had caused this abrupt panic in my always calm horse (I kid you not, he's wild in his stall, wild in the ring and field at times, but never is he anything but calm and relaxed on the road). I saw nothing that could have been a threat. So, my knowledge of horses led me to consider the quality of their sense of smell. Yes. It had to be that. My worst nightmare had finally come true. Obviously he smelt a cougar in the bush and we were about to die. It was the only logical explanation I could think of. But as I stood there, on that person's driveway, trying to calm him down, he would not, could not, stop staring at the field across the road. And then I realized what had scared him.

Why I Quit Blogging

hello there,

For those of you that have followed along with my blog since the beginning, about a year ago, you'll have realized that it has been plagued by inconsistency. It started out relatively strong but it quickly faded and died. This saddens me because I actually love to write and when I did write it was greeted with positive feedback. I'm ready to turn over a new leaf now though, but first I need to share why I quit blogging.

I hate confrontation and I hate creating controversy. I like making people happy. The majority of the blogs I came across were eloquently written with flashy images. Their topics were often written by those well educated on the subject. The content seemed to always revolve around healthy eating, married life, fashion and beauty, or parenting. Great topics, zero relevance to me (except the healthy eating thing, I like food but I have too many allergies to count so I know where to find my recipes) (Okay and maybe the fashion and beauty stuff but I'm too broke to buy clothes and too lazy to wear make up). I got discouraged by this because I figured if this was all the content on blogs it was because that's what people want to read. But it wasn't what I wanted to write. It wasn't me. So I stopped.

Why?

An Actual Honest Blog About Gluten

hello there,

It's become a bit of a fad, hasn't it? Gluten free this and gluten free that. Gluten free people living their gluten free lives.

It's a gluten filled world and we're all just living in it.

Turning The Page On 2014

hello there,

It's 2015.

Two thousand and fifteen. 

Another year has come and gone. Today marks the beginning of something new.