What's Cookin: Treats from the Southern Coast of Cambodia!

Now this is what I call a meal! Stir-fried Calamari with Green Kampot Pepper! served with Crab-fried Rice, yum!

Reality Check: No one is perfect 100% of the time..

Just for Laughs!

My Thought of the Day

The Healing Power of Love: It feeds and warms the soul...

As of late, it has been harder to open up and life’s tremulous affairs of the heart have made me into a bit of an ice queen. Call it a defense mechanism if you will, but honestly I hate labeling people and shuffling them off into nice and tidy corners. So, naturally I don't care for being labeled myself, because it places limits on what I can achieve. Life is complicated and challenging enough without placing undue burden unnecessarily.   But I am the first to recognize my own limitations and shortcomings, I have become fearful and not particularly demonstrative person when it comes to love, but more and  more I have  learnt to accept and love myself, the easier it has become to vocalize to others how much I care for them. These days I get a real buzz out of sharing my love openly and courageously. I use the word courageously because I know only too well how scary it can be so open with your love but my experience with it has shown me that the rewards are totally worth it.

I hope that my post will inspire you to possibly begin vocalizing your love more and maybe even writing some love letters. Might I suggest that you start by writing one to yourself? Keep in mind that you may very well find that it will be hardest to write one to yourself, because it was a challenge for me, and I barely managed to start mine but I'm working on it. Writing love letters to other people by comparison feels naturally free flowing. 

It seems like a natural part of human interaction to express ones feelings, I soon realized that I could have quite easily gone my whole life without letting those closest to me know just how important they are to me and how much I love them. 

If writing isn't your forte, then why not just randomly tell your loved ones? Trust me, it feels great and you might find you even get a hang of it.

Lost's Reflection: I am very lucky to have people in my life who tell me that I am loved and appreciated and reminded daily how special I am. In writing this post and most importantly something someone very special shared with me hit home and got me thinking that I don’t tell people often enough when they have had a positive impact on my life. I’m working on changing that. So, it’s a personal challenge of mine to be more assertive and share my thoughts and feelings more openly with those I am closest to. I do not want to waste another day or let another second go by without telling them how much they have enriched my life and impacted my day with their love and compassion. Oh, yes one more thing, '"I love you!"" 

Reality Check: Such A Beautiful Disaster!

Day 3, I have always considered myself fairly level headed, but lord almighty even I have had to pause a moment or two to gather my thoughts and regain my composure at various moments during my ever consuming day. Life in general has been for the most part smooth sailing and has always offered an abundance of limitless possibilities, except of course for the isolated bump in the road. I am what you would call an unconventional thinker, a creative doer, not a mindless follower, but it does tend to get tiring a and even cumbersome at times, because the reality of it all is some days you would rather just blend into the crowd rather than stick out like a sore thumb. 

These past couple of days has been, let us say, a challenge for me personally. I have come face to face with a few my deepest and darkest fear. In attempts to connect someone special on a more personal and three dimensional realm, it has become necessary to delve into the past.  For before we can move forward we must understand where we are and how we got here. So, for the sake of clarity, I have revisited some skeleton that I had previously allowed to lay dormant. I have always held back from being too forthcoming in the initial getting to know you phase of any relationship, but with '"him'", I have had this overwhelming desire to keep no secrets and to uphold honesty at all costs.  My past is as much a part of who I am today as are my hopes and dreams for the future. 

Lost Endnotes: Shedding the layers that has long since shielded and guarded me has been a constant internal battle of sorts. I still struggle to break free from the doubt of openly expressing myself and sharing my feeling for fear of not having my feeling reciprocated. Though I find myself at odds with my ability to vocalise my feelings, I have no doubt of my ability to experience and share love. I am determined to break down these walls around my heart and allow for love to flow freely. I have faith and trust in '"him'" and I believe that we are  committed to moving forward and seeing where this path leads us. 

Moment in Time: If looks could kill!!!

Anders and Sokha in a stare down! Hmm what in the world is
happening here! Sokha is quite the eager subject, isn't she?

Though the morning itself was a challenge from the beginning with the overlapping of schedules, all in all the day turned out quite well. I am  beyond pleased with the outcome. 

The team weekly meetings are successful partly to the girl eagerness to learn and share information. Being that a few of the girls are heading back to classes and are not able to meet during the week, the girls and I decided that weekend meetings would be best. 

The CYWA Team wrapped another successful day with a field visit to put the new skills to the test. Anders and I thought it would be practical to take the girls out following the brief slideshow introductory presentation  on photography basics.  We are hoping that we will be able to make this into a regular undertaking especially since they all had so much fun with this topic. It will prove useful as well, I believe in widening their perspective and their overall ability to create usable photographic files for documenting project activities. 

Thank you again, girls for your continued collaborative work and support! Cheers!

Moment in Time: Happy September Birthday Girls!!!!

Happy September Birthday Girls!

Memories are what fill our lives and enrich an already abundant existence. It's been a complete honor and pleasure to support and guide this group of innovative and vibrant bunch of young ladies!!!

Oh, how we love our special times together and what fun times they are friends, fun, food! Not a bad combination at all!! Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and dreams with me. And most of all thank you for patiently collaborating with each other in order to ensure that the CYWA Team is a success!!! Cheers!            

Reality Check: Over-thinking the new buzzkill!

Day 2 of my journey to a co-dependency free life. So far so good, the days been eventless and my attempt to wean people from this debilitating sense of dependency has been successful thus far. I have not met up with any major resistance or objections so far. Actually, I am holding my breathe, because things seem awfully calm in the normally turbulent waters of what I like to call my 2nd home. Being that I do spend a great deal of time here, maybe even more than I do at home with my family and friends which maybe is the next thing I would like to address. 

I know what you are thinking. Why in the world are you getting ahead of the situation. Enjoy the silence if you will as it stands. I know I shouldn't over-think and make things complicated when it doesn't need to be. But a part of me is a bit surprised how easy it has been. I was expecting a lot of resistance, but maybe I didn't vocalise myself and allowed the situation to get out of hand before. So, it's partly my fault I believe for not being more assertive. 

In retrospect, people are more capable than you initially give them credit for and things always have a way of working themselves out even with little effort and a lot of motivation. Because in the end I believe that we all want to succeed and accomplish things on our own. Nothing is better than being able to recognise your own achievements. So, the next time consider whether what you are doing is really helping the situation or maybe you are actually doing a disfavor. Most codependent relationships, the enabler contributes to the growing dependency and essentially encourages the abnormal relationship by creating an environment where it can prosper unchallenged. I have inadvertently empowered them to help themselves rather than depending on my assistance solely.  

Lost's Endnotes: Don't over-think the situation and allow your imagination to run wild, because if you allow it to, you will quite possibly twist a situation out of proportion whereby adding stress unnecessarily.  So, if you find yourself face to face with the temptation to '"take it and run with it'", don't!!!! Learn to accept a situation at face value and not to compound it by creating an alternative reality based on fear and doubt. Either way you can not control the outcome, but you can control how you react to any given situation. Respect yourself and preserve your sanity! 

Reality Check: Better luck next time!

Sue me I am not in a chipper mood today! 

Day 1 of my journey to a co-dependent free life. The day started off a bit rough and I did meet up with a few unpleasant and slightly awkward situations with a colleague, but overall no complaints that I couldn't live with. Still sorting task outs and trying to rearrange my schedule keeping in mind items that are earmarked as clear priorities. I feel pretty confident that this will prove to be the best route to help me regain control of my life, because I seriously do not like the feeling of being out of control. Not that I don't like a little challenge, but certain things in life that should be should be consistent and inline. It is easy to be complacent and allow situations to become stagnant, but in the end it will either fester and become infected and eventually detach itself or worse you may find yourself in an explosive situation where you are jeopardizing your own sanity and/or your job, because let's face it one can only handle so much stress before one explodes leaving behind a pile of rubble. So, being proactive and exercising some assertive measures has proven to be the most productive and positive way to invoking change for the better. Yay, me!

Lost's Endnote: At the end of the day, you can sometimes only please one person and it might as well be you! Love and respect yourself enough to stand up for yourself and preserve your own sanity above all else!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                                                      -Lost n Vicious Reality