#12

I weeded our garden area and the dirt looks fresh, ready for some plants. We have six empty pots sitting on our doorstop, prepped for flowers. But we do not right now have the resources for plants. I am grateful for this, because it make you pray for things like free plants, and also because it makes you think things to yourself, like how clever of a crime it would be to go out at night with a shovel and steal all your neighbors' plants.

Turns out such a thing was a regular occurrence in Russia - whenever the government would plant flowers, everyone would come and steal them, because they had no money to buy flowers of their own. The government stopped planting flowers, which is sort of a sad resolution.

#7, 8, 9, 10, 11

(in Utah on our drive across the country)

A two month hiatus, but I am grateful for...

-How quiet our new apartment is, and that there are trees outside our living room window so it looks like we live in a park, and that there is a window above our kitchen sink just like I wanted, and that there are pink flowers on the tree outside our bathroom window which is a nice decorative touch I hadn't counted on.
-Living somewhere with a washer and dryer. Doing laundry has become a bit of an obsession.
-The furniture we were able to find to fill our space, all of it affordable and lovely. My favorite is the wingback chair I described here.
-The excitement of starting a new grad program, and how good I anticipate the program being.
-The fact that, in the midst of what feels like a million transitions, I have my husband, a constant friend with whom I can experience these adjustments, and who helps me to enjoy and laugh at this time. Also, he's pretty cute. I'm grateful for that.

Desk space

Desk: Ikea

Hydrangeas: the garden of Emily Jansen

Little flowered box: my grandma's sewing box

Little lamp: goodwill

Little ceramic pencil cup: the pottery talents of Chelsea White

Number of things that are new...

I am writing this post from our rust colored, blue flowered wingback chair. That is one of the new things. I love it.

It has been just over three weeks since we left California, 17 days since we arrived in Virginia, and 15 days since we moved into our apartment. We are blessed to say that our journey went off without a hitch, and that we have had so many of our needs and wants provided for us as we have been settling in.

We spent the first week without a car, which made settling in quite difficult, and made me begin to get desperate. The day before we ran out of food, not only did our smart car passes arrive, but we finally purchased a car. A cute 2010 Hyundai Sonata. This car has so far successfully transported one rather large bookshelf and several pieces of IKEA furniture -- all hanging out of the tied-down trunk. The chair we purchased certainly would not have fit in the car, but I happened to find it less than a mile from our place, and the next door neighbor happened to have a truck that she put the chair in to follow us to our home, and the rain waited until we got the chair inside before it let loose. I think these details are important to recount.

Tomorrow I start orientation, and we are celebrating by today making fresh ginger ice cream. We also took a nice walk to Theodore Roosevelt Island, and puttered around in Georgetown yesterday. We had to take advantage of the few days of summer not pressured by moving.

I am also somewhat alarmed to say that we had a visitor in our kitchen the other night who must have been one of Chester's distant cousins -- yes, a cockroach. There was some screaming, but the husband was calm and trapped him and we let him outside. Time to be vigilant in cleaning our kitchen and keeping foodstuffs sealed.

Things I miss about California: price of avocados, dry heat, open spaces
Things I like about Virginia: George Washington Parkway (trees, shade, the Potomac), the drive into Georgetown,  friends from San Diego who have moved here

Twenty-five

 We had a nice weekend celebrating my birthday. My parents came up earlier in the week, helped with some packing and took me to lunch at the Rialto Cafe. On Friday, Alex took me on a picnic to a lovely park, and then to the melting pot for chocolate-caramel-sea-salt dipping deliciousness dessert. On Saturday we packed and feasted on the lemon birthday cake treated to us by my parents from Beverly's Best. On Sunday evening we saw Harry Potter 7 p.2 with two good friends.  All in all, a relaxing break from all the moving stresses we have been wrestling with. Now to find a way to make sure none of that cake goes to waste....

Peace

Alex and I are moving across the country in T minus 17 days, and are in the midst of searching for an apartment and a job, selling our car and purchasing a new one, and preparing all of our possessions to be packed on to a Uhaul, which means that our house is in progressive states of disassembly. I cannot say that these last few days have been without their moments of panic or tears, but at the same time, I am confident that our God will provide for us what we need when we need it.

Color-arian-ism.

Yesterday at work we were talking about all the different "-isms" and "-arians" when it comes to food --- vegetarian,  pescetarianism, veganism, raw foodies, etc. There are even some fruitarians who only will eat what falls off the tree!

I was wondering if maybe I should start my own branch -- colorarianism. Colorarians will only eat foods with lots and lots of color. Hence, the salad above.

Saturday

Last week and weekend I ran around like a crazy woman. From Thursday to Monday I worked Baccalaureate and Graduation, went to a wonderful all day book and supper club hosted by our friends Mark and Carri, hosted a bridal shower with my friends Jamie and Amy, and had a Bachelorette party which ended in a sleepover where all of us decided we are too old for sleepovers since our sleep habits are both particular and sensitive ("I can't sleep with a fan!" "I need white noise to sleep!" "I feel claustrophobic!" "This room is too bright!"). I don't think I fell asleep until after 5 a.m. Fortunately, you don't need much sleep to enjoy coffee and pancakes with your friends in the morning.

This weekend is much more laid back. This morning we read, worked, drank coffee, had yogurt and muesli for breakfast. Today I am planning on doing a little shopping for our Hawaii trip, which we leave for next Saturday. Tonight we are going to a cocktail party at our friends' apartment up in L.A., for which I made these. Tomorrow we have church, and after are planning to come back and hopefully nap and read this, which I checked out for vacation but now think I will have finished before then.

#6 - ducks

They are one of the things that never fail to make me cheerful, as they plod around the Biola campus.

Sometime last year, as I walking towards the main administrative building on campus, I heard a panicked quacking. I saw a mother duck, looking down over a big curb where her many little ducklings were trapped and too small to hop over the curb like she had! It was sort of heart-breaking...later I found out that a team of staff from Metzger had come out and helped all the baby ducks over the curb to their mom. Community at its finest.

When I walk across campus every morning, I often see a duck or two out in the middle of Metzger lawn, just taking its morning walk or nesting in the grass. Today when I got to my car there were two ducks waddling around the parking lot. Question: is it strange how happy they make me?

#5 - colorful china

#4 - Quiet

Life has been busy this week.  Between Alex working to launch a new business, sharing the car multiple days, a couple of visits with friends, meetings at work, and a failed early morning swimming adventure (turns out the pool was closed. Not what you want to find out after dragging yourself out of bed and having convinced yourself that it's a good idea to hurl your body into cold water...), we are tired. This morning as I was driving to work I heard a thumping noise, immediately recognized it as a flat tire, and so pulled over and awaited the arrival of AAA before heading on to work. I was just grateful that the tire had lasted my drive to and from Pasadena where I had visited a friend the night before.

Coupled with the busyness of this week is the fact that on Monday I gave a deposit to a graduate school, and so will be officially moving forward with a very new stage in life! All very exciting, and of course, causes me to jump into planning mode -- apartments, summer school, summer trips, weddings, parties, moving costs, and work transitions. Needless to say, thinking this far ahead, aside from not being entirely necessary, is also mentally exhausting.

So, at the end of a week like this one I am tired, have become easily irritated by others, and am distinctly aware of my inability to trust the God who loves me with the details of my life. BUT - I'm grateful for the rest I have this night. Alex is out with a friend and our house is quiet. I have a chance to read, to be and reflect. To watch silly shows. To lounge in my pajamas after a nice shower. Blessings in the form of quiet and being.

Easter (and #3)

Rainy day. Baked Oatmeal. Joyful church service. Family and friends to be with. And beautiful, sweet, red strawberries, sliced to be used in an Easter dessert (#3).

#2 - The roses blooming

...one in our backyard is about the size of my head. It catches me by surprise every time I see it.

#1 - Morning light

...shining through our dining room windows.

One hundred gifts

Ann Voskamp is a name you might not have heard before.  She is a farmer's wife who lives in Canada where she raises (and homeschools) her six children.  She is also the author of the book One Thousand Gifts, a book wherein she chronicles her journey towards living a full and joyful life, even when life is her life on the farm and will not (and should not) be anything more glamorous. She tells of her discovery that our gratitude for the many gifts God gives is key to our joy:  "Isn't it here? The wonder? Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it?..."

Ann begins to list out, until she reaches one thousand, the gifts she sees in daily life. I was impressed by her list, and impressed as I saw her joy and wonder grow while she captured even small glimpses of glory and beauty, including things that may seem silly, like the pile of freshly grated cheese on a pizza she was making --
"...Happy in all these things that God gives. Ridiculously happy over slips of cheese. That I am, and it's wild, and oh, I am the one who laughs. Me! Changed! Surprised by joy! 
Joy is the realist reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy."

I could go on about this book, but suffice it to say it has inspired me to begin a list of my own: one hundred gifts. I am one who all too often thinks only of what I do not have, and grasps for it. I miss the receiving part and think of only how to provide for myself, and so I miss God's provision to me in the present, and so I do not recognize His love and I forfeit joy. When I stop grasping and instead pause and take note of what has been given, maybe I will see that it is enough. At least that is what Ann saw.

What better place to post a few of these things than my blog? Point-and-shoot camera in hand, here begins a new series...

A New Favorite (2).

In case some of you haven't heard of it, I thought I would pass on the name of a design and furniture store which is a new favorite of mine:  West Elm.  Here are a few things from their website that caught my eye:

(all images from westelm.com)

Househunting

Since there is a chance that we might move, I have been on Craig's List, perusing the findings. Lest you think this premature (or perhaps it is), let me say that I am not searching to find anything, I am searching for fun. I'm sure at least some people can relate to the unexpected enjoyment of looking at real estate -- when I was in sixth grade, waiting for my Dad to finish work so we could go home after the school day (his work and my school were at the same place), I would sit on the computer, sometimes for hours, and look at homes in the area.

In the past year, I have perused Craig's List for apartments in Los Angeles, Pasadena, Fullerton, Chicago, Scotland, England, and New Hampshire -- anywhere I could imagine us living (okay, New Hampshire was just because I wanted to live somewhere with snow). The following are the priorities I have decided on for our next apartment. I will admit, it is ridiculously unlikely that a place with all these qualities exists:

-Good lighting. Bright. Sunny. Two windows in the living room, one in the kitchen (preferably above the sink).
-Hardwood floors. Old.
-Tall Ceilings. Maybe a little molding at the top.
-A nice color painted on the outside. Maybe not part of a huge complex.
-Kitchen counters with a square footage that exceeds (doubles? triples?) what we have now.
-WASHER AND DRYER
-Allows for a dog?

A new favorite

When searching for the perfect weeknight dinner, I have three criteria -- I would like for it to be healthy, it is great when it is relatively easy or speedy, and of course, it had better taste good. The below recipe meets all of these criteria, plus I think the cost of the ingredients is about $10 (depending on whether the chicken is on sale).  I love the flavor of the mango, the spicyness of the jalapeno, and how juicy the chicken stays from the steaming process. The first time I made this I added bell peppers, the second time I threw in some green beans -- you can add any vegetable you have on hand. I serve mine over brown rice, and add some fresh cilantro for extra flavor.

Chicken with Mango and Ginger

1 large mango, peeled, pitted, and cut into 1/4-inch wedges
8 chicken cutlets (about 1 3/4 pounds total)
1 piece fresh ginger (1 inch), peeled and cut into matchsticks
1/3 cup fresh cilanto leaves
1 medium jalapeno, thinly sliced
Course salt and ground pepper
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
Lime wedges, for serving

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place mango wedges in center of four 18-inch-long pieces of parchment (I used tin foil: it worked fine). Top with chicken, ginger, cilantro and jalapeno. Season with salt and pepper and drizzle each with 2 teaspoons oil. Fold parchment into a twist or envelope shape.

2. Place packets on a rimmed baking sheet and bake until packets are puffed up and chicken is cooked through, 18 to 20 minutes (mine took 25 minutes). Serve with lime wedges.

Leisure time

Oh the bliss of finally having free time again. No longer do I come home from work, make dinner, eat dinner and dive straight into portfolio work. Instead I...

-WATCH something fun on Hulu. Either the Bachelor or Grey's Anatomy. Yes, I know these shows are known for their relentless and admittedly insipid relational drama, but I still find that I have become wrapped up in them. Despite the predictable final scenes of each weekly series (The "roseless" girl mourns that she has not "found love" and contemplates which of her insecurities were the cause of her rejection and demise. Maybe if she just did a little math, she would realize that a 1 in 30 chance of being Brad's match should not have left her with much hope, and that trying to find love in these circumstances is not going to be good for her emotional health!), I still need to know who Brad is going to choose. Grey's Anatomy remains interesting because of their wacky medical scenarios and emergency surgeries, most of which, I admit, make me think I understand more about medicine then I really do (this "knowledge" is fine as long as you keep it to yourself. But when you start telling a friend the amazing qualities of the liver which regrows itself after you transplant half and she replies "Did you learn that on Grey's Anatomy?")

-KNIT 4 rows on the blanket I am working on. Get up and do something else because I have the attention span of a gopher, and because I always feel like knitting is something I can only do when everything else is done, and I inevitably remember something else to do while I am knitting.

-COOK or bake something fun. Currently -- loving making pizzas, like this one:

(Sweet Potato and Brie Flatbread, Realsimple.com)

Also, as an appropriate response to the rain last weekend, I made these cookies.

-READ. I just finished the latest book for our supper club, Philip Roth's The Ghostwriter -- a writer writing about a writer admiring another writer. No but really, I enjoyed this book, though it was slow moving in its plot it was easy to read and I think offers a lot for reflection. I look forward to discussing it with the other 7 attendees of the sup club (which is tomorrow! yay!) I am also reading The Hidden Life: Thoughts on Communion with God by Adolph Saphir. Only two chapters in, this book has already proven to be instructive and encouraging for me.

-CLEAN. I really enjoy when I have enough free time to leisurely make our house a little more presentable. I realized this past week, when I looked around our living room and noticed the growing number of stacks of miscellaneous items, that my priorities have shifted. Yes, I still love a clean house, but during the week I can somehow turn a blind eye to the three stacks of books on our coffee table that would normally drive me crazy. As long as the dishes are clean and the bed has been made, I can live with a little more clutter during the week.

But to take 30 minutes to go around and put things in their proper places, to have CLEAN surfaces, mirrors without spots, and an empty dish-rack? Luxury.

Of late...

Part of my blogging hiatus is due to the fact that I have been working hard on an application for an interior design master's program. This included creating a portfolio that would show my basic skills for sketching, illustrator, indesign and photography. Hence the above photos. (The tie-in theme for my portfolio was books -- all this english major knows!)

It's amazing how when you are immersed in one creative project you have very little energy for anything else creative -- especially when the project is a big stretch/entirely new to you, requiring all of your energy but producing very little work to show for it (I think 85% of the work I did was useless). Anyways, blog ideas = pretty much absent. Creative cooking? Let's stick to recipes. I didn't even have the energy to care what I wore to work, so I pretty much stuck with wearing neutrals every day.

I feel a little bit like I am coming out of a cave, shaking my head to get rid of tunnel vision, etc. etc.  :)

New

It was time. Wordpress was a friendly host to my blog, but I wanted to customize the colors and layout of my blog, to give it a bit more focus and personality. Be prepared for some fun pictures (Alex's camera is on its way to repair)!, yummy recipes (including a chocolate caramel tart that should not be made when there are only TWO people to eat it), and maybe some stories (depending on how many things I drop this week).

[Please forgive the multiple fonts on this page -- for some reason when I copied the posts from my previous blog they forced me to go into each post to adjust any fonts. Needless to say, this is not at the top of my to-do list. Actually, it is, but I decided I needed to let it go. So there.]