Thank you

Thank you for big loud thunderstorms when I can't focus and when I can't sleep. Thank you for the rain that's cleaning my dusty yellow car and (hopefully) keeping me indoors tomorrow with my books. And thank you for the practice of prayer. 


Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/silent-shot/500251940/lightbox/

Try new things: soy nuts

This afternoon I bought dried cranberries, raw almonds, and sunflower seeds to make my own trail mix and at the last minute I decided to try some soy nuts.  Turns out, they're tasty!  And super high in fiber. (Soy nuts also remind me of the Babysitter's Club character, Dawn, an all-natural food eating, soy nut loving Californian.)

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/fotoosvanrobin/4337037201/lightbox/

Since January, I've formed two new habits that I'm happy about: every night before bed I floss and read a Psalm. I may be neglecting my 365-photo project and spending too much time on Facebook, but now I floss and read biblical poetry every day!  

I made burritos tonight - already had two, about to go for a third. Mmmm, food.

Fairly makes your heart ache

It's spring fever. When you've got it, you want --- oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!

An overused but pertinent Mark Twain quote. What do I think I maybe want this spring?  Chocolate milkshakes all the time. And to be an organic farmer.  I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal Vegetable Mineral in which she writes about her family's year of being pretty strict "locavores": going totally local by growing and raising food on their small Virginian farm and purchasing food only from local vendors. An entertaining, delicious, and inspiring read. I forgot how overambitious I tend to be... last night I dreamt of canning my own tomatoes and raising my own rare-breed turkeys.

Back from New Orleans (where it rained and poured, see above umbrella photo) and Orange Beach and two weeks of good times with Dave Masom and other good people, I'm preparing for a final two month push in school and in forming my next major life plan. A few days before spring break, I was accepted into a UK graduate school.  Woo!  It's not my first choice, but it's still a good option and an encouragement.

In other news, I got my first speeding ticket on our way back from the beach.  Oops. If I could afford speeding tickets, I would continue to speed, but I can't, so I'm driving slower now. One victory for the law enforcement system.

Take your allergy meds and enjoy the sunshine!

Oh dear

This blog is starving for attention!


Things are crazy right now, but I thought I would say a quick hello :)

Crazy things:


I'm now 23-years-old.  I like that 23 is a prime number and that I'm not in my mid-twenties quite yet.  There was a small gathering at the lakehouse in Georgia where: we enjoyed yummy pork chops, coconut rice, and Gigi's cupcakes, I saved our dog Lyra from drowning, and my parents gave me two things I really wanted:  a 1960s-style one-piece bathing suit and measuring utensils for metric-system baking recipes.  (I could be a mid-twentieth century housewife, apparently.)


After work last week, my friend introduced me to "the taco truck," which parks in a mechanic shop parking lot on Opelika Road.  A Mexican guy operates the truck, serving Latinos at various job sites during the day and whoever stops by the truck at night.  Amazing and legit tacos (for a buck fifty each).  I'm excited to go back next week when Dave's here visiting.


Speaking of which, Dave arrives on Thursday.  We're driving to Mobile, picking up my friend Erika from the airport, then spending the weekend in New Orleans.  Spring break is a week later, and we'll be down in Orange Beach. (I'll be baking and wearing my 1960s one-piece.)


Work and school aside, I'm finishing various applications for graduate schools, internships, and jobs, all centered around my epic and daunting goal of legally residing in the UK this fall.  I haven't talked much about Operation UK.  But it's fully underway.  If you care at all about my sanity, please say a prayer that something perfect works out.  Don't worry, I'm flexible when it comes to details.

In terms of summer plans, it looks like I'm headed back to Wyoming.  And I'm super excited.  I don't think I'll ever live in a more beautiful spot than at the foot of the Tetons.


That's all for now!  I'm sad I'm not updating more often, but I promise, I'm determined to keep this blog alive and, soon, to give it lots of love and care.

Good advice (from Rainer Marie Rilke) for a prime numbered wannabe 1960s baker who loves people, mountains, and London and who makes lots of too-big plans day after day:

You are so young, so much before all beginning, and I would like to beg you…as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers , which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.