Soup & Rain & Happy Places :: I am currently sitting in my sweet little condo at the kitchen table my dad and I made together when I first moved in here 3.5 years ago. It is pouring down rain outside – water is pelting against the windows and there are flashes of lightening and thunder. While I do not appreciate a cold and gray Seattle when it is MAY, I do really adore thunder and lightening. It reminds of the 10 years that I lived in Georgia between the age of 8 and 18. It baffles me sometimes that I spent such formative years in a place that I will likely never live or even visit again.

The week before I purchased this condo, I left work at 11am without telling anyone of my departure. I drove to a park overlooking the Puget Sound in West Seattle, sat outside on the sidewalk wrapped in a blanket, stared at the water and literally cried myself to sleep right there on that slab of concrete. I still can’t tell you exactly what those tears were about – I think mostly that purchasing a house is a bit of an overwhelming process and I felt alone.

And here I am alone again, I’ve got some candles lit and am enjoying this thunderstorm and the solitude from this safe space that I really like. Earlier this week (when it felt so cold and was also raining), I made the simplest most delicious soup(remember when I said I would make every recipe from this cookbook? – well, I’m still plugging away at that – exactly 35 recipes down, and 65 more to go). Anyway, as I was eating the soup I felt so pleased with my love for each and every simple item in front of me: the bowls that my food was in – 2 of the very few purchases I made for myself in Portugal, cork animal coasters from Australia – found unopened in their original packaging in my grandma’s house after she died, candles in a random assortment of jars lit with vintage matches purchased at a flea market in Lisbon for 1 Euro, and water poured out of a glass bottle.  It’s true I guess, that it doesn’t take much to make me happy.

In other news, before it starting storming today it was a pretty perfect sunshiny day and I went to the zoo with a friend and her 2 year old. We shared an icecream cone and saw animals galore, including one of my favorites, flamingos!

And now, the rain seems to be over and the sun is starting to peak through the clouds and I think I might go for a post storm run. Happy May my friends.