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.

A Little Wind To Clean the Sky :: Exactly nine days ago I was sitting on this beach with him, watching giant waves crash into giant rocks. It was really windy. Unconsciously, I think I repeated outloud some 15 times, “It’s so windy, It’s just so windy… And oh my gosh, THOSE WAVES. Goodness, it’s just so windy.” Talk about seriously annoying and obvious commentary.

His English is okay, but far from that of a native speaker. One of the things I really love about communicating with a person whose first language differs from my own is the simplifying of language. In an attempt to be best understood, I notice I choose simpler words to get my point across and in some instances this forces me to be more direct and honest with my thoughts and feelings.

Another thing that happens is that the other person, with fewer English words available to him will choose creative combinations of words to communicate. And sometimes, that unexpected word choice, even when subtle, does something quite special to a simple statement. Such was the case with the response that my endless repetitive comments about the wind that day at the beach garnered…

“Wind is not always bad. Sometimes you need the wind to clean the sky so that the sun can shine.”

Just Write :: I had every intention of WRITING during the past 7 weeks I spent in Europe. I did do a bit of journaling, but my intention was to write thoughtful pretty things and post them here and that did not happen. I don’t consider myself a real writer and yet, there’s been this small nagging, nudging thing somewhere in my brain saying WRITE. I imagine this is what happens on a very regular basis to the real writers of the world.

My time away took twists and turns that I did not expect and I didn’t write because I was too busy being so gloriously PRESENT with really special people and some of the most amazing places. For some reason, I’d anticipated having more time alone on this trip and thought I was going to spend more time with my laptop applying to jobs or… writing. That, was not what this trip turned out to be(Thank goodness! Who goes on the trip of a lifetime to hang out with their laptop?!) Now that I’m back in Seattle(atleast for now) where it is April and still gray and drizzly perhaps I will carve out a little bit of time for some REAL PRETTY WRITING. I’m a little overwhelmed by the thought because oddly I feel like I have things to say and I’m nervous that I won’t be able to pull it all together or communicate it well or make it pretty or profound enough, but I’m going to try. And maybe when I’m feeling overwhelmed I’ll just post a picture and a few sentences because you know what they say, Perfectionism is the enemy of GOODNESS… and also happiness, success, creativity and well, maybe everything.

Trusting The Guts :: There are people in this world who make it through their days via their intuition and there are others who take in the facts and logistics and make sense of things that way. I suppose in the end we all use a combination of both of those things, but most of us (I think), tend to lean more on one or the other. For better or worse I am the first. My guts and intuition get me through this life.

When I think about that too hard it freaks me out. How on earth can I trust that something just feels right (when it may or may not be based on much of anything)?  Weird, right? And so, I must develop a keen sense of when (and when not) to trust these guts of mine. It takes a giant amount of honesty and self awareness to lean in and trust yourself in this way – especially for the big things. To really discern vs wanting something to feel right can be the hardest. Ya know, those moments when some piece of you knows intuitively that something’s not quite right, even though you really want it to be? Listening to that little piece can be so hard, so disappointing.

I took a little leap last week, work was slow and I knew it would be kicking in in full force this week. So, on I whim I decided to take Thursday and Friday off and give myself a mini vacation.

It was glorious.

In the days of being alone I felt more connected to my guts, my intuition, my dreams and more confident in my ability to discern and make it through. I can’t think of a better way to feel about myself.

Thanks to the wonder that is Airbnb, for one of my nights away I stayed on a ranch in Ellensburg, WA (thus, these photos). I want to go back, I will go back. The woman who runs the ranch is just the loveliest woman. She made me breakfast and apple crisp and shared pieces of her life with me, but also let me have all the space and quiet I needed. She let me stroll around her property, feed the goldfish in the pond and even pick some apples from her trees to take home with me.

Something about those big skies and wide, windy open spaces (and the willow trees!)  made it easier to breathe. While on walks around the ranch I caught myself without thinking taking these big, deep, giant audible breaths and sometimes a breath would bring tears to my eyes and others would just make me smile and almost laugh.

It felt so good to breathe, so good to believe that I can trust these guts of mine.

News :: About a month ago, I was in a meeting with my boss – she dropped something, bent over to pick it up and split her pants completely – like from the front zipper all the way up the backside. I laughed so hard I almost died.

A few weeks ago, there was a bonfire. A bonfire in March in Seattle (pretty remarkable). More remarkable was the blooming magnolia tree we sat under and the sweet sweet people who I get to call my people that sat around that fire.

In other news, you probably heard that Prince died last week, but did you read THIS AWESOME ARTICLE that my co-worker wrote about a business meeting she once had with him?

Also, Harriet Tubman. When I was nine and in 4th grade (I was the very best version of myself when I was nine) I poured my whole self into a school assignment to write a biography. We got to pick the person and for reasons I cannot remember I emphatically chose Harriet Tubman (like I said 9 year old me was pretty great). I researched every single thing I could find on her heroic life and in doing so my little 9 year old heart came to understand that this amazing woman lived in a world where she was treated undeservedly like shit. I hated that. Anyways, you’ve probably heard this too but Ms. Tubman is about to grace us with her presence on the $20 bill.

And now, I leave you with this last piece of meaningless news that made me laugh: I painted my nails the other day because…SPRING. The name of the nail polish is FEARLESS which is awesome and was definitely a factor in my purchasing decision. I’ve now had the nail polish for several years and the F on the cap on the world FEARLESS has rubbed off which means that these days I’m painting my nails the beautiful color of EARLESS.

Remember this little tid bit of my life?

Well, yesterday at work I overheard this same person state the following while pilfering a donut from our team’s table.

“My doctor told me I need to incorporate more sprinkles into my diet.”

Hehehehehe. Bwahahaha.

You guys – I wanted this post to have You Tube videos embedded amidst my brilliant words(so that you could easily view these things I’m about to tell you about), but in order to do so this blog hosting thing was going to make me pay $79. Grrr. So, here’s a link to the first video: BETTER WHEN I’M DANCING – GO WATCH IT. And then DANCE, cause it’s better when you’re dancing.

Alright, now that we’ve got that out of the way – I watched 2 movies this past weekend. Per the above, one was THE PEANUTS MOVIE. Goodness Charlie Brown, you do get what it’s like to feel down. That dancing song though – I adore it.

The other movie I watched, SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK, just may be my new favorite. Per usual, I’m a bit late to the game as it came out in 2012. It has just the BEST DANCE SCENE EVER (please watch till atleast the 49th second). It also does such a good job of empathetically depicting mental illness and portraying the crazy that so many of our families are(with or without mental illness) and the depth of love we have for each other even though there’s all that crazy to work through.  And did I mention THE DANCING?

I don’t know the people in the dancing photos. I did take them though! (Whilst in Canada a few months ago at a concert).  I like them.

Sunsets & Kites :: It’s that time of year where right around 8PM or so I can hop in my car and within 7 minutes or less be looking at this amazingness of a sunset.

In other seasonal news, it’s also the time of year when I stock my summer trunk. In the spirit of spontaneity, during the Seattle sunshine months I keep the trunk of my car stocked with summer things – you never know when you’re going to need folding chairs, tennis rackets or an inflatable boat! Really, you never know – and you don’t want to be caught unpreprared should the moment strike and all you want to do is watch the sunset while perched in your inflatable boat.

Yesterday I was in the toy store looking for a kite (because yesterday was a perfect day to fly a kite). While we were shopping it began to rain and our dreams of flying a kite slowly washed away, but you know what?? I bought 2 kites anyways and put them in my trunk!  Someday very soon, those little kites are going to come in handy and make me very happy.

                                                “You do get to a certain point in life

                                                Where you have to realistically, I think,

                                                Understand that the days are getting shorter.

                                                And you can’t put things off,

                                                Thinking you’ll get to them someday.

                                                If you really want to do them,

                                                You better do them…

                                                So I’m very much a believer in knowing

                                                What it is that you love doing

                                                So that you can do a great deal of it.”

                                                                                  – Nora Ephron (1941 – 2012)

If you know me, you know this: Every so often…(okay, like every other day) I am asking myself questions like, “What am I supposed to be doing in this world? What are the things I really like and want to do? What are the things I am good at that can help other people? What should I be doing with this little life of mine? Is this it? Am I doing it?”

They seem cliche questions to me in some ways and it helps to know that I’m not the only one in the world who asks them. I’ve written before that these questions have exhausted me time and again – I just can’t seem to find the answers. So I’ve tried taking breaks from asking them and instead tried focusing on the things that are good and wonderful about right now. Turns out, there are A LOT of things that are good and wonderful about right now and I am deeply grateful for those things. Yet, it seems I frequently return to a subtle, but familiar state of panic. Panic that there’s something else I should be doing and the real panic sets in because I can’t figure out what that thing is.

That panic set in a little bit recently and so I’ve gathered my energies to keep pushing forward, try new things, meet people who are doing things I think are interesting, self reflect like a crazy woman to hopefully be able to better articulate what I want and am good at and am qualified for.

My condo is under serious construction right now – to the point that the door to the deck is currently boarded up. I’ve turned the board into a workspace and am posting ideas and to do lists towards this end of figuring out my life. That, and I checked out the parachute book from the library. I’ve done bits of the parachute book before, but I figured taking another stab at answering the questions would help provide some structure to this renewed effort.

And then today, I came upon THIS BLOG POST with these lovely words, “And as I get older I see, more often than not, that true calling (if it exists) is more often stumbled upon than assigned – we get there on our way to something else. Maybe so as long as we’re moving forward, we’re on our way.” And those words led to THESE WORDS of Jeff Goins which I found immensely comforting (so much so that I added his book to my queue at the library and signed up for his e-newsletter). What would I ever do without the inspiration of the interwebs?!

All this to say that perhaps I’m doing okay?

Perhaps I should change that voice in my head that says so harshly with so much judgement and disappointment, “How is it that you haven’t found your thing yet? How is it that you ask such big questions so frequently and still feel stuck and out of inspiration and don’t know what to do? What is wrong with you?”

Yes, yes, perhaps that voice should instead say, “Darling, keep it up – it may not seem like it, but you are surely on your way to that something you are looking for. In fact, have some faith that any day now you will stumble upon it. In the meantime, keep treasuring all those good and wonderful things and people that are your life right now.”

Suburbs & Things :: I could write about January 2016 – the very meaningful and memorable January that I just had, but I’m not going to.

Instead, I have randomness. Also, can I tell you that the suburbs freak me out?

Valentines Day is this weekend which doesn’t mean much except that I’ve decided to have a little dinner party at my house to celebrate. Spaghetti and meatballs are on the menu (Rao’s meatballs to be specific). And, because I am the way I am, I also decided that for this occasion I NEEDED these new napkins. Why do cloth napkins make me so happy?

I was going to order the napkins online, but didn’t want to risk them not getting here in time. So, tonight I headed out to the Bellevue burbs to pick them up. I saw TEENAGERS and a SUPER SUPPLEMENTS and a COPY CENTER and KIDS IN SHIN GUARDS and it felt other worldly. I grew up in the suburbs so I shouldn’t be that weirded out by them, but they are strange to me. Especially in Washington – so many trees and trails. Where’s all the concrete and neon signs and fast food chains?

Speaking of fast food, while in suburbia I stopped at Chick-fil-a (because they have one here now!) and indulged in chicken nuggets, waffle fries, polynesian sauce and a lemonade. Delish. It’s a good thing I don’t live any closer to Chick-fil-a.

Want to know what else freaks me out? Next week I turn 33. Whoa. Yikes.

Jesus died at 33. This fact, for some reason, always struck me as a child. 33 is so old and also so young and also a palindrome.

Someone told me today that statistically people enjoy being 33 more than any other age. So, there’s that to look forward to I suppose and hopefully it won’t be too bad after that. Here’s a thought: I guess it’s quite possible that sometime after 33 I might end up living in the suburbs. Whoa. Yikes.

In other news, it dawned on me yesterday that this is an OLYMPIC YEAR(!) which makes me even happier than my new cloth napkins. And so, I shall leave you with this image of the US Men’s Gymnastics team via the world of Instagram. Looks to me like these boys are #READY FOR RIO.