Recalling spring

Eats first! Particularly vibrant snack plate that highlights my resurgence in grocery shopping and dining at home.

I've been thinking a lot about wealth and consumption lately, having re-read The Treasure Principle by Randy Alcorn and finished Revolution in World Missions by K. P. Yohannan. Both excellent. What am I supposed to do with my money? Is it really so I can buy more stuff and eat at fancier places? I realize I'm more like the rich, young ruler and my call is more like his than I'd like to think.

Back in April, the tree across the street burst with publicly beheld beauty despite all the signage and fence.

My second (mini) dinner party: Chicken Marsala tacos with Tiffany and Juanita. We watched Planet Earth. I made the guacamole and gave them my secret on easy authentic-looking salsa: put some Tostitos chunky medium in the blender. :) That's nappa cabbage next to the chicken.

So I came to NYC to cover my friend's maternity leave. I'd been back in 2009 as some of you may remember for her first maternity leave. I finally got to meet her new baby last week and here's her big firstborn son!

After I met the boys, we went to Queens for Thai by way of Williamsburg where we saw another colleagues lovely new apartment and Greenpoint where we got some pre-lunch Polish pastries.

After lunch, Tiffany and I went to MoMA and got hot cocoa with marshmellows (see the link to Terrace 5, it's in the slideshow) in tradition and this blueberry tart. There is a blueberry theme to my blog, I think.

View from the Terrace 5. The rain poured down and we enjoyed watching it fall. 

The summer is nice. I'm playing softball with my company team, training for a sprint triathlon in Richlandia in July, watching lots of TV  (SYTYCD, The Voice), and seeing old friends. Hopefully making a few new ones too. We'll see...

Yeah yeah yeah

My FB friends know I'm a year older. 34. I heard from a certain woman that 35 is really hard. I could say I'm not looking forward to it, but since I am looking forward to 40, I guess I could say I'm looking forward of it. I helped the kids' nanny study English this afternoon and so "of" is significant since we discussed how "de" in Spanish can be "of" or "from" depending on context.

I would post photos as I have tons of cute ones but I can't find my camera. Oops. My losing things drives my mom crazy. I try not to tell her about it but she's so good at locating stuff that it's usually worth it to confess and bear the disappointment de mama.

My sister has been using only one crutch the past two days, so she is recovering. I think I'll be here through mid-February as she and her husband both have work travel and will need the help. My friend Carrie (from Las Vegas post) will be visiting Richlandia next month so I will try to make it back to see her.

A shout out to Anna U. for reading and for cracking me up by telling me about her 'kids'.

I went to Mars Hill Church on Sunday for a birthday treat and wound up meeting a nice young woman who invited me to her small group. So last night I went and it was nice. Should be a good thing for at least a month. Mark Driscoll went to Haiti and preached on giving and loving the church.

Today I covered my sister's volunteer shift at my nieces' classrooms. I was pleased that some of the boys' writing was really focused: Magic Man, the spinning chess pawn. Go with what they find interesting, right? Anyway, that's a random sliver of my current life. :)

Oh, and I finished "Tree" and have moved onto "My Life in France" by Julia Child and her great nephew.

Six days you shall do all your work

For me, the fourth commandment begs the question: does taking care of kids count as work? Well, after seven days of watching my Seattle set of 4, I am very ready for today's rest. I left Tucson last Saturday and arrived to Seattle in time for a three-hour briefing on the week's activities from my sister. She and her husband left for Paris in the early hours of the following day and I became in charge, along with my mom who was official Meal-Maker and Keeper. I have no photos to post today because I left my camera at their house and now am at my other sister's house in Bellevue.

What to say about the last week? I can liken it to working on a pitch for Deutsch: all hours, many hours, lots of surprises, few rules, high impact, stressful, constantly short on time. I can also liken it to touring "Flicker" with Big Art Group in France back in 2002: go-go-go, corralling several rowdy and obstinate humans, lack of sleep, barrage of questions--sometimes in a language I couldn't understand, and an abundance of body fluids.

But fun, oh, what fun! Rolling around on inflatable tubes with my nephew waiting for his little sister to finish her soccer session was exhilarating. Doing the youngest's hair with no screaming on her part--I learned to laugh and she would follow suit--was a great accomplishment. Figuring out she was saying "helmet" and "yogurt" from "heh-meh" and "o-gur" was as good as telling the bus driver, in broken French, to turn down the heat. Walking the older two to school, hand-in-hand, "SQUEEZE!"ing past the overgrown shrubs along the sidewalk was hilarious. And plenty more.

Even after they were all tucked in at night, I got the bonus to chat with my mom about my grandparents and her family history. Great great stuff. Yes, I'm tired. But it's a sweet fatigue.

Happy Thanksgiving, all. I am thankful for you, my family and friends.

Wow

Before I began my travels, Nancy's parents were visiting her from Alabama and I was telling them about my plans. Near the end of my soliloquy, I said, "I'll stop when I run out of--" to which Nancy's father inserted: "Friends?" I replied, "Well, I was thinking 'money' but that too." And now, just as I am truly running out of money, the Good Lord has given me a little 'pot of gold', as Debbie called it, in the form of a freelance job for my old company in NYC.

So I'm heading back to the Apple a week earlier than planned but that's fine with me. Hoping to sublet a bedroom in a 2BR apartment in midtown west. That's still to be worked out. I am so grateful. Literally jumping for joy. Just like I have the Chinese church kids do as a thanksgiving exercise. :)

"...We were berry picking...It's been so cold this year they turned blue..."











My sister and her girls all in various pink stripes. Like a gang.











Dinner with the Krahns, well, some of them. This is the family of Esther, whom I visited in Montenegro. But in our shared Richlandia. Yummy kale, wild rice, and curry chicken. (Thanks for reading, Mark!)





Kids who I used to have in Chinese church children worship who have since moved onto youth group. Now we're Facebook friends!







Debbie, Josh, and their son. I just loved Josh's cross hand hold. :) Lunch at Sageport Grille, one of my Richlandia favs.

The Bellevue set

Hard to blog and camp at the same time. I have enjoyed my media fast, though, as well as being glad to be back with electricity that comes from the wall and not the car battery.


Here are some pictures of the few days I spent with Jane's family in Bellevue, just across Lake Washington from Delphine's family. We went to Lake Sammamish State Park for a sunny afternoon. Jane with baby.

Jane's eldest, we played Hide and Seek and here's when I caught her.

The two eldest hiding.

Her middle daughter playing with the pebbles.

Making funny faces. :)

Family: the great time warp

Seriously. When I hang out with my family, I kind of forget about the rest of my life. I am only a daughter, a sister, or an auntie. There is no "Irene", only "Xiao A Yi" (pinyin for 'mother's younger sister'). So now I face the biggest blog lapse since I began, I think.

The rest of my time in Richland was packed to the gills with good visits with more friends interspersed with FB Texas Hold Em'. Had a cathartic discussion of sorts with my parents and the fruit of that emotional expression/honesty is still reverberating. If fruit reverberates, that is. Ripening, might be a more contiguous verb. So, again, yay emotional maturation! Yay, counseling! One friend of mine whom I saw a few times during my 10 days in Richland quipped (I paraphrase): you have a lot of patience to engage with a variety of people and really listen to them and remember details about their lives. It blesses me to watch you interact with people. Her words were very affirming as I find her an incredibly upbeat and engaging person.

So I wound up driving the standard-shift, no power steering, cassette tape deck truck to Seattle as my parents went up the day before so my dad could attend my niece's "Special Guy" kindergarten lunch. It wasn't so bad. Dance recital was fun(ny). And I was The Face Painter at her 6th birthday party. All the moms recognize me as such now. One kid asked if it was my job. Maybe I should consider it? Speaking of, my current idea list of jobs come 2010 are: teach, nanny, freelance project management, and nursing school (I realize this is not a job). So kind of broad spectrum. And of course I could become another empty-pocketed writer. Which sounds kind of appealing as well.

So the party was fun and the clown was totally not scary and very funny ("Nothing better than an iced-mustard.") but the memorable thing was that during the party my other sister called to say that my dad was going to take me sick mother to the ER because she couldn't stop puking. And this was on my mom's actual 73rd birthday! So they hydrated her and gave her some medication IV and sent her home. But we were all worried. My mom is a workhorse and kept apologizing for not being able to help out. This was the least of our concern. Anyway, some drama ensued about whether she should go home or stay but eventually she and my dad went home to Richland for a few days before coming back so my dad could present the gospel at an area Chinese church event. I have many thoughts and feelings about the Whole Thing but most importantly, I created a Therapeutic Event (so calls my counselor) in that I am separating from my parents' marriage. It's not mine, I've got no business in it, and boy is that freeing. (Thanks to Kristie who shared some good stuff with me and confirmed that it's the right thing for me to do, emotionally--even if it sounds crazy.)

The rest of the week has been a mix of Play Dough with my 2nd youngest niece, Jackpot (some ball toss game) with my eldest niece and her neighbor friends, wiping up spills, changing diapers, playing Settlers of Catan with my brother-in-law and sister, grocery shopping, researching washing machines, driving the minivan around, and tickling my nephew. I am the 3rd parent.

I did see my high school friend Jason yesterday for coffee. He works at T-Mobile and I hung out with him before he caught the bus back across Lake Washington (well, missed and caught the next one). So that's some peer-level interaction.

My next stops are Victoria and Vancouver, British Columbia in Canadia and Banff with Juanita; Bellevue/Seattle for Independence Day; Richland for another week; TBD; camping in Mt Rainier Park; the Olympic Peninsula with Nancy from Richland; and NYC on August 1st.

I'll post some pictures later today if I get a chance.

Love to you, my lovely readers. A quote via my friend Amy: Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable. (And reading my blog = being heard. So there.)

Half Time

Half time report. I'm headed to Richland next week! Feeling good. Still working on the 2nd half year plans. Still got some money left, though I'm thinking I should try to temp while in NYC in August.

I'm in Vegas right now. Carrie, friend from high school, is at work as is her husband Marshall. So I am babysitting their 10-month-old daughter, and currently she is napping in the next room. It's h-o-t here!

Ok, catching up. Sorry for the "words...words"-type posts of late. Am I turning you off from reading? Tell me the truth.

Uploaded small photos today 'cuz there's so many. Here is Josh and his youngest (this is in Denver/Aurora, CO) at Chili's.










And here's half of the church congregants from the week I attended. I told them twenty years from now, this photo can be used in their memories slide show.






This was taken out the bus window en route to Albuquerque. I loved the big sky clouds.







At the Hot Air Balloon museum with Joanna's mom Sandy and her nephew.










Here's Joanna and her daughter on our nature walk. Joanna is not photogenic even though she is very pretty. Her daughter is both cute and photogenic.




With pine cone.











This is the only photo I'm posting from my day trip to Santa Fe. All the really cool things, I was not permitted to photograph.







And I wrote about dance lessons. Well, I wound up going to the group lesson with John and Joanna. And since there was one more man than woman, I got a free lesson! :)









(In Phoenix) This is one of Grisel's 2nd cousins. Though in Bolivian culture, cousins are brothers & sisters, so I guess this would be Grisel's niece. After dinner, and watching "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" with the family while Grisel and Jeremiah ran errands, I barely beat her niece at chess.







Grisel prepping candles for a circle prayer Wall of Fire ceremony they had during the reception.







Bridesmaid bouquet.

The NYC set: Veronica, Joanne, Yana, Felicia.

Me, new local friend Angela from Joy of Life church, and Yana with cacti.

Saguaros on the way to Sedona.

Gas stop, we modeled the hat and map selection.

Sedona sample. So amazing.

I love lichen and you can see my curly hair.

Metaphor for life: you can stay by the road and it's pretty enough, but look what you can see if you just climb a little.

The Grand Canyon:

This is my first (of tens) photo of the Wonder.

Native American ceramic that I really like but inconvenient to transport and kind of pricey.

Some of my tour group. The front couple and I went out to Red Lobster for dinner afterward. They're UK citizens, though she's originally Austrian, and live on an island in the English Channel. Tax free.

Milton, our tour guide, whose Navajo name means Two Feathers From An Eagle. He had some of good jokes and cool info for us.

Milton factoid: chewing the needles from this tree provides more vitamin C than from oranges.

Me and the Canyon.







On Route 66 from Flagstaff to Las Vegas.

Read the coffee signs, those were my favorite.

Hoover Dam.

(In Las Vegas) Carrie and Marshall's little girl. Today is Carrie's birthday! She's now as old as I am. We had fun today. Marshall just got home and is fixing dinner. I need to quickly make a card for Carrie. :)