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...

Half Year in Queens

photo by Shana Wernow

Since January, I have worked at Deutsch, helped out at my NYC church's Friday night youth service, visited Debbie & Josh in Ohio, cut my hair, run Bloomsday, visited my family in Seattle, and become a complete reality TV addict (Top Chef, American Idol).

"Coincidentally" in early April both my Deutsch supervisor asked me to stay and my roommate asked if I wanted to sublet through the end of summer. I asked for a raise and lower rent, respectively, and they both said yes. Providence.

I'm on an unpaid leave of absence from my WSU job to which my boss has graciously permitted me to re-start in September ("Are you sure you're coming back in September?" "Yes, I'm sure." I realize I don't have a very good track record here.)

So now that I'm in NYC for the summer, I am trying to re-create the Richlandian utopia of last summer--swimming and fresh veggies. So far the swimming part is going well. Although I am very impatient with other swimmers at my pool. God has a lot of work to do in my heart. It's as if the combo of pre-coffee and morning and slow swimmers who can't seem to congregate in the same lane but have to hog three of the four lanes for their various (slow) speeds leaving one lane for us faster people [insert foot stomp] precipitates in unusual intolerance and disdain. Hopefully unusual. I hate to think I'm like this often.

Veggie-wise: this photo is a rooftop farm down the street from my apartment. Amazing! I've also started contributing to urban composting which takes me to Union Square farmers market several times a week. AND my friend Juanita and Shana have alerted me to two other Saturday morning markets in Queens. So I have a lot to choose from. Somehow nothing is as good as having a friend whose house is a CSA drop off location but...let me be thankful. That is the only will of God for my life that I can discern for the present time.

Looking forward to many trips to the beach and dreading my utility bill after all this running the AC. I've definitely gone soft. I survived the previous eight years residence in NY with ceiling fans and cold showers. Now that I'm on the fourth floor and most recently from AC-friendly Richland, I pre-cool my room and leave it running all night. Eek!