dripping with passion

the alarm went off at 5:51 this morning. the boy pressed snooze, turned over on our floppy air mattress and slid his arms around me. it’s our morning ritual to spend nine minutes of snooze time snuggling and semi-slumbering, and then when the alarm goes off again at 6:00am, it’s time to get up. after i sent the boy off to work with a kiss, a prayer, and a lovingly packed lunch, i went for a morning run. today i jogged over waterloo bridge and along southbank, back across westminster bridge, waving at big ben as i curved around to st. james park and through trafalgar square back to our flat. and as i ran, with music in my ears under the typical london cloudy sky, i felt so alive and so calmly happy to be in this city that is now mine. my mind stopped, among all the moving and transition buzz that has been floating in it, and relished the sensation of feeling at home in a new and exciting and wonderful place. i felt in my heart that i am in the right place in the universe, and that goo...

disclaimer: i did not take the photo above. but i could have – that was literally my view one morning in may in south africa! the number one thing we regret about our trip around the world (and we are very happy that there are very few things on that list!) is that we forgot to charge our gopro (underwater) camera the night before we went cage diving with great white sharks. we even had an extra battery! and they both were dead :( we were and are pretty sad (and mad at ourselves) about it because our experience with the sharks was so, so, so incredible and we want to share and remember! but…certainly the image captured in my brain of huge shark jaws literally four inches away from my face is unforgettable, so i’ve got that! :) i googled “great white shark cage diving in gansbaai south africa” and lifted some pictures from my search to help me share and remember this wild adventure the boy and i took. when we were planning out trip, i almost insisted that ian go cage diving without m...

the boy has this thing for extreme geographical points (for example, we got engaged at the very westernmost point of the continental united states). so when we learned that the cape of good hope was not the southernmost tip of africa, he decided we simply must drive the nearly four hours southeast to cape alguhas, the actual spot where the indian ocean becomes the atlantic ocean. the drive was beautiful, and standing at that southernmost point was actually way more exhilarating that i thought it would be – the incredible landscape and outrageous sunset didn’t hurt. it was totally worth the journey just to see ian’s look of glee above (^^)! ^^ charming seaside towns on the way around the coast of south africa ^^ ^^ we could see the cape of good hope, where we had been they day, in the distance! ^^ ^^ we drove through lots of beautiful vineyards on rolling hills. felt like northern california! ^^ ^^ and then this is where it started to get exciting :) ^^ ^^ and the excitement continu...