dripping with passion

…so true, right? i am a firm believer that: -eating as a mechanism to fuel ourselves is a true gift from god. -meals and snacks should always be savored (and we should not waste time or calories eating things that aren’t very yummy – there’s too much delicious out there!). -life is too short to have a boring eating life. and everything is worth a try. -food is indeed glorious! i've had some amazingly scrumptious and pretty food in the past week:   ^^ gourmet bruchetta for an office celebration                        ^^ sushi with josephine and the boy i’m a foodie. and i like it.

i met kelsey in chinatown saturday afternoon to celebrate chinese new year. we devoured egg tarts, perused the festival down grant street, ate chow mein and general tso’s chicken at a perfect chinese dive, and met up with friends to watch the parade.   the streets of the city were packed and pulsing with energy, filled to the brim with the sights, sounds, and smells of chinese new year. the opportunity for a colorful new beginning? i’ll take it.

this is nora. she’s a miracle. in 2009-2010 i worked at a residential treatment center for troubled teenage girls in utah. nora came to the program after trying several other types of treatment for some issues that she developed as a response to trauma. because most of the time that we overlapped there nora was required to be within eyesight of staff, and because we’re kindred spirits in some wonderful ways, the two of us got quite close over several months at the treatment center. we spent some long nights and tough times together. nora is from the bay area, and because i knew her deep love for this spot of earth, she was the first person i told that i was moving to san francisco. she was so excited for me, and that got me so excited. i promised her that i would send her a postcard every week from san francisco, to keep encouraging her and to give her little pieces of home. i kept my promise and only stopped sending post cards when i was informed that nora had moved on to another t

“walking (or running) the dish” is a palo altan thing. there’s this path that curves up the peninsula foothills and around a stanford research research institute radio satellite. the views are spectacular, especially on a clear blue day, and the terrain is hilly enough to be a challenge. everyone calls this spot of earth “the dish” and it is almost constantly crowded with runners and walkers. {you’ll have to look real close in the pictures above, but stanford’s hoover tower is in the middle of the top one, with the bay in the distance, and today i could even see san francisco’s skyscrapers on the very left of that view. can you spot the dish among the foothills in the lower picture?} i love the landscape around the dish trail – green earth sloping into campus and towns and then the bay on one side, rolling tumbling luxurious hills on the other. the past few sunday afternoons i’ve walked the dish while talking with a friend or calling family members. it’s been glorious weather every

it will never come again. not this day. and even though things in my life right this day feel stressful and angsty and quite grueling, i’m going to enjoy it. the good as well as the bad that is so overshined by the good from five steps back.  "this is the day which the lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!" -psalms 118:24 (i added the exclamation point)

  jelly belly factory in fairfield, california… inside there are millions and billions of sweet beans in hundreds of flavors. we got a peek at all the machinery and conveyor belts, learned about all the steps in the process, saw dozens of portraits made out of jelly beans, sampled a barf bean and a skunk spray bean, giggled at the bean shaped pizzas and burgers at the cafe and the wide array of paraphernalia in the gift shop, and marveled at the spectacle of it all. fabulously kitschy – i love stuff like that. a great president’s day outing, which also included a drive through the green hills of east bay, an adventure to the base of a windmill, and a picnic on the diverse and lovely shores of lake merritt. holiday mondays are the best.

i love the bay area so much. it is such a lush place to live. the boy and i went camping in a redwood grove and spent saturday exploring bits of the santa cruz mountains above pescadero , and then drove down to the town for lunch of goat cheese and artichoke bread, and then drove just a little further west to the sea. mountains and beach – the best of both worlds all in the same day. i’m in love with the fields of mustard flowers around the town of pescadero, which is just devastatingly charming. we laid in the middle of the field and felt the sunshine from the azure sky. and then watching the waves surge and crash at the beach and driving home along the coast filled us right up with sea air – which is some kind of lovely elixir for the soul. i feel like i could never be done exploring this place where i live. the bay area is such a handsome home for me.

pinterest <---   my attempt        --->       on valentine’s day i woke up real early to make breakfast for the boy. as sickeningly cheesy as it is, i wanted to make heart shaped cinnamon rolls because pinterest inspired me. well…pinterest is unfortunately not real life. while i was worried about the cinnamon rolls coming out all awry and weird, i burned the bacon and the neglected the eggs and told the boy to come a half an hour later than we planned. but – nothing some buttercream icing and heart-cut strawberries can’t solve, right? after breakfast, i brought some lopsided cinnamon rolls to my coworkers in my pink and red and sparkly valentine’s outfit, and remembered throughout the day that when things don’t work out as symmetrical as you’d hope, there’s still so much worth celebrating.

“a bosom friend – an intimate friend, you know – a really kindred spirit whom i can confide my inmost soul…” – anne of green gables jane is my bosom friend, for sure. since she now lives in houston, just a 4 hour bus ride from dallas, i had to go see her while i was in texas. i hopped on megabus in the wee hours of monday morning, did some work in a houston starbucks while jane was in school, took the metro town to the medical center, and was overjoyed to see my redheaded bosom friend on the platform waiting for me. jane gives the best hugs ever . jane showed me her stomping grounds in the occupational therapy program at texas woman’s university and it was so fun to see her world and meet her friends. we picked up her boyfriend and drove in horrendous traffic to rudy’s for some barbeque. and let me tell you what, it was woooooorth the drive. i don’t know if i have been that stuffed since thanksgiving! we stayed up too late talking and woke up real early to get to the temple for the

“ there are as many kinds of love as there are moments in time ” {mansfield park} i love love. i love my family.                                      i love my friends all over the world.         i love god, and his love.              i love the diversity and richness of human experience; i love being alive. i love the earth and all its contrasts and arrays of beauty.               i love celebrating love. and this year, for the first time ever, i have a romantic boy to love on love day! i think it’s going to be the best valentine’s day yet. i hope it is for you, too, no matter what kinds of love you’re celebrating today. more thoughts on love day here and here .