5 ways to banish anxiety

This week feels like a boulder strapped to my ankles, dragging along behind me no matter how frantically I try to shake it off.  It's just driving my heart rate up, and not in a good way: I sit at my desk feeling anxious, triggered by dumb little issues I can't fix right away.

Which is a problem, because I am a problem solver.  I like to fix things.  I hate sitting around and watching things malfunction or dysfunction and not doing anything about it.  And although this sounds like a useful personality trait, it isn't always that constructive.

Today, for example.  And yesterday, for that matter.  It leaves me at an uncomfortable and incredibly frustrating impasse.

And now you, dear readers, are most likely getting sucked into the maddening conundrum.  So I'll tell you what Problem-Solving Clara has come up with to counteract the anxiety.

1. This video:

Top 10 on YouTube yesterday, I clicked it once in the morning in my routine scan of the trends...  And couldn't STOP clicking.  Seriously.  I hit replay probably literally 50 times in the past 2 days.  I would feel myself falling into a slump and hit replay and BOOM!  There I go, smiling like Tour Guide Barbie from Toy Story 2, for at least 3 minutes and 25 seconds.  The video is really just delightful.  Don't pretend like you don't think so.

More inclusively, if you're here for answers, just play some tunes you like.  My friend Steve plays Van Morrison when he needs some soothing.  Whatever floats your boat.

2. One of my die-hard anti-anxiety tactics is gum-chewing.  This was particularly true before some litigious asshat decided to sue Wrigley for making unproven claims about cardamom on the package of my all-time favorite flavor of gum.  I've settled for Orbit Sweet Mint flavor now, but I'm still fuming.

Anyway, some people are pack-a-day cigarette people?  During finals week, or on the last day for grades to be turned in maybe ever in my life when I had a 16-page research paper and 8 hours to write it in, I am at least a pack-a-day gum chewer, and also avid techno listener.  This is how I get things done.  It also keeps my head from blowing off or my heart from bursting out of my chest and running across the street without looking both ways first.

3. I also have spent some time recently clearing out my email inbox.  You see, I have never been one of those "28,975 unread messages" people, like certain professors I could name, or my dad.  It bugs the shit out of me.  Unfortunately, I am not the most technologically adept person to ever live, so I merged my .edu email with my gmail.com email in the wrong order and ended up, the summer after graduation, with several thousand unread messages, that in fact I have read at least one time each, that just need to be processed.  And I never want to do it.

Anyway, I was running through some of them and stumbled upon an email I wrote to my counselor almost exactly a year ago, with the subject line "bad night--just a heads up."  This is interesting, as I don't remember having a night that bad just a year ago, but I certainly remembered that night when reminded of it.  Anyway, her response was the bomb as always.  "Just allow yourself the leisure of feeling what you feel about this situation, so you can process.  Also, don't forget you can talk it out with somebody you trust."

On top of the satisfaction of zapping my "unread" messages to under 2,000 (finally), her characteristically insightful advice brings me to #4.

4. I like to commiserate.  Or, put more delicately, connect with other people I like.  These days I do this most often in the form of a barrage of text messages directed toward my girl Ann in the faraway land of Minnesota, but anyone who happens to send me a Facebook message is also in danger of being thoroughly whined to.  Fortunately today my messaging partner was also struggling to some degree so the bitching was mutual.  I like it best that way.

5. The cherry on top today was the sudden discovery that it just so happens to be National Chili Day!  You have no idea how excited I was to discover a.) that there IS such thing as National Chili Day, and b.) that it is, in fact, TODAY!!!  It could not be better timed.  Chili is probably one of my top 3 foods, definitely a comfort food.  Plus, the world's best chili can be found a mere 3 minute drive from my place of work.  And when you can find the world's best chili and a boy that you kind of like in the same place, within 5 minutes, you can kind of consider yourself a very lucky girl.

There is nothing like a holiday to pull me out of anxiety.  Even the most depressing Valentine's Days have been pick-me-ups for me.  Because merely having something to celebrate is sometimes all I need to remember that the world isn't necessarily such a terrible place after all.  And while there are things to mourn and things to stress about, and that is all well and legitimate, there are at least as many reasons to party.

And speaking of partying, I must go to Zumba.  (Bonus banisher!  Boom.)

all good things: i should be over all the butterflies

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: I'm Into You by Paramore. Great. Power frontwoman. Mushy: I should be over all the butterflies... but after all this time / I'm still / into you.

2. Monday morning Power Yoga. When I was sick last week I found out that I have a perforated ear drum, which means no swimming until it heals, or until we decide it's not going to heal and I just have to resign myself to ear plugs for the rest of my life. Anyway, that means a new Monday morning routine at least temporarily. This week started with a new class at the Y closer to my house, so I went to class and then made breakfast at home before trucking off to work. Plus, the room was so warm it was almost like hot yoga. Sweet. (Sweat...)

3. Chili. J.'s project for his day off this week was to make chili. I came home to a house smelling like peppers and beans, and a week's worth of lunches and dinners. Delicious. Plus, it's been perfect chili weather lately.

4. WDSD 94.7 - Delaware's Country Station. I've been searching for "the right" country station since I moved to Wilmington over 2 years ago, and finally found it. You may not like country; but I do, because there is a lot of humanity in it. I used to say in college, "I want to be loved like a country song" because it's all in the details. It's all about the eyes and the moonlight... You know what I'm saying.

5. Football Sundays. Our regular Sunday routine got a twist this week; instead of the usual family dinner we headed over to watch football, drink beer, play video games, eat pizza and wings with some friends. It is a great way to finish off the weekend. Great company definitely doesn't hurt either.

6. Rolling with the punches. Last night we left the house planning on a hayride and bonfire... But right as we got on the wagon the wind picked up and the rain started slicing sideways, so we rescheduled and a few of us headed to a local bar for fall beers and french fries. Not a bad replacement, if you ask me.

7. Staying in touch. This week I finally got around to writing some letters and Facebook messages to old friends, and so far I've had some really heartwarming responses. I'm hoping to be able to spend some time this week getting back to them. That is something definitely worth my time.

8. New sneakers. I bought my last pair of running shoes just after Christmas, and they have carried me through at least four 5k races and a Spartan, plus the training for those races and my regular gym schedule. It was definitely time for a new pair. Can't wait to break them in!

9. Co-host Cassie is on her honeymoon in England right now! After the mind-meltingly beautiful wedding, the bride and groom are traveling through the UK with a decidedly literary focus. Luke has appeared in recent photos with busts of Virginia Woolf -- classic for book buffs.

10. Fall weather. October is finally starting to act in character, with cooler mornings, sometimes cold rain all day and sometimes perfect golden slanting sunshine... Either way, I'm ready for it. It makes pumpkin-flavored things and sweaters feel a lot more appropriate.

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Thanks for joining us this Sunday night! Stick with me on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for updates on new posts and other stuff about new adulthood. Come back next Sunday night for a reminder of 10 good things that haven't happened yet, and on Wednesday night for a more in-depth reflection on post-grad life. Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile.

posted from Bloggeroid

transience 1

Things are suddenly changing fast.  I haven't checked my email or my snail mail in a week, since I've spent my days running around with friends, seeing things, doing things, really just living.  I've seen a ridiculous number of Oles in the past week, not to mention worlds sliding weirdly together -- meeting Alex Steele in a plaza on Nicolett Mall, introducing him to Ann's high school friend Nick and hordes of Ole classmates, taking him to the St. Croix Tavern...  On Saturday I dragged him to Summer and Owen's wedding, where I was delighted to see and catch up with Allie and Eric and Elaine.

Saturday, actually, was crazy.  I was scheduled to work lunch, but I got switched on the schedule to be out at 4, which was a problem since we were shooting to leave for Northfield at 2:30.  So I had to fanangle a sub, and then still try to get out of the restaurant by 2 in the middle of a late lunch rush -- but not before Mike exploded a keg on me.  I guess I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  I was muttering to myself all the way up the hill about how I took pains to shower last night so I'd be ready to go immediately after work, and now I'm sticky and covered in beer...  And that's when it started pouring.  So that seven-minute bike ride took care of the sticky, and the sweat, so I could speed-change and eat the burrito Alex and Ann had made for me and hightail it out of there.

Then I got a text message from my brother saying that he and Grampa were leaving the Cities and would be arriving at our house in an hour.  We weren't expecting them until Sunday evening, so we were a little alarmed seeing as we were about to leave, lock up the house, and not return until who knows what time (turned out to be about midnight).  So that was a fiasco, but it worked out just fine in the end.

Basically, I was the luckiest girl in the world this weekend.  I don't know quite how I managed to get 4 of my favorite people in the world into my house at the same time for several days, but there was a moment where I looked in the rearview mirror of my new candy white VW Golf and saw my unbelievably cool grandfather, my first best friend/younger brother, my beloved Bizz, and the ever-important Alex all somehow squished into this tiny space.  The open sunroof must have let in some magic particles/good karma/fresh air/blessings because I have never felt so overwhelmed with uncontested and uncontestable love.  There were so many moments over sweet corn and chili last night where Ann caught my eye with a perma-smile of utter wonder at the family curled around the kitchen island, at the two empty pots of chili.  Plus, all these wonderful people got along so marvelously that I didn't even think to worry about my lucky streak breaking.

But I've got to move on pretty quick now, so I'm turning my immediate attention to the tasks at hand, all moving-related checkboxes to tick over the next 2 days.  Bizz-squared is gung-ho to go, not to leave here but to get on the road.  The time for sadness is both passed and not yet arrived, and we're looking forward.  I'm starting to wonder whether the perfectness of our lives this summer had to do mainly with us living together, and to worry that perfection will get a little dusty when the sun goes away and she is halfway across the country from me.  But thoughts like that are more often than not a self-fulfilling prophecy, so I'm going to try and leave them somewhere along the way, plan trips to Northfield, and look forward to May when maybe I can reclaim all the kitchen utensils I paid for at St. Croix Falls garage sales -- i.e., mix them all back up so we don't have to separate whose is whose.

Today is my last day of work, and it's another knot I'm tying in my life here.  Yesterday I exchanged email addresses with Erik the cook/drummer, who wants to play a show in Wilmington/Philly sometime this year.  Saturday was our last SCF Farmers' Market, where we bid farewell to all our favorite sellers and they handed us free yellow tomatoes and business cards on top of our guilty last orders.  Our fridge is overflowing with summer squash and zucchini and sweet orange cherry tomatoes, celery and kale and a jar of fresh maple syrup.  Ann is taking our bikes and the Rover down to Hudson early tomorrow morning, ending the brief love affair between our two adorable vehicles, my brief argument with the gear switch on my borrowed bicycle, and our low-impact thigh-happy summer.

This is both an isolated event in my life and the catalyst for my first inklings that transience is something cosmically significant about me and my worldly existence.  Take my thoughts first and foremost as a current play-by-play, but note the foreshadowing because I suspect you will be seeing much more of Me, the Straddler of Worlds, in the weeks and months to come.

Until then,
The Present Clara

all good things: winter wonderland

All Good Things is a weekly feature on the blog. It started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week. The show, and its current written form, is brought to you by Clara, Second Set of Baby Steps creator, and my radio co-host Cassie. Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey, Jimmy Fallon and the Roots. Another reader request! Thanks to you guys, All Good Things is really getting in the Christmas spirit!


2. Girls With Slingshots. My brother gave me the print Volume 2 of this web comic, hoping to get me hooked... And it worked! I blazed through the 200 strips and wish the book was so much longer. Guess I'm on to the website now...

3. Cookie baking for Christmas. My mom, grandma and I pick a Saturday before Christmas and bake all day while listening to Christmas music. It's so fun!

For me (this is Clara now) cookie baking is also becoming a great tradition: J's sister has a bunch of people over every year to bake and package a TON of cookies in cute tins. It's a great opportunity to try out new recipes and hang out with great people. This year we made over 300 cookies (not counting the ones we ate in the process), and at least 8 different kinds!


4. My (Cassie's) wedding photos just came back and I'm having the best time going through them!

5. Law & Order SVU marathons. I could probably watch them for days :)

6. Video G-chat. It's kept me in touch with some of my favorite people who are very far away. Love it!

7. Snow days. We had two big snowstorms (by Delaware standards)this week, which closed a lot of the city including my office and J's coffee shop on Tuesday! So we got to stay home, bake, make chili, watch movies, and cuddle all day.


8. Potluck. Like the good Minnesota Lutheran girl that lives somewhere inside me, I love a good potluck. We have them every now and then at work, and there are always interesting exotic dishes like authentic homemade chicken tikka, good English shepherd's pie, chili, Caesar salad, and pierogies.

9. Longwood Gardens. This has become a bit of a tradition, since my roommate goes to great lengths to get a group of us to the gardens every spring and every Christmas. It's always beautiful, peaceful, centering.


10. On Saturday morning I finally got to chat on the phone with an old friend. We've been trying to find time for a good long talk for months now. We spent two hours (give or take) on the phone just talking about everything in our lives, and it was so easy and important. She's never sounded happier, and I've never been more comfortable in my life. These are big steps for both of us, and it's so heartwarming to be able to share our lives even over a long time and great distance.

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Thank you, readers, for being with us tonight, and for giving me reasons to write, and things to write about.

And thanks for joining us every Sunday night! Join the Baby Steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for good things every day, and updates on new posts. Come back next week for another reminder of 10 more things to be thankful for!

Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile!

posted from Bloggeroid

at least one fun thing

This weekend I earned myself the nickname "Constablogger," as in "Oh Constablogger... you're at it again!"  (A fond overture, I hope.)  Not because I was actually consta-blogging in the cybersphere, as you may have noticed, but I mentally consta-blogged EVERYTHING--so this could get long.  But I hope you'll love the weekend as much as I did.  Read on!

The highlight, of course, was Audrey's visit.  This just colored everything sunny and wonderful.

To the Delaware River!

Before I get to that, though, I've got to put in my customary plug for Bishop's Coffee.  On Friday I stopped in for lunch (the most delicious bowl of chili I have ever eaten) and the guys said, "Hey, where you been?"  I commented on T.'s mustache and he explained that he was growing it for charity--specifically, a children's grief center called Supporting Kidds, incidentally located right across the street from my work.  First of all, I am SO down with this charity (see my brief consideration of a career grief counseling, c. 2009) and second of all, mustaches are hilarious.  Coffeeshopcrush came in halfway through my lunch, so I ran to grab The Princess Bride out of my car before heading back to work, successfully leaving my cell phone on the table and managing to not say one single thing to anyone on my way out because I was so flustered.  And everyone was looking at me like an alien had just exploded out of my sternum.

It occurred to me that the book has my full name inside the cover, so if anyone were to do his due diligence (i.e. internet stalking) he would quickly discover my careful documentation of the Coffeeshopcrush Saga.  Blushing like crazy right now.  But I have since gotten behind myself on that front, because really it is, at the very least, a fun storyline.  Plus, this phenomenon is part of the American Dream.  Which I am not ashamed to be living.

Speaking of the American Dream, I had to work both jobs on Friday, so my mom graciously picked Audrey up from the bus station and they apparently hit it off.  (Is anyone surprised?)  They made dinner together and when I got home we all sat around the dinner table, Mutti, Papa, Maria and her boyfriend, Grampi, Audrey and me (Asha was at a friend's house).  The way I always wanted to eat supper, all crammed in, with some non-nuclear family members squeezed in there, with multiple sub-conversations going on and hilarity everywhere.  We sat there for hours exchanging stories between the generations and laughing like you'd never seen before.  Divine.

We of course stayed up way too late, drinking and watching Friends With Benefits, which is fantastic, and talking in the dark 'til all hours.  So the next day we dawdled over blueberry pancakes and leftover quiche, and headed out to do "at least one fun thing."  Destination: Historic New Castle.

We unknowingly stumbled into the Old Town's Spirit of Christmas celebration, which meant there was music on the streets in spite of the cold.  Shops boasted discounts, restaurants boasted special hours or menu items, classic homes opened their doors to visitors, tour guides in colonial garb welcomed us to historical interest points.

Again by accident, we ended up in the foyer of the Van Dyke House on Delaware Avenue, a giant old mansion previously inhabited by 17th century Delaware statesman Nicholas Van Dyke.  There was a wedding, "rumored to have happened" in the sitting room, in which the bride was given away by the Marquis LaFayette.  A portrait of his portrait hangs over the mantel in that same room--the original can be found in the White House.  The dining room was set with the same heavy, ornate dishware that set it when director Peter Weir stayed there while directing Dead Poets' Society.  Audrey and I flipped out when we learned this.  I didn't know DPS was filmed in Delaware.  That movie propelled my adolescence.  First point gained by the First State this weekend.  (Also, Robin Williams sometimes sat at that dinner table while discussing the movie.  Audrey was really in conniptions about this.)

The current owner of the Van Dyke House told us about The Castle, or Lesley-Travers Mansion, and gave us very vague directions to get there.  So we set off in search of the Presbyterian Church and its free historical open house maps, and ended up instead in the original New Castle Courthouse.

If you ever look at a map of Delaware, you might notice that its northwest border makes a perfect semicircle.  The very top tip of this courthouse is the center of that circle.  I think it's a 15-mile radius.

Inside, the courthouse looks like the set for a stage production of The Crucible.  The walls sport portraits of important historical figures: Peter Stuyvesant, last director-general of New Amsterdam, now NYC; William Penn in armor at age 22--the first and last portrait of this famous Quaker convert; and Virginia Governor Thomas West, titled Lord De La Warr, in whose honor the British dubbed the local Native American tribe, the river, and the First United State of America.  This building houses an incredible amount and array of historical moments.  The colonially-dressed tour guides greeted us jovially and told us stories about Delaware falling first into Dutch hands, then Swedish, then Dutch again, then British, and then becoming the first state to ratify the American Constitution!  (As Midwestern college grads, we were particularly interested in the Swedish occupation and their Fort Christina, named after the popular 15th-century child queen.)  All four of these flags hang outside the courthouse and on the flagpole on the Delaware River:

Flanked by the wild roses that stubbornly greeted us at every turn,
even in the chill of December.

By the time we left the courthouse we were getting hungry again, but we decided to walk to the river and then work our way back into town.  The river was beautiful (even though I told Audrey a million times it was the ocean--false) but it was weird to see Jersey's factories spewing black smoke into the air just across the water.

"Send out a signal, I'll throw you a line..."

We had taken a mental note on our way in to have lunch at Jack's Bistro, which advertised beer chili and local craft beers--both good things, obviously.  So we made our way back there and it was the best idea ever.  We asked about the craft beers in such detail that our server said, "Hang on, let me go get a beer guide."

I was expecting a sheet of paper or a brochure or something, but instead a man in business casual approached our table and listed their featured local beers: Dominion Oak Barrel Stout (they also make a delicious root beer with pure honey, which we got to try), 16 Mile Amber Sun Ale, Dogfish 90-Minute IPA, and another really hoppy one we both blocked out completely because it sounded so bitter.  We got the stout, which had this smooth vanilla bean aftertaste, and the amber sun ale, which was good but paled in comparison to the stout (literally--ha, ha).  Who would have thought I would be turning into a dark beer kind of girl?

Also, does anyone know if lip prints on glasses can be used to identify people?

Audrey and I were enjoying ourselves, and our beer and our food, so much that it seemed like half the waitstaff was hovering unnecessarily in our area, lingering over table arrangements and such.  We got a triple recommendation for the mascarpone cheesecake, and swooned over it, swooned over our server and swooned over the beer and the beer guide.  Lots of swooning going on.  (How do you get that job, anyway?)  We lingered so long it was 4:00 by the time we left there and the festivities were all winding down.

We decided to wander quickly through the streets in search of The Castle.  Aturret teased us through the neighborhood, peeking occasionally between houses and trees, but ultimately it eluded us, and all we found was this:

Sounds like part of a frat house liturgy, but I think it's just a warehouse company...

I had to work again on Saturday, but after I got home we decided to go out downtown, to Chelsea Tavern, recommended to me by Coffeeshopcrush.  We found it on Market Street, and debated far too long over whether the parking spot we found was actually a parking spot or not...  And then we entered, and we were suddenly surrounded by young adults in Santa hats.

Turns out we had walked into the middle of Wilmington's Santa Crawl, specifically a sect of Rugby Men in Hats.  It's too bad we didn't know about it ahead of time.  They explained it all to us and invited us to jump on their bus, but we had just bought drinks so we said we'd catch up with them.  A really nice girl who was with them told us they were headed to Trolley, so we finished our G&Ts and set off.

The problem is, we didn't know where Trolley Square was.  We tried to follow the Santa Crawl buses but kept getting stuck at red lights while they zoomed on through.  After several variations on a loop around Market Street, we gave up and stopped at Shenanigans, right at the bottom of the hill.

This turned out to be the best decision ever.  Shenanigans is the type of place where the old jukebox has been refurbished and there are dartboards everywhere and the linoleum floor is chipped and scuffed.  The type of place where the bartender (originally from Ireland) tops off your pint when it's looking low.  Maybe I'm behind the boat on this one, but he told us that Yuengling is the oldest brewed beer in America, which is cool.  Audrey had never even tasted it before.  And not so long ago, I used to hate Yuengling.

"It's not every day I pour the last bit of Cuervo for anyone..." - Irish bartender
Note: This is not a drunk photo--we were just laughing too hard to hold still.

We decided around 12:30 that it was time to move on.  The bartender gave us souvenir Shenanigans stress-ball footballs for being out-of-state, despite my DE driver's license.  The guys had given us vague directions to Trolley, so we decided to give it one more shot (not the alcoholic kind--unrelated to the photo) and, if that failed, to go home.

Of course we ended up driving around for at least another half hour, and ended up in some secluded parking lot with no clear affiliated establishment, so thought we'd better hightail it home.

I was sad to drop Audrey off at the bus station on that beautiful Sunday afternoon, but I felt so rejuvenated to have had her here.  My mom even said she was a pick-me-up for the whole house.  One of our themes for the weekend was that we want to work on infusing life into our families, the same way we do into our jobs and our friends.  This takes work!  And it's so easy to get complacent, to hole up on our own in these houses full of people we love, instead of feeding energy into making healthy, happy homes and families.  This is a common danger of ministry, we have seen, and a common downfall of extroverts like ourselves.

But our gift exchange is fulfilling, this trading spontaneous visits and meals and sweatpants and pillow talk.  Audrey brought a flood of rare affection to my life, as usual, and the weekend seemed to just float along like the wind through sea grass and river waves.  So easy, so comfortable, so lovely.  And as usual, we worked through some important things together.

Plus, this weekend sealed the deal for me on Delaware.  I want to keep my George-Washington-the-Explorer hat on and forge the Delaware River for myself, meet the ghosts, drink the beers, and talk the talk. It's happening.  I'm investing.  I'm going to live up to my driver's license.

First step, I should probably get some license plates to match.

"toothbrush, wisdom and love."

Back to my roots: I am rockin' the grunge right now.  Thanks to a wonderful, extensive, and somewhat haphazard series of events, recounted here.

*Note: Some important theoretical discussions also went down, and I will skim them in italics at the appropriate chronological narrative moment.

The Plan: Karin would finish work in Manhattan around 10pm.  Audrey would catch the 7:30 train from New Haven.  I would leave Wilmington by car around 8, and the three of us would meet up at Karin's convent-home in Astoria by 11.  We would then head out on the town.

The Wrench: On Monday my oil light came on, so I made a service appointment for Friday and in the meantime poured a few quarts of oil into my engine over the course of the week.  The best part of this is that my designated oil-buying time is approximately 8:45 on weekday mornings, on my way to work...  Which means I'm demanding (politely) a quart or two of 5W-30 and a funnel, declining (also politely) any help or expertise, and pouring oil (delicately) into my engine in heels and tailored trousers.

Despite the unfortunate conditions forcing me to perform this task, the scene never fails to amuse me.

Because we all know I like to make a scene.

Friday afternoon, around 4pm, I find out out my oil pan needs to be replaced, because the entire engine is splashing around in several quarts of motor oil.  The car should not be driven, and if it must be driven, it should only be driven locally in Wilmington, until the pan can be replaced on Monday.

So, feeling somewhat defeated and wildly desperate, I check train tickets: no way I'm going to spend that kind of $$.  The time is ticking.  Greyhound's got my back, but I have to be at the bus station in half an hour, it's 15 minutes away, and I haven't packed yet.

The New Plan: Audrey, Karin and I converge on 42nd Street, Manhattan, 4 hours from ticket purchase, ready to hit the town, with only a purse each.  Thus the grunge.

The Run-down: I saw the lady behind me at the Wilmo bus station get nabbed for check fraud, and fought for a phone-charger outlet as my phone was conveniently and extremely dead.  Love the bus, baby.

After a series of long, mid-sidewalk group hugs, we headed to E. 14th Street for free-pizza-when-you-buy-a-beer at the Crocodile Lounge.  Immediately upon entering Karin disappears from in front of us into a deluge of screaming hugs from none other than Britta and Andrew, notable Jersey City Inhabitants, St. Olaf Class-of-'11-mates, and Good Friends.  (Also Joe McGo of Northfield freestyle fame.)

WWR**. Too excited to make a normal face.

Crocodile Lounge was hot and deafening, so we decided to head back to the street in search of a slightly less overwhelming venue.  Karin had been wanting to check out a place nearby called, what else, Professor Thom's.  As die-hard anthropology grads, could we really pass up a bar kind of named after the illustrious Tom Williamson?  Not a chance.

It turned out to be the best decision ever.  Thom's is a Boston bar, which is probably only interesting to me since my brother goes to school there and I love it.  And possibly interesting to New York City residents who want to watch Patriots or Bruins or Red Sox games.  The decor looks like colonial Boston, brick-walled with red and gold accents, lots of polished wood.  More notably, we took our first round, of Thom's Olde Ale, upstairs to the Loft, where we found a side room full of large couches and a small dance floor pretty much owned by two gorgeous ladies in LBDs and tall boots, rocking out to 80s dance hits.  Needless to say, we eventually joined them.

*Note here the social phenomenon of taking turns buying rounds of drinks for our companions, a theory first introduced to Karin in Professor Tom's Modern Elixirs class back on The Hill.  Sociologically, the proverbial "round of drinks" is a ritual that shapes the social experience of drinking culture.

When things seemed to be petering out up there, we left to find drunk food and found it around the corner at a Taiwanese joint called Baohaus.  To find out what bao are, you are better off just clicking the link and looking at photos, because I really am at a loss for descriptors.  I got an oyster po bao, mostly because I thought the name qualified as amusingly poor wordplay.  It was very oystery, which I didn't mind.

True to CAKE-in-New-York form, we made it back to Astoria roughly around 5am.

Also true to form, we headed over to the nearby Brooklyn Bagel for breakfast the next morning.  Now New York is famous for its bagels, and Brooklyn Bagel's mindblowing array of creamy, any-flavor cream cheeses and fresh bagels does not disappoint.  They also have one of those fresh orange juice machines, which I love.

*Enter the Cream Cheese Theory.  If, hypothetically, Karin went to Brooklyn Bagel on Day 1 and had a whole wheat everything bagel with lox & scallions cream cheese, and fell in love with it, should she try some of the other delicious options on a later occasion and risk dissatisfaction?  Or should she continue to enjoy her old standby, lox & scallions?  Analogically, should we settle at this early point in our lives in a place, or with a person, that we love, when the theoretical maple walnut could potentially be our new favorite if we only tried it?

Next stop, Central Park Conservancy's Tavern On The Green ice sculpture exhibit.  This was a cool stop, and as a matter of interest you can become a member of Central Park Conservancy kind of like you can become a member of public radio, old-school-crowdfunding-style.  The free hot chocolate was a major perk.

We didn't stick around too long because the Chelsea High Line was calling our collective name.  This former elevated train track has been turned into a park, like a raised greenway popular in cities like MSP and Boston.  Audrey was excited to catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty off in the distance, and a rather extensive glimpse of Jersey across the river.  Actually, the High Line provides a pretty sweet vantage point of the big city.  (In the future, keep an eye out for a photo of the building-side Diane Von Furstenberg ad featuring tons of lips, which it turns out I love with a weird intensity.)

Feeling hungry, and in search of a restroom, we descended toward the Chelsea Market, where one can find the impressive Amy's Bread, started by an Ole grad like ourselves!

Let me just say that Valentine's Day weekend was a fantastic time to visit the city.  Audrey and Karin were somewhat taken aback by my uncharacteristic displays of emotion at the virtual cornucopia of flowers saturating the city.  Also at the babies and little kids all bundled up in their tailored New York best.  A few quick vignettes: A flushed, apron-clad server at a Queens diner dashes out of a florist two doors down with a single rose clasped behind her back.  A sort of nondescript grey-haired man emerges from a subway station with an explosive bouquet in hand, emanating distracted determination.  A little girl in a perfect black pea coat and matching beret flounces along before her parents holding a bright yellow tulip over her heart.  Beautiful.  There is no other word.

Lunch break hugs. I LOVE these girls.

Back to the Market.  I was most excited by a stall boasting "Craft Beer To-Go!" but my sighting of it was poorly timed.  We hit up Hale & Hearty Soups for three-lentil chili and a delicious Tuscan white bean soup with spinach, and talked about our professional ambitions as though we are real, live adults.  Our real-life adult alter egos also hit up a wine & chocolate tasting of wines and chocolates I somehow managed not to write down, but the chocolate had lip prints on it (!!!) and was filled with rosé champagne cream.  The tasting also featured a beautiful, rich port, which I would love to drink again but alas, I am remiss in my name-jotting.

Quick aside: I am a sucker for shoes.  Another enthusigasm I had (haha, see what I did there?) was a direct reaction to a Chelsea store called Shoegasm, where I got stuck on a delightful pair of bright purple Dolce Vita "Notty" pumps.  Today, between Chinatown and SoHo, I was hypnotized into a store called Necessary Clothing by a gorgeous pair of red Breckelles Kansas-12 boots.  Step 1: I wholeheartedly own the fact that I have a problem.  Step 2: I have retained my willpower and bought neither pair of shoes.  Kind of a sad victory.

Now, Shoegasm happened while we were vaguely en route to meet Andrew, Britta and Joe for happy hour, and we ended up stepping into and back out of several West Village bars before we found The Slaughtered Lamb in Greenwich Village, on W. 4th and Jones Street.  It caught my eye because of the Slaughtered Prince in Stardust, and also because I'm super into that dark-windowed pub exterior with neon beer signs in the window.  The embellished nameplate was a successful kicker.

*Here I went on a passionate rant about intelligent design, or better intentional design.  (Here Karin chimes in, "Purposeful design!"  And Audrey adds, "Conscious!"  Context being the heated disbelief of a person this summer who insisted that intelligent design couldn't be possible if we consider all the ways our bodies break down and stop working, and all the individual imperfections in our bodies and in the natural world.  My argument is that intelligence does not presuppose perfection, but that the flaws and failings of what I call Creation make it all the more beautiful, that I, intelligent though I may be, could not begin to create something that works better.  That the intricate workings of our bodies are beautiful and I prefer to imagine someone bent over them late into the night, working out the kinks, putting pieces together with agonizing care.

The Slaughtered Lamb boasts over 100 bottled beers, the world's smallest bathrooms, the world's best whiskey sour, awesome music and ambience, and a weird larger-than-life spinning statue of a werewolf biting a young maiden on the neck.  We were sitting in its shadow, which really freaked out Audrey and Karin, but we had a good time there anyway.  Even though the water tasted like liquid plastic.

The water at Veselka, though, where we went for supper, was delicious.  The guy who refilled our water glasses was also very skilled at aiming the pitcher stream straight into the glass from a substantial distance.  I was impressed.  All of us were impressed with the pierogies, which come in about 9 different delicious flavors.  The arugula & goat cheese, sweet potato, and sauerkraut & mushroom were favorites.  The place was packed, so we were kind of rushed out, but we took a piece of cheesecake to go and ate it on the subway back to Astoria.  It was divine, and all the more so because of the setting.  I admit we made a bit of a splash with our savoring antics.

We ended up staying in and watching YouTube videos on Saturday night, so we could get up early and head to Chinatown's Jing Fong Restaurant for dim sum--Chinese brunch in a HUGE banquet hall where we sat at a table with a small Chinese family and chose delicious delicacies off carts pushed by staff through the hall.  Let me just say that eating out with vegetarians is consistently an interesting experience, especially since I was craving meat for a lot of the weekend.  I'll sum it up in a quote from Karin: "This is great because we can just pick whatever looks good, and Clara can be our garbage disposal for all meat!"

Awesome.  I am a garbage disposal.  For meat, no less.

Feeling well-satisfied by this traditional Chinese brunch, we set back out on the street, which had filled up with cherry vendors.  I LOVE cherries.  And they were so cheap!  So we bought a pound and pretended like we weren't going to eat them as we walked along.  We didn't pretend like we weren't going to practice tying knots in the stems with our tongues, though.  Never gets old.

We were going to try and cram a Staten Island Ferry and a mysterious "cute thing" Karin had planned into the day before I had to catch my bus back to Wilmo...  But I voted we put off the ferry 'til next time, and we headed up toward SoHo to Openhouse Gallery, currently Park Here: The Indoor Popup Park!  Basically, this open gallery has been landscaped with fake grass, trees, bushes and flowers, and even a little gazebo.  We parked it on the ground and sat to chat for awhile, watching the Mommy Morning turn into hipster afternoon, full of trendy twenty-somethings reading poetry and drinking coffee.

We didn't fit in at all, not our skinny jeans or several days' worth of greasy hair.  We decided to hit up the Grey Dog on Mulberry Street (inspiration for the childhood favorite, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street? I don't know) for "lunch."  "Lunch" being Mexican hot chocolate for Karin and hot spiced wine with almonds and raisins floating in it for Audrey and I.  Oh, and we split the world's biggest brownie.  Wholesome, I know.

Also, the host kept frantically changing his mind about which table we would be sitting at, finally settling on "The Ideal Table for you guys, it just opened up.  There've been some people sitting there but they just left...  So you're going to be up in the back corner."  Turns out it was The Ideal Table, a little round one nestled in the corner of the bench wrapped around the whole café, which featured a surface map of Philadelphia.  The way the table was oriented, Wilmington fell right into Karin's lap.  Not a bad place to live, I'm sure.

I won't say I almost missed my bus, because I really didn't, and I did a pretty amazing job not getting anxious about it.  But they shut the doors about 2 minutes after I boarded, and I was so stoked the whole way home that I didn't even try to sleep.  Really the bus is the best way to go, and I plan to get up there wayyy more often from now on.

Seriously.  Spending time with Audrey and Karin was so refreshing, so intellectually stimulating, so much like coming home.  Considering that New York City has often been a source of stress in the past, this is saying a lot.  But I appreciate our shared prior text, and how utterly and unconditionally comfortable we can be together, and how they take for granted all the parts of my personality I struggle to convince my new friends of.  Plus, we got reallllly grungy together.  (A true St. Olaf flashback!)

The day before I left I texted Karin asking her what I needed to bring.  She texted back,

"toothbrush, wisdom and love."

food blog

I sat down to blog yesterday but got distracted (this may be an emerging trend... or an emerged one) first by online apartment hunting, and then by a text from one of my besties who happened to be free for a phone call at the same time as me!  For the first time in months.  I decided to get up from my screen to make lunch while I talked to him.  On the menu: grilled cheese on honey wheat bread, with beautifully sliced beautiful tomatoes I picked out at the farmers' market last weekend.  And reheated red pepper soup from the Lenten soup supper at church on Wednesday.  Somehow it turned into pretty much the most delicious lunch I have eaten in what seemed like eons, and Mike was totally jealous.  Even though we broke off our conversation so he could go out for Sushi Sunday.

And also because another friend called with a post-breakup tear-stained voice, so I called her back for a round of healing affirmation and a sweepingly great conversation that ended in her recommending that I invest in a Magic Bullet for breakfast smoothie purposes, and promising to send along recipes for great, energizing, unexpected smoothies.

Smoothies are a long-time love of mine, the kind of thing I can always get into, the kind of thing I crave, and apparently I have a "smoothie face" which sets J immediately to the task of whipping up The Perfect Smoothie as soon as I walk into Bishop's after work.  Chili, another of Bishop's specialties (see #5), has always been a good pick for Sunday lunch...  But lately I have been really into Sunday afternoon grilled cheese sandwiches.  And let me tell you, I make a wicked grilled cheese sandwich.

Some other good grilled cheese sandwiches can be found at Bittersweet on Division Street in Northfield, in the good ol' 55057 zip code--they put cream cheese on theirs, and we all know that there are very few times when I will turn down cream cheese, in almost any form.  And there is also a beer and grilled cheese special somewhere in Wilmington--World Café Live at The Queen, as a matter of fact--which I haven't checked out yet, only because I've always been reminded of it at the wrong moment.  But look for a review in the relatively near future.

A slight recipe mutation turns the classic grilled cheese into another big-time favorite: the beloved Tunamelt, which will never fail to send me reeling back to the Summer of Sunny V.  (Incidentally, I'm thinking I'm going to have to commission a cover of Bryan Adams' all-American classic Summer of '69.  Maybe Summer of Tunamelts would be a more representative title.)  I haven't flown solo on the tunamelt front, maybe ever, but at least in quite some time, and let me tell you, I missed my Bizz, who always seemed to keep the pans straight, and keep the tuna sauce from burning to the bottom of the pan, and managed to make everything come together right at the right moment.

That being said, my Single-Bizz Tunamelt was a pretty killer sandwich specimen.  Also, extra sharp cheddar cheese is the best cheese ever, and you can get huge blocks of it for super cheap at BJ's: the place to go for cheese, gas, and frozen pizza.

Also giant bulk packs of gum, and quick home microbrewing kits.  Which sounds really gross.

Food is an important thing to think about all the time, but lately the social aspects of eating have sent my diet into very weird relief.  Every Thursday, for example, Kristy and I go to either Spinning or Zumba at the Y and then hit up Applebee's for the appetizer sampler platter and drinks.  That's more about the eating experience than the actual food, even though we love mozz sticks and quesadillas and tequila and spin dip and even boneless wings.  (Not wings with bones, though.)  I've also written about nachos and wings every other week or so, and just in general the easiest thing to do as a group of young adults is to go out somewhere to eat, drink, and be merry.  This is not only easy, but gets expensive, and it also puts a little weight in the pit of my belly.

On Wednesdays in Lent my mom counts on soup suppers for our family to eat; but since I don't go to church on Wednesday nights I never have dinner plans.  On the other hand, Wednesday tends to be date night, so I usually get something with J when he gets out of work.  A few weeks ago we made some squash and pepper in a red wine reduction with caramelized onions, or something fancy like that.  (I would have said I threw a bunch of delicious veggies into a frying pan with some oil and wine and ate it with chopsticks over rice, but J is passionate about food so he knows all the lingo.  Don't quote me on it though.)  Last week I dropped Maria off at band practice and then met up with him on Main Street Newark.

The air was so warm and pleasantly heavy, and all the outdoor seating was up and bustling.  "My goal for tonight is to get some really good food and to really enjoy eating it," I said.  And that we did.

We sat on the patio at Rooney's, and ordered a warm goat cheese salad and New Orleans pasta with blackened chicken, which was very spicy.  The salad was one of the most delicious salads I've ever tasted, though, with apples, candied walnuts, goat cheese, and a really perfect viniagrette.  Even the warm bread and honey butter that came before the meal was divine.

I actually cleaned both plates after J quit, which we both got a kick out of, and then he bought me froyo, even though I was so full, because I come from a long line of people who can't say no to ice cream.

There is an important lesson in froyo for me, a lesson my chocolate-loving sister learned 14 years ago: Get what you want.  I always feel stupid going out for froyo, looking at the 10 different choices of froyo flavors and settling on plain old original tart.  But that's always what I want.  So I'm eating my dessert thinking, "Well, yeah, this is good, but I wish I had gotten the plain old."

The lesson: Get what you want.  Also, don't order half price nachos if you already feel your stomach rolling at the thought of eating a whole plate of nachos.  Don't order half price wings if you don't like wings.  It's that simple.

Order what you feel like eating, cook what you feel like eating, and then sit and enjoy every last bite.  And when you're full, stop eating.  Eat the rest for lunch tomorrow.  Mix unconventional leftovers (like black beans and mac-n-cheese) for an exciting day 2 experience.  Treat yourself sometimes, eat slowly, eat in the sun.  Eat food that reminds you of someone or someplace you love and miss.  Play games like "pick-out-the-flavors-in-this-delicious-concoction."  Spend some time around the family table, spend some time cooking and eating and digesting with good friends, spend some one-on-one time eating with somebody who makes you forget that you're not the only two people on the planet.

Notable eating experiences?  Reflections on food?  Favorite places to chow down in your area?  Please share!

"single girl living"

Among the huge transitions involved in moving out of dorms and/or out of our parents' homes is buying food, and cooking it. I am just starting to get the hang of eating at 7:00 when I'm hungry instead of at 9:45 when the food I started cooking when I was hungry got ready. I still have not quite mastered Efficient Shopping for Singles -- I consistently buy too much food at a lower unit price, and then have to throw it away. And I always make either WAY too much or too little rice.

I've started eating lunch most days with bunch of girls at work. We all sit in the back room and compare notes on what we brought: leftover home-cooked food, leftover Domino's pizza, hummus and veggies, PB&J... We talk about a lot of things, actually: weight; our roommates/children/families; exercise and happy/healthy living; beers and bars; our social lives and dating lives or lack thereof; current events; what it's like being a working woman. You know the drill. Girl talk. I spent my final semester at St. Olaf independently studying it; and every other day I find myself wanting to add to the study or expand it or reiterate all the points I made in the first round.

Now that I'm out of college, I spend a lot less time talking about grand topics and a lot more time talking about basic survival: sleep, food, body pain, and work/life balance. This is what it's all about. No time for existential musing anymore. I don't mind it one bit! These are the things we spend most of our time doing, and so they are the things we spend most of our time talking about. And thus I continue my Life as a Series of Self-Improvement Projects.

Once, when I was complaining about running out of leftovers, Lori told me about a friend of hers who spends one whole day per month cooking. She makes a bunch of family-sized recipes, packs them up in serving-sized plastic containers, and freezes them. Lunch for a month! I know this genius as "The Queen of Single Girl Living."

I have been dying to emulate her for weeks or even months now, but given my whirlwind schedule I only got around to it this past weekend -- forgetting, of course, that I had a football-watching party to go to and sub sandwiches to make at church in the morning. And so I learned something very important: I need to set aside an entire day for this project. Nothing before it, nothing after.

I was shooting for 5 dishes, but I only squeezed out three. In round 1, only the lasagna turned out delicious. I ended up being 2 hours late to the Super Bowl party, and even that only after calling my mom in tears asking her how I could possibly fix the watery slow-cooked chili and the soupy jambalaya full of crunchy rice.

Which brings me to the second very important lesson I learned: I'm not really a "single" kind of girl.

Yes, I am fiercely independent, with a strong history of commitmentphobia. But I like company, and I need moral support. I have been blessed, pretty much since birth, with a family like football padding and first aid combined. I have sought out and been blessed with a series of good friends like crutches, wrist braces, and pacemakers.

I wrestled myself out of bed on Saturday morning to go to the First Saturday writers' breakfast at Panera. I almost didn't go because my mom wasn't going, but I'm so glad I did because I got to talk to a some great people. One of them mentioned her son, soon to be a college graduate, and how she feels she can hardly give him any advice because when she was in his position she was already with her husband.

My parents were the same way. It is strange being young and single and plotting out our lives as individuals instead of as a couple and a family, especially when our parents and grandparents often have very little context for our situation. So we craft these lifestyles centered around things we like and things we need to do to get by, and in many cases spend a good portion of our time trying to meet someone good enough to build our lives with. It can be a lonely road.

I force myself to get up and run every Wednesday morning, on the treadmill, with my earphones in; but every single week as I watch the miles tick up toward "3.0" the only thing I can think about is Anna pushing me to run another lap around the track, every Monday and Wednesday morning at 9:00. When I swim on Monday mornings I miss my lap counters for the 500 freestyle, and Kristi who always swam the butterfly races.

On Sunday, I was so late to church I missed nearly the entire first service. So I stayed for the second one, and walked into the sanctuary alone and sat down -- alone. And just as I did so, someone in the second row cleared her coat off the seat next to hers and beckoned me up to join her. It's a good thing she did, too, because when I started feeling dizzy in the middle of the service she mothered me nearly to death, and as hard as it was for me to admit there is nothing I wanted or needed more in that moment.

Wednesday night, as we have established, is date night, but here I am at the library by myself first, writing a blog post. This is my time. I have had to carve it out of a slew of other things I could do on Wednesday afternoons, and I need it. But what do I write about? And what do I write for? After my last post my dad recommended a few books to me. New Facebook friends liked and shared the post. And an old friend sent me an email saying she appreciates my constant focus on love.

Out of all the ways I describe my blog to people, somehow this has never made the list: a constant focus on love. I think of it as my log of adversity and (hopefully, eventually) overcoming it. It is about the struggles of young adulthood. It is about moving to a new place and meeting new people and rediscovering or evaluating the things that make my life meaningful. It is about depression and financial worries and the undeserved feeling of getting old. I write all of this in hopes of putting words to things other people feel but can't -- or would rather not -- express. Secrets rarely do anybody any good, so in an effort to conquer the struggles of being 20-something in the 21st century, I'm blowing that shit wiiiiide open. I'm crowdsourcing solutions to a world of problems, and at the very least asking questions that need to be asked.

And here I am, week after week, writing posts about love, of all things, and how I couldn't live without it.

I am going to try the cooking extravaganza again. Yes, I saved the jambalaya and the chili is on its way to goodhood, but I'm going to do a few things differently next time. The learning curve still hasn't leveled out, which continues to take me by surprise. I'll make different dishes, use my gut a little more, but most of all I'm going to love what I'm doing and I'm going to set aside the entire day for cooking and I'll probably bring a buddy (and maybe some wine) into the mix.

I'm going to be the Queen of Single Girl Living With Other People.

what caf line are you?

My sister called me right as I was leaving work today. She is now a sophomore at St. Olaf and any Oles will know there are certain things that only Oles can truly understand. Like the weird J-term hangover when suddenly the caf feels more crowded than it did in December, and all the practice rooms are full, and suddenly everyone is busy catching up with each other and still somehow everyone feels lonely and left out of all the catching up.

(If we're being honest, St. Olaf has a weird knack of making people feel part of the strongest, closest, most tight-knit and esoteric community they've ever been a part of, while also feeling completely isolated - and not just after interim. Maybe that's not a universal experience, but I've talked to more than a few people who know just what I mean when I talk about it.

And yeah, I still miss it like hell.)

Anyway, we talked about identity, which is a common recurring topic for us individually and together. While I still wrestle with my own identity, and have done a lot of wrestling throughout the course of this blog, I made probably the most significant headway during college. That's where she is now. And it's fascinating because while we came from a lot of the same places, the labels we identify with most, and the way we struggle to find one the works across the board, are strikingly different.

She told me about an Indian culture class she's taking, and an assignment that asked about what the different "ethnic food" lines say about the cultures and the food they are modeled after. The next question was the eternal source of frustration for every member of our family: what culture do you most strongly identify with?

And because of the way these questions were placed next to each other, she said, "I realized that I am the Grains line!" And this is the closest she has ever gotten to being able to identify and describe her identity. (For those of you who have not eaten in the St. Olaf cafeteria, the Grains line is vegetarian and sometimes vegan, often gluten-free, often Indian-inspired. It's kind of the "hippie" option.)

"All the Indian students get so excited when they see it's Indian food, but then they taste it and it's just not quite right. It's really American food with an Indian influence." (Of course she described it better, but you get the gist of it.)

So I started thinking, what caf line do I identify with most?

The first thing that popped into my head was the Home line: your typical meat-and-potatoes option. Comfort food. But obviously, that is not true. That's the line I always wanted to identify with, but didn't quite make it.

A weirdly large number of people who knew me at St. Olaf, but didn't know me very well, would come up to me and tell me, "Did you see what's in the Grains line today? I saw it and immediately thought of you!"

True story: I rarely actually liked the food in the Grains line. It was never quite what I wanted it to be.

Then there was the Bowls line: your standard American-Chinese fare. Tortillas, or the Mexican-inspired dishes. A salad bar and a pasta bar, one or two pizzas-of-the-day, bread and toast, and the Grill: burgers and dogs and chicken breasts and fries. And, of course, dessert.

After my freshman year, when my weight changed more than it has since middle school, and since, I learned how to navigate the caf very particularly. I took one plate, and that was it. I had to take a lap right away to see what was there, and then I would pick and choose what I wanted from each line.

And I ended up with a smorgasbord masterpiece, exactly the right amount of food.

If I could choose something to be, it would be loaded baked potato or bacon cheeseburger or taco pizza. It would be white bean turkey or black bean corn or four-bean chili. In those two categories, whatever was made with leftovers from another line was always the best.

I know you can't just choose what you want to be, that there is a science to which Avenger you are or what is your spirit animal (the wealth of internet quizzes is proof). But I'll make my case.

If you take something from yesterday, the bacon from breakfast and dry baked potatoes from dinner, and chop them all up and throw them on a piece of bread with cheese and then throw some green onions on top, and bake it, you have a delicious well-rounded masterpiece.

If you take something from yesterday, something awesome that happened and something not so perfect, and throw them on a piece of bread (my unsocialized self), and bake it in the oven of time, you come up with a delicious well-rounded masterpiece.

What do you think, readers? Am I right?

If you were a caf line, who would you be?


Bonus points: this pizza is our dinner tonight and is made from leftover sauce and peppers from another meal. Bon apetit!__

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all good things: more than one love

All Good Things started as a one-hour Sunday night radio show on KSTO St. Olaf radio, featuring feel-good music and 10 highlights from the past week.

Sit back and enjoy!

1. Song of the week: One Love by Bob Marley. We sang an adapted version of this song at the retreat I went to this weekend, and it was awesome. It's really just a good song all around, and makes you feel alright.

I'm having a really hard time finding a video of Bob Marley singing this, so here's a cover from Playing for Change that seems fitting.

2. Roadtrip. This one is fresh in my memory since I just got back: the ELCA Delaware-Maryland Synod's annual high school retreat. This waas my second year as a small-group leader, and so far it has been very spiritually enriching. More on that in this Wednesday's post...

3. Snow days. We had a snow day and a half this week. I was working from home, but given the bitter cold I did enjoy being able to work in my huge sweatpants for once.

4. Ergonomic office chairs. On the other hand, by the end of a day and a half of working from home, my back and shoulders really appreciated the padded ergonomic office chair I use at work.

5. Ender's Game. I've been working on this book for months (renewed it twice from the library) and finally finished it last night. To avoid spoilers, I'll just say that the plot was compelling, and the twist ending lifted me up with a stroke of idealistic brilliance. Definite recommend for dystopia junkies like myself.

6. Company. I was planning on driving down to Ocean City alone on Friday night, but at the last minute I called my friend Abby, who I haven't seen in awhile, and worked it out to drive down together. It made the trip a lot more enjoyable for both of us, and it was a great opportunity to reconnect with her since I haven't seen her in a few months. She's awesome and I hope this was a catalyst for us to hang out more and get closer in the near future.

7. Chili. My favorite food, and one of J's specialties. When we have days off from work a lot of times "we" make a big pot of it (read: he actually makes it) and pack it up for lunch for the rest of the week. Plus, when it is so cold out it warms me up from the inside.

8. Big D's. Stay with me here. Big D's is a Delaware staple. Dave (D himself) used to have a shop half a mile from my parents' house, but I never went there and it closed this fall. But Big D recently started supplying smoked and grilled meats to the shop where J works, so I got to try ribs for the first time this week, and they were AWESOME.

9. A fellow Ole has had a family mystery (the fun kind of mystery) broadcast on TV, radio, and the internet this week! It's an awesome story and it's been really cool watching her updates on Facebook about it. Check out the Google search results on the story.

10. Prayer. Whatever this means to you, it is important. This week I have prayed for a lot of people: friends who live far away; new friends; myself, my family, people at home; people I've never met; those affected by the Columbia mall shooting. A lot of times I say I will pray for people so they will know that I care about how they are and what they are going through; but this week I felt more than usual that I had offered up these things in prayer and that they were actually lifted. Not completely erased, but the weight of these difficult things changed, and I do believe that, if I said I would pray for you this week, those prayers are being heard by someone. So have hope!



* * * * * * *
Thank you, readers, for being with us tonight, and for giving me reasons to write, and things to write about.

And thanks for joining us every Sunday night! Join the Baby Steps on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/TheBabyStepsSaga for good things every day, and updates on new posts. Come back next week for another reminder of 10 more things to be thankful for!

Until then, be kind to each other, and find a reason to smile!

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