One down, far more to go

I’d really prefer that I think of something less self absorbed to write about, but I’ve been consumed lately by this monster to do list.  Finally got to cross ONE big thing off of it, that stupid take home midterm (by stupid I mean stupid-difficult) and now it is on to the baddest of the bad boys:  The MPRE.  2 full days stand between me and this monster and I will vanquish him.  I will.

HOWEVER:

Before the vanquishing and after the midterming, I gave myself a break to create this lovely princess:

hello, pretzel-face!

This creation comes from one of my favorite recipe/cooking/baking/super hip young woman life blogs called 
http://crepesofwrath.net/
.  The title of this blog alone makes me swoon…a word play on one of the greatest literary works of all time, using a crepe?  Yes.  Hang out with me forever.

 

WAKA FLAKA UPDATE:

Here I am on the other side of the two weeks from hell to tell you…THANK GOD BABY JESUS HALLELUJAH I’M ALIVE!  Made it through all those crazy tasks and although I don’t have tons of free time after all my tests, etc. it still feels good to be done for a while.  No big assignments due for several weeks, really until finals in 2.5 weeks, so it is nice to just set smaller goals for myself for a change.  Trying to chip away at the huge humongous huge paper I have due soon, and so far so good.

Baking adventures have continued, but with a non-baking recipe aptly named “Peanut Butter Crack Bars.”  I got the recipe from a friend and made them for a small get together this past weekend.  Essentially, you throw about 40 lbs of powdered sugar together with 30 lbs of butter, a smattering of graham cracker crumbs for texture, and a jar of peanut butter and spread that gooey deliciousness in a pan.  Then you melt together MORE BUTTER with chocolate chips and dump THAT chocolate loving over the peanut butter business.  Then you wait for the most agonizing 30 minutes of your life while it sets up in the fridge.  They are called “crack bars” for a reason.

I will be making them again for easter, but this time instead of squares cut apart I will fashion them into eggs and bunnies.  Festive.

The World’s Out to Get me…

…In the month of March.

One of the most valuable lessons one may learn in their academic career is how to plan effectively.  You learn to consider the time of year, give more weight to who is teaching the classes than what requirements the classes satisfy, factoring in your job, having time to be responsible as well as irresponsible at times.  One would think after 20 years of being a student (ouch) I’d be a class planning sensei right now.

Not true, grasshopper.

Things were peachy down here in San Diego on the academic obligations front until the end of February.  I got through my first midterm and the fake MSJ relatively unscathed and was feeling like a Boss.  Then March rolled around and roundhouse punched me in my smiling face.  In the next 2 weeks I must live through:

-  Barrister’s Ball (let’s be honest, this will have been the highlight of my law school career.  I’ll never let go of high school-ish dances and my runner up homecoming crown)

-  Torts midterm

-  The MPRE

-  Fake negotiation

-  Legal history final

-  Draft one of HUGE THESIS due

I look back over this list which admittedly is not very long, but is exclusively made up of game changing events as far as grades/the chance of being a lawyer one day go…and I think to myself:

“…wtf??”

Slowly but surely, I tell myself, I just need to take care of one thing at a time and cross stuff off my to-do list as it comes.  This is another very valuable lesson I’ve learned from being a student over these past two decades (like how I refer to my academic career as though I’m some brilliant PhD student?  No, I’m definitely factoring kindergarten into this equation).  Making lists and crossing things off of them, especially really important things, can be the most fulfilling experience in the world.  One of my biggest problems has always been biting off more than I could chew and it usually results in me sitting splay-legged in the middle of my living room floor under a heap of loose paper weeping and yelling with Eli hiding in the corner planning an escape route.  Not really that dramatic but that’s kind of how I feel at the moment.

So I shall cross things off the list, and add things to the list that are fun.  Things I can enjoy.  Such things include visits to and from my family, heading to the farmers market, making time to go on jogs (walks) to the park in the beautiful San Diego weather, and planning summer trips out of town.  While the world may be out to get me, I absolutely will not let it and one at a time I will roundhouse punch each of these bad boys off my to do list with the strength and fury of Chuck Norris himself (who apparently is having a Turkish bridge named after him?  True story).

Apparently French women really don’t get fat?

For as long as my adult life has existed, I’ve been on a quest to conquer and overcome my genetics and become a VS swimsuit model.  My people were not built for dancing around in their underwear, but instead (unfortunately) for braving the blistering cold of the northern UK and eastern europe and dragging heavy things around in fields.  We are a stocky stock.

However, my quest continues.  I’ve tried everything from Weight Watchers to cutting out refined sugar entirely to the disgusting “Beyonce” cleanse to veganism.  I’ve been to cycling, zumba, yoga, pilates, step aerobics, and even recently RUNNING (again, my people were not built for fast paced, coordinated movements…zumba was pretty entertaining).  For the most part, my weight has stayed within the same 10 pound range for the last 5 years or so and I’ve been unable to punish myself into anything lower than that.  But according to Mireille Guiliano in her book French Women Don’t Get Fat, that is precisely the reason why I’ve more or less failed!

In a very funny and oddly pretentious but relatable way, the author in this book is able to explain an approach to food and women’s health that is altogether simple yet revolutionary through the eyes of a young American woman.  She tells the reader how amazed she is that Americans are so consumed by crash diets and “punishing” themselves into losing weight.  Her philosophy (and apparently that of every beautiful, svelte French woman in humanity) is that you can and MUST eat whatever you want, but in the right portions.  More importantly, however, she instructs the reader to go through a process of reprogramming, wherein you keep track of everything you put in your face for three weeks, identify where you are eating too much of something fattening, and slowly phase it out and replace it with fresher food.  She advocates visiting the market every two days for fresh meat and produce instead of stocking up at Costco (SAMPLE-KINGDOM!) twice per month.  These are perfectly unique and hipster-esque concepts…needless to say I gave it a go.

Caveat:  I had looked into her book a few years ago but never purchased it, mostly because I am a cheapy cheap-o.  However my mother, in her most loving but ever so suggestive way, bought the book and had it sent to San Diego for me.  She’s always been a champion of my weight loss crusade, offering such gems as “Remember, bikini season is coming!” and “are you sure you want to eat that right now?” among her honestly concerned offerings of easy healthy recipes and cheering me on in general.

So I tried it.  One of the first things Mireille recommends is a two day Magical Leek Soup cleanse where you boil 2 pounds of leeks in water, reserve the boiled leeks and sip the leek water (Eli’s words: “that sounds delicious…”) every two to three hours.  You eat the reserved leeks with a pretentious and hipster few drops of EVOO, salt and pepper whenever you are hungry.  The leeks smell so wonderful while you are cutting them up and boiling them.  Even the first helping of Leek water and leeks tastes really great.  However, after going an entire day (seriously…I made it an entire day) with nothing but leek water, leeks, and SASSY WATER (water with cucumbers, ginger, lemon and mint leaves…seriously so so good) I got tired, irritable, and tired.  I gave in and indulged in one of Mireielle’s favorite snacks: plain yogurt with berries.  How very French I was beginning to feel, indeed…

For the rest of the weekend I did my best to eat super healthy.  I snacked only on tangerines, sassy water, and berries, and made chicken and roasted peaches for Sunday night dinner per one of Mireille’s recipes.  The whole time I felt pretty good but was disappointed when this morning I weighed myself and had only dropped 2 pounds over the weekend.  For some reason I thought living off of leek water would lead to the 20 pound weight loss I wanted overnight.  Bummer.

But then the magical moment came…I put on my favorite pair of work slacks.  They are made of pretty forgiving stretchier material (hence…favorite) so usually they hug my legs pretty snuggly.  However this time there was a distinct new and different feeling to the pants.  There was DEFINITELY some space between leg and fabric!!  Fabric moving over leg skin when I walked!  WHAT IS THIS??  According to Mireille, it is the French “zipper syndrome.”  French women apparently don’t weigh themselves half as often as American women do, and instead measure weight loss by how their clothes fit and how they look in the mirror.  It was dark so I couldn’t notice much of a difference looking at myself but I definitely did a mental SKINNY dance when the pants realization overcame me.  Oh Mireille, you sassy minx.  You knew this would happen all along.  Even though I was feeling like a failure having given up on the Leek Weekend after only a solid day, you knew I would still feel a difference.

Thus, preparations for visiting Sister Pants in Paris France continue.  I am bound and determined to be a skinny French lady by the time I arrive in Paris so I can saunter around the Parisian streets like Blair and Serena in pretty little dresses.  Can.  Not.  Wait.

Preparations: Something exciting and something…opposite of exciting

Let’s start with the OPPOSITE of exciting first.  The sucky thing I’m preparing for is The Most Ridiculous Poopmonster Ever, also known as the MPRE.  My little orange Barbri book has been glaring at me from beneath a pile of old Vogues for weeks and weeks now and finally convinced me to take it out of its lair and into my daily bookbag.  I HATE this test.  The rule of thumb in studying for/taking the MPRE is thus:  You should immediately cross out what a normal person would believe to be the most ethical and the least ethical answer options (multiple choice exam).  Great.  What fun.  A bunch of filthy lawyers operating off of the fail stories of their peers made what they believe to be the set of the most ethical rules future generations could possibly exercise.  Makes a whole lot of sense.

On opposite day.

Enough of that nonsense riffraff, let’s talk about my new favorite friends:

The daintiest little tourist target I could ever put on my back

I’m beginning to prepare for our April/May trip to France to visit sister-pants.  Step one, find and purchase adorable sale price Pilcro flats with DAINTY LITTLE EIFFEL TOWERS ON THEM.  I don’t care how cheesy it is, these boys will be worn around Paris with PRIDE.  I absolutely cannot wait and would love nothing more than to sit around all day looking at clothes and doing crunches so that the locals won’t judge my American flabbiness too harshly as I shovel Brie and red wine into my mouth hole.  I have list upon list of the sights I’d like to see or the things I’d like to do but all in all, I look forward to a trip with some of the best ladies I know to one of the most fabulous parts of the world where all we do is drink wine and drink more wine.

I’ll certainly continue coming back and using this blog to document my travel planning process, however I will be a bitchy little Frenchie if I end up failing the Most Ridiculous Poopmonster Ever, so I bid adieu, cheries.  Au revoir!

Valentime’s and Butter: A lesson in patience

I don’t think I could have been more ambiguous with that post title, so I’m giving myself a wee pat on the back.

There isn’t too much to say about Valentime’s because for the rest of eternity I don’t think I will ever experience a better Valentine’s Day than the first one Eli and I shared together.  This year (much like last year) we made dinner together, a fancier version of taco Tuesday, I made him his usual brownies, we exchanged cards, the end.  What did make this year exceptionally special was the attitude around my office.  Everyone was so positive and happy on Tuesday that it was positively infectious and made the day so much fun.  Valentine’s Day seems best celebrated not necessarily by feeding in to another commercialized holiday buying crappy boxed candy and Hallmark cards, but instead to first and foremost treat YOURSELF to a little extra love.  Keeping that in mind was a great reminder that it doesn’t need to be Valentine’s day to show yourself a little TLC, nor to show such to your loved ones.

That seems to be the beef people have with Valentine’s Day, that it is disingenuous and wasteful and marginalizes single people (when in reality, single people did that to themselves by angstily renaming it “Singles Awareness Day” or “Like Shooting Fish In A Barrel Day”).  Instead, whether you have a loverpants of your own or not, Valentine’s day should prompt us to recharge our own batteries, treat ourselves to something nice, and remember to do it more often than once per year.

The lesson in patience was brought on by butter.  Odd, I know, but it was such a meaningful experience that I couldn’t not write about it.

I made my own butter last weekend.  I know, no big deal, “I did that experiment in elementary school where you shake the jar of whipping cream until it makes butter blah blah blah.”  But I wanted to try it (mainly because butter is my 3rd favorite food group after mashed potatoes and chocolate) because of the buttermilk it would produce for my breakfast baking desires.  All you do is whip/blend/shake/somehow agitate the whipping cream until you’re blue in the face and the butter magically appears.

I got the idea from http://www.two-tarts.com which is a fabulous little cooking blog.  In the butter entry the writers were kind enough to provide step by step photos so you could check the progress of your own butter against theirs.  So I tossed my heavy whipping cream in a bowl and flipped on that hand mixer.  I mixed and mixed and got to the whipped cream stage.  Delish.  I whipped and whipped and got to the grainier stage.  Great.  However after this point apparently you only need a minute or so more before the grainy looking whipped butter starts separating from the buttermilk.  That did not happen as instantaneously as I thought it would and IMMEDIATELY I assumed I’d done something wrong.  However…it was Saturday night and I had nothing better to do, so I continued mixing.

Then all of the sudden something magical happened.  Among the clumps of soon to be butter, some liquid began pooling.  Then more and more.  The clumps got more yellow and less white (cream colored), and the liquid became deeper.  The more I mixed, the more butter-ish things were looking!  I WAS SO EXCITED!  I followed the rest of the directions, straining and squeezing the buttermilk from the butter, separating the butter in half to add salt to one clump.  Made my buttermilk biscuits, spread my butter on toast, all of it.

What a wonderful lesson in patience it truly was.  Do NOT ever give up when there is still a possibility that things could work out, ESPECIALLY in cases where you truly have nothing to lose.  With that, off I go to study for my evidence midterm.  Bon chance a moi.

Finishing something big…

I don’t know if its the simple fact that an assignment is done or the deeper satisfaction of freedom after feeling a consistent nagging in the back of your head, but finishing a huge assignment is one of the best feelings in the world.  Almost regardless of whether you actually worked hard on it, turning in a final product and leaving it in someone else’s hands is just wonderful.

Yesterday our fake motion for summary judgment was due, and the rest of my law office finished their “oral arguments.”  Before class when I submitted the motion online I was like this:

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME THE PAGE NUMBERS AREN'T MESSED UP!

Then when I turned in the hard copy to class, all beautiful and crisp and held together with a super lawyer looking clip, I was like this:

i am the dominator of motions for summary judgment.

Seriously though, no matter whether it is a homework assignment, a chore, a performance, or a dinner party, finishing a big SOMETHING is so gratifying.  In this particular instance (bolstered again by my stellar grades, see 
http://irisinsandiego.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/i-have-the-right-to-be-an-obnoxious-law-student/
) I did work quite hard on my assignment and getting it turned in allowed me to come home for the night and be entirely carefree.  E and I took ourselves to the gym and got our fitness on, and when I came home to watch New Girl on hulu I didn’t feel at all guilty for an inappropriate use of my time.  NOT.  AT.  ALL.

So, go forth and work hard on your projects, be they schoolwork, work work, baking, chores, or even finishing a great book.  Once you are done, the satisfaction of completing it will be overwhelmingly wonderful!

Where do bloggers get all their time?

Seriously though, is there like a special department at Nordy’s where all of the super cute, stylish, creative, extra excellent cooks with 3 adorable children buy extra time in the day that they use to create their blogging wonder?  Perhaps I’m just lazy but I seriously do not have time to get all of my chores done in a day AND create super fancy blog posts.  No scratch that, before even creating a super fancy post I’d have no time to cook/bake/create/throw together the project they are blogging about!

I have an extra special respect for food bloggers.  I consider myself a moderate cook and have never really had bad experiences in the kitchen, even with all the experimenting I do.  But for someone to whip up a delicious recipe, photograph it beautifully, and write about it is a huge feat.  I tried a new recipe Friday night and while it turned out deliciously delicious, I was too pooped to pop by the end of the shinanigans.  I barely got in a quick iPhone photo to brag about on Facebook before I plopped down and fell asleep.

Although I (and most blog followers out there) am jealous to no end of the ability that bloggers have to throw together awesome blog posts, it isn’t a negative jealousy.  If anything it is a motivation to live a balanced life.  The women (let’s be honest I read what feels like 400 different blogs every morning and they are all chicks) who write these blogs have raised families, they live healthy lives (judging by their adorable fit little figures in the “about me” section) and have a creative outlet in their blog.  That is something to be admired.

All too often in my realm of the world (obnoxious law students) people spend far too much time doing only ONE thing: working.  All the facebook posts and exasperated comments between classes are about class work and NEVER about the fun things they did over the weekend, the cool art exhibit they saw after class, how beautiful the beach was this afternoon, what a great run they went on, etc.  That seems to be the key difference between SuperMom-Bloggers and law students.  It doesn’t have to be that way either.

CLASSICALLY and with VERY few exceptions, the people who have received amjurs have come out of nowhere.  They are hardly ever the person who raises their hand the most in class or goes to the most office hours.  They are the people who live away from campus, who go on adventures over the weekend, watch their favorite tv show regularly, hang out with their friends outside of school, etc.  They are taking a leaf out of the SuperMom-Blogger book and living a balanced life.  So, let’s all follow suit and continue trying to be happy, balanced people.  I mean for goodness’ sake, if LAWYERS were happier people could you imagine how much happier every other human would be?  No more wars, evil dictators, extreme income inequality, none of it.  For serious.

My three things:

1.  The super cool and inspiring blogs I get to read every morning, because they are the best reminder to do the things that make you happy and to MAKE time for those things among all the other stress in life.

2.  My normal-ish sized kitchen, because my last apartment had a shoebox sized kitchen in which I never would have been able to make scratch fried rice and sweet-sour chicken.

3.  Skype, so I can have first dibs on all the exciting adventures from Sisterpants in Paris France.

24 is a vast improvement on 23

The 3 things I am thankful for today:

1.  MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY ON MY BIRTHDAY:  Wow, I am sad to admit how happy I was to see all of the happy birthday comments on my Facebook throughout the day, but it really did mean a lot.  I am so grateful to have heard from friends I’ve made throughout my life from elementary school, to pipe band, to law school and everywhere in between.  So so cool.

2.  Things to look forward to:  This weekend my mom, grandma, and little step sisters are visiting San Diego for a joint Grandma/Iris birthday picnic.  I love having things to look forward to and truly believe it contributes to better work product and more success throughout the period of time leading up to the event.  I really think that was a contributing factor in this trimester’s good grades – I had my NYC trip to look forward to.  Big or small, having something to look forward to and get you through a hard week, month, trimester or whatever can make all the difference.

3.  Bad ass music:  Just downloaded a new album yesterday and was listening to it while preparing for FAKE LAWYER TIME oral arguments.  I felt like SUCH a badass playing the role of a big bad lawyer.  Had my coffee, tabs, highlighters, moving papers, everything.  You’d better BELIEVE I put a swagger on while I sat at my little desk in the library.  Feeling the part was just what I needed to be successful because hey, fake it till you make it right?

Birthday was a SUCCESS and so much better than last year.  Here is a snapshot of my 23rd anniversary of birth:

1.  Wake up with a headache and the reminder that no, getting those abysmal first law school grades was NOT a nightmare, but cold hard disgusting crappy rude terrible reality.

2.  Fish is acting strange while I am getting ready to leave for school, darting around his little fish house like he just had a jumbo pixie stick dumped into his tank.

3.  Get to school and park.  Come back to my car a little while later and find a PARKING TICKET BECAUSE SOMEONE SCRAPED MY REGISTRATION STICKER OFF MY LICENSE PLATE.

4.  Go to crim law.  get called on.  meh.

5.  Return home and FISH IS DEAD!  Ridiculous at this point.

My 23rd year continued on full of two more terrible grade reports (save for Public Interest law, a class where you basically talk about your feelings and get a 95).  I was over it, so I decided to turn 24.

A snapshot of my 24th anniversary of lifetime:

1.  Wake up feeling like a BADASS with my glitter birthday nailpolish.

2.  Treat myself to starbucks with the $5 giftcard I found in my bag and had forgotten about.  BIRTHDAY SKINNY VANILLA WITH AN EXTRA SHOT MUH FUH!

3.  Pull into the best free parking spot in the universe.

4.  Prepare a badass oral argument while listening to my badass music.

5.  Receive hella cupcakes.

6.  Birthday party thrown for me and a coworker at work complete with a delicious lunch, decorations, HELLA MORE CUPCAKES and BUBBLES!!!!!!!

7.  Kill my oral argument with violence and vengence.

8.  Birthday dinner with the dearest of friends, put away the most delicious of potato burritos.

9.  Receive a very sweet birthday letter from E.

10.  Bed by 11, like an old person : )

24 will be fabulous.  I am determined to make it so.  Also am determined to cut down on the personal posts about my own life because honestly…how self absorbed can I possibly be?  Gross.

1 day left of 23

I’ll start with the three things I’m grateful for…

1.  Having a roommate to make dinner, eat dinner, and do the dishes with.  Living alone for my first year and a half of law school was a very important thing to do, especially as a woman.  Presumably, I’ll one day be married with adorable clones of myself chasing me around the house and will therefore never again have time to myself.  So it was indeed valuable and necessary for me to spend a significant portion of my young adult life being independent and on my own.  That being said, I am the veritable golden retriever of humans and crave attention and companionship more than fresh air and clean drinking water.  So now that I not only have a room mate, but a room mate who is Eli, I am able to still have alone time but also look forward to coming home and seeing my best friend.  We can talk about our day, what we liked and didn’t like, our goals, what the week has in store, and how delicious the new pesto we tried turned out to be.

2.  My developing sense of patience and professional confidence.  Yesterday’s 2 hours at the legal clinic were trying indeed, but in the end turned out to be very rewarding.  We were again able to put prospective clients more at ease, albeit following a long and arduous (and CONFUSING FOR A BABY LAW STUDENT) conversation about a particular client’s legal issues.  In the end, I was able to make decisions that seemed at the time to be wrong, but turned out to be very very right.  I could easily have caved and made the easier but very wrong decision to let the client walk out the door, but I kept him in the clinic with us until we could be sure his questions were answered correctly and that turned out to be for the better.  He was very grateful, so I am very grateful.

3.  That there isn’t a TV in my apartment.  Well no…that is a lie because we do have a TV but it is only hooked up to a dinky little DVD player.  I should say I’m grateful we don’t have cable.  This takes away the temptation to just vedge on the couch after dinner without talking or interacting.  Instead, throughout the night we were still able to talk, chase each other around the house, and pause the episode of Downton Abbey on my computer to talk about how happy we are that Mr. Bates and Anna got married, and how sad it is that Lavinia died of Spanish flu.  #EdwardianEnglandproblems

That is what I am grateful for today.  Overall what I am most grateful for over the last few days is the thought of my 23rd year coming to an end.  24 will be so much better than 23.  LET.  ME.  TELL.  YOU.

How I feel when I tell people I'm turning 24

Exactly a year ago, right before my 23rd birthday, I got my very first law school grades. That was one of the most dreadful experiences I’m sure I will have in my whole entire life.  Up until that point (with the exception of a positively LAUGHABLE and unfortunate stint in a statistics class) I had skated through life getting great grades.  I’d been under the impression that I was built by GOD to go to law school and be successful and get by just as obnoxiously easy as I ever had.

But no.  That is not what life had in mind.  Instead my professors took a steaming DUMP all over my report card.  I had tried so so hard and been more stressed than ever before for the entire first semester.  I opened up those grades HOPING TO HIGH HEAVENS that my dreams would come true and I’d get the law school grades I’d felt designed to get…and no.  I most certainly got the opposite.

After that point the rest of this year on earth has been spent developing what must be a very respectably sized ulcer and driving E to his wits end having to listen to my whining about grades and stress and wah wah wah.  But as 24 drew closer and closer things started to look up.  Just a month and a half before my birthday I took what turned out to be the most successful round of finals ever in the history of the universe, got to go to New York with the pipe band, and had a very wonderful Christmas.  A month before my birthday, I started sharing a home with E.  And now, mere days before my birthday I received the news about my grades.  I do believe 24 will be a big improvement on 23.

So thanks for being so crappy, 23.  Without you, 24 would not look (and likely turn out to be) so damn amazing!

Improving my Happiness Quotient

My mom sent us an article this morning she received from a friend at work.  It was written by Kathleen Koster for Employee Benefit News about a Harvard Researcher who has been studying “positive psychology.”  He listed five ways that you can “improve your happiness quotient” which will ultimately lead to improved work results and an overall increase in success.  I’m all about increasing success, and if I can do so by being happier, why not try it out?

So since #2 on his list is to journal (hello bloggy blog!) I will use the blog to do #1, which is to list 3 things you are grateful for every day.  Today, here are my three:

On Monday, January 30th 2012, I am grateful for…

1.  The cupcakes I made myself last night, because they are adorable, delicious, and I made them without ruining a new recipe on the first try.  I’ll try to remember to add a picture when I get home, but in case I forget, they are very cute and very delicious rainbow cupcakes with a vanilla buttercream frosting (also from scratch!) and silver cupcake gems on top.  I’m grateful I made these because baking makes me happy, and I made time to do something for myself.

2.  The coffee that Cassie brought me from Starbucks, even though I already had some I brought from home this morning.  I’m grateful for it because it is delicious, it is a Monday and I need more coffee than usual, but mostly because it was so kind of her to think of me, and allowed us to share a quick and happy conversation over coffee on the curb before the day got started.

3.  The pictures Nat posted on facebook of her first week in Paris.  I’m grateful for these because they allow me to see my sister’s surroundings when she is so far from home, allow me to see the delicious food adventures she gets to have in that magnificent place, and although I miss her terribly it lets me see her having an absolutely fabulous first week in her new temporary home.  I’m also grateful for them because they give me a sneak peek at some of the places I will want to see when I visit her!

I do believe that is a good list of three things I’m grateful for.  Even now after writing them down I feel happy because amidst the chaos and business of the week they allow me to reflect on the little things that have happened within the last 24 hours that I have enjoyed the most.  I wonder what I will come up with for tomorrow!

Happy Monday!