myretroperspective

This weekend marks a year from when R asked me to be marry him. Can it have only been a year? So much has happened in 12 months and while marriage has been an adjustment I still have a hard time imagining life if we hadn't gone down this path. We have moved 3 times. I have taken 10 flights (half international). We have found a church, found a job, made a home. We have exponentially more worldly possessions (in the form of generous wedding gifts, a craig's list sofa, a hand-me-down bed & loveseat and the long-awaited kitchen table & chairs). When I stop and think about all this change I usually am not sure how we got here, and so I know it must be the Lord. He continues to provide and draw us close to Him. He continues to humble us and show us our need for Him. He is guiding us in as we learn how to "be". The night R asked me to marry him changed our lives forever and I will never forget it. I was truly surprised even though I hoped it was coming. W

Atlanta has been showing us love these last weeks with a warm spring. We survived snowmageddon in January and my first winter living in a place where snow actually stuck to the ground a couple times, and I can't say I'm not happy to see the season pass. Ryan loves our christmas/wedding gift camera- icicles on our back porch lots of snow! we were stuck in the house from sunday night till thursday Because my job is wonderfully flexible I was able to come home mid-afternoon and take a conference call from our porch. It was a perfect 75F and I just found myself thankful for this season of life in what might be the most adorable house ever. I can say that because I can hardly take credit for it. It was the first rental our realtor-friend suggested we check out. spring time! great place to read and chat The porch itself isn't much- just a 6x10' covered deck on the front of our little bungalow style 2 bed/1 bath. I have plans for flowers and strandsof lights but we're

bok choi in the wok I came home from yoga at the Y just in time to catch the fabulous Florida- UCSB blowout in round 1 of the NCAA tournament. This meant I was a little distracted as far as getting food on the table. Ryan returned from his run famished and when I mentioned we got bok choi in our CSA pack this week he quickly got to work. I'm sure I'll post later (if not several times) about my newfound love for CSA weekly boxes but that's not my current point. We threw some golden rice (from the courtesy member pack from our CSA group) in the ricecooker and he pulled out the wok. Perfectly timed at half time of the game he served up the most amazing spicy chicken, bok choi rice bowl. We had friends bring back local ingredients the last time the visited our part of Asia and those spices have made all the difference. La jiao- which is the hot red peppers and hua jiao which are small kernel type pods that have a numbing effect on your mouth. The combination is incredib

When I decided to meet a small group of friends for an intimate birthday celebration at the beautiful St. Regis Hotel in Atlanta… I didn’t imagine that I would have so much fun! It was like an evening of girlfriends meet Sex and the City! You just never know how much you’ll learn about your friends and yourself when you open up and share your past, present and future. Now, while what we discussed at the St. Regis stays within the walls of the wine room, I can tell you that we laughed so hard—we cried!   We also shared our stories and secrets to our individual success and what we’d like to tackle next. Each one of the girls has decided to try something new in 2011… as smart women we’re always shifting and growing as our journey through life becomes more focused. Our girls just having fun interaction caught the attention of a number of people who were in the hotel meeting friends or having a drink because a few of them came over to say hello to us. Our positive energy was infectious… and

When I moved to East Asia the enjoyable parts of the metropolis we lived in were, shall we say, "hidden". I mean that if you visited our city for a weekend you might leave thinking- ew, pollution, tons of people and gross food. Over time however, we learned to love our city. It took work. It took discovering a quiet tea shop. It took learning how to order what was on the menu that wasn't intestines or stomach. It took befriending cab drivers instead of cursing at them (although inevitably that would happen as they do try to rip off foreigners especially coming from the airport). There would be lapses in culture shock, days when I couldn't handle it, but over time I thought of it as home and even began to love the city for what it was- pollution, people, food and all. Now we've moved to Atlanta. I'm not sure we thought much about where we'd like to live- Atlanta surfaced quickly as the place where I could continue ministering with Campus Crusade for

How daunting is starting a blog? Living out my thirtieth year on earth, I think I've finally grown past my emotion-driven rants from my xanga days and to a place where I have some unique or common thoughts about our day to day life and the world we've found ourselves in. The transitions we've been through in the last year (marriage, moving from host culture to home culture, new city, new jobs, new church, making new friends...) continue to provide eyebrow raising moments that I wish to share with whomever might read. So expect some random kitchen adventures, reverse culture shock instances, and not a few growing pains shared here.