Oh what fun!

Some of these are still in the mail on their way to our friends and family, but in the meantime, I needed to share our Christmas cards this year... 

Usually we just send one, but this year we had such an amazing opportunity to send the silliest card in our history (but couldn't chance sending this to work colleagues and older family friends) that we had to go with an option 1 and option 2. :) Option one shows us as we REALLY wish our life was all the time... you know, perfect-looking.

We're smiling! Everything is perfect! We look fantastic! There's snow and a sled for goodness-sakes! 

That's not to say that we're not smiling an awful lot of the time and that we don't have an incredible, amazing, really blessed life together, because we do....

But let's be honest... no one's life LOOKS like that 100% of the time. Which is why card #2 makes me so happy.

I mean, in real life sometimes you have the most fun when you're zooming downhill at 30mph heading straight for some super scary-looking brambles and you have no idea how to steer the sled. Everyone knows it, but the ride is so fun that it's totally worth the crash at the end...
Or maybe in real life you have the most fun when things mostly just aren't going right, and you have no idea on God's green earth where you're heading but that's ok, because you're a team and you've got each others' backs and you figure things will turn out just fine..

Or maybe real life's fun because you've made a crazy choice that will change things forever for the two of you (like having a baby) and you're both hurtling toward that new phase in life without a CLUE of what it really means, will look like, or bring into your family, but you keep heading that way because it just feels right and the anticipation and uncertainty is BEAUTIFUL and what life is all about.

Regardless of which possibility resonates with you, Option #2 captures what I feel like our life really feels like these days.  The photo is terrible, we look ridiculous, but Oh, What FUN! :)

Happy New year and Happy Christmas, and ALL other holidays this season from me!

wishfulfillment planned: the everglades

oh my dears,

it's been way too long since wishfulfillment got an update. BUT I finally have something fun and light-hearted to report (not that things haven't been fun, or lighthearted sometimes, but not really report-worthy)

we've decided on a vacation (AND it's top on my list of places in America that I want to go!)

we've got a conference in miami in the fall, so we're headed to explore the everglades for a few days afterwards and are going to drive down through the keys..all in all, we'll be vacationing a week! the everglades are so high on our travel list because (like glacier national park) there's a chance that the environment is shifting so rapidly that in a decade or so it won't be the same. also, swamplandia's beautiful and melancholy descriptions of the landscape and wildlife peaked my interest something awful. 


have you been? are there any must-dos or must-sees?

midnight special...

this feels like an odd post to follow the one about baby alice...but seeing these photos this week in oxford american by an accidental-documentarian "the polaroid kidd" recently lit a little fire in my belly (or maybe it re-lit it).

 all my life i've wanted to jump a train and live like a gypsy, and when i lived in the delta the first time and freight trains full of soybeans or cotton drove past my  house not 100 yards away at least 3 times a day, it was all i could do not to call a friend and ask him to get ready to pick me up whereever i could get off. something about the freedom of not having control over where i would land or when i could stop seemed so incredible...

but i never did it. not once in the eleven months.

now we live a block from a freight train line again, and after seeing these photos i'm feeling a rekindling of the dream. its not that this seems glamorous, or even super fun*...but it seems so real...and the freedom! there are just things that need to be done, and if i don't do it now, i probably never will.

are there things you dream of doing?



* i know that this lifestyle isn't always a choice people get to make for themselves, so it's probably "freeing" when you get to choose it from a place a privilege, but even so, i'd like to experience it at least once.

romantic (and historic) getaway...

my mom brought an old martha stewart mag last week when she came to visit and there were these great photos from historic deerfield, ma. it's apparently this incredibly old community (several houses are from the early 1700s!) after seeing them and doing a little more research about fun things to do, i'm dying to visit. the  homes are soooo beautiful...

and the doors to the houses are amazing...they're almost the best part! can't you imagine nathaniel hawthorne walking out of one of these and strolling down the street?

find more here.

a little koolickle...

i told you i'd share more about my folks' visit last weekend but it's been so crazy i've hardly had time to breathe, much less blog...
anyway, probably the highlight of the weekend was when we went fun driving around these teeny delta towns looking for local potter's studios, antique stores, and delicious regional delicacies.

all the pottery studios were closed, but we did find a delicious new restaurant by the ms river and i introduced everyone to the "koolickle." it's a pickle steeped in kool-aid until it turns a bright color and tastes like a combination of dill and grape (or dill and cherry). when i first moved to the delta as a teacher 5 years ago, my friends and i were welcomed with little sandwich bags of koolickles... and then a year later, john edge wrote a story about them in the NYT. anyway, it seemed only fitting that while on a delta adventure everyone try a famous delta treat. so they did...

boone HATED it..but he also thinks dill pickles are the most disgusting things in the world, so i should have expected it. my parents said they were "interesting" and "really unique." i don't think that means they want another one anytime soon, but at least now they can say they tried one!

i took the photos above of my dad in the Great River Road state park, but here's a photo from the professionals...

left my heart in san francisco....

well folks, the wedding was just beautiful and full of so much love. every detail was perfect (what would you expect from snippet and ink's founder?) and i had the best time hanging out with the happy couple before the wedding and with dear friends the rest of the time. we danced, and ate, and walked around the city...but right now i can't wait to set foot in the 'sip.

it's been a looooong trip home.

apparently teeny planes that go to Memphis can't fly in snow, so we were stuck in salt lake last night, then sent to phoenix. we're currently on a plane to memphis and scheduled to land any minute, so the photo above is my vantagepoint.

cross your fingers for a safe return to our little hamlet!

image from imgspark.

oxford in the rearview...

so today we're putting the precious town of oxford in our rearview mirror for awhile and we're moving to the delta. we've had a great time here this month and will definitely be back to eat at big bad breakfast for home cured bacon and sausage, the taylor farmer's market to see our yokna bottoms farm friends, and hit parrishes' again until the wee hours...but now this greyhound is delta bound (and full of our stuff...lots of stuff). wish us luck!

photo here

our couch surfing comes to an end

so, we made it back to atlanta after a 24+ hour flight and got upgraded to business class from tokyo to salt lake (fan-tastic). it's been a great month of traveling and gypsy-ing around, but i'll be really excited tomorrow when we get to our temporary home in the 'sip and finish our 33 day run of couch-surfing. thanks to everyone who made it possible: aunt mame and uncle bill, mom and dad, craig, jen and david, carrie, scott, and their girls, the good people of bali, and randolph who's letting us house sit for another month. (it's not technically ours, but at least it'll feel like it's ours for a little bit). :)
stay tuned for an update from our new home!

photo from flickr.

leaving on a jetplane

we've had a busy week back in singapore! lots and lots of playing with the nieces, going on family outings to the INCREDIBLE singapore zoo and the bukit timah nature reserve, and dealing with a little case of td. it's been wonderful!

unfortunately we leave in a few hours for the US... one stop in tokyo, another in chicago, and then a third in atl where we'll spend the night with friends (i hope i hope i hope) before we drive to the delta. it'll be hard to leave the girls and end out adventure, but will feel SO GOOD to have a home that's ours (at least until we find something more permanent in august. :) wish us traveling mercies!

bali batik...

forgot to share the photos from the batik gallery...


totally fascinating!

"it looks like a screensaver!"

we watched couples retreat right before we left singapore and this quote kept popping into my mind when we got to sanur beach. i really don't have much to say about this part of our trip, except that we had a traditional balinese couples' massage for like $40 total (where hot hot hot spice mask is slathered all over your body and left to dry) the massage part was fantastic...but my skin didn't find the mask all that relaxing. Boone loved it, though.

the photos just say everything else...







everything except about the food. so, sanur also has tons and tons of small warungs, or food stalls along the beach. we drank bintang beer and sampled some piping hot roasted corn on the cob. (one slathered in butter, the other in sweet chili sauce. again, i tried something a little too hot for me).







it was a perfect beach vacation unlike any other i've ever had. if only destin or pensacola would get some seafood stalls or bars on their beaches...

seeing the sights...

our second full day took us on a tour of bali... i think almost everyone who hires a driver and doesn't give explicit directions goes on this trip. not only did we see all of the temples, but we also visited some rice terraces (since the region isn't flat, they've got to grow rice in stairsteps. eat your heart out, mississippi delta)




we visited a peak where we could see the volcanoes...


and had lunch there. ;)


we drove through coffee and fruit farms next to teeny villages and visited a fruitstand to try fresh balinese oranges (see below) which actually tastes like a giant lime, mangosteens, and something else that tasted like a giant grape but looked like a porcupine.


and we visited a lovely waterfall and made some adorable friends.



it was a great day... and the next day, we went to the beach! i still can't get over that all of this was on the same island.