When I learn something new that particularly delights me, I want to share it with the whole world, over and over and over. After I started dance lessons a year or two ago I couldn’t shut up about HOW MUCH FUN it was, and how everyone should try it. (I still think that, by the way.) My friends patiently nodded along and probably rolled their eyes behind my back, but I couldn’t really blame them for that, because I ceaselessly evangelized about dancing for months to them.

And now I’m doing another new and wonderful and exciting thing involving me and a certain choir and a li’l miracle from God, as you all know very well by now especially if you follow me on Instagram. And so, as I do, I have been talking everyone’s ears off about it, a fact of which I am very conscious and try to curb with little to no success. So. This is a post that is not about that, okay? Let’s instead have a little chat about what else is going on in my life.

I hosted company this summer a few times- the kind of company that was delightful and refreshing and may possibly have made me want to shed a salty drop or two when they left. We melted on the streets together in true NYC summer fashion, we ate dozens of wonderful foods together, we watched fireworks and rode the ferry and walked many miles and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.

I also made a few trips to North Carolina as you know, each one with miserable flying experiences, and on the last one my flight back was cancelled altogether and I missed a day of work I really needed to be at. “LaGuardia: The Armpit of New York” should be its official title. But dreadful delays aside, I got to go camping for a very short while at the foot of Mount Mitchell, and it was wonderful and smokey and full of good food and laughter and there was even a bear in our camp to top it all off. I got to hug my parents and admire my mom’s garden and breathe clean air and nice stuff like that, you know?

I continue filling my New York weeks with work- answering patient phone calls, resolving issues, dabbling in marketing, that sort of thing. It’s stretching and tiring and interesting, and I have learned a lot about the medical industry these last six months! Note to self (and to you): do not ever work for a medical insurance company.

Aside from work, my evenings and weekends fill up quickly with exploring and cooking and prayer meetings at a Church That Shall Not Be Named. I wander the streets for miles, chasing sunsets and city lights, traipsing over bridges and under trains, and thinking about such important topics as the sheer volume of uncomfortable shoes the world contains and why, or listening to a dramatized “Little Women” audiobook, or wondering what that smell is. I’ve gone to the beach, I’ve gone to the Hamptons, I’ve gone to a random dinner party with strangers and a random worship night completely unlike my style and made unlikely friends in unlikely places. I’ve worn a huge red wig and had adventures galore with it because red hair is magic.

I am settling in to my neighborhood and no longer have to use my maps to get to work or church or home, which is nice, even though I still haven’t figured out how anybody gets anywhere on time without leaving ridiculously early. I regretfully know just how far it is to the closest Aldi and laundromat, not in mileage, but in how miserable it is to carry a heavy load home from there. I can also point you to wonderful bubble tea and french fry and roti spots, and the city feels like home more than ever. There are days when I miss my family dreadfully, but that’s to be expected of any adventurous sort of life, right? I can’t imagine giving it up just now, not even for all the cushiness North Carolina had to offer.

There. I made it for a whole post without talking about the Brooklyn Taber…oops. Almost a whole post. A tiny bit keeps spilling out around the edges because after all, yesterday was my first Sunday to actually sing with them in church, and ohmygoodnessitwaswonderful and would you like to hear about it?

 

A Year Ago:

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Two Years Ago:

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Three Years Ago:

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