Nice Prayer

Here's a nice prayer from good ol' St Theresa:

May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.
May you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.
It is there for each and every one of us.

What I do all day...

Today I attended a 'flash squat' on the South Bank to highlight the world's need for better taps and toilets. At 9am about a hundred of us, led by a chief squatter, squatted for 2 minutes (note toilet paper and faux poo). I have a very intellectual job as you can see. (This isn't me by the way...I'm farther down in the crowd)

Welcome 2009

It has indeed been awhile. Oh well, here's a bit of a catch up of the things I'm thinking about lately:

* Holistic health: I've always been pretty health conscious, but after getting married and committing to a strict budget, often price and convenience sideline health. Then there was the chocolate. I felt like a Cathy cartoon how chocoholic I became, eating it to get through the afternoon slump rather than as a special treat every once in awhile. This past winter I became reinvigorated to take care of myself. Stress, cold and a cake competition I'm still determined to win contributed to bad skin and just feeling very blah- the perfect recipe for change. I read a fantastic book called...wait...What Would Jesus Eat? and it's amazing. I'm not so theologically zealous that I feel I need to literally eat like Jesus did, but I do appreciate that what people ate 2,000 years ago was much healthier, whole, and less processed. It showed me just how much crap I eat without realising. So my new year's aim is to cut out all the refined and processed garbage from my diet and focus on eating as whole wheaty, brown ricey, EVOO- filled, and fruit and vegelicious as I can.

* Fish: One thing's for sure, Jesus sure ate a lot of fish. As a pescetarian, you'd think I'd be a fish preparing master, but in fact I find cooking them daunting. So this year my goal is to cook more fish. I started with salmon - the one fish I know how to cook, and have gone from there. Last night, cod baked with olive oil, lemon and rosemary. Hopefully it will be a slippery slope to mastery from here.

* Detox: To celebrate the Chinese year of the OX I'm considering this my personal year of the detOX. I'm learning about all sorts of detox plans and plan to do one soon hopefully. Any tips welcome.

* Pilates: Amy, whilst she was in London (sigh) signed up for weekly (?) pilates courses. It's all about core strength and being more aware of your body (I think). I'd be there in a heartbeat if it wasn't so pricey. My credit crunch solution was to raid the local library, where I picked up every sort of pilates for dummies book on the shelf. For now I'm feeling really good just reading about how great pilates is. Hopefully soon I'll find out if doing it for real is even better. Yes, I am obsessively thinking about health at the moment. But I think it's important to go through seasons like this to remind you to be healthy. I don't think organic brown rice or pilates should just be posh novelty; how you treat your body impacts on every other part of life.

* Threads: OK, aside from health, I'm thinking about sewing and knitting. I got a sewing machine for Christmas and just need to sit down and figure out how to work it and avoid sticking a needle through my finger - a real fear. I'm also going to start to learn to knit, just to really even out my domestic pursuits. Expect to see some scarf work and simple bags coming soon.

* Travel: Got some big ol' plans coming up. First to the US of A in February for work, hitting up the East Coast for a week. Then in April to Los Angeles, Seattle and New York with Dan (!). Then hopefully going to Central/ South America with work. Just checked out some travel books at the library today to get clued up on the region. My thoughts now are either Honduras or Peru/ Bolivia. Any thoughts?

* Ethiopian food: Sorry, back to food. Not sure how healthy it is but Dan and I have really fallen for it. If you haven't had it, go find some some. If you have, then you know my joy. Having gone through a Mexican food withdrawl since moving the the UK I am happy to have found a cuisine I love just as much. Indeed, I'm about to go have some for dinner.

* Mudhouse Sabbath: Read this book over Christmas and it's fab. Lauren Winner is kind of my writing hero. She converted to Christianity from Orthodox Judaism and in this book outlines 10 Jewish practices that she finds lacking in Christianity, and describes how to translate them in her spiritual life. Need more books like this. The next book on my list is O2 by Jenny's pastor Richard Dahlstrom. Will let you know...

Well, that's kind of me in a nutshell for now.

RBI Man in Hall of Fame

A big congratulations to my dad for his induction into the Softball Hall of Fame tonight! That's right, USSSA of Washington state will be honoring John Griffith for all of his achievements on the field in a ceremony this evening. I'm so proud of you dad. You taught me everything I know about baseball and we had a great time at all those Mariner's game during Ken Griffey Jr's rookie year. Good luck on your speech- I'm sure it will be a hit!

London's Test Kitchen

As many of you may know, there is a baking competition at my work which begs to be taken seriously. Amy graciously lent me her skills last weekend as we turned my flat into a test kitchen to try out some winning recipes. Just as well that it was a test kitchen. On the first batch of cookies melt unhealthily into each other we realised we hadn't converted the recipe to British sizes. Though American sizes are bigger in every other way, in butter measurements, a British stick of butter is almost twice the size of an American one, leaving us with a double the butter batter. We did recover with swift thinking and extra flour, but it was a tense moment. And that's what test kitchens are for.


Prep work.


Arthouse Boston Chocolate Pie.


Amy and Boston Chocolate Pie.


Treating ourselves to a shandy at local pub.


The sun sets on a hard day's baking.

Summer Round-up

Sorry I suck at blogging in a timely fashion. But I won't let that paralyze me from writing today. Seeing as summer is winding down, I thought I'd give a wrap up of my summer.

Several weeks ago we celebrated Dan's birthday by going to dinner along the banks of the Thames, overlooking the Tower Bridge.





My birthday was the month before and Dan surprised me and took me to Brighton to explore Briton's exotic rocky beaches and enjoy some good vegetarian food.


In June we went home to Seattle to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday. It was also great to see friends and indulge in food American style.








We couldn't visit Washington without a drive to Spokane to visit our friends Jessie and Andrew and their adorable son Jude. The 5 hour road trip was a good way to get back behind the wheel and while in Spokane we visited a massive hunting and fishing centre- here is me with a target practice turkey.



Other than that we've been enjoying the lazy days of the English 'summer', trying to squeeze in tennis and picnics wherever possible. And now that Amy is in town from California (in fact she's typing a paper 10 feet away from me) we've been lucky enough to enjoy her company. Here's to September and the inevitable shortening of days.

Japan!

This July 4-14 I was lucky to return to Japan after 4 years, this time doing something slightly more interesting than playing hang-man with the youth of Japan: attending the G8. It was an experience I'll never forget and it felt great to be back in the land of the rising sun, creaking along with my dormant language skills. After the Summit I stayed in Tokyo for a few. Above is the madness of the Shibuya 'scramble' (the world's largest crosswalk).


Ah...sweet Japanese toilet delights. Those bidets are pretty powerful- I thought I'd try one out before a press conference and got completely drenched.


Are you kidding me?! These Japanese Airlines headphones are fantastic. Proof again of Japan's advanced technology.


Plastic food- very helpful.


These drinks machines dot the island nation and are very convenient. But apparently the bane of environmental campaigners lives here for the amount of energy they use.


Here's the G8 media centre. It was supposedly sustainably built and the air conditioning mysteriously powered by snow. I love this place! This trip was ideal: it was long enough to enjoy again the buzz of this country I adore, but also remember why I'm no longer living there. What other country has security guards on segues and dancing robots?!