July 31

On my longer runs, I move through the alphabet and for each letter name things I am thankful for.

July 30

The week culminated in a pleasant surprise.

29 July

I love her for a lot of reasons, but one is the amazing packages she sends.

July 28

I wonder if this place will always feel a little bit like home.

July 27

I still choose my side of the bed and expect to see him when I wake up.

I put no one else above us.

On repeat.

July 26

There was still so much to do, but I'm glad I didn't cancel our plans.

July 25

The balance seems impossible.

July 24

We drove out to the field and picked our dinner.

July 23

Today I just couldn't catch a break.

July 22

I love that we can pick up right where we left off.

July 21

I have felt so overwhelmed recently, it's been a great reprieve after work to admire our plants and pick some herbs for dinner. Tonight? Mint for a cucumber salad.

July 20

"I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." -Abraham Lincoln

July 19

Book club always cures my Monday blues.

July 18

Walking home tonight, I felt so thankful to live in this city. It is a good life.

July 17

It was only appropriate after our first double digit run of the training to jump in the lake.

July 16

My favorite walks are the ones on Fridays after work. We talk about how great it would be to have a dog with us.

July 15

Dinner for one. Eggs. Toast. Wine. Watching the planes and clouds roll by.

The Greatest

So I'm probably the last person to tell you about this recipe. This one has been floating around the food blogs for months and ever since I made it back in May, I haven't been able to get enough of it. And it's popular for a reason. It's healthy, fast, easy, cheap, and seriously delicious. Not to mention it makes the best salad for a BBQ because it can be served cold or at room temperature. I made it for our gathering last weekend and it was the most requested recipe of the day. It also holds up fantastically well in the fridge and makes a perfect lunch with toast, which is exactly how I ate it today.

Carrot Salad with Harissa, Feta, and Mint
via Smitten Kitchen

3/4 pound carrots, peeled, trimmed and coarsely grated (a food processor comes in very handy here)
4 tablespoons olive oil
1 crushed clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon caraway seeds or about half as much, ground
3/4 teaspoon cumin seeds or about half as much, ground
1/2 teaspoon paprika
3/4 teaspoon harissa (for a solid kick of heat; adjust yours to taste, and to the heat level of your harissa, I put in a full teaspoon)
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh mint, finely chopped
100 grams feta, crumbled or chopped into bits

In a small sauté pan, cook the garlic, caraway, cumin, paprika, harissa and sugar in the oil until fragrant, about one to two minutes. Remove from heat and add the lemon juice and a pinch of salt. Pour over the carrots and mix. Add the herbs and mix. Leave to infuse for an hour and add the feta before eating.

Harissa: Is a North African chile paste that you can usually find near the mustard or Indian section of your grocery store. It goes well on everything: eggs, potatoes, stews, couscous, sandwiches and more. If you can't find it in your store, you can always make your own (see recipe below).

Tomato-Pepper Harissa
via The Wednesday Chef
Makes 1 cup

4 ounces dried chiles
1 clove garlic, peeled
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
3 sun-dried tomatoes, dry-packed
1 large red bell pepper
2 tablespoons best-quality olive oil, plus extra for storage

1. Roast the red pepper in the oven until blistered and collapsing on all sides. Set aside to cool on baking sheet. Place the chiles in a large bowl and cover with boiling water. Let rest until softened, about 30 minutes. Drain, then remove the seeds and stems from the chiles. Wear latex or rubber gloves when you do this to avoid irritating your skin.

2. Place the seeded and stemmed chiles into the bowl of a food processor with the garlic and pulse a couple of times. Add the salt, cumin and coriander. Process until smooth, pouring the olive oil into the feeding tube on top as you blend.

3. In a small bowl, cover the sun-dried tomatoes with boiling water and allow to soften, about 15 minutes. Drain. Remove the skin of the roasted pepper, and the veins and the seeds. Do not rinse under water.

4. Add the tomatoes and one-half of the roasted red pepper (reserve the rest for another use) to the chile mixture, adding a few tablespoons of water if needed to achieve the right consistency. The harissa should have the texture of thick paste. Cover with a thin layer of olive oil and refrigerate until needed.

July 14

I'm not sure what's more remarkable, how incredible this cucumber tasted or that we grew it on our little porch.

July 13

Balancing all of the bits and pieces.

July 12

Monday routine. Routine Monday.

Local Natives

The Pitchfork Festival is quickly approaching and I couldn't be more excited for this year's lineup. This week I'll be posting videos of some of the acts I am most excited to see.

Local Natives seem to get bigger by the minute and for good reason. Their album, Gorilla Manor is one of the best albums I've listened to in a long time. This song is one of my favorites. It reminds me of all of the wonderful people I have lost in my life.

July 11

The rainy evening called for heaping plates of food and exchanging stories. It was the perfect finish to a perfect weekend.

July 10

What a lovely way to celebrate.

July 9

We always park at the top because we like the view.

July 8

As the skyline faded, we spoke quietly in the backseat, made plans.

July 7

Tonight I had a date with Ira Glass and our co-op delivery. Ratatouille makes the best summer supper.

July 6

The blue moon was the white whale, I was Ahab.

July 5

It's bittersweet to finish a book as good as this one.

July 4

It wasn't the prettiest pie, but I think she'd be proud.

July 3

When the sun went down, we climbed to the top.

July 2

We finally tried the place on the corner. We'll be back.

Pretty Perfect

Last Friday marked our fifth wedding anniversary. For some reason five years seems like such a milestone, much more than six or seven years. It scares me how quickly time passes. I try not to think about it because when I do, I get overwhelmed knowing there will never be enough time.

I ask myself at least once a day how I was lucky enough to meet Charlie. Seriously, how did I get this lucky? How did I manage to find someone who would love me so completely, someone who would make me better everyday, would challenge me and always support me? I can't believe we recognized what we had when we were so young. I can't believe we married five years ago, especially when I consider how much my love has grown since then. My feelings now so overshadow my feelings then, it's wonder we got married when we did! It makes me realize just how fitting our wedding song was.




Before celebrating with a wonderful dinner at Graham Elliot, we pulled out a book I complied in 2004 of our correspondence up to that point. We read through the first letters we ever exchanged in 2002. We read through hilarious emails sent while I studied abroad and Charlie taught in Harlem. We recalled old nicknames and tried to make sense of inside jokes. I laughed so hard I cried (I think I was much funnier back then). We read through the heartbreaking letters we sent during a year spent apart.

One letter in particular struck a note with me. Charlie sent it to me in January of 2004. I was approaching my final semester of college, he was beginning his second semester as a first year teacher in a tough Baltimore school. Little did I know we were four months away from getting engaged.

With Charlie's permission I'm sharing the letter because it manages to speak volumes of where we were then and where we are now. He's also a great writer and has always managed to put his feelings into words better than I.

January 5, 2004

Myndi -

You are the best part of my life. You are the happy - the meaning - the future. There is a pure unmitigated goodness that I feel spreading over me when we are together. We are together on a couch or at a table or walking and a part of my mind steals state-of-the-union thoughts and smiles. We are talking out loud or with our eyes or with our bodies and I am thinking: "Myndi is mine. We will be like this forever. I love that she loves me. That she chooses me. That she is moving to Baltimore and we can spread our future like a map on a table and decide together." I am astonished at your grace. Your honesty. I want to be clean and clever and powerful for you. I want to always entertain the ethereal romance we conjure together.

You know what I'm looking forward to? I'm looking forward to the changes we'll go through together. I'm looking forward to all of our developments that we'll earn with conversations that run late into the night. The stressful expressions that will bend into smiles as we work together.

Thousands of memories of our time together rain down on me, packaged and separate. I am proud of what we've done so far. My head reels with the prospect of our future. I don't know what it will bring, but I know it will be good because we will be together.

I flip through our life together in an imaginary stack of photos, some yellowed more than others. Our first house - on an airplane wearing berets - first days of school - family holding hands (all tragically hip) - the dated clothing and haircuts - on a ski slope - graying hair and coffee on the porch - a book signing - a holiday party - the wedding - in Moscow - sailing - someone else's wedding - at dinner with great friends - kissing - at the Grand Canyon (on donkeys) - pregnant - laughing - at a bonfire on the beach - white hair and our grandchildren - after the hip replacement - our futuristic flying car - hoverboards - our irresistible children missing front teeth - a robot maid - by the pyramids...

My love for you stretches infinitely into the future. Know that this letter and all the things I've written you and said are merely windows through which I try to show you the infinite reaches of what you do to me. I love you in a way that is at once necessary and transcendent. There should be a word for that. Or at least a simile...let's see...hmm...in the borrowed wisdom of a modern genius: I love you like a fat kid love cake.

You are the best part of my life, as you always will be. There is a new strength and maturity that we earn together because we are together. I love building this with you. I am always yours.

Love from places I never knew existed -
Charlie

July 1

The wine was great, the company even better.

Habit

One of my favorite blogs, Habit is opening up its doors for the month of July, giving the rest of us a chance to contribute.

The rules:
- one photo posted per person per day. the photo should capture a real moment from the day - no staging.
- include no more than 30 words in the description of the photo - these words should capture a single moment from the day or the essence of the entire day. they don't have to be related to the photo, but they can be if you like.
- be sure to post the photo on the day it was taken.

All month long Habit will be choosing photos and words from the Flickr pool to share on their blog. I will be posting my daily entries here. To check out the group photos, click here.