today I...

...made kale chips!

Um...yum.

Kale is one of the healthiest greens you could possibly eat, full of Vitamin K, A, C, B6, and managanese - not to mention every other nutrient known to man. Seriously, eat it.

Great recipe can be found here.

stuff i like this second!

via

It's a bit dreary in New York City this morning, but I'm not letting the steel grey skies deter me from trekking down to Chelsea Market. Once I'm done soaking up all that beautiful smorgasbord of culinary goodness has to offer I'm hopping downtown through Washington Square Park to return to a bookstore that I discovered a few weeks ago on Crosby Street. Used books for a $1?...I can never stay way for too long.

Photos of my excursions are on the way :)

Recovering Lazyholic

Recovering Lazyholic is one of my favorite blogs, and creator Erin Hanson has done it again with her new series of Deep Bullshit posters. Clever and eerily similar to many of my lazy day thoughts, I couldn't choose just one or two that I loved so I decided to shove a bunch into one post. Check out the rest here.

via the cherry blossom girl

"Beneath it is all dark, it is all spreading, it is unfathomably deep; but now and again we rise to the surface and that is what you see us by."

- To The Lighthouse

John blogs.

John, I liked you before, but now...NOW that I've seen your blog, I practically LOVE you.

thoughts.

I have a slight obsession with food blogs. Well, let me rephrase that: I have a slight obsession with food. Not really eating it, per say, just looking at it. Admiring it. Reading about it (this one is especially important). Thinking about it.

I have expressed my fervent love for the Food Network to anyone that will listen- my roommates can attest to this fact- and I have randomly taken off to the grocery store wielding long lists scribbled on receipts of special classified ingredients in preparation for unparalleled feats of baking prowess in the Philadelphia kitchen I shared with my best friends in college. Anyway, I can spend hours staring at my computer screen while my eyes devour the food blogger posts one after the other, and I always feel a bit envious after. I wish I could be a food blogger, someone with such a love and zeal and talent for attempting to perfect a tiramisu recipe or creating the most delicious spring panzanella. Every post has such direction and purpose and an outcome! A result! Something to show for the writer's hard work and time and sweat and, sometimes, tears.

This blog of mine is a bit of a rambling animal. Quite untamed and a bit messy, sometimes irrepressibly flighty and hard to understand since I tend to jump from trying to inspire world peace to posting photos about fashion, but I love it just the same. It is mine and wholeheartedly original and often feels like a beautiful disaster of a personal project.

When I do get inspiration to write, I go here, and I try to spill whatever thoughts I have out into some sort of comprehensible form of expression that will enable my readers to hear me and understand my intentions. Sometimes all we ever need is someone to listen. A way to feel less alone.

I feel weirdly isolated over here in Bangkok, far from the life I am used to and separated from friends and family, but I am trying to embrace the solitude. Realistically, living in a big city with millions of people, getting a job, making friends, and learning to live in an entirely foreign culture than my own isn't exactly solitude. But I do find myself taking too much time to think, and then I smile because I have the time to think. What a blissful thing! I wonder if I will ever become a normal person, able to go out into the world and make happen what I want, instead of just writing it down in a small leatherbound book and hoping for some divine destiny to strike me over my ignorant head.

I memorize the words of famous poets and my head is buried in books every spare minute, but I fail to grasp the meaning behind the sentences because I don't understand idyllic perceptions of personal achievement. I don't understand having the courage to do what you love and only because you love it, and nothing else.

I fear failing too much to learn to fly.

Is this natural, or am I training myself to reason with my dreams so that I don't have to risk the pain when they don't come true?

I'm not entirely sure how this post wound its way into a self-absorbed scramble, but nonetheless I guess I needed to get some stuff off of my chest.

Thanks for reading.

xo-J