Leaving New York City

So, my life in New York City has come to an end.  I have no regrets from my time there.  I did everything I wanted to and so much more.  I could have never planned all that I got to do and see and eat.  Not to mention, the church I was a part of, the people I met, and the job I got to have for most of that time.  I truly believe that God greatly blessed my time there.  I couldn’t have orchestrated it so perfectly myself.  I still love that city deeply and it was definitely hard to make the decision to leave now.  But, I’m happy about what Dallas holds for me and came to a place of peace about leaving New York.  New York is not going anywhere - I will visit often and, who knows - maybe I’ll move back some day (this IS my 3rd time to live in Dallas, so it’s clearly possible!)

This blog will probably come to an end soon.  It has served as my scrapbook during my NYC years.  I really want to finish posting the pictures and details from this past year (including finishing the Spain trip....ahhhh, I’m a year behind!!).  And the past month has been a BLAST, so I definitely have to share with you all that went down during my NYC last hurrah!  So, there will be more posts to come for a bit.  I hope that this time of transition affords the time to finish this blog up, as I currently have no standing obligations or commitments in Dallas (well....except for that little Bachelorette party on Monday nights - same party I was attending weekly over 6 years ago is still happening with the same girlfriends.  I am so glad!).

As I leave New York City (literally...I’m on the plane!, but will post this later.), I’ve been thinking about how much I learned during my time there and how I want to make sure I take those nuggets back to Dallas with me.  Here is what I’m inspired to do in Dallas : 

1)  Make an effort to get to know my neighbors.  I got to know my neighbor, Christine, fairly well.  She lived on the 5th floor of my building.  I probably wouldn’t have gotten to know her so well if she didn’t also work with my friend from church, Megan.  But, that connection set us up for friendship.  We ran into each other in the neighborhood often (and even the Lower East Side recently one night!).  She came over to my apartment for small parties a couple of times and also had me up to hers.  She even had me up for cosmos and a to-die-for dip on my last evening in the City before I had to head to dinner with other friends.  She was also the person I could complain to when our one set of rude neighbors did things like leave a trash bag full of stinky, dirty diapers in the hallway.  My friendship with Christine made me realized that it’s worth it to know your neighbors - reach out to your neighbors and get to know them!

2)  Tell my co-workers I appreciate them and thank them for their hard work.  This does not happen in the workplace often enough and whether I am feeling valued for my hard work or not, I want to make sure those around me know that I do value them.

3)  Get out and explore - even if it’s by myself!  I LOVE to explore new things - places, restaurants, events.  It may be a bit harder to find interesting things in the Dallas area, but I’m going to make it happen!  And I actually love exploring by myself almost as much as I do with other people, so I can’t let that be an excuse.

4)  Surround myself with friends who love Jesus and who make it a priority to strengthen their relationship with Him through prayer and time in the Word.  I spent the past year amongst some Godly women who truly love Jesus.  These were women who have known Jesus their whole life and women who’ve only known Him a year or two or three.    They were each inspiring to me and my own personal relationship with God.  There was a long period in NYC where I didn’t have these kinds of friends in my life and I saw myself stumbling in my own personal walk.  Seeing others being transformed and filled with joy through their relationship with Jesus is contagious!  I need that in my life.

5)  Make some friends who do not know Jesus at all.  It is very easy in Dallas to fall into the Christian bubble.  There are so many great churches in Dallas and when I lived there before it seemed as if everyone I knew was not only a Christian, but very involved in their church and striving to gain a greater knowledge and understanding of Jesus.  Don’t get me wrong - this is a good thing!  But, I also know that there are many, many people in Dallas who do not know Jesus.  In NYC, I was able to get to know some people like this through my Book Club and the Baylor Alumni club, and my neighborhood.  I want to make sure I have friends who do not know Jesus in my new life in Dallas - it may take more effort, but I’m willing to try to find them!  And then I will pray that I would love them well and that Jesus would be glorified to me through me.

6)  Don’t become a hoarder.  I lived in very tight quarters in NYC and it was totally fine - I even liked it!  I had much more than I needed and way less than I would have had if I had more closet space and rooms.  AND I still managed to take 4 huge bags to Goodwill as I was clearing out my apartment in those last days.  I’ll most definitely be living in a larger space in Dallas (they don’t even make studios here...do they?), but I don’t want that to be an excuse to have more “things”.  

I’m sure there are many, many more things I have learned that I need to hold on to, but these are the ones that are at the forefront of my mind and where I will start!

SJ's Wedding!

I hope you all had a great Memorial Day Weekend!  I did so many fun things this weekend!!  And it all ended on Monday night when my friend and Bible-study leader extraordinaire, Sarah Jane, got married!  She asked me to be one of the greeters and help with a few other things - it was so much fun!!  I loved, loved, loved the venue.  The ceremony was on a rooftop with amazing views of the city.  SJ is a Broadway star, so there were a lot of B'way celebs at the wedding.  Kerry Washington was there (she's done B'way and a lot of TV/Film) and at dinner I sat across the table from a guy who I recognized from seeing Book of Mormon a few weeks ago.  Partway through the reception, SJ changed out of her wedding gown and into her party dress.  Then she and Justin had their first dance, which turned into a FLASH MOB!  So much fun.  My friend, Katie, is the 2nd girl to get pulled into the dance along w/ her boyfriend....Katie was Glinda in Wicked for years.  In fact, there were at least 3 former Glinda's in attendance (including one from CoMo!!).   And almost all the dancers are people from my church.  Anyway, I have a lot more pictures to post from the wedding, but that may not happen until I get to Texas.  So, for now, enjoy the Flash Mob video!!  (Oh, and you should note that Sarah Jane is a HUGE fan of Hanson, hence the song choice.  Yes, Hanson is still around and actually has quite the following, I've learned.  SJ also is known for her love of bacon.  For dessert I had a vanilla cupcake w/ chocolate frosting topped with bacon :) )

If you click on the title it will take you to the actual video on YouTube where the quality is better!

Whole30!

I just finished my first Whole30!  Whole30 is a very restrictive 3-day eating plan derived from Paleo eating.  It's known as a nutritional reset- a way to diminish your cravings and change your mindset about food.  I did it for the entire month of April and it was amazing!  Here's the jist of the plan : 

- No Dairy

- No sugar

- No alcohol

- No grains

- No legumes

So, what COULD I eat?

- LOTS of vegetables

- Meat (I tried to keep it lean)

- Fruit, but don't go crazy

- Nuts-I tried to limit (and not peanuts, because those are a legume!)

During the 30 days, I learned a lot about how dieting works best for me :

- I'm not good at "diets" and actually hate the word.  For some reason this was easy for me.  I think because it was SO simple and straightforward.  I knew what I could have and everything else was out, so no point even thinking about it.

- Accountability is key.  I had 2 friends doing it alongside me...one who had done her first 30 in March and her experience was encouraging and valuable.

- Prayer!  I had at LEAST 20 people praying for me.  I think it's no coincidence that the one time I stuck to an eating plan was when I asked people to pray.

- Don't weigh yourself to often.  I've learned in the past that this can be discouraging and cause me to give up.  I decided to not weigh for the entire 30 days.

I changed and my habits did too : 

- My pants were all a bit too tight, now they're a bit loose!

- My mind used to look like Candy Land.  Seriously, dreaming about cookies and candy all day long.  I rarely find myself thinking about food now and my cravings are nothing like they used to be.

- I hurt my calf muscle almost a year ago and it has caused me issues and transferred to pain in my foot that has been around for many, many months.  Now?  Completely pain-free!

- I'm cooking at home a LOT more.  It's almost impossible to eat out or with other people on this diet, so making the time to cook at home and planning ahead had to happen.

These were all goals that I had hoped to accomplish.  I wanted to do something that was going to take my cravings away and change some of my habits and I believe the Whole30 has set me on the path towards those goals.  But, the icing on the cake?  I lost ELEVEN pounds!  I was hopeful I would lose at least 6, so I was very excited about 11.  

My plan going forward is to continue to eat like this for the most part - I want to make exceptions when I'm with friends/family.  Today I cheated twice, but most days that won't happen.  We had an office lunch today and there were sandwiches - I wouldn't have eaten one in April, but I did today.  It was just 1/2 and on thin bread and I ate some salad and fruit with it - not bad!  For dinner, I met friends and had chili with a few small pieces of bread - more grains and some legumes!  Back on track tomorrow for at least a couple of days!  I can see myself doing the Whole30 for 30-days straight again in the near future.  I am ready to make some significant changes to my body and how I feel!

Happy Easter!

Happy Resurrection Day, everyone!

I am loving this Easter...so far, and it's not even Easter day yet!  My Bible Study has been studying the coming of the Messiah and it has been so great to be studying that in depth leading up to this holiday.  I especially enjoyed the week we studied the crucifixion.  We spent most of the week studying Isaiah 53.  It was written 700 years before Jesus entered our world, yet Isaiah prophesied Jesus' death for our transgressions.  For some reason that makes this powerful event all the more powerful in my mind.  For centuries, people were looking for their coming Messiah and then to see it come to light through Jesus on the cross - amazing!

Another neat thing we did last Friday was to have a Jewish Passover Seder meal together.  Have you ever done one of these?  It was a powerful experience for me.  Every step of the meal is clearly a sign of Jesus and His crucifixion for our sins.  I have found myself extra sad for people who still have the Seder meal every year - yet have no idea it's pointing to Jesus.  They are still waiting for their Messiah!  To us who know Him, it is so obvious!  But, for them.....

They know nothing, they understand nothing; 

their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see;

and their minds closed so they cannot understand.

Isaiah 44:18

Our leader for the Seder meal prayed that night that anyone who partakes in the meal would see that it clearly points to Jesus as Messiah.  I think it's neat to pray that God would begin to take the veil off their eyes so they can see Jesus as God!

We remembered all these things I've been studying at our church's Good Friday service - which was so excellent and all the more powerful to me after these recent experiences.  Tomorrow, we'll celebrate the risen King!

On Friday, He died for our sins and on Sunday he rose for our justification.

He bore my sin, so I could bear His righteousness before God.

He became powerless, so that I could have power to live forever.

He did it obediently and quietly and all with a strong confidence in God's plan.

Hallelujah, what a Savior!

B-A-Y-L-O-R

Baylor NCAA Games! I had some fun times watching our men battle their way through the Round of 32 and Sweet 16 and their final game in the Elite 8! I watched the Round of 32 game in New Jersey of all places! There are 5 people from my old community group still in the Tri-State area and 3 of us are Baylor Bears and 2 are Colorado Buffalo. Since we were playing each other, it made sense to watch together! Two of the girls have moved to New Jersey and one has a 4-month-old - her husband was also out of town for a conference, so there was no way she was bringing baby into the city late at night alone. So, we opted to go to her place instead! The 3 New Yorkers (myself, Kim, and Jen) only slightly regretted the fact that we obligated ourselves to travel by train to NJ on St. Patrick's Day. I was really glad St. Patty's fell on a weekend this year because I didn't have to battle all the crazy rif-raf around my office building. TONS of people come in from New Jersey, Long Island, and the Outer Boro's to watch the parade and drink all day long. It's a loud, disgusting mess. And, we were riding with that disgusting mess back to their home on the train for 1.5 hours. By the time we got to our destination, our train conductor had blood all over his shirt from breaking up a fight and Kim had practically participated in a threesome when some girl came and sat in the lap of the guy sitting next to Kim and they proceeded to make-out like crazy. Seriously obnoxious people the whole way there! Luckily, the ride back into the city was much more calm. AND, we had a great time catching up with our Jersey girls, Erin & Erin! Plus, Baylor won - woot!

I watched the Sweet 16 game at Stacy's apartment along with Mindy and Christina and her friend in from Oklahoma. Another fun night with pizza and catching-up and another win!

For the Elite 8 game on Sunday, Kim and I just met at a bar near church because I had a meeting that was starting right about the time the game would be ending. We ate lunch and cheered on our Bears. We lost the game in the 1st half, but luckily the score got a little better in the 2nd. I didn't expect that we would beat Kentucky (I actually have them winning the whole thing in my bracket!), so I wasn't too disappointed.  Super proud we made it to the Elite 8!

Now we're cheering on our Lady Bears in the Final 4 and after that we get to see RGIII take the NFL Draft by storm. Definitely the best year in sports for Baylor in my lifetime thus far. Maybe our bad luck curse is finally over! But I don't want to jinx it, so I'll state for the record that I fully expect career ending injuries, murders of teammates, coaching scandals, and anything else that could possibly go wrong.... next year.

Sic 'em!

Spain! Madrid - Day 2, Part 2!

I know you're all sitting on pins & needles waiting to find out what our big adventure was for Part 2 of Day 2 in Spain.  I suppose I've left you hanging for long enough.

Bullfighting!!  It was definitely a highlight of the whole trip!  The first fight was a little shocking (even though we were well aware of how it would end), but after that it was quite entertaining!  They do six full fights each evening and it lasted a couple of hours.  The arena was filled with mostly locals and it was fun to be surrounded by them at an event that is so cultural to that country.  They were SO into it and it was really quite interesting to watch.  I've got TONS of pictures from the night.  (WARNING : the bull dies).

Plaza de Toros was really beautiful and huge

There was an opening ceremony of sorts to get the evening started

Tons & tons of Spaniards were there

On the way in, we had a confusing interaction with 

the concession stand seller and I thought I ended

up with a bottle of water.  Turns out Aquarius

is more of a carbonated lemon drink, but it was tasty

(not nearly as good as Lemon Fanta, though)!

The whole process of the bullfight is fascinating...

once you get over how really horrible it is

It starts with a group of men in amazing costumes and bright socks

with bright capes

They tease the bull mercilessly and sometimes have to run out of

harm's way and hide behind crevices in the ring wall

Next come the fighters on horses with swords.

The cape guys attempt to draw the bull near to 

the horses and the man on the horse stabs

the bull with the sword

You could see that the horse fighter went for

the bull in the exact same spot near his neck

each time.  Everything was extremely

methodical and planned out.  There was definitely

a plan and purpose for each fighter and each move

Next, one fighter pulls out these sword type things and goes

after the bull.  See the man in the fancy pink costume with

no cape holding 2 white things?   Those are his weapons.

The cape guys draw the bull towards the weapon holder and he

stabs the bull.  The weapons are left hanging, inserted in the bull.

This happens a couple of times - here you can see the

bull already has 2 weapons hanging from him and

another fighter is about to stab him with 2 more.

The fighter has to stab and RUN!

More RUNNING after a successful stab

The poor bull has now been worn down by the fighters with capes

and stabbed multiple times and is bleeding.  But, that's not all.

By this time, the bull would start to struggle.  He

was worn out and moving slowly and sometimes

had trouble even standing up.  This is when the real

Bullfighter (the Matador) with the RED cape comes out.

The Matador carries a small sword and has one goal -

to strike the bull in a certain spot right between the eyes

that causes the bull to die immediately.  Once the fighter

is in the correct position to hit the right spot, it all happens very quickly.

Trying to draw the bull nearer

I couldn't believe I captured this - I had no

idea the bull would run this guy over!!

It happened to this same Matador twice -

guess he wasn't very good?!  The Matador

finished his fight, but then they had to carry him

out of the ring, so I guess his 2 run-ins really hurt!

As soon as the bull is pierced with that last sword, he falls immediately

And they parade the poor, beaten bull out of the ring

If you look closely in this next picture, you can see a few people are waving white flags.

This seemed to be some method of voting.  After the last fight, the crowd went CRAZY

and everyone was waving their white flags.

Also, after the last fight when the crowd was going crazy with their white flags,

they were also turning towards and yelling at the people in the box seats

directly above our seats.  We tried to ask around, but there were only 2 good English

speakers near us and they also had no clue.  From what the semi-English speaking man

next to me said, it was the President sitting in the box and he gets to make the

decision as to the winner.  The crowd was appealing to him with their choice

of the final fighter, but apparently the President chose no one that night.  We still

aren't completely sure and we have no idea who this President was...the President of

this fight?  The President of all bullfighting?  The President of SPAIN?!

After bullfighting, we went to a restaurant, Casa Minga, that was

a bit off the beaten path, but was totally worth the trek.  It

was an Asturian (another region of Spain) restaurant and

they pretty much just served chicken and cider.

They also told us we needed to get the salad, which wasn't very good, but

the chicken and the cider were SO yummy!  And it was a neat little

restaurant.  We really enjoyed it! 

Lots & lots of cider!

Weekend Review - Sunday

On Sunday morning, I was back in the theatre district before 9am!  Mindy and I were on a mission to get tickets to see Sutton Foster's last performance in Anything Goes.  We tried to get Rush tickets at 10am, but were about 3 people too far back in line.  But, that put us 1st in the Cancellation line.  This line is for people who call and cancel their tickets and then the theatre re-sells them to people like us. We had to wait in line outside (and it was kind of cold!) until about 11:45, but then they got a bunch of cancellations and we scored 4th row, center seats!!  Plus, with Mindy's student ID (for her acting classes), we got them for 1/2 off.  Mindy had a good theory about the cancellations - hotels probably get tickets to every show and then cancel at the last minute.


We had a couple of hours to spare, so we went to John's Pizzeria for lunch-really good New York pizza - yum!  Then, it was back to the theatre for the show.  This was one of the very best Broadway experiences I have ever had!  Because it was Sutton's last day, all her biggest fans came out.  The energy of both the audience and the cast was out-of-control...in a good way!  When Sutton first walked on to the stage, she got seriously huge applause.  It's normal for big celebrities to get applause when they walk on stage, but this went on and on and on.  This happened a few times throughout the show - where the audience clapped at normal times, but wouldn't stop!


Sutton and Joel Grey (Jennifer Grey's dad!), the lead male role, clearly had so much fun at this show.  They both looked like they were about to burst into laughter in a few different scenes.  It was clear that they were having a lot of fun!  After one of Sutton's big scenes, she got a very long standing ovation...in the middle of the show!  I cannot say I have ever seen this happen before. Every time the audience would go wild, she looked so overwhelmed by it - even looked like she teared up a couple of times (I could tell because I was on the FOURTH row, remember!?).  She would try to get us to stop clapping by holding up her hands or something.  It was unreal.  Plus, the show was just really good!  It's a classic Broadway musical...fun songs (a few that anyone would recognize), great singing, dancing and silly humor.  


After the performance, the cast took their normal bows to another standing ovation and then Joel Grey got us to sit back down.  He gave a little tribute to Sutton that was so sweet.  He mentioned how he has worked with many wonderful stars... Bebe Neuwirth, Liza Minelli, Kristin Chenoweth - to name a few.  But, he said he didn't love any of them as much as he loved Sutton.  So Sweet!!  Sutton had tears, her family who was on stage had tears, I had tears, Mindy had tears!  Then, Joel and the whole cast sang a cute song they had written for Sutton.  It was really neat to see all this happen.  I would definitely try to see a final performance again!


After the show, I was heading towards the subway and there was a TV show being taped in the street.  I hung around long enough to find out that it was  Pilot for an HBO show called Newsroom.  I saw Aaron Sorkin doing his directing thing and Jeff Daniels doing his acting thing (at the time, I thought he was Uncle Joey from Full House, but that's Dave Coulier...is it just me or do these 2 look exactly alike?!)

Jeff Daniels

Dave Coulier

My Pic of Jeff Daniels

Aaron Sorkin

After stalking the TV set for a while, I went on my way.  My final stop for the weekend was Laduree...one of my new favorite places in the city!  Laduree is a store that got its start in Paris selling macarons and they have finally hit the states!  Macarons have been popping up all over the city....I guess their the new cupcake?  Laduree ships their macarons straight from Paris every single day.  And they are delightful!!  My co-worker, Tamara's birthday was on Monday and she had recently shared with me her love for macarons, so I wanted to pick up some of NYC's best for her to try!  (And let's not lie...I got a few for myself, too.  The vanilla and carmel are my favorites so far.)

Such a fantastic weekend.  I need to be more intentional about getting out and doing New Yorky things every weekend!