We Like Grass

Hi Friends! It’s been a hot sec, but I figured I’d follow Tama’s lead and include a little summer update. Seattle After coming back to Boston after Nationals and prepping my new house for subletters, I flew not to SFO but to Seattle to visit Emma for a few days! I thought I liked Seattle, but coming as an independent person who has now seen a fair number of cities, this trip really confirmed that I love the city! Also the west coast in general. I can’t really explain it but even though Seattle itself isn’t home, the moment that I stepped out of the airport I could feel that I was back home. I don’t know if it was the Pacific Ocean or the trees or the dry air, but I felt so much contentment and relief I didn’t know I was missing just sitting outside at the light rail station. But we already know I’m a West Coaster through and through, so enough with that. I spent my days in Seattle walking around, taking in as much of the city as I could. Kind of like the East Bay, Seattle is one...

By Tamika Whitenack The majority of my posts have been major updates on a week's worth of activities, but today I want to write just about my day, because I think it was very interesting. I am in a relaxed state and learning how to wander and take time in the day and I think today was a very good example of that, as well as the silliness of me as a person. I have spent so much of the past few years of my life religiously scheduling my days with a never-ending to-do list of things, and I still have that list. But I'm just in a different mindset when I'm here and I do not have the sense of urgency that I do in normal Tamika-mode. I suppose perhaps this is laziness but I am thinking of it more as the practice of well-being and slowing down life. Entonces, mi dia hoy. La mañana no es la cosa que es importante en torno de "la vida lenta" pero todavía interesante. Empezé con mi corre, fue bien. Hacia calor y humedad entonces ahora siempre estoy muy sudorosa al final...

By Tamika Whitenack Long time, no post! It has been very busy and I am somewhat daunted with how to capture it all in a blog post, so I think you will be getting lists and pictures.  I just returned from a trip to Madrid with my friend. Temperatures climbed above 100 but we very much survived, thanks to a lot of water drinking and strategically timed activities indoors (though tbh, mainly we stayed outside in the sun roughing it haha). Before Madrid, I had a week of fun with the family!! It was lovely to see them and do some sightseeing, and we even had a few days of fun inter-family activity with my host family. I'll put pictures here but I am too lazy to write everything we did, so if you want more details, you can ask them...hehehehe In the two days between my family's departure and my Madrid trip, which were Tuesday and Wednesday, I started a new experience: volunteering at a church-run soup kitchen! I can go for about two hours in the morning for the two morning me...