Author: Lily

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 29: Saying Goodbye to Seoul

On Saturday we took the train to Seoul for a short final visit before we leave Korea, possibly forever. I love big cities in the summer. Maybe it’s because we’ve just happened to visit a lot of big cities in the summer time, but there’s I’ve always enjoyed the energy of city life in the summer when it seems like there are festivals and concerts and people in the parks everywhere you go. Jonathan and I both feel like we’ll miss life in a city when we get back to America. While our city (Daegu) is small compared to Seoul, it would be considered a large city in the US with a population of 2.5 million. We are excited for the open spaces of America, but at the same time, we realize how much we’ve come to enjoy life in our city.

Our time in Seoul was short, but we had a few priorities – visit the stream that runs through the center of the city, eat yummy foods, shop for Korean souvenirs to bring home with us (we never bought these while we were living here, but now that we’re leaving we want some things to put in our home to remember it by), and check out one of the parks by the river which is one of the things we’ve always meant to do in Seoul and never gotten around to. Check, check, check and check.

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The great admiral Yi Sun Shin. I think this statue is pretty awesome. Every time I see it I think, “Let’s get down to business…to defeat…the Huns!” I know, I know. Totally wrong country, But still.

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Fun fact – Koreans like to take tents with them when they go out for the day. It’s not unusual to find a big open area strewn with tents from people who are just there to hang out for the afternoon.

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And with that we said good-bye to Seoul, possibly for the very last time. Though I suppose that no one knows really knows the future. Just a few years ago I never would have predicted I’d live in Korea. So perhaps we’ll meet again someday.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about our hike at Palgongsan you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Friday Book Chats: Books to Match Your Mood

Books, like songs, each have their own tone. They have the ability to evoke certain emotions or associations. And just like I choose the music I want to listen to based on my mood, I often choose the book I want to read next the same way. Since I read so many different genres, there are lots of directions my reading could take me. Today’s book chat is a collection of book suggestions to match your mood. The majority of these I’ve read. A few I haven’t, but trust the sources that recommended them to me.

Books to Make You Laugh

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Mindy Kaling. If you like Mindy Kaling in The Office and The Mindy Project then you will like this book. I personally want to be Mindy’s best friend.

Bossypants. Tina Fey. I actually didn’t like this quite as much as Kaling’s book, but I’m in the minority. It is still really funny.  I’ve heard it’s even better if you get the audiobook because Fey reads it herself. For fans of Mean Girls and 30 Rock and SNL.

Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life. Glennon Melton. This book from the author of the Momastery blog is not marketed as humor. It’s part memoir and part about parenting and part life reflections. But it made me laugh so hard I think I peed on myself. Several times. I read parts of it out loud to my mom and I thought we were going to die from lack of oxygen we were laughing so hard. I think it’s partly because I share Melton’s sense of humor, but I thoroughly enjoyed laughing my way through this one.

Books to Make You Cry

The Fault in Our Stars. John Green. Teenagers with cancer ponder the mysteries of the universe. Some of my favorite characters, but if you don’t cry buckets there’s probably something wrong with you.

Me Before You. JoJo Moyes. A directionless young girl takes a job as a caretaker for a young, handsome man who was hit by a car and is now a quadriplegic. I think you can see how this is fodder for all the feels.

Books to Creep You Out

I am easily scared and don’t like to read scary books, so bear that in mind.

Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn. Part mystery, part psychological thriller, all sensationalized. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this, but it definitely ranks as a creepy book.

Tana French mysteries. Of all the mysteries I read, these are the scariest and most suspenseful to me (but in a good way). My favorite is The Likeness.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Stieg Larsen. I don’t recommend this book because I found it too disturbing due to graphic violence towards women, but I had to finish it because I couldn’t stand not to know what happened. Only read it if you aren’t as easily disturbed as I am.

Books to Make You Think

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. Susan Cain. I wrote a whole post about this book, but it’s fascinating and hugely helpful in understanding my personality and how I’m wired. I recommend this to introverts and extroverts alike and I promise you will learn something about yourself through this book.

Thinking, Fast and Slow. Daniel Kahneman. A tour of the mind that explains the differences and capabilities of our brains’ two systems – the one that is fast, intuitive, and emotional and the other which is slower and more logical. Fascinating insight into how we as human being think.

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead. Brene Brown. I’ve written a whole post on this book but I think it is powerful and life-changing if you let it be.

Books to Let You Not Think

The most delicious of marshmallow fluffy books. I’ve done a full post on these books here, but just to quickly list a few go-to authors of mine:

Emily Giffin (except for her most recent which was awful). Rom-commy loveliness, though some of them are a little more nuanced and heavier than just boy meets girl.

Sophie Kinsella (especially her Shopaholic series). They might be predictable, but they sure are fun.

Jennifer Weiner. Really enjoyed In Her Shoes and her Cannie Shapiro books. Ooh and Little Earthquakes. Very easy reading, though not nearly as fluffy as Kinsella.

Books to Let You Escape (Books with atmosphere)

Kate Morton’s Books – Old houses full of family secrets are a recipe for some delicious, transporting stories.

The Night Circus. Erin Morgenstern. Seriously gorgeous. While I was reading this book I felt like I couldn’t do regular life because my imagination was so completely full of The Circus there wasn’t room for anything else.

Brandon Sanderson’s Books – Sanderson’s capacity for world-building continually boggles my mind. I haven’t read all of his books, but everything I’ve read has been amazing. Especially The Stormlight Archive and the Mistborn books.

Patrick Rothfuss’ Books – Rothfuss is also a great world-builder and storyteller whose beautiful writing paints such vivid pictures you won’t want to walk away.

Outlander series. Diana Gabaldon. Even though I’m not the biggest fan of this series, I admit that they do take you away to another time and place. Actually, many different times and places.

Books to Motivate and Inspire You

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading. Nina Sankovitch. I wrote more about this here. After the death of her sister Sankovitch sets out on a year of reading one book every day for 365 days and finds a way to slow down and heal. This will motivate you to read more.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen. Christopher McDougall In Mexico there is a tribe called the Tarahumara who are known for being incredible distance runners who run up to 50 miles through their native deserts barefoot. When McDougall is sidelined from running by recurring foot injuries, he sets out to discover the secret of the Tarahumara. Don’t read if you don’t want to be compelled to run.

The Nesting Place: It Doesn’t Have to be Perfect to be Beautiful. Myquillyn SmithA great read for those who love decorating and feel like they can’t because of their budget, their space, or because they feel guilty for putting time and money into making a beautiful home.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. Marie Kondo. Need help decluttering and getting organized? I’m told this book will change your life.

Books to Challenge You

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Michael Pollan. Pollan’s detailed trace of 4 meals through their entire production chain from the ground to your table will make you seriously consider the ethics behind what you eat and challenge you to be a mindful consumer.

Interrupted: When God Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity. Jen Hatmaker. I feel like the title of this is sort of self-explanatory. This book is a kick in the pants for Christians who are more concerned with feeling and believing the gospel than they are with doing it. (You know, me.)

Books to Make You Hungry

Delancey: A Man, A Woman, A Restaurant, A Marriage.  Molly Wizenberg. The story of Wizenberg and her husband and their quest to open the perfect brick-oven pizzeria.

My Life in France. Julia Child. Child is the master. This book will endear her to you and make you want to cook.

Bread and Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table by Shauna Niequist. One of my faves. Such a great reflection on food’s role in our lives and the importance of hospitality and nourishing our bodies and our souls with people we love around a table.

Books to Give You Wanderlust

I have to be careful about when I read these. Cause my wanderlust is always crazy-high anyway. Sometimes these books inspire me and sometimes they make me feel discontent with my life. Just my own personal struggle.

Home Sweet Anywhere: How We Sold Our House, Created a New Life, and Saw the World. Lynne Martin. I think the title pretty much explains it.

Paris Letters Janice MacLeod. When Janice finds herself completely burned out she figures out how to cut back, save money, and buy herself two years of freedom in Europe.

Packing Light: Thoughts on Living Life with Less Baggage. Allison Vesterfelt. From the author. “Like many twenty-somethings, I tried desperately to discover the life of my dreams after college, but instead of finding it, I just kept accumulating baggage. Just when I had given up all hope of finding the “life I’d always dreamed about,” I decided to take a trip to all fifty states…because when you go on a trip, you can’t take your baggage.”

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. If you are one of the 4 people on the planet who hasn’t read this and you want to find yourself compelled to leave your life and globe trot then go ahead and give this a go.

Books to Make You Bored

Just kidding. Life’s too short to read dumb books.

What are your favorite books to match a mood? Did I miss your mood? Leave me a comment with your suggestions or let me know what kind of book you’re looking for and I’ll make some suggestions!

Thankful Thursdays Guest Post: For Antidepressants, and for Quitting Them

Are you as excited as I am for another Thankful Thursday? These posts always touch and inspire me and I love being able to share them with you. Today’s post is especially close to my heart because today’s writer is close to my heart. Laura and her husband Josh have been our closest friends during our two years in Korea. We had the great privilege of walking with them through Laura’s entire pregnancy, the birth of their first child, and the next year of transition into parenthood. This story touched me  because I was around to witness a lot of it, but also because I too have struggled with anxiety and depression and while I’ve never experienced the hormonal havoc of childbirth, I know what it is to have your mind and body betray you in frightening ways. I’m so thankful for Laura and her family and also for God’s work in her life through a very difficult and scary time.

For Antidepressants, and for Quitting Them

It was just shy of a year ago, as the clock struck one on a humid August night in Korea, that I birthed our beautiful daughter. My mom stood at one shoulder and my husband at the other and the doctor and nurses at my feet, all urging me to push as hard as I could after 24 hours of back labor had left me exhausted and whimpering.

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Laura with one month old Genevieve

Then she was here, and she was perfect. I spent the next two weeks in a tired-but-wired state of attentiveness, Mom still on one side and Josh on the other, tirelessly supporting me in those early days of nursing and changing and cuddling and kissing this miracle, as I struggled to sleep when she slept and only managed about three hours out of every 24. Other than this, I felt like everything was going really well.

Until one morning a cloud descended. The adrenaline had run out, it seemed, and the rest of my hormones were going haywire in its absence. A few extra hours of blessed sleep did finally come, but it wasn’t enough. Something was wrong and it wasn’t just exhaustion. I had postpartum depression.

Except for how suddenly I crashed, it really wasn’t much of a shock. Throughout my teens and early 20s, I lived with low-grade anxiety, a constant tension in my tummy that I didn’t realize wasn’t normal till my chill-as-one-can-be husband came along and showed me how to relax. Then we moved to Korea to teach English, and the stress of doing a new job in a new country—and trying to do it perfectly—brought that anxiety back with a vengeance. This time depression came with it.

I limped through that year with copious amounts of pizza and beer and ice cream and TV (I know, I know), as well as a lot of prayer and care from Josh and friends and family. I did learn how to be a more effective EFL teacher and how to stop trying to be a perfect one, so things got better. But the lingering fatigue left me aching to go back home to Kansas, and we did, and it was good.

Fast forward three years to the August of our daughter’s birth, and we’d been back in Korea for almost a year. This time only Josh was teaching, and I was finishing up a low-stress pregnancy as a stay-at-home-mom-to-be, in a culture and with friends I was able to fully enjoy this time around. Some nausea and heartburn notwithstanding, I felt really good and right on track for an all-natural, “ideal” delivery and postpartum experience.

Maybe it was the intense back labor that kicked my body into high gear and kept it that way for those first two weeks postpartum until I crashed. Maybe I just didn’t prioritize sleep enough in those early days. Maybe I didn’t procure exactly the right nutrients to replenish my body and help my hormones rebalance themselves. Maybe I wasn’t getting enough sunshine and fresh air in our cave-like studio apartment at the end of a hot and rainy Korean summer. Maybe I was under spiritual attack in which evil voices whispered to me to toss my baby out our third-floor window so it would all just be over. Maybe it was some of all of these, or maybe I’m just wired for anxiety and depression, and there was nothing I could have done to prevent my curling into a ball day and night, my only real activities to nurse lying on my side and to choke down as much food as I could stand while my mom, husband and dad (who had since joined us) did all the diaper-changing, shopping, cooking, cleaning and loving on me and our sweet Genevieve.

Whatever the reason, it became obvious after two more weeks that fighting the PPD with food and sunshine and prayer just wasn’t cutting it (and the Lord knows we really tried). So on a rainy Wednesday morning my support group packed up me and our 4-week-old, and we all got on the bus to a mental hospital to ask for some antidepressants.

From here on out it is clear that I’m one of the lucky ones. Within days of starting a low dose of an SSRI that (please God, let it be true) seems to have done no harm to my nursling or me, my depression had eased and I was beginning to see the light. When Josh had to go back to work and my mom had extended her stay as long as she possibly could, my mother-in-law flew the thousands of miles to help us through the next few weeks, by the end of which even the anxiety had lifted and I was feeling downright happy. Our family of three started finding a “new normal” that involved leaving the house regularly, nursing in public on occasion and handling with relative serenity the caring, if nosy, advice of all the Korean grandmothers who treated us as their own.

The little white pills had pretty single-handedly brought me back to our world. So it was with intense gratitude (though certainly not always a perfect attitude) that I soaked up the next six months of motherhood while faithfully taking my meds each morning. And then spring came, and it was with cautious hope that I wondered if I might be able to wean myself off of them.

See, in addition to being a secretly anxious person most of my life, I have also been a not-so-secretly sensitive gal emotionally. I cry pretty dang easily, and while this is not always fun for those closest to me, my sensitivity and its related empathy feel like an important part of who I am.

But once on the antidepressant, I got to where I wasn’t crying ever, at all. And while no one else was complaining for sure, I missed being able to tear up during a touching movie scene or even break down a bit when something felt wrong in my world. So with the continued support of Josh and our loved ones both near and far, I decided to start cutting my dosage and see what happened.

Three months and just a few headaches and anxiety spells later, I am “drug free” and again one of the fortunate ones. It seems that my body just needed more time for the nutrition, sleep, sunshine, exercise, laughter, love and who-knows-what-else to help my hormones get back as they were meant to be, at least for now.

As an idealist, I wanted so badly to use only these “all-natural” gifts from God to bring about my healing (or even prevent illness in the first place), and it is possible I just didn’t figure out or follow through early enough with what could have allowed me to avoid the side effects and risks of manmade meds full of synthetic chemicals. But depression wasn’t waiting for me to fix things naturally, and I see the drugs as a stopgap measure, a less-than-sterile piece of cloth used as a tourniquet because you’d bleed to death waiting for a clean one to get on the scene.

I also see the hand of God behind this less-than-ideal means of grace. Even as I celebrate the fact that I don’t seem to need antidepressants anymore, I firmly believe that our Lord, who works in all the things of this broken world for good, can use even imperfect little white pills to fight the darkness and bring light.

And for that I am so very thankful.

Sweet Rhoades FamilyLaura Rhoades is wife to Josh, mom to Genevieve and photographer to women. Before moving back home in August to her hometown of Wichita, Kansas, she’ll be spending her final weeks in Korea singing karaoke, soaking and scrubbing at the sauna and scarfing down as much mul naengmyeon and bingsu as possible. You can find her online at www.laurarhoades.com.

Laura Rhoades is wife to Josh, mom to Genevieve and photographer to women. Before moving back home in August to her hometown of Wichita, Kansas, she’ll be spending her final weeks in Korea singing karaoke, soaking and scrubbing at the sauna and scarfing down as much mul naengmyeon and bingsu as possible. 

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure #28: Hiking Palgongsan, Featuring Lawrence the Slug

One thing we love about Korea is the mountains. I grew up in Louisiana which is so flat, part of it is actually below sea level, and hubby grew up in Indiana, which is possible even flatter. When we lived in North Carolina we loved that the land had a roll to it with lots of small hills and there were real mountains within an hour’s drive or so. Here in Daegu, we live in a geographic bowl surrounded on all sides by mountains. You can see them any direction you look and you can hike most of them. When we move back to the US we’ll be in South Carolina which might have a few hills, but doesn’t have mountains, and I know we will really miss seeing them every day.

On Saturday we went hiking at Palgongsan which is the tallest mountain in the Daegu area. We’ve only hiked to the summit once since it takes a solid 4 hours to do, but thankfully there are lots of smaller ridges and peaks you can hike to more easily and still get a nice view.

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The view from the highest place we climbed to.

We decided to go on Saturday because it had rained during the week and was supposed to rain again on Sunday so we wanted to take advantage of our window of opportunity. What we didn’t realize was that all of that rain made it unbearably humid and sweat was dripping from our fingers and elbows and noses within minutes.

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Apart from the heat and humidity, the hike we did wasn’t too strenuous and there were some temples and shrines along the way that we could stop at.

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We took my parents to this temple when they visited last year and at the time it was decorated with lanterns for Buddha’s birthday.

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The ubiquitous rock pile.

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A jillion tiny Buddhas! Dreams do come true!

We originally intended to continue on across a ridge to get to another peak, but as we headed that direction it started to thunder. Thunderstorms are extremely unusual here (at least down in the city) so we figured we should probably get off the mountain before it hit.

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We did get to see this amazing slug that was half the size of my hand. I shall call him Lawrence.

Since we only have four weekends left in Korea, this was probably our last time hiking at Palgongsan. Like everything these days, this was bittersweet. While I’ve moved many times in the past few years, this is the first time I’ll be moving away truly not knowing if I will ever come back to these places again. So while part of me is counting down the days, another part of me doesn’t quite know how to say goodbye. I am so thankful for the adventures we’ve had here, even as I look forward to the adventures to come.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about our visit to the cat cafe, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Friday Book Chats: My Teacher Made Me Do It

Today’s book chat is a tip of the hat to some of the literature teachers I’ve had over the years who assigned me some great works that I may have never read on my own. Of course, not every book I read in school was a smash hit. A lot of the books on my Books I’m Supposed to Love But Can’t Help Hating list were also assigned reading. But this post is about celebrating the gems I discovered and  about saying thank you to the teachers who made me do something I didn’t necessarily want to do because they knew it would make my life richer. (Or because they were required to by state law, but either way…)

1. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I can’t say for sure that I would never have read this book if it hadn’t been assigned, but I certainly wouldn’t have read it when I did and I think this is a book that impacts you more when you read it as an adolescent. As a teenager in the American South this book had an impact on my developing understanding of race and justice in America.

2. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I wouldn’t call this a favorite book, but it is a book that I’m glad to have read. As a sophomore (or maybe junior?) in a small Christian high school I remember my sheltered self being appalled and disgusted by parts of this book (particularly the ending) but after a few years of maturing and, frankly, growing less prudish about literature, I came to really appreciate its message about the Haves and the Have Nots, the scope of moral vision, and the endurance of human dignity.

3. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. In retrospect, it’s strange that this book was assigned at my conservative Christian high school, but I think it had more to do with it being a story set in Louisiana and written by a local author. This book is considered a comedic masterpiece and follows the main character, Ignatius J. Reilly, “a Don Quixote of the French Quarter”  on a series of comedic adventures.

4. Light in August by William Faulkner. I read this book in college having previously only read The Sound and the Fury (a book I was not thankful to have read in high school). Light in August is one of my favorite modern classics and its main character, Joe Christmas, is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever encountered.

5. The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare. I happen to love Shakespeare so who can say whether or not I would have gotten to this play eventually had it not been assigned, but it is one of the less famous of Shakespeare’s plays. I read this during a study abroad in England and later saw a stage production of it in Stratford that was so creative that it brought the play to life for me in a way I’ve never forgotten.

6. Dogwalker by Arthur Bradford. I had to write a paper on this collection of short stories while in college. Initially I thought it was bizarre and disturbing and I kind of hated it. The stories in this book are strange bordering on the absurd with elements of magical realism woven throughout. After studying the text and learning more about the author I came to understand these stories as showing the strange and unconventional beauty of the misfits of society.

7. Cat’s Eye by Margaret Atwood. Elaine Risley is a painter who has returned to Toronto, the town where she grew up, for a retrospective, only to be confronted with the shadows of her childhood. As someone who has spent much of recent years trying to make sense of the complexities of my own childhood, this book resonated with me on a deep level. It was heart-wrenching and tender and funny all at once and I remember it as one of the most moving books I’ve ever read.

Thankful Thursdays, Special Edition: My 200th Blog Post

Today is a special day. Not only is Thankful Thursday, but this is the 200th post I’ve published on this blog. That’s a lot of words, friends.

I’ve had this little space for more than four years, but I’ve only become serious and about blogging and more focused in my topics for the past 18 months. I’ve thought several times about going back and taking down some of my oldest posts, which feel so different from what I write now, but I can never bring myself to do it. Because I’m thankful for where I’ve been and I’m thankful for where I am now.

Blogging has opened doors for me – not in the big, exciting money-making kind of way, but in terms of relationships. I’ve made friends in the past few years, genuine friends-of-the-heart, whom I never would have met if it weren’t for our blogs. Working out my feelings and my faith in this space has given me the courage to grow and to change, to have hard and necessary conversations and to become more of the person I’m meant to be.

I am so deeply thankful to all of you who read what I write here and take the time to interact, to be a part of my life. Your encouragement, advice, compassion, and kindness are inspiring to me. Whether you are someone who has been here for a while or someone who is visiting for the first time, please know how genuinely grateful I am for you.

In the spirit of thankfulness, I wanted to share two of my favorite pieces on gratitude from some far better writers than I. The first is a poem by the great e.e. cummings and the second is a passage from a book of essays by Andre Dubus that I share here every year on Thanksgiving.

I Thank You God for Most This Amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

-e. e. cummings

This passage comes from Andre Dubus’ essay “A Country Road Song.” At the age of 49, Dubus suffered a devastating injury when he stopped on the side of the road to assist with a fatal automobile accident. While pulling the survivor out of the wreckage, he was hit by another car. He was injured so badly that he eventually lost one of his legs and was paralyzed in the other. This essay is about his memories of running.  If you have a chance, you should read the entire essay because it is so much better than just this excerpt.

“When I ran, when I walked, there was no time: there was only my body, my breath, the trees and hills and sky…I always felt grateful, but I did not know it was gratitude and so I never thanked God. Eight years ago, on a starlight night in July, a car hit me…and in September a surgeon cut off my left leg… It is now time to sing of my gratitude: for legs and hills and trees and seasons…I mourn this, and I sing in gratitude for loving this, and in gratitude for all the roads I ran on and walked on, for the hills I climbed and descended, for trees and grass and sky, and for being spared losing running and walking sooner than I did: ten years sooner, or eight seasons, or three; or one day.”

I hope today you are reminded of some simple graces in your life as I have been reminded of how undeservedly blessed I am to have this space to share with all of you.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 27: Cat Cafe

Before we moved to Korea I remember reading blog posts about how popular pet cafes are here. Pet cafes, like the name implies, are coffee shops where you can enjoy a beverage while being surrounded by puppies and kitties. What could be better than sipping espresso while petting a fluffy kitty of twelve? Since arriving in Korea we’ve visited a few pet cafes and while it isn’t something most people would do every weekend, it is a unique and fun experience. We decided to go to one of our local cat cafes this weekend to get our cat fix and to experience something we won’t be able to do soon one more time.

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When you go into the cat cafe you take off your shoes and go through the gate. You wash your hands and pay the admission fee (8,000 won or about $8 USD) which includes a drink you select from the menu. Then you are free to roam around or settle wherever you’d like. There are special cat treats you can purchase if you want, but you don’t have to.

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The cats are very mellow and wander around as cats do, climbing on the tables and sprawling lazily on top of people’s bags at will. The whole thing is probably pretty unsanitary, but also fun.

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The ones that look really grumpy are kind of my favorites.

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I don’t think its angry, that’s just how its face looks.

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This little girl had treats.

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I want a fat orange cat so bad. I think we need another ginger in our family.

Personally, I prefer the cafes that only have cats. I’ve only been to one that had dogs (the cats and dogs were on separate floors) and I didn’t feel good about the dogs being in that environment. While they were undoubtedly well-fed and received more attention than some dogs, there were simply too many of them in too small of a space and I felt like they needed to be free to run around and to have an owner that cared for them and bonded with them. In contrast, I feel like the cats in the cat cafe are better off than a lot of cats in Korea. Cats aren’t nearly as popular of pets in Korea as dogs are and there are street cats EVERYWHERE so the cats in the cafe actually have a really great life compared to most cats in Korea. I actually saw a dead kitten in the road on my way to school last week which made me so sad. I feel that the cats in the cafes are well fed and they have all the fancy cat trees and cubbies and equipment they could want, so they can decide when they want to interact and can easily get away when they need alone time. They all seem to get along with one another really well and get lots of attention and they are all very gentle.

Pet Cafes aren’t exclusive to Korea (in fact, when we were in Japan there was a bunny cafe, but we didn’t go to it), but Korea is the first place that we ever encountered them and so we will always associate them with Korea. We may not be able to go to a cat cafe in America, but we’ll have something much better – we’ll be reunited with our own fur babies, Bart and Ruthie, who have been staying with friends for the past two years. We miss their little personalities and presence in our home and they are just one of the many, many things we are looking forward to about being back in America.

Can you believe that we’re more than halfway through the 52 Weeks of Adventure?! Be sure to check out my most faithful co-adventurers, Pradnya and Jenn who have both come so far on this journey and shared so many beautiful adventures.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about our photo shoot with Laura you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Friday Book Chats: Interview with Poet Karissa Knox Sorrell and a Giveaway

Today’s Book Chat is especially exciting for me to share with you. My incredibly talented writing friend, Karissa Knox Sorrell, is publishing her first poetry chapbook, Evening Body. Karissa is a gifted poet whose words resonate with some of our most basic and essential human experiences. I was lucky enough to read the manuscript of this collection and I can honestly say that these poems are beautiful, evocative, and deeply felt. They are a treat to read.

Karissa is running a giveaway contest at her blog for anyone who pre-orders Evening Body. If you pre-order a copy, you  will automatically be entered into giveaway drawing for a Booklover’s Gift Pack! The Gift Pack includes three books and a Starbucks gift card.  All you have to do is let Karissa know you pre-ordered a copy and she’ll add your name to the pot! Find more info about the giveaway over at Karissa’s blog.

Want a sneak preview of what you’ll be getting? You can read two of the poems in this collection (“The Boulevard” and “Luminescence”  at Gravel Magazine where they were originally published.

Without further ado, here is my interview with Karissa in which she talks about her poetry, about balancing her writing with her day job and family, and gives some advice for aspiring poets.

Interview with Karissa Knox Sorrell

Karissa

  1. How long have you been writing poetry? Do you remember your first poem?

Since I was a child. When I was in third grade, I chose to take a summer school creative writing course! One particular memory I have is writing a poem about the sunset at my grandmother’s house when I was about 10 years old.

  1. You did an MFA (Master of Fine Arts degree) in poetry. What did you take away from the experience and would you recommend an MFA to other writers?

There’s such a debate over MFAs right now! For me, an MFA was the right thing. I wanted to get back into writing and my previous degrees were in education. I needed the expertise, experience, and community that an MFA gave me. I was in a low-residency program, so I was only on campus twice a year, but those residency weeks were definitely some of my favorite times. I learned a ton, was exposed to a variety of writers/poets, became a more skillful writer and reader, and gained a supportive family of other writers. Also, I think being a part of an MFA program boosted my confidence, both as a person and as a writer.

  1. You also write creative non-fiction and fiction, do you still think of yourself primarily as a poet? If not, how would you define/describe your writing?

I think my definition of myself as a writer is pretty fluid. After graduating, I didn’t write much for two years, then I focused mostly on creative non-fiction for two years after that. It has only been a year or so since I’ve really gone back to writing poetry, and it was exactly what I needed. Right now, I would mostly say I’m a poet, but I have written an entire nonfiction manuscript and am in the middle of writing a YA novel. I don’t feel the pressure to compartmentalize, though. It’s okay for me to write different things at different points in my journey.

  1. You aren’t just a writer, you are also a wife and a mother and a professional educator. Can you talk about finding time and balancing your writing with the other parts of your life?

It’s not easy. For a couple of years, I wrote from 4-5 am. I really loved that quiet time in the mornings, but eventually I just felt so tired all the time that I quit. Over the past year, I’ve wiggled in writing time here and there. I might be in the same room as my children and they are watching TV while I am working on poems. I try to set aside a couple of hours each weekend if possible. And occasionally I will get away to a coffee shop for three hours in the evening. I think I’ve finally reached a balance of realizing that I don’t have to push myself so hard. The writing is important, but I also need to focus on other areas of my life.

  1. Who are your favorite poets and who are your influences?

Louise Gluck has a beautiful book called The Wild Iris. Li-Young Lee, especially his book Rose. He has a way of bringing the world into a poem that surprises you and takes your breath away. Rainer Maria Rilke – his Book of Hours: Love Poems to God stays on my nightstand. Mary Oliver. Marie Howe. Gregory Orr. Linda Bierds. I recently read two really great new books of poetry: Bone Map by Sara Eliza Johnson and The Palace of Contemplating Departure by Brynn Saito.

  1. Many of your poems paint vivid pictures that often capture a singular moment or event almost like looking at a still-shot. What draws you to write about these moments? What do you most hope readers take will take away from them?

A lot of my poems are inspired by real moments in my life. I think our human experiences are undergirded by so many complex emotions, and a poem is an opportunity to sort of dig deeper and pull out that depth and vulnerability so that it can be shared. Poems help us slow down, savor, and contemplate our humanity. I want my readers to recognize something in my poems, something that reminds them of their own experiences and complexities.

  1. Do you have any advice for aspiring poets?

I think one thing is to remember that a poem is not just taking what you would normally write in a paragraph and adding a little white space. While that might be a good place to start if you are beginning a poem, so many things are coming together to make the poem work: word choice, rhythm, strategic use of sounds, strategic line breaks, layers of meaning. A great test is to read your poem out loud and see what it sounds like. However, my biggest advice is to not be afraid. Read, write, let your message spill out of you. Poetry is for everyone.

So, are you ready to pre-order? Click here to order the chapbook, Evening Body, from Finishing Line Press. And don’t forget to head over to Karissa’s blog to enter the giveaway!

Thankful Thursdays Guest Post: When Losing Is Gaining

Today’s guest post comes from my friend, Sara. Sara and I went to high school together, but we didn’t really become friends until this past year when we reconnected through Facebook and blogging. I am constantly inspired by Sara’s outlook on her life, by the way she clings to faith in difficult times, and by her willingness and desire to do whatever God asks of her. She has such a beautiful, tender heart. I got chills reading this piece which brought me into her experience of living with a “disability” and reminded me of the God who is in the business of redeeming our brokenness.

When Losing Is Gaining

I remember.

I remember the day I woke up and felt like my only hearing ear was stuffed with paper, or cotton, or wax. I remember the dizziness I felt as I tried to get out of bed that morning, unaware that my life would change forever as I lurched forward to vomit. Confused. Dizzy. Vertigo.

I remember.

I remember how it felt as people’s voices grew fainter and fainter and I grew angrier and angrier, placing blame at the people around me for my not being able to hear them. It was their responsibility to enunciate their words. It was their responsibility to stop mumbling. It was them and it was not me.

I remember. I remember the look my doctor gave my mother and the tears in my mom’s eyes. The emergency overnight flight to Memphis and the 3 day hospital stay. I remember doctors talking all around me, tests being run every moment, people frantically trying to figure out what was going on and I was unaware. Unaware. They were unheard.

She’s deaf. In her only hearing ear. Meniere’s Disease. Steroids. Diuretics. Exercise. Dizziness. Weakness. Sun that hurt. Feeling faint. So tired. More steroids.

I remember. I remember looking at my mom as tears rolled down my face and I handed her the dry-erase white board I now used for communication scribbled with “Will this ever go away?” We cried.

I remember the man who came to visit me who sat down in front of me and anointed me with oil. He prayed over me and though I couldn’t understand a word that came from his mouth, I remember. And smile.

I remember my friends forming a fortress around me, getting out their cell phones and texting me so we could have conversations in the car… Conversations in the dark that anyone else could have heard, but me. We formed a clan that summer, a tight-knit group there to support one another, and those bonds – they have never gone away.

I also remember seeing sign language for the first time and smiling as I thought “Wow, my life could really change if I knew that!” I remember learning and practicing so that one day I could communicate without reading lips or using my white dry-erase board.

I remember the tender moments with Mom as she spurred me on to keep exercising. “Sara, I know you feel weak and dizzy, but you’ve got to keep on.” I remember with thankfulness.

I remember my first hearing aid. I put it on and heard them for the first time in two years. Birds chirping. As birds chirped, my heart flooded with thankfulness. I’ll never forget it.

Going deaf was the best thing that has ever happened to me. Even now, I open my eyes every morning and put my hearing aid on and listen. With my level of constant fluctuating hearing loss, some days I listen to the birds outside my window and can actually hear them. Other times, I can hear them only if I close my eyes tight enough and imagine. With a smile I feel my puppy’s steady breaths beside me and imagine what they sound like.

I go to “Silent Dinners” that are literally just that, where instead of hearing with my ears, I hear with my eyes. It’s miraculous. I meet, talk, and bond with people I never would have known before. I feel thankful.

I feel thankful when I chat with someone I know and they smile- through silent conversation. I feel thankful when I go to church and have the privilege to lead worship to deaf brothers and sisters in Christ who have become so close to my heart. Because they are my people. They are my people and their God is my God.

I remember with thankfulness those 12 years ago when I was so sick and lost most of my hearing, then regained some. I remember with thankfulness, because that’s made me who I am today. Would I be where I am and communicate with those I do if that hadn’t happened? Would I see the deaf community as my own and be in their family?

Even today, when I sit with hearing people at the dinner table and I get lost in their conversations, not knowing who’s talking about what or when. When my hearing loss threatens to isolate me from those I love most and I feel most alone. When I feel that I cannot connect with anyone. When fear grips me during a job interview when I realize a major part of the job is talking on the phone… I’m still thankful. I’m thankful because I get a just little glimpse in my adult life what people in the Deaf community have experienced their entire lives. I get that little glimpse and because of that, God has enabled me to minister, to develop the dearest friendships, and to love to the fullest.

I wouldn’t trade it. Not for the world.

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SaraAuthor Bio: Since moving from her home in Louisiana, Sara has found herself living life in the mountains of east Tennessee with her puppy, Watson. When she’s not saving kittens from trees and puppies from rooftops, she’s reading about spirituality, love, and life and writing about life in her blog at scarmichaelblog.worpress.com.

Author Bio: Since moving from her home in Louisiana, Sara has found herself living life in the mountains of east Tennessee with her puppy, Watson. When she’s not saving kittens from trees and puppies from rooftops, she’s reading about spirituality, love, and life and writing about life in her blog at

What I’m Into: June 2015 Edition

It’s that time for the monthly round-up, otherwise known as What I’m Into. As always, this is a link-up with the lovely Leigh Kramer.

I know I try to be all about living in the moment and embracing where I’m at, but to be honest I’m feeling pretty ready to kiss June goodbye. In the Korean school year, the first semester runs from March to July and in spite of this being my second summer here, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m supposed to be on summer vacation right now. I realized that I keep thinking of the time we leave Korea (August 14th) as the beginning of summer since that will be our first break from teaching and we’ll be going home. In reality, it will be the very end of summer, especially since Jonathan has to be at school on August 18th. (Yes, that is correct. We have 3 days to arrive in the US, get all of our stuff out of storage and drive it 12 hours from Louisiana to South Carolina while severely jet lagged. I feel tired just thinking about it.)

Here are all the things I’ve been up to in June while trying to avoid thinking about the move and how I still don’t have a job or a place to live.

What I’m Reading:

I read a lot of 3-star books this month (not typical for me since I can be a picky reader), but thankfully I ended the month with a bang. If you’re on Goodreads, I’d love to connect with you there!

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. This was my first Ishiguro book and to be honest, I wasn’t wowed. This is a sort of dystopian novel along the lines of The Giver but set at an exclusive boarding school in England. Even though there is a first person narrator, I felt disconnected from her and from the other characters to the extent that I didn’t really care that much what happened to them. There was also a moment towards the end that is set up as though it’s a big reveal, but I personally didn’t find the information surprising as I’d assumed it all along. I also found it irritating how extremely non-curious the characters were about the world and their role in it. I know this book is pretty highly acclaimed, but for me it was just OK.

Mariana by Susannah Kearsley. Kearsley writes a lot of semi-historical novels set in England and Scotland. In this one, Julia Beckett buys a centuries-old Wilshire farmhouse on a whim, but she discovers that her draw to the house may be more than random chance when she starts to slip back in time, experiencing the life of Mariana, a woman who lived in this house in the 17th century. This book was so similar to the only other Kearsley book I’ve read, The Winter Sea, that I couldn’t help feeling like maybe she’s a bit of a one-trick pony, but I liked it fine. I didn’t feel like I really knew all that much about the protagonist since the book is more driven by the plot than by character development, but there was still something pleasant about it. Like a not-as-good Kate Morton novel.

Interrupted: When God Wrecks Your Comfortable Christianity, by Jen Hatmaker. This book challenged me, in a good way. I’m planning some posts on this in the future, but the central message of this book is what the Gospel is really about and whether we ought to be going out and being among people in need instead of trying to get them to come to us.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd. I’m so proud of myself for finally getting around to this book! I don’t know what took me so long to read this since it has great reviews and it sounded like the type of book I’d like, but now that I’ve read it I can confirm that this is a great book. This novel is based on actual historical figures, Hetty “Handful” Grimke, a slave in a prominent Charleston household, and Sarah Grimke, the master’s daughter. The story begins on Sarah’s 11th birthday when Handful is given to her as a present and continues on through the two women’s lives as each woman strives for freedom in their own way.

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer. This is YA book that I literally read in one day while traveling. It was cute enough and the writing wasn’t distractingly bad or anything, but it was kind of a take-it-or-leave-it book for me. It won’t stick with me.

The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2) Brandon Sanderson. Reading this took me as long as all of the other books combined, but even at a whopping 825 pages it was worth it. This book picks up a year after the fall of the Final Empire (where the first book ends) in the series and I liked it even more than the first one. If you’re into big fantasy series, definitely give this one a go.

What I’m Watching:

In theaters this month we watched Spy and at home we watched the movie Chef. Spy was much funnier than I expected it to be, but I also feel very uncomfortable recommending it to anyone as I know that they will judge me because this movie was VERY crude. It’s totally not my usual type of humor, but I admit that I laughed. A lot. But I’m not condoning it. And Chef was very touching. Plus I love movies about food.

On TV I finished the current season of Nashville, and am current on Pretty Little Liars. I’ve also made it to season 4 of The Good Wife and Jonathan and I have been watching a lot of Frasier together in the evenings now that most of our regular shows are off for the summer.

What I’m Listening To:

Podcasts, man. First my friend Josh turned me on to the Gilmore Guys podcast  which is literally two guys who go episode by episode through Gilmore Girls and discuss everything they like and don’t like about each character and each episode. And they are serious. They are not being sarcastic at all. And then my friend Josh started his own podcast with his friend Kayla. It’s called Podcast! The Musical and is a podcast dedicated to discussing musical episodes of TV shows. It’s great! And then hubby and I started listening to Spontaneanation which is an improv Podcast done by Paul F. Tompkins. Each episode starts with him interviewing a special guest. The interviews are not always that interesting, but they use the information from the interviews in the following improv. And the improv is hilarious. My recommendation if you are first trying it out is not to judge it til you’ve listened all the way through the improve part. You’ve just got to muscle through the weird intro and the interview. It’s worth it. My favorite one I’ve heard so far was A Secret Society.

What I’m Eating:

I’ve managed to make June a pretty healthy eating month and can now fit in my summer clothes without assistance. I’ve made two food discoveries this month that have made eating mostly plants more enticing. The first is green smoothies which are simply some sort of milk (I use soy or almond or coconut or a combination, but you can use cow milk, too) plus whatever frozen fruits I have (usually one frozen banana plus a handful of something else) plus a big handful of spinach. If it’s not sweet enough I will add a dried, pitted date or two. You can’t taste the spinach, I swear, and they give me a lot of energy. Of course, I don’t eat a bunch of fruits the rest of the day on mornings I eat that, since it still ends up being a lot of sugar, but I’ve been really enjoying that!

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And my other food obsession is making mini eggplant pizzas. Just slice and roast your eggplant in the oven for 15-20 mins, then top with tomato sauce, toppings and cheese and broil til the cheese melts. Super easy. Super yummy.

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If you want to keep up with what I’m cooking and eating, follow me on Instagram and Pinterest.

On the Internets:

This guest post on my friend Brett’s blog about responding to difference.

This interview Rob Bell does with Elizabeth Gilbert

This post from my friend Sara about the temptation to live a safe life instead of embracing opportunities and then being left with regrets.

This post, which is not new, but which I just read again recently and still love about when you doubt your faith.

This post from Sarah Bessey about being a secret-keeper even though you are a writer, blogger, and over-sharer. I could relate so completely it was eerie.

On the Blog:

I went on 4 new adventures for my 52 weeks of adventure series (23, 24, 25, and 26). I wrote about fictional character crushes, books and place, middle child books, and YA fiction. I hosted Thankful Thursdays posts from Crystal Tripp, Kelsey Munger, Cara Meredith, and Meredith Bazzoli.  I wrote about being an introvert, my battles with trust, and rediscovering music.

This month I published my most-read post of all-time, On Getting Married Too Young. It got shared around on Facebook and mostly got a great response which was exciting. It isn’t WHY I write at all, but when you guys comment and share my posts it makes me feel like there’s value in what I’m doing here and I appreciate you all.

What I’ve Been Up To:

We celebrated our 5th anniversary with a weekend trip to Busan. We said good-bye to friends who were leaving for the summer and won’t be back before we go. We made a list of all the things we want to be sure to do before we leave Korea and started trying to sell some of our things. I picked up a couple of freelance gigs that will hopefully help cushion the blow as we move into a no-income situation. We did an awesome photo shoot with our friend, Laura. And we celebrated Jonathan’s 28th birthday the right way – with Indian food and homemade cake.

What have you been up to?