The Sunday Currently V

Good morning, dear readers! Did you remember to change your clocks? We did but Charlie didn't, so actually I think we somehow didn't quite lose an hour. I'm not sure how that works mathematically - please let's not overthink it - but now it's coffee and cheerios and the Sunday Currently until a dear family friend comes over for brunch!

via

currently...

reading The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough.  When we think of American pioneers in the 19th century, we think of heading west, armed with plows and guns and mining picks and manifest destiny.  But just as important for the evolution of the United States were those who traveled east to Paris - artists, writers, doctors, politicians, and others - and came back home to shape American history with what they had learned.  McCullough is an amazing storyteller and these lives leap off the page; I'm practically in Paris with them as I read.

writing a couple of incredibly personal blog posts about faith to publish in the next few weeks.  At first, I'd thought that maybe I could turn the last one into a link-up, but I realized after discussing it with some friends that not everyone's comfortable talking about what they believe in online, especially if it doesn't conform with what their families or communities profess.  But I need to write this out for myself - it's baptism by the pen, if you will - and I do hope it will make others feel less alone.  (If you are interested in joining, email me!)

listening to the "folk rock" station on Grooveshark.  I don't actually know what that means, but it's got Cat Stevens, Mumford & Sons, and Bob Dylan, among others, and is perfect for a Sunday morning!

thinking about the bad dream I had last night.  I haven't had a nightmare like that in years - don't you eventually grow out of them?  But I literally woke up in tears because it was so sad and scary.  Happily, most of the details are fading now, but I still remember how awful it felt while I was caught in it.

smelling bacon frying.  Can brunch start now, please?

wishing April 20th would hurry up and get here already so I can hop on that plane and go to London to see Jon!  This spell of long distance is not one of our best...

hoping that the sun and warmth will stick around - if the arrival of spring is interrupted by another cold spell, I will yell at someone.  (If you want to see what this season is like in DC, follow me in Instagram!  I'm going a bit sun/flowers/leaves crazy over there.)

wearing my beautiful and clean David Yurman ring again, thanks to my mother!  I had put it in one of those tubs of silver polish liquid on Friday night... and then forgot about it until Saturday morning and it was totally oxidized.  (Turns out I shouldn't have used that product in the first place because the gold in the ring interacts badly with the chemicals - oops.)  But Mom used one of those tricks that they teach at Mommy School and it's now good as new.

loving that Jenna and Jay are usually the first two commenters on almost every post I publish.  Their responses are so sweet and thoughtful, and it makes me feel like all is right with the world when I hear the ping of my email in the morning and it's Disqus telling me that these girls have left me some love.

wanting to be running again!  I hurt my foot back in February, just when I started training for the 10k I have next weekend, and haven't been out in three weeks.  To be honest, I didn't do anything for my foot or talk to anyone about it because I didn't think I was hardcore enough to have a running injury, but then Megan told me that it's really easy to break your foot and I should be careful.  (So the moral of the story is: I wasn't hardcore, and I hurt myself anyway.  Typical.)  It had been feeling better and I was looking forward to lacing up my sneakers this weekend, but I did a lot of walking yesterday and it's sore again.  Maybe I can try just a little run today?  I really don't want to pull out of the race!

needing to stay on the My Fitness Pal wagon.  Since I recorded my vlog back in late January, I plateaued and then gained three pounds back.  In the last week, I was (mostly) good about logging my food/drink intake and I can already see a difference on the scale.  Yes, ingesting 500 calories a day for two days a week every week will make you lose weight because - shocker - that's what severely restricting will do for anyone, but it's obvious that, for me, the healthy and sustainable way to take care of my body and soul is to be mindful of what I'm eating.

feeling a bit schizophrenic about officially getting married.  I'm veering between totally stressed because there's nothing I can do to move things along and totally zen because there's nothing I can do to move things along.  Just to clarify, this has nothing to do with our wedding, which I'm pretty blissed out about right now; the bureaucratic hoops we have to jump through to legally become husband and wife in the UK are just a complete headache and we seem to be having more trouble with the visa/license process than we'd expected for some reason.

clicking on Paris in Four Months, a blog I discovered recently that gorgeously chronicles a Swedish woman's new life in the City of Light.  Her photos are amazing and her story really does seem charmed.  Don't even get me started on her Instagrams... they make me desperate to go back!

linking up with siddathornton today