This morning, my mom left for a three-week trip to China with my grandma.

She stayed with me last night and then I took her to O'Hare this morning.

At 4:30 AM.

And there were people out and about!--fully functioning and ready for the day. One man was even jogging along the lake. I could barely put one foot in front of the other.

I do not understand. 4:30AM is the middle of the night, people. The sun isn't even thinking about rising yet. Go back to bed.

'What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.' - Thomas Carlyle

My book list for the next little while:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
No One Belongs Here More Than You. By Miranda July
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs
Middlemarch by George Eliot (Eternally on my list. It will happen eventually.)

A mix of intense, with some brain candy in between...

And I'd love some suggestions on what to add. :)

Outstanding in the Field.

Okay, this is something that I think is super cool.

And it looks like this:

or this

or this



It’s an event called ‘Outstanding in the Field’--dinners held in locations all over the world—from Ohio to Tuscany. Their mission is to reconnect diners to the land and the origins of their food, and to honor the local farmers and food artisans who cultivate it. Very granola. But sometimes I wish I was a hippie, so I like the idea of this.

According to their website, for the past 10 years, they've been setting up "restaurants without walls" at farms, gardens, mountain tops, caves, islands, and ranches--or even sometimes inside, at a greenhouse or museum. The meals are prepared by a well-known chef in the area, using all local and organic ingredients. And everyone eats at the same long table--the farmers, producers, artisans, and diners.

Cool, huh? It's a pretty expensive evening, however, with tickets at $200 a pop. I think it would be totally worth it though, if I had a little extra cash laying around. Just grab a bunch of friends who appreciate good food and wine, buy tickets, and love it for the experience.

After all, Virginia Woolf said that 'one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.'

A new year. A new blog.

So. I used to be really good at blogging--writing three or four times a week when I was in college. And then I entered the real, grown-up world and I started to feel like my life was too boring to write about. So I stopped writing...

But it's time to start again.

I've been a fan of the author, Don Miller, for a long time. He came to the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin in 2006 and I was his student host. Basically, I had to make sure he was in the right place at the right time. (I failed him one of the days. He was supposed to have lunch with students. I told him he was done for the day and he went out to lunch with his friend Jordan. This was not good. Bad job, Lo.) But!...I did have to drive his get-a-way car after his last lecture. He was being mobbed by fans. Then he jumped in my van and I drove him to his hotel. And he was grateful.

Anyway.

This past summer, he took seven weeks off from the grind of daily life and rode his bike across the United States with a group of his friends--starting at the pier in Santa Monica and finishing on the shores of Delaware. And all to raise money and awareness about the current water crisis in Africa. I like it. And want to do something like this...at some point.

Reflecting on his time, he says this:

"I learned a great deal about America in the seven weeks we spent crossing the country. I learned America is good, not as wealthy as you might think, kind hearted and big hearted. I learned that small towns are dying and I wondered what we could do to bring them back. I learned that we work very hard, and that our heart is still industry and agriculture. The generosity of the average American is astounding. The idea we are divided or opinionated is something propagated by the media to sell advertising, and adhered to by those I would consider to be ignorant. I don’t mean that as an insult, I simply mean ignorance in the way a child is ignorant of spelling before they learn to read. I think the inability to think rationally begins when we believe we know more than we are actually capable of knowing, and do not think objectively because our identities are tied to our ideas."

Yep. I like him.

Here's a video he made--an overview of their journey.
Watching it makes me smile. Reminds me what it's like to share an experience with a group of people and become a family in the process. Plus, he chose one of my favorite Rosie Thomas songs to play in the background. :)