Food, glorious food

Foods I'm loving this week -

SC farm fresh peaches (last of the season) and tomatoes from the Livingston Farms stand at the Columbia local farmer's market - they're great, and they even pull out the ripest and best things to sell me :)

Empire apples waiting to be eaten - apparently they grow well in SC

Pumpkin spice cream cheese!

Terra Thai Basil veggie chips - yum

Starbucks iced white mocha with caramel drizzle - yep it's still 90 degrees here, so iced coffee still fantastic

My homemade coffee is getting pretty good, especially with my Tourani caramel syrup I finally bought at World Market

Carrots and peanut butter - a classic favorite

Rain rain go away

I'm sick of this rain.  I'm living in South Carolina, I just put up with horribly hot summer, I'm not supposed to have to deal with rain too.  That was Ithaca.  Although this is certainly SC rain - it's fine outside, and then all of a sudden it's pouring.  Pouring so hard, we can't see the house across the street at my parents' house.  It did give us a chance to meet us new neighbors, and turns out we have mutual friends and the woman knows my mom.  How funny.  The world outside the Faith is small too.  That's Columbia for you.

Work is going well - I rocked when the wealth psychologist came to visit.  Consultation skills and being the chair of a meeting skills are apparently unusual when you're in your 20s.  I had the guy saying "Where did they find you?"  to which I responded "Actually, I found them."

My new place is taking shape.  I'm still hunting for a couch.  I still have a million boxes, due to the fact that I'm studying every mentally awake hour that I possibly can.

I have a fabulous and beautiful new jewelry box, thanks to B and Jer.  I love it - it makes me feel like a grown-up.  I should have more beautiful things.

I'm getting color in my apartment like nobody's business.  Pink, yellow, brown, navy blue, cornflower blue, red, rust red, white, black, purple, a very little green,  more blue, and a turquoise shower curtain.  I love it.  I'm trying to offset the brown carpet and the yellow-y beige walls.

Now to continue my mid-week day off!

New apartment - excitement, fear, fatigue, joy, relief, overwhelmed - so many emotions for one ultimately good thing

New job - balancing act.  reading Made to Stick for Strategy Day, recently met with a wealth psychologist for a two day training on assertiveness, meeting management, active listening, etc.

Same old body - it's kind of working, I'm still going strong on my 5 days a week exercise plan.  Almost 2 months now, go me!

CFA reading - it's kind of stupid that I'm trying to take this exam in December, as I just don't have enough time to study.  I feel like it's my A exam all over again, but I'm trying to learn everything in 6 months.  Oops.  We'll see how this goes.

Loved reading A Cup of Friendship.  Fantastic book.  Made me think.

Now must go to my 8-5 day at the office.  Send good thoughts and prayers my way - Fridays are always tough, endurance and health-wise.

Thoughts

This morning I was thinking about a conversation I'd had recently about God's grace and salvation and the like, when I was reading from the Baha'i Holy Writings.  And I was realizing just how much it's an either/or discussion in so many people's minds, between God's grace and good works.  I love how Baha'u'llah's writings put things in a completely different light, take away dichotomies, etc.  It's grace and the act of believing in God and accepting His guidance and constantly turning to him and trying to abide by the Teachings He's sent to us through these Holy Persons and His love for us, and I'm sure so much more that I don't understand yet.  I find that comforting, and yet it doesn't make life any easier.  In fact, it makes life more difficult because you're constantly trying to live a better life and become a better person.

In more mundane matters, I have a fabulous color of toe nail polish on right now, thanks to the pedicures B and I got after a long day of cleaning the Baha'i center.  I got to clean the front window area to the foyer, and I don't believe the windows have been cleaned since I cleaned them 5 years ago before we opened the building.  IT'S AMAZING what a difference clean glass makes.  My fabulous toe nail polish color unfortunately clashes terribly with my fabulous new red high heels, so I haven't been able to wear them to work.  Oh yes, I'm wearing heels now.  I found two pairs that I can wear and not have horrible pain at the end of the day!  It's exciting.

I can't wait to move into my new apartment.  I'm looking forward to:
 - having room to make iced coffee and keep it in the fridge
 - washing my dishes whenever I want to
 - having my books and kitchen stuff out of their boxes
 - decorating my new space with new and old things
 - having all my spaces closer together... there's something good to be said for having a smaller space.

I'm getting into a routine with my CFA studying, and I only have two more CFP classes to take - Income Tax Planning and the Case Study Review course.  December seems not that far away with how much CFA stuff I still have left to learn.

I had one of those moments today when the entire world was too hard to handle, and there was something I really wanted to do, but the idea of just getting myself to the place much less interacting with people was far too much to handle.  I really need to stay away from loud, echoing rooms/restaurants, and I need to really limit my caffeine intake, even though Starbucks is delicious and my own version of Cheers.