How to Wash Your Clothes When You're New to Thailand

Before moving from California to Thailand a year ago, we were warned by many that learning how to do life in a whole new culture would suck up most of our time. 

They were so right! All of our high ideals for language learning and getting out to meet Thai people were overridden by meeting basic survival needs for at least 1-3 months. (Even today, we are more limited than we would've imagined before moving here.)

Here's just one example.

How to Wash Your Clothes When You're Brand New to Thailand

In 20 Not-So-Easy Steps

1. When you first arrive, crash at your husband's aunt's house for a couple of days. She does your first, small load of laundry for you. ขอบคุณมากคะ่ ("Thank you very much!")

2. Move into your house. It has all the hookups but no washing machine.

3. Hear from a neighbor that there is a laundromat down the street.

4. Send husband out to use his couple hundred Thai words to figure out where said laundromat is. 

5. Find out that "laundromat" is a generous word for the single washer in someone's shop. It seems to always be full with someone else's clothes.

6. Be so busy figuring out more important things like getting food and wifi that you get dangerously close to running out of clothing for your whole family.

7. Take a family trip via taxi to Big C (Bangkok's rough equivalent to Super Target) to choose a washing machine.

8. Be completely overwhelmed by the choice because the machines are quite different than in the US.

9. Give up and go home.

10. Hear that there's a washing service in the area and ask about it.

11. Later that day, a man motor-scooters down the street with a rod for hanging clothing attached to the bike. Find out that that's the washing service. He uses the small "laundromat" that's always full.

12. Find out he charges 50 cents per item.

13. Look at the pile of dozens of items and decide to just hand wash a few things to carry us a couple more day.

14. Go back to Big C with your bilingual, ex-pat friend to help you buy a washing machine and schedule the delivery. Buy a drying rack and about 50 other needed items too.

15. Wait a couple of days for the delivery.

16. When the guys come to install the washing machine, find out through lots of pointing and sign language that they can't finish installing it because there is dried glue-gun glue all over the sawed off drainage pipe. Dang.

17. After they leave, jankily shove the drainage hose into the drainage pipe and try washing a load anyway.

18. It works. Hallelujah.

19. The drying rack can only hold one medium-sized load at a time and each load takes several hours to dry, so do one load of laundry every day until all your clothes are clean. This takes about four days.

20. Enjoy having clean clothes. Though, because you recently paired down to just the essentials (hello, international move!) and because your family goes through four outfits a day from sweating so much (hello, tropics!), learn to permanently do laundry one load at a time, two times per week.

Things I've Seen Thai People Do While Riding a Motorcycle

It seems that almost everyone here in Bangkok rides a scooter -- young, old, male, female, and even pets go along for the ride. I've compiled a list here of all the crazy-to-me, normal-to-them things I've seen Thai people do while riding a scooter.

Even food stalls are often attached to a bike for easy transport.

To properly imagine each of these scenarios, you need to keep in mind that most people aren't wearing a helmet and many of those who are leave the straps unbuckled, dangling below their chin. All of these examples are on moving motorcycles weaving in and out of cars, trucks, and buses on heavily congested roads.

So, here we go. Things I've seen Thai people do while riding a motorcycle:

I've seen teenage girls riding together, one driving and the other braiding the drivers' hair. I've seen toddlers sitting between their parents' knees, slumped on the handlebars, fast asleep. I've seen a woman carrying a sleeping newborn hop onto the back of a friends' scooter for a quick ride down the block. I've seen moms driving with kids my kids' age -- the little one on her lap, the big one sitting behind her mom, arms wrapped tightly around mom's waist.

I've seen motorcyclists drive on the wrong side of the street straight at me and my car. I've seen motorcycles squeeze through small spaces next to my car that I didn't even realize were motorcycle-sized. I once noticed a motorcyclist trying to squeeze between my car and another while I was stopped in heavy traffic. I opened the window, pulled in the mirror, he nodded his thanks, and drove on.

I've seen people transport large, heavy bags of rice or concrete or who knows what. I've seen people transport fans, blades whirring in the wind. I've seen people transport their Thai iced tea or coffee dangling in a bag from the handlebars. I've seen large dogs sitting on their owners' laps like a child and small dogs sitting at their owners' feet.

I've seen women very dressed up for work in tight skirts and high heels riding side saddle on a motorcycle taxi while texting on their latest model iPhone. I've seen people talking and texting while driving, too. I even witnessed two small accidents where the phone went flying to the ground and hit the pavement in three or four pieces.

Not like the US, right? Though, I think the US is the oddball country as most nations I've been to are more like Thailand. It's fun, crazy, dangerous and someday it will all feel normal.

This Presidential Race

In my twelve years on Facebook, six years of blogging, and seven months on Instagram, I don't think I've ever posted about politics -- I just don't like thinking about, talking about, or writing about politics. But, the absurdity of this Presidential race drives me to it.

I'm sure you've already read and heard many opinions, so this will be brief…

I remember last summer when I first heard about Trump's infamous "Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists (and maybe some are good people)" remark. Having had many Mexican and Mexican-American friends, acquaintances, classmates, colleagues, supervisors, and clients; having walked with one very close Mexican-American friend through her journey of going from undocumented status to documented status; I felt shocked and offended at this racist and untruthful comment. At that moment I counted him as unfit to become a party nominee, much less President of the United States.

Over the past year, he has spouted an entire canon of racist and misogynist comments and lies that are as shocking and harmful as "Mexicans are rapists." I am deeply convinced that he is a horrible man who is only out for himself. 

I have been appalled as I've watched him successfully woo half of the US population.

My shock reached an all-time high this summer when I found out that the vast majority of white evangelicals support his candidacy for President. As a white evangelical who is not voting for Trump, I am in the minority. This is absurd to me.

Today, I went to the Bangkok post office to drop off an absentee ballot with my vote for Hillary Clinton for President. She is far from perfect, but in this 2016 race, perfection is not my standard. Preventing a Trump presidency is. So, I gladly cast my vote for Clinton.

Things I Learned in June

I moved from the U.S. to Thailand a few months ago, so I learn approximately fifty new things every day. Here are just a few of the things I learned in June...

Playgrounds in Thailand have all the unsafe but super fun equipment that's long been banned in the USA. Things like merry-go-rounds and see-saws. And my daughters love it all, of course.

Tropical storms are fun! The thunder rumbles deeply and sometimes cracks so loud my heart drops. A single storm can bring dozens of bolts of lightening. The rain falls on our car park's tin roof so forcefully, I have to close the front door to be able to video chat with my parents. When a thunderstorm rolls in, the wind picks up and the temperature cools. After a storm, the air remains cool but becomes oppressively humid and we all sweat buckets. I am loving it all. Except the sweating buckets part.

The Thai word for "socks" is "foot bag." Perfect!

Trying to buy a car in another country is a time sucking, frustrating experience. Thank you, Lord, for easy to use public transportation.

I'm intimidating. I've noticed that when I walk toward a Thai man, he often gets a frightened look on his face and will sometimes even back away! This doesn't always happen, but it's happened often enough for me to notice. 

Why do some men act this way? Are they afraid of me? Am I misreading them? What are they afraid of... that I'm going to start speaking English and they won't understand? Why don't women act this way toward me? 

Street food is ruining my taste buds. I eat Thai street food once or twice daily. Almost every dish I eat is either sweet, sour, salty, spicy, or some combo of the above. Now, when I cook old favorites from life in California, they taste really bland. My husband and I dump on salt, red pepper, even spicy fish sauce to try to bring our old favorite dishes up to our new taste bud standards.

I'm not the only girl with a huge crush on my husband. My one-year-old is obsessed with him too. If I try to take her out of his arms, she screams at me. Daddy's girl through and through.

When I study Thai, I should always pull the eraser first out of my "keep clam" pencil bag. I make so many mistakes. But, that's how you learn, right?

This exists. A few weeks after I took this picture, I sent my daughter outside to put her shoes on. (Shoes are stored outside here.) When I went to help her, I saw one of these nasty critters about a foot away crawling right toward her little hands and feet! And did I mention they're poisonous? In the tropics, always look before you send very young children outside by themselves. Which leads me to my next lesson...

Always look before you pee. The news recently carried two stories of snakes slithering through plumbing into people's toilets. And they weren't garden snakes. No, no. One was a 3.5 meter long python and the other was a one meter long cobra. The python even bit a man's... you'll just have to read this article. Yikes. Always look before you pee.

My three-year-old is brave. When my now three-year-old was three months old, she became very anxious around strangers. Her fear grew and grew until she would scream and cry with anybody but me. I remember when she was one, we tried to get her to accept the church nursery and she cried so hard she threw up!

By God's grace, a lot of hard parental work, and good old-fashioned passage of time, she has mostly outgrown stranger anxiety.

Last month, she started attending Thai preschool. Everyday, she walks half a mile (in this hot, humid climate!), bulky, much-too-pink backpack bouncing on her back, all the way to school. She stays three hours immersed in a language she cannot yet understand and a culture that is so different from our own. She has cried a few times, she tells us she doesn't like it, and yet she keeps going. She has learned to be brave! I am so proud.

These Are the Days Of

I have a habit of always looking ahead and asking, "What's next?" I often think things like, "Once my kids are in school, my life will begin." Or, "Once I am conversational in Thai, I will have arrived."

I forget that there is never a point when "real" life begins or a point where I've "made it." I forget to recognize the small things (good things, great things, and hard things) in my everyday life.

When I notice myself straining ahead to the future, I stop, grab a pen and journal, and make a "These Are the Days Of" list to draw me back into life as it is. Here's today's list:

These Are the Days Of...

My entire life lived in a compact corner of a city. Within about five to ten minutes, I can walk from home to:

• Work
• The coffee shop where I meet up with my Thai tutor
• Dozens of food, drink, and dessert vendors
• Two pharmacies
• A veggie market
• A fruit market
• Two convenience stores
• Two 20 baht stores (the equivalent of the American dollar store, except everything is 50 cents)
• A car mechanic
• Two hair salons
• My daughter's preschool

As we go about the same stalls and markets and greet familiar faces day after day, I begin to feel like I live in a village, not a large, crowded city.

Noticing fine lines around my eyes and on my forehead. In ten years, I'll probably look back on photos of myself and think, "Darling, that was NOTHING!"

Learning to split things 50/50. As we pursued moving to Thailand, the thought of being a monolingual, stay-at-home expat mom/wife made me die inside. So, my husband and I decided to spend equal time studying Thai our first twelve months or so. Splitting our language learning, childcare, chores, etc. roughly equally is a crazy juggling act, but it's worth it.

Feeling weary every evening from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. Immersion in a new culture, learning a new language, taking care of little kids, walking everywhere in crummy sandals…each of these things alone is enough to make a lady tired. Taken together, I find myself weary by the end of the day every day.

Eating fruit all day, every day. Miniature bananas, sweet pineapple, crispy rose apples, fragrant mangoes. Still haven't tried durian.

Learning patience. I wish I could become instantly conversational in Thai. Learning a new language just a few new sentence structures and a few new vocab words at a time is slow, hard work. Like raising children. Like building a lasting marriage. Like anything worthwhile.

Eating out daily. In the U.S. my family went weeks without eating out because it was too dang expensive. Now, we eat out every day because it's affordable and delicious. For example: a large, grilled, salt-encrusted, lemongrass stuffed fish with brown rice and veggie soup costs about $5. It feeds our whole family. It's one of the more expensive meals we buy. This is one of the huge perks of life in Bangkok.

Living in a dirty home. In the middle of all this, the last thing Michael and I ever want to do is clean. Our house is usually dirty. Especially the kitchen floor. Yuck. Note to self: look into how much it would cost to hire someone to clean the house for us.

~ The idea of making a "these are the days of..." list came from Emily Freeman's book, Simply Tuesday.

What I Wish Everyone Knew About Foreigners

At the end of February, my family moved from Southern California (land of churches, SUVs, parks, and lattes) to Bangkok, Thailand (land of temples, taxis, malls, and iced coffee).

If I had to choose one word to describe our first few weeks here in Thailand, it would be this: overwhelming. OVERWHELMING.

My husband and I have gone from being competent in our home culture to being needy and often confused foreigners in our new culture. We are like children. We even speak the new language like one-year-olds. We have to re-learn how to do the most basic tasks like bathing our kids, washing our clothes, and buying our food.

Here is a sampling of a few of the dozens of challenges we've addressed:

• How do we bathe our children without a bathtub? (Answer: First, try to put a plastic bag over the drain of our shower to fill up the shallow shower tub. Realize that's ineffective and buy a large plastic bowl. Bathe them one at a time in that.)
• How do we set up WiFi in our house? (Answer: Ride a motorcycle taxi with a bilingual neighbor to the WiFi company's shop to set up an appointment for the company to come by to set up WiFi. When they come, they add yet another line to the already overloaded power lines and connect it to our home. Voila! WiFi.)
• How do we pay our electricity and water bill? (Answer: Bring the bill, which is almost entirely in Thai, to the convenient store down the street. Pay them, they give us a receipt.)
• Where do we buy a broom to sweep our disgustingly crumby kitchen floor? (Answer: Outside the convenience store where we pay our bills, there is often a woman selling brooms. Buy one from her.)
• Etc.

During this transition period, I find solace in the fact that millions and millions of people around the world and across time have learned to make a new country and a new culture home. Refugees, military families, ambassadors, business people, migrant farm workers, missionaries, and international students. While our individual stories are diverse, we share the struggle of learning to function in a new place.

Before moving to Thailand, if I saw a foreigner in the U.S. with very limited English speaking skills, I would often avoid speaking to them to avoid the awkwardness of them not understanding me, the awkwardness of me not understanding them, and the awkwardness of not knowing how to end the interaction. I now realize that the awkwardness I felt was nothing compared to the overwhelming awkwardness that new foreigners live with 24/7. Learning to live in a new culture is overwhelming.

In the midst of all the overwhelming feelings of being new and incompetent in Thailand, there is a saving grace: old, Thai women. I adore them. Despite my awkwardness and stupidity, they always caress my kids' faces and give them sugary treats. They smile at me, take the time to listen to my Thai, and teach me new things to say. Even though we can hardly understand each other, the old Thai women that I have met make me feel welcome here.

More importantly, they have shown me how to relate to brand new foreigners. They have shown me how far a small gift, a smile, and a willingness to point, bumble, and be awkward can go in making a foreigner like me feel more welcome and less overwhelmed. It makes me want to do the same for other foreigners, whether I'm in Bangkok, the U.S., or elsewhere.

In short, I want to be like old, Thai women.

So, here's to being kind to foreigners -- whether they are documented or undocumented; whether they are international students, refugees, or on a work visa; whether they wear a hijab, a sari, or a Hello Kitty backpack. A willingness to be welcoming, even though it can be awkward, goes a long way. 

Trust me.

Homemade Thai Tea

**I first published this post in November 2013. Over the past few months, we've shared this recipe with several people who never knew you could make Thai tea at home and who were very excited to try it out. So, now I share it broadly again to spread the Thai tea love! Recipe is at the bottom of the post.**

A couple of years ago, after our attempts at making milk tea were successful, Michael and I decided to try to make homemade Thai tea. We scoured the internet in search of a recipe, but everyone said to just buy the mix. That's not what we wanted. We wanted to know exactly what ingredients to use to give black tea that orange color and that fragrant aroma.

In December 2011, we were visiting Michael's Thai aunt who lives about an hour outside of Bangkok. She spends her days cooking in her outdoor kitchen and tending fruits and vegetables grown all over her large property. Thailand has some of the best food in the world and the best food we had in Thailand came out of her kitchen. If anyone knew how to make Thai tea from scratch it would be her.

Via my mother-in-law's translation, we asked her, "How do you make Thai tea?" She answered, "You buy the mix." Oh, the disappointment!

Our disappointment was eased when we found out that Thai tea "mix" is actually Thai tea leaves brewed properly and mixed with the right amount of sweetened condensed milk. Without further ado, here is how to make a large pitcher of Thai tea, restaurant style, at home.

Thai Tea (ชาเย็น, "cha-yen," literally: "cold tea")

1) Buy a bag or two of these Thai tea leaves and a can of sweetened condensed milk.

2) Brew 9 tablespoons of the tea leaves in 8 cups of boiling hot water. Let the leaves steep for a very long time to get the tea nice and strong.

3) Mix in 2/3 cup of sweetened condensed milk. Stir thoroughly as it tends to settle on the bottom.

4) Let it cool. Put it in the fridge for a few hours.

5) Drink!

Home - Part Six

Thailand.

We are moving to Thailand. Just writing that makes my heart flutter, mostly from nerves. (You're supposed to go on your globe-trotting adventures before you have kids. Not now!) But, there's a good amount of excitement mixed in too. Scratch that. A lot of excitement. I've been ready for this my whole life. Bangkok, we are coming.

When I think of Bangkok, I think of pink taxis, fish sauce, gigantic shopping malls, canals, temples, constant sweating, sweet pineapple, 7-Elevens on every street, orchids growing on trees, the most jumbled power lines I have ever seen, and last, but certainly not least, super spicy, super salty, super cheap street food.

As I look back on my life lived in four distinct, diverse places, and as I look forward to living in another new, totally different place, two thoughts come to mind.

First, I am really excited to raise kids who are global nomads. I hope it doesn't mess them up too much. I hope it causes them to become empathetic adults who are able to connect to people who are different than them and who are savvy at relating to others cross culturally.

Second, the price of being a global nomad is the loss of a sense of "home." This is no small price tag for me and my girls. When I look at my life, I feel like a homeless, nomadic wanderer. But, in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien, "Not all who wander are lost." That's right. I'm not lost. I know exactly where I'm headed. In the end, I will arrive at my final home - the beautiful, tearless, painless new earth that I hope in so deeply. I will kick off my shoes, settle down, and know that I am finally home.

Home - Part Five

California.

I've lived over a third of my life in California. This is the longest I've ever lived in one place on the globe. I am too close to these years to really know what memories and impressions will last, but when I think of my eleven years in Southern California, I think of...

Palm trees, Joshua trees, wildfires, smog, mediocre beaches, rosemary bushes, citrus trees, tarantulas, lizards, and cockroaches.

Flying in and out of LAX and Ontario airports. Over and over and over.

Cheering on my team with tens of thousands of other fans all decked out in cardinal and gold.

Running every single step of the LA marathon.

Eating Red Vines while studying the gospel of Mark with people who have turned out to be lifelong friends -- including my husband.

Inhaling the strong smell of old urine and receiving greetings from homeless faces I recognized as I walked to my teaching job on skid row.

Marrying my best friend on an unusually warm spring afternoon.

Riding the Metrolink to law school while reading big old books with exciting titles like "Civil Procedure."

Bringing home an eight pound bundle of Grace from the hospital and then, eighteen months later, bringing home a six pound bundle of Cora.

Starting my own business (law firm) with a friend and serving on a nonprofit board.

My eleven years in Los Angeles have been ripe and full. It's hard to think that I'll be saying goodbye soon.

Home - Part Four

Colorado.

When I think of my 8th through 12th grade years in Colorado, I think of summer afternoon thunderstorms; late spring hail; early fall snowfall followed by 80 degree weather; and mild, brown winters. I remember taking way too many AP classes in my high school that bore an uncanny resemblance to a prison. I remember Saturday marching band practices on hot asphalt and I remember getting all dressed up for show choir performances. I remember youth group trips to the mountains for camps and day trips.

For the most part, I have lost my connection to Portugal and Illinois. But, since I still go to Colorado a couple of times every year to visit family, it still feels like I can call it home and sort of get away with it.

Home - Part Three

Illinois.

Illinois was the land of my elementary and middle school years. When I think of Carol Stream, I can almost smell my elementary school -- a comfy, musty combo of crayons and scratchy brown paper towels. The school had little, artificially created green hills in front presumably to add a little interest to the pancake flat Midwest landscape.

I remember church potlucks on our First Baptist Church's lawn. ("Don't eat the potato salad. The mayo has been out in the sun all afternoon. You'll get sick.") I remember playing capture the flag on the lawn and getting purple stains on my feet from berries dropped by a tree. 

I remember playing kickball in my cul-de-sac in the summer. In the winter, snowplows pushed all the snow on our street into huge piles at the end of the cul-de-sac; perfect construction material for the most amazing forts. When discarded Christmas trees went out on the curb in January, we "planted" them way up high on the snow forts as if they were Neil Armstrong's flag on the moon.

Compared to the other three places I've lived, there wasn't as much beauty, diversity, or things to do -- but the people. I loved the people.

Home - Part Two

Portugal.

If I want to make my heart ache, all I have to do is type "Alcobaça" into a Google images search. Most of the images are of the thousand year old monastery in town, which makes me ache more. How can I find pictures of my preschool, the Igreja Baptista that we attended, the cafes we most frequented for pastries and espresso?

Even though my life began in Portugal, I have pretty much said "goodbye." I've forgotten the language and culture. Every time I move, I put a few hundred (or thousand) more miles between me and my birthplace. But, if I had a three month sabbatical where I could hunker down in any corner of the world, Portugal, would be it. I'd get a muffin top from gorging on the food and pastries. I'd visit the beaches and monasteries. I'd re-learn Portuguese.

Home - Part One

Shortly after college, or maybe it was in college, I don't remember, I got into a conversation with someone that turned to the Dreaded Question:

"Where are you from?" 

Up to that point, my answer varied all the time. This time I responded,

"I don't know."

He was incredulous. "What do you mean you don't know?"

"I just don't know where I'm from."

So he sought out to find the answer. "Well, where were you born?"

"Portugal. My life began in Portugal. Though, my parents are American so when we moved to the U.S. when I was six, I forgot the language and culture."

"Where in the U.S. did you live?"

"Seven years in a Chicago suburb. Five years in the Denver area. Then, I came to Southern California for college and haven't left. Yet."

By this point, he was starting to see my dilemma.

"Ok. Where are your parents from?"

"My dad was born and raised on the east coast. My mom was born in California and grew up mostly in Argentina and a little bit in Illinois. Really, I don't know where I'm from. I'm from all over."

He silently nodded his head finally understanding where I was coming from. (Pun intended.)

Things I Learned in September

Pineapple skin and mango skin are edible. According to this article. I also now feel validated in my consumption of kiwi skins. Yum!

You can buy rambutan in California, but a single fruit costs as much as an entire kilo in Thailand. I wonder, can you eat these hairy, prickly skins?

When strangers share their opinion about how easy or hard a stage of parenting was, to not take their opinions too seriously. Over the summer, when strangers at the park and at grocery stores saw how pregnant I was and how young Grace was, several comments ran something like this: "18 months apart?! Poor thing, you will not sleep or have a life." I forgot that every kid and combo of kids is different, so you can't take these opinions too seriously. Right now, we're doing really well. I'm sure we'll hit other stages in this raising small children gig that other parents found easy but we will find very difficult. The point is to not project others' experiences onto your own kids.

Four years. That's how long it takes me to build community. Four years ago, we made a forty mile move - just far enough to have to start all over. I felt lonely for the first couple of years and it was hard. Cora's birth opened my eyes to how many friends we've made over the last years. So many people have helped in so many ways. I certainly don't feel lonely anymore!

If you want to suck the joy out of caring for a newborn, be a control freak. I have a type-A personality. With Grace, it took me a couple of months to really learn to let go. With Cora's arrival, I've found myself slipping back into control freak mode. This past week, I have stopped trying to plan ahead and I am embracing the unpredictability of caring for a newborn. It's good for my soul.

Thailand by the Numbers

In January 2012, Michael and I went to Thailand to visit family. We also did typical touristy stuff - the Grand Palace, the most famous temples, a boat cruise down the Chao Phraya River, and the beaches in south Thailand. This time around, we did nothing touristy and got to see a lot of the "real" Bangkok. Here is my best attempt to summarize two incredible weeks.

33 hours spent on planes.

8 hours spent on layovers.

+14 hours - The time change.

27 weeks pregnant.

Dozens of bananas and rambutan consumed. We also ate gobs of pineapple, guava, mangosteen, and green mango. But, the bananas and rambutan were our family's favorite. We also ate dozens of Thai dishes. Only a couple of them appear in your typical American Thai restaurant. 

6 - The number of homes and hotels we stayed in during our two weeks. I highly recommend not moving around this much with a toddler. It made things a little too crazy, but it's what we had to do for the purposes of our trip.

3 trips to the pharmacy.

• Trip #1: Thailand has too many mosquitoes. Michael's aunt's home is out in the tropical countryside and is surrounded on three sides by mostly stagnant water. Within our first 48 hours of being in Thailand, Michael was bit about two dozen times around his ankles. When his ankle bone disappeared under the swelling and it hurt to walk, we did a little online research and purchased over-the-counter Allegra for about $10. The swelling was completely gone in a couple of days.
• Trip #2: Thailand is so hot and so humid. Grace was such a sticky little sweat ball that she developed a heat rash on the back of her neck that turned into a stinky, itchy, painful yeast infection. After emailing and Vibering my nurse practitioner mom, we went to the pharmacy, purchased cream, and the infection was gone in a couple of days.
• Trip #3: More yeast cream.

4 - Number of malls visited. There aren't many parks, museums, etc. in Bangkok, so everyone goes to the mall instead. These malls are nothing like American malls. They are huge, crowded, posh, often themed, and there are new ones being built all the time. Inside these malls, I saw a waterfall, parrots, and a giant replica of the Golden Gate Bridge.

1 incredible conversation with three women who were formerly prostitutes. Thailand is infamous for prostitution, sex trafficking, and sex tourism. We were able to visit an organization (The Well) that works with women who are trying to leave that life. While visiting, we sat down with three Thai women to hear their life stories all the way from horrific abuse and trauma in childhood, to selling themselves throughout adolescence and young adulthood, to being healed and transformed by the grace of God, to now working with "bar girls" trying to leave the sex industry. It was such a privilege to hear their stories and to marvel at God's great compassion and power.

3 nights spent in slums. We visited another organization (Servant Partners) that seeks transformation in urban slums all over the world, including in Bangkok. The staff and interns actually live in the slums alongside the people. Incredible, right?! We got to spend time in three different communities experiencing that lifestyle. It was tiring and difficult in some ways, but at the same time, our imaginations over here in the comfy west can blow things out of proportion and the word "slum" brings to mind only refuse and crime. Life is life all over the world. In the slums, we saw people doing laundry, caring for babies, selling and buying, singing and playing, chatting with their neighbors, and simply living life.

15 - The number of hours Grace slept the first night we were back home. She was such a trooper with being dragged all over Bangkok for two weeks. But, we definitely wore her out. I've never appreciated the simplicity and routine of our everyday lives more than now.

Inspiration Fairy

There is a term in Turkish that translates to "inspiration fairy." My very close, American friend who is studying Turkish while living in Turkey explained what this means. Often, when an artist sits down to create, nothing comes. There is no inspiration. But, sometimes while staring off into space, listening to a boring presentation, sweeping the floor, or doing really anything, *POOF* the inspiration fairy comes to visit. Creativity flows naturally through and from the creator.

Although you cannot force this inspiration to come, you can create space for inspiration to visit more readily. Recently, I've been trying to intentionally open up this space in my life. As a mom and a part time lawyer, I have to be very choosy about my free time. If a book just isn't doing it for me, I'll abandon it halfway through. My garden is a tangle of large weeds and plants that have gone to seed. I rarely sit at the piano anymore and my camera often lays still for days or weeks.

One creative endeavor that I have chosen to pursue in this very full season is writing. I usually write my deepest thoughts in my journal and my exterior life on this blog. I recently also began reading and doing the creative writing exercises in a book about writing more descriptively called "Word Painting." Although it takes lots of energy and intentionality to make space to write in my days, even for just ten minutes, it has been worth it every time -- and the inspiration fairy has visited.

Horchata

Is it possible to live in Los Angeles and not fall in love with Mexican food? I think not. Over the last eight years of dating and marriage, Michael and I have gone to countless taco trucks and taco stands all over LA. We always order tacos or burritos paired with the spiciest salsa we can lay our hands on, and we split a large Styrofoam cup of cinnamony, creamy horchata.

I always assumed that horchata was a milk-based drink and was very surprised when I learned that it was made from rice. Since I'd never heard of a rice-based drink, I assumed it was hard to make. The other day, I looked up a few recipes online for inspiration, saw how easy it was, and made my own. Try it out for yourself!

(Public Service Announcement: Horchata is pronounced "orchata." Please don't say the "h" in horchata. It'd be like saying the "k" in knitting. You just don't!)

Ingredients
1 cup uncooked rice
5 cups water
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup milk (You can substitute part of the milk with cream if you want your horchata super creamy.)
1/2 tablespoon vanilla
1/3 cup white sugar

Directions
Pulse the rice, water, and cinnamon stick in a blender until the rice starts to break apart. Let this cloudy, chunky mixture sit out for several hours to overnight.

Strain out the water and get rid of the broken rice and cinnamon stick. Mix in milk, vanilla, and sugar. Put it in the fridge. While it's chilling, go to the nearest hole in the wall Mexican place and order tacos with spicy, spicy salsa. Stir the horchata, pour, and enjoy!