memorial day weekend

the holiday weekend was well spent with a lot of good outdoor activity, as well as quality alone time. I was thankful for the long weekend and was finally (finally!) able to completely unplug from work for the first time in a while.

here's a little recap:

made pretzels for the first time

played some scrabble

the pretzels turned out lovely!

saturday found us at Great Falls National Park!
can you believe this is only 30 mins from Washington, DC?!

amazing!

apparently a lot of people die

there are beachy areas with shells

and foresty areas with moss!

sweaty and happy

monday found us at the other air and space museum! planes are beautiful

enterprise space shuttle! WHOA!!!!

what did you do? 

fight or flight?

this saturday, chris and i went on a long bike ride through the city and ended up at the air and space museum. one of the best things about living in DC is that most of the parks and museums are completely free so you can easily stop in at a museum for a few hours without worrying about maximizing your ticket cost.

at the museum we found the original plane that the wright brothers used for their first successful flight in kittyhawk, north carolina. chris enthusiastically lectured me on all the little placards along the wall. he is totally one of those people who reads every single thing at a museum, which i was a little annoyed by. I prefer to breeze through exhibits without really learning anything.

well it's a good thing i have chris bc i left the exhibit pretty inspired by the wright brother's adventure, creativity, and determination. they would not stop until they figured out how to fly, even going so far as to create their own plane engine when they couldn't find engineers who could make what they needed.

at the end of the exhibit, you can watch these cheesy animations of what the first few flights might have looked like. i can't emphasize how cheesy these animations were. and yet, when you saw that airplane finally take its longest flight (57 seconds!) it was hard not to marvel at the significance of that event. people were no longer gravity bound. people could fly.

at a different exhibit on that same floor of the museum are aircraft of the modern era, with technological sophistication that the wright brothers would not have been able to comprehend: drones. every time i visit the museum, i take a little walk down to the drones display and pray a brief prayer for peace. this time around, i felt a mix of anger and sorrow. how could something as beautiful and simple as that first airplane be turned into something so destructive as a predator drone? not to get too political on this trifle of a blog of mine, but the juxtaposition was too obvious to ignore.

i hope and pray that one day the tool of flight can be limited to simple, beautiful things like travel, adventure, joy. i hope and pray for peace on earth.

yes folks, that's the real thing! get thee to DC and see for yourself!

make peace, not drones.

this made me laugh: a quote from Orville about life in kittyhawk.
Oh Orville, I feel ya!

in front of some space thing?
i dunno ... chris will tell you what it is.

more food

over the top meat buffets aside, i've had some pretty great meals lately. it's just inevitable because with spring comes good food -- everything is fresh, colorful, and delicious.

tacos for lunch last friday at pica taco

delicious! pork and fish

lunch another day: avocado, tomato, apple. sort of random, but super good.

made this over the weekend, go jeannie!

I'm also putting Alice Waters' books to good use and thought i'd recap her tips for the perfect salad for you all. (these directions are adapted from her "in the green kitchen" book.)

1. purchase local, organically grown leafy greens.
i bought arugula and mesclun salad mix at my
local farmer's market.

2. soak several handfuls of greens in a bowl full of cold water.
swish the greens around with your hands and then let them sit
 until the dirt settles to the bottom of the bowl.

3. skim the leaves off the top of the water and put into
a salad spinner (or colander).  whatever you use
(salad spinner, paper towels) get the leaves as dry as you can.
(the dressing won't stick to wet lettuce.)

4. once leaves are completely dry, dress them with a homemade dressing.
Alice recommends you use your hands so you don't crush
the leaves and so you can intuitively feel when you've used enough dressing.

et voila! super yummy and super simple. I love salad.

what have you been eating lately?

buffet club

some churches have running clubs, crafting clubs, book clubs ... my church has a buffet club.

the most recent place we patronized was a korean barbeque buffet in annandale where $16 per person will get you unlimited plates of raw beef. at first i was pretty into it. i am a beef girl through and through -- it's how i was raised -- so the thought of all you can eat beef really got my heart rate up (in a good way). I didn't eat much earlier in the day anticipating this glorious event.

but just 3 plates in, i swear i felt my arteries actively clogging. my breathing became heavier. i began to sweat. my head swam with the smells and images of roasting beef.

i had to set my chopsticks down.
i had to give up.

my fellow members looked disappointed. i'm really nervous about my membership status right now so, to make up for my weak attempt, here are some photos documenting the fun.

raw beauty

youngwoo, our grill master. this kid ate 7 plates.

salivating yet?

meat+soju=crazy fob behavior

edison and his shabu shabu

on a different day, chris and I found
the BEST ramen in DC -- it was awesome.

i'm a fatty. so sue me.

dear buffet club, i promise i will try and eat as much as possible at our next outing. please don't kick me out.

trends

**first, i should say that several people have expressed concern for me because of my blog post from the weekend (the best was a text from my sister: "i read your blog. it was emo. you ok?") I assure you that despite the "emo" nature of my words, I was trying to end on a happy note. all is well in jeannie world! but thanks for your concern :)

So, on to my trivial question of the day: Do you fall prey to trends? I do -- like this whole coral craze. I have fully bought into it. friends who read my blog are constantly pointing out the coral I'm wearing, which is really funny because I was TRYING to subtly integrate the color into my day to day, but I guess posting about wearing coral and then wearing it is not such a subtle move.

what I canNOT pull off is the whole lipstick thing. everyone's like, ooooh try red lipstick! and i do and I look terrible. It might be because my lips are ridiculously small. When I'm not talking or smiling or eating, my lips look like a little blotch of pinkish flesh at the bottom of my face. Now imagine that blotch colored red, or burgundy, or muave. It doesn't work, right? RIGHT.

if you have this same problem, i have good news for you! I found a great colored Revlon lipgloss while I waited for Chris at a CVS before the Adele show. the trick with lip gloss is you have to find one that is pigmented enough so that it doesnt just end up clear when you apply it. I'd been burned by lip glosses before so I hesitated to purchase it, but it was on sale so I thought I'd give it a try and was pretty happy with the results.

and that, my friends, is my second most boring blog post ever. (here's the first)
to make this slightly more interesting, here are some photos for you.

my new spring sandals and my wide korean feet,
perfect for working in the fields, not so perfect for
wearing slim, strappy sandal.

the lipgloss in "coral reef" -- highly recommend it!

some semblance of color, yes?

brief adele clip

for your listening pleasure.

the weekend

i was alone almost all weekend. it was GREAT.

i indulged in a lot of TV. writing. perfect lattes. and a mani/pedi.

3 cheers for R&R!

back to work tomorrow. here we go ...

peace

in a moment of great distress this past week, with my head ringing, plagued by a grey, chaotic cloud of what ifs? hows? and whys? I decided to surrender all my concerns in prayer. i prayed perhaps the most desperate, broken, ridiculous prayer I've prayed in a long long time. it was shamefully elementary and consisted of just three words: god. help. please.

in that moment i felt the peace of god that transcends all understanding settle in the depths of my chaos and suddenly, the stormy waters stopped churning. the rain stopped. the winds ceased.

i reveled in the calm, silenced by the abrupt change.

there was nothing left to say but thank you.
thank you.
thank you.

for the first time

for some reason, this spring i am allergy free for the first time since moving to DC! i am still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I fully expect to wake up one morning with my eyes crusted over and my nasal passages completely blocked -- but until that fateful day, i am living it up!

these days, I just love being outdoors walking or biking, and i'm really enjoying the flowers and blossoming trees. I know I seem like a crazy plant lady, but here are some of the lovely flowers/plants i've seen lately.

my office succulent is blooming! i bought this
plant from a random guy on the street in philly.

i'll never use "pansy" as an insult again!
these are gorgeous (seen in someone's yard)

not sure what kind of flowers these are but they are pretty

my new succulent planter. I was not sure if I should buy it but i'm glad I did.

so pretty 

the end. no more plant/flower posts. I promise.

seeing adele: an epic of epic epicness

Chris and I went to the Adele concert at the 9:30 club in Washington, D.C. yesterday and, indeed, it was everything I hoped it would be. Which is to say that I hoped Adele would be amazing and she was amazing.

In the middle of her set, I turned to Chris and said, It's so effortless for her! And Chris was like, I was thinking the SAME THING! Afterwards he said it's as if all other pop singers are walking on the ground, but Adele just floats on air. There's no friction. Singing for her is as natural and easy as talking.

I hope you get to see her when she comes to your neck of the woods.

waiting in line to get in. i tried to channel adele's retro style

his/hers

the civil wars opened, fun!

finally! adele!

looks fun to be part of her band

love her

ouch

my throat hurts.
my head hurts.
my heart hurts.

in need of some healing

ice cream.
dialogue.
prayer.

choi clan, june 2010, new mexico.

flying

Flying a Kite with Uno from Jeannie Choi on Vimeo.

sisters > lovers

weekend in flagstaff, arizona with the sister. photo dump!

reunited and it feels so good!

went hiking in sedona

uno, hikemaster

jeannie: wannabe hikemaster

oh just meditating on a cliff

pretty alien plant

walking around downtown flagstaff

uno modeling

flying a kite

the southwest agrees with my hair

we also went to the beach

and the moon!

the end. sadly.