{ so much love new york }

I love new york but sometimes I wonder why I live here....but just when I'm having one of those moments when I've had it with the crowds and the smells and the stairs and the cockroaches...new york reminds me how much I love it.  I get to watch movies with Marilyn Monroe in Bryant Park and take the ferry across to Staten Island to see Lady Liberty anytime I want and watch the sunset along the river, and eat the best tacos I've ever had and I get to explore new neighborhoods and go to the MOMA after work and then and go to a baseball game at a cool stadium with fireworks and shake shack and I get to be a New Yorker and go to brunch and governors island to ride bikes and relax and I get to hang out on the Brooklyn Bridge and then walk to Brooklyn and eat the most amazing ice cream sandwich ever and I get to look up and realize I'm at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, at a hip hop festival and then Busta Rhymes shows up unexpectedly and then Kanye...yes, THAT Kanye...and I sort of feel like I'm in a dream but it's too real and feels too good to be a dream and I realize that I LIVE here.  This is my LIFE and it feels oh so good.  So much love New York, so much LOVE. And the thing is, the story doesn't end here...there was Williamsburg and the perfect time of day and the best street music and dinner at an outdoor garden with my favorites and then ice cream and a birthday barbeque on my roof and whiffle ball along the river and then........................

my life is so good, and yes, I'm grateful, and yes I know how lucky I am.

{ coming to america }

I had everything I could have ever wished for this year on the Fourth of July...

well, except for fireworks but I don't think there's anything else that I missed.
country music and friends and the pool and fruit salad and whiffle ball and brunch and bikes and baseball and corn on the cob, a BBQ and a cute crab shack on the river and traffic and heat and flags and pancakes and ice cream and sparklers and the real deal washington DC monuments...it felt so good to be in America.

I was in Australia once for the Fourth and they had a Yankee Day celebration complete

with fried chicken, corn on the cob and apple pie...it was a lovely night but nothing feels better than
being home, seeing the stars & stripes that I love and listening to Lee Greenwood on the radio.