Lattes, Hotties, and Spring

Here is a photo of the sweet and perfect latte, vanilla soy latte that is, that Mike made for me. I was a bit nervous as he likes STRONG coffee, and because soy can be watery, but it was perfect, full bodied, smooth, slightly sweetened and yummy!!! Even the foam was a nice texture. And to top it off he put it in this cute little cup.

I am sure you have wanted to see photos of us, as lately I have just been posting food...so here is my hubby...looking very modelesque so handsome and cute...we were going for a "mature yet cool scientist shot"

Oh and Spring has Sprung...we have a gorgeous line of Cherry Blossom trees near our home, and sat under them for a picnic as the weather reached a peak of 70 yesterday...finally...flip flops here I come. I got a little too ambitious bc I wore filp flops again today and it was back to cold.

Ok all signing off with love.

Photographing Rock Stars!? :)

So I have been photographing the Q conference and I am pretty proud of myself...it has been great fun, but a lot of work.
And in this I have been super blessed, I have had the opportunity to meet great people, Francis Collins, Chuck Colson (if you haven't heard of them wiki them) and I was able to photograph one of the leading rock bands of today, The Fray.
Here are a few picks from the intimate concert! Enjoy!!

Easter and thoughts...

Happy Easter!!!

What really stuck out to me this year in the Easter story, was in John 20, how Jesus chose to first reveal himself to Mary Magdeline, a (former) prostitute, and I love the intimate way she recogonized him not by his look, she thought he was the gardiner, but by the way he called her name..."Mary." The word says how he calls his own by name in John 10; How there are days that I wish in the stillness of my heart to hear my name too... "Misha." I am sure there are times he is calling out to me but I am just not listening...maybe like Mary I too need to be looking for him..as Paul writes..."Fix our eyes on the author and perfector of our faith."

Anyhow that part of the story touched me this year...and I was able to read it to some new friends who we brought Easter lunch to, and I think they too saw a glimpse of the deep love that God has for us individually.

So we had a different yet great Easter, it started with going to church with new friends, and how I love corporate worship; I love singing and praising the Lord with hundereds of others who love Him. Then we brought food to some friends, which was special. Then we met some friends for a late dessert...there is a group of us who have spent every holiday together (except Christmas, we are all usually home then) for the past year...so it was nice to end the night with them.

Oh and I made my first cake for Easter, it was a small goal of mine. Here in New York bakeries are everywhere and I hadn't thought of myself as a baker until recently-I have started baking for friends weekly-and every time that I pass those windows full of big cakes flowing with waves of white frosting on sweet cake plates I think "I want to do that." It seems so warm and inviting and old fashioned, to make a home made cake and have it resting on a cake plate ready for family and friends to partake of its goodness...anyhow so I made a carrot cake! It was amazing..though I have to work on the presentation...my frosting wasn't flowing across the cake as beautifully as I had imagined it would but hey it was my first time..and everyone loved it so in short success!

Oh and on another note last week Mike and I went to the Bronx Botanical Gardens for a "hike". There is an area of "natural forest" there, it is beautiful but funny that our hikes are now on a few acres of city land, anyhow we saw an old man feeding birds...he would hold out peanuts, and birds from the wild would come and pirch on his hand, of course I wanted to get in on this experience and prompted by Mike I began talking with this bird feeder and he proceeded to give me a few peanuts and showed me how to get the bird's attention...so there I was slowly waving my hand to these chirping creatures hiding in there trees and after a few false alarms, a sweet little bird pirched on my hand. I thought he would immediately take the food from my hand but he just stood there investigating me, looking at me in the face checking me out for a moment...it was a very special experience..I will post pics soon.

March Update!

Hey all,

I am a little over due with a new post, but here is a photo that I am proud to share, not so much bc of the photo itself but
of what is in the photo...my valentines day cookies, that I made from scratch from my own recipe! Over the past year I have really gotten into baking and after baking so much I combined a few recipe ideas together and created these raspberry linzer tarts, soo yummy! I made about 4 dozen total...lets just say that took some time.
Also about baking I made this past week some AMAZING pecan bars from a recipe from the barefoot contessa the only down side was that about 24 large bars consisted of 9 sticks of butter...wow so I chopped the bars into bit size pieces, I mean we calculated that each bar alone was 3 tbls of butter soo yum but who needs that tummy ache.
Ok and here is a beautiful photo of the one big snow we had in NYC 10 days ago, gorgeous right, and that's down the block from my home-infact from the very spot that many ny movies film the view from...Zoolander, the movie with Don Chedal and Adam Sandler and basically every movie that has a manhattan skyline..pretty nice huh.

Thoughts...

Hello everyone, its been awhile since we have or rather I have posted anything, and I realized that I get a bit bummed when I go to other blogs and find nothing new realized I should just post something!
So right now I am at home, getting ready to prepare for the first meeting for a women's bible study that I co-lead with a good friend. I am really excited about this as all of the women in the group are all good friends, and this time we have 9 women, compared to 4 last session. I know this will be a very fruitful time. We are reading Henri Nouwen's "The Return of the Prodigal Son" and so far I am realizing how we each carry qualities of the three; and although I often see myself as the older son relating to the "good kid", which is actually not a great thing-the older son was a son that did the right thing by duty but didn't truly see his fathers heart (if he had he would have rejoiced with him), I am actually often the prodigal in the rebellious sense, looking for things other than God himself that will satisfy my heart-that plays out in many ways each day, maybe its r trying to find my identity in some sort of career, or searching for validation from others-all those things are just idols in the way of the Lord. I am also learning and how the Lord longs for us to be both the returned prodigal, desperate for the true love of the Father and the Father alone, humbled before him, and the Father, a comfort to others (as a Christian the Lord says, his spirit is in us and with his spirit we can be an extension of God's heart here on earth)...hmmm...so that is that.

An another note I have been and am very prayerful about my photography career, currently I am working on two photo documentary projects which are exciting but until these take off and get turned into books etc.. I would love to get paid for my photography work-I would love your prayers on this one. Right now I have my resume out at two of the most influential human rights organizations-hopefully they will have a position for me-if not I trust that God is leading me in some direction-the hard thing is that often I only see the first few inches in front of me and am desperately wanting to see the next turn. But I know God better than that he desires for us to hold unto him and follow his lead, and in that position we are protected and secure and in the humble position we often see only the Father, which is his desire, but boy is that hard. I often want to see more. So pray for confidence in this time of waiting.

Here is one of my documentary photographs that I love-its a group of neighborhood kids on the basketball courts, where many kids spend all their time during warm months.

Cookie Party!

So we had an amazing night full of fun and excitement!
We had a Christmas cookie decorating party for friends in our building and we also had a few friends over in early celebration of Mike's 29th bday, so we also had a bday cake too-thanks Dawn!
As I was looking out at the cookie table at the seven joy filled children excitedly decorating their cookies, I thought how funny we are having a total kid party and we don't even have kids.
Well I guess until we do we will continue to enjoy blessing other people's kids-which is a joy to our hearts.
One of our neighbors Nell who is about 10 she came over early to help me prepare everything-thanks Nell!
Now we are preparing to go to California where friends and family await us-we can't wait!

THANKSGIVING

dressing the turkey
Good job Mike, he carved it after following the techiniques of an NYC butcher-online

I am so into decorations-I love cooking but the most fun part was creating the table. The vision was leaf cookie place makers, each individually scripted with every guests name. So the vision was challenged when the cookie cutter that I had went across town for went missing-it must have hoped to freedom on the F train-ahh I was soo bummed. But being the problem solver that I am I decided to fulfill the vision through a longer route-I hand cut each cookie into a leaf! So as you can see the results are soo cute! I attached a paper leaf on the back with a thanksgiving scripture and then why we were thankful for that person. I am mooshy too.
Jumping in and almost didn't make it!
Everyone thinks silly photos are the funniest but as you can see serious ones are hilarious!
another example of how hilarious we are
we just couldn't stop with the photos-too fun!
Mike with the girls...too cool!

It was a day of JOY!!!

I was so honored to host my friends this year. I love that friends anticipate me hosting holidays, it really blesses me that people feel home here. So Mike and I and three of some of my closest girl friends, Anna, Dawn and Kay, shared this special holiday, along with Umu and her two brothers. There was opposition against Umu and her family coming, after a conversation with the eldest brother and then Umu a few times she was allowed to come (as a conservative Muslim family they don't celebrate holidays, not even birthdays so sometimes events like this can be a point of discussion). So praise God she was here with her brothers, who are soo sweet.

We had a great time together filled with friendship, fun, laughter (always), and good food. It started off with Anna filming me cooking as I call it "free form style" then we ate amazing food. And then of course quickly moved to photo shoots as you will see, then we cuddled up on the couch and watched Elf moving into the Christmas spirit. It was so special to just be!

Then we went to the hospital down the street from our house and brought our new friends thanksgiving dinner (I had made double everything that day in preparation for this-I made four pies! Unfortunately no sweet potato pie as I learned was their staple, next time guys! :P ) The men there that we have grown to love so deeply are truly a joy to my heart-(there are a few that I have built a relationship with who have been living there for over a year, some even four years. I have been going weekly bringing them yummy treats and just sharing life with them). There in the hall of the hospital we ate and laughed and talked; one of the men shared a bit of his life's story-powerful. They especially loved the hand cut leaf cookies they said "Misha you went all out this time, how do you expect us to eat something so cute!"

I am filled overflowing with joy that the Lord has chosen me to be his physical hands and feet to this group of men that from the outside are so different from me-The Lord has a way of connecting people deeply. Please join us in covering our time with them in prayer.


So the day was soo blessed from beginning to end. I am thankful for the life the Lord has built for me, every detail of it!