There is something about familiarity that makes you feel so at home.  It's not even about being close to family or childhood friends, having full use of your vocabulary, or going to Starbucks and ordering an iced white mocha that they started making once they saw you come in.  It's the smile from the bus driver who knows that you take that bus the same time, the same day each week.  It's the way that the baristas strike up a conversation with you at your favorite coffee shop in town about the book you were reading the last week.  It's the 8 year old boy who comes up to you at the church you're visiting because he remembers when you stayed with his family months ago. 

When living in another city where you don't have your usual comforts and support around you, there are days when you think, "Why am I even here?  Why am I doing what I'm doing?"  But then something like the above happens, and you remember that God gives you the family and encouragement you need exactly when you need it.  And what a great joy that is.

Lately, I have seen so many doppelgangers, it's ridiculous.  I have seen university classmates.  I have seen former coworkers.  I have seen friends from camp.  But, by far, the craziest doppelganger I've seen was found on Sunday night.

I was at my friend's apartment for dinner, enjoying a gorgeous Italian meal made by a true Italian, and she and I were happily chatting away with her flatmate.  Dinner was finished and we decided to make chocolate chip cookies, just to add to the international cuisine of the evening.  A little while later, a few of their downstairs neighbors came up to hang out for a while.  For a solid half hour, I could not stop staring at one of the guys.  Every time he would look at me, I'd awkwardly avert my eyes so he wouldn't know that I had been staring at him.  Finally, I said, "I'm sorry, but do you know the TV show How I Met Your Mother? It's just that you look just like the guy who plays Barney."  He jumped up and said "Yes! My professor was right!  He calls me Dr. Doogie Howser is class!"  I kid you not, this guy was the 20 year old French Neil Patrick Harris.  The guy just needs to buy a suit and good tie and there you have it.  Barney Stinson.

When I was in elementary school, the choir put on a musical themed around different career choices.  I don't remember all of the songs, but the two I remember were about train conducting and baking.  The train conducting song was my song, and my group got to go around the gym like a train while the rest of the choir sang.  It was cute, but I couldn't tell you the lyrics or the music.  The other song went like this:

Baker

I wanna be a baker

Not a bellyacher

A baker, that's the life for me

That's all I remember, but for the past decade or so, I have found myself humming those lines to myself.  Baking has been a vital component of live for hundreds and hundreds of years, and what would I love to do but continue in that tradition?  I've enjoyed cooking and baking since I was little and my mom made the mistake of letting me frost the cupcakes at Christmas time (about half the jar ended up in my mouth, not adding a festive air to the desserts).  

One of my favorite things about living in France is the smell that meets you when you walk past a boulangerie.  There is nothing more comforting than the smell of fresh baked bread.  How wonderful would it be to be surrounded by that and to share it with others?  That is what I'd like to do with my life: feed others and spread joy with cookies.

As long as I can remember, I have been a freak about grammar, spelling, basically all things pertaining to language.  My sixth grade language arts teacher taught us songs, which we had to memorize, of the list of prepositions and helping verbs and to this day I can still sing each of them.  At times when I'm writing (or even speaking) I will sing the song in my head to determine if my sentence ends in a proposition and adjust accordingly.  Yes, I am that person.  I just really cannot stand when I speak and write incorrectly.

I've been working on paintings for the church lately, some with verses, some just with images.  Twice in the past week, I found out that I misspelled different words after finishing the painting.  It's not that difficult to paint over the errors, but it just takes a huge blow to my grammatical nerd-ity. As ridiculous as this may sound, I got so annoyed with myself for not double-no, triple- checking everything before I put it up at the church.  However, this really could be a way of God teaching me that I am not perfect and there is nothing wrong with that.  It's only a lesson that has taken me 23 years to realize.