i ate pig face

Go ahead, insert joke here! I spent the weekend in Chicago with a couple of girlfriends and we happened across a restaurant called The Girl & The Goat - chef/owner is Stephanie Izard, a Top Chef winner. I LOVE Top Chef. Love it, love it, love it. And the season Stephanie won was the infamous Richard Blaise Chokes season. So when we found out that we might be able to get into her restaurant, we were in the cab and on our way!

The place was cool. Packed. We snuck into a spot in the bar at the community table and dug in. Goat Empanadas. Roasted Beets. And...Pig Face. Yep. That's the actual name of the entree. Pig Face. How can you not order that?! Besides there were a lot of tongue and belly entrees, so Pig Face sounded relatively safe. And it was good! Kind of like fancy bacon with a fried egg on top. But way better than that.

If I look a little scared it's because I am!
It's a PIG FACE!

I loved the whole experience. And even though the bill was like a gazillion dollars, it was worth every penny. And I stole the menu. I'm going to start a collection so I can remember the amazing meals with amazing people. And so I can prove that I was once cool enough to eat something called Pig Face!

this or that?

I am a Pisces. One thing you should know about Pisces is that the two fish swim in opposite directions which means that Pisces, in addition to being creative and empathetic, are often the wishy-washiest people you'll ever meet. Those two fish chase each other in circles. I love it! I hate it! I love it! I hate it! Welcome to my world.

So...I went for a run the other day through this neighborhood near my house. It's right on a golf course and the houses are lovely. There's one that I've always coveted. I used to jog by and the family would be perched on their front porch enjoying the view of the golf course and the Wasatch mountains. They have a little farm house behind them so no backyard neighbors. And the house is pretty fancy. Now there's a Bank Owned For Sale sign in the front yard. I immediately thought - WOW! My dream house is on sale!

Bank-owned dream house. The bargain basement
sale price? $535,000!!! 6 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6100 square feet!

Bear in mind, I've been thinking a lot about downsizing lately. Less stuff. Fewer things. Simplifying so it's easier to focus on the things that matter - which are very rarely actual things. So as I turned up the hill I was struck by this sweet old farmhouse tucked in the middle of suburbia, just up the street from the mansion. It's simple. It's charming. It's small. I stopped running and leaned against the fence to drink it in, imagining a family with 6 kids sharing beds, clamoring for oatmeal in the early morning with a fireplace crackling before they headed outside to feed the animals and help with chores before walking to school. And it seemed so simple and pure. Sort of Little House on the Prairie.

I ran back by the ridiculously big and fancy house, which I still love mind you. But this time I was thinking about the family that I used to envy as they sat on their porch, enjoying their view and their manicured garden. And I wondered: where are they now? Avoiding collections calls, fighting off bankruptcy, hoping the repo man hasn't found their car and it will be there when they wake up, wondering if they can squeeze the family in a 2-bedroom apartment or if they'll have to move back into their parents' basement. I thought about the fleeting moments of pride and joy that they had in their million dollar digs and how it's now juxtaposed with stress and shame and fear.

I'll probably always still want the big fancy house, and the little historic farmhouse but I'm glad that the house we have is somewhere in the middle. Simple and cozy. Affordable but nice. Big enough but not too big. A roof over our heads where we can love and enjoy each other more than we enjoy our stuff.