Author: Leigh Anne Zinsmeister

A thankful heart

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Growing up, my family didn’t really do “traditions” on Thanksgiving: There was always a turkey, but sometimes it was at home and sometimes at friends’ homes. There was always family, but sometimes there were others as well. But one consistency over the years was rolling out of bed at 8:45 a.m. EST and watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in my pajamas. The balloons, the performances, the random celebrity interviews: I loved it all.

Last year, on my first Thanksgiving in New York, I dragged my butt to my Manhattan office, schlepping through eight hours of menial tasks to earn an extra vacation day for later use. There was no parade for me, for the first time in history: Not a television in my line of vision, not an angle high enough to see it out the window.

Not this year. Today, I’m up even earlier than usual to stake out a spot on Central Park West. I’m rejoicing over the weather forecast (high in the 60s sure beats last year’s flurries!) but piling on the layers anyway. My Kindle is loaded with reads for the three hours I’ll spend sitting before the parade begins. I really, really hope it’s worth it. You know I’ll update you all soon (and keep an eye on Twitter and Instagram this morning!)

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Thankful that coffee is a universal necessity and available even in the African plains

In the meantime, here are a few things I’m thankful for all year round, but especially today – lifted straight from recent journal entries:

I’m thankful for sweet friends who carve out time for dinner with me when I’m working night shifts. I’m thankful for sweet and funny text messages just when I need them. I’m thankful for Mondays that are actually worth getting excited about. I’m thankful for Christmas markets and peppermint mochas and snickerdoodles. I’m thankful – today in particular – for friends who are willing to open their homes and roast 22-pound turkeys. I’m thankful for my church and my pastors. I’m thankful for days that go better than planned. I’m thankful for mac & cheese and for sunshine and for Instagram. I’m thankful for my roommates and that they love Christmas as much as I do. I’m thankful for little victories in my career, for Instagram takeovers and commissioned articles and the chance to meet amazing people just because I make little videos on my phone.

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As always, I’m most thankful for my incredible, supportive family, for the opportunity to live in New York City and for the ability to travel all over the world. These are the things that have come to define my 20s and I really don’t think it could get any better.

I’m thankful for all of you, for an amazing year of blogging and for many more ahead. Happy Thanksgiving!

The children of Swaziland

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Just to get the obvious out of the way: I love kids. No, I don’t want any of my own (I could hear those of you who know me asking that in your heads). But if I could have kids with the guarantee that they would be as joyful, loving, and well-behaved as these babes I met in Swaziland – I might actually consider it. I have never met a group of children (or adults, honestly) so full of the love of Jesus.

Here are some of my favorite portraits (slash selfies), and a handful of tales.

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All the kids were happy to play with whatever was available: Slides, swingsets or even just each other!

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You may remember this guy from a previous post – we were rather attached to each other. Most of the kids get only one meal a day: MannaPack Rice, developed by an organization called Feed My Starving Children – you can see it in his bowl above. It has all of the nutrients a kid needs. We also provided chickens while visiting as a special treat!

As a sidenote, the kids were all SO well-behaved at meal time. They’d line up to wash their hands under a faucet, collect their food from the kitchen, and go off to sit and eat together. When they were done, they’d rinse their bowl in a larger bowl of clean water and deliver it back to the kitchen – even the toddlers knew this routine!

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“Are you sisters?” “NO we’re friends!” – said with the implication that friend is a higher ranking than sister.

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I was seriously impressed with the school-aged children as well. They’d come at meal time carrying younger neighbors and relatives, then wait patiently until all  of the little kids had been fed before jumping in line themselves. And they were so curious about us, asking questions about life in America – but equally eager to answer all of our own questions!

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Everyone just wanted to help out with whatever we were doing, even film production.

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Little faces peeking into the classroom we were painting. When we were done, I was resting on the steps outside the school, and a little girl came over to sit by me. She noticed my hands were caked in dry paint, and started picking it off with her little fingernails! Next thing I knew, a half-dozen little ones were surrounding me, each working on one of my fingers until I was completely paint-free.

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The kids were, of course, obsessed with the selfie feature on our phones. Here you can also see two of the caretakers in the background – these women work so hard and so selflessly every single day!

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One last shot with my sponsor child (in pink) – I swear I have more pictures of her than anyone else I’ve ever met. I just love her SO MUCH!

These kids completely made my trip: They loved me in a way I hadn’t been loved before, they served me like it was second nature, and they’re the reason I just can’t wait to get back to Swaziland.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you can also check out my video of the kids here.

Catching up via Instagram: 11/22/2015

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Over the past few weeks my Instagram has slowly become less of a log of my day-to-day activities and more a mixture of current sights, throwbacks and blog promotion. I may start to reconsider this blog feature and make it more of a regular update rather than a strict Instagram feature, but in the meantime, here are some little glimpses into NYC life lately!

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This one’s poor quality, but important for a number of reasons: Christmas lights! America! And the Empire State Building: Although it was lit for a different cause, orange is the color of CRPS Awareness, and November is its month. I snapped this shot to honor my sister.

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Another morning, another stroll through my favorite park. I know Washington Square pops up in a lot of these posts, but it just goes to show how beautiful and varying it really is.

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On a hard-earned day off last week, I had planned to stay in bed binge-watching Master of None. But the sunlight was streaming in the window and I thought: How much longer will it really be warm enough outside to sit by the waterfront with a good book? The answer, of course, is not long at all. So off I went.

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I realize I haven’t been back from Africa for even a month yet, but I’m already knee-deep in planning my first few trips of 2016: a long weekend in DC, a week in Phoenix and several days in San Francisco with my best friend Jordan! San Fran has long been on my list to visit (and I even almost moved there in 2014 instead of NYC!) and I’m so excited to finally check it off.

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Rounding out this post with a little throwback celebration: Jordan and I are proud 2011 alumni of Arizona State University, and yesterday the football team absolutely crushed the University of Arizona. It’s the oldest, fiercest college rivalry in America and I couldn’t be prouder to be on the winning side. Sun Devils Forever!

You can follow me on Instagram here. And if you’re looking for other accounts to follow, I suggest Travel Mail – they featured some of my work recently!

 

African safari

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I was never really a “zoo kid” growing up. We would go see the animals on occasion, and I took a couple classes there as a kid – that’s how I learned I really like snakes, of all things. In sixth grade I spent a night at the zoo in Colorado Springs with my Sunday school class and it was basically a nightmare – peacocks running around while I sleep? No thank you.

Needless to say, going on a safari wasn’t something I ever gave much thought to. In addition to Africa just seeming so far away, the idea of being out in the wild, with these creatures in their natural habitat, didn’t appeal to me at all. But when I heard we’d be doing two three-hour outings at Kruger National Park before our mission trip to Swaziland, well, I started getting excited. And as soon as we entered the park, you’d think a safari was all I’d ever dreamed of.  This is one so-called once-in-a-lifetime experience I’d do again in a heartbeat.

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That giraffe and this pack of elephants were spotted on the drive to the hotel – still in the van, not even on safari, crawling all over each other to get the picture-perfect shot. (On a related note, a lot of these photos are pretty poor quality, but I was going for subject matter here.)

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This was the moment I realized this would be very different from those zoo trips: Just some monkeys casually eating the leftovers of some guests who’d left the table.

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It would seem lions appreciate a beautiful sunset just as much as humans do.

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If you look closely on the branch to the right of that tree, you’ll spy a cheetah resting after chasing down its breakfast. (I do also have photos of cheetahs eating said breakfast, but I’ll spare you).

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Another cheetah spotting: Can you see it?! Finding these animals was like a giant game of Where’s Waldo, and I’m forever grateful to our experienced guide, Clive, who was ridiculously patient in pointing things out to us.

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It’s called Crocodile River, but it’s full of hippos! It’s also a rather lovely spot to enjoy a morning coffee.

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Warthogs! Or as I like to call them, pumbas. Those suckers are much faster than I ever imagined!

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And finally, not from safari but still a favorite: A peacock at a shopping center in Swaziland. I suppose they’re not all bad – so long as they’re not keeping me up at night!

Which animal would you be itching to spy on a safari? I found myself most excited about the zebras!

What I’m reading lately

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As most of you know, one of my goals for 2015 was to read 30 books. I only managed 24 last year, so I thought 30 would be a good “reach” goal: a bit of a stretch but still manageable. I posted a little update in September when I’d read 26, and felt pretty good about hitting 30 by year’s end. So you can imagine my surprise when I returned from Africa, checked my Goodreads account, and saw I’d whizzed past my goal without even noticing! I’m currently up to 33, and still reading like a fiend. I’ll need to up my goal next year, but we’ll talk about that later – for now, here’s what I’ve read since that last update!

Why Not Me?, Mindy Kaling: I loved Mindy’s first book of essays and I’m obsessed with her show on Hulu, so it was a given I’d love this as well! I pre-ordered it, so it was waiting for me on release day, and zipped through it in a couple days.

All The President’s Men, Carl Bernstein & Bob Woodward: This was an Amazon Kindle deal of the day for $2, and as a journalist myself I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to learn more about how the Washington Post broke Watergate. I found it fascinating, but it’s tedious, so probably best if you have a weird obsession with journalism and/or history.

Kisses from Katie, Katie Davis: I read this in just a couple days before leaving for my own mission trip to Africa, and it left me feeling inspired, motivated, and with a realistic idea of the challenges lying ahead: both during my trip and after.

Taking Flight, Michaela DePrince: This is a memoir (favorite genre!) of a professional ballerina (once a goal of mine – decades ago) and also incorporates some interesting African history, as DePrince was adopted from war-torn Sierra Leone in the 1990s. I read the entire thing on the flight to Johannesburg and loved it!

Finding Audrey, Sophie Kinsella: I put this on my Kindle because I love Kinsella’s Shopaholic books, not realizing Finding Audrey is actually young adult. I liked it fine, and it’s a quick read (this one I did on the flight HOME from Johannesburg), but probably best to know what you’re getting into!

The Royal We, Heather Cocks: My friend Molly lent me this book since it’s been getting a lot of hype and I work for a British company – so it’s nice to have a little inside look at the royal family (though this book is fiction, it’s pretty blatantly based on Kate & Will). I enjoyed it, but thought it was entirely too long and tedious in parts.

The Ice Twins, SK Tremayne: This was a total surprise. I picked it up at the airport in Johannesburg because it was cheap and I had some leftover rand, but I read the entire thing in less than a day. It’s a thriller, which is 100% not my genre at all, but I was hooked – and completely did not see the ending coming.

I guess I’ve skewed more toward fiction than usual lately, which may explain how I got my numbers up so quickly! Overall I really haven’t read a dud in quite some time. Do you have any suggestions for me?!