I'm almost done talking about my birthday but not quite. After all, it's been fun relishing the attention and accolades. More than that, I have a great feeling about #33. I can't believe what's already happened this month alone!  

Read and Reading

The Myth of You and Me (Stewart) made me want to be a better novelist. It was so well done: the way the plot moved forward, the author slowly parsing out information and back story, the way we grow in our understanding of the characters, and then bam: ending true to life.

Within the first few pages, I knew I needed to own Dinner: A Love Story (Rosenstrach). She celebrates the art of eating dinner together, includes lovely essays and helpful tips, and the recipes are simple and highlight the beauty of the ingredients themselves.  Plus, the photography is stellar! This cookbook is a keeper.

If you like shows on Bravo, you'll probably enjoy producer and host Andy Cohen's book Most Talkative. I liked learning more about his pre-Bravo life, his journey as a gay man, and of course all the behind-the-scenes Real Housewives dirt. I actually teared up when I read about Andy finally coming out to his best friend. Of course, I laughed out loud aplenty. Cohen is as funny in the book as he is on TV.

Reading The Dirty Life (Kimball) was like a walk down memory lane. Not because I bought a farm with a guy I barely knew but because we have a family farm. This is a beautifully written memoir but also packed with information on farming, green living, and ethical eating.

Currently reading: The Omnivore's Dilemma (Pollan), The House of Belonging (Whyte), Mudhouse Sabbath (Winner), Everything (DeMuth), The Crowd, The Critic, and The Muse  (Gungor), Walking on Water (L'Engle),  When Helping Hurts (Corbett and Fikkert).

(I read 9 books this month.)

TV:

Must-see TV: Once Upon a Time,  Revenge, Vampire Diaries, The New Girl, The Mindy Project. Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

I finished watching series 3 of Downton Abbey a week or so ago and it absolutely stunned me. I'm not going to give any spoilers but I will say next season will take us in an unexpected direction. Crikey, that show.

In better news, I watched series 1 of Call the Midwife and fell in love. CHUMMY.

I didn't think Amy Sherman-Palladino would ever let me down but I've pretty much given up on Bunheads. The supporting cast is crazy-making. The end.

Movie:

Pitch Perfect both elated me and filled me with regret. I regretted never joining an a capella group and I especially wish I would have fallen in love with a boy named Jesse during college. Although I must say, I was in collegiate chorale for two years and there weren't any guys of Jesse's caliber there. In any case, I loved this movie. LOVED. I sang along and I had to have a Living Room Dance Party while the credits rolled...even though none of my party pooper friends joined in.

Music: 

New discovery: Walk the Moon, ZZ Ward, Rend Collective Experiment, Family of the Year, The Mowgli's

I started a What I'm Into 2013 playlist on Spotify. You might as well subscribe to it now so you don't miss out on my musical finds.

Audrey Assad played a show at a Catholic church in downtown Nashville as part of the new Catholic Underground movement. I went to Vespers beforehand and was undone by her voice leading us through the hymns. Also, she does a killer version of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here.

Long-time readers know how much I love hard rock music. I've followed Brian "Head" Welch's story with interest since he departed from Korn 7 years ago. I never expected he and Korn would play together again. What an amazing turn around!

Awesome Company:

I am fully enamored with The Honest Company, which offers eco-friendly, safe, and affordable products. (If you sign up, I'll get a $20 credit to fuel my new obsession.) I'm interested in the bath and body and cleaning lines but I hear good things about their diaper service and baby products. The actress Jessica Alba started the company because she couldn't find such products for her family. I love the mission and the fact that they give back and they take customer feedback seriously. I'm looking forward to trying the laundry detergent and healing balm. This could be the start of a beautiful relationship.

Funniest Birthday Present:

Inspired by a discussion of puffy paint t-shirts in the 80s, my friend Addie sent me this fine specimen. I can't wait to play with it.

On The Blog:

Rachel Held Evans went ahead and made me one of her sex consultants. It's cool, guys. It's for her Sexuality and the Church series. I'm so excited and honored to represent singles.

I was the Featured Blog for Typepad. Holy buckets, was that ever a thrill to find out about!

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What I'm Into Link Up Guidelines:

1. Today’s link-up will stay up for one week. The next What I'm Into link up will be Wednesday February 27.

2. Link the unique URL of your post, not your blog's home page. Readers peruse link ups months after the fact and you want to make it easy for them to find your What I'm Into post.

3. Please include the What I'm Into button or mention you're linking up to What I'm Into at Leigh Kramer.

4. Share your post and read and comment on those who link up.

5. Keep reading, watching TV, and cooking good food. It's all fodder for your What I'm Into post!

What have you been into this month?

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I don't know what inspired my decision to start writing down every book I read. I do know I was sitting in my old bedroom, it was springtime, and I was packing to move to my first apartment. Everyone knows I read a lot but I wondered exactly how many books I read in a year. I decided to find out.

I bought a blank 8x10 journal from Borders (may it rest in peace) and on April 14, 2005, I recorded the first book. Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells. No rating or noteworthy impressions. The title, the author, the date. An asterisk if it's a book I've read again. Simple. Almost 8 years and 640 books later, it's a system that's worked for me.

Look, I'm unabashed about my reading habits. I love books and I always will. I typically don't set goals. I just read. Tracking what I've read allows me a nice surprise at the end of each year. "Wow. I've read ___ books!" 

But there's been a few unexpected benefits of writing down the books I've read.

1. It has taught me about my reading habits.

Now I know I average 6 to 8 books per month. If at the end of the month, I've read less than that, then I up the ante the next month. This is not hard for me to do because there are always a million books I want to read.

2. It helps me be intentional about what I read.

I read what interests me but writing it all down shows me the fiction-nonfiction differential, which genres I'm heavy in, and so on. Sometimes I'll think: do I want to write this down? I read a lot of fluff but even I have my limits.

3. I read more.

Each year since I've started recording, I've read increasingly more. In early December, I realized I'd read 93 books so I decided to make 100 happen and ended up reading 103 books altogether. How's that for motivation? The yearly totals have fluctuated, depending on what's going on in my life (loss, moving, writing a novel) but overall, I've read more each year.  We'll see what happens in 2013.

4. It helps me remember what I've read and give better recommendations.

It's impossible for me to rattle off the names of every book I've read the past few months, let alone the past few years. But I scroll through the pages of the journal and it all comes back. I can tell you my impressions, whether or not I think you'd like it, and if I've deemed the book Ownable, which is the highest form of praise.

The journal is a walk down memory lane. I can see when I first "met" favorite authors and how quickly I tore through their catalog. I can see how many times I've reread my favorite novel A Prayer for Owen Meany. And then, of course, I can see the various subjects I've researched for one reason or another.

Some people track their books through Goodreads, others through spreadsheets. For me, the journal works.

I have plenty more pages to fill. Read on, my friends. Read on.

It's hard to believe I launched the This Is How We Met series a year ago. Amanda Williams kicked it off beautifully and now here we are 35 amazing guest posts later. I have been blown away by the stories shared and this one by Kelley is no exception. I've gotten to know Kelley in recent months and have come to truly adore her. I won't even be mad about the way she totally leaves us hanging here. After all, that's precisely the point: stories of how people met. The rest, then, is history.

Want to submit your TIHWM story? Check out the guidelines here.

My boyfriend and I entered fellowship hall. There were maybe fifty people, if that, milling around with Styrofoam cups filled with church coffee and nametags stuck to their lapels. We’d come for conversation on reconciliation and committed our next three days to it.

Like many such seminars, small group interaction was on the agenda. During the first morning break, introvert that I am, I sought out my boyfriend. On the other side of his sturdy build and big laugh stood an African man, someone in his small group, he informed me. “I’m Claude. I’m from Burundi.”

I’d never heard of Burundi before. Was it an African region, a country, a city maybe? How embarrassing to not even know – I felt ignorant and a bit ashamed.

Claude spoke with a French-like accent, and there were many English phrases that seemed to elude his understanding. He informed us that his mother tongue was Kirundi, but due to colonization the national language of is country was French. Even with his heavy accent, we communicated well enough for me to begin to learn about his homeland, the history of tribalism and civil war, resulting in his urgent interest in reconciliation.

Each time we broke for coffee or lunch, Claude joined us. His connection to Africa and thus, African animals, fascinated my boyfriend (who was into conservation). Claude seemed nice enough, so I didn’t mind – much.

The conference ended after three days, but Claude stayed in town for another ten days before his scheduled flight back to Burundi. His hosts seemed to lose interest in him and so his first visit to the States seemed to be petering out fast. But my devoted boyfriend rushed to the rescue with undaunted hospitality…

So each day when he’d pick me up from the bakery where I worked, guess who was in the back seat?

We took him to In & Out Burger, a steak house in Malibu over looking the ocean, outdoor malls lined with twinkle lights and other favorite local spots. We did our best to make his remaining days in town memorable.

As we spent more time together, I grew accustomed to the French lilt of his words. I listened better, understood more and found myself learning more about his world. I’d never met someone from such a distant, different place from my sunny California coast. Yet here he was, so different yet accessible through a shared language. As we became more familiar my questions came more easily and without as much embarrassment. The direct access to another world hooked me.

The three of us laughed a lot. The connection seemed natural after all those hours spent together in cars, around dinner tables and walking the Santa Barbara beaches. We were friends.

On Claude’s last night in town, my boyfriend had an evening work meeting he couldn’t miss. So it would be just Claude and I, for the first time, making conversation in an English-style pub. Nothing about sitting close and sharing a basket of fries felt odd. We just kept talking about the things that mattered to us, the things we wanted to see in the world and how we might be part of it all.

I remember at one point he got serious. “You know he’s not right for you. He’s a great guy, but you know there’s someone better out there for you, right?” I was a bit startled by this twist of topic – but I’d known for a while that my boyfriend wasn’t the best fit. This wasn’t news – just interesting that confirmation came from this Burundian friend.

When we parted that night we exchanged email addresses on scraps of paper. We promised to write. Who knew if we’d ever see each other again, because really, our paths were not likely to cross again. But a genuine cross-culture friendship, rooted in a shared hunger for reconciliation and the ability to find laughter in the same places, had begun.

Whether he wrote or not, he already had changed my world.

Kelley Nikondeha is a thinker, connector, advocate, avid reader, mother of two beautiful children, lover of God's justice & jubilee.  She leads theological conversations at Amahoro Africa and is community development practitioner in Burundi . Kelley lives her life in transit between Arizona and Burundi. She’s in transit between continents but also in terms of her own experience of motherhood, discipleship, theological engagement and living into God’s dream for the world. She savors handwritten letters, homemade pesto and anything written by Walter Brueggemann. She is fueled by space and snacks (and Diet Coke).

Blog: kelleynikondeha.com

Twitter: @knikondeha 

I'd heard a lot about Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, both the book and blog, but it lingered on the To Read list until her second book Happier at Home came out. Even then, it took me until I received Happer at Home as a review copy- though not for lack of interest in the subject matter (projects! research! sociology bent!). Much of my happiness comes from reading and there are so many books I want to read.

In the last month, I read both The Happiness Project and Happier at Home. Consider me a convert. In Happiness Project, Rubin explores the theories of happiness and focuses on a different aspect each month. She creates resolutions tailored to her life and I learned a lot about myself in reading where her monthly goals took her. In Happier at Home, Rubin focuses on exactly that: happiness in the home.

In detailing her desire to be happier at home, Rubin also appreciates how much happiness is there already, from relationships to possessions. She also defines happiness leeches, a resonating concept. She shows how some of the things which make us happy require a little unhappiness in the process, such as completing menial tasks. I get this: I know I'm happier once I've cleaned my house but I hate cleaning.

I love Rubin's mix of research, memoir, experiment, and information. While there's much about her happiness projects that simply don't apply to me now (i.e. marriage or parenting-focused), I tucked many tidbits away for future reference. Rubin's story, as well as her commitment to telling readers the ups and downs of her resolutions, empowered me to see where I could seek happiness in my home. And she also enabled me to see areas needing improvement.

This is when my brain started whirring.

I consider my house to be a haven. When I'm home, I want it to be calm, serene, a place of peace. I also want it to inspire me and enable me to create, whether in the kitchen or at my laptop. Reading Happier at Home called to mind a few "someday" projects and things I'd never before considered, both of which could add to my happiness. I also identified a few loathesome tasks I procrastinate on or ignore, even though they'd make me happier if they were done.

I've come up with a list of projects, my own personal Happier at Home. While Rubin went off the school calendar year for her experiment, I'm not going to put a timetable on mine. For me, simply identifying a need is often a catalyst.

My To Do list:

• Buy dishes: this seems so simple and obvious but it's not! I bought a set of dishes at a garage sale for $5 before my junior year of college. They have big purple and yellow flowers on them, totally not me. But they were cheap and they've done the trick all these years. I thought I'd get new dishes if/when I marry but why am I waiting? I want new dishes now.
• Clean the stove and the oven: ew. But it needs to be done.
• Frame my pictures from Spain: I took tons of pictures of unique doors when I visited a friend in Spain 4 years ago. I wanted to mount a bronze key I bought in Segovia in the middle and put the door pictures around it. I know exactly where I want to put it in my house. I just haven't gotten around to doing it. Looking at the completed picture will make me infinitely happy and call to mind great memories of that trip. Time to do it.
• Simplify: time to take books and CDs I no longer want to McKay's.
• Get rid of detritus: like taking a bridesmaid dress (from the wedding I was in back in April) to the dry cleaner, condensing piles, clearing spaces, etc.

I'm sure I'll identify more in the coming weeks. This list energizes me.

The book inspired me. I've probably brought it up in most of the conversations I've had the past couple of weeks. (I'm sorry, friends. And: you're welcome.) I hope Rubin will keep writing about the subject of happiness. We could all stand to be more mindful of how we impact our own happiness and that of others. And the home is a great place to start.

Click here to read an excerpt of the book and watch the trailer.

Gretchen Rubin's blog

Disclosure: I received this book free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group as part of their Blogging for Books program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

Disclosure: Amazon Affiliate links included in this post. If you click through to Amazon from HopefulLeigh, I'll get a few pennies to help support this site, along with my book habit. Thanks for your support!