saturday in the park, i think it was the fourth of july

Today was a gorgeous day. We headed to Gunpowder Falls State Park, 45 minutes northwest of Bmore, because our friend Greg told us there was windsurfing there. None of us had ever tried windsurfing before, so we thought we'd give it a try. When we got to the park and were ready to pay our $20 each to have an hour of windsurfing, we were disappointed to learn that they require you to have taken lessons before they let you use their equipment. Psh. And they weren't giving lessons today. And one lesson was $60.

Although we didn't windsurf, we still had lots of fun. We went swimming, and the water was actually warm. Coming from the north, it's so weird to have water warm in May; usually it's not warm until mid or late July. We also tossed around a football in the water with a bunch of kids. And flew a kite. And we met a new friend who played soccer with us. 'Twas a day full of sunshine, warmth, smiles, friendship, interacting and playing with random people, milkshakes, sunburn, and sport; those are the things that pretty much comprise a perfect day, in my opinion.

profile of a friend: Greg

This is Greg:


He is our friend.

Greg, among others, told me I should write a blog post because I haven't written one in so long. And because he was so forceful, I'm punishing him by writing a post about him.

The above picture was taken almost three weeks ago when he ran and finished a marathon (by the way, Tim ran the half-marathon, which was so impressive, and is running a full marathon in October).

Greg is probably the most positive person I've ever met. You can probably tell this quality of his by how sickeningly happy he looks in the picture. When it was taken, he had just run 13 miles and had 13 left to go; any normal person would probably be wearing a scowl at that point, but just look at his beaming smile.

We like to play tennis with Greg. In fact, we've been playing so much that I think I'm probably good enough to beat my sister, Kelsie, who is really good at tennis.

Lately, we've been getting into golf. Yesterday, we went to the driving range, and Tim beat him in HORSE.

Greg is a US-2, which basically means that he doesn't have a real job. And next year, he's hopping around aimlessly overseas, so who knows when he's going to get a real job.

In reality, Greg does a lot of great community work in Hampden, the neighborhood I work in. And next year, he's going to Haiti to work with an orphange and to Kenya to do some work I'm not sure about at the moment. He likes to keep things secret.

Sadly, Greg is leaving us in mid-July to go back home to Charlotte, NC for a month before he travels to Haiti. We will miss him.

That's enough for now.

weekend

Last weekend, it was 75 degrees and beautiful. Tim and I went to spend Saturday in D.C.. When we got to Greenbelt, Maryland where we take the metro in, there were a bunch of tea party protesters there clogging up the station unfortunately. But we got there unscathed.

We first went to the National Portrait Gallery. Our favorite part was the gallery of presidents.

Tim's favorite president, Andrew Jackson.

John Kennedy's portrait was definitely the most unique and pretty.

After the art museum, we walked over to Georgetown. It's so beautiful and quaint there! And historic, of course. After walking around the neighborhood and admiring all of the old houses and brick sidewalks, we went down by the waterfront area and sat on the ledge on the river watching the planes flying overhead and enjoying the sun.




After church on Sunday, we played tennis with our friends Greg and Stephen; it was so much fun! Then we watched Cornell beat Wicsonsin, advancing themselves to the Sweet 16. It was a sweet day.

Hopefully Cornell can beat Kentucky tonight. My two uncles who are college basketball fans live in Lexington, KY, so it will be nice to be able to brag to them if Cornell wins.

walk to work

I walked to work today because it was so nice out and because it's now light when I leave at night. I only work about 2 miles from our house, so it's only about a half an hour walk, which is convenient. I hadn't been walking to work previously because it would be dark or near dark out when I got out of work and because it's been cold and snowy.

I enjoy walking to and from work. It makes me feel more a part of the city. Plus, I get to look at all the interesting row houses and people and such.

For example, I walk by the Baltimore Museum of Art, which is very close to our house, and today I noticed that there are flowering trees that have already bloomed! I wouldn't have noticed that if I just drove by.

st. patrick's day craic

Happy St. Patty's Day, everyone.

Tim and I celebrated by eating Indian food.


Yes, that's right; we ate it on our porch because it was so nice outside tonight. Tim actually made the food; it was sort of like chicken masala.

After we ate, we (I) felt guilty about not really celebrating St. Patrick's Day, so we went down to Fells Point, a historic neighborhood on the waterfront, to an Irish pub to listen to some Irish music.

Said pub. Pic via tripadvisor.com

Even though it was so crowded, we got a good spot near the front window which opened up to the harbor.

Tim's Guinness on the windowsill with the water in the background.

As the Irish say, we had loads of craic.

a million miles in a thousand years

I recently read Donald Miller's new book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. It's a great book, as are all of his others. I'll simply leave you with an excerpt that I liked:

"The oldest book of the Bible is supposedly the book of Job. It is a book about suffering, and it reads as though God is saying to the world, Before we get started, there's this one thing I have to tell you. Things are going to get bad.

Job is a good man whom God allows to be destroyed except for his life. God allows Job's family to be taken, along with his wealth and his health. Job calls out to God, asking why God would let this happen.

God does not answer Job's question. It's as though God starts off his message to the world by explaining there are painful realities in life we cannot and will never understand. Instead, he appears to Job in a whirlwind and asks if Job knows who stops the waves on the shore or stores the snow in Wichita every winter. He asks Job who manages the constellations that reel through the night sky.

And that is essentially all God says to Job. God doesn't explain pain philosophically or even list its benefits. God says to Job, Job, I know what I am doing, and this whole thing isn't about you.
Job responds, even before his health and wealth are restored by saying, "All of this is too wonderful for me." Job found contentment and even joy, outside the context of comfort, health or stability. He understood the story was not about him, and he cared more about the story than he did about himself."

Don then talks about an analogy someone once told him:

"He said to me I was a tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of the tree [...] I sat by the fire until the sun came up;. and asked God to help me understand the story of the forest and what it meant to be a tree in that story."

I too pray we will know what it means to be trees in God's great forest.

plants and ironing

We went to a nursery yesterday to get some plants! We ended up getting some ivy and a zebra plant, which I've never heard of before. We added them to our little corner near our window in the living room where we had our succulents, and we really appreciate the greenery.

Isn't this zebra plant so interesting-looking?

After dinner, I switched out my winter clothes for my spring clothes; I think it may have been the earliest I've done that since I lived in Virginia like 16 years ago. It's supposed to be in the 60s the next couple of days. I also did some ironing, which I never do.



Woohoo.