weight of glory.

Today our county issued a tornado warning for about four hours. And this is what the sky looks like tonight out in our yard. See that line down the middle? That's a rope swing, straight as an arrow. Earlier today, one of our heavy french doors blew wide open because it wasn't locked. It was shut, but not locked and the winds threw it open.

"Even the wind and the waves obey him."

The eternal weight of glory that awaits us is beyond all comparison. It will make our trials here on Earth feel "light" and "momentary".

Now that I find encouraging.

an abrupt transition

One of my favorite favorite favorite favorite things in life is the bread and butter pickle. 

I would just pop open the jar and eat so many pickles growing up, that my mom affectionately named me the "pickle puss." I would always snag them off of her sandwiches and the ones on her plate used as a garnish, but those kinds aren't nearly as good as a nice, crispy bread and butter chip.

Which is why I decided that one of my fall activities this year needed to be making my own pickles. I guess I never realized how easy it would be. Pickling is kind of a set-it-and-forget-it crock-pot mentality, and tell me - who doesn't love that? I couldn't be happier with my results. I used this recipe from Recipe Girl and they might be the best ones I've ever had! (That's saying a lot.)

yum yum yum - look how beautiful and tantalizing. 

And let's just say I'm glad I made them Monday night when I did, because I was definitely down to the wire in being able to call it a "fall activity." This is what I woke up to Tuesday morning:

Whoa. 

Big fat flakes fell from before I woke up at 8 until about 2pm. Winter is fast approaching in Eastern PA. Even though winter doesn't technically start for another few weeks, I judge by snowfall, because snow changes everything. 

So the pickles just made their cut off. You gotta try 'em. 

round 2.

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Welcome back, Barack.

I'm excited and more than willing to let you finish what you've started.

Lord, bless our president and our country. It's ultimately in your hands.

a very warm halloween

We celebrated Halloween early this year with a Fall Family Festival in Santa Barbara at Landon's church last Saturday. Will may kill me for posting this, but here we are: geriatric Superman and pumpkin pie. 

Today we're going to tour the Midway aircraft carrier (a naval aviation museum) and explore Seaport Village. Some good ol' touristy fun.

Enjoy your candy everyone :)

thankfulnesses

I've been struggling with joy lately. Not happiness, but real deep-seeded, genuinely Jesus joy. It's not that I'm bumming around hating life, but I think that it's too easy to get discouraged by the small things. You get so discouraged by stupid insignificant things that you miss when God wants to bash you over the head with these incredible, abundant blessings. Why do we let that happen, over and over again? Humans are so dumb.

Some friends in my church small group always seem to be so in awe. Where's my awe? I want awe. I want to awe-stricken by the things God is doing - little and big. Since I came to this realization a little over a week ago, I've been trying to put these things into practice in small ways. 

Like complaining less when the people leaving our hoity-toity community basically bring their car to a complete stop when rolling over the speed bumps. Instead, you flip that around and say, "Wow. How blessed am I to live in this beautiful hoity-toity community, ritzy enough to have speed bump?" See? Magic.

So in light of this Thanksgiving day, and the fact that I've been dwelling on this joy more lately anyway, here's a list of thankfulnesses - trying to be as non cliche as possible.

the shallow list

1. Starbucks' non-fat chai with caramel drizzle: for the 9 hour drive down to Philadelphia we had yesterday, where I was all white-knuckles on the highway because the drivers were so scary. Some sweet, fast energy was what I needed in that moment and it was quite refreshing. Never fails.

2. Scrabble: for a fun way to bond with co-workers on Thanksgiving Eve - when you shouldn't be working anyway.

3. Wool socks: for cozy warm feet, even on the dreariest of days. Thanks, Smartwool.

the meaningful list

1. Family: for having multiple homes and and parents and places we could be this holiday season. We're so blessed to have so many people around that love us (and who we love too!).

2. Husband: for the goofiest, snuggliest thing that I have the pleasure of spending all of my time with. He loves me so well, and I wouldn't change a thing about the life we have together.

3. Home: for the seaside apartment that we simply don't deserve. It's so refreshing to have this amazingly beautiful place to call home. Even if it's just for six months. It'll be a six month retreat in our ocean paradise, and we're so grateful.

4. Friends: the old ones, the new ones, the near ones, the far ones, the ones you haven't talked to in a while but leave lots of voicemails for, the ones who stop by your desk unannounced, the ones you need to make more time for, the ones who moved away... I love them all.

5. Church: for a place where we're learning, growing, meeting new friends, that feels like home.

6. Job: for the stability it provides, even when I complain about it. I'm so blessed to have a place to go forty hours a week that's filled with people I actually care about.

7. Money: for a college graduate who knows her situation could look much different. Even when you feel like it's tight, we need to be reminded that we have more money that about 98% of the world. It's humbling and we need to complain about it much less, and pay a lot more attention to where it goes.

8. Grace: For God's baffling grace that has the ability to stop us dead in our tracks. Let's be open to it and let it change us.

Let's always aim for our "meaningful" lists to be much longer than our "shallow" lists.

I hope you all had a wonderful day with family and friends. I also hope you day didn't look like this. 

Or maybe I do. That looks like fun for everyone.

Happy holiday weekend :)

the new hood

As some of you know, Will and I moved about two weeks ago or so and things are awesome in our new hood. We used to live on this super congested city street that was a 90 degree hill you're lucky not to slide down, and now we live on the grounds of a swanky yacht club in the middle of no where. Win.

The other night, we were especially energized (given our fight against mono and other fatigue viruses) and we went on a night time adventure! We used to do this all the time in our dating days, and it almost always involves trespassing. We trespassed into the Manchester Boat Yard once and sat to have a lovely conversation on some rich person's yacht. We also went to a private state reservation after hours on numerous occasions to have some adventures (like this one). But this time, I think what we did was surprisingly legal.

In our new backyard lies the Eastern Point Lighthouse, seen here:

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and in the water, sits this little tower:

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and in between the two, lies THIS:

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The monster jetty. It's so enormous. Seriously, so so long. Are jetties (drop the y and add -ies? Never seen it written like that) always this long? The thing had to be well over a mile. On our journey, we ran into many a seagull and nearly fell off the edge a total of zero times. I was a little nervous, but all was well and the surface area was about 10 feet wide. Not as precarious as I originally thought. 

The most nerve-racking thing was honestly the seagulls. They were in herds, people. HERDS. It was a living, breathing Alfred Hitchcock movie. Now, I have a fear of birds to begin with, so you know it's a bad sign when your husband says, "Sweetie, I don't mean to alarm you... but..." after he catches a glimpse of the upcoming herd from the lighthouse's rays. Yep. Roughly 75 birds chillin' for their evening sit/poop.

It was a very poopy jetty.

But the walk was so much fun and it was so quiet out there in the dark. When we got to the end, I teetered dangerously near the edge as monkey-man climbed the tower. We played for a little bit out on what felt like the ends of the earth, and then we trekked back to land. It's comical that it's about a 25 minute walk from our door, to the stone cliff in the middle of the ocean. Tons of fun.

I'm glad that our life is starting to hold adventures once again. Hopefully more to come :)

PS: best friend weekend of fun and girly nothingness was incredible. You can't go wrong when the sun wakes you up at 8:30 but you stay chatting and reading in bed until after 11. What a joy. I love my Ab.

the color of fall

Here's a tribute to the most fantastic color to wear during the autumn months...

1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8

1   2   3   4


It can look bold, it can look neutral - it's so versatile and I love it. I'm especially diggin' the first ModCloth dress and the world's most perfect heels. The dress is so Mad Men. 


What's your favorite color of the season?

the climb is calling

Crisp air fills our lungs - sweet smell of pine.

 Golden light descends on our approach as we warm our bones, 

cool dry stone ready for the vertical dance.

{poem from the prAna fall catalog -thanks for the inspiration}

finally fall

Happy first day of fall to you all! 

I'm pumped because of all that that means.

Most importantly, including but not limited to the following:

I also have a sweater and I call her Big Cozy. She makes me feel like this:

She doesn't look like this, she only makes me feel like this. It's pretty great.

But it's also almost time for drawing fun pictures in my latte again! That's always a fall milestone.

And here's a fun list floating around the blogosphere, that I say "amen" to wholeheartedly:

I'm so glad it's finally here :)

Enjoy the autumn!

Recent Favorites.

Here are some photos from the past few weeks that have quickly made it to the top favorites...

Will & Cas

Grove City Visit

photos by: Kate O'Donnell

Nieces & Nephews

Topsfield Fair

Nieces & Nephews

Playing in the Leaves

Ashley & Cas

Haverhill, MA

Early Autumn

I'm used to this.

Not this.

Does the Gold Coast Autumn intrigue you as Boston thaws into Spring?

I have finally added more photos. Check 'em out in my two new albums here and here.