Get Busy Living....

Hello friends! I bring smiles to you from Boston's North Shore, where it is late and I should be sleeping, but it's hot without air conditioning and so I am typing instead. We don't have air conditioning in our apartment - you really only need it probably about a month out of the year, and since we get a breeze off the water, it's not awful. The worst is at night when you're trying to sleep. However, in a few weeks, the temps will go down while you guys will be in the hotness and humidity of August, so I won't complain!

Today was a good day....I ran some errands....got a phone interview for tomorrow (Tuesday) scheduled. This interview is the first in a 3 step process, so say some prayers at 2:30 on Tuesday. I'll keep you posted! Michael and I had a yummy dinner where we made buffalo chicken caesar wraps, and then we watched a movie. The Braves made a good trade today, and I'm pulling for a Braves/Boston World Series. How cool would that be???? Except I'm afraid Boston would kill us, but it would still be fun to be a part of.

Anyway, we watched "Shawshank Redemption" tonight. What a fabulous movie - one of my favorites! One of the best lines is where he says, "Get busy living or get busy dying." That's basically where God is leading me on my journey currently. We will all go through very difficult struggles and circumstances in our lives, and we can either stay focused on the circumstances, or we can focus on God and get busy living the unimaginable life He has for us to live!

Michael and I went sea kayaking yesterday. It was so incredibly cool. We went over by an island and paddled around it. When we were close to the shore, you could look into the water and see the coral and sea grass and such. It struck me as I was sitting there on the water how much of God's creation no one actually lays eyes on, yet it is still there, existing for His pleasure and His glory and to declare the greatness of His name.....

Miss you all. Have a great Tuesday and enjoy living today!

Happy Friday!

Hi everyone! It's a quiet night here in Gloucester, except for the kids outside skateboarding and making noise. Who skateboards in the dark at 10:00 at night?? Anyway, life is going well here. Michael spent the week in New Hampshire working at a construction site while I searched for a job. Depending on how the job thing goes, I may join him in the construction business next week. The guy he is working for offered to pay me to paint. :-) I did meet with a staffing firm, so hopefully a job will soon be found. The Braves are getting killed as I type this. Please do better soon Braves so I don't have to become a Red Sox fan!! [****Late add on to the blog - the Braves were down by 7 and have come back to within 1 at this point. They must have taken my threat seriously, even though no matter how bad they are, they will always be my "A" team! :-)]

So I thought I'd post a few random pictures for you. The first one is a shot I took on a really clear day. When the sky is clear, we can see the skyline of Boston from here. It's pretty cool. Hope you all have a great weekend!

Sunset

A quote from Augustine.... "Does God proclaim Himself in the wonders of creation? No. All things proclaim Him, all things speak. Their beauty is the voice by which they announce God, by which they sing, 'It is You who made me beautiful, not me myself but You.'" I thought of this quote when I was out walking and saw the beauty of His creation in the sunset. It's cool to be surrounded by His creation that is always proclaiming Him!

How Great Is Our God!

You know, one of the things I love about living here is that if I ever start feeling sorry for myself or wish that circumstances looked different in life, all I have to do is go outside and go for a walk. Once outside, I am surrounded by the glory and majesty and power of God's creation, and it reminds me that the God of the universe is greater than I could ever imagine. And yet, that same God is intimately acquainted with me and cares about me with a love that I can't begin to grasp. And I am once again reminded that all is well and all will be well.

I went on one of these walks yesterday. Here are some pictures from that walk. May the peace of Christ surround you today!

TGIF!

Hi everyone! I don't have a lot to report, but I figure if I don't post new entries regularly, you'll stop reading the blog, and that would be tragic. So, here is a new entry. I am still searching for a job. It's quite sad how many resumes I have sent out and not gotten a response from. Michael even got a job today - from an ad that I found! Hopefully something will come along soon. In the meantime, I shall post some random pictures for you to enjoy. The first one is a picture of my flowers again because they are growing really well and look pretty. If you feel the need, you can scroll down a few posts to compare the pictures. :-) Other pictures are ones I have taken before and just haven't posted. We miss you all - have a great weekend!

Happy Tuesday

Today has been kind of a lazy, relaxing day, but we all need those sometimes. I'm still looking for a job and hope to have one very soon. I took a walk this afternoon and came across this gate in a rock wall. I've always loved gates like this that lead into gardens or something that you can't see. It's like something beckons to you to have enough faith to step through the gate and see what's inside. That's where I feel like I am in life right now, so I thought I'd share the gate picture with you. And I'm also including a picture of my cat laying out on our deck. If I put her on her leash and attach her leash to something, she just lays out there and enjoys the sunshine and the breeze. :-)

Ocean Lawn

We went exploring a bit today, which was cool. There is a hiking path that takes you through the woods - you would swear you're in the north GA mountains somewhere - that's what it looks like around you. Then you get to the end of the path and there is this HUGE meadow (called Ocean Lawn) where you could play several games of ultimate frisbee at once. At the end of the meadow is a panoramic view of the ocean, and you can walk on the rocks and cliffs. It was beautiful! Below are some pictures from both the woods and the ocean. It looks like pictures from two different vacations, but it's all in the same place! We are very much enjoying the beauty of God's creation that we are surrounded by.

The Ocean

Today was a beautiful day. It was sunny and about 75. The ocean was so blue today - a calm jewel. I went for a walk before dinner just to enjoy the beauty of the day. As I was walking, I thought about how the waves are held back from flooding the land by the grace of God's hand. And that same God loves us so much, He knew all that would happen to us before time began. Kind of comforting to live in that sort of ruthless love.... The sun was starting to set as I was walking, creating sparkles on the water. Enjoy these pictures that are a testimony of the majesty of our King.

More Apartment Pictures

Here are some more pictures from our apartment. You can see our beds and the "closet" that we created next to our bed.




This is a picture of some flowers I put on our back deck to bring smiles - I also have a hanging basket. The second picture is the view off of our back deck, where we can sit and hear the ocean and see it whenever we want!




A few of you have heard how steep the stairs are that lead up to the third floor of our building. Here is a picture of those...



Finally, today was beautiful for awhile - sun shining, high temp of about 74. It's gotten cloudy now, but earlier, I went for a walk and sat on the rocks and read for awhile. Here are a few pictures taken from my walk or down by the water. The very last picture is the road we drive down to get to our apartment. I don't think I'll ever tire of seeing the ocean that way!

Our Apartment

Hi everyone! We put our parents and Matthew on the plane to fly home this morning, so that was a sad goodbye. But we all know that this is where we're supposed to be, and everyone is excited to see what happens. We enjoyed having them here for a week so we could all hang out and see everything together. It was a lot of fun.

I know some of you have been waiting with much excitement and anticipation to see pictures of our new home, so I thought I'd post some pictures for you. This is a good start and then I'll put some more up soon. We love our 400 square feet - it's so cozy and cute!

This is our kitchen, living room, and a closer view of the shelf over the chair in the living room.





This is a picture of our study nook and then our bathroom.




Finally, here is a picture of when you first walk in our front door and Ellie sleeping in her new home.




All that is missing is a picture of our beds and the closet we created and our back porch, where I have a couple of flowers to make it pretty. But I do not yet have pictures of those things yet, so I'll save them for another post. Hope everyone has a great day!

A Day In Boston

We spent a very long day in Boston yesterday and had a lot of fun. We saw a TON of stuff. We rode the commuter train into the city, rode the subway everywhere, missed the train on the way back (my bad) and caught the last train at 11:30pm. Below are some pics of our adventures and a few descriptions...

We started by going to Harvard Square and eating lunch at Uno's. Mmmm... :-) Then we went and walked around the Harvard campus and breathed in smart people's air.




Then we went to Fenway Park to see the stadium from the outside and enjoy the culture. My dad got a hat to remember us by and we took some fun pictures.





After Fenway, we went and walked part of the Freedom Trail in downtown Boston. This is a really cool trail that takes you to various historical sites throughout the city. You literally follow the brick road through the city to stay on the trail.



One of the main parts of the trail that we saw was a cemetary where prominent people were buried as well as all the people who died in the Boston Massacre. Paul Revere is buried here. He is very big in this town because this is where he hung the lanterns to show the British were coming. We saw his house, a statue of him, and the church where the lanterns were hung.





We had dinner in the Italian district and got dessert at Mike's Pastry, which is one of the most famous pastry places in the city. Finally, we went and saw the Cheers bar.



After a very long day, we missed our train back to Gloucester because I read the schedule wrong. So we had to sit in the train station for 2 1/2 hours before we could catch the 11:30pm train and finally get home and sleep. It was a great day!