golf for dummies, by dummies.

1. you should probably own a putter. and just in case you were wondering, the club in your bag with the P printed on the bottom is not it. that's apparently a pitching wedge. looks nothing like a putter. common mistake, i hear.

 

2. only use a tee once per hole. tees belong in the tee box, when you tee off. that's it. once you're out on the fairway (or the rough, or the sandtrap) your tee is of no use. leave it in the cart. or your pocket. but if you put it in your pocket, remember that's where it is or else you will look silly after you lose or break all of your tees and then have to borrow a tee only to find that a tee has been hiding in your pocket for the last couple hours.

3. keep your head down. if you lift your head, or take your eye off the ball, or blink at the wrong time, you will either whiff or send the ball flying into a tree or watch it land approximately 10 feet in front of you. generally you would like to get more distance out of your swings. (hits? strokes? i dont understand golf lingo)

4. dont be afraid of divots. divots happen. if you are aftraid of them, you will likely swing too high and just nick the top of the ball, or whiff completely. because golf is a giant frustrating head-game. neither of these will get the ball much closer to the green. hit the ball, fill the hole, and move on.

5. your drink tickets are a perk, not a challenge. so you have four drink tickets. and then your friend gives you their three they aren't using. and then someone else slips you five more. this is not a challenge to down a dozen beers before 2pm.  enjoy your drinks, but keep in mind that maybe a company event is not the best opportunity to be shotgunning beers in the parking lot.

6. sometimes the best ball is in the sand. whoops.

7. your golf glove is probably more fancy than you realize. in fact, it might even come with a built-in ball marker. looks like a useless snap-on decoration, actually a useful piece of golf equipment. i discovered mine on about the 17th hole of the day. so fancy!

8. there is no number eight. i dont know that much about golf.
but look! video! not as funny as last years, but proof that every now and again i can hit a decent shot.

 

 

three-day weekends.

I feel like I've said it before, and I'm sure I will say it again someday, but I think all weekends should be three day weekends. They are just the best. Two day weekends are alright, but they just don't hold a candle to the sheer beauty of three full days of not being at work. There is unlimited possibility. Endless potential for adventure. The promise of being so very productive, and at the same time a sense of joy in knowing that actually being productive is not actually a requirement.

 hiking Maryland Heights

 

 I took off work the past two Fridays, giving myself the gift of two three-day weekends in a row to celebrate and soak in the end of summer.  The first weekend was originally going to be a beach weekend, but when that fell through it turned into an entire three days of nothing. It was sleeping in, and eating out, and doing just a couple little projects around the house, but mostly sitting on the couch binge-watching Sherlock on Netflix, and ignoring any and all of our grown-up responsibilities.

Old Town Harpers Ferry



too creepy to pass up

 

This past weekend, we went to Harper's Ferry with the in-laws for a couple days of hiking, ziplining, and white water rafting.  While there was a lot of rain, it never negatively impacted our adventures - the rain would stop just before our planned activites, and then start up again once we had finished.  The sun even came out a couple times! It was weird weather for the end of August, to be sure, but we were having so much fun we hardly noticed. 

in a tree over the Potomac River



 

With next weekend being Labor Day (already!? this year is FLYING by!), that will make three three-day-weekends in a row for my tiny family. Our plans right now are a bit up in the air as far as which adventures we are going to be able to accomplish and which ones we will have to skip, but no matter what I have a feeling that it will be great. Because that's just how three day weekends roll, yo.

awesomely easy party decorations.

*hard emphasis on the AWESOME*

over the weekend we celebrated my friend Ed's 27th birthday. over the past few years, his party has become THE event of the summer, if only because there is not much better than hanging out with good friends from near and far on a warm evening in June. there is afternoon basketball for the boys, evening wiffleball for everyone, and late night mario kart for anyone still awake. the food is always delicious, and the company cannot be beat.

the decorations have generally been low-key: a quick dollar store run the day of the party pretty much covers it. there was a pinata once, and last year we strung some white balloonss in the tree. but this year, we stepped it up one notch: we put glowsticks IN the balloons!

yes, it is totally pinteresty, but this is the kind of pinterest thing that is actually attainable, and actually as simple as the caption promises. "put glowsticks in balloons." bam. intant party ambiance.

 

 also, those magic color packets for the fire. just because.

 

 

 

 

 



a day of crabs and carnivals.

last weekend, the nephieces came to visit. they were really only here for one full day, but oh what a day it was! we woke up early and spent the morning dollar shopping (yardsailing) with our friend Nadine. the kids each had a dollar to spend, and thanks to some generous sellers the adults managed to fill up our car without spending much more than the kids!

 

after lunch we made crab cakes, because this is maryland after all. but instead of old bay, we spiced them up with frosting and candy. sound gross? not by a long shot. check out these cuties!

 



 

and ok, maybe an alien or two slipped in there too...

 

 original pinspiration here

and then, because our day hadn't been packed full of enough fun already, we headed to the carnival for the evening!  the kids were almost too excited to eat any carnival food, but once they did we were all about the rides.

first stop: roller coaster. hands in the air the whole time. best thing ever.

N was close to tears over not being tall enough to ride the giant slide...

...but he made up for it by driving the big-rigs.

 



the spinning dragons were a hit - its so fun that they are big enough to spin them all by themselves!

 

i have never seen a kid more excited to go fishing. there werent even any worms involved, but both N and C caught a shark and walked away with a fun little prize.

 these cars (dune buggys?) bounced up and down as they went around, and made the absolute best 'sproing!' noise.

 

N was a little ladies man in his jeep. and dont think his car filled up just because all of the other cars were full - there were completely empty cars on this ride. N is just that handsome.

 

 

and can you believe that C is big enough to ride her very own motorcycle?  crazypants.  its kind of impresive the amount of fun that can be had with a limited number of tickets.

 

 

and then, just when we thought our tickets were all gone and it was time to head home, a woman offered us the rest of her family's unused tickets. there were enough for the kids to each do one more ride, so we circled back to the rollercoaster for one last ride!

 

 before heading home, Uncle Mark suggested a detour to the Creamery to round out the night with ice cream. we ate our cones outside on the patio because it was just that perfect of a summer evening.

what a great day. lets do it again soon, mmk?

so we went to florida.

and it was absolutely lovely. the perfect little getaway to celebrate FINALLY being done studying for and taking the PE exam. we stayed at my Aunt's beautiful beach house in Panama City Beach, and thanks to how wonderful this trip was, "own a beach house" has now moved up a few places on my bucket list.

 5 days full of sunshiney, warm, fun, breeziness with only a little bit of thunderstormy, tornado-ish, floodedness at the end.

 
the beach was gorgeous and not at all crowded. the water was a pleasant temperature once  you got used to it, and the surf was calm at first, but picked up a bit as the days went on, so we got some good wave jumping in later in the week.

 

 we lounged, we played games, we swam in the gulf, we relaxed, we rode bikes, we ate ice cream, we got sunburnt, and there was at least one day we just didnt wear pants because we were sunburnt and it was thunderstormy and we had no real reason to leave the house because pizza delivery is a great invention.

 

 

i got my camera out of its case for the second time since February (seriously, zero pictures of March this year) and it was nice to excercise my shutter finger again. 

10 pictures of this bird. only one decently non-blurry one.

 i needed this. we needed this. this winter was cold and nasty and long and full of drudgery, so this little taste of early summer with the sunshine and the warmth and the chilling out was perfect.

half way to one hundred.

41. whoever dreamed up the color run.
42. warm afternoons in November.
43. knees.
44. my knee brace.

45. tennis shoes.
46. my husband: he is encouraging, hard working, and fun!

47. warm showers.
48. shoeboxes full of presents.
49. coupons.
50. Christmas cards.

a little thing.

one should never underestimate the joy that is asking a random stranger to take your picture and having them actually do a good job.



 

everyone looking, smiling, and nicely framed so you can actually see the point of the picture in the background!

a girls weekend. (plus nick)



 "wouldn't life be perfect if... goodbyes only meant until tomorrow."

this weekend, on her way home from a week-long beach vacation, my mom planned a weekend-long layover at my house. my sisters both drove in to visit, and it just so happened to be the same weekend that the hubs had planned a boys-weekend in Buffalo, so we had ourselves a girls-weekend. with nick.

 

we visited the topiary gardens, and we picnicked, and we went apple picking, and we made and ate an apple pie, and we made applesauce, and we played sequence, and we went out for brunch, and we shopped for my sister's new house, and we almost finished a little project, and we just hung out and had an absolutely wonderful time, and i only took 22 pictures the whole weekend.

i've heard people say that it is important to not view your life through a camera lens. that it is important to put your camera down and just be in a moment instead of documenting it. i guess i kind of did that this weekend - but only because my camera battery died early in the day and i don't have a phone that can double as an acceptable backup plan.

i managed to take 11 pictures, somewhat carefully spaced to maximize my battery life, before my camera was completely drained. so once it was dead, i stowed it in my purse and made up my mind to just rely on my mom and sister for pictures. but i wasn't entirely happy about it.

i wanted to take my own pictures. to capture the days from my own perspective. i felt a little bit sad and cheated that my own oversight and my dead camera battery took much of that opportunity away from me.

without my camera, i spent time marvelling over fish in ponds, searching for blue flowers, picking apples (lift, twist, pull!) and laughing so so much with some of my favorite people, and i vowed that as soon as i got home i would charge my battery and do better at picture-taking the rest of the weekend so that i could easily remember these moments with my sisters together and my neice and nephew at 6 and 4 and my mom at [REDACTED] and all of us all together in one place.

but then once i got home and charged my battery, i only took 11 more pictures the whole weekend. none of them had my mom in them. i only have a picture of one of my sisters. its a great picture of a sweet moment, but you can't even see her face in it. i took zero pictures of the faces of my mom and my sisters during an entire weekend that we spent together.

but i do have 2 pictures of the homemade apple pie a la mode.

so what does that say about my priorities?

i'm almost certain that i am overthinking this, because everyone just left this morning and i miss them all terribly and my house is so quiet and empty. but quite honestly, i don't think i have the right balance quite yet between experiencing moments and documenting them. because i had a wonderful time this weekend and i enjoyed every single minute and we laughed a lot and we made some fantastic memories... but i'm kind of disappointed that i don't have many pictures of those memories... no memory joggers to look back on later.

so i guess we'll all just have to get together again soon and do it all over again. and let's remember to get at least one group picture next time, mmkay?

astronauts, birdseed, and moose.

as the title might suggest, there is no real rhyme, reason, or cohesive thought that holds this post together. it is what it is. because remember that one time i mentioned that July was kind of crazy-awesome-busy? take that, extend it by a few weeks, pack just a little bit more into each weekend, and that's kind of what my August felt like too. and honestly-it kind of wrecked me.

action camp ran straight into a beach vacation dumped us back into craziness at work interrupted by weekends of bonfires and a wedding and then sisters weekend with a quick turnaround into more big work meetings all capped off with a western week of camping and family fun.

ugh. i'm exhausted just reading all that.

each and every day had its own something special, and i kind of just want to wrap myself up in the memories and never leave...so, here's some pictures of august? with maybe a little bit of commentary but maybe not a whole lot? here goes.

action camp was space-themed this year, because when we LOOK UP to the heavens, we should be AMAZED BY GOD. i tried my best to convey God's grace, glory, and might to my young charges as much as i could, but i think i spent most of my time saying "please sit down, i'm so glad you have a dog, put your shirt back on, don't climb on that, come back here, who needs a bathroom break, simon says put your hands in the air! now is not the time for turbo speed, where are your shoes?"

i was the group leader for the green team, which was obviously the best team. here are some of us pretending to be big gorillas while we waited between stations. the rest of the team is either a) confused, b) oblivious, or c) totally pretending not to know these weirdos.

 



mmm... beach.  

 

 

 

 

we were only at the beach with Mark's family for a long weekend, but we did dinner out one night at a restaurant called Sedona. it was a bit more fancy than we were anticipating, but oh my word that food was one of the most delicious, delightful, dareisay thrilling things i've ever eaten.

 

(ps have i mentioned how delightful this fish tasted? let me just tell you one more time. DELIGHTFUL)



 

mark and i have not always agreed on what constitutes proper dress code for certain events: church, cookouts, funerals, weddings, etc. so i was mentally preparing myself for the inevitable "will you please just wear a tie this time?" fight, when Mark surprised me by saying "i think i'll wear a suit."

 

 

 

most tame, un-messy cake cutting ever. these guys are adorable. also: fantastic dancers.

 

 

 the newlyweds stopped by our house to change before they left for their honeymoon, since we live approximately 0.2 miles from the reception venue. mark took it upon himself to clean the extraneous birdseed off their car so that "massive bird attack" was not any part of their wedding story.

 

out of the three days we spent at my sister's house, i only have pictures of one part of one day. i documented the part where we hiked 3 miles to see the fire tower in Cook Forest. i did not document the float down the Clarion River, or the bonfire dinner, or the midnight toilet paper Walmart run, or church in the morning, or the tour of what may or may not be stasi's new house. so many exciting things!

 

 

i took this picture one day at work. on this particular day, i started my day in the Maryland office, attended a meeting in Delaware, hiked several miles of overgrown trail, and then drove to the York office for my fantasy football draft. 1 company, 3 offices, 3 states, 1 day. that was a good day.

 

two days later, i was on a plane. i took 23 pictures out of the plane window as we made our descent into Salt Lake City. the landscape just kept changing so drastically, and i was amazed by it.

 

we saw a moose while we were out west. this was the first picture i took of it, when i thought that this was the best shot i was going to be able to get.

i thought it was just going to quickly retreat back into the woodline, but instead she wandered down closer to the lake.

MUCH closer, in fact. and then, she just wandered her way along the path around the lake. after mom and dad brought the tandem kayak back in, mark and i took a spin and caught up with the moose at the far end of the lake, where we sat and watched that awesomely giant animal just chill by the lake until she wandered back up into the woods. so cool.

i'm thinking about just running away to the mountains. living off the grid. cooking all my food over a fire and sleeping in a tent. as long as said mountains are within walking distance of a bathroom and i have occasional access to a grocery store, i could totally do it. want to come with me?

 

my mom would come with me. she loves me, and she loves the mountain, and she feels the same way about the necessity of bathrooms and a grocery store. we would be unstoppable.

 

i'm not allowed to say much about this photo, or post any of the other ones i took of my mom's super secret project. but keep an eye on her blog for the next few days/weeks/months for the reveal, because you're not going to want to miss this one.

this was the worst part. getting back on the plane to head home. i briefly contemplated initiating a one-woman sit-in in the backseat of my mom's car so i wouldnt have to leave. although getting to board the plane from the tarmac did have kind of a rockstar-esque feeling to it, which was pretty fun i guess.

like i said, i am really wishing i could keep August around a little longer, but its probably better that i actually try to move on a little bit because september? (no WAY can it already be september!!) is starting to look like its just going to be more of the same: crazy. awesome. i can't wait!