all good things must come to an end

Posted on September 14, 2015 by Anne

Well, we’re back to reality. Or almost. We got back home earlier today, and I’ve been busy unpacking, restocking the fridge, and doing laundry. I’m back on the Whole30 wagon tomorrow, so I boiled eggs, made a big salad, cut up some veggies, and have some chicken marinating.

We return rested and relaxed and grateful for our time away. Paul and I agree that we have fun traveling together and even going to Costco together. We’re grateful.

Here are a few more photos from our time away:

coffee with a nice view

not a cloud in the sky…

umbrella, multiple layers of SPF, hat, sunglasses — it’s hard to be a white girl in the sun.

nice view! 😉

bliss!

chips & salsa for lunch

last evening on vacation

We stayed on 30A, and enjoyed the scenery and several good meals. Our favorites: The Great Southern Cafe (we liked it better than Bud & Alley’s), The Perfect Pig, and La Cocina Mexican Bar and Grill.

Ciao,

348/365

Posted on December 14, 2014 by Anne

sometimes you just hit the wall and need a hibernation day.

297/365

Posted on October 24, 2014 by Anne

murphy the wonder dog (via iPhone)

192/365

Posted on July 11, 2014 by Anne

bath

sleep

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Anne

I suffer from insomnia off and on, so I recently read a short book on sleep when it was free on Kindle. Although I didn’t really learn anything new or solve my sleep problems, I did highlight a few lines:

Q Do all your mental abilities deteriorate when you’re sleep deprived?

A No. Research has suggested that basic arithmetic and maths isn’t really affected by lack of sleep and, in some cases, even gets better.

This is good news for me! (The book is written by a Brit, I think, which accounts for the “maths” instead of our American “math”.)

That said, women seem to need about 20 minutes sleep more than men. The experts say it’s because women use their brains in a more flexible way than men – which means their brains are working harder in the day and are therefore more tired at night.

I’m neither a man-hater nor a feminist, and I’m always skeptical of “experts.”

This, however, I believe:

‘Without enough sleep, we all become tall two-year-olds.’ JOJO JENSEN, author of Dirt Farmer Wisdom

With that loss of an hour this past weekend, I hope we’re not all tall two-year-olds this week!

Sleep well,

“Sabbath is a workshop for the practice of eternity.”

Posted on November 3, 2013 by Anne

Some thoughts on the Sabbath from Eugene H. Peterson’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places:

As it turned out in Israel’s practice, Sabbath was never a day of mere not-doing — the context wouldn’t permit it. Human not-doing became a day of God-honoring. God worked in creation, which means that all our work is done in the context of God-word. Sabbath is a deliberate act of interference, an interruption of our work each week, a decree of no-work so that we are able to notice, to attend, to assimilate this comprehensive and majestic work of God, to orient our work in the work of God.

Sabbath is a workshop for the practice of eternity.

Sabbath-keeping preserves and honors time as God’s gift of holy rest: it erects a weekly bastion against the commodification of time, against reducing time to money, reducing time to what we can get out of it, against leaving no time for God or beauty or anything that cannot be used or purchased. It is a defense against the hurry that desecrates time.

We keep Sabbath best when we enter a place of worship, gather with a congregation, and sing and pray and listen to God.

We cannot rightly understand Sabbath apart from work nor rightly understand work apart from Sabbath.

If there is no Sabbath — no regular and commanded not-working, not-talking — we soon become totally absorbed in what we are doing and saying, and God’s work is either forgotten or marginalized. When we work we are most god-like, which means that it is in our work that is easiest to develop god-pretensions. Un-sabbathed, our work becomes the entire context in which we define our lives. We lose God-consciousness, God-awareness, sightings of our resurrection. We lose the capacity to sing “This is my Father’s world” and end up chirping little self-centered ditties about what we are doing and feeling.

rest

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Anne

After the busiest summer I can remember, I’m enjoying true rest and recovery this long Labor Day weekend. 3 master’s level classes was waaaay too much for me, and I have learned my lesson about that. I turned in the last assignment for the summer term on Friday night, and an enormous weight was lifted.

So now I’m enjoying a break from school and a day off from work on this holiday. I’ve made rest a priority this weekend, and that includes watching tv, reading, and sleep. I slept in until 8:30 this morning after falling asleep at 9:30 last night, and for this insomniac that’s a pretty good indication that I was truly worn out.

I’m looking forward to picking my camera back up after rarely seeing it this summer. I enjoyed that creative outlet with my 365 project, and I miss the way I was really looking at things through the lens. I’m thinking about challenging myself with another project, but not one as long as the 365.

I’m also looking forward to reading what I want to read and not what has been assigned with deadlines. I’m finishing up a Wodehouse book today, and then I’ll look over my fiction shelves for something like a beach read.

I plan to get back to more regular blogging, as well, including some book giveaways. As they say, stay tuned!

Resting,