beautiful on the inside.

I love this commercial. Welcome to Moose's world.

The ladies love him.

discovering

Over the past week, I've found some wonderful new spots right around where we live. Unfortunately - or maybe fortunately - I didn't have my camera with me. Although it always drives me nuts when I can't take a picture of something beautiful or noteworthy, I think I actually remember the moment more clearly when I'm forced to etch it into my mind instead of frame it with a camera.

Last weekend Matt and I ran through our neighborhood and enjoyed the beautiful new colors of spring. On the way home, we followed for the first time a path that led off the road towards the marshy bay of Flax Pond. On the path we found a deer frozen only feet away. After she bounded off, we followed the trail through the grass to a bridge, which I believe must only be accessible at low tide. We tiptoed through the mud and paused in the middle of the worn bridge to survey the incredible beauty of the water and the sunset. Hopping over gaps in the weathered planks, we crossed to the other side and picked our way through to a few sand dunes that line ocean. We were farther out on the beach than we'd ever ventured before and as we walked towards familiar territory, we came across an unusual tree set back from the beach. It was completely covered in old buoys. It looked wonderful, and I love that we've found the secret work of someone from days past. I have a strange fascination with the buoys that wash up on our beach and have brought home a small collection since we first moved in. I haven't decided what to do with them - they're tossed in our garden shed - but it's nice to know someone else thinks they're worth collecting.

We walked home, chilled by the evening wind and even more grateful that God blessed us with a respite in this charming area.

As I said, I had no camera with me, but when I got home, I had to take a picture. I had run a couple miles and crossed to the center of the old bridge before I looked down and noticed that in my haste to get out the door, I'd put two different shoes on. In my defense, the one on the right is just and updated version of the one on the left . . .

new hobby.

Last weekend, while Matt was busy seeing the White House

and getting the backstage tour of the Capitol,

snapping sweet shots of the monument,

and eating Ethiopian

with these two pals,

I was playing in the dirt

with this little helper.

I decided that I'd like to try my hand at growing some foodstuffs. I don't have a green thumb or much knowledge of what in the world to do, but I'm going for it. I'm become familiar with the gardening shelves of our library, if not the pages of the books I bring home. They have pretty pictures. :) I also started a half-hearted attempt at a compost pile . . . maybe next year it'll be ready to go. While I know nothing about anything, I am pretty sure that the many wild animals roaming our woods would be detrimental to my garden. So, when my parents were out here, my handyman dad built me a garden!

Here it is in its tightly sealed state. No animals allowed!

And this is me working away.

Since lettuce can tolerate a little cold weather, I planted it a few weeks ago. Voila! My little lettuce seedlings! I didn't know . . . I just planted the whole packet . . . they're going to need some thinning out pretty soon.

I started big tomatoes

and cherry tomatoes

inside. I started peppers too but no sign of them yet. Maybe I forgot to actually plant the seeds? I don't know.

If you're a pro gardener and have advice or tips or you-must-do-this's, please share.

sprrrrrrrrrING!

It is SO WONDERFUL to have warm days and watch spring unfold. It feels like it just happened overnight. And then I remember months of this and this and this. Snow, snow, and snow cream. So it wasn't overnight that the world turned green, but it is beautiful and new every day.

Buds.

Blooming.

I found this piece of driftwood and Matt made me a sign.

Perhaps it is a bit redundant.

I remembered a special tree that I saw down by the beach, so I went on a hunt to see it again. I was in my slippers. But I found it!

Thought I'd show you the 'bridge' we found on the beach and dragged up to our path. Storms bring such interesting things.

Today at church we listened to a wonderful testimony of a guy who was being baptized. I've never heard an extended metaphor like that before. He spoke about the tangled maze of answers through science and logic, of being 'tangled in the bushes' without answers. He told us the story of how God spoke to him, and called him out of darkness and

into

the

light.

New life.

easter

When the Yezerski boys were little, their parents left a trail of jellybeans from their room to their Easter basket.

We left one for Adam.

And a little one for Moose. He's a Yezerski boy, too.

And the rest are just pictures I took while we waited to have lunch with our friends.

Hope your Easter was a wonderful reminder of the hope of the cross and the power of the resurrection.

visits

This was kind of a spring break week for me, in between jobs as I was. Matt was home a little earlier and we tolerated the rainy days and enjoyed the sunny ones.

We played Scrabble.

Notably, I won. It was my first time.

We explored a new walking path with Moose.

We explored some old spots by ourselves.

The most special part of this week was our visitors! It's not everyday you get out of town guests, but for us it happened three times this week!

First, we spent the day with some dear family friends of mine, William and Joanna. They were up from Dallas to spend time with their son in NYC and came out to our place and entertained us with lore of their early married days and growing up in west Texas. We had such a nice afternoon!

The next day one of Matt's friends stopped in on his way back to London. We didn't snap any pics with Kyle but you can stop by his blog to read some of his movie reviews.

Friday night we got some family to join us for Easter, Matt's brother Adam.

You might think he was a resident of the Hamptons, but we were out seeing what all the fuss was about.

Come on out and see us!

april fool(ish)

The last 7 days have been a comedy of errors. I will recount them by their degree of tragedy.

It rained here from Sunday through Wednesday. Rain, rain, rain. The ground was soggy, the sky was grey, and ducks were swimming in low-lying yards that had become ponds. In the middle of the rainy spell, I headed out to run some errands. As I was driving through our neighborhood, I rounded the bend where the road runs parallel to a bay. The water looked high. "Must be high tide," I thought. The road had water on it, which is nothing new, given the rain, but it seemed to be more than usual. A nagging voice in my head reminded me that our neighbors had talked about high tide covering the road, but my desire to get out of the house, coupled with my disbelief that the tide could trap me in my neighborhood, convinced me to keep driving. It seemed fine. For about 2 seconds. On the third second, I started panicking. The water was DEEP and my car was leaving a wake of brown foamy brine in the side mirrors. As I white-knuckled the steering wheel, I remembered that my neighbor had actually gotten stuck in the tidewater and had to leave the car and walk home. Oh, geez. I couldn't wait to explain this to Matt . . .

This story does not end in tragedy. I made it through and stopped on the other side next to a waiting Jeep. Feeling the need to share my experience with these strangers, I rolled down the window and gasped, "I don't think I should've done that!" They looked down at me in my little car with my rain hood pulled over my head and nodded, "I don't think you should've either." Then the woman called, "Drive! Keep driving! Drive it off!" So I did. I drove off. My heart rate returned to normal, and hopefully the undercarriage of the car will not rust into a heap.

Because I'm not the only foolish one around here, I will briefly state that Matt went into the city last weekend to meet his brother, planning to stay at his friend's apartment that we always stay at when we visit. He called me at midnight, asking for the train schedule, because he had grabbed the wrong keys and couldn't get into the apartment. Nice. Not only had I been awakened to look up train times, but if they took the train, I'd have to drive to the station pick them up two hours later . . . fortunately they decided this was impractical, and Matt rode the subway around NYC to borrow another set of keys and set them up for the night.

Finally, the crux of foolish behavior . . . One rainy night I couldn't find my phone, and dismissed it, thinking I'd left it in the car. With no desire to walk out in the rain to get it, I went to bed and slept the peaceful slumber of the naive. The next day I threw on some shoes and dashed out to the car. No phone. I casually mentioned it to Matt and we tried calling my phone in the house. No ringing. Matt checked the car again. No dice. I felt a twinge of worry. "Matt, what if it fell out of my pocket and sat in the rain all night?" Matt took one look out the kitchen window, solemnly told me to sit on the couch, and headed out to the car. I dashed to the window and saw my poor forgotten phone lying facedown on the driveway, battered by the night's storm. I also heard a sickening thud and a forlorn yelp of pain from Matt, who managed to smash his head into the overhang on his way down the basement steps. At this point I was close to tears, and like a five-year-old, deemed this the "Worst Afternoon Ever!"

Matt brought in the phone and retreated to the couch to rest his head while I checked for symptoms of concussion for him and life for the phone. Both were negative. I started calculating the cost of replacing my phone, but Matt suggested we put it in a bag of rice. It was a long and worrisome day, and we left it in the rice overnight. The next day I vacuumed out the phone and tried to turn it on. Nothing. Fortunately Matt, who had suffered no long-lasting affects from the head bump, suggested I charge it. Thirty minutes later, the sweet sounds of life chirped from my resurrected phone.

I'm not kidding you, the thing works like a charm.

It's an Easter miracle.

I think I've paid my dues of crazy mistakes this week and can enter April sane and coherent. Let's hope.

.happy easter.