a year in photos part 1 (photos taken by me)

so i saw on another blog someone who posted one picture a month...their favorite picture or their favorite memory...to recap the year.  i wanted to do that, but i had such a hard time limiting it to just one!  so, i decided to split it into two sections.  the first (this one) being photos taken by me.  the second (soon to come) is photos taken by others, but with my camera. i also struggled between choosing my favorite memory from each month and my favorite picture.  sometimes they matched and sometimes they didn't.  hopefully the second set will reconcile these a bit, but the honorable mention might as well. 

so here they are, my favorite picture from each month of 2011.

january

 in january we hopped in a plane and flew to colorado for some skiing.  i had never seen the rockies up close before and they were glorious.  a whole different kind of beauty than the blue ridge.  we had an excellent time with luke’s family. 

february

in february luke had his lasic eye surgery. this is hands down my favorite picture of february because it cracks me up.  he had to wear these weird eye-protectors for two weeks after the surgery. 

march

in march two of my sisters came up to visit and we spent a lovely afternoon at eastern market.  the capitol hillbillies were playing and we listened for awhile.  this is probably my favorite picture that i took that afternoon.  i don’t remember much of march.  i think that jenny and her boyfriend also came up, but i just didn’t take many pictures.  march is also when i started a new full-time job, so the business might have something to do with it...

april

in april we moved from our first apartment together into a community home in anacostia.  we love our new home, and i honestly can't believe that we moved there in april...it seems like we've been there so long.  anyways, this was our very last picture together in our apartment before we turned the keys in.  good bye, rock creek church road ne!

may

in may my mom's side all got together to surprise my pappap on his 90th birthday.  it was a wonderful trip, and we all had a lot of fun.  i love this picture of my grandma and pappap during the flurry of pictures we were taking.  they are pretty cool and inspiring.

june

so much happened during the summer, and a lot of my honorable mentions will come from june, july and august.  however, this picture from june when our friend, kevin, came up to dc is probably my favorite.  during that visit we went to the zoo and went tubing (and i lost my tiny camera...) they are so comfortable in their masculinity...

july

july was another one of those months when so.much.happened.  during the fourth of july fireworks were going off EVERYWHERE.  there were some teens and kids setting these off in the alley behind our house and i joined in and took some pictures.  the kids would get up so close and then the sparks would fly and they would run away screaming.  time after time after time.  it was a lot of fun.

august

we spent the last half of july and august in india.  it was beautiful and so affirming of the call luke and i have felt for awhile now.  during our time in k-town we volunteered with the sisters of charity.  serving in this place taught me lessons that i am still learning about now.  this picture is also telling because of the crazy flood waters.  it was raining so hard!

september

i struggled with the picture for september because we had several great pictures.  but i think the most meaningful memory i had was our last baseball game in nats park.  we've had a could of "last" games because we always thought we would be leaving dc.  this one was indeed our last, for now.  we had a good time.

october

i took a lot of beautiful pictures on our annual apple picking event with jordan and valerie in october but this was my favorite. look at the excitement and the joy =)  i love them.

november

november was beautiful, with beautiful weather, beautiful leaves and beautiful people.  we had 16 people at our thanksgiving meal, plus one dog and one cat.  the weekend was fun.

december

thus far, december has been filled with hard stuff, good time with family and meaningful time with God.  i think the most uplifting time was the spiritual retreat we went on in mid-december.  this little kitten followed me around for the morning of our second day, but the time at corhaven, the spiritual retreat center, was refreshing.

 _____________________________________________________

so those are my top 12 for the year.  a few honorable mentions include:

january honorable mention

another picture from telluride ski trip.

march honorable mention.

another picture from katie and christie's visit to dc and eastern market. 

may honorable mention.

a picture from our trip to pennsylvania.  i think this field is stunning.

july honorable mention.

luke and i celebrated our 3rd anniversary with a double header baseball game and a picnic.  it was perfect.

august honorable mention.

kites fling in delhi.  it was more beautiful than my little camera could capture.

september honorable mention.

we had our first block party.  the little girl on the left loved taking pictures with me camera.  this family was beautiful.

october honorable mention.

 we went to michigan for kali and charlie teater's wedding.  it was beautiful and they were sweet.  i really liked capturing both of them with their father's during the father-daughter dance.

november honorable mention.

we went to teddy roosavelt island to collect leaves for decorations and hike around.  this little boy wanted to do exactly what luke was doing but swore it was his own idea.  it was pretty cute.

november honorable mention.

 the beginning of the christmas season.  we went to the botanical gardens with our families the friday after thanksgiving to herald it in. it was a lot of fun and extremely beautiful.

december honorable mention.

celebrating ellen's birthday at the gaylord with the housemates.  we rode the elevator a couple of times so we could see the decorations from up high and ride the super-fast elevator.

__________________________________________________

so there's the first round!  pictures taken by others to come shortly!

long.

the rain is falling hard outside. every once in awhile there is the quiet rumble of thunder. the rain speaks to my soul tonight in voices that i haven't heard in quite some time. in ways that i can't explain, but rather feel somewhere in the deep corners of my heart.

i've learned, in the past week, especially, how important communication is and what a beautiful art it can be when it is not lost in the meaningless lines of texts, aim, facebook, blogs and other forms of modern-day communication--where words are flippantly sent out without consequence, and the body language or depth and tone of voice is easily lost, wrongly interpreted and simply absent. what are we becoming?

and yet, recently, every aspect of my life seems to be some how devoured in silence.

not even the phone rings tonight. and i don't dare turn on music, lest the quiet voices of the rain stop speaking.

tonight there are no mice and no ants, just bugs flying around the office. big brown bugs and little tiny knats. who knows where they come from or why they are here. and if they could think they would probably wonder the same thing about me.

tonight i am unbearably homesick.

we read the play endgame by samuel beckett in my first year drama class with professor strong. lately, i've remembered how wonderful the last monologue by clov, one of the actors on stage is...

...They said to me, That's love, yes, yes, not a doubt, now you see how...How easy it is. They said to me, That's friendship, yes, yes, no question, you've found it. They said to me, Here's the place, stop, raise your head and look at all that beauty. That order! They said to me, Come now, you're not a brute beast, think upon these things and you'll see how all becomes clear. And simple! They said to me, What skilled attention they get, all these dying of their wounds...I say to myself— sometimes... you must learn to suffer better than that if you want them to weary of punishing you— one day. I say to myself—sometimes, Clov, you must be better than that if you want them to let you go—one day. But I feel too old, and too far, to form new habits. Good, it'll never end, I'll never go...Then one day, suddenly, it ends, it changes, I don't understand, it dies, or it's me, I don't understand that either. I ask the words that remain— sleeping, waking, morning, evening. They have nothing to say...I open the door of the cell and go. I am so bowed I only see my feet, if I open my eyes, and between my legs a little trail of black dust. I say to myself that the earth is extinguished, though I never saw it lit...It's easy going...When I fall I'll weep for happiness...

don't worry, friends. it's not all bad, and i know this. i've been homesick before. i've felt silence before. i've struggled with identity before. and i've (shock) bemoaned the present condition of society as a whole and the general direction that it's headed before. and i know that while sadness lasts sometimes for what seems like ridiculously long periods of time, really unfailing love, comfort and joy are soon to follow.

and really, my sadness is of a selfish nature...

additionally, pearls before swine have been delightfully funny the past 13 days. I was trying to figure out my favorite one. I think I have to go with this one:

But really, they are all so funny, you should just go and read them here.

I'll admit, my journal entries of late have been a strange mixture of both Pig's and Rat's...

The original intent of this post was to leave you with some beach pictures--without, of course, giving away any of the picture of the day secrets, which will most likely be posted tomorrow...or some other time this week. So, I will leave you with those. Besides, I should get back to work.

I took over 400 pictures throughout the week...it's kind of hard to choose the favorites...after I do my picture post I'll give you the link so you can see the rest of them...ha! all 400...most of which are not of any interest at all...

My dad graduated from his doctorate program on May 16 and we were all so proud of him.

This is pretty typical sister time. Jenny and I lashing out in goofy displays and Katie and Christie beautifully tolerating us and laughing along. I really love my sisters.

Three of the sisters on the ferry to Ocracoke Island with wind-blown hair.
We saw two light houses that day. And some beautiful displays of oceanic power.

While we had two cloudy and rainy days, we also had several sunny days. I took this picture with my eyes closed and I was a little bit proud at how well it turned out.

Since we were at the Outter Banks we were pleasantly situated within walking distance of both the ocean and the sound. Both of which provided magnificent sunrises (pictured above) and sunsets (pictured below). The picture displayed with my heading is my little sister, Jenny, in the water during one such sunset.

(It looks like we're standing in front of a backdrop!)

As a surprise, the members of the church threw my dad a surprise happy graduation party. It was a complete surprise to my father, who was both delighted and incredibly surprised. It takes a humble man to walk into a party for him and not realize that it's a party for him until the crowd applauds him. I really love my dad (and my mom, too, I just don't have a picture of her except above...I could have mentioned it then, too.)

There were never such devoted sisters...

I'm not going to lie, I feel much better now, after getting out of my own head. Maybe I will turn on some bluegrass after all.

I hope everyone is sleeping peacefully...

...wow that was a long post...i've thought about editing out parts of it...to make it shorter...and as not to appear as dark and morbid as i do...

...but, it all fits. weariness and searching with the knowledge of joy and comfort in the future...

so i'll leave it. and send it out into space.

hODgEpoDGe

We went to bed last night with big white fluffy flakes falling and Luke lamenting that nothing was sticking and cursing the weather channel for once again getting his hopes up. He awoke several times throughout the night, putting on his glasses and running out to the window to see how the snow situation was developing. This morning we woke up with our neighborhood blanketed in snow, and a much happier Luke than went to bed last night. Thus now we are sitting together in our tiny living room. Luke working and me blogging, while Susan Page of USA Today, sitting in for Diane Rehm, talks to her guests about Strategy in Iraq. The promise of an afternoon walk in the snow lingers in the air.

The other night Luke was practicing his ventriloquism. He thinks he's really good. I told him I'd let my blogging friends decide.

So what do you think? Should we go ahead and buy him a puppet friend? =)

(Yes, that is Gladiator music playing in the background. We watched it the other night. It never fails to make me cry...)

Yesterday marked the beginning of my Lent. I struggled with what I was going to give up this year (hence the lateness), and then my friend Amanda pointed out this article from Scott Bessenecker (who I've mentioned before, and who I think is pretty cool). While I'm not going to be legalistic about it, I have decided to eat alongside the poor for Lent. I started yesterday with some rice and zucchini which I ate with my hands (naturally).

I'm really excited about Lent this year. While I've always had some of an understanding of what it is about, I did some extra research this year. I also attended an Ash Wednesday service at the Basilica, which was quite impressive, though I find the entire Shrine a little bit sickening (especially as I start out on this journey of trying to identify with the poor). But it is interesting to intentionally think about Easter for a full six weeks leading up to it. To think about the implications it has, and to intentionally deny yourself something in order to draw closer with God. I'm really, really excited about Lent this year.

Speaking of Amanda, she also sent me this picture entitled "The Value of $300" by an artist called "Scott the Painter". Which I find thought provoking and I like it. A lot.

What do you think?

(And lest you think that I'm stroking my own ego here since I personally do not own an ipod and detest all things apple, I really think that you can replace the ipod with anything...including the ski trip Luke and I are planning on taking this weekend. It's just an interesting thought...and something that Luke and I have thought a lot about/ struggled a lot with...)

There is this fun activity going around on facebook that I found so cool that I did it twice. Here are the results and the rules so you can do it too!

(You can click on those to make them bigger/easier to read).

1 - Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random... Read More”
or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to "Random quotations"
or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days”
or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 - Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

I saw this bumper sticker on a BMW on Saturday and it made me want to throw up a lot. Something tells me that his treasure is on earth. The car had leather seats. (I know it was a "him" because he also had a bumper sticker that said "real men love Jesus"). But maybe he got it as a gift...

I've been continuing my incredibly long journey through The Brothers Karamazov. I have a love-hate relationship with this book. But nevertheless I am determined to finish it--through both the long monologues as well as the action-packed dialogues. I'll let you know what I think. I just finished the section entitled The Grand Inquisitor, which was incredibly interesting. The basis of the poem, which is written by the middle brother, Ivan, is that Jesus comes back down to earth for just one day to walk among His people. The Grand Inquisitor, a Catholic Priest, has Jesus arrested and puts him through a series of question/statements about how Jesus and His life has not shown love to the people, but rather has caused pain and suffering in those who choose to question what is right or wrong. The Grand Inquisitor asks Jesus why He didn't just bow to Satan at the beginning of His ministry and provide bread to the masses, therefore making it easy for them to love Him. Throughout the whole chapter Jesus just sits there listening. This is how it ends:

"I meant it to end like this. When the Inquisitor stopped speaking he waited some time for his Prisoner to answer him. His silence weighed down upon him. He saw that the Prisoner had listened carefully all the time, looking gently in his face. But evidently he did not want to reply. The old man longed for Him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on the forehead. This was his answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, opened it and said to Him: 'Go, and come no more...Come not at all, never, never!' And he let Him out into the dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner went away."
"And the old man?"
"The kiss glows in his heart, but the old man holds to his idea."

That is why I will keep reading this silly book that has plagued me for 2 years. Because I know in my heart of hearts that Dostoyevsky is a genius and will give me glimpses into the human psyche that will be life changing.

Or maybe I'm giving him too much credit.

Alright, that's all for now. If anybody has even stuck around to the end of this hodgepodge post.

(PS. The picture that has been appearing throughout this post is by Elizabeth Leach. I just googled "hodgepodge" and it came up, but I really like her art work).

Broken Heat and Wishes for Snow.

I don't have much to say tonight. I don't know why I'm blogging...you won't find many deep thoughts here, just ramblings, my mind is tired.

Delilah is drifting through our tiny apartment. It's pretty amazing how many people call into her show...just wanting someone, anyone (including a perky radio host) to listen to what they are going through. Unfortunately for Delilah there is not a Christmas song to fit every caller's situation.

Speaking of, I love the comic Pearls Before Swine. This one pertains to the part about Delilah being "perky".



(You can check out more Pearls Before Swine here. I highly recommend it.)

Our apartment is incredibly cold, due to our heat not working. Last week our apartment got incredibly hot. The floors were hot--we think it was heat coming up from downstairs. This week we're freezing...maybe the people downstairs got hot too...Maybe we could just turn up our stove to it's 575 degree high. Unfortunately for us our apartment is not too cold for bugs, which have somehow infested our kitchen. Oh the joys of small apartment living in Northeast DC.

Sometimes Delilah gives bad advice.

We went home for Thanksgiving, which was fun. We ate lots of food (and we had the leftovers tonight...yum). The weekend consisted of a very short haircut (for me), Biscuitville with my sisters, playing "fetch" with Teddy (who, thanks to mom, is actually getting kind of good...well, better than he used to be, that's for sure), cutting down a Christmas tree in the mountains and over 17 hours of driving. We did give a talk at Mom and Dad T.'s Sunday School class. It went really well, and we had a good discussion.

I did a lot of Biblical justice and righteousness (um, same word in Hebrew and Greek, by the way) research before our talk on Sunday. I'm always amazed and comforted at how it is at the center of God's being. I'm still completely unaware of how to follow in those footsteps though...knowing I will never be able to do enough but yearning to do something and ever unsure how...

Speaking of, we had our "Thank you fellows" Polaris lunch today...the fellowship is almost over. I have no idea where I'm going from here...I guess that's not too big of a surprise, seeing as God tends to keep me in the dark about my life most of the time...I guess that's His style.

I started decorating for Christmas tonight. I'll post pictures later. Luke and I are trying to decide if we want to get a Christmas tree, even if we'll only have it for a couple of weeks before heading home. We both really want one...we'll see. Being a good steward is hard.

I don't really understand freedom very much. But I'm glad God uses analogies to compare our freedom from sins to a slave being set free. I think it shows how important freedom is to God. I think that's part of the reason why I want to be an abolitionist when I grow up...

I'm thinking of getting my Masters of Social Work and Law dual degree. The major problem with that is that I'm in love with Howard's MSW program...is it a complete shot in the dark to ask them to join their MSW and JD programs just for me?

There are lots of sirens in the city. I liked going home and to the mountains where I could breathe.

I love Luke a lot, but ultimetly what will make this marriage work is our ability to be patient with each other's quirks. Here's an example from when we went to get a Christmas tree:

I do love that man...even in a teal jacket and a camo hat with the flaps pulled down. And I'm thankful that he's patient with all of my crazy quirks too.

We got invited to a Christmas party where we have to memorize our favorite part of a Christmas movie. I think I'll memorize this (or another portion of the same movie):



I love Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.

Or this...



I also love Jimmy Stewart.

I was born in the wrong decade. They don't make movies like those anymore, that's for sure.

I think that's all for me tonight. 'Til next time, I'll be dreaming of a white Christmas.