word...

Okay, so a quick word to my faithful readers whom I have so shamelessly left out to dry. I am sorry for the lack of posts. I really wish I had time to write these days, but life gets in the way. Here's my typical day: I am up at 5:30 (no, the sun is not out); I leave the house at 6:30 to be at work by 7:00; the kids show up between 7:30 and 7:50, aside from the stragglers; I am with the 18 little people until 2:00, at which time they depart; I stay at work until around 5:00 (some days I leave earlier, some days I stay later); I get home around 5:30; if it's Monday, Tuesday, or Thursday, I see my husband for a brief time before one or both of us is off to the next activity. Evenings that we are both home are cherished. PS, I don't have internet at home, so any potential posting would have to be done here at the school, and let's face it, after a 10-12 hour day, I don't want to hang around any longer. For those who have been missing my posts, I am thrilled to be missed and love that you actually still check up on this thing. Keep checking... you never know. In the mean time, drop me an email if you're thinking about me. I'm a little better at checking up on that!

Here's a sample of current life in 3rd grade:
4-digit numbers: reading them, using them, adding them, subtracting them.
plants: what their parts are, how they grow, what they need, how long it takes them to germinate
reading: it's a big deal. we do it a lot. big group, small group, individually, long books, short books, picture books, chapter books, text books, fiction, nonfiction, the whole shabang.
FCAT: yeah, we hate that word, but we hear it all the time.
writing (as in stories and paragraphs, etc): they're starting to get it. focus and structure is rare.

Anyway, that's life. My birthday is tomorrow. I'm gettin' old. I've finally hit the age where I'm asking for practical presents, if any. It's kind of sad. Married life is fantastic, my class is fantastic, and all-in-all, God is good to me. That's it. Peace.

new...

I'm married!! YAY! I don't have time for a long post because, once again, I'm sitting in my classroom writing, but I just wanted to let everyone know the new Mrs. Stone is back in town and loving married life. Things are slowly starting to come together for the teaching thing, too. This afternoon's meeting should probably calm my nerves about a few things (hopefully). I've been able to meet two other young, new teachers from my school who are really nice, so I'm looking forward to building some new friendships there. Anyway, that's all I'll write for now. I need to go figure out what I'm going to do with a room full of 3rd graders in one short week! Later. Take care.

-Meg Stone =)

this week...

I'm getting married on Friday! You couldn't possibly understand how excited I am about that! We got our marriage license this morning, and I'm not gonna lie, the thought definitely crossed our minds to go find a notary and get married today, but we decided that if we were gonna elope, we should have decided that months ago, and I'm not all about doing the 'fake' ceremony anyway. As far as wedding plans go, everything is falling into place nicely. The one big thing that was really giving me grief has been taken care of, so now it's really just all about waiting. I've got some little things to do on Wednesday and Thursday that will at least keep me busy, but not much to worry about.

You probably won't be hearing from me for a while again. I'm in my new classroom at the moment, taking some time to set a few things up. I don't currently have internet access at home, so the only posting or emailing I'll be doing will be when I'm here at school, for the most part. Friday's the wedding; we'll be gone for several days for the honeymoon in Savannah; then I'm back here mid-week for teacher training stuff; then we might take off again for the following weekend. Anyway, all that to say that even if you normally see Rob and I on a regular basis, we're going to be pretty much MIA for a while. Anyway, hope everyone is well. Take care, and keep us in your prayers.

grace and peace

randoms...

I've pretty much "cleaned out my desk", so to speak. I took home all the random personal belongings (cups, hot chocolate, etc.) that I had accumulated here at work yesterday, and today I've gone through and deleted any personal files I had saved on my computer.

I'm drinking Dr. Pepper. That's rare for me. I pretty much stick to Diet Coke, but I don't have any for now, and I was needing some caffeen (that's not how you spell that, is it?). This is what was in the fridge here at work.

I will be unemployed for the majority of July. I'm working here Monday, and I will technically work two days at the end of the month at the school, but other than that, I will be unemployed, and consequently a bit poor.

I forgot to fix anything for lunch today (as I am low on funds, I'm trying to be good about bringing my lunch to work) so I threw some tortillas and some turkey sandwich meat in a bag and brought it with me. I'll find some lettuce and dressing in the fridge and make some sort of creation out of it. It should be interesting. I was creative last night for dinner, too, although it was Mexican, and all Mexican food is the same basic ingredients, so you can't really mess it up. It turned out good.

Rob and I have the final session of our pre-marriage counseling tonight. That has gone well. More than anything, it gives you stuff to think/talk about that you may have otherwise not thought of. And the people doing it are really nice, so that's been cool.

This weekend should be relatively relaxed. We are being given another wedding shower, but other than that, there's not any huge plans, which is awesome. I am looking forward to some time to relax. Tuesday is the 4th, which I'm also looking forward to. This will be my first 4th of July in St. Augustine, as I realized the other night.

Okay, I'm out of randomness to talk about, so I'll end here. Have a fantastic day.

old and new...

I am inching my way toward the end of my last full week at my current job. I will also work Monday of next week and hopefully be paid for the holiday on Tuesday, but this is my last full week, and I could not be more excited about not having to answer phones any more. I work for good people, and I have a good office environment, but what I actually do is by no means my dream job. I should be able to get into my classroom some time after Wednesday of next week to begin setting up, hopefully sooner rather than later. Each room is made available on an individual basis, and we are to keep checking the website to find out when ours is available, which is slightly frustrating, but it'll all work out. As I was looking at the website this morning, I came across the list of all the teachers for the upcoming school year, 27 of whom are new hires, and I was excited to see that all grades between 2 and 6 had at least two male teachers. (Probably half of them were newly hired.) That's pretty rare! At RB Hunt where I interned, the only two male teachers in the entire school were the music teacher and the PE teacher.

I started the process of filling out my new employee paperwork this morning. There's a bunch of forms I had to do, and I have to go in for an appointment to do a drug test and fingerprints and more paperwork. [Speaking of fingerprints, my one complaint is that the county hasn't developed a system where they keep fingerprints on file, so if you are hired more than once for the county (eg: as a sub and then as a teacher) you have to have your fingerprints done each time... costing you $61.] I'll also have to attend a Human Resources Orientation to discuss various aspects of my employment (benefits, worker's comp, etc.). Then, of course, there's the actual school orientation meetings that I'll do during our pre-planning week. It's busy, but it's also exciting.

Some advice: Don't plan on getting married between the time you interview/are hired for a job and the actual starting date (if you're a female especially). Do the marriage first if you have the option. It will save you having to fill out your paperwork twice! Getting married and getting the job are both, by all means, worth whatever trouble the double paperwork is, but not doing it twice would be nice, too. Just a thought. Take the advice, if it applies.

Grace and peace.
God is good!

kids in the hall...





These are the photos hanging in the hallway of our new place. I was pleased with how they turned out. I told Rob that if his room-mates wanted to have a photo session so that they could be represented in our home as well, we could work that out.

heck yeah...

I am now officially a 3rd grade teacher!!! I went to an interview yesterday at Mill Creek Elementary and they called me this morning and offered me the job! I'm pretty stinkin' excited. God is so good!

days go by...

(That reminds me of the theme song from "Step by Step" from watching TGIF throughout my childhood.) I know everyone is probably sick of me posting with numeric titiles representing the days left until my wedding (it's 32, if you're wondering) but that's realistically all that's on my mind these days. Besides trying to get a teaching job. In an overall sense, the days of the countdown are really flying by. That's not to say that there aren't plenty of times when we're both like "holy crap, can't we just be married already" because there are. I guess it's been in the past week though that I've really been hit by the idea that I'm getting married in just over a month. No doubt I'm looking forward to it immensely, and I'm not "freaking out" or anything, but this is the first time that I've started to get mildly panicky about all the planning stuff. I guess I'm not panicky yet, but I do have the feeling that I may be soon. Getting final head counts; nailing down details about the cake; arranging for everything (flowers, cake, chairs) to be delivered on the day-of, which mostly means assigning tasks to various friends; praying that flowers are delivered on time; etc. Anyway, I just got a phone call about an interview, so I have to go take care of some things. Pray for God's will!

grace and peace!

furnished...

Aside from a precautionary trip to the emergency room in the morning, yesterday was a pretty fantastic day. Rob and I had both taken the day off for our furniture to be delivered, but to explain the emergency room part, Rob went to the emergency room first thing yesterday morning to make sure he was okay after waking up with chest pains. The pains didn't last, but we stayed and had him checked out, just to be safe. He's pretty much good to go. I told him he had gas. When we were finally able to leave at noon, we went home to find our furniture waiting for us. Rob cooked a great breakfast and we spent the next few hours setting up our new stuff. I left Rob to put together the final piece on his own while I painted a canvas to hang in our kitchen. It was my attempt at mimicking some paintings we both enjoy at one of the local galleries. My version is very elementary, but it works for now. After drying, the painting was hung, the house was cleaned, and we enjoyed some time in the pool. We took a trip to Pier 1, which is a great store, to pick up a few accessories for the living room, and then we had Holly and Kyle over for dinner, as I had cooked my first-ever pot-roast. It turned out pretty well, I think. Rob kept telling me it was aweful in an attempt to get me to stop eating so he could have the rest of mine, but other than that, the response from everyone was a good one. There's lots of things, like pot-roast, that I understand the concept of how to cook, and I am capable of cooking it okay, but I'll have to try it several times before I get everything exactly how I like it. I'd like to mess around with different seasonings and stuff to see what gives it the most flavor because it's easy just to cook most things, but the "art" of it is giving it a great flavor. As I've only ever had to cook for myself up until this point, I haven't done a lot of very "involved" cooking. Dishes have been small and simple, for the most part, because you can't really do most things in small quantities. Anyway, so that's my cooking tangent. I guess I'm just really looking forward to having the opportunity to cook more and to cook a wider variety of stuff. And luckily, I have a cool kitchen to cook in, as well.

So that's really all I have to say for now. I know it was random and rather pointless, but I just felt like writing about the happenings of yesterday. Here's a question for you: what's your favorite meal? If you give me your answer, and if you come to my house at some point, I might just make it for you!

grace and peace

This isn't my best look, but I like this picture anyway.

magnification...

God is glorified in my weakness. I was reading 2 Corinthians 4 today, as I missed it Sunday morning in Bible study, and I understood that concept a little bit more today. The commentary I read said:

The treasure of gospel light and grace is put into earthen vessels. The ministers of the gospel are subject to the same passions and weaknesses as other men. God could have sent angels to make known the glorious doctrine of the gospel, or could have sent the most admired sons of men to teach the nations, but he chose humbler, weaker vessels, that his power might be more glorified in upholding them, and in the blessed change wrought by their ministry.

God's grandure is magnified in my insignificance because by doing great things through an otherwise incapable tool it is made evident that it is some power outside of said tool doing the work. The saw and hammer and even the nails are not what builds a house; rather, it is the builder himself. And with the knowledge that all saws and hammers and nails are relatively equal, the skill of the individual builder is made all the more evident because it is clear that it is not the supurb quality of the tools that makes a given house more impressive than the next, but rather the skill of the builder. I don't know if that analogy makes sense to anyone else, but it works for me. I'm no better a hammer than the next, but the Builder Who uses me is amazingly talented, so the finished product is pretty impressive. For that matter, I (the hammer) have no room to brag on the finished product, as I had no control over it whatsoever. The successful outcome can only be attributed to the Builder.

Random analogy of the day concluded.

38...

That's the number of days till I'm married! 38! Barely over a month! I'm so unbelievably excited. Rob and I start our pre-marriage counseling tonight, which I'm not going to lie, I'm not really all that excited about. I understand that it's a good idea for people to receive some guidance before they get married, and I have no doubt that it will in some way benefit Rob and myself, but I sort of feel like they're going to explain to us a bunch of things that Rob and I have already worked through on our own. I think we have a fairly strong and healthy relationship in pretty much every area, we've learned how to work through problems together and deal with our differences, so for as arrogant as this sounds, I feel like the counseling may be a little pointless for us. But we're going regardless, and like I said, I'm sure we'll learn something in the end. It is a little funny to me though that we're starting our counseling sessions one month before the wedding. You would think that would have been done sooner. The counselors took forever to get back with us though, so here we are, 38 days out and just now starting. In the event that we're horribly incompatible and advised not to marry, I'm curious to know if they plan to foot the bill for the things that have already been paid for the wedding?? Hmmm?? I'm kidding, obviously. One of the cool things about mine and Rob's relationship is the enormous amount of support from those who know us. I think practically every person we know at one time or another has commented on how well we compliment each other or how well we work together as a couple, which is a huge encouragement to me to be even more confideint in the fact that this is the exact will of God for us. I don't think we've ever been told "Gosh, you guys seem like an odd match"! Even people who only know one of us, or who don't really know either of us, have told us that we fit each other well. That's cool to me.

On another note, we should have furniture in our living room tomorrow!!! I can't tell you how happy I am about that! Not having a couch is getting old. Until now, we have only had one relatively comfortable chair and one folding butterfly-chair that sort of swallows you whole when you sit in it, with our tv sitting on top of a milk crate. The tv will remain in the same condition for now, but at least we'll be able to sit comfortably to watch it. We haven't so much as rented a movie since I moved in because of the furniture situation. And of course, the first weekend that that is a possibility, Rob will be out of town. So the girls might be invited over on Saturday for a movie so I don't wind up spending the entire weekend alone. I've learned that I have to make plans to be social, otherwise I just wind up falling off the face of the earth into my hermit-like existance. While I don't usually mind the anti-social life, I know it's not always healthy. And I've quickly realized from living alone how easy it is for me to fall out of touch with everyone. So as much of a chore as it can be for me, I'm trying to remain a part of "the group."

Rob and I had another wedding shower last Saturday, thanks to which we have plates to eat off of and more than two cups in the cabinets! It's really amazing how generous everyone has been to us. We are very thankful.

Anyway, so that's all for now. I didn't get the job at Hartley, so the wait for job interviews continues. I know something will come along, I just hope it's soon.

38 days.......

liturgy and freedom of expression...

My good friend Quinn (with whom, along with his wonderful wife Shelly, Rob and I have the pleasure of hanging out tonight) posted a link to an interesting article on Liturgy yesterday. There are some good points in the article, no doubt, but I think I would have to disagree with the overall opinion behind it. The article starts with a quote from an interview with Garrison Keillor, and that's probably the part of the article that I most sympathize with. It makes reference to individuals who make a habit of saying big, showy prayers in a corporate setting. I have known such individuals and have been in such situations where this takes place, and it's one of those things that nearly makes me sick. It's exactly what Jesus warns against when He tells us not to pray as the Pharisees pray, speaking loudly on street-corners, using fancy language, all for the purpose of impressing people. This can hardly even be considered prayer; it's merely a public speech. Anyway, like I was saying, this is the part of the article that I'm totally on-board with. Keillor's preference, in consequence to this idea, is in favor of liturgy because it avoids the possibility of individuals taking pride in their own speech. Liturgical speech is not one's own words, therefore no one can boast in it. This is a great concept, and to this point, I'm still totally behind it. The writer of the article, who I believe goes by Al, continues on to divulge his personal opinion in support of this idea. First, let me say that I am not in any way against the idea of using liturgy. I think it's great, and it definitely provides things that can be lacking in non-liturgical settings. My issue with this article, however, is that Al makes it sound as though liturgy is the only appropriate form of speech to use in corporate worship settings, and that personal or inspired speech should be left out all together. This idea I cannot get behind. I completely understand the idea that when using "personal" non-liturgical speech in any public setting, there is the risk of the speaker becoming self-focused rather than focusing on the Spirit of God, but I do not believe that this presence of risk is reason enough to outlaw the use of non-liturgical speech all together. I believe there is definitely a place for liturgical speech within worship settings, but I also believe that God has created us each differently, and with different gifts. We are all members of the same body, but we are, in fact, different members (i.e. foot, hand, mouth, etc.) I believe some people are given the gift of being able to speak well, and put ideas into words so that those ideas are easily or effectively communicated to a group. If these same individuals are allowing their speech to be directed by the Spirit of God, there can be great benefit in the words they say. I believe to use solely liturgical speech would cause us to miss out on these benefits. In the article, Al makes the point that our own personal words are not adequate, and that when we use personal speech we deem our vocabulary to be sufficient. While he is right in the fact that our words are not sufficient, I don't believe you can say with any more truth that the liturgical words are sufficient. They may not be our own words, but they are still human. I don't believe there is any combination of any words in any human language that is "sufficient," regardless of who puts the words together.

I could keep going on and comment on every point the article makes, but I'll end it here. This gets the main point across. I guess ultimately what I came away with from reading and thinking about this article is the idea that Rob and I have talked a lot about in recent weeks: all of creation is broken. Nothing we do will ever fulfill the perfect worship that God deserves because we are broken by nature. Consequently, even our worship is broken. We will never get every detail exactly right. And that's okay. I think what is more important than getting all the details right is having the right heart in whatever you do. As long as your heart is desiring to please and worship God to the best of your ability in whatever you are doing, I think that's what matters. Someone whose name I can't remember (maybe a saint or someone like that) once said something to the effect of "God, I don't exactly know how to please You, but I think that my wanting to please You pleases You." That's what I think. I believe God sees through the outside stuff to our hearts and our motivating desires. So in whatever way you feel led to worship God, take inventory of what your bottom-line desire is. Are you striving to please God as best you know how, or are you trying to make yourself look good or just do what's comfortable? Whichever it is, be honest about it. God likes honesty.

God is faithful...

I mean that on multiple levels this morning. Not only is it just a generically true statement, it is also something I am learning a lot about these days. First of all, God constantly reveals His faithfulness in my life. Constantly. I have an amazing soon-to-be husband whom I love and who loves me. (The interesting paradox about that is that I love him more than I could ever imagine, yet I love him more and more each day.) God has given us an incredible home, the provisions for which still blow me away. I have a fabulous community of believers around me, and a wonderful church. I am blessed with a decent-paying job, as well as prospects of a "career" in the near future. My family and soon-to-be family are amazingly supportive. Overall, my life is just cram-packed full of blessings because of God's faithfulness to me. What's even more interesting, or valuable to learn I guess, is that God's faithfulness is NOT dependent upon my faithfulness. I am horribly unfaithful to God in certain areas of my life, yet His faithfulness never changes. There never comes a point when God says, "Well Meg, you've let me down too many times, so I'm not going to be active in your life for a while." It's a good thing, too, because I fear I would find myself in that place far too often if that's how it worked. Holly spoke last night at Fusion on the importance of being in the Word, which was seriously convicting for me because that is the area where I have been struggling the most with faithfulness lately. A point she brought up (as did Rob during worship) was that rather than abusing the grace that God shows us, His grace compells us to serve Him more and draw closer to Him. That's how I feel. I realize that God's faithfulness does not change despite my lack thereof; yet rather than being like "well okay, I guess it really doesn't matter what I do," I am instead compelled to be more faithful because of His unchanging faithfulness. So I determined last night before I went to bed that I was getting up this morning without hitting the snooze so that I could have time for my quiet time. This morning I read in Nehemiah 9, which was amazingly appropriate. The whole chapter is the nation (people) of Israel collectively confessing their sin before God. The whole chapter, if summarized, goes something like this: "God, we sinned against You, yet You did not forsake us. We sinned against You again, and You did not forsake us. We sinned against You, and You, because of Your grace, did not forsake us. We sinned against You, and because You are a God of mercy and love and grace, and You are slow to anger, You did not forsake us. We sinned against You again, and You did not forsake us." The whole thing just reminded me of myself. Every day I let God down. I fail to keep the commitments I make to Him. I fall short. Yet, because of His grace and mercy and love and kindness, and because He is slow to anger, and because His faithfulness never changes, He does not forsake me. And that makes me want to serve Him more.

progressing...

If you haven't heard by other means, I have an interview at Hartley Elementary tomorrow morning. Hartley is the school where I worked earlier this year, and I really loved being there. It's also in my neighborhood, which is an added bonus, in the event that I get a job there. Pray for God's will in the interview!

morning...

sun bright and sky sapphire blue. clouds hug eastern horizon for warmth like I hug morning blankets, deciding whether to face the day or merely lounge. golden rays urge puffs of white to come out from hiding. “time to get up,” says sun to clouds, says sun to me. the earth awakes. the earth is reborn. the day begins.

happy friday...

I would love to say that this is about to be a post chock-full of insightful writings and things of great interest, but unfortunately, that is just not the case. I feel like writing, although I have nothing really to say, so I'll just give the general update of what's going on in my life. Monday was a holiday, so this was a short work week, which was really nice. Today marks the end of my first week in the condo, which is absolutely glorious. Being there, however, reminds me of how "anti-social" I am. Not "anti-social" meaning that I hate people or anything; it's just that I seem to thrive or refule when I'm able to be on my own. I guess that's only the case when I have things to keep me busy though (unpacking, organizing, etc.), because when I'm alone and have nothing to do I get lonely pretty easily. I think I most enjoy mornings to myself. I like having the whole place to myself in the mornings so I can turn on lights and make noise as I please withouth having to be concerned if I'm waking anyone up. And I have to admit, I like the freedom of walking around half-dressed when I feel like it. Although I haven't met him, I think Donald Miller and I have similar personalities. In Blue Like Jazz he writes that he lives in community because he knows it's healthy for him. He would be perfectly fine being alone all the time, but he knows it's healty to be around people sometimes, so he makes a conscious choice to do so. That's me. I could probably be perfectly content without human contact for extended periods of time (execpt Rob), but that's probably not the healthiest thing for me, so I sometimes force myself to partake in social activities. Yesterday, however, was one of those days where it was better for me to have some alone time. I was sort of feeling it all day, and when a severe sinus headache was thrown into the mix, I knew it was best for me to stay home last night. So I skipped out on Fusion and organized the spare room instead (I have a lot of stuff).

Today is finally Friday, and while it was a short work week, it has been a busy one, so today's arrival is much enjoyed. I am looking forward to a relaxed evening to start off the weekend. Tomorrow I am very excited that I will be able to sleep in. There's no painting to do, no unpacking, no putting together of furniture, nothing. Last weekend I was up at 6:30 twice and 7:15 once, putting my new home together. I enjoyed it, but I am also planning to enjoy a lazier morning tomorrow. When I do finally wake up, I will probably take a long bath, as that is an option afforded to me at my new place. Rob's mom, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew will be coming into town around lunch time, so we will have lunch, let them check out the condo, and then caravan up to Jacksonville for a wedding shower at my parents' house, for which I am super excited (free stuff!). We will then make the trip back to St. Augustine where I'm sure Rob and I will have fun unloading all our new goodies. Ms. Barbi will stay at the condo with me, and Megan, Truman, and Scott will stay with friends Jacob and Erin. And then Sunday resumes the usual weekend activities: church, Bible study, lunch, frisbee, meeting.

That's all my news for now. Have a fantastic weekend!

a hero...

What does it take to be considered a hero? That's the question that was in my mind as I watched and read several news articles on cnn.com today. One article was concerning a former Marine who defended himself against a group of robbers who attacked him on the street. Someone was quoted in the article refering to him as a hero. He wasn't a hero! He kept himself from being killed! There's a big difference to me. "Hero" gives me the idea of someone doing something very risky for the benefit of someone else. I don't think a natural defense mechanism counts as heroic. Even better was the article about that race horse with the broken leg... Barbaro. They called the jockey a hero for slowing down, which supposedly "saved the horse's life." Okay, so even if it did save the horse's life because the guy slowed down, it's a horse! Don't get me wrong, I love animals and everything, but I still think it's pushing it to call the saving of an animal life "heroic." Then there was the story about the fire fighter who rescued a cat from the roof of a three-story home that was on fire. The word "hero" was not specifically used in this article, but you know someone was thinking it. Saving a cat. How cliche. At least there was a fire involved and the people were taken care of first. The headline story for CNN today was about military groups in Congo brutally raping women. A hero would be someone who went into this situation determined to make a difference for the protection of these women, no matter the personal sacrifice it would take. Someone willing to risk their life to defend those who are helpless, to fight this injustice. (*Marilyn's voice in my head*) That's a hero. Not a cat-rescuer, or a horse racer, or even someone who defended themself.

Okay, sorry to sound so accusing and pesimistic about the news today, but that was my prevailing thought as I was reading today. What are your thoughts on heros?

home sweet home...

So I'm all moved in to the new place, and it is glorious! I worked my butt off all weekend, moving stuff and unpacking and putting furniture together and painting, but it's so worth it. I love love love the condo, and I've enjoyed having the weekend to myself and being able to spread out and organize my stuff the way I want. Rob will be home today, so he'll finally get to see the place with furniture in it. (Well, the bedroom has furniture. The living room is still pretty barren.) I miss him like crazy! A week is a long time not to see each other!

This is the view from our place. Pretty cool, huh? You should see the sunrise here. It's amazing!



Our bedroom was my "project" this weekend. It started off a lavander-purple, and we were given permission to paint it, so I took advantage of the opportunity. I'm really excited about how it turned out. The picture doesn't really do it justice.



So if you're ever in St. Augustine, call me and you can come hang out at what I believe to be the coolest condo in the city. Maybe I'm a little bias.

reading...

"Summer," he said to me once, "drop some of them bricks you keep hauling around with you. Life just ain't that heavy."

--Missing May by Cynthia Rylant