And Now It's Monday

Long weekends often become to short when class becomes a huge component of your time. It's all good though, Braxton is endearing enough and my classmates amusing enough that time isn't too much of an issue. Oh, and on my lunch break I picked up a bag of this stuff and that made life that much more enjoyable. We sat in class watching the snow fall outside and checking the scores occasionally only to erupt in sheer joy and shock when this happened, although it really wouldn't be great if Vanderbilt ends up getting fined $25,000 for the students' display of excitement over the win. Oh well, probably won't put too much of a hurting on anyone's pockets around here.

So, it was a good weekend and not just because I made it through class but because I had a chance to relax for the first time in a week - took a trip out to REI to pick up my harness, enjoyed a quiet, snowy evening at Casey and Sara's playing Canasta, eating appetizer food that was originally meant for our Engagment Party which was cancelled due to the weather, and woke up for sunday school and church the next morning to a bright sunny day. I'm glad to be back in the swing of things at church, too. Cliff and I had kind of lost a connection point there, aside from our small group of friends and going to service, because of distance and and transition. We'd moved on from our old sunday school class (post-high/college) which has dissolved now anyways because of the NextGen ministry at TPC, and we didn't really know what to do next. If we're not doing anything more at church than going to service, instead of going to a class, serving, etc. then there's really no point to keep going.

However, we started visiting the Nearly/Newlyweds class and are really excited about a new community to be apart of. There's mostly married couples in there, but everyone's pretty young (mid twenties to early thirties) and are all very insightful, not just about scriptures about about marriage and relationships. They're just great and an incredible resource for our new season in life, and it seems like they all have a lot of fun together. Needless to say, we're looking forward to spending more time with our new class.

Yesterday we spent some time outdoors, which really was fantastic. We drove about forty minutes up to Clarksville to do some climbing out at King's Bluff which is just this incredible area with lots of routes overlooking the Cumberland River. I did two 5.8s yesterday - "Anchor Away" and "Community Effort" - and they were both pretty rough; I've never climbed on limestone before (I've only ever climbed outside once, remember, and it was granite) and it's just a whole different type of rock. It hurts a lot more and was definitely colder yesterday, even with the warmth of the day. I made it to the top of both though (with my climbing partners' coaching, of course), so that was nice. Aaron forgot to take pictures of me while I was climbing, but I have a couple of shots from the day that I will put up on my flickr account soon.

I look forward to weekends like you wouldn't believe, these days. Work is really cumbersome right now, which is why I don't do much but communicate by e-mail. So, that gets kind of old, I know, but it seems the last thing I want to do when I walk out of my office doors is answer a ringing phone. The quiet is so peaceful, as are the beautiful days we should be having the next week.

So, that's something to look forward to.
(Did I also mention I'm looking forward to spring break in two weeks?)