Silence Spoken Here

Finally! The post everyone has been waiting for! The news everyone wants!

Did Lindsey survive her first ever Silent Retreat?

Yes. I am actually capable of keeping my mouth shut. Granted, I spent most of the 7 hour car rides there and back with it open, but honestly who can blame me for that?

The retreat was… incredible. The location… perfect. The monks at the Abbey of Gethsemani are in a word, adorable. Check out their website, although I warn you, it's not very well designed. We prayed the Liturgy of the Hours with them 7 times a day, chanting the Psalms in alternating sides. They had a sign in the elevator: "Retreatants, when singing with the monks, a bit lower on the Volume and pick up the pace a bit." I think the monks have perfected the talent of singing without opening their mouths, it was sometimes very difficult to tell which side was singing and therefore when to join in yourself. I finally found a monk with a beard that wiggled when he sang, and I used him for the rest of the weekend as my test monk.

I spent a lot of time hiking around their awesome woods and fields. I even sketched a bit! They had an awesome pair of statues up in a little glade representing the Apostles sleeping in the garden and about 50 feet up the path was a beautiful statue of Jesus praying in agony. Very beautiful and moving. The atmosphere of the place is very conducive to prayer and I've been keeping the spirit of the retreat in my morning prayer times (that I've resurrected! hoorah!) I can't wait to go back.

The Abbey:


The Agony in the Garden:

"Her Uncle is in trade and lives in Cheapside…"

Yes, Donal and I live in Cheapside. Well, not exactly, but that's going to be my new name for the apartment complex known as "Aspen Chase". Such an elegant name. It's vaguely sketchy and very affordable. The latter feature outweighs the former in value, hence our occupancy. For the worry-warts amongst my readers (Mother…) don't be frightened for us, we keep a baseball bat by the door. Seriously it looks like this.

Just kidding, it's not that bad. There aren't skulls all over the ground.

Our apartment itself is actually pretty adorable. It was very exciting to paint the place. I picked out swatches (Donal's only input was "no purple") and paint. We got a nice dark red, a happy yellow, an warm almond tan and… a light blue?

Well, we decided to risk it and save money and get one can of Mis-Tint paint. Mis tints are wonderful because they're still nice paint, just not exactly the color that Mrs. Jane McSizemorehan had in mind for the front foyer by the swimming pool. At Lowe's, under their lights, the blob on the top of the paint can matched my blue swatch perfectly. I mean Pantone Coated, TruMatch, RGB, HSV, CMYK… perfect. Imagine my surprise then when I put my brush to the wall and found the color to be… well… not entirely blue. In fact, I would say there was a lot of yellow in there. So much in fact that the color could safely be called Green. And not really a subtle, soft Green. This was neon green. The living room glowed. My mother expressed doubts. Lauren raised eyebrows. Nora said "Oooohhhh… this looks… nice…?" Maryn said "Maybe it will dry darker?" I said "Blue????" You'll be relieved to know that the addition of dark shelves and furniture has significantly mellowed the green walls. I must admit I'm quite fond of our Five Buck "Blue". With our dark brown IKEA shelves and tables the living room really does look like Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream.

Perhaps if I can ever figure out our digital camera, or get batteries for it, I'll put some pictures up.

I'm back for good

This is just a quick post to say that I'll be back to blogging. "You're calling to say you're calling?"

I feel awful for leaving my reader(s) in the lurch since August, and I now feel like I have plenty of material in life to blog about. I think if an excuse were to be made for my silence, it would be that I came back home and the majority of my readers were near me or married to me (ok, that's just one reader). I now have two sisters in Spain and a brother in the Coast Guard, so this blog will return to its original purpose of informing those I love about my life. That said, I apologize if I still allow long lapses between posts. I'm sure I'll be better about it once we get the Inter-tubes at the Apartment.

Ah yes, the Apartment and its environs will be a steady source of blog material. Much like cow can be always counted upon to poop. Sorry, you do remember this is Lindsey's blog, and the mention of poop is not exactly an unlikely occurrence.

Until next post… "arrivederci Charlie."