Cute Couples, Baltimore, Home Decor

Well dear me, it has been many moons since I last wrote.  I hope that my last post wasn't depressykins. That was definitely not the point. I think a lesson that I'm continually learning in my life is that the challenges that undoubtedly come in life are always unexpected.  You don't always know what you're going to struggle with and you won't always have a perfect solution that will resolve everything right away.  But you can learn, be grateful and grow closer to God in any situation where you find yourself.

Here is an attempt to do some sort of updating in regards to life on the east coast....here we go!

I work for a pair of Endocrinologists.  It's nothing super swanky but there are details that I love.  For instance, just because I work in the hospital, I have frequent interactions with a variety of elderly people.  My favorites are the cute little couples that come in for their appointments together.  I love asking them how long they've been married.  Some still genuinely smile at each other and laugh together.  It's cute.  They make Nicholas Sparks look like silly. haha  One of my favorite little couples got out to the waiting room after their appointment and each helped the other put their coats back on, the husband handed his wife her scarf and thanked each other for the small but thoughtful gestures.  Darling.  I love that after all these years, they still look for opportunities to help each other and both genuinely (and audibly) appreciate it.  So so cute.

I have a friend out here named Sarah.  We originally met 5 years ago when I went on my study abroad to Paris.  I knew of her and we both liked each other back then...but didn't really hang out that much at the time.  Quite literally 5 years of radio silence later, we happened to run into each other out here and have been playing nonstop ever since.  She's been a life saver and is nothing but a good time.  Hence my selfish sadness upon learning that she scored a killer cool job in Uruguay and will be moving there this summer.  I'm so happy for her and she completely deserves it...but I'm selfishly ticked that my life won't have her geographically in it anymore.  So we've created a bucket list of things to do before she goes.  One of which, was visiting Baltimore:

I obviously have nothing but good feelings for all things Italian.  So it didn't take me long to google the nearest "Little Italy" to my zip code and get myself there.  I loved Baltimore.  Granted I spent just one Saturday afternoon in the area but that one afternoon did not disappoint!  We just did silly things.

Grabbed some hot chocolate, walked through a book store, I purchased a Ryan Gosling coloring book for one of my best friends (why would I not invest in such a clearly genius purchase?!  haha Seriously one of the most hilarious things I've ever seen.), walked around the harbor, and wandered around in search of Little Italy.  We walked around for an almost embarrassing amount of time, had to ask several people, the PTSD part of me (thanks to some choice incidents in Uganda haha) was nervous in some areas where we were walking, but we finally spotted an Italian flag and had made it!

 It's a cute, quaint little area with restaurants, darling housing, gelato and pastries.  Yes, it's a happy little land.  In fact, I've heard that in the summer time they have outdoor movies on Fridays and watch Italian films projected on one of the buildings.  You guessed it, that too is on my bucket list.  Yep.  It's happening.


In other news, I've been in the process of decorating my room for a while now.  I've been wanting to make a picture collage on my wall with different sized, shape and color frames...with shutters mixed in. I dunno, in my mind throwing shutters in there is a subtle way of expressing my love of Italy.  My aunt had the brilliant idea to go to a thrift store to buy frames.  So I actually had a date that wanted to accompany me to one of these thrift stores.  I embarrassingly acquired mass amounts of frames and shamelessly arranged them on the ground deciding which were my favorites.  Here is the loot:

 After the paint job:

I've been slowly acquiring shutters and was soo exciting to finally give them a fresh coat of paint.

 I'm still not quite finished...but here's what I have so far:

After years of watching home decorating shows, it's been fun to finally have a space of my own to decorate.  It's coming together slowly but surely.  There's something awfully satisfying about taking a room that was originally a sickly version of white and add color and life to it.

In other news my roommate found out that I am shamefully uneducated in Julie Andrews films.  She found out that I haven't seen "Marry Poppins" or "Sound of Music" and now I quite literally have random people approach me in church or send me texts exclaiming their curiosity (and secret disappointment) that I haven't seen some of the classics.  Apparently, even her coworkers now know that she has a roommate that has never seen the Sound of Music.  My apologies.  I need to be a better human being clearly.

There's more to say but I'll save it for another day.  I have potentially big news coming up but I want to wait until it's official before I spill it.  Give me a week and I'll get back with you.  Lots of love from Virginia.  Til next post!