7 Quick Takes: Swinging, Praying, and Playing

Back again for 7 quick takes. Hope everyone had a great week!

1) Swinging
Last weekend, Bogdan and I decided to go to the playground next to our house. At 11 p.m. It was a cool(er) night and we walked up and started swinging. We had a competition to see who could get the highest, but due to an absence of an impartial judge, there was no clear winner. We've grown accustomed to going to sleep pretty early, so it's always fun to walk around Frederick late at night and see how alive it is. There are a lot of people out at the time. It's actually quite fun. Too bad we're not college students anymore.

2) St. Peregrine Novena
For the past week, I've been praying the St. Peregrine Novena with my sister. It's funny how you can read a prayer every single day, and then one random day a sentence just sticks out and glares at you. In this case, it was just a part of a sentence: "...you answered the divine call with a ready spirit, and forsook all the comforts of a life of ease and all the empty honors of the world to dedicate yourself to God..." Foresaking a life of ease, that seems like a pretty tough thing to do. I definitely need to pray about that one.

3) Frederick Festival of the Arts
I'm super excited about this weekend. It's the Frederick Festival of the Arts. I can't remember if we've ever attended this before (I don't think so), but it looks awesome. Basically about 100 artists line Carroll Creek with booths to showcase and sell their art (jewelry, pottery, woodwork, etc.) and they don't charge admission. Score. Add to that, it's "First Saturday" so that means the shops will stay open late and it will be a packed downtown. Love that.

4) 1.5 Liter Wine
We bought our first bottle of 1.5 liter wine. And it was good. And cheap. Bob has a ton of 1.5 liters in his shop and loves the fact that there's two bottles of wine in one big bottle. He's urged us to get one, but we've been a little shy, thinking that the magnum bottle is a little too college party for us. But we tasted one this weekend, and bought it. For $12. Fun! We also tried another, a malbec, that we'll be sure to buy when we have visitors. So we don't have to worry about running out of wine.

5) Family, yall!
I'm really excited about this summer because it's going to be a summer-of-family. We just got to see my Uncle Charles and Aunt Felicia last night for dinner, and it seems like we're scheduled to see a ton of family in the next month or so. We're making a trip to Ukraine soon to see Bogdan's family. And then we're having my mom's family reunion next month. Can't wait to see everyone!

6) Folklife Festival
During our dinner last night, my aunt was telling us about the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. They used to live in the area (before moving to Colorado!) and they went to the festival every year. They said it's one of the neatest things to do, so I found some more info on it. It looks like a good time, maybe we'll try to take a trip to DC for it? It's June 24-28 and July 1-5.

7) New Navigation for the blog
I recently discovered the "Pages" option for blogger.com. Basically you can create static pages and link to them at the top of your blog (like an about me page). Maybe this is old news, but let me tell you I had so much fun coming up with my pages. Check up top and see the different pages I created. My personal favorite is the "Why Frederick?" page. I did a Frederick in four seasons photo montage, and realized I have very few summer pictures of our city. I will try to rectify that this weekend at the arts festival. The picture on the left is my all time favorite Frederick picture.