#2,023 Rainy Lazy Beach Day.

The days of my adult life in which I had nothing to do, nowhere to be, and a few days to do it at my disposal have been so few, I’m never sure how to get my arms around them.  Rumbling thunder woke me up at 8:00 this morning, but the sound of the rain lulled me immediately back to sleep. When I got out of bed at 9, I found that my parents had packed up and headed on back to Laurel to beat the holiday traffic, and we were left with an empty, quiet house and the rain pouring down. All. Day. Long.

I believe this is the very definition of a lazy, wonderful day. There was a break in the rain for just a little while mid-morning so I put on my daddy’s fishing rain jacket and we took a long, long walk down the beach in the misty, overcast, windy haze. The air smelled so salty and damp, and it made me wish I could capture it and create a candle that smells like actual ocean and rain. You know, those ocean candles never smell like the actual ocean. Wouldn’t it be great if it could?

We went back as the clouds came closer to us and the rain started to fall again, and made grilled cheese sandwiches and grilled vegetables at home. We were flipping channels and came across Cinderella Man, and we were good as comatose. It’s one of our very favorite movies that we can’t turn off if it’s on. Later, we took showers and went to the movie theater in the drizzling rain to watch Me, Earl and the Dying Girl, which was sweet and poignant, but sadder than I would’ve liked. The only thing to offset a sad movie is great food, and we shared meatballs and salad at Cafe Grazie, overlooking the harbor. In all my growing up years of coming here, somehow we’ve never been to this wonderful Italian spot. How is that possible? I have an amazing red sauce detector!

We spent dinner discussing how the week we met we knew we would always be together. It felt too easy to be ourselves and be together. And I’m so thankful for a Father who puts the right people in our lives at the right time, I’m grateful that we share our career and all the tedious working hours and late nights, side by side, and infinitely grateful that we can share and appreciate slow, quiet days like this one together, too. We don’t deserve any of the grace He gives. It’s overwhelming.