The holiday weekend

There's positives and negatives to a long weekend. Especially one made longer still by weather-related factors. On the one hand it's nice to have lots of free time. On the other hand, if you're not properly motivated/proactive there can be such a thing as too much free time. This may sound impossible to some of you, but by Monday afternoon I was actually looking forward to getting back to work. What I was I thinking?!?!

Thursday afternoon I was pretty much snowbound and you already read/saw some of my Friday adventures. On Sabbath I decided to visit the Arlington Church, which came with high praises by the associate youth director. Since my internal clock continues to tick on west coast time I opted for the latest of the three services, starting at 11:15. It was a pretty positive experience. They didn't bring me up to the front, ask for my life story and demand an explanation as to why I'm still singe so that's pretty good in my book.

Because of the first holiday this weekend the sermon was on love, and Song of Solomon in particular. He did bring up an excellent point about love. It's not just about hoarding the feelings/emotions you and a significant other share. It's about seeing and affirming love around you. As I think about the relationships in my life, the couples that make up my understanding of what it means to unite in a shared love,

I see great variety. I used to think all relationships/marriages were pretty much the same, and all perfect. I'm under no such illusions anymore. But I'm glad. I feel like there's something to be learned from each example around me. Not only that, but I have the absolute freedom to go completely off the map. To do things in a completely different way than any example around me. Anyways... I could continue this introspective tangent for a few thousand more words but I'll spare you for now.

After church I went exploring. This vast urban sprawl in north Texas is referred to as The Metroplex. It incorporates Dallas, Ft. Worth, Arlington and a host of other suburbs/smaller cities that have been swallowed up by the ever expanding development. Even DFW Airport seems bigger than most of Vancouver. Dallas and Ft. Worth each have their own distinct skyline, and on a day when it's not 27 degrees out I will look forward to photographing them. North Dallas also has some very upscale urban settings that I will probably shoot as well.

Saturday night I found my way to IKEA. My change of address packed from the post office contained a coupon and I couldn't wait to spend it... and then some. This post is going to get very long now. Onto the spoils of victory:










Click on any of the photos to see more on Flickr.

I actually ended up making another Ikea trip on Sunday. Mostly because there was still too much snow to golf and I wanted to get a shelving unit that I didn't think would fit into my car with all the other stuff. I should have taken a picture of that beast. It took over an hour and a whopping 76 wood pegs to assemble. But it's glorious.

Yesterday I headed out at around 10 to golf. The sun was blazing, but packing zero punch. The wind didn't help this either.

I've said before that it's brown here, but here's exactly what I mean:




Once I got past the color, the course actually played pretty well. I was fighting a pretty bad hook, and the wind didn't help that, but managed to score decently and survived a couple tough tests.

While thawing out from the round I did some more unpacking and a little laundry. It was Monday afternoon/evening when I literally ran out of things to do. Having a three-day weekend every week is certainly a blessing, but a four-day weekend is a bit excessive.