Posted on by Katie

Dream On

Day’s Verse:
Summing up: Be agreeable, be sympathetic, be loving, be compassionate, be humble. That goes for all of you, no exceptions. No retaliation. No sharp-tongued sarcasm. Instead, bless—that’s your job, to bless. You’ll be a blessing and also get a blessing.
1 Peter 3:8-9ish

Maybe it’s a cop-out to talk about the weather, but I think people like talking about it in general because it’s a relevant shared experience: We can all relate to weather. It has a tangible effect on our lives. We all have opinions about weather. Oh, and of course when talking about weather we get to express an opinion, so there’s no right or wrong. It’d be absurd to say, “No, you’re wrong, a sunny day is no good.” Continue Reading >>

Posted on by Katie · 1 Comment

In which I, too, talk about the weather

Day’s Verse:
…all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open. Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7:12

Here’s the view out our bedroom window this morning.
2011-07-21 Weather
I’m not trying to jump on the “whining about Seattle’s pathetic summer weather” bandwagon because I’ve been riding that wagon in person for a while already now, if not on this blog. You can’t tell, but there are rain drops on the window. Frankly, it’s depressing. We don’t get much nice weather around here anyway, and all winter we console ourselves: “Yes, we’ve got 9 months of heavy overcast, minimal daylight, and frequent rain. But the summer makes up for it by being so pretty!” Continue Reading >>

Posted on by Katie · 3 Comments

Numbers I’ve Never Seen Before

Day’s Verse:
Live wisely and wisdom will permeate your life;
mock life and life will mock you.
Proverbs 9:12

…at least not when I’m standing on a bathroom scale. Here’s me on the scale in regular clothes before the backpack:
112 lbs

Here’s what Ian described as “heavy reading,” my backpacking backpack crammed full of 85 Traffic Skills 101 student manuals to deliver to the Bicycle Alliance:
Heavy reading

And here’s me on the scale wearing the backpack:

Gosh, I’ve never been anywhere near 150 lbs before! Ian was right, this is heavy reading! A little quick math indicated I was carrying just under 40% of my weight in that backpack. I mentally patted myself on the back at my clever solution for how to get 40 lbs of books to BAW without driving downtown. A backpacking backpack, I reasoned, is designed to carry heavy loads. Granted, this wasn’t food, water, clothes, tents, sleeping bags, etc., but what does the bag care? Continue Reading >>

Posted on by Katie

“Breezy”

Day’s Verse:
The great day of the LORD is near—
near and coming quickly.
Zephaniah 1:14a

The weather online says it’s “breezy” outside. When I came down this morning, our 6-chime windchimes had 2 chimes still attached. The strings holding the remaining 4 chimes had snapped*. I wouldn’t call that merely breezy. Or if it is, I don’t want to find out what they describe as “windy.”

Wind aside, Rachel and I are going to take a ferry ride across to Kingston for lunch today. She’s never taken a real, honest-to-goodness Washington State Ferry (the Alki shuttle doesn’t count) despite having lived here for years. For shame! How could you live here all these years and never see End 1 or End 2? Or lean into the wind on the front of the ferry and almost get lifted off your feet? Or see the other ferry going the other way and say, “There we are”? Yes, they’re a bit shabby and most have seen better days, but Washington State Ferries are an institution that I love almost as much as the mountains. At least if the state has budget problems, the mountains won’t get cut. Continue Reading >>

Posted on by Katie

Snow and Big Steps

Day’s Verse:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
Philippians 2:3-4

This is my first workday after finishing AmeriCorps, and it looks like the perfect day not to go anywhere: All the buses are on a snow schedule, the Seattle Times is reporting on snow preparedness activities, and Weather Underground predicts — drumroll please — 1 to 3 inches of snow in our area today, with afternoon winds above 20 mph from the north-northwest (which is the direction I would be riding home in the afternoon). Yesterday Cliff Mass, a UW meteorologist, predicted very little snow for the Seattle region today, but even so, I’m happy not to commute in to the Bicycle Alliance today. Now, tomorrow looks sunny and cold, a perfect day to execute my plan to ride the entire length of the Burke-Gilman/Sammamish River Trail. Continue Reading >>

Posted on by Katie · 2 Comments

Helpful Weather Forecast

Day’s Verse:
The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”
Matthew 8:27 (context)

The weather forecast for tonight:

Showers likely. Precipitation may mix with snow in heavier showers. Lows in the 30s. Southwest wind 10 to 15 mph…except northwest wind north part.

I love how it says southwest winds, except for the northwest winds. How delightfully quirky! This means that I got a headwind as I rode south on the way in to work, and then I also get a headwind as I ride north on the way home from work. Continue Reading >>