Climbing (and other good things)

So I've finally gotten back into a pseudo-regular climbing schedule. And the greatest thing happened last week - I got past a part of the wall I'd been stuck on since around xmas. Let me explain - the climbing wall is both wide/long and tall. So one can strap on a harness and safety rope and climb upwards or skip the safety rope, stay lower on the wall, and climb predominantly horizontally (bouldering). I've been sticking to the latter lately because I feel like I spend more time on the wall and thus get a better workout. Anyway. My big goal is to be able to work my way from one end of the wall to the other without falling. And I've been falling in the same place since around xmas. Then last week, I just reached for this grip and...voila. It was like I'd always been able to do it. Just naturally. And again today I made it further along the wall than I ever have before. Once you really get into it, moving along the wall is so freaking awesome. It just has this grace and ballet-ic quality to it...anyway. It was fabulous. Then again, I'm one of those weird athletic types who actually enjoys it when my arms are too sore to squeeze the shampoo bottle or even keep my hands above my shoulders long enough to wash my hair.

A totally unrelated topic, but also a "good thing" - on Good Morning America this morning they did a brief story about this couple who chose to adopt 5 (or 6?) sisters so they could all stay together. Which reminded me of my parents' friends from graduate school. (I may have told this story already, I heard it for the first time over xmas and was so impressed I might have blogged it already...anyway) The managers of the apartment complex my parents lived in during grad. school were this incredibly poor couple with a baby son. The child was unplanned and they barely had enough money to get themselves through school (he was going to law school, I can't remember what she was doing). So they managed the apartment so they could live there for free. The kid lived mainly off of powdered milk and other child welfare supplies. We're talking poor. Anyway...so they raise their son and get through school and the husband gets a good job at a law firm and they become financially stable. Better than stable. And it turns out they can't have any more children, but they'd like more, so they look into adoption. And they find this family of 3 siblings, and being the good sort of people that they are, they adopt all three so they won't be separated. It's nice to be reminded from time to time how good people can be. luke 3:11 - "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."