Day 3 at the Beach

I don't think I'll be able to update my blog quite as promptly (lol, as if I do anyway) this week, since I'm at the beach. I do have internet here in the room though, I just tend to be doing other things than wanting to sit and write while I'm here. Then again, that may change later on inshaaAllah.

I have some nice posts coming up--the third part of the da'wah series, explaining the message of the da'wah, which is Islam, and what the da'ee should know or understand in order to give da'wah. And then of course I'll be continuing my story of embracing Islam inshaaAllah, which I've been breaking up into smaller more manageable, more detailed portions.

This is the place where I'm staying. We have a condo on the 5th floor--by the way, the building continues on much further to the left which can't be seen in the photo. There's more people thatn I would be comfortable with, but everyone is very friendly and nice--I say that because back home in Raleigh, people aren't quite so... friendly. It's nice being at the beach.

We drove down here Saturday, ate dinner once we got into town and then crashed Saturday night. We waited until Sunday morning before doing any grocery shopping, delaying a much anticipated breakfast. Sunday ended up being a lot of different shopping--grocery shopping first and then shopping for swimming gear later on. I really don't like shopping so that wasn't a super way to start the week off, but alhamdulillah it's over and I can chill for the rest of the week.

This picture shows the view from the front of the condo--that is, the other side than the above photo, which I actually took from on the beach. The condo faces the Atlantic Ocean on the other side, but this picture shows the Inter-Coastal Waterway (ICW), which can be seen when we walk out the front door of the condo.

Today we (some friends and I) went jet-skiing in the ICW. It cost about $45 for half an hour (we actually got a $10 discount) and I think that's kind of expensive, but it was fun to do that. The first time I'd ever gone on a jet-ski by myself.

Now that everyone's here (we had some late arrivals) we have 7 people in a condo that sleeps a max of 8 people. And it is getting crowded. I'm not sure how we'll be able to deal with everyone's nerves. Everyone has their own idea about what is a relaxing vacation. For me, relaxing is being alone... alone in the condo, alone on the beach, alone somewhere. For someone else, relaxing is riding a boogie board in some waves. For someone else, it is sitting on the beach eating a meal. For someone else, it's staying in the condo watching TV. Some people want to be alone (well, I do) and some want to be around other people. Some want to eat dinner strictly at a specific time and others are flexible. Some try to set a schedule while others fly by their pants. And some tell everyone their schedule and then don't stick to it.

So, at this point the whole vacation has been a little bit more stressful than I anticipated. I'm planning to spend a little more time alone, now that I have thought about it and find myself getting a short fuse at times (astaghfirullah.) My dad called me this evening while I was walking on the beach, and we both came to the conclusion that always when my family would come to the beach, I would go off by myself to do something--whether just to sit and think, to walk, to read, or anything, I liked being by myself to a certain degree. And I decided then that I should make more of a point to spend time alone.

So as I was going for a walk late tonight, I came across this little creature. He ran off in to the grass and I followed him, then he was kind enough to post and let me take a picture (with a flash, even!) In fact this was the third picture I took of him, because the first two were blurry. So if you were thinking this one was blurry? Well, that's too bad, it's the clearest of the three and I'm afraid now that I blinded him. After I settled for the third one and moved back, he ran off again.


I'll try to get my thoughts together for the two aforementioned posts I have planned inshaaAllah. Or I might just write more about the beach. Stay tuned!