of road tripping

Soo… I worked today for a few hours and then talked with Susannah. Tons of facebook messages and posts later, we finally figured out a potential time for us to hangout/meet up. I’m so excited. I can’t even begin to say. How incredibly. Excited I am.

I ordered a book for Kali, but three weeks later, and it’s still not here. It’s too late to order another one online, and there are no, zero, zilch bookstores around here. The closest are in the big cities around an hour away. So, decidedly, I realized I still needed to go through with my plan and get her the book. I called Borders books up in Omaha. Didn’t have the book in stock. Barnes and Noble closed too early for me to make it there on time. So I started calling Christian book stores in the Omaha area. Parables. Had the book. Open til 9. Perfect. Deep in Omaha. Not so awesome. But at the same time, I wasn’t too worried about it. After getting permission to drive up to Omaha in the Buick, I quickly showered and headed out. Slightly crazy, yes, but basically just what I needed at the moment. A road trip. I love road trips. I don’t take long enough ones, or take them often enough.

So there I was, driving through a city I’d really never been in before (I’d been in Council Bluffs a few times, and the downtown area of Omaha, but there is a huge part of Omaha that I’d never seen in my life). I was in the Buick. On a five-lane interstate. Awesome. Probably the largest interstate I’ve ever driven on by myself. But I wasn’t too afraid. I didn’t have the use of one of my mirrors because it wasn’t working and only showed me the sky, but I didn’t let it bother me and just checked my blind spot when I needed to. All I had for direction was my open laptop with a google maps page still up, but no further internet access and no other map.

I just want to say: I got there without a problem. So, yes, I did not turn left when I was supposed to at 114^th, but at the same time, I will have to say that I was 3 lanes over (and there were two more to my right). So I just went up a block and turned around. No problem. It was an adventure for sure. Good gravy Omaha roads are insane.

I just want to say though; I was not expecting Parables to be such a massive store. It was awesome. My book was waiting for me at Customer Service (they asked if I wanted them to hold me a copy when I called up there). After getting my book, I walked around a bit and looked at everything. It was fun. Then I headed off back towards Shen, but before leaving the area, I stopped into the Target (and Panda Express: the most tricked out, huge Panda I’ve been in) and got myself a few things.

I really didn’t want to go back to Shenandoah. I wanted to hop back on to I-80 and go west. Back to Oregon. I wanted to drive the whole way. I didn’t care that I didn’t have any of my things with me, or that it would take me a few days. I wanted to drive it. But I knew that the car would not make it that far and that I also had a paper to write.

Maybe next time I come out this way I can drive? That would be so awesome. Maybe I could make a country voyage out of it. Dipping down even to Mississippi to visit people? I don’t know if my Subaru would make it, but I don’t really see why not. It’s worth the idea anyway.

Anyway, I will just have to say that this Omaha adventure is one that I’ll likely not forget for quite some time. It was pretty epic, even though I didn’t actually do much, I did it all by myself (haha: I’m a big kid now).

After getting back up to Shenandoah, I contemplated being an awkward creeper and doing my homework in the car in front of the library, but decided against it as the light from my computer would likely bother me after 20 minutes, and I still have to use other sources from my textbook and that would be difficult without a proper light.

I have this awkward pain on my abdomen. I have no idea what to make of it. It’s hot, cold, itchy, and just there, but invisible. I have this epic bug bite on my back, but it’s almost like the bite hit me in the back, but then went through my body and hit on the inside wall of the front of my body. No idea… and not that you really needed to know that anyway.

…the Benadryl I took for my bites is starting to kick in. I know this because I’m getting tired and my typing skills have gone to pot.

Bed.

of book reading and snack eating

Because it's well, Saturday, I took the opportunity to sleep in. Not that I haven't been getting enough sleep or anything, it's just that it's nice to actually sleep in sometimes. Then after waking up, I just bummed around and read my book.

I checked on the chicks. They're already getting bigger, it's kinda hard to believe, but they're adorable. So much fun to watch. :)

I've been playing the guitar a good bit these days. I'm not good by any means, but it's entertaining and fun. I wish I could be better than I am currently, but I suppose that will only come with time and practice.  Then I pretty much just bummed out for the rest of the day by reading my most recent book. My new snack of choice has been cinnamon graham crackers with crunchy peanut butter on top. Sooo yummy. and quite filling to say the least.

Getting bored with just reading in my room and eating said snack above, I went to HyVee to investigate another snack and came across the best: Chex Mix Bold, found some vanilla yogurt (after the sad, sad, realization that they do not have Tillamook French Vanilla yogurt), and picked out a few nectarines (so wonderful), and grabbed a spoon from the deli area before heading out to find a park to enjoy my new snack and more of my book. First I hit up McComb Park because it's one of the largest in town, and I love that one slide, but alas, it was quite occupied, so then I decided to hit up Manti Park, which is one that we drove past when going out to Jason's farm the other night. It's really small, there's a small bridge over a creek, one picnic table, and well, that's about it. But I loved it. Apparently there's more to with with a path to hike up, but it was starting to get dark, so I just hunkered down on the bridge with my book and my snacks for awhile.

I just want to say: that yogurt was the most disappointing things of my week. It was gnarly. Ulgh. So gross. It didn't taste anything like yogurt -- more like frosting, and it was a weird texture to boot (and I'm not even a texture person). Stupid corn syrup. I'll have to make a mental note not get that brand again. Ever. haha...

After awhile it started getting dark, so I headed back to the farmhouse and just read more of my book for the rest of the evening before going to bed.

of strobe lights and cannon fire... or something like that

Got up today, and it was ridiculously humid. I thought it was raining. But no. Just like, 80 degrees and super humid. At 6am. Talk about insane. But went on my run anyway. It was harder than it was a few days ago, considering everything I've been doing lately, but it was still good. Then I showered, read some in my book, ate some cereal and headed out to work outside. It was super hot already, and not even 8am. Jim and I put the pool together for the chickens. I seriously don't understand. I asked where he got the idea. He just said he wanted something to keep them in, and there are going to be ssooo many of them, and he wants to keep them safe and in something that's durable and that they can't get out of. How we're going to get IN is another challenge all in itself. I don't understand it at all. But all the same, I know he's sick of me questioning his motives, so I just left it alone. Maybe I can research something that would be less expensive and easier: ie: appliance boxes?

There is this SUPER intense storm outside right now. It's insane.

Then after working outside for hours, Jim said he wanted to put the lettuce mix down... erm, he wanted me to. But I said I was about to call it a day. Between the work I was doing, being on my knees for so long, and in the hot sun and everything, you just can't work much past noon before any sort of work outside is just out of any sort of sane question.

Finished my few rows after replanting the rows Robby had done yesterday afternoon as many of the plants were on their sides and sticking out into the aisles. Sad.

Then I showered (again), had lunch, took a nap (glorious, glorious sleep), and headed down to the library to work on my internship papers and send a TY note to Aunt Loraine. I ended up staying later than I thought I would. It's nice and cool there. The AC works soo well. It's not working super well at the house, but supposedly someone is coming to work on it tomorrow.

With the humidity calculated into the heat index, it was 120 today. Yeah. No joke. You step outside for half a second and you start sweating literally buckets. I've not sweated so much in my life, ever. It's insane. You can't drink enough to keep up with it.

After librarying it up, I didn't really have time eat anything before worship practice before Wednesday night church, so I hit up Maccas again for a smoothie. Sadly, they'd just run out of yogurt (didn't know they were actually that legit... figured they were more of a healthy excuse for a milkshake (which really, they are, but anyway) but apparently not).  So they offered me a blended coffee drink. Coffee? Um, YES please! Haha, when I was working out in the garden today, I realized that I've only had coffee 6 (now 7) times since I've been here. In the last 4 weeks, I've had coffee 7 times. How insane is that? Can you count that? I mean, of course, I have enough time on my hands to think about such things when I'm out in the garden all by myself for 3-7 hours planting tomatoes, but still. It's slightly ridiculous that I think and add up such things. Lol...

The power keeps dipping. I'm starting to wonder when it's actually going to go out. Got my handy-dandy LED flashlight out just for this potential. I was hoping (power dip) to read tonight before going to bed, but if the power goes out, I might just eat my mexican (power dip) salad and go to bed. Goodness knows I need the sleep anyway.

I'm trying to decide if I'll still go for a bike ride/run tomorrow if it's raining like this.... well, actually, if it's raining at all, there really is no sense to even get up in the morning as all (power dip) my work is outside, and with all this rain, it's going to be miserable tomorrow. Humid like mad, and thick, nasty, sticky clay mud.

Worship was good Erica (worship leader) was having trouble with her voice, which was sad. I kept hitting one of the songs in the wrong key. Felt pretty stupid for that. Stupid D#... Then, after the message, we split up into smaller groups to discuss introducing small groups to the church to help people connect together. Pastor Dan asked me to be a group leader. I was kinda surprised, but I also wasn't as nervous as I thought I might be. It went really well.

Then I hung around afterwards, talking to various people at the church (wednesday services are a smaller crowd than sunday), and hung out with the youth group and some of the younger kids. It was good talking to them, and I can kinda tell that they think I'm "cool" because I'm different, and from Oregon (which makes me exciting and exotic), and in college (even more exciting)... WOAH. INSANE thunder crash just now. Sounded like, a million garbage can lids just smashed into the driveway all at once. Rain is pelting down like there's no tomorrow.

God, protect us! ahhh!!! o.0

Towards the end of service, a storm started heading in (the same one that's still over us), and there was rumor that there was funnel clouds in the area and tornados to the east and west of us. Still not sure if those are just rumors. But thankfully, it's not been more than a severe thunderstorm.

Video'd my drive down Airport Rd. It's not much, and you can hardly see anything, but it's kinda the general idea of how it is. It hasn't let up at all in the last 2 hours. Wind. Rain. Thunder. Lightning. It's at moments like these when you know that God has to be real. (Huge thunder crash that made me jump). The flashes are pretty much constant.

If fireflies are God's glitter, then this thunderstorm is God's strobe lights. Maybe it's a rave, God style? Ha... kidding... :P

When I finally headed out to my car about an hour after church, I had to run through literally 8 inches of water rushing to the drains. It just wouldn't let up at all. I was soaked by the time I got in the car -- and I wasn't parked more than 50 yards from the church front door. IN.SANE. Once I got home (took forever as I couldn't go more than like, 20mph and still have relative visibility) I had to close the garage doors and pull all my stuff out of the car and run into the house. I looked like I'd taken a 20 minute shower in my clothes once I finally got in the house.

...and when I walked in the back door. Guess what. All the doors and windows were still open. Jim and Jan were in their living area watching a movie on Hulu. So I ran around the house, closing everything up because with all the wind, the rain was just streaming into the house. There was a good half inch of standing water just inside the back entryway. I'm serious here, intense storm.

Oh! and Jan came to church! She came because I was playing on the worship team and she wanted to hear me play, sadly she didn't get there in time for it because she'd wanted to take a cold shower, but she stayed for the rest of the service. I didn't see her til about a third of the way through the message, but I quickly jumped up and went over to sit by her for the rest of the message.

Going to the Garrison Coffee House tomorrow for coffee/dinner with Ashley and Tricia after worship practice at church. I'm super, super excited. :) Apparently the coffee house is a Christian place and is usually only open til the mid afternoon, but Thursday nights they have bands come play music in the early evening. So that should be fun, and I'm looking forward to our outing.

Ha, even if the power does go out, I'm not even sure if I will be able to sleep with how intense this strobe-light-and-cannon-fire storm is.

of silliness

Yup, 17 and in high school. I was almost positive of it. And I was right. Everything else aside, I knew the second I saw him he wasn't my type, besides. Leaving a number? never a good way to get me, sorry. Texting is not a good start to any kind of relationship. Lol... still comical how much he flipped out when he found out I'm 21. Actually, he gave himself away with his language how he doesn't love Jesus. Big turn off - not to mention not something I can really respect, especially from a high schooler, kinda made me sad.

Back to reading my book before bed. :)

Ulgh. still so hot in this house!!! I would like to stop sweating already. It's almost like I can feel the salt crystals forming on my face - it kinda hurts. Obnoxious.

of updates and books

I really didn’t want to update my blog and go through with more detail about the last week or so, but I figured that if I didn’t’ do it now, I probably never would. So, if you are wondering, there are a lot more posts here and yes, I technically just put them up today, I didn’t actually write them all today, I had them in a word document, but I’ve been too lazy and lacking internet enough to go through the effort to update and publish them. I just figured that it’s been too long since I’ve really updated, and that if I don’t now, I never will. Plus, I’m getting tired of everyone asking me what I’m up to… lol. No kidding. I haven’t been updating you :P sorry…..

Got up this morning to goodness knows awful crampness. Took a shower, did some cruches, and lacking my awesome microwave flax thing, I did the next best thing. Outside. I went out on the sunken trampoline and read my book for several hours, just generally taking it easy and calming down too.

As I read, I would periodically get distracted by an airplane flying high above me and cotton fluffs floating towards the sky, wanting to float with them somewhere else. I noticed how loud it was here. It wasn't. I love it. With the exception of the slow, low rumble coming from the ethanol plant that is about a mile down the road, all you can hear is the bugs and the birds going about their daily business. 

After awhile, I was just contentedly ready and getting warm in the sun when I heard a growl. I looked up to see this little white dog sitting back on her haunches, fore-paws in the air, looking at me. "Jessie!" I called, and she loped towards me, super excited that I actually know who she was. She's our neighbor, Fred's little dog. She appears to be a Chihuahua/Jack Russell cross of some sort. She licked me when she got close and then proceeded to run all over me and around the trampoline about three or four times before stopping to get a few more pets and then taking off again towards Fred's garage. Soon, I could hear the faint sound of country music coming from Fred's Jeep Wrangler and before too much longer I saw him driving on the grass towards out soon-to-be garden with the disker in tow, little Jessie joining him in the passenger seat.

-------Newsflash-------

Internet is working at the farmhouse

PTL

(pray it doesn’t go out for any reason!!!)

I did some homework for my summer class, worked a bit on my paperwork for my internship, and then read more in my book. I actually finished it today. Heh... Then I cleaned and organized my room. I'm so much happier now that I am able to have My. Own. Space. Still no bed, but Jim did get slats for the bed frame today, which is a step in the right direction. He kept thinking it was a Queen size... it's a twin, lol. 

Then I went to the library and moseyed around there, looking at the books. Picked up a few that were for general entertainment to get into another world and away from movies or the reality that i'm in right now and then came back to the farmhouse. 

At one point today, apparently when I wasn't paying attention, Jan went out and got more groceries. She picked up some more cereal and a lot of veggies at my suggestion. I'm soo glad to have veggies again! I can't tell you enough how much I've missed them! We've pretty much just had cereal, pizza, rice, and meat for the last few days. Had a fantastic salad with my chicken kabob for dinner, and I've been up in my room, updating this blog ever since. Maybe now I can break out another one of the books I just got.

of libraries, and flooding rivers

I went out around 11 to the library to hit up the wifi there. I stopped at Walmart on my way to see if I could find a fun, plaid shirt for cheap. No such luck. They had some, but they were really weird, too small, or too hot. While I was at the library, I picked up a Nicholas Sparks novel. I’m not super into them or anything, but I kinda just wanted something to let me zone out into another world without having to watch another movie. It was interesting. They do use scanner barcodes with their Dewey Decimal System, but they stamp the inside of the books instead of giving you a receipt. I found it cute.

I’m thinking about riding my bike into town before I take my run and so that I can run in town. The idea of running along one long stretch of corn just doesn’t sound thrilling to me. Plus, it’s already hot, at least in town there are trees.

Got some more music while I was in town. It’s just pop radio stuff, but it’s fun, and it makes me happy. It’s surprising how life is different when you aren’t around people who are your peers all the time. It’s one of the few things that really remind me of my friends. I soak it up as much as possible.

And, good GRAVY, I’m sooo endlessly sick of people who are obsessed with Ron Paul. It’s driving me completely insane. They just talk about him like he’s this new fantastic potential leader that no one else in the entire universe can compare to, or something. I can’t stand it. He's not GOD, peoples!!! Stop making ALL of your conversations bend in a politically charged direction of exclamation about how amazing Ron Paul is while bashing everyone else in the world as ignorant of literally everything.

We went to Nancy’s house and picked up the bed frame (apparently no mattress), dresser and vanity. It’s Bowery heirloom furniture, so it’s super vintage. It’s awesome. Cleaned it and have it in my room now. I feel like I’ve finally arrived, it’s a good feeling to finally be able to unpack some of my stuff and get mostly up off the floor. Hopefully *fingers crossed* I’ll be able to get a mattress tomorrow.

For once in the world, Corvallis is 20% more humid than Shenandoah. When in the world does that happen?!?!

Rode my bike around and took some pictures of the flooding of the Nishnabotna River. I remember talking to DavidReeceandAndrewHartenstien (yes, it's one word... some friends would ask me who I was talking about, and apparently I said their names so fast it confused them) back in BA215 about the farmhouse out here in Iowa, and how inexpensive it was. Yes, it was not because it's a great house. It has acreage, yes, but it's actually a major fixer-upper. Also. Yes. it's basically on a flood plane. The 100 year flood line doesn't come up to the house, but the river went over it's banks yesterday, and the water started coming up pretty high considering how far away the actual river bed is from Airport Road.

EDIT: I edited some things out of this post because they came off a bit harsh and didn't want to seem like it was the-end-of-the-world. We were all just really hot because of the weather and stressed with the move.

It's not all fun and games here, it's still real life and people have real emotions, some less positive than others, which makes some situations more stressful, but by the grace of God I've been able to maintain my calm through everything.