of endings

Woke up this morning in excruciating pain again. I get the feeling this is going to be a regular occurrence for the next few weeks. Ulgh. So. Not. Looking. Forward. To this.

In other news, one of my pain medications is also used as an anti-depressant. So, I might not be depressed in the next few months? Haha… interesting.

I stumbled around my room, bending over like an old pregnant woman. It’s depressing. I used to totally take it for granted that I could just bend-in-half to do, well, just about everything. Bending straight down from the waist is super convenient. For getting ready in the morning, cleaning your room, getting up out of bed, and numerous other things. You have no idea how much you use your abdominal muscles until you can’t or don’t want to because it causes pain. For me, I can use them, it just hurts a lot because it causes me to use the nerve that is affected by the shingles. It also hurts to slouch. Who knew.

Headed to church – I thought, on time, but I got there 5 minutes late for worship practice, for which I was kinda bummed about, but it wasn’t an issue at all. Still bummed though. Then after practice I walked around a bit and got some coffee at the coffee shop. Bud was really depressed. It was surprising. He was on the verge of tears the entire time I was getting my coffee.

Then I saw Kali, and she was already a mess. It was sad to find out that her Dad let her down and bailed on the whole song for the special offering that they were going to take for her to go to the Masters Commission up in Minnesota in a few weeks. So between that and the fact that I was leaving – this was my last Sunday at church, she was pretty down.

I found myself telling people not to be sad. I mean, I wasn’t crying. Did that make me a heartless person? (Or was it just that I’m on this anti-depressant/pain-killer? Lol) or is it because I know it’s foolish to get worked up over goodbyes? I have no idea, because it’s not like I don’t get worked up over goodbyes. I mean, I am going to miss all these people so much. Good gravy, yes, I am. It’s going to be hard going back to Oregon after having been here all summer. I haven’t been away from home and away from everyone I know in Oregon for this long since I went to Belhaven a few years ago. But even then, that was for school, and I didn’t really get to know a lot of people in the community like I have here.

Then during worship, I was supposed to play a solo of the chorus of a song… but I realized three notes in that I wasn’t supposed to play it at that exact time. Whups. But I just went with it anyway and finished it because if I stopped mid-way everyone would notice. Trick of stage performance: never let people think things happen unintentionally. The show must go on. haha.  Sooo I sat down at the back during announcements right after that feeling kinda like a dork, but oh well. The only people who knew were the worship team.

Then right as Pastor Dan was starting up his sermon, he gave a shout-out to me about how they have loved my playing and will miss me, as it’s my last week here in Shenandoah. It’s amazing how sweet all of the people here are. It’s one of the things that always manages to catch me off guard.

Then after church I passed around some bracelets that I had hand-made in the last few days for all of them. I’ll miss them a lot. Some of them had a harder time accepting my departure than others. They all wanted me to stay forever. There was a lot of hugging, and me consoling them that it would be alright, and then Danny wanted to give me something that he had been wanting to give me every day for the last week. His old guitar. Yup, this kid has the hots for me. I had to convince him that I could not take it because it was his instrument, and because there was zero way I could get it back home with me on top of everything else.

Before Kali left, I made sure to give her the package I’d assembled for her, which included a notebook/journal, some of my favorite pens for her Master’s program, and a really good book for her to work through.

I could really go for some chicken nuggets right now. Why I am telling you this, I have no idea.

Then after more and more and more goodbyes and hand-shakes, and hugs, Erica wanted to do something for lunch when she found out that I had no plans. So she, Ashley, Tricia, and her brother Michael, and I went over to El Portal (where everyone goes after church because it’s kinda the only restaurant in town) for lunch. We saw a lot (and I don’t just mean like two or three, I’m talking like 10-20) of people from church there.

Then after lunch, I came back home. Erica had handed me a box and I opened it when I got to my room. A hilarious Hoops and Yoyo talking card, and a beautiful scarf were inside. So sweet.

Then I set to work cleaning my room and organizing things more (yes, I do continue to destroy it on a daily basis, thankyouverymuch). Then I vacuumed. I can’t do that enough, it seems. As it’s Sunday, there isn’t a whole lot of much I can do for the rest of the day. I visited with Jan a bit, watched a movie on my computer, tried to update my blog, but fell asleep for a few hours, and woke up only to find that I’d managed to type some garbled nothings while I was asleep.

Tomorrow is Monday. I’m hoping to do a few things tomorrow. I believe the plan is still for me to meet up with Susannah on Tuesday for lunch in St Joseph or something like that. So pretty much everything else that I want to do in Shenandoah has to be done tomorrow. Which, isn’t a whole lot, but still.

Weird how things come to such a close like this.


Recent updates:
August 17: "of an epic all-nighter"
August 20: "of roat tripping"
August 21: "of misery and a bowling adventure"

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 epic an all-nighter

Soooo last night, yeah, somehow I managed to stay up for the duration. I don’t know how it happened. But it just, well, did. I was up at 12 and knew i’d probably be up for a few more hours, but once 2 hit after skyping with Kim, and her wondering why she was up at midnight, I was up at 2, I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be awake. I was hoping to go to bed soon, but my mind was still racing like crazy

(don't ask me about the lines, i have no idea why they are there... they're driving me crazy)


Then 4 came along. By this time, I had made the final decision to add more excitement and spice to my life by coloring my hair again. I kinda freaked out when I pulled off some of the highlighting kit after awhile, but the funny thing was that I knew that would happen. I mean, it’s what I was hoping for, it’s just that the initial shock is always there to surprise me with the: holy chamois: my hair is blonde. But I like it. Then I showered and skyped with kim while making more bracelets some more before cleaning my room. And then cleaning my room and then putting more things up on my walls, and then kim went to bed and I kept putting things up on my walls and kept cleaning, and doing random things on my computer, cleaning more, organizing more, putting more things up, bumming out on my computer more. It just didn’t make sense to go to bed. I mean, seriously, I wasn’t tired.

Then my alarm went off at 6:00am to get ready to meet Annette for our bike/chat date. Woah. 6? Already. How insane is that. I mean, I wondered if I might end up staying up the whole night, but I never really thought it would really, really happen, and I didn’t do it intentionally. I just wasn’t tired.

So I did my best to wrap up the cleaning, get… dressed? and head out on my bike to meed up with Annette just on the other side of the Nishna/Airport and Hwy 59 intersection. Of course, leave it up to loser me to stumble half way through that intersection with cross traffic nearing the signal. Fail. But thankfully I had my lights on, so I made it through safely because they saw me there.

Then Annette and I biked back over to the church and decided to just stay there as it might rain were we to bike around or sit at a park (plus, it was deathly humid). After a few hours of talking on the couches at the church, I biked back to the farmhouse. The whole way back I had started to feel the whole you’ve-been-up-for-too-long kinda thing and was quite nauseous. But I made it safely back to the farmhouse and went straight to bed. Napped for five hours before heading to work. I was so confused about what day it was and what time and all that when I woke up from my nap. It was around 2pm, but it was kinda overcast (very Oregon weather) and looked pretty much like it could just about be any time of day.

Worked 4-8 with Philip, Jenny, and Amber and we generally had a good time. Between Amber laughing at all my stupid sayings and jokes (surprises me every time), and Philip is awkwardly a high school football player, so everything is flirting from him. But we have a good time, between the laughing, jokes, fake-complaining, the occasional (and annoying) gossip about the co-workers and regular customers, making of set-ups, and rag throwing/hitting, it’s always fun.

Looking back on it all, I realize that I had slept in until noon the day before my epic all-nighter (my second on record), so really, it was no worse as if I had stayed up til 3 after getting up at 6 the same day. Which I’ve done before (more times than I would like to say). So the whole staying-up-all-night isn’t nearly as awful or epic as some might like to think.

of the art of bumming

I think I’ve generally been able to perfect the art of being a bum… today I slept in til 11, then I moseyed around and finally started to clean my room (and by clean, I mean legit cleaned. I haven’t cleaned it so much since I’ve been here, basically), I worked on my puzzle a bit, only to later realize that it is too big for this card table that I hoarked from the downstairs area, so I tried working on it more on it, but then decided to move it back to the floor. Well, that’s not entirely true. I now have it on the backside of my Alice in Wonderland poster that Kim got me for my gradumation (it would be up on my wall, did this town have anything to put thins up on the wall with), and it actually doesn’t even really fit on it… it’s a panoramic shot, lol.

Talked to Lydia on the phone for awhile… I miss her a lot (“a lot” is too short a phrase for the extent that I miss her). Then I went down to HyVee because I was bored and hungry (we have little to no food… I’m talking broiled hamburgers and one uncooked one left uncovered on the same plate together, spoiled salad greens, numerous varieties of beer, diet Mountain Dew, diet Coke with Lime, water, Gatorade, light Gatorade, HyVee brand cinnamon Life cereal…. Yeah I think that’s about it besides some milk, orange juice, and assorted sauces and salad dressings. I was going to get something to eat, but I ended up just going for some ice cream. Found the HyVee brand for $1.48/box. So picked up Cookies and Cream and Butter Crunch. I wanted cookie dough or mint chip, but I didn’t see either. And while I was there I remembered that I had another handy-dandy frozen Totino’s in the freezer to pop in the new, fancy schmancy toaster oven.

I still need to figure out what I want to do for my birthday. Aunt Jan said they’d be down with doing whatever I want, but I don’t know what it is… and I have to work 4-8 on my birthday… AND it’s on a Sunday. So that rules out a lot of the day.

I still need to quit my job – if nothing else then simply after yesterday, I have nothing wrong with just leaving it as it is. As much as I didn’t like working back at the MD Lounge in Oregon, it was actually decent compared to the super crappy management and constant blame-shifting that goes on here. Misery.

For the rest of today, I ended up attempting to update my blog (hence, this post, finally, after a ridiculous amount of delay), but… mostly I just watched too much back episodes of Chuck and ate too much ice cream, worked on my puzzle a bit, and missed hanging out with people, working out and being generally active in life.

It’s so retardedly hot anymore. It’s pushing 100 every night – for the whole night (like, you know… from sunset to sunrise? Yeah… 100 outside during those hours), and just gets hotter during the day. It’s frustrating. I can’t do anything outside. It’s too hot to even go for a midnight run or bike ride to the park to sit on the swings (even though the park actually closes at 10 and I have been kicked out by the cops before… haha).

Sometimes I wonder what people would think and/or do if they knew if I was a secret agent or a spy or something. I mean, really? How many people come to small town Iowa for the summer? And work on forming friendships and relationships with the people in town, get involved with the library, go for road trips around the area, but don’t really do a whole lot else? I mean, seriously, I could be top secret undercover if you didn’t know better. Ok, so, by you reading this, you automatically know that I’m not undercover (I wish…), but there are times when I just take in everything. Seeing who is where, how many of this and another thing, how things go down, watching how things play out, thinking about various ways they could potentially play out if I wanted them to be that way… etc, etc, etc, lol. I am a dork…

of getting back to things and birthday parties

NOTE: there are at least three posts that I'm currently working on updating/writing about that will show up on their respective days so that this blog remains mostly in chronological order. Sooo, I'll get those up and letcha know so you shouldn't just read the most recent one! there might be more new ones below that you've missed!!! (not that i have a huge fan base... or any response or interest in my blog at all, but it's easier than an email update every so often that i probably would never keep up with.... /rant).


Today I got up, blogged about yesterday (see below) and then oh-my-goodness, I exercised. CONCEPT!!! I miss it so ridiculously much, it's not even funny. I've gotten so ridiculously out of shape in the last like, 3 weeks, it's pathetic and down right depressing. Lotsa crunches, pushups, 8-count grande-plies (aaaahh feel the burn you ballet dancer!)... among other things. Next in order was shower. Yup, it was marvelous. Then I had some cereal before listening to more music (I'm not even sure if I really need to be blogging about this as I almost always am listening to music, but you know, the generalities of shuffling through various songs on my itunes takes up too much of my time.

I spent a good amount of time deciphering between the differences in B.o.B. (ft. Hayley Williams)'s Airplanes (5:11) and Airplanes pt2 (3:01) and Moby's Extreme Ways (3:57) and the new Extreme Ways (Bourne's Ultimatum) (4:22). It was entertaining and insightful. I like them all and I like each one for different reasons.

Then I went to work. It was pretty basic. I worked the computer and some veggies. I'm still not completely proficient on "bread" just yet, but I'm sure they'll have me on that soon enough. I also found out that the store will be closed from Sunday through Tuesday. The exact reason, I'm not entirely sure... my one guess is that the National Guard in town is having this huge shindig catered by Subway, and we might be near-to-completely out of anything afterwards. Again, I don't actually know the real reason, but that's my current guess, lol.

After work, I came home and ate lunch while poking around on my computer a bit before changing to go to Robby's 16th birthday party over at Nancy&Co's (what I feel like I always call their place... or at least when I'm thinking about it; don't ask).

I had a really good time over there again. I should seriously visit more often than I do. It's kinda lame of me. Robby had the whole evening planned out just perfectly. We were to play three rounds of Bingo in 25 minutes, then we were to order pizza and proceed to play other various games (with their respective directions and proper number of players laid on the top of each box) for the next hour and half or so while we waited for the pizzas to arrive. Haha... there were even prizes for the bingo games. aka: candy. Jan won the first round, grabbing the Reese's, I took the second game, choosing the Mixed Berry Skittles, and Nancy claimed the third round. After that, candy was passed around to everyone present (me, Jan and Jim and their family). Then I went over to the living area and played Boggle with Nancy and John while the rest of them played Chinese Checkers at the table. A short while after the pizzas came (and we interrogated each other throughly about the ridiculous lot of three letter words we'd found), Robby opened a few gifts and we had pizza. Then we headed downstairs and watched a movie called Next, which features Nicholas Cage and, lacking names: a character from 30Rock who has this thing for Jack, and Ellen (the girlfriend... who was a "wait an see") from Elizabethtown. It was interesting... not awesome, but not horrible either. Nancy and I spent most of the movie finishing up her current puzzle. Super fun. I should borrow some while I'm still in town. I'm a nerd, and a nut, I know, but I love putting them together. Half-way through the movie, we breaked to have rootbeer floats. Never, ever bad.

After the movie was over, we talked for a bit while Nancy and I continued working on the puzzle a bit more - we were so close to being done!!! it was a little more than exciting to say the least, then Jan and Jim were getting up and heading out, so I followed suit because, well, it's only logical that I head out with them considering they were my ride, I live with them, and yeah... just made sense. Plus I wanted to call some people (am I turning into a phone person??!? weird...).

But it was weird, they never looked at me or said anything to me, but I hurried out the door behind them, but when I got out the front door, they just jumped in the car and took off without me. It was the weirdest thing - although, not super unlike what happened when I'd first gotten in the car back at the farmhouse before we were leaving to go to Nancy&Co's. Jim had no idea I'd jumped in the back seat, so we sat in the driveway, Jim talking to Jan about the garden for like, 5 minutes before he noticed I was there. I mean, I guess I could have said something, but there really wasn't anything for me to say, and I wasn't like, sneaking around, it was obvious I was there...so weird. Anyway, he drove off with out me... well, more like, leaving me running after the car, and then standing in the road, wondering what in the world had just happened. So ridiculous. So then I called Jim, and he didn't answer - I was actually surprised he even had his phone with him. Had he not, I probably would have gone back inside, or walked down to McComb park and called a few friends anyway before just walking home.... as it's really not more than 2 miles. Annoying, but nothing impossible. After trying to figure out what was going on, Jim just stated that he had assumed I was going to stick around... or something like that. and just waited up at the stop sign for me to walk up to them. awesome. I was kinda upset on the drive back, but I tried not to let it really get to me. He probably just wasn't thinking about anything but his computer work that he wanted to hurry up and get back to (I mean, they left Nancy&Co's so fast that Jan even forgot her shoes...).

Once back at the farmhouse, I called Aunt Linda and we had a fun conversation just about some stuff. I mean, I had called because they live up in the area where Josh is now, but like, I dunno... it's almost more that it just made me think of them when I found out that they live in the same area. Not that I want to like, use them or anything, but that I legit miss them -- I mean, yeah, I miss Josh a whole freaking crap-ton too, but that's really and honestly why I called. It was awesome to talk with her. I'd realized that I'd really not had a legit conversation with her since.... ever? So it was kinda trippy to actually talk with her about what I'm up to with school and life and all that. Before too long though, she had to go because she had to be to work super early, but it was still good to talk, and because of all that, I was thankful to have called when I did and not any later.

Then I kinda guess I just bummed around more on my computer, researching this-and-that and stuff-n-such. I was going to call a few other people, but just didn't find the motivation as no one really ever calls me back (with the exception of Danielle -- she's off the hook until next month, love you girl!). Around 10:30 or so, I took of on my bike just because I was bored and wanted to get out of my room. Before I headed down Airport Road, I did feed the chicks though. they're getting so big!!! I really need to take  more pictures....

In other news that's not super relevant. I'm spending an ungodly and extremely unhealthy amount of time on facebook. It's bad. I mean, any more, I'm just there begging for something to do. But it's not true. I have other stuff I could be doing. So I should look into doing... that other stuff. Like, now. Yup. done.

oh, and might I add that the cicadas have really started to set in? I heard this weird noise for the longest time tonight and couldn't for the life of me figure out what in the world it was... no, it wasn't that water bottle, or that other one, or that other one, no it wasn't music, or the fan... yup. a bug. outside. like, super ridiculously far away. dumb. that's all.

Oh, and tonight, after that late-night biking adventure, I decided I need to be biking around more than I already do. Yes, it's -- it's almost 2?!?! i thought it was only just 1. Wow... mega lame, but that aside, I used to bike in the morning, and that hasn't happened in awhile. Must restart.

I watched a ton of Bill Nye the Science Guy clips on YouTube. #1, always hilarious and classic, but #2: remind me of people, places, things... and yeah. from Oregon to Japanese Chinese food.



...any more brill ideas about me going up to Minnesota?
Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller?

No...?
drat...

on to plan...

um... H?

otherwise: plan primero: God. as He is pretty much the ultimate of awesomeness.

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.