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 morning busyness

I'm behind. I realize this. I'll go back and edit those posts, I promise. Just.... not now. I'm really tired.

For some ridiculous reason, I decided that I need to be getting up at dark thirty in the morning - literally. I set my alarm for, well, lets just say I was out the door and on my run by 6am. The sun wasn't up just yet, and the morning was almost, almost, almost crisp. But no, still soggy. Because it's Iowa. Lame (lol). Then I went on my run. Wasn't expecting to go far or long because it's been so long since I last went on a run, but surprisingly, I did quite well and was back from going 2 miles in a faster time than I had anticipated. All in all, it was a good run. Then I showered, had some breakfast, read a chapter in one of my books for my class, and headed out to the garden to work around 7:30am.

I had to replant two rows of tomatoes (about 23-25 plants per row), and the row of eggplants (however many we have) because they weren't planted well. Then I proceeded to plant another three rows of tomatoes. All the while, I listened to podcasts from Solid Rock. Now, when I say that, I don't mean, I'm listening to the most recent ones. I'm catching up from where I'm behind this year. So, this means that today, I listened to Easter Sunday. All in all, it was good to listen to them, and I'm ever thankful that I have awesome friends who thought to get me a stereo system for graduation. :)

Then, at around 12:30pm, after planting, getting fully immersed in dirt, clay, tomatoes, bugs, worms, and goodness knows what else (beside ants, ant eggs, and fly larvae of sorts... ew), I showered, had some lunch and took a short nap before heading to the library to work on my grad school application - something I should have done long ago, but oh well, there it is, needing to be done. Before I went to the library, I went over to McComb park and talked with Kara for over an hour. It was really awesome to talk with her. :)

Then I worked on my application before heading back to the house after picking up yet another book I had on hold (love it). Got home, starving around 5:30, only to find out that dinner wouldn't be for at least another 2 hours. So, I had some cereal and watched the next Harry Potter movie on the list: The Order of the Phoenix. Fun stuff.

I should probably clean my room some and finish up that grad school application... bleh.

...I wonder when the sink is going to be put in the bathroom upstairs...

of morning runs and cuteness overload

I got up a bit later than I'd planned, but I also ended up staying up later than I planned. How often can you say that happens to me? Always. So continuing... I decided I needed to go for a run, considering I, well, didn't yesterday. I started running down Airport Rd. Didn't get far and just didn't feel like going on. I don't have the slightest idea why.

When I stopped, there was the most awesome bird on the wires above me. I looked up, and it looked all the world like a Western Meadowlark that eludes me in Oregon (it's the state bird for some ridiculous reason... I've yet to actually see one in Oregon). It was awesome. I pretty sure I saw it yesterday when I was counting plants, if I remember correctly, it was just chilling in our driveway for quite some time.

For some reason, I felt motivated to continue on my run. So I took off again. I went quite far and even fit in a sprint (I've been throwing these in to help with endurance... plus, it's just fun to run at full speed), then after jogging a bit farther, I noticed what appeared to be similar to the Snowy Plovers we got in our driveway back in Odell that one time, were just buzzing all over the grass and flying low over the road. I didn't really get what was going on until I had to stop dead in my tracks. Just 2 inches in front of me were the most adorable baby Killdeer. (click the link for more info and sound)

I was speechless. They were beyond cuteness. It was a cuteness overload. Times two. Adorable. They both crouched low in the grass because I was there. I was shocked they were even out like that because there were these massive semi trucks just plunging back and forth down Airport Road for the ethanol plant. One of the babies staggered through the grass back into the thicker and taller grass closer to the ditch. I bent down and scooped the other one up to put alongside the other. It was ridiculously adorable. It fit in less than half of my hand. It didn't really say anything or struggle. It just sat there. I was just so surprised to even see them, much less be that close. After gently placing it back in the grass, I continued on keeping a sharp eye out for more wandering little ones.

Never saw one again, but the parents kept diving back and forth across the road. I can only assume that the families were trying to relocate across the road to the larger field than the ditch next to the ethanol plant (which, however, the ditches around here are actually quite large).

I got back closer to the house and heard the Western Meadowlark again. For some reason, it reminded me of a song, I would mention which, had it not escaped my mind right now. Regardless, it was one of those awesome worship songs about God always being there. It was cool. Helped me keep going.

When I walked back up the stairs, I felt defeated. I hadn't run as far as I wanted. I knew I wasn't sure I would be able to run a full distance when I set out (especially after stopping like I had), but I decided to map out my distance anyway. I was shocked when I found out I'd gone 2 miles. Not my best, but certainly not bad at all. According to this exercise plan I'd worked out for general PT, I should be somewhere less than 2 right now. Awesome.

and now....*sigh* on to homework.

of runs at dusk and watermelon

I went on a run tonight. I wasn't planning on actually running, I actually just wanted to see what the temperature was like outside. But I ended up actually going on my run anyway. I didn't think I would want to just run up and back airport road, but I did anyway and enjoyed it much more than I had anticipated. Usually I change and go through a process to get ready for my workouts... changing, slicking my hair back, it could almost be compared to the effort it takes to get ready for a ballet class, only not quite that extreme. But anyway, it was really good. I'm actually quite surprised with myself.

While sitting outside reading my book, I apparently got a sunburn on my legs, which is a bummer, but it's nothing worse than the other kinds of mild burns I've gotten that heal within a day since I've been here.

Afterwards, we all ate watermelon out on the front porch. It was really good melon, and it was really nice to just bum out on the porch in the cool evening air.

We turned off the AC for the night to take advantage of the natural coolness of the evening and opened up the house and turned on some box fans for circulation. I'm sure if we want to keep the house cool we'll have to close it up good and early though.

of driving, Times Square, and almost-full moons

After sleeping in some, I cleaned my room because a ridiculous amount of dog hair blows in here at night. It’s insane. I took a nice long shower and then called just about as many businesses in town as I could. Pretty much all of the ones listed in the business section of the Shenandoah website.

Then, after finally giving up with a lack of more places to call, Jim and I went out in the ’93 Saturn and he showed me some of the ins and outs to driving manual. The first thing he said to me when I got in the car was: “alright, well, the first thing you have to do is adjust your seat” I blinked. Seriously? As if I haven’t been driving for the last 5 years without a single ticket or accident, and I don’t know that I need to adjust my seat? Ridiculous. I just brushed it off with some sarcasm and we took off. I drove over to a small parking lot to practice more on starting and stopping, and then we took off to a country road. It was super cute. I was more interested in the countryside than driving. It was these shallow rolling knolls. I loved it. Nothing at all like mountains or anything in Oregon or the Pacific Northwest, of course, but still. It was also amusing to me how the road just continued on straight over these small hills. Up and down, gently each time. The car, of course, letting off this disgusting amount of bluish gray smoke the entire time. But trying to ignore my current carbon footprint, I enjoyed it and didn't do too bad with the shifting and such. It was fun. 

Afterwards, Jan and I walked into the downtown area for "Thursday Night at the FlatIron" where Jara Johnson, a local of Page county sang and we all had free hotdogs and root beer floats sponsored by Bank Iowa and served by The Depot. 

I swear, there are NO cute guys who are my age and not married with kids. It's depressing. Oh well... I mean, I'm not here for that by any means, but still... lol. It's also kinda weird to think about how many people get married at so young of an age out here and just settle down. It makes me feel weird for still being in school and... yeah. anyway...

When we got back, I did some homework and then got too antsy, so I went on a run. It was nice, but I was just super stressed. I stopped about half way at this little park, did some pull-ups on the monkey bars and then sat on the swing. Let me tell you, I was dizzy after awhile, but it was really good for me to just be doing nothing. I started crying and just not knowing what to do. I have been super frustrated about the move and all the unknowns regarding whether or not we're actually going to be able to move this week, or goodness knows what. Then I got up and started my run again, going a bit farther than normal. Once I got back to the house, I just couldn't bring myself to go inside. I just didn't want to go in there again. Everything in me wanted to stay away. So I kept walking. I walked over across Hwy 59, which is ridiculously never busy normally, and mostly dead at night. I walked along Airport road for awhile. I didn't get much farther than Eaton, but I didn't care. I just wanted to be away from city lights, and do something - myself. To just get alone with me and God. Away from the house, the stress of the move, everything. I was so sick of being by myself all the time, but the least I could do was get a bit closer with God.

I sat down on the road. No one was driving this late, and even if they were, I would know far in advance because the road was so straight and flat. I lied down on the road. It reminded me of The Notebook, minus, of course, a cute guy... or even just a friend. The moon was out and almost full. It was beautiful. There were hardly any streetlights to get in its way. I loved it. I stared at the stars, noting how they looked from the different angle that Iowa is at. After awhile, I decided I had probably head back to the house so they wouldn't think I'd disappeared on them. As I was walking back towards the house, this younger guy in a truck stopped and reversed until he came up to me and asked if I wanted a ride (no one walks here, especially at night, even though that's the only time it's cool here). I said I was fine and not far from home, and that I was just out for a walk. He wasn't sure, and made sure I was completely fine before driving off.

When I got home, Cory had called, so I called him back and we talked for awhile. I went back outside and just walked around the neighborhood while talking.

aaaand bedtime for me.

completely guiltless sundaes?

After dinner, we had ice cream sundaes. Well, guilt free ice cream (sweetened w/splenda), plus schnapps... does that mean it's beyond guilt-free because you even forget about any potential guilt you may have potentially had in the first place even though it's already free of guilt? I'm not even sure.

Regardless, it doesn't pertain to me anyway. I had toast and plain ice cream.

We watched more of Kings and the pilot episode of this new show called Rubicon. Looks cool.

Ulgh, I had a weird amount of spare energy. I was going to go on a walk tonight with Jan, but when that finally came around, they were in the middle of an episode of Rubicon, aand it was after 11pm. So, it was a no on the walk, but I just needed to burn off some energy, in some way or another, it was late, and I could have gone to bed, but I just kinda really wanted to see if I could go on a run.

So I went. I kinda looked up a generic distance of about 2 miles in a circuit around town. Well, I ended up going past the road I was supposed to turn on without realizing it, and what I thought was me just running like 2 miles, was actually me running more like 3 miles. Which, honestly? Is awesome! I can't believe it. I mean, I was tired, but not really. I felt like I could have gone farther, had I planned it out differently. But man, I was really sweaty. I mean, now, the weather is 74 degrees with 84% humidity, and it's been about an hour since I got back. I think I was hitting on 14-15 minute miles, which isn't great, but isn't bad, especially since I haven't done much running in over a week. I really wasn't concerned about speed, and I wasn't worried about completing it all. But in a way, I guess I kinda felt like an idiot for taking off on a run at 11 at night. And I wanted to keep going. It felt really good to run. I haven't run outside, or at night, or without music in like... forever. Shenandoah is a really sleepy town, it's weird. There was virtually no one around, and none of the areas where I was seemed creepy at all. Everything was pretty much the same in regards to nice houses in the neighborhoods. But I wanted to keep going even if there was a potential of it being weird. I guess no one runs in this town, because the people that I did pass looked at me really weird, lol.

I guess I should say that there was the fear of lightening from the thunderhead just to the south of us was slightly intimidating. I'll admit that it's still scaring me because I'm entirely unaccustomed to it anymore. I've been in Oregon too long since Mississippi to not really be concerned about that kind of thing. I mean, I like it, don't get me wrong, I actually love watching it, but there's this certain fear about that I have. Where I think if I just don't look at it, it's not happening. But running through it. That was awesome. Yes, I wasn't actually in it. I was probably about 60-100 miles away from it, but it was lighting up the entire sky in sudden flashes of brilliance.

It was like facing my fear head-on,

in the dark,

running.

Just me and God.

It was fantastic.