Just so everyone (and particularly some people) know, my delay in updating this blog is not due to things relating to anyone. I’ve been busy (well, sorta… I’ve been otherwise occupied) and completely unmotivated to update. But I am in the process of updating all the back days that I missed. I’ve kept track of my goings-on and will post them in chronological order soonish. I realize I’m over a week behind and also behind on a few back days when I said I would update, but haven’t. Those are coming. I promise.
Got up at 7:45 (Wow, I know, concept, right? morning… weird). Got myself some MD Lounge coffee (to wake up… I was up til well after 3 last night. No idea why. I don’t usually suffer from insomnia. Usually I can go to bed and crash (unless I’m a) hungry b) thirsty or c) needing chapstick), but not last night. Nooo Hannah goes to bed just after 11 and can she sleep? No… not four hours. So I get up around 1:30 and read my Bible for a bit and do a Bible study that I haven’t done in literally ages and then read more in What’s a Girl to do? After finishing that, I pull out Don’t Waste Your Life. I finally start getting to the point where I can’t coherently read a page without my eyes buzzing and flickering, so I shut off the light and try to get some shut eye. Didn’t work so well, but I eventually fell asleep. Only to have my alarm go off at 7:30am, 7:31am, 7:32am, and 7:33am before I realized I’d set one for every minute for five minutes to ensure that I would actually… well, you know, get up.
So then I did a Bible study and read a bit more, then worked on my puzzle and bummed it out online for awhile, showered, and then headed to work for a few hours. Worked with Michelle, Sandy, and Pat as per usual. Trevor came in to unload the truck and asked me to cover a few hours of work for him tomorrow. Considering how much of nothing I’m doing I didn’t mind, but I found out later that the hours I am to be cover is in the middle of the afternoon and therefore the hours of the day that I would be ridin’ solo while trying to get a tip at subway (wow, way to quote two songs in one go, Hannah). So they called another worker to come in because I’m not super dooper comfortable being by myself at Subway for 3 hours. I’ve done it for an hour, but I’d rather not have to for longer I suppose…
After work I came home and after awhile I got ready for worship practice, and then I remembered that Jan wanted to go to her exercise class tonight, and I can never remember what time she has to be to it… is it 5? Didn’t know… so I went down to talk to her about it because I had to be to worship practice by 5 and would be there til probably around 6:30 or so, so I asked her to just drop me off on her way out to Clarinda. Well, as it happens, her class isn’t until 7 or so, but I still didn’t want to make her late to it, so I asked her to just run me into town and drop me off. On the drive there, she kinda surprised me. I just tried being friendly as normal, talking about the weather (lame, I know), but also about my violin playing, my upcoming birthday, playing on the worship team at church, friends from church, and the like. Then she seemed to pause for a second and asked me if I was sworn off the garden because of the heat. Well, the heat is mostly ridiculous. 100 at night? Meaning from 9pm til 5am? Yeah, I’m not going to even attempt to work out there in that insanity, I am so sorry to disappoint. Plus, when I had talked to Jim a few weeks previous, he said that he “just wanted me to have a good time here in Iowa” and that “I’m not getting paid anything for the work I do, so I shouldn’t be expected to do all the work out there.” But it’s mostly that recently there have been a lot of growing weeds (likely due to the excessive heat and humidity we have here this summer; it’s a scortcher). Anyway, Jan is getting really frustrated and depressed about the garden because it was a huge investment for them and right now Jim is focusing on doing some programming work for a client with his computer business because this is the dude who provides their monthly rent needs, so his computer is the top priority right now. This only makes matters worse for Jan, and it’s probably a combination of her health issues, but she is of the opinion that we are doing things because we don’t appreciate her, which makes life for us rather challenging. So I’m trying my best to stay on her good side now, which is harddd….
So I walked into worship practice feeling like a failure in general. I felt pressured, like a bad guest, like a miserable relative. Like the worst person imaginable. I’d come out here to help and serve, and what do I do? I complain about not having any friends. Who cares. Job lost his friends, his family, his everything, but he still served. No, I’m no Job, but I can try… It’s just really difficult. I just haven’t been putting myself forward enough I suppose. I’ve been getting too absorbed in my own world up in my room. Just bumming out because of the heat and not doing anything much at all. Like, seriously. I’m a bum, straight up. So besides the fact that I felt generally miserable, it was a wake-up jolt (not just a call… a bit more intense). So I was feeling kinda down (um… only kinda, right), and I ended up just quickly explaining things to Pam before we started up worship practice, and she didn’t have much to say, but she said that I was in the right place to be right now if I was upset about things.
I was glad for worship practice. Playing music, praising God. You know. Kinda awesome. But it all ended way fast. We played for, maybe 20 minutes tops. It was weird. We usually go for well over an hour. So… I didn’t have a car with me, or a bike because it was far to hot to bike, which was why I asked Jan to drive me here in the first place. So I just walked over to the library to do some homework, and on my way there (3 blocks to walk) I called Lydia, and we ended up talking for awhile, so I didn’t go inside, instead I went out back and sat in the grass in the shade. It reminded me of sitting behind the library in Hood River, only… there were no trees, no ice cream shops, no people, no incredible view, no river, no mountains, I wasn’t on a hill (flat as ever), and it was hot and super humid (lol). After we talked for a while, I decided to go over to Nancy&Co’s because I havent’ been over there in awhile, and would love to just talk with Nancy about everything that’s going on as she’s a decently normal person to talk with. Found out later that it is a 1.3 mile walk from the library to their house. I plugged in my headphones and walked it. With my backpack (because I thought I was going to be doing homework at the library), and my violin from worship practice. Yeah… a mile, in converse, without socks, in crazy heat and humidity… probably not among the smartest things I’ve ever done, but not the worst. Needless to say I managed two blisters (one per foot, but not the worst I’ve gotten [thank you ballet, modern, and gymnastics]).
So Rachel and I hugn out for awhile, me watching her play her new computer game (which, FYI, she bought for herself with her allowance on half.com with the computing assistance of her father), where she created new creatures and told me how they evolved (awesome…) and how her character can dance, pose, and kill (also awesome…). Then Nancy and I talked about a million and one things ranging from family, to old issues, to redecorating her house, to their recent trip to Chicago (made me actually want to go to a big city for once in my life), to everything in between. It was good just to talk, commiserate, and laugh about everything and nothing in general. Then we had dinner – but because their kitchen was just recently worked on, and their dishwasher is out of commission because of the sinks needing to be replaced and that hinging on the fact that her beautiful granite counter needs to be re-cut to fit the new sink (dishwasher was leaking, ruined her wood floor… got floor replaced with (beautiful) tile, decided to replace sinks to match stainless steal look of the rest of the kitchen (was going to do it anyway eventually, dishwasher connects to small sink, small sink doesn’t fit in available hole in granite counter, sink still not hooked up, therefore no dishwasher [because you so needed to know that]) – so Rachel and I helped ourselves to frozen (but healthy) dinners and frozen fruit bars. Then we hung out some more while Nancy practiced the piano. And ohmygoodness is she amazing. My jaw hit the floor with her intricate scales, chord progressions and finger exercises. Yes, indeed. She is a concert pianist. So awesome.
A bit later Nancy and John convened for their official dinner, which was a protein shake made from a protein mix (café latte flavor) with almond milk. She gave me a sampling of part of it. It was quite good and goodness, filled me up for the rest of the evening. I got munchy later, but only because I wanted an occupation for my hands. So I worked on my puzzle more, lol. When Nancy drove me home later, she questioned me about keeping in contact with “that one guy friend of yours who moved up to… Wisconsin?” lol… Josh, and yes, I’d been in contact with him. We’d been texting all day. Haha.
When I got home, I was kinda spacing out, but then I had a momentary freak out when I remembered that it was the Perseid Meteor Shower tonight. I was so stoked. Not only do I love stars, this is the one that always hits around my birthday (hence, why I always remember it). So, after getting far too excited, and texting a few friends about it, I went outside. Yard light. Lame. It was after 12, but I took off in the Buick. North on 59 for a few miles to get out of town. I pulled off onto 160th (whatever that is… it was a class B maintenance road, lol). It was so black out. The stars were beyond amazing. You couldn’t help but see the Milky Way. All the constellations were super visible, but also not because there were so many other smaller stars that you normally can’t see in any populated areas. I saw an airplane while I was watching the meteor shower. Yeah. Not the same thing. I realize I wasn’t watching stars fall, but meteors are a part of comets and well, meteors are actually what common people of today call shooting stars. So it was rather epic. It was really, really awesome. Yeah… and then I saw a satellite; not the same. Then an airplane flew overhead. Definitely not a shooting star (although, pre-song, I had always wished one could wish upon an airplane and pretend it was one). It was one of those moments where I wished I could have been with someone. It would have been a good moment to even be on the phone with a friend back home. But no. Not a romantic evening like one might wish for. Just me, God, and the stars.
