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 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 an interview, and conversations with neighbor Fred

Last night, I stayed up ridiculously late talking with Kim, Jeni, and Lydia. We ended up sharing goodness knows how many links and youtube videos. It was a lot of fun, and the time just got away from me -- until I realized the hour and how tired I was (and how tired I would be in the morning).

After getting up, I just kinda bummed around for awhile. It was too wet outside to do much in the garden (again, it's been raining about every few days, keeping things nice and wet). Played the guitar (not well, mind), but still, it's entertaining, and I'm getting somewhat better. Then I watched movie trailers online. Then the phone rang at 11. It was Subway? They wanted to know if I'd be free and interested for an interview today at 2. Sure, I'm not doing anything. Um... cool.

Showered and got ready for the interview and showed up early. She told me a little about the job requirements, but mostly about how she didn't want me giving anything away to customers or family members and thereby stealing things and then lying about it later. She apparently gets super uptight about things like that. Good to know.

I wasn't sure if I should mention the fact that I'm going to be around for another month, but I decided not to really worry about it and just play the whole thing by ear. I mean, seriously, I haven't had an actual job interview for a long time... a few years, perhaps? My most intimidating one, by far, was for YMA, but that was like, 5 years ago.

She had two open spots, and four applicants. I was the last to be interviewed because I had turned in an application most recently. She seemed to be super distant about the hiring process and said she'd call tomorrow about her choice and such. Then we talked for a few more minutes about the job, and she seemed to be deciding something as we were talking. The next thing I know, she says she'd like to hire me and pulls out her schedule and puts me down for 11-2 tomorrow. Woah. Happened so fast. Trippy. I have a job. Man, I almost don't want to leave now. Between church, and now work... cool.

I was kinda in disbelief, but there it is. Wow, crazy.

I went by ShenAG to say hi to Ashley. We talked for awhile, and we might get together for lunch sometime this week. Awesome :) Then I went by the library and returned some books I didn't actually want to read... one was large print (which is just awkward), and the others were more by the same author I've been reading, and they're good, just slightly formulaic, so the whole thing gets old after awhile.

Then I went by the little guitar store downtown to pick up myself a capo so I can play more songs that I haven't really been able to play, lacking the correct key. Dude, that guy in that store was so creepy. I could tell he was just checking me out the entire time. No bueno, creeper. But I was willing to overlook that and just get my capo. But his card machine wasn't working, so I said I'd come back soon to get it... Once I got in my car, I realized I wasn't going to come back. I'd either send Jim, or look at another store, or go to another town, or try ebay.com. No way I was going back to that creep-stop. So I went by Walmart and actually managed to find a decent capo there. Weird, but awesome. Plus, it was cheeper than the one had been at the guitar shop. Bomb-dig.


Went home and played the guitar for a long time. Again, not well, but better than I had been a few weeks ago. Then went down to dinner with Jan, Jim, and Fred, who came over for dinner. Fred is quite the interesting character. He has three or four exwives, was a trucker, has been all over the States with that job, he has a lot of toys in his yard: truck, jeep, 4-wheeler, lawn mowers, RV, and his little dog, Jessie (very protective of him, it's adorable). He joined the Marines back in 1953, was in it for three years before switching to the Army for another four years. He said he was stationed in France for a long time where they had this massive building to surface the U-boats. So awesome to hear about.

The whole baby-gate-to-keep-lacy-out-of-the-upstairs idea didn't work super well, as she still had the landing to use... so I put up some empty water bottles on the stairs to both block the stairs more, and to fall on her/down the stairs, making a massive amount of noise, were something like that to potentially occur in the future.

When I was at Walmart, I also got some red vines because they remind me of Lydia... It's super weird eating them all by myself. Not the same. But still reminds me of her a ridiculous amount. I keep thinking she's just in the next room or something *sigh* nope...

The chicks are eating like mad-birds. It's insane, but I guess it's a given. They're young, growing, and are hungry, plus, there are so many of them. Chicken Little was doing very poorly the other day, and I actually thought he was going to die just like the first one had. He is ridiculously tiny. I think he must be a bantam or something. He's at least half the size of the rest, but bosses them around like none other. It's adorable and really funny. But I didn't know what to do, then I got the idea to check and clean his vent... and then just pray. And viola! He's better and back to normal! It made me super happy, but also kinda frustrated at myself for not having checked that with the other chick. All of the chicks were taking a nap together and on top of each other this after noon. It was most adorable.

I have a ton of reading to catch up on for my class. It's depressing. Ulgh. Why do I get so behind?!? For starters though, I will for sure have to say that this class has been a ton more work than I had anticipated. It's so insane. Read this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and this, and then summarize and synthesize it all into 1000 words every week, and then respond in 400 words to 2 other student's papers from last week. Baaaaaaaaahh. It's driving me crazy.

The Page county fair started yesterday, and I think the Fremont county fair starts today. I really want to go to both, even if I don't like, help or work with them in anything for my FFA interests, I'd just love to go to them as something to do and all that. I'm endlessly sad that I'm going to miss the HR county fair this year.

of sunrises and meetings with persons

Got up this morning at 6am to do laundry (I literally am out of clothes to wear... I probably wore everything I brought (besides jeans) at least 4 times), and just generally get my day started before Jim and I have to be at this place to meet up with this guy at 9am.

The sunrise was GORGEOUS. I can't emphasize that enough. It was AMAZING. Yup. It's been decided. I need to get up for it more often.

Rabbit Rabbit :)

Getting up early and the fact that it's the first of the month (hence: rabbit rabbit), reminds me endlessly of YMA. The whole thing. Up early, super tired, kinda sticky from hot air all night, stumbling around, turning music on, kinda a musty smell of the upstairs. Yup. It screams YMA. It's sad that I can't be there this year.... But I'm working on a letter to send them, so hopefully I can get that sent today.

Breakfast, showered, laundry, got ready and went to meet up with this guy at the chamber of commerce. He started telling me a bunch of things about agriculture that I kinda already knew, but he might be able to get me a tour and some other things to do at the ethanol plant! I'm super excited about it! Someone who actually has a potential at getting me in there, lol.

Then he and Jim talked about this FutureGen stuff regarding the algae plan/thing.
FutureGen wikipedia site
FutureGen Industrial Alliance site

The idea is for me to help them with this binder of sorts, working on uhhh, getting some sort of organization on a googlemaps program of sorts, and the idea is that I'd get paid for my work in this. We'll see how it all goes. I'm not planning on really being involved unless I can get paid for it especially with all the work I need to do for the garden to get started in addition to my other homework from my online class.

When we got back, I was ridiculously tired. I think it's from the benadryl I took a few hours previous. Or maybe just the start of slep-debt. Regardless, I decided it couldn't hurt to take like, an hour nap. Three hours later..... (ulgh), I got up, ate lunch, watered the plants, and Jan and I are about to head out to the pool. woohoo.

of plants and evening bike rides

After doing homework, or attempting to do my homework, but actually in reality I did a lot of research on growing a garden and doing a CSA in Iowa and looking for other people doing the same in the Shenandoah area (nope, no one around).

Then I went to Walmart and got some envelopes to send my internship information back to Dr Velez every week.... which I still have yet to start sending anything. Really need to get on that tomorrow.

Tomorrow, around 9am, Jim and I are leaving to go talk to this one guy about the algae project. I'm supposed to dress nice. Sounds important, lol.

then I got home and all the plants were in the yard!!! Apparently the manager at Earl May Nursery thought that we gave him a pretty good bid for the lot of plants. I started sorting them by type, tomatoes, peppers, herbs, broccoli, eggplant, and then set about counting them. Found out we actually have cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and a few other plants besides what I originally thought. Awesome. Didn't get to finish counting them because Jan wanted to go get dinner. With the big purchase of all the plants, she didn't feel like cooking - plus, it was really hot in the house because Jim forgot to close it up and turn on the AC, but considering, it probably wasn't more than 80 degrees inside and out.

We went down to HyVee (they had me drive, lol) to the little deli to get these pork tenderloin sandwiches, but apparently they were completely sold out. So instead we went over to Godfather's Pizza and got the Ultimate Pizza combination thing. Hot stuff pizza, italian sausage pizza, and apple streusel pizza. Really good, and a lot of leftovers (yum).

Came back to the farmhouse and I did some reading for my summer class and when I got tired of swatting off mosquitos, I took off on my bike down towards the end of Airport road. Didn't mean to go that far, but I ended up going down the other way on Airport road and went all over Shenandoah. It was really nice out, and I had my bike lights, so I wasn't too worried about being out in the dark. Plus, there isn't really a thing that even remotely relates to traffic out here.

Rode through down town and passed the movie theater. It was packed out with high schoolers there to see the newest installment of the Twilight frenzy. A couple of boys were outside drinking energy drinks (because that's the cool thing to do when you're in high school, lol) and one yelled across the street "hey! do a wheelie!!!" another said to him "she's a girl, she's not going to do that, she probably can't," so I jumped a curb and actually got some major air off the other side. "WOAH!!!" "That was awesome!" "I toldja she could do it" hahah... it made me laugh and kinda happy.

I really, really miss social interaction with people my age (<--- I seriously can't say this enough!).

and it's only 11, but I'm peacing out to bed.

of algae, libraries, and plants

Talked with Jim last night about wanting to look over at the main part of Earl May Seed and Nursery, also Green Plains (the ethanol plant) while I'm here. He said he knows some of the people at both places and will look into getting me a potential tour of both. But at the same time I'm not giving up on contacting them myself.

Jim and a few other guys have been working on this project for years where they want to present it to the government and the head-honchos about how you can produce vast amounts of algae protein by utilizing the CO2 from the various large-operation plants around the nation, therefore cutting the carbon footprint to nearly non-existence. I understand their idea and it sounds not unlike some of the things some of the people in the classes I took at OSU want to see happen, but they don't exactly know how to go about it.

Anyway, Jim asked me if I'd be interested in doing a bit of work on it while I'm here, and I said I would be alright with doing some work on it. Jim called one of the guys this morning and it looks like they might even be able to pay me to work on assembling a presentation binder for their project. We'll see how it goes...

I'm currently at the library. I like it here. It's small (they have neither Hornblower or Master and Commander books... it's a royal shame. I might be able to get them from another branch though) and reminds me kinda of the old Hood River library. I'm sad that it's about to go under. Hopefully not for long though. But anyway, like the HR Library, they have a huge plan to renovate this library in the near future. I'm just hopeful that they'll be able to keep it up an running for longer than the HR library has been since the renovation.

Anyway, they have a few events every so often here at the library, and it just so happens that on July 22nd they're going to have a Pirates of the Caribbean marathon starting around 12pm and ending, goodness knows when. They'll have snacks and such and I can bring my own dinner if I want to stay for the whole thing (who wouldn't???). I'm considering going. Could be fun, and Jan might like it too. I'll bring it up later when I get back to the farmhouse.

Got up later than I planned... again. Think it's from the benadryl-coma I was in again last night because I had a few new bites that were really starting to bother me. I really need to get better about going to bed sooner too. It's just that it's so hot and light out until late these days, and then i want to stay up and call people or do stuff online, or read my books. But that aside, I just need to prioritize sleep a bit more I suppose.

After getting up, doing some more crunches and push-ups (I'm up to 50) and re-organizing my room, Jim and I went down to the house in town to clean up the backyard a bit more and then went over to the Earl May retail store in town and offered the guy $550 for all the rest of the vegetable and herb plants he had sitting out on sale (it's around 500 really nice plants. mostly tomatoes, but also various peppers, broccoli, eggplant, and sweet potatoes). The guy just said he'd work some numbers and get back to us in awhile. Then we went over to The Garage Sale Guy, which is this old building packed chock-full of random stuff. It's like a thrift store, but with endless amounts of stuff. It's actually kinda like living history because people just bring all of their stuff there. It was kinda funny, I found some shot glasses from the Portland Rose Festival and Gresham --- when does that happen in small-town, Iowa?

Thinking about bringing it up to Jan that I could streak her hair or highlight it or something. She'd actually brought it up to me and I guess I'd not really thought about it, but then mom mentioned it the other day and I thought: Hey! that's actually a good idea. Plus, leaves potential for more aunt-niece bonding time, lol. :)

Added some more pictures to my first facebook album and then created and uploaded more to a second facebook album. Check 'em out (but you don't have to comment on all of them...!!!)

of depressing and awkward things, and dinner

I woke up today in a bad mood. I just woke up mad. Everything was making me upset. Between the lack of move, and generally everything else. Probably doesn’t help that I realized when I woke up that I dreamt last night that I was going to be arranged in a marriage to Pastor Baumann. That didn’t fly so well and when I realized (in my dream) what was going on, I took off in the car out of the church to Walmart, which, in my dream, was next to the Clackamas Town Center mall, and then it started pouring rain, and then some Mexican who didn’t speak a lick of English crashed into the driver’s side of my car when I had parked. I called 911, but they hung up on me. I woke up soon after. Needless to say, it wasn’t the best dream.

The move doesn’t look like it’s going to work, Jim’s saying something about his mom needing to go in for some kind of surgery some time soon, I don’t know when because no one is giving me anything related to details about anything, and he’s saying she’s probably not going to be here for some reason relating to that.

I spent a long time on the phone with my parents because of this, and also, it was good to talk with them. I’ve been here around a week now and I just feel like I haven’t done anything even remotely related to my internship, and I don’t have a job, which is incredibly discouraging. I’m super down about it.

While on the phone at one point, I was just walking along the road and got a straight up checking-out & cat-call whistle from these two guys on a motorcycle. Um… awkward. I didn’t do anything and just kept walking.

Then after I got off the phone, I went to The Depot with Jan. Supposedly a good restaurant with bad beer from their microbrewery. When we walked in the door, I got a straight-up cat call whistle again. I didn’t look over. They whistled again, only much slower to make sure I noticed. Oh, I did. I still didn’t look over. I’m sorry, but we just don’t condone stuff like that out in the PNW, I don’t know what planet you are from, you weirdo. Jan and I sat in a different room and ordered our food. I got this fantastic chicken burger. It was sooo incredibly good.

Jim would have come with us, even though he doesn’t really like the food they have at the Depot, but he was on this skype conference call with these other guys about setting up some sort of programming for a facebook application where people can take this personality quiz for like, $20. I didn’t really want to ask him anything else about it, lol.

Friday morning

Last night I got a text from Kenzie. It was super encouraging. As much as I've texted or called a few people, it's still not enough. I might not have a whole lot to say, but I get pretty sad knowing that just a week ago I had 50 other girls around me at all times. Now I'm often alone in what I do. Jim is usually busy with his computer business or organizing more things for the move, and Jan is here and about, usually absorbed in a book on goats or watching the latest episode of her favorite show. Not bad things, of course, but even yesterday just biking around down was fun, but slightly discouraging because I was all by myself for over four hours. What I wouldn't do to have someone to bum around town with who was at least somewhere around my age and wouldn't mind doing weird, stupid, and silly things.

Anyway, this text from Kenzie was about how she was praying for me. It was really encouraging, and it made me realize that all the preparation I had gone through for the trip, I'd pretty much forgotten about when I got here. I just focused on not overstepping and being weird when I got here. You know, all the pleases and thankyous in their right place as I really am a guest of Jan and Jim.

But after I got the text from Kenzie I remembered that I had brought my Bible and some study books to go through. This one in particular, I've always found it (weird as it sounds) to fit perfectly with my life, no matter what I'm doing. It always matches up exactly. It's so weird. But super awesome. I pulled it out my suitcase. The next one was about accepting God's call in our life. Wow, talk about true. It was super encouraging, and made me rethink how I am going about this adventure in Iowa, and how I should go about things from here on out. God is amazing. It's seriously incredible. I love it.

I'm super excited to go to church on Sunday. Hopefully everything will go well. :) Sunday can't come soon enough!!!

This morning when I opened my computer, I got an email from Cory. The title of the email? "An awesome, inappropriately over-the-top gift!!!" the message itself was quite hilarious, and the gift was music. Need I say more? Yeah, probably. I love music. It's one of my favorite things ever. 'Soundtrack of my life' is not even a question, it's a definite given. Yes, I will say that it's some more country, but I'm not opposed to it. I've always said that I'm not against it, but more that I'm not super into it. In the last year I've gotten more okay with it, which is interesting. Some of you might be screaming "noooOOOOoooooo" right now, but you can just get over it. Others of you might be shouting cheers of joy (haha, Danielle ;) ). I'm actually really excited to get all this music, and I will admit that I had been contemplating getting some of my own volition. But it's even more special to have received it from a good friend. I'm in the process of downloading all the files as I type this. It will soon join my iTunes collection, and after that, my black-hole ipod so that I can play it on my bomb-dig sony speakers.

Ha, just saying that makes me realize how much my friends and family have realized I love music. For graduation, what did I get? A 120GB iPod, a really awesome Sony speaker system just for my ipod, and now, more music!!! What else could a music addict ask for?

I was going to go around town this morning to go downtown to check out some of the shops and maybe get more applications because mornings are usually the best time for that kind of thing. My alarm went off this morning and I rolled over thinking "you have got to be kidding me" and decided at that moment that I could continue fighting with my alarm for the next 4 hours, or just let myself sleep. I opted for the latter. Getting up knowing I missed out on that was a bummer, but it's still not too late, and there's always tomorrow, so I'm not super worried about it. I still need to take back my applications to the other places I got some from yesterday.

I'm going to try to take some pics of the downtown area for you guys. It's super cute!! Also coming will be pictures of the pets. Madeline has really warmed up to me. I love her, she's adorable. Dusty still isn't too sure of me and likes to keep his (her?) ...it's distance (haha). Lexx knows who I am, sometimes when I first wake up, or walk in the front door after being gone for awhile he'll give me a warning bark until I talk to him, and he remembers who I am. Lacy, not so much. She's still unsure who I am most of the time, unless we're out for a run, or lounging on the couch for a long time. She consistently forgets who I am, but it's ok. I'm intruding on her little puppy-territory, and I'm completely new blood to her, so it's only natural that she'd think it weird that I'm not only still here, but around at all.

In the next day or so, I think Jan might be taking me out and around in the Saturn. Why? It's a manual. Ever since Scooter took me out in his little Toyota behind the LDS church, I loved it, but never got the chance to learn again. Well, now I have to learn because the Saturn is the car that I will be driving. I'm actually kinda excited about it, but a little nervous at the same time. Thankfully there aren't many stop signs and all the roads are straight and there really aren't any hills in town.

Thursday

So I managed to stay up ridiculously late again last night. But I made myself get up around 10 anyway. I really need to adjust to this time zone.

Last night we watched Glee, Chuck, Kings, another show, I believe, and a movie. Yay for Hulu and Netflix instant play. Today was kinda the same. We watched Bedtime Stories and they watched the 2nd episode of Kings again (because Jim missed out and wants to watch the rest of the series).

After I got up I showered and all that boring stuff, and then decided to go out on my bike today to check out the town. I went over to the CMA church, that I'm thinking about going to on Sunday. Then I proceeded to go all over town. Found a few parks and took a break or two in the grass. Potential reading areas under trees? I think so.

I biked down to the downtown area and skirted around the town, finding Broad street, which is where they workforce Iowa location is. I went inside, but there really wasn't much there that wasn't already posted online. But it was air conditioned and I was sweating buckets from the sun and the humidity (thank God it was windy, but that's an understatement, Iv'e never had more difficulty maintaining balance on my bike because of wind before). So I stayed and poked around online looking at local job openings.

Then I biked out to hwy 48 and found the Wabash Trace trail, which was next to yet another park, biked on that a bit, but then went back towards town. Found the pool, biked a bit more, and then into town via hwy 59. From there I found the Walmart, the veterinary clinic, and some other businesses. Got some applications that I brought back with me and filled out later.

Then I biked out to the farmhouse and back before going back to their house here in town. I only meant to be gone for like an hour to just poke around town a bit, but ended up being gone for 4 hours. Got a little bit sunburnt, but nothing bad by any means, which is good.

So far the mosquito bite count is only at 5 I believe, which is weird. I feel like it should be worse, but I'm thankful all the same.

Dinner was shrimp tonight. Quite an experience considering I really don't have a history with seafood, but it was really, really good. I actually found myself wanting more later. Then we had popcorn later. Jan said they really know how to make their popcorn out here. and well, I guess it makes sense. We are in the corn belt after all, haha.

Tonight Jan and I walked all the way around town after the sun went down so that it would be cooler, and we walked down Church street. Which, I dare say, is named because there are just about all the churches located on that street. Part of the way down Church street there was this huge thunderstorm coming our way. But it ended up skirting over the side of town. Bummer. It would be awesome if we got a serious rain storm. But it was still fantastic watching the lightening fly past the sky, lighting up other cloud formations.

I uploaded more pictures to the facebook album and the flicker photostream (which is also viewable to the side on the blog).

first full day... continued

I am not much of a person with an insect phobia, but let me tell you, holy sham-wow, I had two run-ins with the world's most gigantic mosquitos this afternoon. I swear their bodies alone were an inch long and super dark. So terrifying. I'm sure I'll grow used to it, but for now, I'd much rather not be considered a piece of insect meat (thank-you-very-much).

Jan and I took a walk through the town to look at the downtown. It's super cute. I managed to not take pictures (sorry!!), but I will soon. :) The library is super cute, small, and has an awesome amount of movies. I'll be getting a library card for sure. There is this cute little drug store that has a soda fountain counter, and Jan and I got rootbeer floats for $2. Super fun and super cute.

I'm probably going to have to update my resume and take it literally everywhere I can. Jim and I were going to go to this convention for small farms up in Red Oak, but he wasn't able to get us transportation up there (considering, unfortunately, both cars are in the shop right now). Which is a bummer, but it means that I'll be able to go around Shenandoah some more tomorrow to check out the town and take pictures, and look into getting work. Hopefully maybe even go into a few churches to see what's around. :)

Pretty much all of my connections in town are with Jan and Jim, but I really want to get involved in the town and meet people. Nancy and her family are super nice, but they are Mormon, and I'm not a mormon, so that means I'll really have to find a church on my own, instead of just tagging along with some relatives here, but that's ok.

I'm thinking about taking a nap. Super tired, and my back still hurts, from what, I am assuming is yesterday and all the lugging around of my violin and duffle bag, not to mention all the uncomfortable weird sitting and sleeping on the plane.

so many uncertainties

At the same time that I'm really excited and looking forward to this whole "Iowa thing" I'm terrified of it.

What is it going to be like? Will I like it? Will I be happy? Will I meet people? Will I like being around new people? Will I like being in a new place? Will I feel trapped? Will I actually get anything accomplished? Will I feel like I am taking too much? Too little? Will I actually get a job? Will I hate the weather? Will I fall in love? Will I love the weather? Will I not want to leave? Will I want to stay for the rest of my life? Will I get to travel? Will I want to? Will I be alone? Will I feel awkward? Will I be afraid? Will I find a church there? Will I get along with my distantly-related family? Will I keep the peace among my relatives? Will I have time for fun reading? Will I be able to stay in contact with friends from Oregon? Will I be able to meet up with any of my friends from Belhaven? Will I stay at home all day during my free time, or will I go out?

I guess really the only thing I can do is trust God completely and know that He already has it completely planned out perfectly. All I can do is pray and trust Him.