Day one of the Big Adventure

After the plane arrived in Albuquerque last night Pastor Christi picked me up and we had a 2 1/2 hour drive to Farmington.  It was dark so I couldn’t see much and I was really tired.  When I got to Mr. Dennis and Miss Pat’s house it was after 1 am in Norwalk so I just went straight to bed.  In the morning I went for a walk and explored a little.  The most amazing thing here is the sky.  It is so much bigger here there is no way to describe it.  You can see for miles and miles all around and the sky is big and blue…No I’m not 3 years old but I feel like it sometimes.

Another thing different is the amount of brown and lack of green.  It isn’t bad, just different.  Because I have an interest in landscaping I paid attention to it on my walk. There are a few yards with little patches of grass but mostly it is just dirt and the landscaping is stones instead of plants.  Some entire yards were made of stone.  I will take pictures of that later. 

After my walk I did a bunch of nothing for awhile.   Then Miss Pat took me around the town.  First we drove by the building I will be working in.  Then we went to a Sonic and then on to Walmart.  At Walmart I was asking about the bathroom set up because it would seem that they have their own bathroom in the back off of their room.  Sure enough, for the first time ever in my life, I have my very own bathroom!  I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it.

  

In addition to my own bathroom, yes I have my very own room.  It was so funny because last night when I got here Miss Pat said something about a noisy pool generator outside my window and this morning Mr. Dennis also mentioned it and how they hoped it wouldn’t bother me.  So funny.  I didn’t hear a thing.  This house is actually really quite. 

After Walmart we went to the church where I met Pastor Larry and picked up my ride until I inherit the Jeep for the summer. 

Needless to say I was filled with great joy. 

After we got back I unpacked everything and just chilled until dinner.  For dinner we had grilled BBQ chicken and cheesy potatoes and asparagus.  I think I am going to like it here.  Oh yeah, and I have a pool.

Tomorrow I start work so I will post about that hopefully tomorrow night.  

The Month of May

So I am on the plane right now.  It is taking longer than I thought it would so I thought I would work on a blog post.  This last month home has been really great, really busy, and REALLY fast.  It is hard to believe it is gone already. 

I guess I’ll just start with the half marathon.  After finals mother came and picked me up and we went to Louisville KY.  I ran the half marathon with Aunt Linda.  The weather was absolutely perfect for a nice long run, sunny breezy, cold in the morning and cool in the afternoon.  She did an amazing job and it was really fun to be able to run with her.  We went through Churchill Downs which was pretty sweet.  Also, I love it when there are people cheering for you on a run and there are water stations.  Wish I had those luxuries during training!  I know that I could have run the marathon but I do not regret my decision at all.

During the month while I was home I worked for my boss from the last two summers doing landscaping and making some money, otherwise I would have gotten bored and grumpy. One day after work one of the guys I work with offered to drive me home on his motorcycle.  It was my first ride ever and so awesome and I am so totally getting one in the future. 

I also helped mother dear with the landscaping at our house to help prepare for Jordan’s graduation party.  We started in the front and I totally re-edged using sandstone and I put in a french drain to help the water not spatter.  One night I was working on it and it was pouring rain and I was super muddy and it was dinner time.  But mother dear didn’t want me to stop working and get cleaned up, and I couldn’t come in the house muddy, so she stood on the front porch and fed me my dinner.  Occasionally I do like being a baby again. Here are a couple of pics I just found.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another fun adventure was going to pick up Marriana after she got back from Austria.  She stayed in Steubenville for a few days and then called to be picked up.  She thought that only I was coming but I took Jordan and Timmy with me.  When we got to her campus I stowed them in the trunk of Daddy’s car.  (by the way, I’m no longer on the plane, I’m in my room in Farmington New Mexico! Yay).  Her friend sat in the front seat to give me directions to pick up her luggage and she sat in the back which worked out perfectly.  We started driving and Timmy stuck his head out of the middle seat and said, “Hello my fruity pebbles” in his Russian accent.  Marriana screamed from joy and I pulled over to her demands to open the trunk so she could hug him.  And instead of Timmy getting out of the trunk Jordan did first……It was a good surprise.

Other fun stuff I did…. I’m trying to summarize this as much as possible. I went to the high school talent show and Timmy won first place.  He played You Raised Me Up on the piano while one of his friends sang.  They did awesome.  I went back to Marietta for a day to go to a friend’s graduation ceremony.The  next day I ran in Abby’s schools 5k and was the fastest female runner.   My time was around 22 min. I attended Jordan, Abby, and Sarah’s dance recital.  Jordan was of course awesome, Abby was practically perfect in every way, and Sarah was hilarious.  She jumped around and chased people around the stage, I laughed so hard that I cried.  I went to Joey’s t-ball practice, he had a really good hit, I’m sad that I won’t be home for any of his games. The next night I went to Olive Garden for the second time ever with some pretty awesome people ;) Then the next night was Timmy and Micah’s piano recital.  Then Friday night I went with the Hart family to Cleveland to have dinner with the adoption group that we went to China with.  Saturday was Jordan’s much anticipated graduation party.  Again, all of this stuff was awesome and fun and all that, I’m just trying to get through it so I can get to the New Mexico stuff on my next post. 

The night of Jordan’s graduation party after it started sprinkling rain and most of the people had left, we did some fuego magic.  We burned 6 pallets and a dried out pine tree and completed operation JJ.  Operation JJ was the code name Timmy and I gave to throwing flour on the fire.  I bought a rather large bag before the party and it was really cool when someone would throw a fistful onto the fire.  It was REALLY TOTALLY AWESOME when 8-10 people threw large amounts onto the fire at one time! Needless to say one bag was not enough so we went and got two more big bags and a little one.  Being the cool kids that we are we placed a diaper on the little one and named it baby JJ, then we burned it.  Don’t ask me why but it was super fun.

Sunday was my last day in Norwalk and it was a good one.  We went to church in the morning then some of Marriana’s friends came over.  We played frisbee at the res and then went to Aunt Linda’s for a picnic.  There was a really great water balloon fight on the new ghetto fort.  Little kids against the big kids.  Epic.  Then we did poppers, snappers, and sparklers.  The next day I got on a plane for New Mexico and now I am here and eager to take pictures and blog.  I just needed to get caught up so thanks for bearing with me.   

Update

Things are changing pretty quickly around here so I thought I would update you on what’s up and my plans for the future.  I have to rewrite a paper for my lit. class. We had an in-class essay on Tuesday but mine accidentally got shredded.  So I have to rewrite that and then I have one exam tomorrow morning and then I am done with my sophomore year! It’s crazy to think that I am already halfway done with college. 

I’m moving over half my stuff out tonight because pastor/uncle Rodney and Miss Stephanie are letting me keep my crap at their house for the summer.  Then in the morning after my final Mother Dear is picking me and the rest of my crap up and I’m outta here!  We will be going to Louisville KY to cheer for Aunt Linda as she completes the Kentucky Derby Half Marathon.

I will be home for 1 month during May and will work for Iris doing landscaping for the third summer.  But then….on May 30th I will fly away to New Mexico for my summer internship!  I will be working for ConocoPhillips as an engineering intern.  I am in the production group and my assignment is Plunge Lifts in Directional Wells.  What the heck that means I have no idea, but I am super excited to find out. 

Perhaps the best part of my internship is the relationships I will be building.  When I got the job offer in Farmington NM I was considering it and told my Dad.  He informed me that there is an FMCI church there and it sealed the deal for me.  Since then I have been in contact with one of the pastors (Larry) who has been working to arrange things for my coming.  The biggest blessing is that he arranged for me to live with some church members Dennis and Pat Gross.  I have talked to Miss Pat a few times on the phone and I am very excited to live with them for the summer.  She even said that she painted the room for me :) Pastor Larry is also working on getting a vehicle for me and it is looking like I will be driving a stick-shift jeep.  Oh yeah!  I am looking forward to this summer and all that I will learn and experience.  I can’t wait for this big adventure. 

I will get back the second week of August and soccer starts the third week.  We have a new soccer coach and I am looking forward to a fresh start and a new season after such a disappointing one last year.  Also, I can’t wait to start some of my petro classes next semester.  I have taken alot of basic courses but only one petro class so far.  I don’t have any labs for the first time ever but I think the best part is that I won’t be taking physics!

Here is my schedule for next semester. 18 credit hours

MWF

9:00-9:50 Leadership 111-Fundamentals of American Leadership

11:00-11:50 Math 257- Engineering Stats

1:00-1:50 Engineering 351- Thermodynamics

T TH

9:30-10:45 History 220- Intro to Human Geography

11:00-12:15 Petro 343- Formation Evaluation

1:00-2:15 Petro 317- Phase Behavior

Until then….I have a paper to write. 

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Wordless Wednesday

Work

Well the semester is winding down and I am done working at the theatre and only have one more shift at the rock wall.  Since I am “working” at the wall right now I figured I would share some pictures.

These are the only two I have of the rock wall besides the ones here.  This is Katie very happy that she made it to the top and back down alive.    

And this is basically what we do when no one comes in to climb.  (My co-workers don’t know I have this haha).

These are the pictures I took of the transformation of the theatre.  I helped to build these sets and had an awesome time doing it.  Everything you see was built from scratch with POWER TOOLS!  I will not be able to work there again next semester because I won’t have time during the soccer season, but I hope to be able to again in next spring.  Oh, and the play that this was for is called A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.  In case anybody cares. 

Our first project was this round extra stage thingy.

Wow! Now it has stairs and there is a little framework up in the background. 

I helped to build the frames for the walls and railings on the second level. 

 

I also helped put up every wall onto the frames.  Yay nail guns! The one leaning over the railing is my #1 boss David.  I think it is cool that at the theatre all the professors go by their first names.  We have a good time.  The other guy is the foreman Nathan.  He really doesn’t do much. 

Starting to come together a little bit.  See that lift? Yeah, I got to drive it several times.  The first time was on my birthday :D

This shows a little bit about how hectic things can get sometimes. 

This is Jeff, my #2 boss. 

The final product!

The first house

The second house.  They ruined my construction with those paintings but what can you do?

The third house.  Those columns were a pain!

Just another view.  And the heads of two co-workers. 

Another view

That’s all, I have more pictures but they are basically the same stuff.  I did get to go the musical and they did a very good job with it.  And then they tore it all down in one day.  The end. 

The desires of my heart

So today, I have made a very hard decision but one that I do not regret.  I will NOT be running the marathon that I have been training for.  I know this comes as a shocker to all, myself included.  To be honest just yesterday I was certain I would be running it.  In fact, for the last 3 1/2 months I was sure I would be.  But that is no longer the case.  

It is not that I don’t want to run it, or that I think I won’t be able to, and no, I’m not injured.  To put it simply, God desires my heart.  All of it. 

I was talking to my sister yesterday and telling her about how it has been hard to run the past few weekends and she just made a little comment asking if God really wanted me to run it.  That had not crossed my mind because I believe He gave me the desire to run so I kinda blew it off.  That was all that was said.  Then today, as I was praying, I was asking God to take all of my heart and make His desires mine (a dangerous thing to do).  That’s when He reminded me of running the marathon.  My response was something like: “Yeah sure God, You want me to run it, anyways if You didn’t, I wouldn’t.”  Then He said, “Really? because that’s what I want.” And then we argued for a really long time. 

My first argument was that He wanted me to run it.  Well, if He did then why would He be asking me not to? I do believe that He wanted me to train for it.  Of that I have no doubt.  I am sure that my insane desire to run could not have come from myself.  And the training itself has been a lesson for me in so many ways that I could probably write a book about running.  I asked Him, “You had me run 399 miles for nothing?” and just He said, “Give those miles to me.”  And you can’t argue with that. 

My next argument was that I would be running it for His glory anyways.  This one blew up in my face pretty fast because if I was going against His will, then would it really be for His glory? or my own?  I have called this “my marathon” and have set “my goals” and the more I thought about it the more I realized that the race itself was actually my personal, selfish desire for glory, not necessarily His desire for me.  But I still told Him, “I’ll dedicate this run to You.” and He reminded me that He already gave me the strength to do that two years ago.  I was reminded of the story of Saul who made sacrifices when he should have obeyed and so I dropped this point because it was pointless.

I was getting desperate and so my next thing was: “God this doesn’t make sense.” Ok, pause.  Since when did anything God told the Israelites in the bible to do make sense? Just about every story in the old testament is about how God told them to do something seemingly stupid to the natural world and they were given great victory. Since when did it make sense for the God of the entire universe to send His only son to take upon himself the sin of this world?  People may tell me that it doesn’t make sense, don’t worry I know.  But it doesn’t have to.  

I was out of excuses, so I decided to submit.

If I am not willing to give up a marathon, then does He really have my heart or my life? The point is, I want Him more.  He is worth it 100%.  There is no loss, there is no cost too great to serve the King.  So here I am, so grateful for Him speaking to me on those long runs over the last 4 months, and for speaking to me now.  I am offering my training to Him, offering this marathon to Him, and offering all of my heart and all of its desires to the One who loves me and desires all of me.  May my life bring glory to His name, that is my purpose. 

I do want to add that this action is not to make anyone feel guilty or to draw attention to myself or to make myself seem better than anyone.  It is simply a decision that I have made in obedience to the will of the Father.

I will still be going to KY to cheer for Aunt Linda as she does the half marathon and I am so proud of her.  But I will not be running this one.  I don’t know yet whether or not I will run another marathon but at least I know He has my heart.      

Another post about running….

Just figured I’d update you all on where I am with my training and inform you of today’s run. 

The race is now less than a month away! I’m so excited for it. As it not only symbolizes the pinnacle of the last three months of training but also the end of the semester and the beginning of summer.  Since I began training in January I have run over 358 miles (I didn’t log all of the running I did for soccer), 162 of which were in the month of March, the most ever in a month.  I’ve also run the farthest ever without having to walk.  Last week I ran 20 miles and although I stopped for a quick water break I didn’t walk any of the distance.  I did complete a marathon my senior year but I had to walk from about miles 18 to 23.  My goals for this marathon are to finish the race without having to walk any of it and to finish under 4 hours.  More realistically with the times I am running right now it will be closer to 4 1/2 hours. 

There is so much about running and the thoughts that I think and the lessons that I learn that I could probably write a book about it but I will spare you and just write about today’s run.  So, remember last week I ran 20 right? Today I only had to run 12 so I thought, no big deal I’ve done that lots.  Well, that was a mistake.  It ended up being one of my hardest runs mentally so far.  It was a beautiful day and sunny, about 50 degrees, slight breeze, aka perfect running weather. I got back from church, ate lunch, took a nap, and got up to go run.  When I first started out I was going a little slow, which for me is typical in the first few miles until I get into my pace.  But I never really sped up.  My legs were just heavy the entire run. 

There has been alot on my mind the past few days and its not a bad thing but I think when I run and sometimes it makes it hard.  For one I really miss my family and I have only been home twice this semester.  It’s not even that I miss home because I absolutely love my city  but I really miss my family.  I was supposed to get to see them on Saturday but those plans got changed.  And Baby Judah took his first steps last week.  Ahhh!  They will be coming to my city in a few weeks and I am super excited for that!  Anyways, I could fill up so much about what I thought of and the things going through my head.  So that was going on.  And I chose a course with lots of hills, which again, typically is not a big deal I run them all the time.  But running up each one my legs were just exhausted and I don’t know why.  It got to a point where I was trying to run up a huge hill and just started walking.  I walked about 15 steps and then I thought, “this is stupid! I ran so much farther than this last week and here I am walking when in less than a month I have to run more than twice this far.”  So I got mad at myself and continued on even though it was hard. 

Well, not long after I got past the top of that monster hill I saw an older lady walking into her house and I stopped and asked her for a drink.  She brought me a bottle of water and I was SO grateful.  But I don’t like carrying things when I run.  I was on a out and back portion so I drank half the bottle and left it by the road for the return trip.

Next came the wonderful dog part.  Now most of you know that I am not particularly fond of dogs in the first place.  They are fine, for the most part they don’t bother me, and I will admit that I have even liked a few.  But on this run there had been an unusual number of dogs barking at me from behind fences and a few bigger dogs that would bark and chase me for a bit from a distance.  I am not really scared of them it just gets annoying.  But I really don’t like little yappy dogs, which is exactly what was waiting for me around the corner.  5 to be exact.  I was running out in the country and there was no fence for these mini demons who chased me and barked and surrounded me.  I didn’t really know what to do because if I kept running they would snap at my heels and if I turned around and faced them then they would back off but I didn’t want to stay there.  I was doing a combo of these which looked a little like running backwards I guess when the owner, a dirty sort of looking hillybilly man came out and started swearing at them and threw his hat at one.  He told me that they wouldn’t bite but I saw their hair was up and heard in their barks and didn’t trust the man.  Which was right because one of them literally bit my shoe.  They eventually cowered away and I continued my run.  Well, remember when I said it was an out and back route? Yeah about 10 min later I was back for more, but this time it was uphill fighting the brutes.  Only two chased me this time because the man was yelling at the other three but these two were determined to….I don’t know, defend their territory?  I had had enough and was not about to let them win so I just turned around and kicked one of them.  Not enough to hurt it but they got the idea and scampered away like the little cowards they were.

By this time I was so very tired because of the adrenaline rush but made it to the stashed water bottle.  It was refreshing but I was still about 4 miles away from being done.  Then I noticed that the same car with a lone sketchy man had passed me four times in about 8 min.   I was so ready to be done.  My legs were tired, my emotions were drained, I felt unsafe, and I was just plain miserable and done.  I got my phone out to call my friend to come pick me up but again thought how stupid that would be seeing how much I had run before.  So I ended up finishing the run.  It was hard, and I got chased by two more dogs, and many more barked at me as I ran past, but I did it.  And the man didn’t drive past anymore.  I finished probably the hardest 12 mile run ever. 

I know this is alot of reading just for one run, that is why I could write a book, because every run is unique and holds its own challenges and adventures.  Which is why I love it.  But I probably won’t run on that road anymore for awhile.  Hopefully this week I can do well with my training.  With spring soccer season I have been getting a little behind on my mileage but I guess that is what happens.  On a happier note my new shoes will be here this week.