Enchantingly good looks...

I'll never give up my impulsiveness, but I will admit that flying standby can be rather stressful and inconvenient at times.

The plan was for me to fly out of Seattle in the morning, for Hannah (my very best friend from all the way back in fourth grade) to fly out of Portland at the same time, and we would both reach Arizona around 2pm if all went well. If all went well. At SeaTac, I found out I would most definitely not be getting on any flights out of there that day, so (to make a long story short) I ended up driving all the way down to Portland, meeting Hannah, then killing five hours doing chemistry while she read until the 5:30pm flight left from Portland. It was definitely nice to get to spend the afternoon with Han and then get to fly down together (especially because this was Hannah's first time on a commercial flight), but it made for a rather exhausting day. However, seeing Mike, Deb, and little Ava when we got off the plane made up for it. She is one cute little baby girl, I'll tell you what. And it was in the 80's, even though it was 8 o'clock at night!

Saturday was great, full of sunshine on our faces, relaxing, playing with little Ava, hanging with Mike and Deb, walking around town, lying in the backyard. Just a perfect 82 degree day of doing nothing but having fun. I know I will always live in the northwest, but the constant sunshine is a vacation I will never tire of, that's for sure. Due to scheduling, Saturday was our only full day down there, and we were ready to head back home on a 7:30am flight Sunday morning. Before we went to bed, Deb checked the flight status and found that the flights (all of them for that day) were all of sudden completely booked with several standbys on each of them already signed up. This has never happened before for me flying standby, so I wasn't expecting not being able to get a flight home, but there wasn't much we could do except go to the airport in the morning and hope a bunch of people missed their flights so we could have their seats. Turns out, a bunch of seats came open the next morning (we think God pulled some strings), so we got on (sigh of relief), said our goodbyes to Arizona, and came home. Of course, I had to fly back into Portland instead of Seattle since my car was there, so I had to drive all the way back home from there, which meant that I was completely exhausted, rather crabby (okay, really crabby), and in dire need of sleep by the end of it all, but I suppose thus is the life of a vegabond. Or maybe it's just the life of an impulsive, last-minute, standby trip down to Arizona. Well, no matter...Deb, Hannah, Mike, Ava, it was an absolute pleasure to spend the weekend with you! And Ava, thank you for assuring me with your enchantingly good looks that yes, indeed, we have great baby-making genes on both side of our little family. Jayden, Daelyn, and Ava are quite possibly the three most adorable little girlies I have ever seen. The cards seem to be in our favor, Isaac Daniel.

I've been told I'm rather impulsive...

Like, the minute I decide I want to cut my hair, Saturday is too long to wait for an appointment with Jama (even though she's my favorite), so I'll spend all afternoon calling around to every salon in town trying to find one with an appointment today because it just has to be done immediately. And the morning I decided it was time to get my nose pierced, the work day could not go fast enough, and when it finally dragged to 3:59, I was out the door so fast on my way to the parlor. If it's time for a new sundress, it must be attained that day if I want to avoid major disappointment. Go figure I married a man who could contemplate a potential purchase for weeks, making sure he has researched all possible qualities and types before finally (and painstakingly slowly, if you ask me) making the purchase. If he even wants it anymore by that time.

I like to believe my impulsiveness has brought a nice breath of fresh air into his life.

My latest rash plans have set the stage for an incredibly fun weekend. I've been wanting to go visit my sis down south at some point this summer, and last Friday, amidst trying to find a date that worked for both of us, I realized this coming weekend was relatively open for me. Turns out it was open for Deb as well, and with her working for the airlines, she booked me a quick spot on a plane coming down Friday. Then we got the bright idea to invite my best friend and Deb's other 'little sis' Hannah to come as well. Kind of crazy since we would be giving her about five days notice, she'd be flying on her own from a different airport than I was, and we're both flying standby so Deb will have to be coordinating everything if either one of us gets bumped to a later flight. But what the heck, we said. Let's give it a shot. So we called her up and, after recovering from the initial shock, Han agreed, so we're all set to go. Just three more days!

So, upon reflection of my ways, I have concluded that I shall not relinquish my impulsivity lest I take away the fun I can have flying by the seat of my pants. Take that, world!

There is a place in Oregon that sits on the edge of a lake, land covered in thousands of green trees, trails, dirt roads, and rustic buildings. When you breathe, you're inhaling the smell of dry pine needles and fresh, country air. It's one of the few places in my life where I can go and as soon as I turn off the main road onto the property, I am completely at peace. I am home. I grew up going to this summer camp from third grade all the way through high school, began working on dish crew as soon as I was old enough, graduated to cabin leader the summer of my ninth grade year (for the younger kiddos, of course) and spent the rest of my high school summers ditching paid jobs to volunteer as many weeks as I could cabin leading out at camp. I lived though the school year counting the days until summer came and I could go back out to camp. I just loved it.

It's the kind of camp that is pretty small-town, so there were a lot of the same staffers there every year, and we just became family. I started with little girls as my campers in 4th or 5th grade, and got to see them grow up and mature and become cabin leaders themselves. Some of them are even on staff currently! There's a large part of my soul that will always belong there.

And now I finally get to go back. I've been away for several years, after I went off to college as staying up here in the summers meant I needed to be working, which meant less opportunities to make the trek back to camp for a couple of weeks, and I just kind of moved on with my life. But a couple weeks ago the calling back to camp was stronger than I've experienced yet in all the years I've been gone, so I started researching possibilities that I might return once again this summer, and the (very) short story of it is that it all miraculously worked out! I'm going back to cabin lead for a high school camp this summer! I actually had a dream about it last night, I've been so incredibly excited.

Ah, camp. Where I've french braided endless amount of girlies' hair. Where hundreds of geese fly every summer just to poop on the playing field. Where Jo, Kayla, and Amanda were once my little campers. Where I taught volleyball for two years, even though it was never one of my sports in high school...ha! Where I started my first (and only) forest fire. Where I almost beat Alex in a fuse ball tournament...almost. Where counselors hide in trash bags inside the already-full dumpster regularly for counselor-hunt. So gross. Where Jack imparted years of wisdom to us all and showed us how to love well. Where the cup game is definitely not allowed to be part of FOB time, but my cabin does it anyway. Where some of my best memories, times, and people are.

I'm finally going back home.

Words for my heart...

Isaac and I drove out to the docks to watch the sunset a few days ago. It had been a perfect blue-sky day, and white, puffy clouds had rolled in just in time to accent the sunset with brilliant golds and purples...it was one of the first days that really seemed like spring had arrived. It was really just a regular day, nothing out of the ordinary, just work, then home, dinner with the husband, then a sunset stroll on the way to the store. But sitting in the car on the dock, watching the sky, I felt God talk to my spirit. There are people, probably the majority of people I would guess, who never feel like they experience God speaking to them, but for some reason I've always known when God was talking to me, always been able to recognize when the thoughts in my heart weren't originating from myself. And it's always with a total surety that the voice is the Lord's. That's just how I was made, I guess. Out there on the docks, God told me that my year of rest, my sabbatical of sorts, was coming to a close.

A little over a year ago, I wrote about resting. I was stressed and overwhelmed with a number of things; I had molded my life in a way that entailed non-stop giving of myself, my time, my support to others, and I just didn't have anything left to give anymore. I was empty and exhausted, consumed with my own struggles that at times threatened to take over my life...literally. I ended my time volunteering with the youth up here at church, I declined any and every invitation to serve in any sort of ministry opportunity, I did nothing but work my eight hours, then come home free of any responsibilities and relaxed, read for fun, took walks, played with friends. I just enjoyed existing, free of any guilt that I wasn't giving enough to others, and concentrated only on making it through each day. I knew God had released me freely into that sabbath of sorts, and in the same way I can feel God speak to me, I knew he would let me know when he had filled me up enough to be able to give to others again.

That's when he met me on the docks the other day. I hadn't even been thinking of anything related to the resting at the time, but all of a sudden I just knew that my year was coming to a close - and not that it was coming to a close whether or not I was ready for it, but that it was coming to a close because God had restored me and calmed the year's raging seas to the point where I was full enough to once again have something extra I could give to those around me.

It was kind of like my rainbow after the flood. Not promising that floods will never come again, but just shining color onto me as a celebration that these flood waters had receded and new life was appearing once again.

Not that all my struggles are gone, not by any means. Not that I am done resting and am planning to jump back into intense volunteering right away. More like, I'm just ready to begin to look outside of myself again and see people around me that I can love.

And I am so ready for that.

Chemistry, as I've decided...

Chemistry, I've decided, is not as hard as I've always dreaded. Which is nice, because if you've heard me loathe sciences at any point during the past twelve years, you know that I've seriously dreaded anything that involves a lab. However, I'm convinced that this time around my 'nerd adult-student' card should get me through quite nicely. I swear I study more now than I ever did back in college when I was taking a full load. Oh, the irony.

So, last week we planted our garden! Peas, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, swiss chard, two kinds of onions, potatoes, strawberries, radishes and garlic. Tomatoes and cucumbers will come in a few more weeks when the weather's gotten a little warmer. It's great to be done with the bulk of the manual labor with the garden and just get to sit back and wait for things to spring up. I'm still amazed that so much food comes out of one tiny, little seed. And whole trees come from those tiny little seeds! Speaking of amazingness, we learned in Chemistry today that if you set all the atoms present in one gram of Chlorine side by side, they would stretch all the way to a star outside of our solar system and back. Holy cow! My mind can't even comprehend that...and that's just in one gram of Chlorine! Prepare for this, my friends, I shall be spouting fascinating facts from my newly learned mind from here on out in these posts, I'm sure. Be forewarned.

Anyway, I think I have pictures of the planting of the garden, but really, it looks no different than the last ones we put up since they're all underground, so I'll post more when it looks interesting.

Happy sun!