More Cold

The groundhog called for six more weeks of winter. But I'm hoping that all six of those weeks were crammed into this one week. That's sure what it felt like. The weather just switched between snowing and below zero temps. I read somewhere on the oh-so-reliable internet that all this weather was actually created by Disney to promote their movie "Frozen". Well Disney, if you're reading this, I can guarantee that I will no longer be singing "the cold never bothered me anyway". It definitely has.

I've basically been suffering from cabin fever. Other than getting my drivers license and plates switched over to Ohio on Tuesday (about time, I know), I've only been going out to get to work. Yes, that means I haven't even gone outside long enough to take off my Nebraska plates and switch them to Ohio. In the rare case I see a cop, much less get pulled over by one, I'm sure they'll understand that the weather has made this impossible.

Take today for example. I go to church north of Delaware (the city, I don't drive hundreds of miles to go to church in another state). Delaware happens to be the city that our former president Rutherford B. Hayes was born. I thought it might be fun to visit his birth site after church today, and then maybe go across the street to tour the Ohio Wesleyan University campus. On my way to church, between enduring the bitter cold and sliding around the icy streets, I decided that I would probably just make a quick stop to the birthplace and save the college for another day. By the time I actually made it to church (miraculously on time, despite driving twenty mph slower than the regular speed limit), I knew that, unless some weather miracle happened, it would be wisest to go straight home after service. But as I drove home without any fun activities checked off of my to-do list, I remembered that I was going to meet up with a neighbor I have yet to meet at IGA to hand off some books I no longer want. But about an hour before our meetup time, she messaged me saying there was no way she would be able to get out today. So since then, I've been at home, snacking, napping, and watching Duck Dynasty and 19 Kids.

I wish I had something more exciting to report, but all I have now is hopes to one day see more of the world. I try to take a monthly trip, but it just wasn't possible in January. (However, on the first day of February, I ended up riding along to see downtown Columbus, which I hadn't seen before. And I also attended the CCCA sectional at Heartland in late January. I guess one of those could count.) I'm hoping to go to the Creation Museum in a couple weeks, especially after watching Ken Ham's debate with Bill Nye this week. Yeah, watching TV has been one of my few forms of entertainment in this weather. There was watching the debate (which was plan B because I had original plans to go to a movie prescreening that night), having a movie night with coworkers watching "CAMP", and then just watching some different reruns. But of course, getting there is all dependent on if I feel safe driving all the way down to the Kentucky border.

In all, I'd just like to apologize for no postings, no pictures, no interesting stories. I really wish I did have something to share. At least now I have the experience of these incredible temperatures and weather. But I'm hoping that it ends up being a literal once-in-a-lifetime experience!

A Busy Weekend

 This week wasn't all that restful at all. I didn't even go into the weekend with any plans. Here's some of what happened:

I woke up on Saturday fairly early. The weather wasn't too miserable, so I decided to walk to town. First I went by the pharmacy to drop off a letter at their mailbox and get a new book at the lending library. Most of the books this time were kids books, but I did find this book that is basically chock full of life hacks, which has actually been fun to read. I went by the thrift store where in the past I found a Disney trivia game and what is now my favorite pair of jeans, but sadly, that shop now has a "for rent" sign in the window. I went to the consignment store instead, but didn't see anything I wanted.

After reading and such for awhile back home, I ended up making food. Pepper couscous for lunch...

 ...and Cranberry-Apple-Acorn Squash for dinner. (I made the denim potholder last week.)

As I was going through my e-mail, I discovered that Full House Season 5, which I had ordered online just a couple of days prior, had arrived. That warranted a trip to the mailbox. And when I mentioned that there were sewing machines at the consignment shop, that got my roommates out of the house long enough to pop my new shows into the DVD player and watch them... for several hours. 

While watching TV, I noticed a post on the community Facebook page for a cheap dryer. After contacting the owner, an offer was made to deliver it to our place for free if we bought it that night. I accepted. Finally, I'm able to do laundry in the comfort of my own home! (Something I'm taking advantage of as I type this!)

Unfortunately, the dryer cord was the wrong type for our socket, so we would have to buy one at Lowe's. We planned to do that the next day after church, and buy curtains as well. 

Church was a lot of fun. The theme was "On a Mission from God", quoted from the Blues Brothers movie. At the end of the service, everyone was given free sunglasses and the worship team came out in suits, sunglasses, and fedoras. They performed a Christianized parody of "Jailhouse Rock" (which is actually Elvis, but no one seemed to care). You can watch it here if you use the password "jailhouse": http://vimeo.com/83997694.

Then it was shopping time. We did manage to get curtain rods for all the windows, and we even went for lunch at Panera, but after four hours and three different stores, we only ended up getting curtains for this window.

This room  isn't quite so ugly anymore. And there's no longer snow outside either. The stockings are down, and I lined the floor of that wall with candles. My yoga mat is in the center of the room. We got the turquoise energy-efficient curtains with a lighter white curtain on top. 

We borrowed some tools to make curtain hanging possible, including a cordless drill. However, we needed screwdriver bits, but accidentally only ended up with drill bits. But I had a bit of my own. I had bought a bed frame about a month ago, but haven't had the chance to put it together. The bed came with a bolt bit, and now that I had all the supplies, I finally assembled it. 

I bought the bed from Buckeye Bunkbeds, which is a home business between my home and work. They were awesome about making things exactly the way I wanted them, but it turned out even better than what I knew was possible! It's very good quality and a reasonable price. The family the runs the business was very friendly and sociable. I got the under-bed storage drawers to keep things organized, and they are the same size as the entire bed. I don't think I have enough stuff to fill those drawers! With my box spring, my bed is now over three feet high, which is perfect for someone of my stature, and just the way I wanted it. It certainly beats sleeping on a mattress on the floor! I really like the way my bed turned out. Even the handyman (who was installing our washer and dryer) complimented the frame as he passed by my bedroom! 

And what better way to follow up a busy weekend than with a busy week? Today I started building a log cabin with my bare hands. Okay, maybe it wasn't quite that dramatic, but it was very uncomfortable work to skin logs most of the day. My back and legs are killing me! At least tomorrow I'll get temporary reprieve by working with the housekeeping staff. The only caveat is that they start a half-hour earlier than my department; but that does mean they get off earlier too! Between work and my personal to-do list, I'll be going non-stop! (Which will make for quality sleep in my new bed when I get the opportunity!)

How Cold Is It?

-It's so cold that it actually warms up at night.
-It's so cold that I could have won a million dollars and not know it because walking to the mailbox is out of the question.
-It's so cold that I have blankets hanging over the sliding glass door to prevent draft.
-It's so cold that I'm actually excited about finally losing the negative sign on the weather forecast, even though it will still be well below freezing.
-It's so cold that we lost our water for almost an entire day.
-It's so cold that I'm spending more gasoline warming up my car than I am driving it.
-It's so cold that today at work, I started planning a way that we could move to Australia to offer summer camps there during the northern winter months.
-It's so cold that it took me days to finally take out the trash. And the trash can is right next to the door.
-It's so cold that I go to bed early. I don't fall asleep any sooner; I just like the warmth of the blankets.
-It's so cold that I'm purposely trying to bake in the oven so I can stand by it as the warm air comes out.
-It's so cold that I have to walk around my entire car in the morning, testing to see which door I can get in from. (Sometimes it's only the back hatch.)
-It's so cold that I'm done writing this post. I need to find some ways to warm up!

Girlz 4 Christ

I am the editor of a little magazine called Girlz 4 Christ. Hundreds of teens and preteens from around the world subscribe to it, and it is definitely a blessing to be a part of it. The Winter 2013/14 issue just came out, and it's filled with lots of good stuff. My articles in this edition include reviews of books and health food, an opportunity to win a missionary scholarship, and more health tips.

I'd like to invite you to subscribe to Girlz 4 Christ. I'll even let you do it for free! Just visit the website at http://www.girlz4christmagazine.org/. You can read some articles online, and you can subscribe using the link on the right sidebar to begin your free subscription.

I'm thankful for having this unique ministry opportunity. Please help it grow by offering subscriptions to girls you know!

Oh, and Merry Christmas, too!

Spiced Cider

One perk of working in the camp field is that employees receive so many free meals. Any time a visiting group orders meals, food is available to everyone working. Even when groups aren't at camp, there are often some special meals just for staff. Last night at our staff Christmas party, we even got fancy catered food! But, getting food in the winter time is a rare case. Most people aren't exactly interested in trudging through miles of snow so that they can enjoy the below-freezing outdoors. So during times like these, my coworkers and I have to make our own food. 

But there is a (tasty!) advantage to camp work in the winter: free bulk food!

Because less people are at camp, some food tends to expire during this time. To prevent that from happening, we sometimes get some food before it goes bad. Last week, I took home a bag of baby carrots for snacking, a case of spinach so I could freeze it and make green smoothies, and this case of apple juice:

 For our schools in outdoor ed, we give each kid a juice cup at each meal to help them with portion control and to encourage drinking more water (and so they don't take anything caffeinated from the drink machines). Each case contains 72 of these cups, and even with two roommates, I wasn't sure if we could stomach all this apple juice. But then, once I got into the Christmas spirit, it dawned on me:

CIDER!

Okay, sort of. I didn't know anything about cider until I moved to Ohio, but I've learned a whole lot about it since. Within an hour of arriving in what is now my hometown, I found myself at a cider-making party with my new coworkers in celebration of a newly-finished cider press. I occasionally operated that cider press during our living history reenactments. Through this, I learned that cider is what comes out of an apple when you squeeze it, and actual apple juice is more processed. Even though this was apple juice, I figured I could spice it up a bit.

I poured a gazillion of these little cups into a pot along with cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, honey, and cloves. I even threw in a tiny bit of ACV to give it more of a cider-y taste. After letting it simmer for at least half an hour, it was a delicious drink. So far I've probably had about a thousand of those tiny cup's worth of spiced cider.

I felt kind of wasteful throwing all those white cups away, so I ended up finding a re-use for them. They are the perfect size to grow basil! I'll start a little herb garden as soon as I get some potting soil. Either that, or wait until the ground thaws and get some dirt from the backyard! As for the foil covers, I crumpled some of them into a ball. Foil balls are great at getting rid of dryer static!

I hope you have a great time cooking, eating, and being savvy this Christmas season. Merry Christmas!

2013 in Review

Some years are much more eventful than others. Thinking back to a year ago, I hoped 2013 would be an adventuresome year, but expected it to remain fairly mundane. My only goal was to visit a country I've never been to before. As it turns out, leaving the country was one event that I ended up not experiencing this year, but I had a whole host of adventures all across the United States instead!

At the beginning of the year, I lived in Nebraska. But because I'm from Oregon and my family still lived there, I ended up starting off the year in the Pacific Time Zone. (Since I was still used to Central Time, I fell asleep before midnight! Shame on me; I love a good reason to celebrate!) Part of that trip involved taking a trip to the Oregon coast as well as the California Redwoods. I was also pretty appreciative that I could see mountains again!

 Within a few days of returning to my job in Nebraska, we had a reunion for the camp's summer staff to come together. We attempted every possible ridiculous way snow tube, played broom ball in the pool (I was a super-awesome goalie who knocked people down like a bully), and had a "gingerbread house" building contest (I was with the team of staff kids and we created the sugar-coated version of Camp Rivercrest, aptly named "Camp Candycrest).

Winter also involved a few trips up north. One was a quick overnight trip to Crown College in Minnesota just as I had the year before, but this also involved my first time driving for more than an hour at a time. This was one of two college job recruiting events I participated in; the other was at Grace College in Omaha later in the spring.

There were also some new experiences I never expected I would have, much less enjoy. Like the time I went to a Men's Wild Game Dinner. First off, I never expected to be in a room that overflowing with testosterone, but if for some reason I did run into a situation like that, I wouldn't expect to be pigging out on a bunch of meats I'd never eaten before. And yet there I was.

 I also went to the CCCA Super Sectional in Wisconsin. We were in a snowstorm, and the lake was so frozen that I went for a stroll on it. I'm glad they had an indoor climbing wall/leap of faith as a temporary reprieve from the cold. But of course, some of the outdoor activities were just too much fun to pass up, like shooting.

 Now I do have to point out that just about everything I've mentioned so far was a business-related event; otherwise I would have not been able to do any of it. I was really strapped for cash at that job, and my first year in Nebraska I didn't even have a car. So even though Omaha was only 30 miles away, I had only gone to a few places when other people took me. When my mom visited Nebraska for the first time, it was the perfect opportunity for both of us to be tourists together.

 We even went into Iowa... by a few feet!

 I touched the world's largest ball of stamps! Seriously, who comes up with these things?

 We toured the well-known Boys Town.

 Here's a picture with my mom so that you know she was actually there. (Why do I have hardly any pictures of her?) That puppy was trying to steal the antler we'd found when my mom walked through a cornfield for the first time.

 We also went to Central Nebraska to learn about our family's history.

And then came the hobby that would change my life. Okay, maybe not completely change my life, but I don't know where I'd be without it... anyway, the snow eventually cleared up, and I wanted to explore the outdoors again. I got a GPS the previous Christmas, and then it clicked... I could go geocaching! My first find was easy and innocent enough...

 But then there was that one that I had to walk through the woods and ended up with some pretty bad swelling and hives...

...and this one where I ended up trespassing onto another camp (oops!)...

 ...and that one cache in the park where the cops were called on me. I guess looking around for hidden objects seems mysterious.

My family was also generous enough to let me spend a few days with them at Walt Disney World in Florida. 

I suppose I should mention that I had several "close to home" adventures as well. I received a partial scholarship at the YMCA, so for a few months I was officially a member of the second-largest YMCA in the nation. I also had a few volunteer activities. I spent one night a week listening to third and fourth graders at Awana Truth in Training, and two days a week hanging out with foster kids at the Jefferson House. I also joined Toastmasters, and in May I had finally given enough speeches to earn my Competent Communicator award!

Then came summer camp. I actually wasn't really looking forward to summer camp. For one, I had to quit all my outside activities because I had to be on the camp grounds at all times six days a week. By this time I had also become very discontent with my work and was praying for an opportunity to move. But I tried to make the best of my situation at the time, and did end up having a few fun moments. There was airboating, river swimming, and the infamous bully shirt. 

 Speaking of shirts, I had been collecting all my Rivercrest shirts since the beginning of the year. I finally got enough to make a blanket. (It's now a 3 by 4 quilt; I added another row later on.)

 By the time summer camp was halfway over, I had chosen the next place I wanted to work at, applied, and even interviewed on July 4th. I should mention that that was not a typical 4th of July, especially since I slept through the fireworks. The night before, we stayed up late and watched Despicable Me 2 in theaters. Then I had to wake up early that morning for my interview. After the interview, I went to a nearby campground for some geocaching, which ended up with allergic reactions to the point where there wasn't enough Benedryl to handle it, hence I was sleeping for the rest of the day.

When summer camp ended, I had scheduled my second interview. And shortly after that, I was given the job! This job was even further away from Oregon, in Ohio. And now I had to gear up for a road trip even further than Minnesota, and this time I went solo.

Because I got this job and had to move, it replaced my previous plans to go to Niagara Falls. I'm thankful I chose the job instead. I can always visit Niagara Falls later; it's not like they're going to turn the water off! Besides, now I'm closer to the Falls, so it will be cheaper when I do finally make the trip. But since this replaced the vacation I saved up for, I decided to turn the move into a fun road trip. After all, I could fit all my belongings into my car, and this would be my first time to see two of the five states I drove through!

 I went to an art park in Des Moines, Iowa...

 ...and Captain Kirk's future birthplace in Riverside, Iowa, which was paired with a cool geocache adventure...

 ...and the R Place truck stop restaurant in Illinois, which is also where I spent the night...

 ...Michael Jackson's birthplace in Gary, Indiana...

...and Fort Wayne, Indiana. 

This new job itself brought many more new experiences besides just seeing a new state. It had a different dynamic than other camps I previously worked at, which ended up having me teach classes, lead hikes without flashlights, hold alligators... you know, normal work stuff. 

Upon arriving to Ohio, the apartment that my soon-to-be-roommate and I had planned to rent was not yet ready, so we spent almost two weeks with coworkers. Then, when that plan fell through, we spent a month in an RV at our new workplace. I think I might actually like RV living one day, but under certain conditions. For example, the RV should move every once in awhile to a new place and my bedroom should measure longer than my height. But I found ways to pass the time while discovering the state of Ohio. My first excursions were, of course, geocaching. There's only a few within several miles of my workplace, and several of those are at the campground down the street. (By the way, even though it's only down the street, it's a longer walk than it seems! Driving may be recommended!) The scary thing is, all the caches were made of lawn gnome

A few of the other caches I found were in cemeteries. 

 Although I had just begun to make more than I had in Nebraska, I realized that, because I was living rent-free that month, I could definitely afford to travel. I decided right then and there that my goal was to go on at least one weekend trip per month. I heard that a state park up north was having Ohio's largest outdoor craft fair one weekend, so I decided to venture up there. I drove through some areas that reminded me of home, toured the farm mansion, hiked up a hill that everyone else would only drive up, went geocaching, ate out, and danced in a barn for the first time.

 
Eventually, we did find a place to live, and even acquired another roommate. The best part of our apartment was that it is actually a refurbished barn. Of course, there are some downsides to that (such as a leaky roof we just discovered yesterday), but all three of us really like this place. For some reason, the only picture I have of the "abarnment" is this cat who thinks she lives here.

 The trees in this part of Ohio are both a positive and negative. The negative part about them is that there are not evergreens, so it doesn't look very pretty in the wintertime. The positive is that, before the leaves fall, autumn looks so beautiful. I took advantage of this time by driving through the countryside to Amish country. This included...

 ...cheese factories...

 ...eating Swiss food...

...getting stuck behind buggies...

 ...learning about Amish gardens (the jars are like this because the sun sanitizes them and it makes the garden veggies ready-to-can)...

 ...touring two Amish homes...

 ...learning about how they dress...

...learning about Amish toys (I bought my own doll, just not this one)...

 ...eating Amish cuisine...

 ...adoring barn animals...

 ...riding in a buggy...

 ...touring an Amish schoolhouse...

 ...visiting a pumpkin patch...

 ...going to a cheese factory...

...did I mention anything about cheese factories yet?

Because I didn't have anywhere to go for Thanksgiving this side of the Mississippi, I went with a coworker to Cleveland. We did several touristy things, most notably seeing my first Great Lake.

So this is pretty long for the first post of my new blog, but I suppose that it did cover an entire year. Actually, it's not even over yet. Soon I'll have to report on Christmas, New Year's Eve (which I do NOT plan on sleeping through this year!) and whatever else comes my way.