2013 in review

life has thrown some unexpected curves in my life since i last wrote way over a year ago.

1) i survived the jackman winter

2) i worked on a 25000 tap sugar bush

3) while working on previously said sugar bush i fell in love with a boy named micah

4) became a raft guide

5) had a wonderful summer

6) rode a kayak limousine

7) learned how to rock climb

8) moved to michigan. what?!

yes i moved back to the midwest. after i swore i would never live there again. ever. 

at the end of august i was out of a job and a place to live. micah was going back to marquette, mi to finish school. i decided why not move somewhere where no one knows you and you have no place to live? i mean come on. yeah......

everything was fine. i planned to leave early one morning and drive to a friend's house in lower michigan. well early morning turned into 11 and about 12 hrs later i was having a emotional breakdown in eastern ohio. almost turned around and went back to maine. almost. but i stuck it out and here i am in marquette. 

i got a job at a hotel cleaning poopy rags and hair from showers. and here i work until i find something new.

thats whats up friends. 

moose and radioactive brownies

monday and tuesday were my days off this week.  last weekend we had a group of about 100 mainers come. when i say mainers, i mean men who have been born and raised in maine, drink coffee by the gallons, wink at you and say "how ya doin this morhnin, deah?" now this is what i grew up with so it just reminded me of how awesome maine really is.

on monday i went with Cathy and kids to another church lady's house to make jam. this was my first experience canning jam. pretty fun for canning jam. plus i got to know some of the church ladies better.

tuesday i was planning on going down to bucksport to get my car but alas, it was not ready. still waiting on a part from south carolina. oh glory, it's going to cost a fortune! so i decided to go scope out the course for my next possible marathon--the sugarloaf marathon. well considering that sugarloaf is a mountain one would expect the course to be quite mountainous. yep. it has quite the gain of elevation. guess its going to be a heck of a lot of hill workouts for me this winter! oh joy!

driving to sugarloaf one must drive south, then west, then north if one wants to stay on the main, paved, well traveled (in maine standards) roads. i got the grand notion to use logging roads on the way back instead of the main roads. i found my trusty, old maine atlas and gazetteer  out and found my way from rte 27 to rte 201 via logging roads. i had to go within a mile of the canadian border then back down across the top of flagstaff lake then across a couple mountains then i would finally hit 201. so i'm driving a long at a good speed of about 35 mph. these roads are generally pretty skinny, pot hole-y, and and curvy. all of a sudden a very large cow moose jumps out of a bush on the left side. her head was heading towards mine and i could see the crazed look in her eyes as she met up with possibly her doom in the shape of a bright red ford f150. at the last possible millisecond she veered to her left and headed down the road as i slammed on my brakes and prayed for the best (not hitting the moose). i was about 20 miles out and that would have been pretty bad. she moved to the front of the car and managed to gallop down the road and head into the ditch on the right. needless to say i was more alert and careful as i managed the next 30 miles to 201. i almost hit a partridge and ran over a tree. but the moose was by far the most exciting. super pretty through there; all the leaves are changing and i was out in the middle of the mountains.

last night i hung out with mason and got the grand idea of making brownies. the ever prepared mason did not have baking soda, baking powder, or a brownie pan. we left out those ingredients and tried making it in a pot. that plan got aborted when we decided to just eat the dough and again the plan was terminated when we had the grand idea of baking with the microwave. that said, they ended up burnt and i'm pretty sure they were radioactive. (still haven't grown an extra limb yet...). when you ate them they fizzled with the consistency of pop rocks and turned rock hard. they ended up getting dumped and we went brownie-less for the night.

soooo all is well in the land of hel. i miss my friends much. i had my passport picture taken and it was by far the second worst picture i have ever had taken. (the first is my second grade yearbook picture. --i had no teeth, my hair is huge, ugly dress, and benjamin franklin glasses). that being said, its time for me to go.

goodnight!

life in the north.

so its time for me to write again. i'm at moose river outpost in moose river, maine (8 miles south of the canadian border). i'm sitting on the deck overlooking the lake. its awesome. its kind of cloudy and it's supposed to rain for the next four days.

i moved in with the Coates family. they have three kids two girls and one boy, ages 4, 2, and 10 months. should be a fun winter :)

my car registration and inspection ran out last month and i was able to register it but not get it inspected. that worthless piece of metal is rusted out on the bottom and at any given moment my car could break and send me flying into the woods! once i get that fixed i'm selling it and buying something that will hopefully get me up the 3mile long driveway in the snow :)

i miss all my friends out at school. it's kinda weird not being there while everyone is back in classes i'm cleaning cabins at camp and welcoming groups from puerto rico to the maine northwood. its okay though, i'm pretty sure this is where God wants me for now. when i have the money i will go back to school and get my degree in environmental science. woo hoo for science people!

i'm applying for my passport! i figure if i live 8 miles from canada i should probably get my passport. plus i think its time i stop hiding in the trunk when i cross the border. :/

anywho, i don't have signal up here usually. once in a while my phone will vibrate for a couple minutes and then i know i've hit a hot spot for signal. it usually only lasts a short time not enough to call anyone :/ so pretty much the only way to get a hold of me is by snail mail, facebook, email, pigeon, or my favorite--smoke signals.  

i'm headin to MAINE!

well i'm off to another adventure!!! God has provided me with a job in northern maine at moose river outpost. i am done with the lab on the 24th and head to maine on the 27th!

today i was kinda freaking out about the job and then all of a sudden it hit me--i wasn't trusting the Lord to provide me with a job. he knew that i really wanted it but i was just not trusting that he would give it to me if he wanted me to have it. also i was freaking out about if i didn't get the job what would i do. i really did not want to stay working at the lab but it was my only other option until i found another job. i was listening to jars of clay, (love them) and one of their songs was on "out of my hands."  i realized that the whole job thing was 'out of my hands' and God knew exactly what was going to happen and i just needed to rest on him.

so today i'm sitting in the lab putting cranberry cuttings in envelopes and i get a call from the director of the camp. short story- i got the job! yay!

i will be working outside and out in the woods in the middle of nowhere! i know this may not sound like everyone's dream job but i love the outdoors and northern maine. its probably my favorite place to be :)

also can i just say that i love being able to go anywhere to get a job. i love not being tied down at all. i know its probably selfish but to be able to go pretty much anywhere and not have to really miss someone is kinda cool. now don't get me wrong i love and miss my family but i think its not the same.

tonight i was packing all my junk up and i realized i have a ton of clothes and junk. i don't know how i'm going to squeeze it all in my car. as long as i can somewhat see out my back window i guess i'm good.

i think i'm going to go to bed now. its not even 10 on a friday night. oh well. dad and dana are coming tomorrow night! :)

good night all.

car sucks. i'm gettin a horse.

i'm on the lookout for a new car now. my car has just been trouble ever since i bought it. it seems like every month something else happens to it.

yesterday i had to go in to cottage grove to go to the grocery store and the hardware store. i stopped at the hardware store to get some soap and a sponge to wash my car. when i got back in my car, it started up but it shook violently. i waited patiently to see if it would stop. sometimes if something is weird with my car i just wait and usually it stops :) well it kept shaking and after about thirty seconds smoke started billowing out of the hood! this is not normal and i kinda started freaking out. i called my dad and asked him what it might be. the nice thing about being a girl is that when you have car trouble you just pop your hood and get a confused look on your face as you're looking in the engine and normally a guy will come help you out :) some random old guy comes walking up and asks me what is wrong. well duh, i have no clue! so i told him it started shaking and smoking. he goes and tells me exactly what is wrong with it and says i probably shouldn't drive it anywhere. lovely. i'm stuck in town and the all the howells are gone for the week. but, i knew there was one person that i could call and that could fix it--Grandpa Merle (holly's grandpa). i got  his number from holly and called him up. thankfully he was able to pick me up and take be me back to the house. aaaand my car is now sitting the the ace hardware store parking lot until i get it towed to the garage.

so that is what happened yesterday.

i'm taking care of gramma this week while the howells are gone. she is something else. she lost her glasses this morning and told me she wanted to slap my booty. heck no she's not slapping my butt! (she has Alzheimers)

i picked 52 cucumbers from the garden this morning! crazy a lot of them! i know what i'll be eating for  the next week! ha! there's also a huge squash down there. but its not ready to be picked yet.

the plan is for me to be heading home around the 27th of this month. i plan on finishing a project at work before i head back so i don't leave in the middle of something. so if it takes longer than that i will be leaving later. i'm planning on going back to maine. i'll head to virginia for  a day or two then going to pennsylvania for a night to see my friend hillary, then heading to the vacation land. i'm excited to get back to sweatshirt weather and a new england fall. it's just too hot for me out here in wisconsin. ridic!

haha some random guy next to me in starbucks has a ringtone and it is definitely a frog croaking.

okay i'm done with this post. going to go take a nap.

tattoo? yes or no

decisions, decisions, decisions.....

this week i had to make a decision whether or not i would be going back to school in the fall. money is an issue and i don't want to take out any more loans. i figure the longer you owe money the longer  you can't do anything fun--in other words i have to have  a good paying job all the time. or live with my parents.

all summer long i have been wondering how i was supposed to pay for school. even though i have a good job i had bills from last semester, car repairs, and i had a couple of trips that i was going on. all i don't have enough for school and i don't forsee any more money coming in than what i had already planned on. now, thats not to say that God can't bring in the money, because i know he can. if he wants me to go to school this year and finish he's going to have to supply the money.

i really wanted to finish school this year. i only have one year left and i'm done. i knew that i probably wasn't going to be able to go back but i had been fighting it all summer. i had my life planned out for the next 3 years and that's exactly how it was going to go.

you would think that i would learn from previous experiences that God is in control of your life. not me. well i didn't and God really got a hold of me this week and pretty much said: you're not going to be able to go to school this semester.

after a while i finally realized that my best option was to sit out and work for a year. i don't think i'll be able to graduate from maranatha because all the classes that i need are only offered every two years.

so the plan for now is (it's always subject to change): sit out a year, work ( i still don't know where), find a cheaper college with a major closest to mine and try to finish up in a  year or year and a half.

my options for where i might be for the next year are:
maine
virginia
california
or
anyplace.

it was really hard for me but i think i've made the right decision. i also would love it if you prayed for me as i try to figure out what exactly God has for me :)

i'm sitting in starbucks with my scarf and chacos writing a post in my blog on my mac. my flight leaves at 4:30 so i left the conference at about 12. the rest of the talks were riddled with evolution and i wanted to make sure i had no chance of missing  my flight :)

so i lost my favorite water bottle. actually i believe someone stole it. (it's got some sweet stickers and it looks pretty steal worthy i guess) this was devastating to because i take that thing everywhere with me. i make sure i have no chance of dehydration because i get super grumpy and snap at people when i am, ergo i have my water bottle attached at the hip at all times. plus it had all my cool stickers on it. mainly my 26.2 sticker. :(well i guess i'll have to get another water bottle and some new stickers. but i got a free bandana from the international plant journal!

okay well that's all for now. maybe i'll post something later. i'm flying out of columbus then going to cleveland then on to madison. i'm hoping i catch my flight in cleveland because i only have 25 minutes in between flights... this could be bad.