Ballard Adventure

Life & Time Priorities 2011

by Hannah on March 26, 2012

Below is a post I found as a draft from October 2011 (I think) – apparently I’d written it, but not posted..Since this time I have followed through, separated my talents/abilities into my 3 lists, picked the top 3 of each, and stepped them back to Monthly, Weekly, and Daily Action goals. I think I posted a few months ago about the 2012 goals that I entered into a FreeMind Mind map – this process is where those specific goals began.

Since this post and my goals, I have started a little business that is growing so fast I’ve had to put on the brakes while I figure out the whole contractor thing in order to allow it to continue growing, I’ve been called as the Young Women’s President in Futenma, which is going to stretch me Spiritually,organizationally, and leadership-wise PLENTY, and begun several other projects in line with business as well.

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This is an off-shoot of the previous post about running. At the end, I put a quote that applies well to that workout, and then I launched into the line of thought below, which I separated out into another post. These are some thoughts I had while running last week that have been turning and stirring in my mind since then.

“Winners have simply formed the habit of doing things that others don’t like to do.”

~ Albert Gray

Winning is good...

I think there is a lot of truth in this. Last week, during my run with the highest climb on record that I’ve ever attempted, I had a very strong feeling that I need to re-organize my life according to a few concepts. The concepts are well embodied in quotes, some of which I have placed below. I’m currently in the process of re-organizing my life conceptually according to these few ideas. It is hard.

It’s difficult because I am interested in so many things, that I frequently end up spinning my wheels trying out new things instead of fully developing those things that I’ve already become skilled at, or finishing those things I’ve already begun. During the run, I decided that I needed to make a list of things I’m interested in/can spend time on/can develop, according to each of the quotes/concepts listed below. First, another general quote that has been hanging on my mental pin board for months. I’ve written about this quote on the blog before and I’m working to incorporate it better into my every day life and using it to help guide this reorganization process:

“A half-finished project might as well be no project at all”

~ SPI

1. The first quote that I am re-organizing my life around is found below. I have no idea who said it, but it perfectly explains what I’d like to become, and I wrote it down the instant I heard it:

“I am a finisher in a society of starters.”

This quote implies exactly what I need to hear. So many valuable goals can be dropped conceptually into the “Iraq War Goals” category – as they have no defined end point and could continue indefinitely. However, most CAN be well defined and given a definite end point (if only an intermediate one) with a little attention. I need to focus not only on the daily movement of my journey, but also on the end point to make the effort valuable. This will build my trust in myself, as I demonstrate that I am able to keep promises I make to myself.

2. The second isn’t exactly a quote, but a concept I’ve been giving place in my mind to grow. It is the idea that the way to achieve the most success and happiness is to focus intensely on developing those things that are your natural talents. This idea is very un-American in nature – it encourages you to not to waste time & energy trying to press outside your natural boundaries, as this is counter-productive. It is the idea that the path of least resistance tends to lead toward the most probable success and happiness. Hire out all your weaknesses, and focus on making your strengths you pay VERY well.

I agree with this idea with a few reservations (the main one being its applicability to Spiritual talent development, which I feel are always worth the effort and time sink to develop personally), but I won’t go into any other reservations here.

I feel this approach is most valuable when utilized in relation to your career, or that knowledge/skill/thing that you plan to support yourself financially with. You can obviously train to develop natural talents, but once you have them, exploit them to the max. I have a hard time doing this. One of the main reasons is that I get bored. In an attempt to focus more fully on my natural talents, I made an honest list of those things that I feel fall into this category, then circled those I would consider my top three. I did this weeks ago. After making the list myself, I asked Dan what he felt were my most natural talents without showing him the list or leading him. He came up with three, two of which overlapped with the three I had originally circled, and another that was my top five. Try it, you could be surprised. You know what you’re good at – focus on becoming an expert at those things.

3. Another concept/quote that came to mind during my run was actually a little picture. I have it on a card at home, sitting next ito my computer – It is the little photo below:

: This has sat next to my computer for months

While I think that concept #2 above best applies to those talents/things we plan to financially support ourselves with, #3 is more in line with what I feel the Lord has clearly indicated is one of the purposes of life. This can be applied all over the board – in spiritual things, in family, in workplace/business pursuits, etc. I feel the Lord has commanded us to push our own personal boundaries of knowledge and skills. This is a large part of the purpose of life to me. The importance I place on this is obvious in my natural tendency to constantly try new things, instead of fully developing those skills I have already begun. The thing that is outside my personal comfort zone, then, is to narrow down my focus and more fully develop fewer talents that I already have. This process helps me do that. It will make me more useful to the Lord also.

In terms of how these three concepts/quotes are playing into my Life Priorities Re-organization, I plan to make a list below each, of the top 5 things that I am involved in that best fits that category’s concept. I will then circle the top 3 or fewer in each category, and decide which of these 9, (although there may be some overlap), I will focus on now, which I will plan to work toward in the future with a quasi-definite timeline, and how my current focuses will translate into daily/weekly actions now.

I have already made the list for #2, I just need to make one for #1 & #3 and then write goals consistent with the new framework. I have a feeling this could very much change where I allocate my energy. I am getting the feeling that I should return to working on things that are my natural talents, but for the purpose of developing something entirely new for me. It is exciting, but scary. I will keep working on the re-organization and being deliberate in my planning.

I have not really edited this post, I just wanted to get it out there, as getting it out there is more important than it being perfect. Sorry for any imperfections. :-)

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AD’s Endowments Photo Surprise!

by Hannah on March 21, 2012

The other day, I tripped across this photo that we took outside the Oquirrh Mountain Temple in Utah after my Sister Adrienne’s Endowment. AD, as I posted before, is now on her mission in Teresina, Brazil and probably there now having a tough uphill battle mastering the language, but loving the spirit down there. I guarantee she’s an amazing missionary – she’s very sensitive to the spirit and it always seems that she is concerned about & interested in the person she is talking to as an individual more than anything else. She is very good at making those all-important personal connections with people that help them trust the spirit they feel when they learn the truth.

It was a great temple trip and (hopefully) a great start to AD's Mission!

From left to right, is my Sister Janae, my Sister Amanda, my Mom Rebecca, my Sister Adrienne, and finally me. It was awesome! I just wanted to share that photo when I ran across it the other day.

Below are a few photos of the Beautiful Oquirrh Mountain Temple – it was great to visit! :-)

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Rambling Update on Dan’s New Calling, Pet Sitting, Nursing & Young Women

by Hannah on March 20, 2012

I dare you to survive through this WHOLE POST to see what Dan’s new LDS calling is at the end – I heard about it right before posting, so it’s in here, I swear!

I’ve finally returned to the blog with head hung low in repentance. I have decided that I will now consider posting on the blog to fulfill the 15 minute Journal writing task on my daily check-off list. Hopefully that means you will hear from me more often.

As I’ve been away for some time, I had a look at the site’s analytics, and I think I’m going to have to split out the Triathlon training/run/bike/swim training posts onto a different website. They are getting by FAR the most traffic, and I’m thinking that I may be able to do something about monetizing that. For example – the post below about my Season 2012 goals (which I TOTALLY need to amend with a second post, btw) has gotten more than 30 times the number of unique visitors as another well-scoring recent post.

I'll get there...

The other measures are also pretty off the charts for the triathlon posts, and I’m thinking that I’m not so sure I want those people to have access to our personal family posts as well. I’m sure the great majority of you who are here for our personal posts will welcome this news – I’m assuming the tri posts tend to get in the way and don’t interest you very much. The hilarious thing about the increase in traffic for these posts is that I truly have no idea what I’m doing in terms of triathlon training. This is really my first time going through the training process, and I’ve been a complete wuss in that I have still not raced once. I guess you can chalk it up the amazing “Expert Enough” leveraging effect of the web. Awesome.

As a side-note, the difference that Thesis theme has made in terms of back-end optimization is pretty incredible – it really is greasing the skids for increased traffic. No joke. I am impressed. I haven’t even been posting, or working on the site at all, and our traffic is up significantly. That theme is totally worth the money if you are building a business site.

Also – in coming back to the site I realized that I’ve still not addressed the look of the new theme. I still haven’t gotten the theme rotator photos off of the top right – (JEEZ) – what could possibly be keeping me from this? Lots of stuff, but the point is that it’s still on the To-Do list. I swear I’ll get around to it.

Here’s what I have been doing lately:

1) Young Women organization set up:

2 weeks ago I planned & put together a combined YM/YW activity for about 30-ish people, and I think it went fairly well – I should post separately about that…hmmm…

The activity was a really cute idea that one of the previous Presidency members had found and already done most of the work on. All that was left was finalizing a few details, then pure execution. Done.

don't forget the Virtue!! Apparently we forgot that when I was in YW...

After waiting for quite a while d/2 Marine exercises (esp. Key resolve in Korea), I now have counselors and a Secretary as of this Sunday! My First counselor is our District President’s wife and mother of one of our Young Women, my Second Counselor is this year’s Futenma Girl’s Camp Director, and the Secretary was previously the Primary Secretary and mother to another Young Woman. I think it’s going to work out very well. We have a Presidency meeting planned, and we’ll see how it goes, but I am very optimistic. I’m definitely ready to delegate. :-)

Girl’s Camp stuff – (Can I just tell you about the INSANE number of emails I get every day about Girls Camp?)

It. Is. Nuts.

OK, there, I said it – I’m done.

I’m totally psyched for camp, and I think it’ll be awesome. I have a great Camp Leader who is taking the lead on that. :-)

Yesterday I spent the entire day down at the Japanese Camp in Naha and it is going to be AMAZING!! We found 2 hiking trails that the Japanese had now shown us for some reason (Who knows…? We’re white? We look breakable? They didn’t know how to warn us to hold on to a rope for dear life?), but these trails are INCREDIBLE. First – the camp is on a large hill overlooking the ocean at the Southern tip of the island. It is surrounded by jungled cliffs – this is what the hike ran through. It is up and down rocky cliffs, through caves (no joke…caves), through massive columns of stringy banyan trees, huge vines, the sounds f tropical birds, huge muddy natural run-off trails, and up to the tip top of the Jungled rocky hill/mountain to an ancient Castle ruin. It. Was. Awesome. The girls are not going to forget this. If I were going to this camp, this would be BY FAR my favorite part – to put it simply – this is what Amusement Theme Parks WANT to look like on Jungle rides. It’s pretty sweet. I came home telling Dan all about it. I’m psyched.

The Camp & Young Women's Theme for 2012

Spending time with various leaders at both the Stake and Ward level has been pretty enlightening. I’m noting various leadership styles and the pluses and minuses of each, as well as choosing things I need to work on. I’m definitely not a passive leader. I’m expecting that I will have a tendency to be too much of an executive and turn into a jerk since I don’t pay close attention to how things come out of my mouth. (You didn’t know THAT already, did you…?)

So… We’ll see how it goes. Now that I am in a place where I can expect people to do their callings and follow through on assignments, I think the whole leadership thing will feel very different than before. I’d much rather be in this situation than one where I feel like I am doing literally EVERYTHING. I’m excited to have good people around me.

Random side note: I’m sorry that I tend to call our Branch a Ward – it is huge (over 100 Primary children, for example), and would be a ward (and our District would be a Stake), except that the majority of men are constantly in and out of the country, people moving, etc., that they classify the military congregations in Oki as Branches just to be safe. They function as Wards, however, and our District functions as a Stake as well. I’m sure I’ve posted about this before, but I accidentally use them interchangeably. If our Branch was not composed of military, it would be a Ward.

(This next section was written 2 weeks ago, but never posted…)

2) Pet-Sitting:

Last week, I posted advertising on 2 of the larger Okinawa Websites and people have been contacting me up the Whazoo. Since I first posted last week, I’ve been in conversation with a number of potential customers about over $1500 of business. We’ll see how much I nail down and pull in.

He really wants to go...

I’m currently sitting a dog & a cat at my house now.

I’m getting stuff together to do a vendors fair (IF I can get my VistaPrint order here in time), so I can set up a booth with my signage/biz cards/etc., and get the word out, etc.

I am still updating the site, as I am finding the one I recently built fairly useless. (You can see it at: www.NoahsArkPets.net). While it is quite pretty, it’s also a bit unserviceable (eg. – it won’t open on the phones here since it’s primarily flash). I will continue to use it, but I have decided that I will soon start throwing together a new WordPress site as a replacement to remedy some of the current limitations and open opportunities for other capabilities I want it to have.

I’ve had my eye on the “.com” version of my domain for some time now (since 2006/’07) and it is finally up for sale through the broker Sedo. I am currently in negotiations to buy NoahsArkPets.com from the Squatter who currently owns it – he is asking for $495, (which is a pretty good deal for me), but I want it for a bit less. I’ll probably end up with it. When I do get it, I will put up WordPress, then Thesis, design what I want the site to feel/look like and send it off to a Thesis Guru on ODesk to make it happen. I’ve already found a guy I like – Totally worth the money.

You slide the card through the white square reader and sign with your finger - pretty shiny :-)

I have signed up for a process that allows me to take credit cards on my iPhone out here, since accepting payment only in cash is also a problematic limitation. It’s not a perfect solution, and it’s really just a place holder until I get the new site up, but it’s called Sqaure. You may have heard of it already. That’s in the works, and the reader has arrived at the Utah address I sent it to and is on it’s way here now. Another basic benefit of the WordPress site is that I can set it up to have squeeze pages & accept credit cards on the site, which I feel will make me quite a bit more money, be easier, more legal, etc. I could set up the current site to take them also, but I decided against it for various reasons.

I am also planning to have Dog-park like meetups at our house as there is no Dog Park in Okinawa, and I have seen Americans often complain about that lack during our first tour here, and that need still exists now. Last tour, I couldn’t take advantage of this unmet need, as we lived so far away from the bases (we were way over in Awase), but now, we live RIGHT in the middle of everything – right next to Kadena/Foster/Lester, very easy to find, with a large (large for Japan), fully fenced and grassed yard with a deck and a large patio. I’m planning the meet-ups to be once or twice a month on Saturdays, advertised on the same sites, when people can bring their dog over to play and run around with others while enjoying our hospitality. I’m planning to have desserts available for the people, and treats available for their furry friends. I think it will be a good way to get my name out there without being pushy and without advertising while providing something that Okinawa desperately needs.

One of our short copy versions that I use for advertising

I still need to get the business legally dropped into my LLC.

My plan with the business is to spend all my time & energy setting up a process, then hiring contractors to do the actual sitting. I have put my name out now to begin building name recognition while I am pulling the details together on the other aspects of the process. There are quite a number of steps I need to go through to get that set up. I need to decide on the basic structure of the agreement with the sitters and get some basic contracts put together and send them over to the Lawyer for a once over. I also need to get a basic certification package together for my sitters that they are either required to go through or may chose to go through upon joining the business. I need to interview, test-run and hire a VA in the Philippines, get insurance set up, write canned emails for the VA, etc.

Basically, I have a ton of things to work on to get this flying higher than simply off the ground – I want to get it to the point where it is a well-oiled machine, handled mostly by a VA who takes calls & emails, sets up the scheduling, etc. I only want to handle the Marketing/ local people management/expansion side of the business. If I get it moving well enough – I’d love to expand over to Guam or up to Korea and Mainland Japan. We’ll see how it goes.

3) Working- my unit is losing more people due to unforeseen circumstances, and I may be able to move up to Full time. The problem is that I’m not sure I want to now. It is the quickest (aka easiest) money to pick up right off the bat, but I’d much rather build something of my own again, and being at the hospital twice as often as I am now is not conducive to that.

If only real stethoscopes were this cool...

My job has been calling me in for night shifts the day of the shift, etc. and I have had to be VERY flexible. I’m still processing how I want to respond to this. Everyone on the floor tends to be great, except for one nurse, who is legitimately creating a hostile work environment when she is scheduled with me. I am having a very difficult time with this. I figured she just needed to learn to trust me and relax a bit, but time has made no difference. I dealt with it for a month straight before bringing it up to anyone up the chain.

The person who does the scheduling on the floor has said they have a difficult time placing anyone with her, and what has happened is that I have been placed with her more than anyone else on the floor for the past 6 weeks. They only place 2 Nurses on the floor at a time, and the floor can have anywhere from 0-18 patients. Yes – 18. With 2 Nurses…TWO. This should be illegal. Call me crazy. Typically, we have around 8-10 patients, so it is more manageable. I have since spoken to the ER and to the ICU about jobs, as well as to my supervisor, who is now aware of the situation. As I have been so helpful lately in being (easily) one of the most flexible people on the floor, I felt the need to strike while the iron’s hot and ask about moving to full-time, but I’m still not sure. What say ye?

Nurses are callin' the shots.....haHA!

Update – as I wrote the above section about 2 weeks ago, they have begun the process to move me to full-time. They then found out one of the full-time nurses will be leaving the island one day later as her husband kicked her out about a month earlier than everyone expected. Once a Service Member doesn’t want you overseas, the government kicks you back to the states SO fast since it’s very expensive to keep you here. He kicked her out on Tuesday and she was headed back to the states that weekend. It is basically the ONLY time paperwork gets done quickly. She had 1 day to tell the supervisor that she would leave tomorrow, then get what was left of her life together in as many bags as they’d allow her to take and jump on a plane back to the states. Crazy. Very sad, especially since she was really great and we’re really going to miss her.

This situation obviously affected me as I was one of only 2 people on the floor who are part time and could possibly be moved to full time. Since this has happened, Dan and I have put a lot of thought and prayer into it, and we are going to keep me part time. We’re not exactly sure why, and that is not what we expected, but with my calling in the Young Women and everything else going on in my life, I simply think I cannot handle going full-time. I am fully aware that telling my supervisor this will probably cause a problem. I am going in to do a night shift tomorrow and will send her an email then that I need to meet with her and take care of it.

I’ve only been writing on this a few minutes a day and that’s why I haven’t posted it until now – but that is a quick update/overview with what has been going on with me. We also have some fun breaking news about Dan!!

Dan shall soon know even MORE joys of paperwork!

This last week, the District President called us in and called Dan to be the Assistant Ward Clerk. He was called as the assistant as they thought the ward clerk was moving back to the states this month, then they got the word that he will apparently not be leaving yet the same night they called us in. (I’m assuming the guy is air force…?) I think Clerk will be the perfect calling for Dan at this point, and we’ll see how it goes. Maybe we’ll be able to be in a few meetings together.

We’re doing great and we hope you are too!

:-)

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Quilting Cont’d

by Hannah on February 26, 2012

I found this draft sitting, untouched in my post file, and decided to finally post it – I added the little bit at the bottom about my One-Block Wonder in process, but wanted to share some of the other plans I had for my future quilting also. Happy brainstorming!

After WordPress started bucking back while I was trying to post most photos on my last quilting post, I decided to continue listing those quilting styles I am interested in pursuing in the future here. Just because the quilts are so amazing, I will start by adding another photo of Paula Nadelstern’s Kaleidoscope quilts:

They are incredible - something great to work toward in the future

I know it looks similar to the last one I put up, but they are different. If you look close, you can see some of the seam lines, and how simple the sewing part of the construction really is. The difficult part is getting all the fussy cuts right and buying enough of the “Prima Donna” fabrics to get the right number of fussy cuts out. The sewing itself looks fairly simple (Then again, I’m probably too new to this to NOT be stupidly UN-intimidated.)

I am also interested in a few other types of quilting, including applique. I am planning to make an applique quilt with my mom during 2012, putting together at least one block a month. It is a more traditional floral applique quilt called “Aunt Millie’s Garden” Here is the original quilt:

Aunt Millie's Garden - a Traditional Applique quilt

As the red in the original quilt is far too “fire-engine-y” for my taste, I will be changing the background color. I’m planning on either making the background a deep maroon (which I’ve already bought), or a black (similar to the award-winning applique quilt I included in the Pacific International Quilt Festival post). If I choose to go with black, I will use the maroon on the back of the quilt. I plan to alter the quilt to turn it into a King size instead of the Queen size by doubling some of the prettier blocks and widening the border a bit. I think it will come out great.

I have FAR too many other quilting plans, but am still waiting for that body double of mine to wake up and take them on. For now, I think I’ll post a photo of the quilt I am in the process of finishing up right now – I haven’t had the time to touch it in 3-4 months, but essentially all I have left to do is quilt up the border, and then it will be all done.

Photo of the whole Quilt

I had to lay the quilt out on the bed, then climb up into the lair 1 story above the bed to get this photo – you can see a shred of one of our puppies on the right side – he looked fairly concerned for my safety perched one story up.

This kind of quilt is made entirely of one kind of fabric – no joke. It is very simple to plan and to piece – the hardest parts are choosing the fabric to use, and then layering and cutting it correctly. Evan those processes are quite easy, though.

I threw this entire top together in something like 4-6 days while I was visiting my family in Utah and experienced a wonderful fabric buying explosion. This said explosion could probably keep me fueled for the rest of our time here in Oki (~2 – 2.5 years). I bought enough fabric to make a few more quits in a similar style to this one, but also brought home plenty of dressmaking fabric, patterns, and other random tidbits that are next to impossible to find out here.

Detail 1

Below are 2 other photos of some closer details of the pattern. The great thing about this kind of one-block wonder quilt is that there is no pattern, actually, but it comes out looking pretty involved, despite the near-brainless construction process. :-)

If you look closely at the pattern, you can easily see how simple the idea of the quilt really is – you can see there are sets of 6 identical triangle cuts grouped into a hexagon – many of the hexagons are similar (depending on the original fabric), but almost none of them are identical. You can leave identical hexagons in the design if you’d like – it’s up to you. You basically buy 6 lengths of the exact same pattern of a larger print fabric with a limited number of colors (to keep some cohesion in the final design), cut the layers to be exact mirror images of each other, then lay the 6 layers exactly on top of each other. You then cut them into long strips (each strip and exact mirror of the strip below it), and then into 6 identical triangles. Each stack of 6 triangles becomes a hexagon, which you sew into 2 halves made up of 3 triangles each, and then you spend as much time as you like arranging the hexagons to fit exactly the way you’d like them. You can do all kinds of

Detail 2

things with the color variations present in most fabrics. (Google “One Block Wonder” to see much better and more interesting/colorful examples than my B&W attempt) – you’ll be pretty amazing. Depending on the fabric you choose, it can come out looking quite like a Persian carpet.

It is such a relatively simple process that I think it could easily keep me entertained for many years.

That’s it for the quilt update of the day. :-)

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New Calling in our New Ward…

by Hannah on February 25, 2012

They’ve gone and done it…they made me the Young Women President. Yeah – I’ve never been involved in the YW organization. Ever. I’ve never gone to camp since I graduated, and I basically guarantee I’ve forgotten everything I may have ever known about the inner workings…

Young Women Values

Who the Lord calls, the Lord Qualifies.

I know – and I truly believe it.

So… after laughing whole-heartedly and accepting the call last week and then being sustained this week, I had a great time in their meetings today. The girls seem like a great group – all of them weren’t there today as the effects of the Okinawa Marathon on traffic patterns is pretty severe – many people in Plaza Housing don’t even attempt to get to church the day the marathon runs each year. I still got to meet some of the girls. There was a great spirit in the meeting and during the lesson. My job seems to be to not ruin that. May be tough for me.

Camp will be in April. I’m pretty psyched. I actually loved camp every year I was in YW back in the day – I hope it’s more a of a hard-core camp, as I have been to varying types of camps during my own YW experience and I always appreciated the more legit camps far better.

Evil winged rat!

Some of my favorite personal experiences at YW camp include waking to a bat stuck inside my sleeping bag my first year as a Beehive – my first reaction was as violent as possible – screaming and punching at it in the dark – shrieking so loud as to wake up the entire camp. Once the bat got out, it began flying around the cabin as it couldn’t find the hole it had originally gotten into – me and my friends all ran screaming bloody murder and shrieking and half naked out of the trashy shack of a cabin at 3 am-ish. SOOOOO Awesome. One of the best initiations ever.

That may have been the same camp that we saw 3 black bears VERY up close and personal. It was a mommy and 2 cubs – the Appalachians are rife with bears, and seeing them is pretty normal. This time, they were attempting to raid our fairly empty dumpster about 15 – 20 feet behind the hall where we met to eat. The mommy was helping the baby bears climb up a tree nearby and them jump into the dumpster for a free-for-all. When approaching the building (stupidly) from the wrong side, we happened upon the group accidentally and stopped dead in our tracks.

The bane of the typical Upstate NY Girls' Camp

It was a like a movie. They stopped short and gave us “the look…” We slowly remembered to breathe in. And out. Then, employing the supremely advanced technique of talking out of the side of our mouths, we concurred that we should slowly and surely ease our way into the building’s back kitchen door. We made a mad, flying dash for safety once an inch inside the dirty kitchen. This “bear movie” legitimately felt like a movie that I was inhabiting – the “fear” I felt was more an exhilaration than a

n actual concern for my well-being. I felt I had just checked something off my to-do list. “Been up close and personal with 3 black bears in the Appalachian wilderness…check.” I’m sure we told “everyone” about this little incident, but also that this “everyone” probably excluded all leaders. I remember going to the tree near the dumpster the next day and examining the massive rips their claws had left. I remember placing my widest finger fully inside one of the huge slices and suddenly gained a real respect for the sheer power of these animals.

Enormous scratches covered the tree in the story above

Another year in the Appalachians, we were at a camp where we had to stay in tents, and (cue the bears) hang our left over food high above the ground. One night when it wasn’t pouring, I was awoken by a large animal clearly poking around and trying to get at something tasty – surely the remnants of our marshmallows, etc. I peeked out the little air holes, and it was definitely a bear reaching for the suspended food bag – about 10 feet away. No one else was awake. I was faced with a dilemma. I head heard the stories everyone hears, about instances when bears rip through a tent and it’s inhabitants searching for that one lonely snickers bar some unwitting camper snuck into their sleeping bag as a midnight snack. Would it truly be better to wake my tent-mates up and unwittingly create noise? It seemed this would cause an unnecessary freak-out, leading to more harm than good. I decided to just trust that no one in my tent had broken the rules and rely on the relative safety of silence.

Sheer adreneline…

I can’t remember if I slowly reached for my shoes and put them on, but I know I was thinking plenty hard about the fastest way to run away from this creature should it get too threateningly curious. I guarantee I was awake listening to it for at least an hour, maybe longer. Slowly, it seemed the bear had moved on and my palpitations became incrementally less auditory. I finally eased to sleep, but I was pretty jumpy in the morning.

I have many more camp stories, but I should finish up with this post – I have quite a few more I have planned.

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First 5K Since High School XC

Yes – it’s true – this is the first in a long time. Yes – it’s pathetic…I admit it…but now it’s out. First race in 13-ish years! It was seriously awesome! That being said, I did marginally. I basically wanted to run this one to finish and get a baseline number to serve as the [...]

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Pet Sitting Site 95% finished…

When Dan and I lived in Oki from 2005-2008, I quickly discovered that Oki truly is what I have since heard – where spouse’s careers come to die a slow painful death. Meaning, I was unable to find a job willing to pay me more than I made at age 14 performing extremely talented sandwich [...]

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Sweet Bike!

After waffling around and basically deciding that I probably wasn’t going to do a Triathlon this year since I STILL didn’t have a (non-stationary) bike, I went out this morning and crushed it on a bike I picked up. I’ll have to post photos later, since I have a rehearsal in ~1 hour, Here’s the [...]

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Cycle – more stationary bike

Dang – the stationary bike is killing me, but I’ve been getting it done – I haven’t been doing as well lately getting all the workouts done, and I’m wavering about whether this is the year to do a triathlon as we are working on other expensive priorities right now. I’m tempted to just work [...]

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Alright – I FINALLY did it…

Yep – that’s it. I’m tired of my current theme with its numerous functionality problems. I went out and got the best theme on the market this week and I’ve been working on the switch-over. If you’re quick on the uptake and are seeing the site change here and there every couple of minutes [...]

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