Watch the Sunrise

I have this skylight window... (the high one on the right)



Which would be great if it didn't face east. So every morning I am awake by 8 am at the latest. Usually this isn't a big deal because either I'm up and ready to start the day or I go into the living room and fall back to sleep on my sofa.

Ironically, to fall asleep I often pull up pre-recorded episodes of Sunrise Earth. Have you seen this show? I love it. It's just a straight hour of nature goodness. Nothing but bird sounds and sometimes rushing water (depending on the location). Plus it's on Discovery HD giving it high quality picture as well.

Yes, I know I'm a pretty big dork.

Ponder

Sometimes I feel like I'm living two lives.

I don't mean this in a sordid, deceitful way. I guess what I mean is that I haven't fully committed to my new life yet. Part of me feels like I'm still living the same life in Illinois and this whole North Carolina thing is just one long vacation. Is that weird? I don't remember feeling like this when I first moved to Illinois, but maybe I've just blocked it out.

And don't get me wrong, I'm loving North Carolina. Today, February 5th, it was 74 and sunny and I went to the driving range. Seriously. Amazing.

When I was graduating from high school the questions were, where am I going to go and what will I be doing. When it was time to leave Iowa I knew I was headed to Illinois but the unknown was what I would be doing there.

Now I've moved to NC (the where) and I work for Trader Joe's (the what), but I feel like there's still a big unknown staring back at me. (does that make any sense?) Like, now what? Is that an ungrateful question?

I prayed to find a job I could enjoy, and He answered. I prayed for something to catalyze me, to convince me it was time to leave my parents house again, and He answered. Now all I can think sometimes is, this is it?

And then I wonder why I'm so impatient. What am I in a hurry to get to? The rest of my life? This is the rest of my life. Every day is the rest of my life. Why can't I enjoy that? What is holding me back from diving into this new life? Why am I so restless?

So I sit here and play some of my favorite "thinking music" and ponder....

"As I sit here and think
About all that You've done
About how You gave me Your one and only Son
And I'm trying to fathom
All that You are, but so far, Lord
You're so beyond me
I fall down in reverence
And I fall down in fear
And I'm asking You, Lord, won't You please draw near
Won't You open my eyes
So that I can see
The way that You are working in me

All I need is Your love
To come and fill this heart of mine
My heart is a desert that has gone dry
And I need Your love to carry me by

And I lay down my life
And I put it before You
All that I am is in Your hands
And I'm not going to question, why You're so faithful
Why that You give me the blessings that You do have
Let the glory be known, let the glory be shown
I just lift You up unto the throne

You are my God, You are my King
To You I give, I give You everything
All that I need is Your love, my God"

- Shawn McDonald - All I need -
(Big Hooray for Amy Van Gorp who gave me this cd!)

Play in the woods!

It was 65 degrees out today. That's still just blowing my mind. Unfortunately the rest of the week will be in the mid 40's so I knew I wanted to get outside to do something. Ideally I would have gone to play disc golf, but those plans fell through and it ended up being too late in the afternoon to be worth driving out to the park. Instead, my friend Chris and I just went to a nearby field and threw a disc around there. Conveniently there was a bit of woods near the field that we were able to explore. We found a nearly dried up stream and were able to follow it for what was probably a good half mile or so. After that it ran into a subdivision and we didn't want to be trekking through the backyard of strangers.

Sometimes it's nice to spend an afternoon in a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.

Recap

Wow, so I clearly am bad at this blogging thing. I haven't posted since I moved to North Carolina. Life has definitely been a bit of a blur since then... but here are the important highlights... in no particular order:

1) All my stuff arrived safe and sound. I'm definitely glad I went with the huge comfortable couch. I practically live on it.
2) I put up a bunch of pictures and some day I'll paint the walls... right now they're a neutral beige color. Which is neither horrible nor enjoyable. I did promise Kinsey I'd wait for her help/input. So no painting for me until Spring time.
c) I put up some chalkboard paint!!! Not a whole lot, but a big square in the kitchen so I can leave myself reminders and a big square above my shower for weekly verse posting.
d) I spent Thanksgiving alone in my condo watching movies and overeating chicken I grilled on the Foreman and mashed potatoes. It was awesome. It was my first day off of work in 11 days so I was really just enjoying the relaxation.
e) Just after Christmas I was back in Iowa for Jenna and Andrew's wedding (YAY!) and Chicago for some more relaxation. It was a bit weird to be back but I'm glad I got to see so many people. I ate way too much food that week though. Ugh. I don't think I got hungry again til the week after I came back.
6) I have bought dozens of DVD's since moving. Watching movies is pretty much all I feel like doing on my days off so I had to grow the collection.
7) Not to say that I've turned into a hermit who only leaves the house for work or anything like that. I've been pleasantly surprised by how well I'm getting along with my new co-workers. A group of us usually go out at least once a week. Some weeks more, some less. Most recently we got together to watch Football last Sunday. I had a ton of fun despite both my teams losing :(
h) I discovered the joy of online bill pay. It's seriously rocking my world. The only problem I've run into so far is a bit of confusion with a Mortgage payment. I somehow payed ahead a month so, oops! At least now I don't have to send them any more money until the end of February.
9) Despite being assured I wouldn't get to see snow here in Charlotte, it has now snowed twice! Both times the local media made it sound as if the blizzard of the century was bearing down on us. I think we managed to have about 1.5" accumulation over the course of both storms. No lie, they closed schools and everything on a day where we had a brief 3 hour snow flurry.
10) My mom became my first official house guest. She flew down for a couple of days so I could show her around the city.

I'm sure plenty more interesting things have happened, but I can't really think of them now. I promise to get pictures up and start updating more regularly. It's not as though I don't spend half my free time on my computer anyway :D

Move In

So I'm here. I now officially live in Charlotte. Let the freaking out begin. I promise to post more in the next few days but for now I just wanted to let everyone know I'm moved. Well technically my stuff isn't here until tomorrow morning. So I'm not done moving.

At this particular moment I'm sitting on my sleeping bag in the middle of my bedroom eating a hot pocket. Yes. I know. I lead a glamorous life. Also I finished my first day of work. For now I'll say it wasn't as bad as it could have been. In the next few days I'm looking to just put my head down and do what I do best. I'm not sure how all these personalities will mesh, but so far so good. I decided that the best thing I can do is stay behind the scenes. I don't need a lot of attention. I'm good at what I do, so if I just do it and stay under the radar I should be just fine.

For example.... We aren't actually allowed to be doing work in our store until the last permit gets signed (hopefully tomorrow). All morning I was feeling especially useless because we were making signs and I have bad printing. So I organized some paper work and helped where I could, but basically lunch couldn't come soon enough. After lunch we were able to "sneak" into our store and do some work on the down low. After doing a sort of group tour to catch everyone up on the progress I wandered off to look at the sections I was taking charge of and was able to feel at least some what productive when i started to move shelves around.

So like I said, day one is done and it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Finally get those pictures up

YAY! blogger finally let me post pictures of my new place! So check those out would ya?

Post pictures

Blogger seems to be having some issues today and won't let me post any pictures. So in the post below this, all those numbers will soon be pictures. I just wanted to get the post up so Kinsey stops harassing me about my lack of blogging :D

Buy a condo!

Woo! I am now officialy a homeowner. Well I guess technically something could still go horribly wrong between now and the closing date (Oct 30) but who wants to think about pessimistic things like that.

So last week I went down to North Carolina to do the whole house hunting thing. As it turns out, I'm either really great at it or really horrible, because I bought the first one we visited. Not then and there or anything quite so sudden. I knew at the end of the first day that I really liked that one the best and lost interest in continuing to drive around and look at more places.

One of the places I saw the next day did come in a close second, but it had a few more "cons" than this other one. The last place we looked at... I didn't like from the moment we walked in the front door. This was THE most cracked out floorplan I have ever seen in my life. I wish I had taken pictures, but please bear with my so-so description skills...

You walk through the front door and almost smack your head on a light fixture because rather than having a foyer or entry way you're immediately in the "dining room." A dining room so small that once you fillled it with a table and chairs you'd have trouble opening the front door. No lie. Directly to the right is the kitchen. (About the size of the Mazuniks kitchen for those of you who have seen it and would like a reference point) Not super big, but big enough for all the important things. At first I thought the kitchen had two pantrys and a closet... nope the other doors are to the stairs. What? I have to go through my kitchen to go up or down stairs? I think I'm done looking at this one thanks. It was seriously ridiculous. No wonder it was so much less expensive than other places with the same sq footage.

Ok, back to my house now....



This is what it looks like from the driveway



My front door!



Kitchen to the left



But it's very open with the rest of the living room






I have my own little porch and a fireplace and a computer nook and tv alcove that I actually don't think I'm going to put my tv in...



The master bedroom has a skylight type window and connected master bath. There is also a HUGE walk in closet.

Immediately to the right when you come in is the second bedroom. This also has it's own full bathroom and walk in closet.



Not the best picture of it, I know.

So that's my new house! I officially move down there on November 11th. Of course the moving company tells me my stuff won't be arriving until the 12th to the 18th. Yes that's right. There is a six day window in which my stuff whill eventually show up. This is of course complicated by the fact that I start work on the 13th. Great.

At first I planned to fly down and let them move my car, but once I realized I'd be without my stuff for so long I decided it was probably going to be easier for me to drive. Plus it's only 13 hours! Woo! So if anyone out there is interested in joining me on a 13 hour roadtrip across 5 states let me know. :D Ooh you will need to bring your own sleeping bag, though... (see above about not having any of my stuff)


*Update: Yes it is Park Creek Drive

Move to North Carolina!

So if you haven't heard already, I'm moving to Charlotte, NC in the beginning of November. Answers to the FAQ's include...

a) Nope, I've never been there before.
b) No, I don't know anyone there.
c) Yes, I'm still with Trader Joes. They are actually taking care of the move for me. My job will stay almost exactly the same, except I'll be part of a team opening a brand new store on the Northside of Charlotte.
d) Of course, you bettter come visit me.
e) I'm incredibly exicted and also terrified at the same time.

I'll post details as soon as I have any to share. So far all I've done is buy myself a new TV and talk to a mortgage specialist at the bank about how much house I can afford to buy. So stay tuned...

Amy's Wedding

So I promised Angie I'd blog all about Amy's wedding since she's so far away and likes weddings. Unfortunately I'm not good at remembering to take pictures of the things I'll want to have pictures of when it comes time to blog. So here it goes...

Sioux Center, Iowa is about 10 hours from Highland Park. Woo road trip. Thankfully Kinsey and Greg let me stay with them on Tuesday night so I could break up the driving. (see previous post)

So wednesday morning I drove up to the CRapids and lunched with Kinsey. Mmmm Pancheros. (insert mental image of your favortie pancheros meal here) I always like to order the chicken burrito; with rice, pinto beans, chicken, hot salsa, cheese and occasionally some guacamole. Oh and some Pibb Xtra. There is seriously nothing better than Pibb or Dr Pepper when it's a fountain soda. It's like no one can get the right balance and it's always extra syrupy. I love it.

Once I'd dropped Kinsey off at work again, I was off! Oh! I'm gettng a head of myself though. I forgot to mention the Carnie Caravan I saw on I-80. Yes, that was exactly what it sounds like. First I passed a truck towing one of those food stands you see at the fair. Then a truck with go karts. Then Tilt-a-Whirl seats. Then a little kid rollercoaster. It was awesome!

So as you could probably guess the drive across northern Iowa isn't overly exciting scenery-wise. The afternoon started out sunny...



Then it got cloudy...



Then it rained.....



In reality I enjoyed the drive quite a bit. It's nice to have a bit of open road and good music every once and a while. Once I got west of Fort Dodge I had a really great view of the countryside around me. This was especially nice after the rain started clearing. There was a really cool break in the clouds where you could tell the sun was setting.




The pictures don't really do it justice.



By the time I got to Sioux Center it was sunny again!



Ok, I know. You don't really care about what the weather was like. So moving on....

Once in town I met up with Amy and the Van Gorp family at Pizza Ranch for dinner. Wednesday night we just sort of sat around and marveled at the dog (pony) that Lianne and Mike were adopting. It was a full size Great Dane named Chance the ninth. He had papers and everything. (Unfortunately they ended up not keeping him, but Chance was fun for the few days he was around.)

Thursday we decorated the church. (Remember how I fail at taking the right pictures? Yea I didn't take any of the actual church.) I will do my best to descirbe it all though: Amy's wedding colors were brown and light blue, so at the very front of the church everything was done in those colors. There were boxes covered in appropriately colored fabric, on which the candles sat, then a huge line of chistmas lights wrapped up in white tulle draped to create a proscenium look. Lianne and I made bows out of tulle for each of the chairs along the main aisle and then added ribbons to match the wedding colors. Someone found these great fake votive-y lights for the floor along the main aisle. They even flickered a bit like real candles would! These candles were loosely wrapped in matching blue tulle, which made them more eye-catching.

After decorating, I went to Le Mars with Amy and Lianne to their cousin-in-law's baby shower. With the ice cream capital of the world so close to home, of course we went to the Blue Bunny Ice Cream Parlor. I was going to take a picture of the big sundae statue out front but got distracted by the cool thing the sun was doing as it set....



Friday morning we all headed to Dordt college to decorate the reception hall. Amy had ordered 400 white roses from ecuador for her center pieces. While they looked awesome, it took a lot of work to put all 40+ vases together.



From Right to Left: Amy, Jenna, Lianne, Mindy (Seth's older sister) and Janene (Seth's mom).

They also put all the boys to work filling vases, wiping them off, shuttling them out to Kinsey to set up on each table. In the end they turned out pretty great.



We also had a napkin folding party, where six of us sat around a table and folded all 240 napkins into these nifty little silverware holders.



The saucer and doily (sp?) are for the fudge cakes Lianne made. She was definitely a rockstar, making 4 of 6 batches all by herself. Each batch of fudge had to be cut into 40 circles each of three different sizes so they could be sugared and then stacked into these neat little towers. I only had to do one batch and I found it tiring.

Pictures of the cake...




Saturday morning, we snuck in a bit of pool time before getting ready for the wedding.




I mostly just love the inflatable Seahorse in this picture. (Sorry Greg and Andrew) Over the few days I was in town, I definitely got my fill of pool time. And raft wars. I think I still have bruises. I know I still have bruises from all those cannonballs I did off the top of the slide. (ask me later about my splash size as a ratio of pain theory)


Amy brushing her teeth before getting her dress on...


The bouquets....



(white roses and blue hydrangeas)

The head table at the reception....



The food at the reception was amazing! I'm always a bit skeptical of catered food, but this stuff was seriously great. I loaded up my plate big time.....



(if only my fruit hadn't fallen in the gravy!)

After everyone had eaten there was a slideshow of pictures and some old home movies of both Seth and Amy. Then the floor in front of the head table was cleared for dancing. Lianne's husband Mike had recruited his brothers to help out with DJ-ing. At one point they were having some sound issues which lead to this great picture....



(Matt and Chris are standing, Mike and Brian sitting)

Amy and her dad dancing...



Kinsey and Greg watching the fun...



The center pieces with the candles lit.....



All lined up....



Leftover cake for breakfast!



I did also stop and take a picture to use as my new desktop wallpaper. For all those times I miss the corn fields.



All in all the whole trip was a lot of fun. I forget how much I miss everyone until I get to see them again.