Big City, Little Friends

So I have discovered that heavily populated places are the loneliest places in the world. Take Calgary, a city of around 1,200,000 people and counting, after living here for almost 5 months, I have only had actual conversations with 11 residents of the city. Those 11 people are Greg, James, Lori, Kayla, Sarah, Shayna, Liz, Theo, Shawna, Kylie, and Joe. Greg is my husband...in case you weren't aware. James and Lori have been married for almost 2 years and are our best friends in the city; we hang out with them often. Kayla is a friend from Redeemer. Sarah is Kayla's sister. Shayna is Kayla and Sarah's cousin. All three of them live together. Liz is Heidi Dunham's sister and she's married to Theo; we had them over once. Shawna lives in the basement of our house with her boyfriend (who's name i still don't know even though I've lived in the same house as him since July). Kylie and Joe are our landlords.
Ok I guess that's a tiny exaggeration. I've talked to a couple random people at bus stops, people that were in my classes when I was still in school, a couple people at churches we've visited, and Kayla's parents, but I haven't hung out with any of them.
Another heavily populated place within the city of Calgary is Centre Street Church. There are around 7,000 people who attend. The main campus is just a mile or 2 away from our house; however, there are multiple other campuses around the city. Main Campus has a Saturday night service and 2 Sunday morning services. Greg and I have decided that we're just going to make it our home church because we're sick of church shopping and the only ones we liked more are a half hour away (still in the same city of course). We just decided that for sure on Sunday so we haven't really gotten plugged in yet, but we're hoping to join a small group so maybe we'll meet some people there.
One of our biggest blessings in Calgary comes in the form of James and Lori. They are a fantastic couple. James is 20 and Lori is 21. Both of them love playing games, eating food, talking, and studying the Bible with us, and we could not imagine a couple that we get along with better. Maybe it would be if they liked camping more and snowboarding less, but we need some differences I guess.
Yesterday, I was making pie because we had some pears that were going bad. Since Greg doesn't generally eat many sweets, we had James and Lori over to help us eat it. We had them over for a supper of pork chops, potatoes, applesauce, and green beens. After supper I put the pie in and we taught them how to play killer bunnies. When the pie was ready, it was hard to tear everyone away from the game to eat it. Then we ate cake, finished that game, and played a game of Keiser (a fantastic 4 person game they taught us). Somehow it was all of a sudden almost midnight so they headed home. It was a really fun night; every time we hang out with them is great. We just finished a couple-series called Love and Respect, and I learned so much through it. It's great to have Lori around to talk to too. Every once in a while I randomly invite her over in the middle of the day too which is always fun.
If we didn't have James and Lori, I don't know how I would keep my sanity in this city. I would only know one person well. As it is I only know 3, but 3 is better than one!
I'm hoping that soon we'll meet more people and actually get a little bit connected, but as it is, I'm so happy for what we have as far as people go.

Riot

One day Greg and I were down building a playground in Coaldale. After work one day Greg, Brendan, and I stopped at the animal shelter just to see what was there. Greg and I both fell in love with a dog named Riot. He is half pit bull and half black lab. The problem was, he was already on reserve for another family. We asked them to put him on reserve for us just in case the other people changed their mind. (I know...it's weird putting a living creature on reserve). The next day Greg got a call at the playground saying the other people did pick him up. I was so sad.
When we were just slowing down on the playground build, Brendan said we had to hurry and pack up because he needed to be home by 6:30. Then on the way instead of passing by the shelter to drop Brendan off, Greg pulled in the shelter. Apparently the other people had returned Riot almost immediately because he didn't get along with their dog. We got a dog!
I was so excited! Greg and I took him on a walk by Brendan's house, and he was good except for barking at some little dogs. We didn't mind that because we hate little dogs anyways. At Greg's parent's house, we let him run off leash in the coulees. We played fetch with a water bottle and just had a lot of fun. We had to keep him in the back fence so that he wouldn't run away, but all of a sudden he was outside wagging his tail and roaming around. He had just soared over the fence no problem. Then we put him in the little back shed. It's just about 10*10 and made out of plywood. He was fine in there for the night. We took him for a walk and fed him in the morning, but the we got back from work, there was a hole in the bottom of the shed, and Riot was gone. We drove around town looking for him to no avail. A couple hours later, he showed up again! That night we went to Fort Macloud to eat supper with Greg's brother and family and to pick up a 6ft fence/kennel. Then we went back up to Calgary. We set the fence up with Riot on a leash then we all went inside. Riot was very well behaved. We designated one chair in the kitchen that he could sit on while we ate, and he sat there during each meal. We also had one chair in the living room that he could use. He would only go in it. He never peed or pooped in the house.
He was a great dog; however, we made the grave mistake of introducing him to the lady who lives in the basement of our house, Shawna. She didn't say anything to us about not liking him, rather she talked to our landlord and said she would not live in a house with a pit bull as a matter of safety. Our landlord came over and talked to us. He pet Riot and really liked him, but he couldn't get Shawna to agree to let him stay so he said we had to get rid of him. We were so ticked at the whole situation. All of Shawna's reasons seemed crazy to us. There was no way we were going to let Riot escape. We had him tied up AND in his fence anytime we weren't home and in the house when we were. There was no safety issue to be had. Plus, she said she never would've moved in if she would've known a pit bull would be living upstairs. Do you think we love her shitsus who bark for an hour strait every time she leaves the house?
Reluctantly we brought him back down to Lethbridge to return him next time we went down. He convinced us that maybe he wasn't perfect. He growled at Greg's dad and little sister. He also had a problem with Jackie (the dog Greg has always liked). He was fine with Teddy (the dog Greg hates). We found out about his problem with Jackie when suddenly Riot lunged from one side of the table, under it, and on top of Jackie in about a second. He might've killed Jackie had Greg not quickly pulled him off of her.
The next day, we brought him back to the shelter. I was on the verge of tears the whole time. I had really fallen fast for that dog. I know by all logical reasons, I should've been happy to get rid of him: he tied us down a little, he was apparently moody around people we cared about, he would cause strife with our neighbour, he would cost money, he would be extra work. All of that stuff seems super valid, but as I sit alone in our house, I really would love to have Riot here with me.

We think he was a beautiful dog, and he was super muscular.

 He might've been a little bit of a glorified lap dog too.

Crazy how you can miss a dog...especially when you only had him for 2 weeks. 

Catch-up time

So, I haven't posted on my blog in a really long time...like 4 1/2 months long time. Oops :). Sorry guys! But hey, at least I got facebook back so I can pretend to update people at least. For the next little while, I will try to blog at least once a week to make up for the past 4 1/2 months.

Wedding:
On July 4, I got married to Greg (he's this really great guy I know). I think we had the best wedding in the world.
Some random highlights leading up to the wedding were:
- Getting to know Gregs family better
- Getting to see all of my siblings, parents, and nieces and nephews
- Getting to see almost all of my Kolk cousins
- Climbing a mountain (not so highlighted if you count the few minutes of thinking thinking my almost sister-in-law was going to die, but hey: still pretty good overall)
- Working 76 1/2 hours the week prior to my wedding (ok, maybe not such a good highlight)
Highlights of actual day:
- Angela doing an amazing job on my hair
- Wendy and Fae helping with lots of little stuff
- Pretty fun pictures
- Mom helping me put my dress on and adding things to my hairpiece last minute
- Dad wearing a tie
- Anna quick feeding me before I got thrown to the photographers
- Watching all 16 nieces and nephews go down the aisle
- Dad walking me down the aisle
- Jonathan and Eric jumping to save our house from falling
- Nate's speech
- The Kolk cousin faces
- April and Shelby doing a fantastic job keeping kids semi-in-line
- The amazing pyramid made by aunts, uncles, and cousins
- Amber and Hetty doing a fantastic job MCing
- The open mic
- Kaylen and Nate keeping me company while I hid from the world
- The Forsters help with everything!
- Clean-up being miraculously close to finished before we even left
- ...I'll just stop there

After our wedding day, we headed down to Montana for the Hubers family reunion, but on the way, we made a pit-stop in Great Falls to get sleeping bags and camp for the night. We couldn't find a campground to pitch our tent in so we settled for a place up some coulees near a train track. When we were almost asleep, all of the sudden we heard this massive cloud of bugs above us and soon after, we started hearing thunder. We looked out our tent and 180 degrees of the sky was consumed in a huge storm. There was lightning every second. I asked Greg if maybe we should quick pack up and go to the car, but he said we wouldn't have time. After watching the storm for another minute or so, Greg thought of a little culvert with a bike path going through it that we had seen on our way up. We quickly got out of the tent and carried it (still set up) into the culvert.
Again, we were almost asleep when a massive gust of wind threatened to capsize our tent. We quickly ran outside, grabbed out shoes, and pulled the rain cover off (we were under the culvert anyways so rain couldn't hit us). About a minute later, rain did start hitting us even though we were on the far side of the 50 ft culvert. We put the rain cover on top of our sleeping bags so that we wouldn't get soaked and then finally went to sleep.
The next morning, we were expecting the world to be destroyed or something. Well...we were at least expecting some fallen trees and a roof or two torn of houses, but instead we woke up to someone peacefully biking through the culvert. Soon more people were walking or biking through. We decided to pack up. On our way back to the car, we did see one fallen tree. Apparently storms are amplified when you're in a tent. Who knew really? Oh well. It was a very adventurous night and we enjoyed it.

Following that adventure, we went to a little cafe for breakfast than continued our way down to Big Sky for the family reunion.  On our way, we went on another adventure. This one came in the form of a detour sign that we followed when we were maybe an hour away from Big Sky. Four hours of beautiful scenery later, we arrived at the reunion. We spent a couple days enjoying time with family being "red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, red, rednecks," then headed back for Calgary to start settling into our house. We stopped in Lethbridge to see Greg's family, sleep for a night, and get our presents and continued on. We were so blessed by people's amazing generosity and hardly had to buy anything for our house (just lamps, picture frames, and a broom pretty much).

After 2 days of settling in, it was time for life to begin again. I joined Greg and Brendon in building playgrounds. Our first one was a small one in a new development called "Skyview Ranch." Life went on from there.

Rain

Rain. It's a topic that has been put into many songs. Each of which reflect a certain mood, feeling, or situation. Here are just a few of these songs and my current reaction to them.
- "Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day." That is not accurate. In fact, I'm happy it's raining today. It gives me a chance to do some stuff that I really need to get done rather than going in to work.
- "And the radio just keeps on playing these songs about rain." Also inaccurate  The radio here in Starbucks is actually playing happy little Indie/pop songs.
- "Chocolate Rain" I wish. Also, I miss my little sister April. I was there for her grad, but I missed her open house and I just feel like we haven't talked tons in quite a while. When she showed me this video, I thought it was so random and fantastic - much like April.
- "It's raining. It's pouring. The old man is snoring." Well...this is kind of backwards and made about the wrong gender. In fact, it should say - "It's raining. It's sprinkling. The youngish girl is snoring." The reason fro this switch is, I slept in until almost 10:00 this morning where my oma (an "old (wo)man") was up bright and early figuring out all sorts of stuff with her water.

Now, I know there are many more songs about rain, but those are just the first few that popped into my head. Currently, I am sitting in Starbucks in Lethbridge because it was the easiest coffee shop with free internet for me to find. I am figuring out some little details for my wedding and hoping everything just is really easy. Problem is, I am too scared of it being all confusing and just deciding that eloping is a great option to actually get down to it and plan. I guess maybe I should at least give a solid attempt at planning a ceremony before giving up.

House Hunt!!

Fun facts to start this blog:
-I haven't blogged in over a month so I might be rusty (not that I ever got good at it to start)
-Calgary has a less than 1% vacancy rate in the housing market
-Average rent for a 2 bedroom apartment or house is around $1500 per month - utilities questionable
-Greg and I are getting married it July...that doesn't leave loads of time to find a house
-Waiting lists are generally about a year long.

During exams this year, Greg and I had 2 major methods of procrastination: playing Ticket to Ride online and trying to find a house or apartment in Calgary. We got really good at Ticket to Ride, and really frustrated with the housing market in Calgary. By the time summer break hit, we still were at a loss of what we would do for housing after getting married. We got on a couple waiting lists, but nothing looked the slightest bit promising.
After a while, one of my relatives suggested that I ask my cousin Willow if she still has an apartment in Calgary. I asked, but she said she had good renters and if they moved out, she would seriously consider selling it. Then, at Mr. Beekman's birthday party, Tricia (Greg's sister) said that on of her cousin-in-laws had a house that they were just renovating. We asked her to put in a good word for us, and almost a month later, they got back to her saying that we should contact them.
This news was fantastic to us because it gave us a glimmer of hope in spite of our increasingly desperate situation.
The next day, Willow texted me and said that her renters were moving out at the end of June. That now meant that we had 2 places saying that we had first dibs. We were very happy!
The house has a basement sweet for $900/month (plus 1/2 utilities) or a main level for $1,100/month(plus 1/2 utilities). Willow's house was $1300/month.
Today, we went to view the upstairs of the house (the basement sweet doesn't look like it would be open by July). We got to the house before the landlady and just looked around outside. The windows don't look great, and the yard is a mess, but we could see a lot of potential. There is even space where we could maybe fit a garden in consecutive summers. Once inside, the bedrooms and living room were far bigger then expected. Even the kitchen was quite spacious. The dining room was small, but it could easily extend into the living room if we were to have a lot of company. There is a laundry room that would be shared with whoever may be living in the basement.
The only thing that seemed to be problematic is the sad fact that temperature has to be agreed upon by the people living in the basement and us meaning that our winter utilities will likely be higher than they would be if we had complete control.
With that 1 drawback, we decided to take it! We can gain possession around mid-June (possibly having to pay rent for the whole month, but oh well).
Oh, and fun fact: we might get a puppy! We're allowed to have a dog, just not multiples (sorry, Maggie, Darwin, and Sam might be out of luck when it comes to visiting us).
I am super excited! I can't wait to move in and make it home - a home that I won't have to move in and out of yearly. Greg and my first home. I can't wait!

"The Story"

So, a lot of people have been asking me how Greg proposed to me, and I was getting sick of telling the same story over and over again so I decided that I would write it down, print it off, and hand it to anyone who asked, but Greg said I wasn't allowed to because it was too weird so instead of letting my hard work go to waste, I decided to put it on my blog! Now, if anyone asks one of my family members how it happened or something, they can direct them here or just give them the proper explanation. 

“The Story”

Greg and I planned to go to Toronto a couple of weeks ago just because neither of us had ever really been there. We wanted to take public transit so that we wouldn’t have to worry about parking through in Toronto.

While we were walking from Redeemer to the bus stop, he pulled out an envelope that was made with great detail that said “The Amazing Race – Greg Beekman and Alicia Hubers Edition.” It looked really good. Then inside, it explained that I had to guide us through the city of Toronto and at each stop, we had to take a picture from the same place as the picture in the envelope. I had to guide us to all the stops since Greg planned it and knew where everything was. He gave me free passes like internet use, phone call, free help, etc. There were 10 places to find and 2 checkstops. The first 5 stops were completed on Friday (union station, coffee shop, CN tower, Toronto Island, and detour to decide where to sleep) then we camped on Toronto Island for the night, and I got a “checkstop envelope.” Saturday, we did the next 5 stops (making breakfast at Nathan Phillips park, Royal Ontario Museum & Casa Loma (detour that we chose both), sneaking into the Delta Chelsea hotel swimming pool, a little restaurant, and the Scarborough Bluffs) and learned the Toronto transit system. At the last stop (the bluffs which is a beach with cliffs by it), I was supposed to get my 2nd checkstop envelope, but Greg "forgot" until I reminded him. Then he reached into the envelope, and instead of pulling out a note or clue he pulled out a ring, got down on a knee, and asked me if I would marry him. I said yes.

This is my ring. I love it!

This is how legit the envelopes were. A couple people asked if we were actually on the Amazing Race.

First checkstop picture

What would be my favorite picture of the trip IF Greg would've actually smiled. 

My actual favorite picture from the trip I think. 

A Haiku for You!

"Ice"

can keep swelling down

turns waterfalls into rock

always fun to slide

Webster's Falls (above)

Little side waterfall by Webster's (Below)

RRRolling

It is lent. That means Roll up the Rim and Tim Hortons! I decided that since I haven't blogged in a couple weeks, I should do that before I allow myself to roll up the rim on the cup of coffee that I'm drinking so here I go!
The past couple weeks have been crazy and wonderful. A couple weeks ago, I was simply going through my school work and living life. Having three English Literature courses means a lot of reading. Since Christmas break, I have had to read 2 novels, at least 200 pgs of poetry, somewhere around 20 short stories, 5 plays, 5 articles about plays, and about 8 chapters out of an Information Technology text book. On top of this, I have had to write a 5 page paper, a 6 page paper, a poetry reading response, and a bunch of notes. There is also just the fun of assignments and midterms and all that. After spending a lot of hours trying to figure out Managerial Accounting and failing a midterm (with around a 40%), I decided maybe taking the prerequisite of Financial Accounting would've been a good idea, and I dropped the class.
Last week, I got a break from all this craziness. I got to be home from Friday evening till Tuesday noon. It was fantastic to see my family, play games, help at the women's retreat, go to my church, see the progress of my niece and nephew as they grow up, and just simply relax. While being home, everyone got the flu which was pretty unfortunate, but hey, we're all better now! Around noon on Tuesday, Greg and I headed back to Hamilton. The weather wasn't the best so the trip looked like it was gonna take about 9 hours instead of 8, but then, we got stuck in really thick traffic and it took us an hour to go about 7 km. Once it cleared up again and we finished the trip, it had been a full 10 hours since leaving Indiana. We were both exhausted so we each took about a 2 hour nap then went to pick up his mom and sister from the Hamilton International Airport. We played rook with them until about 2 in the morning which was fun. Since then we have played a lot of Rook, Canasta, and Ticket to Ride (great game by the way!). We also spent a lot of time at Greg's cousin's house a half hour from here. We went to the Niagara Falls and explored a little bit of Hamilton with them. Overall, it's been a great week! Now, They are all shopping around Medowlands while I sit by myself in Tim Hortons studying for a midterm and doing some homework (and writing a blog).
For a little bit of a more personal thing rather than just facts about what happened in my week/semester, while I was sitting here, Greg, his mom, and Kaylen went to Costco. They came back a little bit ago with a Coke and a hot dog for me. Now, this may not seem like a big deal, but Greg has told me lots of times that Hot Dogs are disgusting and Coke is really unhealthy, but every time I just say I don't care and like them anyways. Apparently he does sometimes listen to me because he brought me them anyway even though he said it was "against my better judgement." I thought it was pretty great.
Well, now, I just finished my coffee and should really finish studying for my midterm (which is at 9:30am tomorrow morning). Plus, I really want to know if I won anything for roll up the rim!

Now for the most anti-climatic ending of a blog: "Please play again/Rèessayez S.V.P."

Back at it. In other words: better get RRRolling!

Phone...

Today around 7:00, Greg and I went to Tim Horton's to do homework. It's a beautiful night out (50 F with periodic rain) so we decided to walk instead of drive. I borrowed Alexis's rain boots because mine were in the basement and wouldn't match my hat properly.
As we were walking, Gina texted me so I looked at my phone and put it back in my pocket. About 10 minutes later, I reached in my pocket and there was no phone. I figured it was probably already dead because it was raining pretty hard. Greg and I did homework as planned for the next 3ish hours and then I had to walk back to my dorm so that I would be on time for devos at 10:30. Before I left, Greg told me a story about one of his cousins losing a glass contact in a pool, them all praying about it, and then another cousin finding the contact a couple minutes later. Before I left, we prayed that if God wanted me to, I would find my phone.
I retraced the exact path we had taken there, and after a while, I saw a little rectangular bump in a big puddle in the middle of a park's parking lot. I reached down, and sure enough, in-between my fingers was a little brick of a phone. I opened it, and somehow it still worked! So once again, I have a phone. Plus, I got a little reminder of God's goodness which is always pretty welcome.

Conversations 2

Group of 1 white girls, 2 arab/indian guys, 1 asian guy, and 1 asian girl.
Indian Guy 1: Apple is in it's own domain! You can't put a wall up in your own domain!!
Asian Guy starts to interrupt saying: Yeah but when you have microsoft.
conversation becomes heated and hard to follow because they're talking over each other too much.
Conversation calms down, but the technology talk continues with random comments such as:
Asian Girl: Yeah but what about iPads?
Indian Guy 2: With GPS imagine how long the signal takes from your satellite to get to the ?? satellite. By the time it comes back, the route could be different.
Indian Guy 1: Oh yeah, I have a Calculus test tomorrow.
White girl: Isn't it hard to get into that school? Asian girl: Is it? All three guys laugh a litte.

Guy sitting at a big booth quietly studying by himself. Two girls walk up.
Girl 1: Can we sit here by you? (it was the only semi-open booth, but there were a lot of open tables)
Guy: um sure.
Girls talk loudly about sex and spiritual lives (yeah...not a conversation that was lining up if you listened to it). Also throwing in an occasional "I'm really getting worried about her because she hasn't been reading her Bible lately" followed by "oh I know, and it comes out in how she acts"
Student studying at the next table buts in a little. Here's that conversation.
Student: (to guy) Do you headphones? (clearly also getting annoyed with the conversation)
Guy gives slight twinge of an annoyed smile and declines.
Girls leave about a half hour later (apparently they missed the students "shut up" hint)
Student: (a little under their breath) They're gone!
Guy: Oh thank goodness.
Student: (turning to guy) I tried to give them a hint by asking if you needed headphones.
Guy: Thanks. It didn't quite work though.
Student: Yeah...that was annoying.
Guy: And they were talking about personal stuff! Like, the one girl had sex. I don't need to know that!
Student: Yeah I know...I had to turn my music really loudly to block them out.
Guy: Well, good luck studying.
Both go back to studying.

Conversations

Conversation 1: Guy with a greasy mustache and toque talking to 4 other guys all around college age:
"So I was walking out of a building the other day and saw a guy standing out the door and I was like 'Hey man, how's it going?' Then the guy turns around and is like 'Do I look like a man to you?' Then I was like 'Oh sh**! Are you a woman?' But then I realized it really was a man and I was like 'what the heck?'

Conversation 2: Man around 60, and 2 college students:
Man: Oh, Redeemer? I know of it.
Boy: Really? What do you think of it?
Man: Well...(awkwardly deflects question because he has simply heard of it and didn't really know about it)
Conversation continues with formalities and eventually comes to different types of Christian beliefs and clearly disagreeing on issues such as praying to Mary and the place people hold in God's plan. Both parties are starting to get a tiny bit annoyed at this point, but they're still amiable.
Man: So how many angels do you think can fit on a pin head?
Boy: Well, since you seem to know, how about you tell me?
Man: Well I'm not getting paid to teach, how about you look it up. It's in the Bible. You could find it on your laptop.
Boy turns to computer to look it up with a semi-confused expression on his face.
Man: (to Girl) So what do you think the answer to that question is?
Both Boy and Man look at Girl expectantly.
Girl: Well, I think there are as many angels on a pin head as God decides to put on the pinhead.
Boy peers at girl with a relatively impressed expression and a hint of amusement. Man simply looks impressed.
Man: That's a very wise answer. Spoken like a true woman.

Conversation 3: Homeless guy walking from table to table asking for money to buy food for his kid and wife. He has a laminated little sign and doesn't speak because part of his story is that he's deaf.
Homeless man holds out sign to table.
Man at table: You asked me last time I was here.
Homeless man looks with a disappointed face knowing that he won't give any money only food. Persists anyway by holding sign out farther towards the man at the table.
Man at table: I can smell alcohol on your breath. I know what you'll do if I give you money.
Homeless man walks away a little angry.
Man at table looks across at the woman across from him with a look that basically said "what kind of guy begs with alcohol on his breath?"
Woman at table: Next time he comes over here, just offer to walk over to Fortino's (Canadian grocery store) with him.
Man at table: I did that last time.

People amuse me...if I hear anymore conversations that I find interesting, I might make a part 2 to this blog.

Homework

I'm sitting in McDonalds trying to figure out Managerial Accounting. The problem is, I didn't take Financial Accounting last semester and therefore am completely lost when it comes to simple accounting terms. If this were the only class I was struggling with, I might be ok with it. However, I also have 3 literature courses and have to have 2 plays, 2 novels, and about 9 poems understood within the next week. On top of that, I have my Information Technology class and have probably about 6 hours of homework to do on that by Monday night.
You are probably all wondering why on earth I'm blogging about this instead of just doing my homework like I should. The answer to that is, I'm at an loss at how. I don't know where to start. I don't understand the homework that is most pressing. The homework that is less pressing is just that...less pressing. So, here I am, waiting for an email back from my prof about an accounting tutor. I'm gonna go try to figure it out some more now. Bye

A Mishap

Today in chapel, I was sitting up by the sound booth with the other "techies" (yeah...i'm one of them :P) and one of the Campus Service Ladies, Darlene, came in and told my bos that they needed a microphone in the commons.
As he walked out, I noticed that about 3 inches of the seam on the butt of his pants was not sewed...at all. He was out the door before I could actually say something, but when he got back I told him. He asked if I had a sewing kit so I quick ran to my dorm and grabbed mine. He then shut himself off in the lighting booth and sewed it up. Apparently the 3 inches that I saw were part of a gap that was almost a foot long.
Needless to say, the whole A.V. crew had a good laugh.

And So it Begins

It's a new year. The year of 2013! We all made it past yet another prediction of the end of the world, and we're getting back into the swing of everyday life. For me, this "swing" includes the delicate balance between classes, housemates, friends, boyfriend, God, and alone time.
Monday, the balance was impecable: I went to my morning class, hung out around the dorm, talked to a friend, enjoyed creation without any other people around, got dressed and showered, picked Greg up from the airport, hung out at his dorm, went to night class, and then played in the snow.
Tuesday, the balance may have been a little off, but not really badly. I went to my 2 morning classes, ate lunch, went to my afternoon class, hung out at Greg's dorm, ate supper with mine, went to test drive a Kia Soul with Greg (and unfortunately I officially have no objections to it other than the looks; in fact, i really like everything else), went on a drive in Marcel, and played Canasta with Mark, Devon, Calvin, and Greg.
Today, the balance so far is very off...and the only reason I say that is because currently, I'm sitting in my dorm. I shouldn't be sitting in my dorm. I should be sitting in room 212B with 3 of my housemates and my roommate from last year learning about accounting. I guess I'll have to just get the book and study this chapter a lot. Now, I should probably go because I have to work today, and I can't forget that or I'll probably get fired + my day's balance will be even more off.
After today, I'm going to have to make sure again that I balance my days a lot better.

Beauty Everywhere

Today we went on a hike to a waterfall. The hike was beautiful. When we got to the waterfall I climbed as high as I could (while guaranteeing that I wouldn't fall and die). It was really fun and I got a great vantage point of the mountain across the way from me. As we were walking down, I said something about wanting to climb the big rock face to our right, and Derek said that would be a bad plan because the rocks are really brittle. It's crazy that something that seems so majestic and unbreakable is actually easy to crack. Really, I wonder why some mountains are brittle and others are perfect for climbing. God must've had a blast designing the mountains just deciding "oh, this one is going to be brittle" or "hey, I'm gonna through a big cluster of diamonds in the middle of this mountain." It really would be fun to design all of that.

After our hike we just hung out for a while and ate supper and then, it was bath time for the kids! Zack, Dez, and John were all three in one bathtub just having a ball. It was one of the cutest sights ever.