positive thoughts

Well this summer has been interesting. Let's look at a little timeline:

March 3
Arrive from 6 months in London. Sad and cursing the American voices around me in the airport. Reverse culture shock is weird. It probably didn't help that I went from London to Arkansas. Next time I'll rethink the re-entry plan.

I stayed in Steph and James' house watching endless episodes of Law & Order until I finally made an appearance in Wal-Mart. I purchased my favorite beef jerky and ate the whole 16oz bag within a matter of hours (minus the parts I spilled on Stephs floorboard that didn't qualify for the 5second rule).

Slowly I made my way around to friends and family and finished the week with DP and AP's wedding. I stayed with Pam in KC, took the train back to NM to celebrate my niece's first bday in Pagosa with my sis' then back to the homeland, Ruidoso, NM.

April 11-19
Reconnect with my dear kindred Hannah K at her family's ranch in Wyoming. It was good for my soul and our friendship to see her roots. Front and back end of trip spent with friends in Denver - stayed with Katie, brunch with Dave, baseball game with Scotty.

May 8-11
Spent the weekend in NYC with Cody Willard. Adventures around his neighborhood - ice cream in our pj's, italian food with a t-shirt from the owner, failed attempt at finding wellies in the middle of a downpour, adventures in the forest with Lobo, picnic with friends and conversations that continue to replay in my mind.

June 12
Luke and Stooks, good friend from college and new one, graduated from PJ school in ABQ. What an accomplishment. Prayer for their lives over the next few years.

June 19-22
Chi-town for baseball, beers and fun with the hometown boys.

June25-27
Couchsurf in old psych ward of hospital in Reading, PA with a med student. New psych ward is a floor below so you still get the affect with the late night screams. Charming. Actually a really great time and the point of the trip was to interview with a company based there for a job in NM. Highlight was obviously not the interview, but my new friend Tim was great - had good local beer and good debriefing convo post-interviews.

July 10-13
Las Vegas with hometown peeps. Our annual adventure together ended up with 18 total now that people are gettin hitched. Not that Vegas has made the list of top destinations, but it was a great venue for our reunion. Saw Cirque's Love show... incredible. Laughed till I should have peed my pants, but thankfully did not.

August 7
Heidi had little baby Joely in her home - what a trooper!

August 8-9
Was in ABQ at a wedding and decided to ditch the reception for an adventure with Nik. Spent less than 24 hrs with some brit friends at a bbq with a really horrible hypnotist and out on the town for a good time.

Today
I have applied for at least 12 jobs, been turned down for 3, hopeful about a few and who knows about the rest. I am thinking positive thoughts though.

Floodgates opened

So I'm not sure if you've seen on the news, but my homeland had a record-setting flood from the aftermath of Hurricane Dolly. Our little rive that is usually 5-10 feet wide swelled to 100ft in some parts!

One of the bridges that busted through.




A trailer park that got completely flooded and carried away a car or two. The normal river is the part on the bottom left, but usually only a foot or two deep at best.

Chi-town '08

Amidst the weekly banter emails sent throughout a group of friends from high school, a few of us got together in Chicago last weekend. Sean originally planned to visit Sol for the Cubs v. Sox game, but then there was a pizza festival (which of course we forgot about completely) and something else and something else that made it imperative for the troops to rally. The entire troop did not rally, but Jesse and I did. We made it to Chicago for a weekend of amazing sporting events, both live and Euros on TV, amazing food and the fun that is everpresent with the hometown crew. I admit, I am usually not the leader of fun, but I did put the party hat on instead of the mom one. I lost my camera cord so I for now I just have pics from the first night (sorry meg, more to come I promise) and Sean hadn't arrived yet.

Jesse and I



I'm sure Adam was saying something very humorous


A few of my favorite boys.

romantic comedy...

I'm one of them, one of those girls that looks through all the new releases and consistently lands on any remake of every romance novel since time began, but i love it. Within this stereotype I find hope, however unrealistic it may appear I still hope I'm not talking about the real longshots, come on - Sleepless in Seattle, Love Actually, the list goes on. But somewhere in there I think most of us see the potential for which we've been made to embrace - companionship and spark, hella long marriages that we rarely see today, love that unites and we imagine lives on till the end of time. Yes, I'm a believer. It may not happen for me in the next decade but I can't settle for anything less than what we're made for.

This salty older woman told my sister she liked me because I was "full of spit and vinegar". I smiled, because as a little girl I always hid - behind my parents, my siblings, my friends. Until my dad died, and I've sometimes thought of my spit-and-vinegar-ness as an outworking of bitterness toward my dad, but from her it was a compliment.

I still like the sappy romantic comedies though.

PJ's

Not pajamas, but Pararescue Jumpers. Three of my dear friends have been in the training program to become PJ's. Two of these boys, Luke and Wilson, graduated this past weekend here in Albuquerque. I am so proud of them - I can't imagine the intensity of the training they've been through these last two years or even more the upcoming years of duty. I got to meet Luke and Nik for lunch today as it was Luke's last day in the Land of Enchantment. Nik graduates in September so I get to keep him around a few more months.

R*E*S*P*E*C*T

I've been going to church with some friends in ABQ when I'm in town (which happens to be enough that I could have been paying rent there instead of gas to and from Ruidoso). The pastor recently started a series he's calling Eros, going through the Song of Solomon. During the first session on Understanding Attraction the pastor talked about... Attraction, duh. No, the part that really made me think was how attractive it is for a guy to be respected. The pastor told a story of a time he and his wife were with a bunch of other pastors and the expected lame bible jokes ensued. The time came, when things were at a lull, for him to pitch in his own cheesy joke and as one might guess, it wasn't really funny but his wife just laughed and laughed. She genuinely thought he was funny and he said that affirmation from her in the middle of all these guys was so sexy.

How many times have I had the opportunity to affirm a man and instead of doing so I've thrown his ego under the bus? I remember a time when I was driving the family wagon of a guy I dated through a big city. He wanted to stop at some store and since he was being an ass to his brother I said I wouldn't take him. In front of his brother and father I did this. Yes, he was being a jerk which wasn't ok, but to disrespect him in front of the men in his life was not the best way to handle the situation. I also think of my brothers and times I've lacked respect for them. The kind of respect he was talking about wasn't based on something someone had done or would do in the future, it was a representation of your love for him. It was important to hear the magnitude of respect to a man from a man.

northern new mexico

This weekend I made the trek north. Arthur and Kristi brought ben and parker to ruidoso thursday through sunday and I took off Saturday afternoon to help liz move into her new apartment in Santa Fe. I stopped in ABQ to see Ashlee Hendrix and her new little man Avery - so adorable!

Sunday morning I joined Nik, Luke and Wilson for church at City on a Hill. This church actually made me think about moving to abq. We had a wonderful lunch on the patio of Gecko's in Nob Hill and as usual, the boys were entertaining and provoked many thoughts for my drive north to Santa Fe that afternoon. I met up with Liz, Hannah, Nate and Ruby for the moving fiesta but I had missed the bulk of it. I organized a bathroom and joined the girls for a celebration of every time Ruby stood up - We clapped and cheered for her and she LOVED the attention - cutie patootie, that little Ruby is! We made a seriously delicious dinner of sauteed shrimp, scallops and calamari tossed with spinach, grape tomatoes and crimini mushroms, topped with herbed feta! Yum!

Yesterday I visited Martha and Bradley in Taos for a few hours which was fun. Martha is doing an internship with the earth ship peeps in Taos which sounds really interesting. I came back in time for a killer softball game Marlo's bf Sam played in. Marlo, Liz, this fun girl Jessie and I were the most obnoxious fans ever. The boys went through the whole batting lineup almost twice before finally getting their first three outs - obviously due to the 4 cheerleaders chanting from the stands.

I would like to live in Santa Fe, or visit this place more frequently. Peace Corps sounds great right now but I need to pay off my Perkins loan and CC before I can feasibly take off on any extended adventures. There is a life-coaching job here in Santa Fe. hmmm.