Long days

Well, it has almost been a week since we arrived in Rapid City and frankly it feels like it has been a lot longer. Our days have been long and a bit up in the air. We have a schedule now, but our days end up being chopped up into bits and pieces. This is really no ones fault, but rather how it has to be with 4 cooks and the size crowd of people we have to feed.

My “typical” day consists of waking up around 6 and getting to the kitchen by 6:30 (no shower in the morning for me as I like my sleep so much more than being clean). We work on the meals for the day and serve breakfast (7:30am)/clean until about 9 then we take a break until 10:30. At this point we head back over and begin the lunch shift. This shift ends around 1:30 or 2 and we have an afternoon break until about 4. Dinner is served at 6 and we can get out of there by 7:30 (although this will be earlier as the student workers become more efficient in their tasks and we don’t need to be there to supervise). So yeah, my day is a bit choppy. We get one full day off a week and then 3 meals off at random throughout the week. The bad part is that Neile and I do NOT get time off together. We are trying to think of ways where we can at least get a dinner off together, but that could be hard as that is the biggest meal of the day. We’ll see.

I’ve struggled with being here on and off and I am not sure why. I don’t know if it is because of the unknown that lies ahead (am doubtful of this as I haven’t had time to even think about that yet) or the lack of schedule until this point or the feeling of being trapped on campus because everyone depends on you for food (or perhaps it is more just the loss of independence) or the loss of feeling of connected to people or even that my life has been so crazy for the past 2 months and it is just now hitting me hard. Neile and I have worked on this some by taking short hikes or at least getting some kind of physical activity each day. This has helped, but I am at a loss for what the cause is…probably a combination of everything.

There are also challenges to working with your spouse that I knew would be there, but have still been challenges we are working to overcome. Our life has been so filled with work lately that it is hard to not only talk about that. You know the whole - leave work at work thing. Yeah, we’re working on that one.

On a much lighter note here is the amazing view we have each day from our apartment. These were taking from our balcony.

And here is Montezuma. He is located on the back wall of our cafeteria. Any guesses as to why the staff has dubbed him with this name? hee hee hee

We have arrived

Well, we made it, although I have to admit it seems like just barely. =)

Last week was intense. Neile’s last day was Tuesday. My last day was Wednesday. We began packing on Thursday, got my car approved on its emission’s test and then packed some more on Friday, and even more packing on Saturday (although Saturday hardly counts as we took the time to get some sleep and went to a friends wedding for most of the day). We also attempted to say quick goodbyes to friends and family each of those nights. Then came moving day. Thank goodness for good friends! We managed to fit all of our junk stuff into a storage locker. There it will sit until…well, we still don’t know the answer to that one. Of course we weren’t able to complete all of our packing before the big moving day so Neile and I spent all of Monday finishing up and cleaning our apartment. Then we handed over our keys to our first home together. And wow that was just wild. The first of many I suppose.

Actually, while I was packing up the last of the boxes all that kept going through my mind was “I wonder where I will be when I open this up again?” Some days this is a big struggle for me. What is coming next? How can we plan for a future that is so completely unknown? There are definitely some things that we want to do that have been put on hold because of this uncertainty and frankly that just is hard at times. Other times it is exciting to think of this mini adventure we have entered into. It is pretty amazing that we have this opportunity to work so closely together for the summer, to do ministry together in a way we haven’t been able to before. Pretty exciting. So for now I am trying to take advantage of those times when this whole “what the heck is next?” thing is pretty exciting.

The past few days have been full days of setting up “camp” for the summer. There are 4 of us in the kitchen and it has been nonstop since we drove onto the camp property. In fact, I have been trying to get this posted and send out some emails for the past couple days, but have barely made it through the door of my apartment to my bed each night! Of course there is a lot of cleaning and disinfecting to do when the place is inhabited by animals 9 months of the year. I will try and post much more regularly and hopefully will have some fun stories to share.

The past week in a nutshell…

May have to check for more of
these after all the crazy settles down

The beginnings of the not so fun move

So close to being done!

Giving my love to Mitchell, SD

Mitchell giving some love of its own

Meet our good friend Zach. Doesn’t say much …perhaps the cat got more than just his thumbs.

In Denial

So today I found my first gray hair. Well, at least I think that's what it was. I have to say, I feel lucky right now with my light colored hair. Lucky in the sense that I really don't know if it is a gray hair or simply a hair that has lightened up a bunch from the sun. Unfortunately, I am leaning towards gray. Lucky for Neile, I have conveniently saved it for him to examine when he gets home from work.

Someday though I might be wishing my hair was darker. Ever notice how sometimes people with lighter colored hair don't really go gray? It is more like their hair just loses color.

Personally, I can't wait for see through hair!


Moving on...(although don't you like how my posts have already begun to exude "I have a Master's degree and will now only talk about deep meaningful things"?) Neile and I will be doing just that in the next week - moving that is. ughhh not looking forward to the packing, although I am sure the piles of empty boxes in my living room are. ughhh again. It seems like I finish one crazy thing (i.e. graduate school) only to start up another. Interesting thing about this instance is that we are moving only temporarily. See, now that I have graduated we both thought it was a good time to get a summer job...you know like we used to have back in high school and college. Well, this wasn't our ideal plan, but for now we can be excited about it while the two of us continue to look for a more permanent situation. So for this summer, Neile and I will be heading out to the Black Hills (That is South Dakota by the way) to cook for Wheaton College's Science Station. I am soo excited because I went to this very Science Station (oh let's just call it what it is...Science Camp) the summer of 2001 and it ended up being THE highlight of my college education. Of course my experience will be not even sorta similar this summer, but it will be beautiful and I will be working alongside my husband, and I can relive the good 'ole days...uh yeah.

I'm not going to miss certain things about this place...

Overheard as I am picking up my cap and gown:

In an overly whiny/I want to be the center of attention voice, “How come some are blue and some are black?”

I look at the student and simply say, “masters” as I walk off with my black cap and gown. (No I was not snobby about this at all, but I was the only one there with said black gown so I had to say something)

Holy Moly! I have a cap and gown and a tassel thingy--again. AND I get to wear a nifty hood…no idea what color though. Will find out soon, as in TOMORROW!!! Woot.

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You know what I learned today? When you graduate with a M.A. degree you don't do the whole move tassel from left to right like undergrad. Interesting...and I was given absolutely no explanation for this so that was the extent of my learning. Oh well, I am about to graduate, who said anything about continuing education?

Long Walk

Monday was the day. It was the day that I made my final walk across campus to complete an assignment. Literally, about a 5 minute walk, but it really took me about 3½ years to get there. And you know what? I am proud of myself for this degree. When I began this program back in the spring of 2004, I really was not interested in the degree itself, rather it was the experience I would gain and the classes that I could take that were appealing. However, now, I can’t believe I have actually finished all of the classes and work (and man there has been a lot of that lately) to earn a master’s degree. Yes, I earned it, which for some reason or another is hard for me to grasp sometimes.

As I was taking the final steps of my long journey my heart was racing a bit. A whole new chapter is about to begin and I hardly know what to do with myself. At the same time, this period of life, that I will never forget (especially my time at HoneyRock), will soon be part of my past and no longer my present.

So here’s to looking back on the past 3½ years:

48 master’s level credit hours – check
1 written comprehensive exam – check
1 oral comprehensive exam – check
1 mega internship paper – check
1 M.A. in Education Ministries – priceless (ha ha ha I wish! Hello student loans!)

Thanks so much for not giving up on me even though I have been mostly unavailable for the past months…you know who you are.


Oh and just so you know… (as in not related at all)
The glasses are cute, however the eyeballs are going crazy – and therefore my brain. Perhaps it is because I have a lazy lazy right eye that decided long ago to just let my left eye do all of the dirty work. (shame on you lazy right eye) So really, I am trying to reprogram my eyes/brain, but the headaches are not so fun. Three weeks into this and I can now wear my glasses/contacts a total of 1 hr and 30 min. And that’s progress! As of right now I do not feel safe driving with either of these corrective eye wear thingies, but the time will come.