This was one of the things on my list I didn't think I was going to be able to accomplish this year. Moving to this amazing place called Camphill Soltane has really changed my view on life, especially beauty and looks.
The people here, students and coworkers, don't have a care in the world when it comes to looks. A big heart is your best outfit and clothing is just a mere covering for the skin. I bought all of these new clothes before I left for here and what a mistake that was! If I was to wear a brand new outfit that cost $100, no one here would notice, and if they did.. they wouldn't really care. They would probably ask why I wasted so much money on some lousy clothes. At first, I thought everyone dressed strangely and desperately needed a closet makeover. But as time passed, my judgement ceased and my own care for looks and beauty vanished. Make-up? Ha! What's the point!? I am here with the love of my life and a spectacular community of wonderful people.. I am in a place where judging does not exist! You are who you are, why try to cover it up with make-up or fancy clothes? I have always had issues with my body and how it looks in a swimsuit or if I look skinny compared to so and so. I still worry about that, but in a good way, in a normal way. I take care of myself, yes, but I don't spend hours upon hours on the treadmill working off every calorie I can. I eat healthy, I exercise, and I laugh. My goodness, I laugh all day long! I feel that laughing is the best thing for your body and your soul. A true full bellied laugh is such a wonderful experience. Since it is Thanksgiving, I would like to say what I'm thankful for. Today, I am thankful for this crazy, strange, beautiful, and rare community that I am a part of. They took me in as me and have not once tried to change me. Acceptance and love are overflowing in this place. Now for the food! Today my house (Brian, myself, and Mary) is cooking a chicken! Complete with cheese fondue and a chocolate cake! Who said Thanksgiving has to have turkey and pie?! ** May your turkey be moist, and your leftovers plentiful **
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Who knew that a movies series starts with Episode 4 instead of Episode 1?
I really felt like a newb this week while watching all the Star Wars movies for the first time with BHW. I won't tell you about all the times we had to pause the movies so I could ask questions or have something explained to me, this post would never end. I decided that my favorite character was R2D2 by the end of Episode 4 (which is actually the 1st movie, still trying to keep all that straight). One suggestion I do have for this Lucas guy who came up with Star Wars is that R2D2 needs some subtitles! His beeps and bops are awfully confusing for a first timer like me. I was also a little confused as to Natalie Portman playing more than one person at a time. I know part of the time she was a 'decoy' but they couldn't just get someone who looked like her or something? Episodes 4, 5, and 6 were awesome! Then we went back to Episode 1 and I just couldn't handle it. My mind kept thinking, who in the heck are all these people?! I swear they weren't in the movies we watched before! It was then that BHW kindly reminded me that these movies take place before 4, 5, and 6. Such an easy detail to forget but oh so important. All in all, if you haven't seen Star Wars, just watch them once in your life! They're not too bad! I can't say that I'll be that 40 year old person in their mom's basement, but R2D2 will always have my heart. xo Oh the memories that this event brought back to me. As a child, my dad used to wake me in the wee hours of the morning to catch a glimpse of numerous meteor showers, I was such a grump and usually declined his invitation. In more recent years I attempted to take up his interest and watch different meteor showers, with no success. One of two things always happened. 1) I simply turned off my alarm and said 'Forget it!' or 2) I woke up, dressed for the chilly middle of the night weather, drove to a deserted country road, parked near a cornfield, and left before I got out of the car because I was terrified that some crazy murderer would pop out and kill me.
Now that I literally live in the middle of nowhere, getting up and walking outside to view such a wonderful sky-show was a tad easier. Waking up at 4am was still no fun, but at least I didn't have to be near a creepy cornfield. At the end of October the Orionid meteor shower was said to have a marvelous showing. Of course, the best time to view this spectacular event would be at some ridiculous hour in the morning. I told myself before falling asleep that there would be no tolerance of alarm turning off. 4am arrived and I was oh so tempted to go back to sleep but I jumped out of bed and bundled up for the night sky show. It was freezing but totally worth the 20 minutes that BHW and I were out on our back porch. We saw the very same meteor within minutes of sitting down outside. I feel that when people watch meteor showers together there is a lot of 'oh, look over here!' with the return of 'dang it, I missed it!' and so on. But tonight, we caught a glimpse of the same meteor falling from the sky. We each saw a few more meteors and then decided that work was quickly approaching and more sleep was needed. Although we were only viewing the Orionid shower for a short time, it was an amazing experience. I truly do look forward to seeing some more showers.. even if they are at the most ridiculous times. What I mainly do on Pinterest is plan my (used to be) imaginary wedding and look at food. I realized that I can't complete any crafts from Pinterest if I do not actually look at them. Who would have imagined that? The first 'craft' I did was not a craft at all.. I washed clothes. Wowza, if that's what I consider a craft.. then *insert something witty here*. Sorry, couldn't think of anything funny. As hot as it's been lately, my man candy, BHW, has been sweating. A LOT. It's gotten to the point where even he notices he's sweating, and he is so oblivious to everything that he moved next to a train track because he knew he wouldn't be able to hear the trains. So, his sweatiness has gotten out of hand. As a result, his shirts are utterly disgusting. He works for Habitat for Humanity by building houses (so much respect for him!) so he puts in a hard days work.. no wonder he's gross! I thought as a nice little gift, I spruce up all this work/play shirts so he didn't have to look like a middle school gym rat all the time. This 'recipe' was found at this website.. through Pinterest. The process is fairly easy and this concoction works on lots of different stains, even stains of which I don't know the source!! (note USA tank top below) Just follow these instructions EXACTLY, or else the shirt will catch on fire, and you'll be A-OK! WARNING: If you use on colors.. it kind of fades a little. I used it on the arm pits (sorry RJR I know you HATE that word) of a light blue shirt and once dried, you could see where I put the miracle mixture. It was hardly noticeable but it was there. - 1 part Dawn original dish soap (the blue stuff) - 2 parts hydrogen peroxide (for some reason reminds me of my Granny's house) - 1/2 part baking soda - mix into bowl or container with lid so you can save it and use it again and again! - pour a small amount directly on the stain - scrub until you think 'this is dumb, i'm bored' which was about 1 minute for me - let sit and go watch an episode of your favorite show (preferably one that's 60 minutes long) - throw in the washer and wash as usual - BE.AMAZED. I couldn't imagine a better way to spend the day celebrating my 18 years of being in an educational setting.. than by sitting in a black garbage bag dress with a cardboard square on my head. (?!) Seriously! Who thought those would be the most flattering outfits for us to wear? And to make things worse, I kept whacking myself in the eye with the tassel every time I moved my head (which was a lot since my mom was behind me and I had to turn around and wave every 5 seconds). I was supposed to be at graduation, dressed and ready, at 9:15AM. I had been driving from Greenwood and pulled into Muncie with 20 minutes to spare, except that I was still in my PJ's. I rushed into my apartment and attempted to 'gussy up' for the big day. Getting ready included; spraying my head with dry shampoo since I didn't have time to shower, caking make-up on my face since I'd been up until 1AM the night before and looked like a train wreck, thinking about brushing my hair then deciding against it, throwing on my ultimate frisbee jersey and jean shorts (obviously the most appropriate thing to wear for graduation), and walking.. I mean running.. out the door. Thankfully I got to graduation by 9:15AM and met up with one of my buddies so we didn't have to wander around and look dumb alone. As I was waiting for her to arrive, I realized I forgot one important thing. Deoderant. And I didn't eat. And my mom is going to literally kill me when she sees what I'm wearing under my cap and gown. I was just ready for this all to be over with and it had just begun. LMR and I walked into the building to find a sea of black flowy gowns all rushing around. We were told to find our school that our major fell under and stand in that line. Great. I don't even know what school I'm graduating from and I just spent the past four years there. Sciences and Humanities? Meh. My major is under Family and consumer sciences so that could work! I hopped into that line and played the waiting game with everyone else. I started to look around and didn't recognize anyone in my line. 'Well, it's summer graduation.. no one comes to these things' I kept telling myself. My line started winding through the halls, making our way to the entrance of the gym. Right before it was my turn to walk through the gym doors.. I looked over to the line next to me and saw a group of girls I have had classes with. 'HEY!!' I yelled! They waved and told my I was an idiot and to get in their line. How am I even graduating? I can't even find the correct line to stand in! The rest of graduation was pretty boring. I sat and tried to listen to some random speaker that I couldn't hear because of the terrible acoustics. All I know was that he was talking about scoring touch downs and fixing someone's ankle if it was broken.. maybe it's a good thing I didn't catch the entire speech. I was the last in line out of my group of friends to walk. The first girl looked back at us before we walked and told one of us to get in front of her. Why? Well, she was in heels and obviously afraid she was going to bite the dust up there. She took a good long look at all of us and noticed all the girls were in flats.. and I didn't even have shoes on. All she said was 'typical Johnny' and made her way on the stage. What? I never wear shoes! What would make today any different!? And by the way, that carpet on the stage was oh so soft in between my little piggies! After walking, I sat down with my new red folder. Hoping to find a cool diploma inside, I opened it. WHAT?! I letter about being an Alum and how they want us to donate to them?! Complete bogus! The ceremony ended.. 2 hours later.. and we snapped a few pictures and proceeded to sit in traffic forever. Thankfully my mom wasn't mad about my outfit of choice, or my lack of shoes. She just rolled her eyes and said 'That's my girl'. We all went to Cammack Station for lunch. YUM! I knew I didn't want to stay in Muncie because everyone.. and I mean everyone.. was going to be headed out to eat to celebrate. Yorktown is a little town near Muncie so we decided to go there instead. I had the onion BBQ burger which was fantastic! I also got some breaded pickle spears which were the best I'd ever had. What a good time after that boring ceremony! :) I did it! Happy Graduation to me! xo Hi. Planning a wedding is time consuming. I promise I won't leave for that long ever again!
Apparently when you don't have college courses anymore, or sports practices, or group workouts, or study groups, or stupid college parties to attend, or work, or any of that junk.. you have time. What a strange new experience! BHW also left for a 'man weekend' with MCE to go to a Red's game and play video games and all that boy crap, so I literally had the entire weekend to myself! Now.. what to do? I don't have T.V. so I couldn't just channel surf and find a quirky girl movie to watch, I don't have money either so I couldn't go shopping or to the bars or anything that involves some type of cash flow. I had just finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia, a children's book, I'm well aware. I was told to read it by a good friend so I bucked down and read the series, with complete enjoyment. Now that the 800(ish) page book was finished I certainly needed to find a new read! My normal routine at the library is this: Enter library. Remember my cell phone is on 'annoyingly loud' mode. Silence cell phone. Browse YA section with anticipation of finding something easy and fun to read. Realize all the YA books are about 15 year olds (since when is that young adult?!) Wander into Fiction section. Wander out of the Fiction section. Make a bee-line for the travel section. Sit on the floor and look at every single travel book that I've looked at a thousand times before. Casually walk past 'New/Book Club books'. Close eyes. Pick book. Check out. Get in car. Read back cover of book. Shrug. Go home. Read. You would think that if I already knew what the last step was.. I would skip all the previous steps and just grab a random book from the New/Book Club books, but no, that never happens. Last weekend I picked two books! I used to do that often but quickly realized that while you're in school.. 2 new books (which are due back earlier than regular books) are not easy to finish in that amount of time. The first book I read was In The Bag. I read it in just a few hours. It was completely unrealistic but cute and fun at the same time. It was about a couple of single parents on a plane with their children. Somehow the kids picked up each others bags at baggage claim and the whole book is about them 'connecting' over their wrong luggage. Corny! Cheesy! Adorable! That's all I'll say about it, you'll have to read it. The second book I got was called Office Girl. Less corny and a little more strange, but equally as good! It was about a couple 20-somethings and their odd friendship/relationship. I finished that in 2 days and just got the book Spin yesterday! I didn't think I would ever be the type of person to sit down a read an entire book in one sitting. I'm too antsy and fidgety! Once I started the book though.. it wasn't hard at all! I didn't have an intentions of finishing In The Bag in one sitting.. I actually forgot this was on my Bucket List! It was an insanely relaxing experience and got my summer reading kick in full gear! Guess what I get to cross off the bucket list on Saturday.. GRADUATE! Look back soon for a post about that whole sha-bang! xo Happy Memorial Day! With no school and/or work and BHW out of town, I went to a movie with a dear friend of mine. Movies in Muncie are $5 on weekdays before 4pm (awesome!) but I wasn't sure if the prices were still going to be low since it was a holiday. I assumed that the rates would be the same as the weekend, but I was wrong! I thought about paying for the people behind me on the drive over. As a poor college kid I told myself that I couldn't pay for them if it was full price, but if it was anything under $10/person, I'd pay for them.
My friend and I walked up to the counter and I bought my ticket and she went ahead and bought hers. I then got out a 10 dollar bill and proceeded to tell the guy to put it on a gift card and pay for the next two people who came in. Put it on a gift card? Why? Well my lovely readers, I've actually paid for people's movie tickets before. Apparently there is some rule about money handling and they have to put it on a gift card and then can use it for whoever they want. So, I told him to do that and he said 'will do!' I started to walked away and he said 'Wait! How will I know which of the next two people are your friends?' I kind of chuckled and said 'It doesn't matter who they are! Just pay for their movie!' He tilted his head, agreed, and went back to work. I will never know whose movie I paid for, but I sure hope they enjoyed the treat! Now that I'm moving I've realized that I won't be able to complete a lot of the things on my list due to my lack of free time and the 1 year commitment I'm making with them. That doesn't mean that I'm going to rush through and try to get as many as I can done, I want to do each one with a full heart and soak in all the joy from completing it! If I had to choose 5 things from my list that I most likely wouldn't complete in 2012.. this would have been one of them. I am beyond excited to tell you all about my journey to Glenmoore PENNSYLVANIA to live and learn with young adults with special needs at Camphill Soltane! Now, if you don't want to click the link and browse around their website.. I'll give you a little run down of what they do there. First off, the position I have been offered is through Americorps. I will receive little pay and the position will last for 11 months. I will also receive housing and food during my time there.. so the pay doesn't really matter! BHW is currently working with Habitat for Humanity through Americorps. You can only be a part of Americorps for 2 years so he will be finishing up his first year in August. His second year will be spent with ME(!) at Camphill! He decided that he would come with me on this crazy adventure! At the end of each year with Americorps, we will each receive $5500 to go towards college loans, such a blessing! Ok, enough about all the surface stuff, let's dig into what we'll be doing in Pennsylvania! Camphill aims to provide young adults with special needs a healthy transition from the teen years into young adulthood. 9 houses with co-workers and students living together on 52 acres of jaw-dropping land complete with gardens, swimming pool, library, and many other nifty things! There are two programs at Soltane; the Learning for Life Program and the Soltane Works Program. The Learning for Life program is geared towards young adults (ages 18-25) and provides them with a parallel to a college or university experience. The main points of the program include academic (literature, religion, geography, etc.), small group instruction (reading, writing, money management, etc.), life skills (covered partly through home life and also through classes), sports and recreation (jogging, outdoor education, music, etc.) pre-vocational exploration (weaving, bike repair, gardening, etc.) and vocational exploration on or off campus. Co-workers involved in this program will provide support to the students during class, cooking lunch for the house, and running errands, depending on that week's schedule. This program is fast paced, offering small states of many different activities and providing exposure to many different students. The second program is the Soltane Works program. This program is for adults who have graduated form Soltane's 'college' program and who have decided to make Soltane their home. The focus of this program is to assist residents in finding meaningful work, on or off campus. Vocational opportunities on campus include a cafe' and store, textile enterprise (weaving, sewing, and design of finished pieces), land and estate care (fruit tree orchard, berry bushes, and composting), and community services (recycling and care for public spaces). There are also off campus employers who offer a range of opportunities for the residents. Co-workers involved in this program have a workday fom 9-3:30 and spend most of their time in one work area with a smaller group of students. The pace of the Soltane Works program is much slower than the Learning for Life program. I haven't decided which program I would like to be involved with. I'm going to wait to talk it over with BHW when he gets back from his weekend trip. There is also the option to be a part of both programs, so that's a possibility! During our 11 months at Camphill Soltane we will have the chance to learn and grow together in a unique environment 'away' from the real world. There are no T.V.'s or radios and computer use is limited. We will get some vacation time for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a spring break (just like in college)! The schedule is intense, working 6 days a week from 7am-9pm with a couple breaks. BHW and I get one day off a week, since we're coming as a couple we thankfully get the same day off! We also get one 'sleep-in' day which starts at 9am vs. 7am. and one early day off that ends at 5pm vs. 9pm. As I look over all the paperwork and documents about Camphill Soltane I keep getting more and more excited but also more and more nervous. I've never been this far away from home for this amount of time. My little nephew is only 1 and I don't want to become the invisible Aunt who is never around. I've got tons of friends here (or so I think, ha.) and I know literally ONE person in Pennsylvania.. and even he's 3+ hours away. At least I'll have my soon to be hubs by my side. :) We are required to be at Camphill by August 23rd but we may go earlier to explore Philly before we get in over our head with our schedules! Right now, I ask for your support and prayers (if you're into that). We had 24 hours to decide upon this opportunity and we think we've made the right decision. The timing is right and heck, we've only got one short life! So, until the end of August, we'll be spending as much time with friends and family as possible! Here goes nothin'! During my awesome road trip with my now fiance' I completed a whopping FIVE things off my 2012 Bucket List! I linked the blogs to the numbers I completed (1, 4, 5, and 28)! So if you didn't read those when I wrote about them a month ago.. check them out now! If you still haven't looked at my list to the right --> I'm getting married! Now, when you get married, you can choose to have a wedding party, a group of men and women that are close to you that stand up with you during the wedding. I actually read that historically the wedding party stands up with the bride and groom to defend them from the demons that are trying to steal them away. The wedding party is supposed to dress like the bride and groom to confuse the demons as to who is actually getting married. So, BHW and I had to decide what lucky candidates were going to defend the demons on our wedding day! We are both blessed to know and be close to two sets of twins. One set are BHW's brothers (CW and MW). The other set are my best friends since diapers (RJR and RDR). If you have never been to a wedding, or seen one, or even heard of one.. the wedding party stands in a line. The maid of honor/best man standing closest to their respective 'people'. When I got engaged I couldn't even decide which twin to call first.. how does one make a decision like that!? That's important news! I resorted to just telling them 'Call me when you're both together I have to talk to you at the same time.' Well, I can't have them stand in the same place at the same time at the wedding so somebody has to be first! What better way to decide than with a coin toss? Each set of twins had their own game. First one to get their 'side' (heads or tails) flipped first gets to stand closest to BHW or me. As you can see below, MW won for BHW and RJR won for me (video below for proof)! We are sincerely sorry for those who did not 'win' but the competition was fair and square! We also have the quarters that we used to make the decisions if either of you are interested in having yours.. we meant to give them to you a long time ago! Also, I'm 22 today so that's pretty exciting. :) Check back soon to see if I've completed anything else exciting! I've still got a lot to go on my list! What item are/were you most looking forward to seeing me complete off my list? Obviously #4 was my top choice! Now that it's completed.. my next most exciting one for me would be.. 36: travel somewhere by myself. I've never done that before and it sounds like it would be pretty dang After being up for an insane amount of hours, BHW and I decided now would be the best time
to make breakfast in bed! Complete with oatmeal, egg sandwiches, and coffee, and of course exhaustion on the side. If you can't tell by BHW's hat, we were a little slap happy. Aside from worrying that our drinks were going to spill at any second, it was really relaxing! What a perfect ending to a fun filled week dedicated to love and list making! |
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November 2012
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