Catching Up

It's been almost two months since my last post. Lest I drift from negligence to complete irresponsibility in blogging, here's an update:

I continued to search for jobs, and even interviewed for a few options, but nothing came up. This is odd because I am awesome. (Maybe I was too cocky.)

When I was not job-hunting, I was practicing for my audition for the Master of Music program at U of L. Once I had finished playing, my nerves completely fried, I still had to sit down for my interrogation with members of the music faculty. Did I say interrogation? I meant interview. "No pressure," they said. "Stop spouting off unnecessary information," I told my brain. They asked, I rambled, they laughed, I turned red, they accepted me. What? They accepted me! Yes, you are reading a post by one of the U of L's newest graduate students! Classes will begin in September and I could not be more excited to haunt those narrow halls once again.

Practicing ALL THE TIME.

I realized that it was time to go home, and arrived by bus in Kelowna just in time for my mom's birthday. It was wonderful to spend a week with my family, enjoying the beautiful mountains and spring air. Kelowna is a fantastic place and I wish it were home to me. It looks like a home, with its mountains, lakes, and sun, and feels like home, with family and a new-but-already-comfortable church, but it is not home for me at this moment. All the same, leaving was difficult.

Well, we tried.

The fruitless job search continued, which brought up an obvious question: what about camp? Camp Evergreen, where I have spent a good chunk of May through October for the last four years, seemed an obvious back-up plan. But camp, and camp ministry, can never be a back-up plan. It's too exhausting and requires too much intentional diligence to be a back-up plan. It can only be THE plan. While I was contemplating this, God intervened and said that yes, it would be THE plan. (Side note: I feel preachy, but I'm just telling this story. I never would have made the decision without hearing from God. God is a huge part of my story.)

And so, for the fifth season, I packed my life into plastic tubs and made the drive. I spent the first week re-certifying as a challenge course instructor (side note: that's part of 25 Before 25!) in very cold, windy weather. After a day of emergency drills in which I encountered a 127-Hours-type situation, I am again fully certified (certifiable?) to spend hours and hours clipping and unclipping our guests into our zipline. (That sounds bitter. The only bitter part is the tendency for gross spring weather there. I really do love my job as a CC instructor!) I have so much more to say about camp. It's going to have to take up another post of its own.

What to do if Duracell gets stung by a killer bee while K2 is climbing
and the only people around are Sunshine and Fender

I am writing this now from Lethbridge, where I am spending this week catching up with friends, enjoying the Southern Alberta spring, and participating in various musical activities. (Plug: Lethbridge Symphony Orchestra concert is tomorrow night, U of L theatre, tickets at the door. Ukrainian dancers, people! Will I get kicked in the head? Will my music be blown off the stand by a whirling dervish? Will I finally lose my hearing from all that cymbal crashing? Who knew being a horn player was so dangerous...)

Lethbridge spring

I have been immensely blessed in these two months. God has been providing for me in all ways. As always, I look forward to whatever is coming next!

Moving on, moving up

Today was my last day of work at the photography studio.

Oh don't worry, this isn't a sad thing. It's a moving on, moving up thing. I am looking forward to trying something new. (With that said, I'm on the job hunt again, so keep me in mind!) I feel oddly excited about moving on. It could be that the excitement is masking terror. I have worries, but I have God. Well, God has me.

I thought of feeling other things. I thought of feeling sad, and I felt sad saying goodbye to my coworkers who have become my friends, my desk that has been my eight-hours-a-day home, my job that has been a comfortable routine.

I thought of feeling sentimental, and I felt sentimental as I reminisced about my interview, my first day, the first time I was challenged, the first time I was reamed out by some disgruntled woman on the phone.

I thought of feeling nervous, and I felt nervous while mentally adding up the numbers and calculating how many weeks it would be before money would become uncomfortably tight.

But all I really felt was glad. I felt glad that I made friends with my coworkers, glad that I was blessed with a job for this time, glad that I have pleasant memories, glad that I have grown as a professional and as a person, glad that after many financially worry-free years I have learned and will continue to learn about money management, glad that my life was enriched by another experience.

What next? It's wide open. It's a big world.

(On an unrelated note, yesterday was Chris's 31st anniversary as a professional photographer. We got him this cake, and took our first staff group photo. Coincidentally, the last staff group photo.)

One Great Day

Today was one of those days that I'm going to store away and think of during some future terrible day. May this list serve to jog my memory on that day:

I had a day off, and I love the freedom of days off.
I had pancakes for breakfast.
I finished the laundry before noon.
I brought the recycling away, and felt all environmentally friendly.
I didn't need too many groceries and spent less than $30 stocking up for the week.
I had a delicious FREE Starbucks coffee.
I overheard one Starbucks barista say to the other (sounds like the beginning of a hipster joke) that my Pike Place to-go mug was the coolest she'd ever seen.
I got a piece of tumbleweed stuck in my wheel well and had to laugh at the prairie-ness of it.
I went to the university and submitted the first part of my Master of Music application.
I had a meeting with my horn teacher/mentor/friend to talk thesis topics and play through some audition repertoire.
I had time to practice alone for a while and feel confident that my audition pieces will come together in time.
I made couscous (...from a box...) and a chickpea salad for supper and feel so healthy!
I chopped a lot of vegetables for lunches this week.
I played my ukulele.

The spoils of Christmas

This Christmas I received a ton of really great gifts! Taking stock:

1 ride to Calgary with a willing friend

1 overnight stay with generous relatives

1 pain-free flight to Kelowna

1 afternoon of Christmas decorating

1 gorgeous nightly view of the Okanagan sunset

1 afternoon of gingerbread house construction

2 Christmas Eve church services complete with carols, drama, and pop culture references

1 morning of excited gift-giving

1 morning of thankful gift-getting

1 giant turkey dinner made by and eaten with extended family

3 awkward ukulele duets with Mom

1 "fast-flipping family game" with cousins

1 afternoon skating at an outdoor rink

1 tour of city Christmas lights

1 beautiful, exhausting day of downhill skiing

1 lunch date with a guitar-playing, dog-loving, drywall-installing friend

1 breathtaking drive through the Rockies

2 nights spent at Camp Evergreen

1 morning of snowshoeing

1 stunning midnight homemade fireworks show

Something about fall

My last "here's what I've been up to because I've been pretty awful about updating anyone about my life" post ended on a blindly optimistic note. I had no idea what was coming next, but I was looking forward to it.

Now that the two months that were in the future at that time are now in the past, it strikes me how ridiculous it is that anyone would ever panic about the future. The days roll on at a rate of exactly sixty minutes per hour, and we do things, simply because we can't do nothing. I mean, you can do nothing, you can sit and do nothing, but even that is doing something. Time stops for no one.

At some point after I had written that post, I decided to go back to camp. To be honest, I had decided to spend the fall season at camp as soon as it was suggested to me. But for me, there's the point at which I've inwardly agreed to do something, and then there's the point at which I broadcast it. So when I wrote that post I just hadn't reached the broadcasting part yet.

Spending September and October at camp was great! I was a member of a staff of thirteen very different individuals. When it comes to staff teams, I've seen quite a few. I don't know that I've ever worked with so many completely different people at once, but somehow we made it work. By the end of it, though, I had spent one too many days in the dish pit and about fifteen too many days at the zipline, and I was worn out.

About halfway through October, I had the chance to briefly visit Lethbridge, the city I recently left as our family moved to Kelowna. I loved visiting friends there, seeing the university, and, above all, attending my church there.

That was the point at which I'd inwardly agreed to move back to Lethbridge.

I didn't broadcast it until I signed a rental contract for a little room in the upstairs part of a house shared with two other girls I very vaguely know. It all fell together easily. I felt sure-footed as God guided my steps, dropping things into my lap. A camp friend said, no, things are not falling into your lap, Jesus is whipping them at you!

My new house is disguised as a forest.

I am slowly adjusting to being "moved out" for the first time. I'm navigating the bus system, comparing prices, and even cooking. Yes, it was soup from a can, but the point is that I made it.

Next, I will be looking for a job. I'm not sure yet what it will be, but whether it comes as a fastball-to-the-face or a feather-to-the-sleeve, I'll take it.