Dum, Dum, Da-Dum

Little known fact about me: I love weddings. Love them. I'm not sure that I ever want to participate in one in a starring role, but I love attending them.

I used to hate them. When I was younger, I thought they were really boring. It was always a random cousin or someone's older sister (I grew up in a town where it was perfectly acceptable to wedding crash, or at least reception crash), and I just didn't care that much.

But then I got to college and people that I knew and loved really well started to get married. People that I walked through life with. People that I knew as single and then watched as they started a whole life with someone that I knew that they loved. A lot. Someone who was going to make their lives even more spectacular because they fit and challenge and grow together.

That's fun to watch.

But the real reason I love weddings is that I really love a good party.

This weekend my friend Bryce is getting married. Bryce was one of my first Young Life kids. I knew him already because he's Bryce and everyone knows him, but we bonded when he was the punk freshman who was also the super distracting boyfriend of one of the girls in my cabin at camp that summer.

Long story short, I haven't spoken to that girl in 5 years, but I'm taking a red-eye flight to Ohio tonight to see Bryce get married.

And I get to see several of my favorite people in the world in the process.

My expectations for the weekend: get approximately 4 hours of sleep divided between 2 nights, laugh until I cry, try to catch up on years worth of life, and feel extremely happy to be with people I am so completely comfortable with.

Yep, I love weddings.

iPods at Work Save My Life

This song is on serious repeat on my iPod right now. You're welcome to everyone at work who can hear it, and can hear me singing it very loudly.

Bloodline by Matt Morris (ft. Justin Timberlake in this version)

Spring Awakening

It's 60 degrees out. It's sunny. I bought new clothes. I have plans.

It is officially Spring.

And I have awoken.

Sometimes I am shocked by how much of my life I am willing to waste when there is so much to see, so much to feel, so much to taste out of this crazy life of mine.

Is there anything else that will belong to us so singularly as our own lives? Why would we not use up every piece of it?

Yes, I work. And I watch mindless TV. And I have meaningless interactions.

But I also sing. And dance. And love like crazy. And am loved like crazy.

I find purpose in my days. I laugh. A lot. I am inspired. And I (try hard to) inspire.

I've had this sticky note on the desktop of my mac for 6 months. It's a line from a The Ninth Elegy by Rilke that says:

Look, I am alive. On what?
Neither childhood nor the future grows any less...
Superabundant being wells up in my heart.

This is what life is. Marvelling at being alive. Being in a moment. The moment, that's neither holding me in the past or stealing from my future. Superabundant being welling up in my heart.

That's how I feel today. Superabundant.

I pray you feel the same way.

Song of the Day: I'm on My Way by Rich Price (Didn't know this song was on the Shrek 2 soundtrack, but OK.)

Sunshine is My Friend

Up until approximately 3 months ago, if you had asked me how I feel about winter, I would have responded with the following:

"I love winter. It makes you feel all cozy and I read lots of books and there's Christmas and Elf and so many wonderful, magical things. Winter is AWESOME!"

I was laboring under a false illusion.

I never knew it, but I, in fact, despise winter.

I know I have been really whiny about it the past, oh, month, but I just can't help it. I feel like I shouldn't be grumpy about it because it is actually fairly warm today and completely sunny, but there is still snow everywhere. Seriously. Everywhere.

My hatred was thrown into stark relief by the trip I took to see Spring Training in Phoenix yesterday.

It was warm. And I got to wear my ssekos. And I went to a baseball game, where it smelled like freshly cut grass and barbeque. It was like heaven is going to be (I'm pretty sure).

And then we drove back to Williams and there is still snow.

Yes, it's pretty. But it is time for baseball and barbeque. Come on, Williams. Let go of winter. Let's move on. It's time.

Song of the Day: Laughing With by Regina Spektor

I Love Safeway

I'm 25 years old. I drink alcohol sometimes. I do so responsibly. I don't drink and drive. I don't ever get belligerently drunk. So it is completely appropriate for me to buy a whole lot of booze at our local Safeway before I have a bunch of friends over to play board games tonight.

However, I live in a small town, where a lot of people live pretty miserable lives. They tend to self-medicate with a combo of liquor, drugs, promiscuous sex, and other unhealthy behaviors. And I'm trying to demonstrate that life can actually be a lot better than that.

Oh, and I recognize half of the people in Safeway every time I go in and I'm pretty sure they recognize me. And know where I work. And half of them are teenagers.

So I had a plan today. I went into the store, got everything I needed and left the liquor for last. I made my way to that end of the store, picked it up (under the watchful eye of a girl across the aisle looking at bread and wearing a Lost Canyon sweatshirt), and then headed to the checkout.

And I'm feeling fine at this point. But then the checkout man took about an hour to check out my stuff. I'm not kidding when I say he spent at least 2 minutes trying to ring out a granola bar. I had 6 more of them on the conveyor belt. I think it would've worked to use any of them. But no.

And he started picking all the food out and leaving just the liquor on the belt. So as the line started to build behind me, it seriously looked like I was just buying a case of beer, the giant bottle of vodka, triple sec, rum, a couple bottles of wine, and limes.

Again, I have no moral qualms about purchasing all of this, but it was just one of those situations where I just kept thinking "really?!?"

So I went to the coffee shop and had a green tea smoothie to celebrate my patience. Well worth it.

Song of the Day: Suga Suga by Baby Bash (They keep playing this on the radio and every time they do, I have to jam. Mainly because it reminds me of 2005. And who didn't love 2005?)

I Can Hear the Squealing

I'm not even a little bit ashamed at how excited I am about this... (OK, maybe a little bit.)



Jacob or Edward? (I vote Emmett.)

Making it Up as I Go Along

So you know how I have a real-person job, but most of the time I feel like I'm totally faking it? You know, like I have no idea at all what I'm doing but I pretend I do in a "fake it till you make it" life strategy?

Yeah, that's still happening.

The past couple weeks I've hired 4 new people to work in my department.

This is awesome. We were pretty understaffed, so we decided to hire a couple of part-time people. Then one of my full-time housekeepers decided to quit at the end of the month, so I needed to hire for that as well.

Commence faking it.

There are about 1.3 billion things that I did not realize came with the process of hiring people. Are they over 20 hours a week or under? Will they get COLA? Do they go to staff development days? What if everyone wants to work different hours? Will my staff get along or make each other miserable? Should I hire locally? Will the 20-year-olds I just hired get along with the not-quite-20-year-olds I already have working for me? Do I want someone young and flaky but full of energy, or someone older and more reliable?

Not making this process any easier is the fact that it's hard to get know people in an interview setting. Of course you're trying to put on your best face. But I want to know the bad stuff. And if I hire someone and they're completely miserable to work with, that's pretty much on me.

Ugh, it's a lot of pressure.

So I decided early on to trust my instincts and try not to get too blindly excited when someone seems fun.

So I hired Janice, who is a sweet Williams local who came highly recommended by our Sites and Facilities Supervisor. She started last week and has been wonderful.

Then I hired Liz and Abigail, NAU students and YL leaders here in Williams. They are sweet and fun and full of energy. I'm excited that I can give them an excuse to have to be in Williams 3 times a week and some money to get here. Also, I'm pumped to pour into them a little and live vicariously through them. Leading YL half an hour from where you go to school? I am familiar with that.

And then yesterday, the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. I hired Susie, who is a super fun girl who interned at my old stomping ground, the Washington Family Ranch. I was pretty sold on her after she admitted to facebook stalking me the first time I talked to her on the phone. Also, I accidentally hung up on her during her interview which was pretty funny and not super professional on my part. But she's moving here from WA the first week of April and I'm pretty pumped to hang out with her.

Honestly, it's been a really fun process. It's fun to see my stamp on this place grow bigger and deeper. And it's also fun to work in a place where I can look at an interview as a chance to get to know someone and hiring someone as a chance to add to my family away from home.

I love my job!

Song of the Day: 9 Crimes by Damien Rice (It's really dreary and snowy, hence the sad song.)

I Have Written... This Post

So I was going to post about the Bachelor finale last night, but I just can't.

I'm home alone and it was a beautiful, sunny, warm (by warm I mean not cold) day. Tyrone Wells' new album is on my iTunes and I just don't have it in me to be snarky about Jake and Vienna.

I just finished Donald Miller's new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I was in love with the premise. Donald's first book, a memoir, was being turned into a movie, and they kept changing everything to make it a better story. It made him realize that his life sucked, that he needed to get up off his ass and live a life that people would give a crap about.

He's funny and real and he speaks to my heart a lot.

But my favorite line in the book wasn't his. He was talking about how he's a writer who hates writing. And then he quoted William Zinsser who said that writers "love to have written."

Yeah, that sounds about right.

I love to have written. I love having stories. But a lot of the time, I hate the process. I love talking about the places I've been, but I get tired and cranky when I travel. I love being settled in a new place, gathering new people to love. But the first 6 months anywhere makes me sad and lonely.

I love to have written.

It's not even that I avoid things that are hard. I don't. I travel, I move, I love. But sometimes I become so daunted by the idea of the process, by the length of time, by the chance of failure, that I just can't do it.

But I want to have written.

And I want to have written something really incredible.

Song of the Day: Running Around in My Dreams by Tyrone Wells