My Summer in Pictures

Per usual, I had an awesome summer.  And I can't put it in words.  But I'll post the pics and let them speak for themselves.

The first group of the summer being welcomed at Lost Canyon.  If this sight ever fails to get me, I'll know it's time to pack it in.

The HK Team was ready for Day 1.  In our staff polos.  Looking good.

This picture was part of the instructional slide show we use to explain the HK rules to the Work Crew and Summer Staff (our volunteer staff).  This is clearly showing what will happen if you take your camp blanket outdoors.

Our twashies (Work Crew housekeepers) handing out the Golden Glove aka the award for the cleanest cabin.

 

4th of July joy at the parade the Capernaum (YL for kids with special needs) campers put on at LC.



Friends at the Willy 4th of July parade.  Willy parades are glorious.

My office got a wall, a door, and air conditioning.  Big time!

I went to the Rockies.  More specifically Crooked Creek.

With these kids.  I love them.

I got a new camera so I can take pictures like this.  What up!

We obviously won the Golden Glove.  I am giving it all the admiration it deserves.

This is Lizeth and I.  I love her and this picture a lot.

Seriously, how cute are they?

Our camp follow-up involved watching a lot of Olympics.  This was my favorite coach-athlete combo.  They represent Belarus Trampolining.

Follow-up also involved lots of this kind of stuff.  High school boy is a species I don't understand.

Seriously, the end of this summer marks 3 years of life in Williams, AZ for me.  And it really does just keep getting better and better.  Who knew Williams would be so awesome?

Song of the Day:  Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show

Why I can and will continue to do it all

My life is crazy busy.  Like, crazy busy.  I live and die by my outlook calendar.  I have something scheduled before and after work every day of the week except Thursday mornings.  Seriously, I have Thursday morning from 7:00-8:00 AM and weekends available in my schedule.  That's it.

And I ridiculously love it.

This craziness is mostly because I lead Young Life in Williams while having a full time job which means I am spending a solid portion of my little free time hanging out with high school kids.  I realize that seems a little odd and some people might question why I do it.  I've never had a super great answer to that question, but I think I finally do.

My friend and Area Director (local YL staff) Miriam asked me to summarize why our camp trip this year was great so that she could include it in a thank you letter to a foundation that had helped us financially with the trip. 

This is what I wrote.  And this is why my crazy busy life is so awesome.

David is a kid we have known for a while. For the past year, he has come to Club (our weekly meetings) every week. And every week he would come into the room with a scowl on his face. I would greet him as warmly as I could. Sometimes he would respond to me with a grunt, sometimes he would ignore me completely. On the outside, you would think he would rather be anywhere else. But he kept coming. And every week I would see a small transformation in him. Over our hour together, I would see those walls break down a little. He would start to laugh, play, and be a kid. He would have a small escape from a world that carried more than a high school kid should deal with.

This winter, as a sophomore in high school, David found out he was going to be a father. Our leaders tried to rally around him to show him that we care. But we watched him shut down even more. He put on a hard shell, one that felt impenetrable by us.

But he kept showing up. And when the time came to sign up for our summer camp trip, he was one of the first. He fundraised, he worked hard, he showed how much he wanted to be there, but he needed some help financially to make it on the trip. Luckily, we had that scholarship money to give.

And so he went. It’s hard for me to put into words what happened to David at camp. We watched as that shell, the one that was impenetrable by us, crumbled in the presence of the Lord. We watched as he got to spend a week being a kid. We watched as he opened up to his leaders and the guys in his cabin about his pain and fear. We watched as he processed the message that he is loved beyond anything that he’s done, beyond anything that’s happened to him, beyond all measure.

Every week at Club, we could see a small, temporary transformation in David. But at camp, we saw his life be changed forever. The David we brought home with us is not the David that left a week earlier. He is a David that is lighter, that is hopeful, that has a purpose. He has been made new. And his daughter will enter this world next month with this new David as her father.

We had a follow-up meeting last night to continue to process what we talked about camp. David walked into my house and I greeted him as warmly as I could. And he smiled at me. And he said hi. On the outside you could see, there is nowhere else he’d rather be. And if that doesn’t make it worth it, I don’t know what does.

Thank you for helping make this story possible.

I just wanted to share that story with everyone.  No strings attached.  Because this blog is about me and this story has changed me, too.   

BUT, I will say, if you want to be one of the people that help make stories like these possible, we're always in need of financial help.  You can go here to become a donor for Williams Young Life.  Just search for Williams, AZ as the Young Life Area Ministry you would like to donate to.

Song of the Day: Classy Girls by the Lumineers

I'm Awesome at Life (Or Life is Awesome and I'm Arrogant)

Remember how I used to write on my blog all the time?  As in every, single day?  (Reference: January 2009.)

And then remember when I still wrote on my blog pretty often?  Like every other day?  (Reference: July 2009.)

And then remember when I wrote on my blog about once a week?  (Reference: 2010-2011.)

And then remember how I haven't written on my blog since April?  (Reference: now.)

Here's the thing:  I love to write.  It's where I do my best processing.  Especially on my blog.  Because I journal, too, but that ends up just being a huge wallowing mess of self-pity.  The social pressure keeps my blog from being that, so rather than a place I can complain, it's a place where I can take stock of my life.  A place where I can talk about things I love, things that make me laugh, things that bring me joy.

And mid-twenties, I was desparate for that place.  I wanted and needed to put my life out there and to have someone else validate it because I wasn't quite sure where I was headed.  And I needed people to tell me that was alright.

But I don't write on my blog very often anymore.  And I'm pretty sure that's because I've finally gotten to a place in my life where I can say, this is it.  This is who I am.  This is what I want my life to look like: I want to be busy, I want to love, I want to know and be known, I want to care for and about other people, I want to work at a job that is purposeful and fulfilling, I want to spend my life.  This is me.

I'm settled.  And rooted.  And committed to this job and this place and this life.

And it's pretty sweet.  I could keep blogging about that, but honestly, it would bore me and it would bore you, too. 

So, just know this:  I am happy.  And busy.  And joyful.  And life still gets really hard sometimes, but I am content.

And all that fear that I had, that my life would mean nothing and that settled meant settling, it's gone away.  Because life is still a crazy adventure and I have no idea what's coming next.

But I know what I'll be like when it does.  And I know that I'll write about it on my blog.  :)

Song of the Day: I Can't Make You Love Me/Nick of Time by Bon Iver (cover of Bonnie Raitt)

Desktop Favorites

OK, it's about a thousand years since I wrote on my blog. And I don't really have time to do it now.

So instead I'm just going to attach 3 things that I found saved on my desktop that I sort of love. (And yes, one of them is from what appears to be a poetry slam. Don't judge me.)

1) My postsecret secret. I didn't write it, but it's basically mine.

2) This lady's intense. But I love this, especially the part where she talks to her future daughter.

3) And this Damn You Autocorrect which never fails to make me laugh.

Yeah, that's all I've got right now. But you know me, I'll be back someday.

People are Nice.

So, I don't write one of those "look at everything wise and important I've been learning about the world" blogs. Mainly because I don't learn anything that wise and important on a regular basis. Maybe I'm a natural cynic or just not paying that close of attention, but I'm not having epiphanies every other day.

But something happened to me last week that made me have (what her highness Oprah would call) an A-ha Moment.

My friend and I got into it a little bit in a planning meeting. He was unhappy with something we were doing that was completely my idea. He said some things about the format (again, that I came up with and have been executing for several months now) that were not very flattering. Like, he said it was lame and boring.

Part of me wanted to be mad and defensive, but this guy's actually a really good friend of mine. And I know him pretty well. We've worked through our share of times where our big mouths got the best of us. So, I knew what he was wanting to convey. I knew he wasn't attacking me, he was trying to make suggestions so that the whole group of us could do things better. He was trying to be inspiring and was just completely missing it with me because he was accidentally insulting me.

So I wasn't upset. I know him.

After the meeting, he pulled me aside and apologized for what he said. He had realized through the course of the meeting that the ideas he was shooting down were all mine and that it probably wasn't the most sensitive way to say/go about things.

He was trying to justify himself and apologize when I cut him off to say the following sentences:

"Hey, don't worry about it. Seriously. I wasn't offended. You probably could've said that a little nicer, but I know you, I know you weren't trying to insult me."

The look on his face when I said that was like I had just given him a $1,000. He high-fived me. It was like a moment of accomplishment for him, that he didn't have to spend more moments of his life explaining how what he said was well-intentioned if insensitive, but instead I just got that.

I just understood that he's a good guy with a good heart who cares about people. And that sometimes his words come out wrong.

He was seriously thrilled with that.

And I realized how desperate we all are for that. I get myself into that situation a lot. I don't have a filter and I'm confident enough to want to speak my mind all the time. Some good things come out of that.

What doesn't often come out of that is people seeing that I care. But I do. A lot. I care about people and I try really hard to care for people. And sometimes when people think that I'm rude or bitchy, it just makes me lonely. Like people clearly just don't understand me.

And when someone can look past the insensitive thing I said or did and remember my heart and my goodness, it makes me feel really loved.

So I'm going to continue to try to do that for my friends. I'm going to choose to always remember how good they are, how much they want to love people well, how much they care.

Wouldn't that be awesome if we all did that for each other? I know I would spend a lot more time feeling good about myself. And I would spend a lot more time feeling good about my friends.

I want people to be free and confident and feel good. I'm going to do my best to dole that out.

Disclaimer: I will likely fail hard at this. What are you gonna do?

Song of the Day: If I Ever Leave This World Alive by Flogging Molly

Alright, I Changed My Mind

I don't know what it is, but I feel really good about 2012.

I've never really seen New Year's Eve as a holiday and I think resolutions are usually just a way to set yourself up to feel bad about yourself, so I don't get all that excited about the start of a new year. It's just a normal passage of time, right?

But other people love New Year's. It's all over the place: blog posts about resolutions, topics of conversation. Everyone has asked me, "What's your new year's resolution?"

Normally, I kind of roll my eyes at this, but this year for the first time, I think I get it.

It's a new year. New. A time to start over, a time to say I can be whatever I want to be.

It's hopeful.

And hopeful is always a good place to be in.

If you read my blog, then you know I talk a lot about how much I love my life. And that's true. But I'm also 26 and I get scared a lot. I'm never quite sure if this is where I'm supposed to be. I worry that I'm going to screw my life up. That somehow I'm going to make some decision that puts the rest of my life on a crap-spiral into nothing.

That's not hopeful.

In fact, that's kind of pitiful.

So, mid-twenties, I find the New Year's hype comforting. Because it's an excuse to believe that even if I don't quite have it together right now, this year I can get there. And if I don't, there's another year after that (well, if the Mayans are wrong).

And that's worth some fireworks.

Let's do this, 2012.

Song of the Day: The Girl by City and Color

Benny the Bachelor Takes on the Crazies (Ep. 1)

You know what today is?

It's one of my favorite days of the year, a time to renew hope and joy.

That's right, the Bachelor's back!

And it's starring Ben F., fresh off a rough rejection by Ashley. (Dodged a bullet there, Ben.)

The opening vignette shows Ben in all his goofy, wine-making, kayaking, piano-playing glory and it reaffirms how much I like him, despite his choice of neon tank top and badly staged dramatic posing.

Also returning to my TV screen: Chris Harrison, one of my favorite people in the world and someone I wish would hang out with me in real life (along with Jon Stewart).

The ladies appear with horses, shooting, creepy shots of watching Ben on the Bachelorette, catalogue modeling, sad-looking pregnant ladies with perky nurses, sob stories, a British girl in Scottsdale, a "blogger" who is clearly attempting to channel Carrie Bradshaw, the single mom, the divorcee, and so many cheesy limo exit strategies, I can't even begin to recount them.

I have to say, there were no real first impression winners to me. Normally, all it takes is the limo exits for me to know exactly who will win it, but really, they all sucked. Pretty bad.

But sucks at life equals awesome at cocktail parties and cat fights. Rapping, line dancing, blindfolds, push ups, delusional models talking too much, sweet grannies, crazy maniacal laughing, drunken crying, complete denial of drunken crying, and drunken crier talking to herself in the bathroom. Awesome.

Oh, yeah, and Lind-Z with the horse got the first impression rose. She sucks just as much as the rest of them.

Jenna the Blogger emerged from the bathroom just in time for the rose ceremony where the producers clearly made him keep both her and her nemesis, Monica. We also get to see more of the single mom, the grandma girl, the sweet young one from Tennesse, and many, many more. Some are crazy, some will be turned crazy by this process.

Ben told one of the girls she was a good hugger for which he has endeared himself to me until at least the next episode.

End of Episode 1 Top 3 Predictions: sweet Tennesee girl, PhD student, and Jamie who raised her siblings

Drama Predictions: High. Real high.

I. Love. This. Show.