Taking Stock

Taking Stock: my friend Amanda has a wonderful blog (linked later on) and she posted this from her blog inspirations and I decided it would be a nice way to see how I am and the answer is a little sad but ready to go on a rest for the soul day and take on new challenges.  

Making : dinner, has become a challenge that I am excited to take on.

Cooking : with my brand new crockpot, okay I haven't done it yet but I will.

Drinking : water, hopefully, going to bring a water bottle to school on the regular.

Reading: school books, Marzano, Freeman and Freeman, SIOP, the color of class, etc.

Wanting: time away to recharge my soul.

Looking: at the beauty of fall in Oregon.

Playing: with my ipad when I should be focused.

Wasting: energy on stress

Fixing: my rooms organizational scheme, a pile of papers doesn't work

Deciding: when to take time for myself and when to push through the work

Wishing: that I was more on top of my homework

Enjoying: working with students 

Waiting: for a break in the storm of scheduling and work

Liking: this list, glad I follow Amanda's blog

Wondering: what the practicality of running away for a little bit is

Loving: Instagram my favorite form of social media currently

Pondering: the assumptions that people make about teachers

Considering: the practicality of being broke and happy vs. saving and stress

Watching: Greys Anatomy, on the regular, but it's new show season so that will happen

Hoping: that I will find a happy balance soon

Marvelling: at how much I love the rain, it doesn't ever get old to me 

Needing: to explore

Smelling: pumpkin, apple, cinnamon, candles but soon maybe baked goods

Wearing: teacher clothes: plain bottoms, nice tops, boots or sparkly toms

Following: girl, pacific (http://girlpacific.wordpress.com/) and the militant baker (http://www.themilitantbaker.com/)

Noticing: my negative outlook on things 

Knowing: that I will work on this outlook

Thinking: about what it means to be a teacher

Feeling: a little down, but optimistic that it'll be okay

Admiring: people who have their lives more together than I, especially teachers

Buying: car repairs, sad life of practicality 

Getting: a treat for myself at the end of today

Bookmarking:blogs that inspire me

Opening: a new chapter in my mental state of being

Giggling: at buzzfeed articles

Feeling: ready for more 

Running Away to California part 3

We completed our completed our continental breakfast (read: toast and waffles) and were on the road to drive the 14 miles south to the Trees of Mystery

And just as we off we determine we just have to stop at the beach right now. Cue abrupt and surprising stop in gravel. 

Then my genius idea to protect Tabatha's new foot tattoo was to give her a piggy back ride, which would have been fine except the hill gave me a bit of momentum I didn't need and all of a sudden I couldn't slow down to avoid running into Jordan and Tabatha and I were in the sand tattoo and all. Yeah. It was a mess. So we proceeded to the beach, and about halfway down decided that I probably needed new shoes anyway. At the beach we found sand dollars and took pictures. Then we were actually off to see the trees of mystery. 

The trees of mystery was awesome. Tabatha contemplated her wedding at the chapel trees (for the record she isn't engaged, which made the conversation all the more interesting) I personally really like the sky trail box floating things (look at the website I can't describe them) but Tabatha and Jordan were more wary of the getting on and off process and the heights. 

Now we are on the road for the last time.

We determined that the way we took 199 was best. In the dark on the way south and in the light on the way north because of the placement of the rock wall versus the cliff on their respective sides of the road and what we did and didn't want to be aware of while we were driving. 

We did enjoy seeing guys at the welcome to Oregon sign acting the same way we did at the welcome to California sign. 

By Grants Pass we were huuuunnnnggggrrrryyyy so we stopped at the Wild River Pizza and brewing company and had some darn good pizza. 

I think we have finally hit our last leg. We are enjoying the sunshine, windows down and some loud music (P!nk circa middle school if you are tracking our playlist)

Doubled over laughing in the backseat from Tabatha yelling at Jordan's boyfriend on the phone "I stopped your girlfriend from picking up multiple hitchhiker a so don't call me an instigator"

Stopped in Winston for gas and switched CDs (Good Charlotte the young and the hopeless) can you say homestretch? (At least we hope so)

Cue impromptu Dutch Brothers stop. 

"Would it make you feel better if I picked up this hitch hiker?" 

"Yes! But you're passing him and he has a guitar, he is your alma mater"

"Do you know what alma mater means?"

"Yes"

"Did you mean kindred spirit?"

"Yeah" 

In Salem (to the car in front of us): "We're in the home stretch baby get out of the way" 

Now is the time we go our seperate ways until next time. 

Running Away to California part 2

The Drive:

We had lunch and went to pick up the last of the supplies from Tabathas house and we were off like a heard of turtles! 

Traffic was slow but Tabathas masterful intimidation (read almost tailgating) skills made us the queens of the I-5 fast lane. 

The Corvallis exit found us rocking out to N'Sync's classic "It's gonna be me" 

Eugene's anthem was "Breakaway" by Kelly Clarkson

Our first break was the Safeway in Cottage Grove ("Wait I don't actually know where the Safeway is" cue the Siri noise) for bathrooms, cold water, and... Drinks and off brand goldfish/cheez-it's and lunchables for Tabatha (we had an interesting store adventure wandering around)

When we need to get gas finding that Cow Creek Station is the only option and the realization we really are in the middle of nowhere. The best part though was going in to pay for gas and coming out with ice cream, but don't worry "the red neck ninjas won't steal your stuff while you are in the store. " 

Decided to stop in Ashland for dinner found Oberlon's Three Penny Tavern which is not yet open and instead landed at Louie's right next door. We were extremely grateful for the bathroom. After burgers, fish, and lots of fries we were almost ready to hit the road, when we were made aware that the road hit us back a little (okay not at all but it's more fun to blame the road than our sub par navigation skills)

Side note: "Hey that exit says "Redding Highway" " was a far more important sentence than any of us realized at the time. 

After weighing all of our options (we managed to have 3 to compare) we decided it would be best to just suck it up and drive north 40 miles and then jump on 199 to go west towards Cresent City. So we are back on the road with only minorly bruised egos and a search for a hotel with a continental breakfast. 

Our second gas stop came before we adventured far down 199 and came with the following exclamation: "Why are there so many Dutch Brothers?" My theory is because Grants Pass is the birthplace (?) of the first Dutch Bros coffee stand. The good news is as of the gas station we have reservations at a motel 8. Hooray! Breakfast, two beds, and everything. 

Finding common ground in an old school Fall Out Boy album (From Under The Cork Tree) and rocking out. A fantastic energizer, especially since I think I'm the only one who hasn't yawned yet. 

We made it -- sort of: 

As we continue a few thoughts arose:

"I keep being afraid something snarly and/or demonic is going to jump out on the road"

"It's official; driving through the redwoods at night is what nightmares are made of"

We landed at the Super 8. See you in the morning world, for Part 3: The adventure. 

Running Away to California part 1

I like to make jokes about the fact that I'm a gypsy because I often get the urge to get away get out go someplace. Being abroad was great for this because I was practically running away somewhere every weekend. 

So this morning when making plans with my friends for what kind of adventure we wanted to take today (keeping in mind that we had been waffling with this question since we decided to hang out today (last week) ) and all we came up with was Changs Mongolian Grill. 

Side story: 4 years ago (give or take) I was driving my friend Jordan home on I-5 south and we stopped in Albany for snacks and had something close to the following conversation:

"You know if we kept driving we could go to California"

"We totally could"

"We probably shouldn't" 

"Yeah I guess" 

From there we made this elaborate plan about going to California for New Years but it fell through for a variety of reasons. 

So since then our running joke about where to go and what to do has been "lets go to California" and so when we were trying to figure out what to do today and Jordan said "let's go to California" at first I laughed but then I was like "yeah, we have the time, we could totally do that" and things were set in motion. The adventure truly begins after lunch. 

Admiration

This is my blog away from blogging. During my year as Grand Worthy Advisor I started a blog just for Rainbow purposes to write about the events I attend and the feelings I have and the things that I do. I wanted to be able to look back and have the words I wrote put me right back into that moment. This blog, however, is just me being me, thoughts, feelings, crazy ramblings, I feel like I can put it out here. I haven't posted on this blog in quite a while just because I have been blogging on the other one and I have been caught up in school, Rainbow, Delta Gamma and everything else I find myself associated with. The inspiration for this blog was a picture and the blog posting connected to it. I'm not going to link it, but I promise its amazing. As I re-read the words for the 3rd or 4th time I found myself thinking 'Wow, I really admire her. Her faith, conviction, and especially, her artistry in both the words and the photograph.' As it often does, from that point my brain went into a tangent of thinking about all of the amazing people I admire. That was when it really hit me the ridiculous number of people in my life deserving of admiration. It was actually a little baffling to me that I have had the opportunity to interact with so many of them. I know that I admire some people that I will never interact with, but the sheer number of those that I have already interacted with when I didn't even realize at the time what a privilege it was to run into them. Many of my friends in high school are some of the strongest most passionate people I know and I find myself admiring many of their qualities as well as some of the things that they have been able to accomplish. Fully recognizing that I have a completely biased opinion I have to say that there are many Masonic Leaders so worthy of admiration. Even some of those who will never hold leadership positions on a grand level, but oh the ones that have. So many of the State Heads that I have interacted with are so worthy of praise and admiration, but that don't seek it out, they simply do what they do because they love it which is part of what makes them such wonderful people. Even those who I have been unable to meet, I hear all kinds of stories about these people and you can just tell by the way people talk that they were someone special.

Joan Priscilla "Perky" Kilbourn PhD.

She was my grandmother, but she was so much more than that. She was my mom's mom, my grandpa's partner. She was reckless, responsible, intelligent, fun, crazy, fantastic. She was someone I will always look up to. I'm so glad Laurie wrote her stories down because I know that there are so many more than the ones that I have in my head, but I love the ones I have in my head because they mean so much to me. I love that she told me about climbing a mountain (possibly multiple) because it reminded me of her adventurous spirit and that she would go after whatever she wanted. I didn't get to spend much time there, but visiting her at her Microbiology lab when I was younger (like 6, so the following sentences are not the most educated) was the coolest thing ever. She had carbon (magic) paper, that would copy things she typed, and she typed stuff on this old school typewriter. She helped people, they came to her office with questions or things she needed to look at and she just helped them because it was her job. She could look at things super close with her microscope and grow stuff by putting those plates in her warmy thingy (I remind you I was 6) She was so smart and she loved science so much and even from a young age she shared that love with me through her lab, books, and just teaching me things whenever she could. Beyond that there was the fact that she loved women's basketball, and so I still have a T-shirt from when the Portland Fire WNBA team existed because she took me to games, and she loved it because she played basketball and as she likes to say she "played before Title IX existed" I can't stand gingerbread cookies because they always seem to be overcooked and the flavor isn't that good and they just aren't my favorite but every year I HAD HAD HAD to make the traditional gingerbread cookies with Grandma because it was what we did, and the one year we couldn't make them at the house she bought me a pre-made set and we decorated them at her office just so we could say that we had done gingerbread cookies. One of the newer but unbelievably special memories that I have now, is when she told me (after I received my bid card) that she was a Xi Omega at Willamette because that is what her older sister was, but that she really wanted to be a Delta Gamma. It is so special to me that we share that and that I was able to join Delta Gamma at Willamette.

These memories and so many more are what I have to cling to now that she is gone. I sit here with tears in my eyes remembering what a great woman she was and how much she means to me. She was always so full of life, spirit and love for everyone. I love her dearly and miss her daily and wrote this tribute to her as a way to express my feelings for her.

The Pre-Rhetoric Blog

Okay, so in actuality I thought that I would have more time for this, and I suppose I have some time but not enough as I would like. Normally in my world blogging is like this just-shut-out-the-world and type sort of experience and because math class was canceled and my rhetoric reading was RIDICULOUSLY long and so I skimmed it and based on the other people who are in the class as early as I am that apparently I am not the only one and so that makes me feel a little bit better and a little bit worse all at the same time. In reality this blog post was not intended to be on my impending rhetoric class but on life in general. I figured my mom and Crista (the two people that actually read my blog) would be interested because sometimes I like to pretend that I have more audience members than I actually have. So its towards the end of February, which by the way is the worst word to spell and it just kills me because I have had to type it over and over again, I feel like normally I don't write the word as much as I have been this month. This also is not the point of the blog post, jeez, I'm more easily distracted than my father. We have our first non-pledge OV this Saturday which is awesome, because that means that it is finally spring and time to go and actually start things and it generally goes faster this time of year because there is just so much of this time of year and before you know it it is grand assembly. anyway the professor is here and I have to pay attention.