penn

101 things: months 16 and 17

Reporting in for both July and August here. Apologies for the brevity of the post, but I'm leaving for Maine early Tuesday morning, and it's been a whirlwind of unpacking and repacking over here. It might be a bit quiet on my way out, but I will try to update everyone when possible. Rest assured that I have been busy enjoying the fruits of summer over here, including lots of home-grown tomatoes, hiking, and general fun.

I finished two goals in these two months:

89. go to three movies by myself

My final movie for the set of three was Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It strayed quite a bit from the book, but I still enjoyed the movie. I see the books and movies on two separate trajectories: they describe roughly the same story but do it in a different sort of way. Good enough for me.

94. Visit the Minneapolis zoo

It's actually the Minnesota Zoo, and I've now visited it. I went here once when I was a kid, and I remember the dolphins and a monorail and not much else. On this visit, the dolphins and monorail were on the very short list of things we didn't do/see. More pictures can be seen on my previous post about the zoo.

-1 more in progress for 4 total in progress
2 more completed for 43 total completed

And to top it all off, it's rained all day

This has been a big week for me. In the past week, tons of things happened. Last weekend, Matt's parents met my parents for the first time; we grilled, laid prairie sod, went to A&W, and took a tour of my nature center. I had my little stint in the ER and am feeling much better now; apparently, it takes about 10 days to heal, so I'm right on track. I had my last day of work a few days ago: an organized invasive species pull and free lunch that went quite well! And, perhaps biggest of all, I moved out of the work-provided housing and into Matt's apartment.

Woosh.

I just finished cleaning the work housing today (I was the last person to move out and got stuck with TONS of cleaning), and I turned in my key when I went to drop of all the recycling and trash. Now I have the big task of unpacking all my stuff and making our place nice and livable. Currently, the living room is covered in boxes, and I need to run up to Target to get one or two small pieces of furniture to make our lives easier. Did you know that a one bedroom apartment seems very small when two people live in it?

I've got until the weekend to get everything squared away. Next Tuesday, I leave for my epic roadtrip to Maine! I want to make sure Matt has a neat apartment before I go. Then, I will spend three months in Maine before heading back here to do . . . something. But the key parts are Maine! road trip! Canada! I think it will go well.

Now to go unpack the never ending boxes . . .

Quick thought on Love

I read this on {cypress and oak}, and I just had to share. It's such a lovely thought about love. She recently got married and had a beautiful wedding. And this is what she wrote about love:

I really believe that there’s someone out there for everyone. Sometimes it just takes a little time to find said person. I’ve dated some real doozies, and stuck it out in those bad relationships because I thought that love wasn’t supposed to be easy. My last relationship was with a really nice guy who wasn’t right for me (and I wasn’t right for him). It literally never occurred to me that the effort we had to exert to keep the relationship going shouldn’t have been necessary.

That’s not to say that love is always easy. Fortunately I have two excellent models of happy marriages (Mama and Mr. Mama; Pop and Mrs. Pop). Add to that the Mister’s parents (Momma Mac and Mac Daddy). These relationships prove that love, like a well-rooted tree, is natural. It grows and bears fruit without trying. There may be hard winters that the tree must endure, but there are also optimistic springs and lush summers. So while love may not be easy, it is natural. My feelings for the Mister are the very first time that love ever felt right. Magical. Inevitable.

Side note: I am not getting married anytime in the forseeable future. But one of my guilty little pleasures is reading about people and their lovely weddings. I found this wedding via the "Wedding Graduates" series over at A Practical Wedding. I love seeing all the neat little ideas people had for the weddings, and it's even given me a few decorating ideas for a future home.

Abdomen: 2, Leah: 0

For the second time in a little over a year, I have landed myself in the emergency room. Not through any direct fault of my own, mind, but still.

Yesterday, I just felt draggy and awful. I started feeling crampy and uncomfortable, but I chalked it up to "lady issues." But big doses of ibuprofen and hot baths were only making small dents in the pain, and I wasn't able to sleep it off. By 6.30 this morning, I headed on in to the ER.

Turns out that I most likely ruptured an ovarian cyst. This may be what I did last year in Michigan (same link as above, fyi), but I'm not sure. This pain was not as bad as last year, and it was much lower pain.

The biggest bummer of the day was not getting to go to camp with my kids. It's the last week of camp at my job, and we are doing fieldtrip days with middle school aged campers. I planned awesome day trips, and someone else had to fill in for me today. Matt has promised he'll go with me another and do the activities so I don't miss out.

Other big differences from last year:

1) my insurance is not as good. I am self-insured, and my insurance has a $5k deductible. So it looks like I'll be absorbing most or all of the cost of this visit. I'm interested to see how much my contrast CT cost. On the bright side, I have a good savings cushion. It'll take a hit, but I won't have to go into debt.

2) Less time in the ER, and I feel better today

3) It took 5 tries to get my IV line in (for the contrast). My veins were not cooperating today.

In any case, I am home safe. I walked home -- I seem to have the good luck of living within walking distance of hospitals -- and am now recuperating on the couch. I'll be back into work tomorrow. But for today, it's Harry Potter, drinking tea, and maybe doing some lazy packing.

Paring down to move

I dread preparing to move. The thought of packing boxes, moving my stuff, and dealing with everything is just awful. I always swear I'll pare down, but it's never quite enough.

Right now, I'm preparing to move yet again. I haven't even touched some of the stuff I unpacked last year when I moved in; mostly, I spend my time these days outdoors or hanging out with Matt. But I've been trying to sort through items and get rid of things, and it is so difficult. Having all that stuff around is almost like a security blanket.

I'm starting to get some ideas, however. I just read The Simple Dollar post The Source of Frugal Misery, where Trent talks about making informed decisions based on your values. And something really hit me: I don't have to get rid of everything I own. I don't even have to get rid of whole categories. But I do need to get down to the items I functionally use.

The example I like best, and the one I'm hoping to start with, is paring down the DVDs. I own quite a number of DVDs (50 or so? maybe more). I watch plenty of them on a regular basis; I think "When Harry Met Sally" is at least a yearly priority for me. And I know I wouldn't watch movies as much if I didn't have some of my old favorites around. But do I need to keep all the movies I own?

Yesterday, Matt and I discovered a new rental store in town. I've had a gift certificate there for about 10 months and finally got around to using it. We figure the $10 would get us two or three movies. Surprise! Most of the movies are $1 for a 5 day rental. Yes, one single dollar for five days to enjoy a movie. And they have lots of classic movies and old favorites. And perhaps the coolest part of all is that their kids movies are completely free, so we can rent Disney movies to our hearts' content.

Reading the post combined with discovering the rental store makes me think I really can shed some of these movies. I'll get Matt involved in helping me decide which ones we don't need anymore. Even great movies might need to go. For example, I've owned Amelie for at least two years now, and the movie itself is still wrapped in plastic. Definitely time to reconsider whether or not I actually watch it. (side note: this reminds me of a good trick -- tape all your DVD boxes. After 6 months or a year, see which DVDs you've actually watched. Get rid of the rest!)

My attitude towards stuff may be a bit radical, considering all the things I own fit in a 4x4x8 U-haul trailer and my car. But it's sobering to realize how much time it takes to care for all these items, especially when moving frequently. I've written often about wanting to reduce what I own, and little steps like this are helping me achieve that goal. Maybe the next move won't be quite so horrible.

Zoo!

Matt and I visited the Minnesota Zoo this weekend, thereby completing goal #94: 94. Visit the Minneapolis zoo (whoops on the name there) It was great fun! I didn't really remember it from when I was little, so it was a pretty new experience. We explored almost everywhere; the only place we didn't get was the family farm.

Some of our favorites:

Therapy of all stripes

In chatting with a friend this week, she mentioned she was nervous about starting mental therapy. I related my good experience with mental therapy to my good experience with physical therapy.

Last spring/summer, I had really bad shin splints caused by a misaligned back. I put off the pain for a few weeks so that I could run in a 5k run on June 1. After all, I could still walk and run and do all sorts of stuff. I taught kayaking and played ultimate frisbee. But at some point the pain was more than I wanted to stuff down. I went to PT, and it was great. I learned better ways to deal with my pain (especially the back pain), how to exercise my muscles in a healthier way, and became a stronger person all around. And that's how I see my mental therapy. Instead of the PT, I certainly could have iced my shin splints and just ignored the pain. But I decided to go to the doctor, get some help, and got referred to PT.

Therapy for my mind was similar. It's not that I didn't know what my problems were; I'm really analytical and knew what my issues are. But I needed help unwinding them and dealing with issues one at a time. I had gotten to a point where stuffing down my emotions was causing me pain. I cried at the slightest thing (sad story on the radio, for example). I just felt utterly overwhelmed by everything, and I needed someone else's help to handle everything.

At one point in life, I would have found this shameful. But going to therapy was something I did completely for me, and that's exactly what I needed to do. The simple act of doing something for myself built my self-esteem and helped me learn more about continuing to build my self-esteem in a healthy way.

I don't know that I can explain my experience with therapy in any better way. I've always been a happy person. But last summer, I ran into people on the street in Ann Arbor who had known me for the past year and a half. At that point, I had quit grad school and was looking forward to a new life. And all those people would say "wow, you look so happy. I mean, you always look happy. But you look really happy now." And that's just it -- I could have functioned just fine without going to mental therapy. I was happy enough. I could have pushed stuff down, "dealt" with it, etc. But I didn't, and I'm a better person for going.

I don't know if therapy is the best option for everyone all the time. But it was the right choice for me at the time, and I'm glad I did it.

Now officially a Minnesotan

As of Tuesday, I am now an official Minnesotan. I had a shockingly easy time transferring everything over (other than the $180 check I had to write). In an hour and a half -- an extended lunch break -- I got a PO Box, took the written test, and got my new license and plates.

Yes, you read right; I had to take a written test. In Minnesota, they have extremely high standards. Their teaching license is one of the hardest to get in the country, and they don't stop there. If you've never had a Minnesota license, you have to take their written test before you can transfer over. I was quite nervous going into the test. I'd only read half the rules booklet the night before, and there was no wait and therefore no time to read more. When I was 15, I failed my very first written test ever, and I begin to have horrible anxiety flashbacks. But I didn't need to worry, as the test was simple and I breezed through it.

Perhaps the most exciting thing is that I now have a chickadee plate. For an extra 30-some donation to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, my car is sporting a cute green plate with a little black-capped chickadee. I was torn between that and the loon, but green went better with my car. Plus, Matt is planning to get the loon in December when he re-ups, and that way we won't be license twins.

I'm thrilled to be legal here. I had renewed in Michigan way back in October, right after I first moved here, since I intended to return to Michigan for this summer. But paths lead in strange directions, and I think I'll stay in Minnesota for awhile (with the exception of this little sojourn in Maine). It's good to be getting settled again.

National Night Out

Tonight is National Night out, otherwise known as the Night to Unite. Find one in your neighborhood and go tonight! I'll be hosting a booth for my nature center at our local Night to Unite.

My last week

Things that have occurred since I last updated:

Tuesday-Friday, I worked on a preschool camp full of four year olds. I've never shown more false enthusiasm in my life, but it was actually kinda fun. By the end, I noticed that little things were much more apparent to me. For example, the kids were fascinated by bees, so I took lots of time to look for more bees.

Wednesday, I went out for Mexican food with Matt and two of his friends from high school (they live in the cities). I still don't have many of my own friends in the area, but I'm really enjoying the people Matt knows. Afterwards, we went hiking at my nature center. Nice to be social.

Thursday, I hit the gym. I get reimbursed by my health insurance for going to the gym, so I try hard to make it there frequently. This summer, I haven't gone as much as I would like to. But that's actually okay. I've been doing so much more that I'm still really happy with my level of activity.

Friday through Sunday, I was housesitting for a coworker. She's got a lovely husky-mix dog and a silly cat. I took the dog for a long walk Friday night and enjoyed a weekend free of internet.

Saturday, Matt and I went to the wedding of another high school friend. It was in Hastings at the Little Log House Village. It's a beautiful venue. I liked some things about the wedding and didn't like others -- I have low tolerance for some of the more popular wedding activities. I did manage to skip out on the bouquet toss by helping decorate the car (plus, I'm not technically single anymore, am I?). On balance, a really fun night filled with lots of dancing.

Sunday, we went to church in the morning. After church, we went and cut buckthorn. Buckthorn is an invasive small tree that forms a hedge. Lovely, I'm sure, but not in forests. It was imported from Europe. We're trying very hard to get rid of it at our nature center, so that's my big work of the next three weeks until my job is done. I had called a few other people, so there ended up being four of us working there. Matt pulled out the chainsaw, one guy had loppers, the third guy moved brush, and I poisoned all the stumps. We certainly didn't tackle everything (we have TONS of buckthorn), but we made a good dent and can tell where we worked. It was an excellent feeling to clear out that much in just two hours.

Now, I'm looking forward to another busy week filled with wildlife camp, book club, Night to Unite (a national neighborhood block party thing I'm working), and hopefully some canning. Life certainly is good.