I really am quite attached to this boy. But seeing that 3 out of the 4 female goats I have are his daughters, I really can't keep him anymore. If I had more space he'd have a forever home; he's a very very sweet boy as well as having great comformation. Bummer. I just hope I can find him a home somewhere nearby.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Buck for Sale
I really am quite attached to this boy. But seeing that 3 out of the 4 female goats I have are his daughters, I really can't keep him anymore. If I had more space he'd have a forever home; he's a very very sweet boy as well as having great comformation. Bummer. I just hope I can find him a home somewhere nearby.
Monday, March 14, 2011
Sisyphus
Although not greek mythology here, I can certainly sympathize with the poor guy these days. I've made it more than halfway through my last semester of nursing school. The days of rolling the boulder up the hill should be waning.
I've had what feels like an inordinate amount of clinical hours and extra "busy work" this semester. I did my first 12 hour night shift for one of them, shadowing a house officer at the hospital. It was a terrific experience. Working nights never appealed to me in the past, and it was such a strange feeling having my previous adversion drift away into halfway liking the idea. The hospital was quite a tranquil place at night. The people were diffferent, seeming to care more, the patients were mostly sleeping. On the downside, it took a redbull, two mountain dews to get through it, and three days afterwards to recover from it..
I'll try to keep this updated a bit more. There's been a lot going on of course. One of my goats has given birth to twin girls, the other is still very pregnant. Spring is just around the corner and it's lovely to go out and enjoy the fresh air while seeing hints of green bravely peeking out from the soil. My sister has been working very dilligently with her pony, Posey, who has *mostly* been quite well behaved. Unfortunately Posey was very good pals with my male goat, Buster, who thought it was great fun to chew her tail off. So now she looks like a foal... much to my sisters disgust.
I've had what feels like an inordinate amount of clinical hours and extra "busy work" this semester. I did my first 12 hour night shift for one of them, shadowing a house officer at the hospital. It was a terrific experience. Working nights never appealed to me in the past, and it was such a strange feeling having my previous adversion drift away into halfway liking the idea. The hospital was quite a tranquil place at night. The people were diffferent, seeming to care more, the patients were mostly sleeping. On the downside, it took a redbull, two mountain dews to get through it, and three days afterwards to recover from it.
I'll try to keep this updated a bit more. There's been a lot going on of course. One of my goats has given birth to twin girls, the other is still very pregnant. Spring is just around the corner and it's lovely to go out and enjoy the fresh air while seeing hints of green bravely peeking out from the soil. My sister has been working very dilligently with her pony, Posey, who has *mostly* been quite well behaved. Unfortunately Posey was very good pals with my male goat, Buster, who thought it was great fun to chew her tail off. So now she looks like a foal... much to my sisters disgust.
Thursday, October 14, 2010
GoodMorning World.
Obviously, I've been terrible at updating this poor neglected site. I'm succumbing to the reminders and finally doing the deed.
School is absolutely awful this semester so I anticipate with my procrastinating tendencies I will be updating with great frequency. :) Or something like that.
Family are all doing well. Mum, Dad, and Elsie returned home a couple weeks ago after spending 3 weeks in Devon, England. They had a lovely time and brought back happy memories and pictures that made my heart ache.
Elsie is doing well in school and loves having Posie back home. They had boarded her at some Amish friends while they were away and the kids had been driving her every day. One of the little girls was in tears when we came to pick the pony up. Posie is driving like a champ now. I'm not sure who's enjoying it more - Mum or Elsie! Mum drove her with a friend clear across town yesterday.
My cousin Lars got married this Saturday past. His new wife, Kate, is my best friend's sister. I went over early Saturday morning bearing a whole stack of Starbucks' mochas. Let's just say I was well recieved. :) It was a beautiful fall day, unseasonably warm, everything went smoothly and it was a very nice time.
Grandma is home again after spending a few weeks in New Zealand with my Aunty Becky's family. Although it was terrific she was able to go, it's so nice to have her back home again.
Well, that's about all I can think of for news at the moment.
School is absolutely awful this semester so I anticipate with my procrastinating tendencies I will be updating with great frequency. :) Or something like that.
Family are all doing well. Mum, Dad, and Elsie returned home a couple weeks ago after spending 3 weeks in Devon, England. They had a lovely time and brought back happy memories and pictures that made my heart ache.
Elsie is doing well in school and loves having Posie back home. They had boarded her at some Amish friends while they were away and the kids had been driving her every day. One of the little girls was in tears when we came to pick the pony up. Posie is driving like a champ now. I'm not sure who's enjoying it more - Mum or Elsie! Mum drove her with a friend clear across town yesterday.
My cousin Lars got married this Saturday past. His new wife, Kate, is my best friend's sister. I went over early Saturday morning bearing a whole stack of Starbucks' mochas. Let's just say I was well recieved. :) It was a beautiful fall day, unseasonably warm, everything went smoothly and it was a very nice time.
Grandma is home again after spending a few weeks in New Zealand with my Aunty Becky's family. Although it was terrific she was able to go, it's so nice to have her back home again.
Well, that's about all I can think of for news at the moment.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
The Hotel by Morning's Light
The hotel had a locked court yard where cars could be parked etc.
Our "apartment"/room was at the very end and up some stairs.
The streets look far less threatening in the day time!
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Day of Flights, Fights, and Buses
Mum very kindly woke up at 3am to drive me to Champaign so I could meet with my group and leave for the airport. My anxiety levels were fairly high as the only person I knew fairly well in our group was our instructor. There were four of us going from our college, two guys and Monica and I.
We caught our flight to Miami and had a four hour layover while we waited for our flight to Quito. I'm not a fan of the Miami airport- it's very disorganized. It did make up for it by having a Cuban restaurant/cafeteria and I got some delicious pork and rice with fried plantains on the side. little did I know that this was preparing me for all the fried plantains I would be seeing on my dinner plate in the near future! :) One of the guys called them "Banana-potatoes" which was a fairly apt description. Boarding our plane we met 4 of the group that came from Oklahoma but still hadn't ran into any of the ones from Florida or Minnesota.
The flight from Miami to Quito was only 4 hours or so and soon we were landing. It was immediately overwhelming - rushed conversations in fast-flowing spanish that I had a hard time even catching a few phrases of, being pushed out of the plane, down the stairs and onto the blacktop runway, trying to juggle to right travel documents at the right time only to find you needed the one you've just put back into your pack. We managed to find our huge fleet of suitcases (we'd take a bunch of donations and lice treatments for various communities in the rain forest so completely maxed out our baggage allowance) and were running into others from our group until we were twenty of us together rather bewildered waiting for our bus. One of the instructors, Katheryn, was already in Ecuador to make all the prearrangements and soon she had found us and we were all being herded towards a bus she had chartered to take us to our hotel. The asphalt parking lot was uneven, buckled and anything but level so with eyes on the ground to prevent tripping we got on the bus and away we went. I had forgotten how crazy the traffic is - any semblance of traffic law seems to completely go out the window. The best practise to keep stress levels down was to simply not pay attention to the bus driver or surrounding cars.
We arrived at our hotel and Monica and I were sharing a room in a three bedroom apartment-type place with 4 of the Oklahoma girls. She and I had "clicked" and it was so nice to have a friendly face in the group of strangers. The six of us girls decided to go out and find the internet cafe that also had phone "cabanas" where we could call home. We followed our directions and found the place, made our calls, went to a small restaurant to get a bite to eat, then left to go back to the hotel. Unfortunately, while we were eating the roads jumped up and rearranged themselves so when we went to return we got very lost. By this time it was about 11 or 12 at night and the city was alive with all sorts of characters no one was used to seeing where we came from. A group of 6 girls attracted a lot of unwelcome attention and soon we had cars with guys pulling up along side the sidewalk and catcalling/yelling at us. Doing the best to ignore all this we were met with a fist-fight on the next corner and as we crossed the street to get away from this a prostitute took off her shirt in front of us while her "manager" was yelling something to us in spanish. We saw more of this and soon some of us started to get rather panic-y as it became apparent that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time and unless we got out of there quickly this was not going to end well. I was praying as we walked along and suddenly spotted a taxi out of the corner of my eye. I hadn't used my spanish at all yet and was very rusty but ran over to him and managed to remember the necessary words to ask for directions. I maintain that this man was an absolute God-send. After giving us directions and watching us scurry off, he circled around in his cab and found us after we had taken the wrong street again, correcting us. Then he went down the street our hotel was on, got out of his cab and waved his arms at us, pointing out our hotel. We were a very relieved and sobered group as we finally got back to the safety of our room. The experiences of this first night would color our outlook and everyone was rather cautious from then on. But this is also the reason I couldn't blog - realizing just how dangerous it was to be in small groups or alone out on the streets, I had to go to the internet cafe with the others. The next day we had heard to that several others had gone out and had seen a couple muggings happen right in front of them, as well as much of the other stuff that we had seen.
Very weary we all crashed into our beds, excited for whatever the next day would bring.
We caught our flight to Miami and had a four hour layover while we waited for our flight to Quito. I'm not a fan of the Miami airport- it's very disorganized. It did make up for it by having a Cuban restaurant/cafeteria and I got some delicious pork and rice with fried plantains on the side. little did I know that this was preparing me for all the fried plantains I would be seeing on my dinner plate in the near future! :) One of the guys called them "Banana-potatoes" which was a fairly apt description. Boarding our plane we met 4 of the group that came from Oklahoma but still hadn't ran into any of the ones from Florida or Minnesota.
The flight from Miami to Quito was only 4 hours or so and soon we were landing. It was immediately overwhelming - rushed conversations in fast-flowing spanish that I had a hard time even catching a few phrases of, being pushed out of the plane, down the stairs and onto the blacktop runway, trying to juggle to right travel documents at the right time only to find you needed the one you've just put back into your pack. We managed to find our huge fleet of suitcases (we'd take a bunch of donations and lice treatments for various communities in the rain forest so completely maxed out our baggage allowance) and were running into others from our group until we were twenty of us together rather bewildered waiting for our bus. One of the instructors, Katheryn, was already in Ecuador to make all the prearrangements and soon she had found us and we were all being herded towards a bus she had chartered to take us to our hotel. The asphalt parking lot was uneven, buckled and anything but level so with eyes on the ground to prevent tripping we got on the bus and away we went. I had forgotten how crazy the traffic is - any semblance of traffic law seems to completely go out the window. The best practise to keep stress levels down was to simply not pay attention to the bus driver or surrounding cars.
We arrived at our hotel and Monica and I were sharing a room in a three bedroom apartment-type place with 4 of the Oklahoma girls. She and I had "clicked" and it was so nice to have a friendly face in the group of strangers. The six of us girls decided to go out and find the internet cafe that also had phone "cabanas" where we could call home. We followed our directions and found the place, made our calls, went to a small restaurant to get a bite to eat, then left to go back to the hotel. Unfortunately, while we were eating the roads jumped up and rearranged themselves so when we went to return we got very lost. By this time it was about 11 or 12 at night and the city was alive with all sorts of characters no one was used to seeing where we came from. A group of 6 girls attracted a lot of unwelcome attention and soon we had cars with guys pulling up along side the sidewalk and catcalling/yelling at us. Doing the best to ignore all this we were met with a fist-fight on the next corner and as we crossed the street to get away from this a prostitute took off her shirt in front of us while her "manager" was yelling something to us in spanish. We saw more of this and soon some of us started to get rather panic-y as it became apparent that we were in the wrong place at the wrong time and unless we got out of there quickly this was not going to end well. I was praying as we walked along and suddenly spotted a taxi out of the corner of my eye. I hadn't used my spanish at all yet and was very rusty but ran over to him and managed to remember the necessary words to ask for directions. I maintain that this man was an absolute God-send. After giving us directions and watching us scurry off, he circled around in his cab and found us after we had taken the wrong street again, correcting us. Then he went down the street our hotel was on, got out of his cab and waved his arms at us, pointing out our hotel. We were a very relieved and sobered group as we finally got back to the safety of our room. The experiences of this first night would color our outlook and everyone was rather cautious from then on. But this is also the reason I couldn't blog - realizing just how dangerous it was to be in small groups or alone out on the streets, I had to go to the internet cafe with the others. The next day we had heard to that several others had gone out and had seen a couple muggings happen right in front of them, as well as much of the other stuff that we had seen.
Very weary we all crashed into our beds, excited for whatever the next day would bring.
Well...
about that plan to post daily while in Ecuador - obviously didn't happen. I'm home now but I will go back and post pictures/posts for each day. I just wasn't able to get access to the internet cafe, and due to safety issues we really couldn't go anywhere alone.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
A Return to MiddleEarth
My uncle and I went on an expedition to Ecuador 5 years ago. It was an incredible experience; the sights, smells, environment were a literal "assault on the senses"... the poverty and general economic situation, heartbreaking. I was a self-centered teenager and the exposure to a reality I had no idea existed was life changing.
In the back of my mind I really wanted to go back one day. "One Day"... kinda concept you don't exactly expect to happen.
Until.... it jumps out at you waving it's arms wildly.
"One Day" has come for me.
I am enrolled in my local Nursing Program. I've almost finished my first year and have one year to go. Yes, I'm counting down! I've been very happy with the program - the classes are difficult, but my classmates have been amazingly cohesive and our instructors extraordinarily kind. My advisor is the coordinator for the "Transcultural Nursing" program; a program for nursing students to experience what nursing is like in other countries.The country they were going to was Ecuador.
To say I was excited is an understatement. I talked to my family and prayed about the opportunity. It involved writing an essay on which your acceptance into the program was based, this year there were 4 seats for my school's students.
Amazingly, I got one of them.
The program is only two weeks long; one week spent in Quito the capital city, the second week in the jungle/rainforrest. We'll have internet/phone access while in the city so I plan on keeping up the blog during that time. The week in the rain forest has admittedly captured my rampant imagination like sparks kindling a prairie fire. :)
Anywayz, the departure date is set for the end of May - rapidly approaching. Please pray for me and our program as we get thru finals and try to get everything together for our trip!
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Hi, We're New Here!
We're two little orphan lambs who have decided that "Star" the dairy goat is our new mommy!
She's really not impressed with us. But we're sure she'll come around.... maybe... eventually.
Off to Work
I have a job where the commute is always interesting...
The work area open and spacious...
The coworkers are easy to work with....
And although the work is hard, it's very satisfying. :)
(on this particular day we were pulling up growing plastic from the previous yr so the ground could be prepared for the growing season. I was coated in dirt from head to toe by the time we finished for the day, had collected more sticky burrs than I thought my clothes could pick up, and only saw one snake.)
The work area open and spacious...
The coworkers are easy to work with....
And although the work is hard, it's very satisfying. :)
(on this particular day we were pulling up growing plastic from the previous yr so the ground could be prepared for the growing season. I was coated in dirt from head to toe by the time we finished for the day, had collected more sticky burrs than I thought my clothes could pick up, and only saw one snake.)
