A little blurb from the Gopher State

So I haven’t written in a bit, and I figured that it’s about time I get some words out there again.  So here goes.  

I keep hearing about this Harlem Shake thing, and I finally went out on YouTube to find out what all the fuss is about.  I don’t get it.  Maybe I’m too old or something.  It looks to me like a bunch of people (mostly dudes) shaking their wieners around while wearing bizarre costumes.  Please tell me if I’m missing something, because clearly, I don’t understand.  It is interesting to watch all the different variations people have done on it, some are actually quite creative.  But one thing seems to remain the same...the wiener shaking.  Kind of disturbing seeing someone do it in a spandex suit or a Speedo...hahaha!  

Jess and I hiking at Bear Mountain

I’ve been short all my life.  Relatively.  I peaked a few years ago at 5’5” (one time, Dana, I swear it actually happened!), but have been in the ballpark of 5’4 and change” for last few years.  When I graduated from high school I was 5’1” and continued to grow throughout college.  I was a late bloomer, I guess.  For most of my life, everyone around me has been taller than me, and those who were shorter were small children.  I was always looking up to some degree.  I went through a phase of dating guys who were 6’5” or taller...not sure what I was thinking.  I think I was just fascinated partly by the length of their forearms and lower legs.  Seriously...if I see a tall man, I stare at his arms and legs.  I can’t help it.  It’s just something that I do.  I just think to myself...his bones are SO long!  When Simon and I moved to Flagstaff, I found myself befriending some very short women.  Shorter than me.  I’m talking like 5 feet tall...with shoes on...if they’re lucky.  For the first time in my life, I actually felt tall.  I had to bend over to hug these women.  I found myself looking down rather than up to make eye contact.  It’s such a weird feeling at 33 years old to be taller than my peers.  

It completely boggles my mind how people who live in Rochester, who drive in winter conditions for roughly six months out of every year, cannot drive in the snow.  Insane.  I was out and about today and was just baffled by the amount of people driving 40 in a 65, by the number of people spinning their wheels in the middle of the road because they were canning on the accelerator, and by those who were fishtailing around every corner.  Come on Minnesota, you can drive better than that!  I’ve spent my last three winters living in Florida and even I remember how to drive in the snow.  And yes, having a four-wheel drive vehicle helps, but I’m finding that not all four-wheel drive vehicles drive the same.  For instance, my Grand Cherokee slides around way more than my Liberty ever did.  It fishtails so frequently that I’m honestly thinking about putting some bags of softener salt in the back.  It’s actually pretty ridiculous, to tell you the truth.  And yes, it has four-wheel drive functionality, but instead of your standard 4 low, 4 high, etc, it has SNOW, MUD, ROCKS, and SPORT.  What in the world is SPORT?  One would think that the fishtailing would greatly decrease while driving in snow with the SNOW function engaged, but there’s very little difference.  What exactly is SNOW anyway?  Is it 4 high?  Is it part-time 4 high where most of the power is still in the back, but a little bit is in the front?  What in the world is going on?  And why can’t I corner the thing in the snow?  Frustrating.  I suppose I should get around to reading the manual, but I feel like a moniker entitled SNOW ought to be pretty intuitive.  There I go, assuming things again.  

A funny thing about Flagstaff that I feel is worth mentioning is the number of seafoam green pickup trucks driving around.  Flagstaff isn’t really all that big, but it’s not tiny either.  During my time there I counted at least four different seafoam green trucks.  And on our way home, I saw another one sitting outside a house in eastern Arizona.  They are all different styles, makes, and models of trucks too, so it wasn’t just specific to one type.  I wonder if there was some sort of promotion?  They’re definitely not faded either...someone purposely painted them that color.  I tried to Google it, but came up with nothing.  I guess I’ll just have to keep wondering.  

Myself, Ellen, Candi, and Kate at the Disney Princess Race

Recently I ran my first half-marathon.  Well, I didn’t “run” it, per se, but I participated in it and I finished it, which was my only goal.  I actually ended up running more than I thought I would...I had initially planned on walking over half of it because I didn’t think that I would physically be able to run the entire time.  I really didn’t stop running (by my own accord) until around mile 10.  It’s weird how the energy of thousands of other people running right along with you motivates you.  The race I did was the Disney Princess Half-Marathon, and it was a complete spectacle.  From start to finish, a spectacle.  To set the stage, there were over 26,000 people who registered for this race.  About 23,000 or so actually showed up to run it...most of them wearing tutus...even the men.  :)  I ran with three other girls, and we all had matching tutus, which was fun.  I enjoyed that part of it.  I even enjoyed the running part of it, weird as that is.  I don’t know that I would ever do this particular race again though.  There were just too many people and the course wasn’t set up to handle the hoards of runners.  There was a point in the race where I knew with absolute certainty that if I tripped and fell, I would probably be trampled to death.  Not really a good thought when you’re supposed to be in the Happiest Place on Earth.  If you’ve been to Disney and you know Main Street in the Magic Kingdom, imagine thousands of runners trying to get through there at one time.  Not gonna happen.  Add to that the spectators that they allowed in to cheer us on, which narrowed the course even more.  I did appreciate the fact that people got up at the butt-crack of dawn to cheer us on though.  :)  We even went through Cinderella’s castle, which was a complete bottleneck.  I knew going into it that this race was not one where I would set a personal best for time, but I was a little taken aback by how the race itself turned out to be the limiting factor in my pace, and not the fact that I hadn’t trained all that hard in preparation for it.  There were so many people walking this race that it was impossible at times to get around them.  And I give them credit for walking it...13 miles is a long walk (and in 3 hours and 30 minutes besides), so I’m not ragging on people who walked it, especially since that was my original intention.  I just wish that the course would have been wider so that the runners could stick to one side, and the walkers could stick to the other.  With the amount of people there, that was pretty much impossible.  I’ve already signed up for another half-marathon taking place in Vancouver in August of this year.  The event capped at 10,000 runners, so it’ll be interesting to see how different it is from the Disney race.  I’m looking forward to it, and I’m looking forward to being able to run outside again.  I hate running on the treadmill.  

Us girls at Epcot

Back to Disney, I have to say that I was somewhat impressed by it.  I went into it thinking that it was going to be like any other tourist trap where they serve you crappy food, charge you exorbitant amounts of money for it, and don’t give you the time of day while doing it.  Every single employee I came into contact with was nothing but pleasant.  They were all smiling.  They go out of their way to talk to you and wish you good morning, good evening, etc.  I didn’t feel like the parks were nothing but gift shops, which was how I felt when I went to Universal Studios a few years back.  I liked that there are free shuttles running constantly that will transport you from park to park, to all the resorts, and to Downtown Disney, which is like a mall/shopping center.  Even the bus drivers were really pleasant.  The food we had was fantastic, definitely better than I had been expecting.  I was impressed that they actually had sit-down restaurants there, and not just little fast-food/cafeteria-style places.  It was more than what you’d pay at a typical restaurant, but I expected that.  The good thing was that I didn’t feel like I was being totally taken advantage of, even though I probably was.  Isn’t that what touristy places do?  Disney definitely has it dialed in to make you feel like you’re not a cuckhold, and they do it well.  One of the good things too about going to the Disney parks was that my friend’s cousin works for Disney, so he told us all the in’s and out’s of the parks and helped us move through them a little better than had we tried to navigate them on our own (and he got us in for free...bonus!).  Those parks are huge, and I would have gotten lost.  We ended up spending the majority of our day at Epcot, and we didn’t even see the whole thing.  I really enjoyed it there though, and am looking forward to going back someday.  One funny thing about Disney...they love their fireworks.  It’s almost comical how many fireworks the parks go though in the average day, and they like them off every single day.  When we started our marathon, they lit off fireworks at the start of each group.  My friend’s cousin made a comment that Disney spends more on fireworks in one day than his yearly salary.  Ouch.  The fireworks sure were pretty though.  So yeah...Disney gets a thumb’s up from me.  Universal Studios, on the other hand, was terrible.  I most likely will never go back there.  

A bit of my inspiration

So I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life when I grow up.  At 33 years old I still sometimes think that being a nurse is just something to do until the next thing comes along.  I thought that when I first started out nursing though, and here I am, almost 11 years later still doing the same thing.  I enjoy my job, even more so now that I’m doing the travel nursing aspect of it.  I think that it’s going to be a drastic change for me to go back to staying in one place for an indeterminate amount of time.  I like the flexibility of working my way through the country one hospital at a time.  But like all things, I know that I won’t be able to do it forever, and there will come a day when I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of working in hospitals.  I don’t know if it’ll be a single event that tips the tables or just a build up of things that I can’t get past.  It’s hard to say until I’m there.  I’ve been thinking though, that someday I might go back to school to be a mortician.  I know, that sounds morbid, but it’s something I’ve always found fascinating.  Actually, I think being a coroner would be even more interesting, but I’m not about to put myself through 8 years of medical school to learn how to treat living people, then do a total 180 and start working on people who have passed.  So yeah, I don’t know.  I’ve always felt a particular kinship to the dealings of end of life care.  I really enjoy hospice care in the hospital.  I think that there is a whole world of comfort you can bring to a person and their family members when death is near, and I enjoy providing that comfort.  I always have.  I think it’s something that I’m good at, and maybe something that I should pursue in the years ahead.  The jump from taking care of dying people to taking care of dead people doesn’t seem like that big of a stretch to me...it’s all a part of life.  It’s weird, I know, but I think it’s one of those things where you’re grateful that someone has an interest in it, because it’s not something that you’d never want to do yourself.  I feel that way about people who work with psych patients, or people who work in emergency rooms, people who build houses, people who fly airplanes...not something I ever care to do myself, but I’m glad there are people out there who do.  So yeah.  There’s that.  I think it’s years away, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about.  A lot of my friends have master’s degrees in one thing or another, and they ask me every now and then if I’ll ever get my master’s in nursing.  The answer has always been no.  I would have to completely change my role as a nurse if I got a master’s degree, and the roles that are currently available for master’s level nursing don’t interest me.  Too much responsibility, and I don’t care for any of the curriculums I’ve researched, and I know there’s going to come a day when I just don’t really want to work in healthcare.  I’m glad that I’ve found a new interest, because for a while there it was a little daunting to think that I didn’t have a backup plan in the event that nursing no longer was an option.

I’m not normally a person who hangs onto quotes, but I came across one the other day that really resonated with me: “There is no ideal world for you to wait around for. The world is always just what it is now, and it’s up to you how you respond to it.”  It’s so true.  I think that we waste so much time worrying about the future and what it holds for us, that sometimes we forget to live for today.  I have friends and family members who are actively preparing for the apocalypse.  To be honest, I don’t want to survive the apocalypse.  If the end of life as we know it comes down to fighting for resources and stashing away anything that might be construed as valuable, I don’t want anything to do with it.  No disrespect to those who intend to stick it out, but that just doesn’t interest me.  It also made me think about people who are on the brink of making the decision to have children, the ones who say, “I’m just not sure I want to raise a child in this world, the way it is now.”  The world is what it is.  My mom said that before having me, she had the same thought.  And here I am, doing just fine, living my own life...and pretty decently, if I say so myself.  Of course, there are all sorts of reasons not to have children, but I hope that the state of the world isn’t one of them.  You make your own utopia.  Of course, that’s easy for me say, seeing as I don’t want to have children of my own, screwed up world or not.  I think the world holds just as many dangers to adults as it does to children.  And honestly, is the world any more dangerous than it used to be?  Or does it just seem that way because of the media reporting every last grisly detail of every single crime against humanity?  I wonder about that sometimes.  I remember hearing about local crimes when I was growing up, and I remember then how scared we were at times.  And now we hear about crimes from all over the country, all over the world.  And it’s not that I don’t think we shouldn’t be aware of the atrocities that people do to each other, but do we need to hear about it so much?  Can’t we hear a little good news once in a while?  Can’t hear about how the good people in the world are making a difference?  It’s easy to think that our world is going to hell in a hand basket when all you hear about are the bad things.  

So I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.  I learned a long time ago that there’s no use feeling bad about failing in something that I never had a chance of succeeding in the first place.  Maybe my attitude on the whole thing is part of the problem.  Or not.  I don’t waste time thinking about it.  But with everyone talking about what they’re going to give up, or what they’re going to do more of this year, I can’t help but think of my own area of improvement.  So here are a few things that I’ve come up with for this year:  

1. I’m going to try to eat better.  I know, that’s vague, and everyone says that, but I’m really going to try to be aware of what I’m putting in my body.  I’m going to start buying meat from animals that are raised and killed humanely, preferably organic as well.  I’m going to try to eat more fruits and veggies, and to drink more water.  I’m going to eat less wheat and corn, as they are two of the biggest genetically modified food products, and I just don’t think we should be messing with that sort of thing, let alone eating it.  I know there are a lot of genetically modified food products out there and that cutting them all out is virtually impossible at this point, but until our government starts labeling them (like they should be) I’m going to try to stay away from the known obvious ones.  Simon and I have talked about trying to totally cut out corn and wheat products from our diet, which is going to be difficult.  But we’re going to try...it’s the least we can do.  
2. I’m going to try to find products that are certified cruelty-free, meaning they don’t use animal products and they don’t test their products on animals.  I’m not going all PETA on you all (although despite their craziness, they do some really great things every now and then), I just don’t think it’s right to test products on animals, not to mention the way they are tested is completely inhumane.  If you’d like to join me, a list of some known cruelty-free products can be found HERE.  Check out the comment threads, as they also contribute a few that are not in the original list, and some insight into some discrepancies with the original list.  
3. I’m going to try to exercise more, and I think participating in organized races is a good way to keep me on track with that.  I’m not going to go all crazy and run every single day, but I think that maintaining some sort of physical fitness is an attainable goal for me...that will be the hardest goal for me to reach, as I’m quite comfortable just sitting on the couch, or sitting at the computer stalking people on Facebook.  :)  Simon is a great motivator, but there are days even he can’t get me off the couch.  I’m going to try to work on that.  As I mentioned earlier, I signed up for a half-marathon in August, and I’ll be doing a Run For Your Lives 5k in April.  If you’re not familiar with Run For Your Lives, it’s an obstacle course race where people dressed up as zombies chase you while you’re running in an attempt to steal the flags off your belt.  Sounds interesting.  I might have nightmares afterwards.  
4. I will not shop at Walmart.  I’ve been working on this goal for several years now, and I’m going to try to be more steadfast in my resolve on this one.  I know I’m only one person, and I don‘t have hardcore reasons for not shopping there, but I don’t like what they do to communities, I don’t like the quality of products that they offer, and I don’t like the way they treat their employees.  I think that’s reason enough to stay away from there.
5. I might think about making some of my own household products.  That’s a lofty endeavor, and I’m not sure that I’m up for it.  But it’s something that I’ve been tossing around in my head.  A friend of mine has a blog and she’s started posting household products that she’s making, and she’s entitled them “good enough to eat.”  Everything that goes into her products is completely edible.  Her standpoint is that if it’s good enough for your insides, it’s good enough for your outsides.  I concur.
6. I am going to quit buying things.  I am a buyer of things...doesn’t matter what it is, I buy it.  I have more shoes, shirts, pants, bags, decks of cards, undies, socks, kitchen utensils, towels, and bath products than I know what to do with.  It’s obscene.  So I have decided that I will not buy anything new without first getting rid of something else.  And really, I could stand to get rid of things without replacing them.  How many long-sleeved shirts does one person need?  Apparently at one point I thought I needed somewhere in the ballpark of 40.  No big deal, right?  My friends love it when I do my yearly closet dive.  They take home things that have been worn once, twice, and sometimes not at all.  They even score things with the tags still on.  Good for them, not so good for me.  You’d think that after traveling for 7 years I would have learned to downsize by now.  Nope.  This is one of my most important goals for this year.  I should have put it at the top!  It’s hard traveling with so little though...there are times when I wish I had that certain shirt or those pair of jeans, when I wish I could keep up with the trends.  Funny how at the end of the day, all I ever wear are jeans, a tshirt, and a hoodie.  That’s just me.  I should embrace it.  I’ve actually been able to sell some of my nicer stuff on eBay, which has helped absorb some of my shopping deficits (sorry girls, Lululemon has high resale value, you’ll never see it in my closet-dive bin).  So there’s that.  I’m getting there.  It’s an illness.  Maybe I should go on meds.  Or just eat more chips...they make me happy...particularly the Kettle brand jalapeño ones...they’re the bomb.      

I sound like I’m turning into a hippie.  Maybe to some degree I am.  I think I’ve just reached a point where I don’t blindly trust what I’m being told, I don’t blindly trust what’s on a label, and I want to be as aware as I can be of what I’m eating, drinking, using, and coming into contact with on a day to day basis, and also how my choices affect others, both near and far.  I’m thinking about me and what I can do for myself to be the best me I can be.  :)  But...I’m being realistic about me and my life and the people in my life...I will not grill you on where you get your chicken, or where you buy your shoes, or what household products you use.  People make the best choices for themselves and their families, and just because they are different than mine, that doesn’t make them wrong.  The choices I’m making are for me and my household, and I don’t expect anyone else go out of their way for me.  So please, invite me over for dinner.  I love it when I don’t have to cook.  :)  And I’m not giving up Doritos.  I know they’re full of MSG, they’re made of corn, and probably more artificial flavors and colors than I can count, but I love those damn things.  I’ve had them exactly twice (well, maybe three times...do the little bags count??) since the beginning of the year.  So I’m not giving them up, but I’m going to try to eat less of them.  That’s a compromise I can live with.  :)