Stickittothemaneoisis...

So I know I should blog...

But sometimes its really hard to sit still and look at my life and what's been going on.

Thats when I start feeling blue. Just call me Madam Blueberry....

Its not that life is bad right now, or that I have any specific reason to feel so...blah. But when I sit still and analyze things that have been going on, thats when I begin to over-analyze whats going on, and then think really hard about how things were, and then a party starts. Not a fun party though. The kind of party that is saturated in selfishness, with a dap of despair...the pity party. Almost like a me-party, but not as fun and with less dance numbers.

It usually comes when I don't have anything to do. What the heck is up with that? Why do I have to keep going, at a lightening speed, filling every spare moment with some sort of activity to escape any sort of alone time because optimism only seems to accompany busyness in my life. Again, what the heck is up with that??

Don't get me wrong, work has been great. However, along with all the greatness, its been exhausting (especially when I forget to take my vitamins in the morning....confounded...) and all I look forward to doing is laying around, only wanting to worry about what food I'll eat and what movie I'll watch. And then when I actually get a few hours to myself, I just think I'm a lazy, depressive, tired, indecisive blob. Again, WHAT THE HECK IS UP WITH THAT?

So I'm taking back my alone time, refusing to let a foreign, untraceable pessimistic attitude destroy any amount of rejuvenation that could come from a few moments of rest. So there, Debby Downer.

I think I've come down with a case of stickittothemaneosis...

So now onto my blogging. Which I WILL do despite the fact that it will cause me to analyze my life, but I don't have to be afraid of that because I am actually doing a really good job at life these days. Like I said, work has been really good.

STARS is officially running now, and that meets 3 times a week at 3 different schools. AND (man, I'm really into cap locks today...) the exciting part is that I have my own small group during our STARS program on Tuesdays! Normally, that part is for just the college students, but fortunately, we didn't have enough college students to help out, and there are 30-40 students for me and my 3 leaders. 35ish students + 3 leaders = a fulfilled and happy Allie. So not only do I get to interact with about 90 students every week, but I get to have about a dozen of them all to myself. Yay for an opportunity to force my overflowing love on unsuspecting students.

Allie's job part II is also going quite well. Amber (the coordinator for the Worth Waiting For ministry) has been sent directly from God to not only fulfill her calling with this ministry and to spread a message that teens need to hear about sexual activity, but even more so to be my affirmer and encourager when I let worries and pressures make me doubt the vision I have for this program. Changes are a'coming, and we're the ones bringing them. That isn't always appreciated. I'm beginning to expect the following reply whenever I ask why we do things a certain way at work: "Because that's how we've always done it." That just makes it a little more interesting for us though, and they haven't stopped us yet :)

So what else then.... I don't know, why do you even read this?? I feel like this is a narcissist's dream, an outlet for them to write on and on and on about themselves, expecting people to read and appreciate every self-centered word. 

Sorry, the aforementioned Debby returned there for a bit, but I shut her up with a resounding "Who cares, you're not forcing anyone to read this, and people DO like me and want to know what's been going on in my life lately!" So yeah, continuing on in updating you on my life...

As I said, my weekends have been relatively full as of late. First, I went to Liberty University with Diane to visit the Southridge tribe. That was fantastic and overwhelming and wonderful, all at the same time. Then the next weekend, a fair amount of time (4-5 hours...) were spent in a used book store in Xenia. This place is (get ready for it, I'm about to use cap locks again) AMAZING. Its run by a guy that I'm pretty sure has read every single book in the store, and can give you not only a summary of the book, but a personal biography of the author, with at least 3 other recommendations. So yeah, that was pretty awesome. Then, the next weekend Marilyn and Richard McGillick traveled west to visit their Ohio-dwelling children. That was also a fantastic weekend, filled with food, flea markets, food, an air-force museum, food, food, and food. I literally still have leftovers. Since that weekend, life feels a little more normal here amongst the cornfields. Something about laying on your bed watching TV with your mom just makes the world better. Then, the weekend after that, I went "camping" with my dear friend Faith. I have a humorous anecdote from that weekend. I'll try to make it as dramatic realistic as possible...

Scene: Faith and I have arrived at a campsite about an hour outside of Pittsburg. Its dark, late, and we are delirious from being reunited once again. 

We decide to make a fire. 

Attempt number one. Lousy. 

Its okay though, because we know that someone somewhere has filmed themselves making a fire and was proud enough of their accomplishment to show the world via their Youtube account. 

Mr. Wilderness Explorer demonstrates for us how to properly build a fire, assuring us it will burn. We blindly trust him, build our fire, and set fire to it. 

It doesn't light.

I decided to mimic the way I've seen my dad build fires in our fireplace at home. Probably would have helped if we were in a house with a fireplace. Our in the wilderness, the same principles don't hold up.

Attempt number 3 was a fail. 

At this point, we're still tired, still delirious, but getting more and more pissed off at nature for not just creating a fire for us so that we could enjoy a perfect night in each other's company while eating s'mores. 

It was then I heard the other campers around us. We had decided that it would be terribly awkward to barge in on someone's personal campsite, as well as potentially life-threatening to appear to be 2 helpless girls out in the wilderness, but since moving out and starting a new life, I could care less about appearing awkward, and we had a door that locked on our cabin, and I knew I could scream pretty dang loudly, and I was taught how to rip out a man's eyeballs and punch through his throat from one session of self-defense class about 2 years ago. So I decided to venture into our neighbors campsite and ask for their help. 

I walked through the woods, calling out "Excuse me, sirs!" to our neighbors, informed them of our difficulties, made a joke about our incompetence, and they took enough pity on us to come over and help.

They looked to be two lumberjacks on vacation for a weekend in the woods. We were nervous, but saw they each had wedding rings on, so we trusted they wouldn't attack us and drag us into the woods and put a damper on our weekend together. 

As soon as they walked over and saw our fire-making attempt, they started laughing. At this point, I didn't care though because the inferno I saw at their campsite was too alluring, and I wanted them to duplicate their efforts for us. We exchanged names, and Greg and Rodney began making our fire. 

Rodney goes to retrieve more wood, and Greg begins to LITERALLY rip apart, with his bare hands, the logs we currently had in order to make kindling. I immediately regretted asking them to come help us, but reassured myself that I could still rip his eyeballs out if it came to it, and just trusted that he would only ever use his strength to provide camp fires for newbie-campers and never on innocent lives. Good thing he was just a nice guy. So Rodney returns with about 8 times the amount of wood we originally had (what, you need more than 5 logs?), Greg creates more kindling, they build our fire, set fire to it, we watched it burn... "as I touched your face!"....sorry, I don't think its possible to avoid an Adele reference when talking about fire. Anyways, we watched it burn, thanked them for their efforts they retreated to their campsite, and we finally got to sit in front of the fire and just enjoy being together.

End scene.

So now, I will give you a glimpse into all of these events with a few pictures. I don't have one from the weekend with my parents (maybe you guys want to email me those??), but I'll give you what I have so far.

Small group time at STARS! This is our group on Wednesdays.

And a montage of our trip to Lynchburg....

Uber excited to leave Ohio and visit friends!!

Who doesn't need 4 separate baskets of chips when you go out to a mexican restaurant?

Because when we go to a hockey game, we only take picture of ourselves, not the game...even when a fight breaks out right in front of us...on the ice, not in the stands...

Two words. Cook. Out.

We took a picture because we basically wore the same thing, but I liked this one better than the pretty posing one. It stemmed from the wind creating a gaucho effect on our skirts, and we couldn't stand for that, now could we...

My new favorite place in Ohio...

Because who doesn't take a picture outside of their favorite used book store??

And onto the wilderness adventure...

Had to include a picture of the Greg-Rodney fire. Thanks guys.

Breakfast time...this moment brought to you by Keurig...thank goodness for our cottage and it's power outlet.

Being hardcore with our toast-making...and by hardcore, I mean ridiculous of course.

Never mind, not ridiculous, definitely hardcore...I mean, we made toast without a toaster. 

Found a town to walk through that had Christmas-themed shops open. We were 99.9% sure this is the town "Gilmore Girls" based "Stars Hollow" after. 

Photographic proof that my head is somehow twice the size of Faiths... or I just can't take selfies....

Stars Hollow's Smicksburg's Library. Also doubles as a bird house when empty. That 2nd part may not be entirely true.

Faith modeling our hardcore, cocoon-like sleeping bags. We thought we might get cold over the weekend. Instead, we had to open the windows during the night because we were so sweaty. But man, they were wonderfully cozy.

Cooking dinner. See below...

Hot dogs and crescent rolls. The most amazing campfire food. Ever.

Our home for the weekend!

Last morning. Such a great weekend, thanks Roomie!!!

Since that weekend, it was another great/exhausting/fulfilling week at work, ending with a fantastic conference, all about the casual sex culture here in America. I had never acquired so much useful information for work. It felt like they knew exactly how I needed to be encourage and gave me just the right information I needed to go into the public schools and talk to students about Sexual Risk Avoidance....aka abstinence. That was most definitely a divine provision. Thanks God. 

So I guess it's only natural that after all of that, I would feel a little lazy just laying around not doing anything. But I hate how depression always seems to creep in when I'm just...still. I don't want to fear a time of solitary rest. I always crave alone time, then when I'm in it, freak out and don't know what to do with myself. But this time of reflection was actually really good! It helps to affirm that I really am doing ok. I've moved to a new place, but I'm still making the most of it. And guess what???

Only 17 more days until I get to come home!!!!!!!

Then I'm home for a week, then back here for two weeks, then back home for 3 weeks. Its going to be great :)

Thanks for reading this, and keeping up with me. Sometimes it feels like I'm just ranting and wasting time, but hopefully you get some sort of kick out of reading about my life. 

Remember when God actually knew what He was doing with my life?? Crazy...