Inadequate

I just got to thinking about my education, my schooling, my life. And I felt so inadequate. I don't feel like I know enough, am smart enough, am where I should be with my schooling. I started crying I was so mad at myself. I told myself I hadn't done anything I expected myself to. I haven't reached the goals I set for myself. I wrote out lists of ideas of things to learn and do, and I haven't done them. And I regret it so much, because there is SO much I could be doing, could've done. I wasted time. And I feel like crap.
So know I have to go back and think of all the things I have done, all the things I've learned. I have to write them down, evaluate, talk, and think about them. Ask if I have indeed, learned anything worth learning. If I am at a point where I can say I'm educated, if I am able to function in society successfully with the education I have. If not, I need to write out how I can get there. I SO want to learn! I so want to know, to grow, to use the time and opportunities that I have and feel accomplished. To feel like I know something. To say that I was successful in school. I keep pretending. I keep telling people that I'm doing good, school's going well. In all actuality, it might be, but I don't feel like it is. I feel like I've done nothing. I do not want to go back to highschool, I do not wish I was there. I just wish I was accountable, and responsible. I wish I was motivated and did all of the AMAZING things that I could do. I need to get there. I don't know how, but that is where I have to get to. I need to know that I'm not a failure.
The next step is to figure that out, to write down what I have and compile it into some portfolio, some format. I need to finish the projects I started, and write down what I have learned from them. Then I need to finish what I still need to learn. I can't keep pretending and feeling like I am going nowhere!

St. Nicholas Day

Happy St. Nicholas Day!
Today is one of my favorite holidays. Not super huge like Christmas, but super special. I cherish it. Today I woke up and got to the pre-school by 8:45, like every Tuesday and Thursday now until May! I didn't think that I would like working at a pre-school, but I actually am really enjoying it. I know that these kids probably won't remember me in a couple of years, but it's really fun to watch them learn. It's so cool to see the world though their eyes, at their level. Watch how each of them have different personalities and learning styles. Today I helped Aletheia make her advent wreath...we dipped their hands in green paint and had them put their handprints on a piece of paper in a circle...it ended up looking like a wreath of boughs. Then we took red paint and with their index finger had them make berries. They turned out all different, but really neat. We will tape an advent candle on at the end of each week.

When I got home from pre-school, I helped Mom hang up grass mats in Uncle Dave's room that he brought home from India. They smelled like Grandpa's oats for his horses. I love that smell! Then I finished up my book "Hattie Big Sky". It had a nice ending...she didn't prove up on her claim, unfortunately, but she found a family, and Charlie was coming home from the war and wrote her a letter saying he was sweet on her. Awww! :) In the back of the book though are recipes, and I think I might make one as a little book project. One is a eggless, butterless, milkless cake. An endnote said it was sometimes called a Depression Cake.
Then Elly and I made a sign that says Welcome Home Randy, as our Thursday project. It was fun, and our poster is very colorful. Randy comes home in 9 days! Yipee!
I printed out our Order sheet for KCC, and took it over to church to make double-sided copies. I hope it works out.
Tonight the ladies in our church all got together for an ornament party. It was actually really really fun. We went to Pam Schell's house and all brought a snack to share, and then gathered in the living room. We all had numbers, and we each got to open a gift, or steal a gift from someone. Once a gift has been stolen 3 times it stays with that person. I got a little woodland Santa...It's a Santa wearing a long red and white coat, holding a bird in his hand, and carrying a sack with little sticks on his back. He is really cute, and I stole him from Janice. She really wants him though, perhaps I will enjoy him until Christmas and give it to her as a Christmas present. He's adorable though!
I'm going to sleep. Guten Nacht.

Kaarre Culinary Creations

Mom, Erika, Nikki and I put an ad in that newspaper for Kaarre Culinary Creations. We just want to see if anybody needs some baking done this holiday season. We're offering cookie trays, pies, yeast and quick breads, appetizers, and candies...I wrote up the ad, and made a price and order sheet. We got our first order last night. Mom, Dad and I were talking that, even if we don't make much of a profit on this, it can be a service for people like Mrs. Johnson who lives in assisted care and can't bake or get out. But she wants to have treats to share. How cool is that that this can just be a service for people like her!
Today I woke up and read for a couple hours. I'm currently reading a book called "Hattie Big Sky" by Kirby Larson, that I got from the library. It is about an orphaned 16 year old girl who, during World War I, receives a letter that gives her a 320-acre homestead in Montana. Her uncle whom she had never met recently died, and left her his homestead. Only problem was, it wasn't proved up yet. Hattie has 11 months to build 460 rods of fence, and plant 40 acres of harvested crops.
After I read I organized our upstairs hallway closet full of blankets and sheets. Oh my! Then I came to City Brew and finished Lesson 9 in my Algebra 2 book. Lesson 9 is about percent word problems. After I finished up that lesson, I worked on creating the order form for the above mentioned Kaarre Culinary Creations. That took a while, actually, but hopefully it'll be usable. The nice thing is that this is practice, just for us. If it isn't efficient, we can just change it. It's not like I'll get fired from my job for messing up, this is just a cool learning experience I get to try. Trial and error! :)
Tonight we have our first soup supper and advent service at church! Woot!

Hunting Tales

Hunting Season. Great fun for all, especially those who get to cut up all the game! Haha. Daddy got 5 deer over on the East Side and we spent the weekend cutting them up. I learned how to use the Food Saver [vacuum sealer] and that was fun!
I went up to Grandpa's and went for a walk with him to check on the cows. You learn so much from just being around him! We were looking at a couple cows that were acting sick earlier that day because they wouldn't eat. We went back into the house and I beat Grandpa twice at double solitaire!
I then drove to Eureka to visit Erika, Jilly, and baby Meredith! I had to re-learn how to hold little babies! She was adorable. I almost fell asleep in the rocking chair too, with her head against my cheek. Aw!
Today I drove back to Whitefish with Dad. I worked on some algebra, and it kicked my butt. I wish I could think mathematically, it just doesn't work for me. I'm all over geometry. Those problem I could do! And the most frustrating part is I thought I knew how to do them! But I worked the problem every different way I knew how, and I still couldn't get the right answer! Oh well. I'm going to try and fix those ones tomorrow.
I also picked up a guitar this weekend and realized that I need to practice playing without looking at my fingers. I can't play without looking and seeing where my chord hand is. And I started playing Randy's djembe drum! It was so fun!
I'll write about pottery next time. I'm going to go watch Ocean's 13!

Trick or Treat

Today I learned something really cool about God's timing. I walked to the library and ended up spending a good hour or so sitting in a comfy chair reading the part of the first Harry Potter book. After I realize how long I had sat there and wondered why the heck I had wasted so much time, I brought the book back to put it away and Adrienne was there. She was working at one of the tables, and I sat down and talked with her for a good 20 minutes or so. It was a really really neat talk, and I am glad I was there. And then tonight at the Ablaze bible study at church we talked about the Holy Spirit, and how he works in our lives, and orchestrates things. Oh, so true.

And today was, afterall, Halloween. Halloween is great until you get to be about 13. Trick or treating is one of the greatest things ever though. Mom spent the day making Elly a costume, and it was beautiful. She was an Indian Princess. She had a fringed dress with beads and bells and embroidery. It was so neat. In her headband she had a feather from Dad's turkey that he got last spring. She wore a beaded leather belt too, and just looked so cute.

I picked up a book while I was a the library called Hitch and it is by Jeanette Ingold, who also wrote Mountain Solo and The Big Burn, two other books which I enjoyed immensely. I wrote about The Big Burn when I read it last year. Hitch is about a seventeen year old boy from Texas who joins a CCC [Civilian Conservation Corps] crew in Montana during the Great Depression. It weaves an amazing story about these boys who mostly joined because they had to; they desperately needed a job. How for six months they learned, lived, worked and built together. In the book there are some great moments where their work goes beyond just a job, it's not about politics, it's about what people really need. When the main character, Moss, reflects on how different it will be when they all leave and won't be together anymore, it sort of reminded me of my own summer at the ranch. Granted, we weren't working during the Depression, we didn't help rebuild a piece of land, a community, a country...But we lived and worked together away from each of our own personal lives, just sharing that time, together. And it didn't last either, but it prepared us for things we'll go through in the future. Just like in the book, where the author subtly hints to the coming of World War II, that they were preparing for something more, and these boys who would be the men to fight it.
It's a good book.

Amazing Grace

I am currently listening to a version of "Amazing Grace" by Alabama. Hmm. I love this song.
Today I was home alone except for Uncle Dave. Everyone else was up at Pinkham. I woke up and read my history book first. I am reading A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn. The chapter I read today was called "Drawing the Color Line" Zinn discusses how Africans came to be enslaved in the New World. The Americas were in desperate need of manpower to cultivate land and crops for food. Indians were in their own land, and Whites were in their own European culture, making it hard to impossible to make them slaves. Africans however, were made morally and physically helpless in the face of this force, because they were taken away from their land, their culture, their families, and treated as less than human. This is not to say they were completely cooperative. Who could be? They put up their own resistance, in their own way. The chapter focuses on the fact that if racism isn't natural, then it is a consequence of certain conditions. Those were the conditions that made it possible to enslave a certain race for over 200 years.

Then I made myself an incredibly little lunch. I toasted a piece of bread in a pan on the stove with olive oil, salt, garlic, and alpine touch. Then I sliced a not-quite-ripe tomato and fried it in the same pan with some garlic salt and lemon pepper ground on it. Then I put the fried tomatoes on the toast and ate it like a sandwich. Green Fried Tomatoes...who woulda thought?

I spent the afternoon cleaning and re-arranging Elly's room. I made her a little chair/couch in the corner with pillows, Grandma Lempi's couch cushion, and Erika's pillow. It's her little reading corner. Her crates of books are on either side. I strung up some colored Christmas lights and moved around the dressers. I bought her some pretty little purple and white carnations! Then I neatly folded and laid out all of the new clothes Mommy and I bought her on the bed. Seeing her face and hearing her giggle when she saw it all was PRICELESS!

Youth group was great tonight. We had our first Iron Group night of the year. Iron Groups are just the small groups within the large group. When you have 75 kids showing up on any given Tuesday, it's hard to connect with them all. So once a month we have Iron Groups, where we meet and get to know eachother as a little family. This year Chad and Nadine are leading the a group of all Jr. High age kids, and I am helping lead it. At first I didn't really want to do it, but I am very glad I decided too. It'll challenge me to step out, do something different, really get to know people. Lead, and love them! We mostly just got to know eachother and play games. We had a really good time, actually. Chaemous, Ethan, and Shirley are also helping lead.

I need sleep. *twas grace that taught my heart to fear, twas grace my fear relieved*

Chacos & Pottery

Today Elly and I spent our Thursday together at the Ceramics Annex that is in the Stumptown Art Studio. SAS is a non-profit art center, and they have "Paint Your Own Pottery" as a continuous fundraiser. You can go in and choose one of their plain white pottery pieces...they have everything. Figurines, tea pots, wine decanters, mugs, margarita glasses, plates, platters, light switch covers, beer steins, serving and mixing bowls... Then you go grab a tile that serves as your palette, pick your colors and go sit at a table, each with its own pot of brushes. When you are finished you leave it with them for a week so they can glaze and fire it. Each piece is a different price, and all the funds go to support the studio. The studio holds classes for adults and kids. I had never done anything with pottery, and it was amazingly enjoyable. I painted a gravy boat and Elly painted a cowboy boot. The studio also has walk-in glass fusing. Here you take bits of glass and can make tiles, plates, pendants, candle-holders, wine stoppers, and more by arranging the different colors and then firing it through a kiln, which melts the glass together. I want to try that next time!

This morning I met with Nadine. Bless her! She is one of the neatest women I know. I am so glad I have her in my life as a mentor and friend. Today we just basically talked. A little bit about everything. We talked about the house on Skyles Lake owned by Rick Hubble. I called him yesterday and talked with him about the house. He owns a house that isn't finished yet, but he isn't using it for anything. I've talked to Dad, Mom, Sandy, Keith Haas, Nadine and a couple other people about maybe leasing and using it for ministry. It could serve as a base for Athelas. We can house people there, host events and dinners. It could be used as a meeting place. We could rent it out. It's all just really exciting. Rick lives in Salt Lake, but is coming up here to Whitefish this weekend, so hopefully we can meet with him.

Yesterday I went to City Brew and spent some time just working on stuff. I looked on the internet for the Alaskan Icefield Expeditions website. AIE is based on the Mendenhall glacier in Juneau, and the Denver glacier in Skagway. They helicopter guests off of a cruise ship and bring them on dog sled tours on the glaciers. Anyway, a bunch of people who work there came to the ranch and told Mom and Dad all about their company. They are hiring for next summer. I also looked on the Youth Encounter website about their community based teams. They have their Captive Free teams that travel around and do events, but the community based teams I think are essentially trained the same way, but they stay in a community for up to a year, and work with the local church. I think that would be wonderful for our church. There are a lot of ministries that they can be involved in. There's Athelas, Potter's Field, Trinity Camp, Dickey Lake Camp, Hungry Horse Camp, and so many other ministries. They can work with Chad and Nadine and do things at the Edge. I just there is so much they could be used for. It would be really neat!
While I was out, I finally mailed my Chaco sandals to get repaired. The soles started peeling and I hadn't even had them a year! So hopefully I'll get them back soon. I noticed they were peeling back in July, but I had to wear them out to the end of the Chaco weather season before I could mail them in. Haha. Now that its cold and October, I figured I'd waited long enough.

Yesterday I also worked on my design project. It's not going very well, however. I really don't know what else to do. I'll write about that later.

I'm going to go wash out the paint I got in my hair at the pottery place. I am blue!