Joys of Unplugging

Well, this summer at Cedar we're encouraging even further unplugging from technology, and worked out the details just this week. I think it's interesting that I also came across this article on unplugging today.

Since I was just nominated for community services by the Peace Corps this week, I've been surfing for more information in that area as well as other programs and organizations committed to service. There is so much out there, it has me a little sidetracked from my 'homework' of looking into costs and details for traveling to and around Tanzania, Morocco, Spain, and France!

Happy April, everyone. I hope you're enjoying the rain which brings green back to us! As for me, I'm still seeing snow and might just drive home through a blizzard tonight.

Midwest travels

It's been a big weekend for my main man Gilbert and me. We've zipped from Cedar Campus to Mount Pleasant to Chicago to Pleasant Vineyard to Cincinnati to Sturgis and back home to Cedar once more. Not counting all the times I had to turn around to find the exit or an alternate route, we added about 2,000 miles in 5 days to Gil's odometer.



He ate that road up, giving me as much as 37 mpg! I guess prayer works :)

And as for me, I gained some amazing conversations and memories out of the deal. I had the chance to reconnect up close and personally with a whopping 13 friends! They've known me in various stages of life, from all my life, high school, college, and camp to camp. Lisa, Liz, Susan, Meredith, Ya Li, Gao, Dong, Rob, Lance, Bob, Kathy, Maribeth, Kat, my grandparents, and my mother got the most time.. but there were a bunch more I was able to sit and chat with.. It's really interesting for me to see how they view me and how they see me taking them in, and to hear how life has been since the times we lived alongside each other. They definitely were conversations worth driving for, each of them. And the hugs!

It was crazy, fitting it all into 5 days.

I also had the chance to interview with the peace corps while in Chicago, eat authentic home-cooked Chinese dinner, walk and talk camp and life with Rob while walking the watery grounds at PVM, attend Chinese church for a Good Friday service with great music, gab with awesome people at Applebees, bowl and haul a player piano with Eric and Lance, and spend lots of time thinking as Gilbert took me from place to place. Sometimes I wish I didn't think so much.

Work today was difficult, sitting to the task once more of getting ready for the summer camp season, knowing that I am so far from those friends who have known me for so long. I realized last week that it's been 5 years since I first started working in the camping world. Remembering that little girl puts a smile on my face. She would have totally done what I just did this weekend, too, trying to squeeze in as much face-time as possible with pals. I'm glad I haven't changed that much!

She would have been less tired and sore at the end of it, though.

Bummer.

At least I know I can still do it! It's not forever, I think, that I will be able to just pick up and go like that. So here I treasure it.

Zai Jian!

Stunned

These images are amazing.

I am shocked and awed. The artistry in the colors, the depth of the feeling conveyed in them!

That person is in the right business. And I'm glad it's online so that I can see away up here in northern michigan.. images from Indonesia.

Maybe someday I'll make it down that way (-;

skibench

skibench, originally uploaded by sarah_laughingguts.

I went here awhile back.

It's nice.

Idealist

I like to think my husband will play this song for me someday... Boys, this is one way to make a girl swoon... And don't think I'm joking. I just watched John Denver sing this on PBS - a man who's been dead 10 years now. And it still worked :) So if you happen to have a halfway decent voice, it'll work! The ability to accompany yourself on guitar helps ;-)


This old guitar taught me to sing a love song
It showed me how to laugh and how to cry
It introduced me to some friends of mine
And brightened up some days
It helped me make it through some lonely nights
Oh, what a friend to have on a cold and lonely night

This old guitar gave me my lovely lady
It opened up her eyes and ears to me
It brought us close together
I guess it broke her heart
It opened up the space for us to be
What a lovely place and a lovely space to be

This old guitar gave me my life my living
All the things you know I love to do
To serenade the stars that shine
From a sunny mountainside
Most of all to sing my songs for you
I love to sing my songs for you
Yes, I do, you know
I love to sing my songs for you

Words and music by John Denver

Sorry no picture..

but usually night-saunas aren't camera-worthy for my particular canon. Maybe that will change this week when the new one arrives!

Anyway, the news: the northern lights were out in two wide bands tonight! I walked out to the hole in the ice, and while waiting couldn't get enough of the view. Amazing.

Been noticing lately that there is so much beauty around, and most of the time, we miss it. As I was filling my humidifier with water tonight, it was hard not to notice how beautiful the bubbles made by the faucet were. Once I noticed, anyway. Once you notice, it's hard not to. I like that.

Goodnight all - and happy springing forward to yas.

:)

On the intro/extro-line?

perhaps...