Let it snow!

Madison and me 

 Here we go again! Another trip to Missouri Valley, IA to visit my family. This time I got to go with my cousin, Jonathan. We got picked up from the Omaha airport by our cousin, Sarah, and her adorable daughter, Madison. It's the first time I've been back since my grandma, June, passed away, and the first time Jonathan has ever gone, so the feel was a smidge different than past times I've been.

Jonathan and me

It was great, as always, to see my uncle Bruce, aunt Janice, cousin Sarah, her husband Nate, their daughter Madison, and Lyle McIntosh, the man who sponsored my dad when he first came to the states, but the main person who brings me back year after year is my grandpa Don. I'd heard some warnings before I arrived that he sometimes didn't remember that Grandma had passed away or that he knew she'd passed but thought he missed the funeral, or that she'd been gone for years. So I was ready for anything, but mostly really stoked to have to opportunity to visit my grandpa again.

Notice how deep the walkway snow is.....yikes!

Beautiful sunrise.....so. much. snow.

We spent our first day there at the Omaha Zoo with Sarah and Madison and had loads of fun making weird faces....oh, and seeing the animals and exhibits. In the days to come we had some great meals with everyone and had some good quality time with the fam. Then came Saturday. It snowed on Saturday. The weather forecasts were giving us mixed messages: 1-3", 3-6", 3-9"......it was really unclear as to what we were gonna get. It was kinda weird when it started snowing because there was nothing sticking downtown in the valley, but up on the hill, where the nursing home is, almost the whole ground was white. So I went to sleep that night thinking that I might wake up to a little snow on the ground. Boy was I in for a big surprise!! It looked like the whole world had turned white....like the clouds had just dumped and dumped and dumped and dumped snow alllllll night long. That might actually be what happened. Anyways, there were supposed to be ~40mph winds, and it was sssooooo cold outside. Aunt Janice and I wanted to build a snowman so we spent a good 30 minutes getting all bundled up and probably spent a total of......4 minutes outside. The snow was all powdery and wouldn't pack together anyways. But mostly it was just cold. It was actually super nice to have a day when we couldn't go anywhere though. We just relaxed, hung out, ate some yummy foods. Great day. Except for that whole super bowl thing, but whatever. Ancient history.
Monday we still had to work around the snow, but it cleared up a little bit so it wasn't the worst ever. We got lunch again with Lyle and he took us to the DeSoto Bend (a wildlife reserve) Museum. Great place. You should go if you're ever there. We were supposed to spend the evening with my friend Matt in Omaha (I met him in Guatemala and now he's in med school at Creighton, so it's pretty awesome that I get to hang out with him when I go back to visit family), but we were still a little worried about the snow/ice so we postponed until Tuesday right before the airport. Instead we had a great dinner with Bruce, Janice, Nate, Sarah, and Madison.

Grandma's favorite Bible verse found in Grandpa's Bible

Tuesday was a whirlwind of things. We got all packed up and headed down to the valley to drop Bruce off at the shop (so that we could leave his truck there when we left for the airport) and headed up to the nursing home to spend our last couple hours with Grandpa. Spending time with him is a lot different now that Grandma is gone. He got a Christmas tree ornament from Hospice (I think) with Grandma's picture in it and it says "In Memory Of...." He pulls it out quite often to tell us about it and where he got it from. At first, he was saying that she went on a trip to Nebraska and next thing he know, she was gone and didn't even get to say goodbye. That was heartbreaking, But most of the time after that, he seemed to know that she was there when she died and that it wasn't a really sudden thing. Sometimes he would say things like, "Yeah, I was saving those Christmas cards so that Mama could see them..............but I guess she's not around to see them anymore." Like he forgot for a minute. Mostly though, he would just get stuck on one topic and have the same 5-minute conversation with us over and over again. That was pretty normal. My favorite thing was leafing through his preaching Bible to see old sermon notes and various underlined verses and thoughts. While his memory is definitely getting worse, I think his physical health is pretty good. He's still the most generous person I know and still has the most insatiable sweet tooth I've ever seen. I remember when I was little, thinking that he and my grandma were so old, but my grandpa is going to be 83 next Monday and he's still crackin' the best jokes in town. Leaving him (and Grandma, in previous years) is always the hardest part. They were probably (aside from my parents) the most influential people in my life, so it's always hard to leave knowing that I might not see them again. This time Grandma was gone and Grandpa spends his days without the woman he met in grade school and spent his life with ever since (crazy, right?!). I think that made it harder to leave. I recently finished reading a book called A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea and there was this old couple and the wife died and the husband refused to let the wife be buried without him because they were always going to be buried next to each other. The husband made everyone agree to wait 10 days to bury his wife, in order to give him time to die too. He died on day 9. Reading that made me think of my grandparents. The way the husband in the book was lost without his wife of so many years. I can't imagine living so closely with one person for so many years and then being without them. So, all things considered, I think my grandpa is doing pretty well.

Selfie with Grandpa!

After a bit of a teary farewell, we headed to Omaha with Lyle. He took us to meet up with Matt for lunch and there was another farewell. We spent a nice afternoon with Matt, got some super delicious ice cream, and saw his super sweet house, then he took us to the airport and we were off. Our friend Brandyn picked us up when we arrived and then it was back to home sweet home.
The week went by way too fast, as usual, but (also as usual) I feel so blessed to have had to chance to make another trip out there. I have the best family on the planet. But we definitely agreed that next time we have to go when it's not winter.

Apparently Runza is a big deal in Nebraska...it's not my fave

In other news, if you'd like to send a birthday card to my grandpa, I'm sure he'd love it! He's turning 83 on Monday the 16th. His address is:
                             1010 Longview Rd
                            Mo. Valley, IA 51555

Me and Madison

Me and Jonathan with Lyle McIntosh and his mom, Helen

Assumptions, assumptions...

Without fail, every time I tell a handful of people that I want to study TESOL/TEFL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages/Teaching English as a Foreign Language) the general assumptions in the group are that I want to teach kids and I want to teach abroad. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. I want to teach adults here in the United States. It's actually quite frustrating when people ask me about my plans for the future, I tell them what I want to study, and they say, "What grade-level do you want to teach?" or, "Which part of the world are you looking to teach in?" Or even when I tell people that I taught in Guatemala and they ask me what the kids were like. I hated teaching the kids. I liked teaching the university professors, the architects and the doctors, to name a few.
I recently had a conversation with someone where I told them I wanted to teach TEFL here and they asked, "How can English be taught as a foreign language in the United States? A lot of people go to teach English in other countries around the world, have you ever thought about doing that?" After I explained my reasons for wanting to teach here (the people who come here without English need it the most to survive, whereas people in other countries can at least communicate in the local language), this person went on to tell me about how people in other countries need English too. I get that, I do. But I digress. Back to assumptions that people make.
The same thing happened to me when I was about to start at UW for my undergrad studies: the majority of the times I told someone I was going to study linguistics, they assumed that I wanted to become a Bible translator. I really hate it when people make assumptions about me like that. Seeing all this happening to myself (again!), I started to wonder: what kinds of assumptions do I make about other people that are totally wrong and probably really annoying to them?
Really. I can't be the only one who has things assumed about them and I'm sure I'm not completely innocent of the offense either. So, how can I be more aware of the times I make wrong assumptions and how can I change that? I mean, I like to think that when people make false assumptions, such as the ones listed above, about me that I'm pretty good about playing it off and not showing that I'm thoroughly annoyed by most of the words that just came out of their mouths (also, that's an exaggeration, so if you're one of the people who said something like that to me, I wasn't actually that annoyed). So, if other people don't know that their assumptions bother me, how can I know when my assumptions bother others? I'm already not that great at reading people, so that's something I've been trying to work on in general, but seeing as how this, in particular, is something that's incredibly bothersome to me, I'm assuming (ha!) that it's a big deal to others too. [Crazy thing I've been discovering lately: I'm not actually so different from other people as I would like to think]
I will still be really annoyed by peoples' assumptions about me (especially when they assume I'll do something for them without even informing me of their assumption, let alone asking me to do it...but I digress...again), but I think that trying to put myself in the mindset of "I do it too" will be helpful to me. If nothing else, it will provide me with just a tiny bit more grace for all those assumers out there.

Really really really important questions to ask a potential significant other

Before you make that giant step of making your relationship facebook official (because let's be real, your relationship isn't real until all your facebook friends know about it), here are some really important questions to ask the person you're considering associating yourself with:
(This list will probably grow as I think of more life-altering questions that should definitely be asked)

• Pancakes or waffles? Waffles are better. Always.
• Colgate, Crest, Aquafresh, or store brand toothpaste? This is serious business! People say it's more important to ask if they squeeze the tube from the end or the middle. They're wrong. Brand is WWWAAAAYYYYY more important!
• Coffee or tea? Both is an option too. So if you're a both (like me) maybe it's not as important....but still helpful to know.
• Favorite sport to watch? Because if you love watching soccer and they only like golf, you've got a real problem on your hands.   
• Tent or camper/cabin? Or maybe they're just not into camping at all. In which case, RUN LIKE THE WIND!! Unless you're not into camping either, then it's a match made in heaven.
• Favorite sport to play? If you only like to play ultimate frisbee and all they want to play is tennis, someone is going to have to learn a new sport.
•   If given the chance to go anywhere in the world (and by chance, I mean if they had enough free time from work/school/real life and had saved up enough money to do it), where would they go? Are they into traveling on the cheap by going to somewhat still developing nations, or are they into Western Europe and Hawaii? 
• If given the chance to go anywhere in the world (this time chance means plenty of free time and money is not a factor), where would they go? These are two very different questions. Maybe. For me they are at least.
•   Dish soap: store brand or name brand? There are many, many products where it makes absolutely no real difference if you go with the store brand over the name brand....in fact, you often save money by foregoing the big brand and don't sacrifice any of the quality. Dish soap is not one of those products. The money that you save on the store brand is re-invested in buying 3 times as much dish soap as you would if you just sprung for the Dawn in the first place. Basically, this question is asking if the price tag is the bottom line or if quality is a factor when making a purchase. It covers a lot more than just dish soap. Also, this is probably the most helpful question on this list.
•  Book vs movie based on book? This question is pretty broad in meaning. It could simply mean which do they generally prefer, but it could also mean which do they prefer to expose themselves to first. Or maybe they separate the two things in their minds in order to thoroughly enjoy both. For me, I like to read the book first so that I can compare how I imagined a scene to how the movie director imagined it. The only exception to that is with Jane Austen books; I have to see the movie first so that I can have a face & character to put with each name, otherwise I get really confused as to how everyone is connected.
•  Mac or PC? This is important! It could be a touchy subject and lead to a lot of fights. Or it could just really hurt your bank account because you'll have to buy both.
•  What's their favorite genre of ___(insert media form here)___? You don't want all of your facebook friends to see that you're in a relationship with someone who has very different genre preferences. Also, it could cause unnecessary stress on your relationship...I guess.
• How would they order the importance of the following things: friends, family, God, spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, and self? This can tell you a lot about a person and their priorities. Maybe this question is more important than the dish soap one.
•  Xbox, Playstation, or Nintendo? If this question holds any sort of significance in your heart, it needs no further explanation. If you couldn't care less, this question is optional.
•  Chocolate or vanilla? Hey, ice cream is EXPENSIVE, so let's try to save a few bucks by only buying one carton of it at a time.
• Crunchy or creamy? Same concept, peanut butter is expensive, so why buy two different kinds if you don't have to?
• Dogs or cats? Even if they'd opt for neither, everyone has a preference, and if that preference is opposite yours you may have some issues down the road.
• Early bird or night owl? Because if you're an early bird and they're not, your "Good morning!" text when you wake up might not be the most welcome thing ever, and their "Good night!" text might come just a little later than you'd want it to.
• Paper or plastic? It's helpful to know, and helpful to know the reasoning behind their preference. Maybe they go plastic so that they have trash bags for their car or baggies to clean up after their dog, or maybe they go paper so that they always have some brown paper to wrap up a package on the fly. Maybe they have reusable grocery bags that they use all the time. Or maybe they really really don't care.  

That's all I've got for now. Remember, facebook official = officially official. Use your facebook relationship status responsibly and save yourself a lot of "OMG! What happened?!" comments to respond to when it doesn't work out because your one true love can't stand camping in a tent and for you that's the only way to go. 

LOL vs Haha

I saw a YouTube video comment the other night that said "I was LOLing the whole time" and it troubled me. If LOL is an acronym for Laugh Out Loud, shouldn't it have been LingOL? This got me to thinking about other ways that LOL is used. Like, have y'all ever seem the video with Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake making fun of hashtags? When Justin says "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL." That doesn't make sense, bro. Laugh out loud out loud out loud out loud out loud..........but we still get that it means laughing a lot instead of just a normal amount. I have never been a fan of "LOL," which is kind of funny since I distinctly remember a time when my oldest brother, Tim, was going to college and we used to e-mail each other back and forth making up giant acronyms to replace sentences. I think it all started with me using TTYL and then it just grew from there, like TTYLLMTOMINS (talk to you later, like maybe tomorrow or Monday, I'm not sure). Good times. Anyways, my point is, I'm not hater of acronyms, but for some reason I've just never really used lol. I prefer to use "Haha!" or "Jaja!" (depending on which language I'm using....but let's be real, I switch them up on accident all the time). Here's why I think "Haha!" is better than "LOL:"

Haha is kind of actually how people laugh, which means if something is really funny you could say Hahahahahahahahahaha! And it totes makes sense. If you're just making a point or declaring victory over someone, you can just us "Ha!" Like, "Hey, I looked up the stats on that 1998 world cup game and I was right, there were 3 red cards and 6 yellows given out, not 4 reds and 8 yellows. Ha!" Haha also works in other languages (as I've already briefly mentioned). Since it's written like a laugh, of course it is "multilingual." On the flipside, I've seen people text "lol" when writing in Spanish, but I've also had students ask me what it means and why their friends keep using it. So if you, like me, dream of one day using a plethora of languages to express yourself, perhaps lol isn't your best bet.

All of that is really just to say that I think it's really interesting to see how certain acronyms have worked their way into our word banks as words in and of themselves. Like how LOL becomes LOLing, or LOLed. PIN (Personal Identification Number) is often referred to as PIN number, same with VIN (Vehicle Identification Number). ATM (Automatic Teller Machine) has become ATM machine.

This was probably the nerdiest blog I've ever posted.

Stuff!!

My poor little sandals :(

Today I came to the realization that I desperately needed to buy new Rainbows (those are a brand of flip flops, if you're unfamiliar with them). My friend, Erin, bought me my first pair for my 17th birthday (4.5 years ago, for those of you keeping track) and I've taken them with me everywhere! They've been to Panama, Guatemala, Belize, Gleanings, San Francisco.....you get the point. I have a lot of memories with those shoes. The reason I didn't buy new ones sooner is, well, they're really expensive (for flip flops) and they mold exactly to your foot and I really didn't want to go through the breaking-in process again if I didn't have to. The only reason I decided today was the day was because I looked at them while I was enjoying the sun in the park and saw that there was at least one layer worn through on the tops and bottoms of both shoes and the top layer of leather isn't really attached to the rest of the shoe anymore on either of them. So...I'm pretty sure they own't make it through another summer.
 But all this got me to thinking: why do I feel so sad to let my old ones go? I mean, it's just a pair of sandals!!! And then I got to

My shiny new ones! :)

thinking about some of my other stuff that I've had for a long time that lots of people replace without a second thought. My water bottle: I bought it the day before my friend Abbie got married, it's also been to Panama, Guatemala, Gleanings, etc., it has stickers on it from places//things I love, there's a little gash on it from falling off the back of my forklift so many times the summer I staffed at Gleanings. There are so many good memories attached to that bottle. When I was in Belize, my sunglasses broke and I threw them away planning to just buy a new pair later that day, or sometime the next day, and once I threw them away I realized how much fun stuff I'd done with them, how I was wearing them in almost all of our Guatemalan/Belizian adventure photos, and how they'd never be in another photo ever again.
I think we get so attached to stuff because those things hold memories for us. I think that we think that if we throw something away, we throw the good memories away too. There's a picture at the house we were at in Panama where Erin's and my rainbows are right next to each other by the back door and you can't really tell them apart. Erin's new sister-in-law ended up taking her rainbows on her honeymoon because she just threw them on (they were right by the door, after all) to go out back for a family photo and forgot to take them off when they went off one their honeymoon. Erin wondered why she couldn't have accidentally taken mine. (True friendship right there!) When I get rid of my old rainbows, I'll no longer have the ones that went everywhere with me, but I'll still have a zillion cool stories from times spent with those shoes. Sentimentality is a weird thing to me. I'm pretty sentimental about stuff (random stuff!!!!!) until one day I get into a purging mood and I throw away/send to Goodwill everything I don't really need. And it's always a process that gets easier the further into it I go: the first hour doesn't usually produce much give away stuff, but upon realizing just how much stuff I'm piling up in my life it gets easier and easier to get rid of stuff. But back to sentimentality! Isn't it odd how people place so much value on stuff? And not even because it's monetarily worth a lot! Like an old, tattered baby blanket, or the box from some valentine's chocolates. All of that stuff becomes worth something in our hearts and then it makes it really hard to let go of it when it's worn out. Well that's how I feel right now about my rainbows. I can't imagine just throwing them away in the trash....but what else can I do with them? It's not like I'm going to put them in my hope chest until I have a place of my own so that I can hang them on the wall. They are the absolute best sandals I've ever worn and I highly recommend getting yourself a pair (if you wear sandals a lot! if you could care less, then go with the 2 for $5 ones from Old Navy). But, alas, into the trash they go. What are some things that you're really sentimental about? Why?