Did I mention I hate moving?

There is bicycle grease on my fingers as I type this, once again sitting at the little wooden tables at Circle Moon coffee house. I decided I need to ride my bike, which had slipped its chain and required a bit of coaxing toward working order to get me here. Tomorrow is my last day of work. I am supposed to be home tonight, packing boxes and getting ready for my yard sale tomorrow. I am seriously unmotivated to do any of it. Walking and riding through the streets of my idylic town, I am nowhere near ready to uproot myself from a place I've loved being for two whole years. Two years is the longest I've lived anywhere since college (and even then, I had to shift dorm rooms every 9 months!). It's a short amount of time, barely a blip in the lifespan, but I am so comfortable here, and so much in love with the colors of buildings, the way the sun slips down over the mountains and casts shafts of light into the bushy trees.

Now I'm waxing poetic, which tells you just how much I am procrastinating from this transition! When my cousin left this past Monday morning, it was the signal to me that life as I know it here is over. Done. This morning, my friend from work came over to pick up the couch, which she is buying from me. Last night, instead of hitting the gym like a good girl, I had a cermonial last night at home with my couch, watching "Lost," and pretending I could live here forever, that I don't have to take the pictures down off the wall.

Faithful

In the time since my last post, one particular prayer has already begun to be answered. My biggest concern in heading off to the wild blue yonder has been the fact that I really need some friends once I get there - even just one! Well, the other day, I was Googling "Klaipeda, Lithuania, pictures" when I ran across the online journal of another young woman who is also going to be working at LCC next year. I emailed her and she wrote back with information about the town, the school, and some of the people who work there. It has been such a relief just to know that I am not going to be the only twenty-something woman from North America in that town! Her name is Anna, and her blog is at http://www.traveljournals.net/travelers/adetrich/ . Sorry I don't have this linked, but I'm still learning the ins and outs of this program!

In addition to running across Anna's blog (and the pictures of her FABULOUS apartment) online, I was also put in touch with another girl who'll be teaching English lit at LCC. Jerilyn and I were able to talk for awhile last night and are discussing the possiblity of being roommates. Regardless of what happens in that arena, I'm once again thankful to see how God is already calming my spirit by showing me through these women that He DOES care about simple (and important) things like friendship. My heavenly Father knows what I need better than even I do, and I am learning to trust Him with those needs more and more every day.

Family "picnic" at Village Inn. It's like my aunt always says, "you never plan to go to Village Inn. You just end up there."

No, we didn't hold up the place, though these two could probably have pulled it off.

Don't take my Kodachrome away

"Kodachrome, give us those nice bright colors, give us the greens of summer, makes you think all the world's a sunny day..."

"The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be home."
- Wendell Barry

Nothing lost, but found, if sought

I wish you could be sitting here with me. I've got some suitably wistful folk music piping into my ears, and the puffy clouds in the distance just begin to hint of afternoon rain. The Big Thompson is bubbling by in the sparkling sun as I write this, and all over Estes Park, everything is so bright and shining that there are tears in my eyes.

It has been a difficult few days. At night when I turn off the lights, and the TV, and there is no sound left in my apartment but the furious whirring of the box fans, a sort of empty dread passes over me. I'm totally alone - a fact that I like to block out with a continual bombardment of TV, books, radio, I-tunes, magazines, knitting projects, coffee dates and long days at work. But when all that finally quiets down, when I'm not at the gym or a friends house or church or swing dancing, I am reminded that I am about to head off someplace where I will quite possibly be very lonely.

Now, God has always, always been faithful in the past to bless me with the friendships that I need to sustain me in these overseas adventures. It has never failed that He has given me friends and confidants - far and away beyond what I deserve. Nevertheless, this week I have been feeling that dread of alone-ness that can creep up on a person going to sleep in an empty house.

This is where faith comes in. And as I was driving up the Big Thompson canyon road today - sun bright and hot, U2 and the Beach Boys on my mix tape - I felt that deep sense of home that is found only in God. I have to trust that He is my sufficiency and my home, my husband and my family and my friend. This is not easy. Not even a little.

Another toasty day in Colorado, and I've been forced to abandon the stuffy, second-floor apartment-without-air-conditioning for the sancutuary of the coffee shop. I'm beginning how long I can get away with coming in, ordering the cheapest cold drink (small cremosa, $1.50), and spending 3 or 4 hours mooching off the wireless connection. I hope they don't start enforcing a minimum purchase policy, 'cause it's the best deal in town!

Last night I began the moving process in earnest. I have been seeing this move and transition coming at me like a storm on the horizon, and it's only just beginning to feel real. It's the feeling your get in your lower back that comes from lifting heavy boxes and lugging them down stairs, into the back seat of your car, and then up the steps of the post office. I sent off three boxes this morning, full of the books from my personal library that will keep me company through the long, dark Lithuanian winter. That culling and sorting process was not a fun one - forcing me to look over every book for its potential educational usefulness, and escape-fiction-worthiness! One perk of working at my bookshop is that I've been able to get ahold of back-up copies of certain favorite titles. Instead of taking my entire Lord of the Rings collection, I just went ahead and bought the used all-in-one edition and shipped it off! This is a psychosis, I know.

The great thing about shipping the books (aside from saving me 65 pounds worth of weight that wouldn've somehow had to have fit into my two checked pieces allowed by the airline), is that they're already on their way - to arrive in 4 to 6 weeks, just about the time that I'll get there. And because I feel like so much of me is in those boxes - so many thoughts, ideas, memories - part of me has just gone on ahead, and will meet me when I get there.

Wide Awake in America

As the pictures below will indicate, last weekend was a whirlwind of mountains and camping and hiking and campfires. Facing, for the first time in weeks, an actual Day Off (!), Kelli and I took off to Steamboat Springs last Friday at 6 a.m. We figured we'd need to get up there pretty early to stake out a camp spot on the 4th of July weekend. After sucessfully pitching a tent at The Meadows (a national forest campground) on top of Rabbit Ears pass, we took a lovely hike, bummed around Steamboat and then fufilled a long-time wish of mine. We spent some hours enjoying the natural setting of Strawberry Park hotsprings, which is bascially a few stone pools constructed in a river to catch the hot water that bubbles right out of the ground. Fantastic.

Saturday morning, we roused ourselves from a chilly sleep (in a pool of dew. Did I mention there was still snow on the ground several yards from our site?), at 5:30 a.m. and headed home through northern Colorado so I could get back to work at the bookstore by 10 a.m.! The morning drive was quiet and beautiful, and we even drove through a herd of cattle being driven down Hwy 14 by three real-life cowboys on horses at 6 in the morning! I hope to have pictures of this traffic jam, as soon as I get my film developed. (Oh for a digital camera at such times...).

After working a full shift Saturday, I headed to a friend-from-church's wedding, then to the reception at a posh jazz club, which included dancing until midnight! Talk about filling up a day! Sunday afternoon I headed to the hills again, this time with some church friends, and we found a camp spot up a forest access road in the Big Thompson Canyon. Despite the ferocious windstorm of the late afternoon, the night was perfect. Warm, cloudless and full of laughter. My sister and her husband were able to come join up with the rest of us to make hobo pies and smores. My friend Bob and his wife Judi are the best equipped campers I have ever met, so dinner in the woods was actually nicer than most of the meals I make for myself on a regular basis! Once it was really dark, Bob gave us all an astronomy lesson, which he knows quite a bit about. He works for Ball laboratories, the NASA subcontractor that designed and built the probe that was to collide with a comet that very night!

Monday morning, the fourth, we oozed out of the tent (a tad squished with 4 of us in there), and ate breakfast down by the river. After a quick trip up to Estes for the required infusion of coffee, I joined up with my family for a gorgeous hike to Ouzel Falls in the Wild Basin part of RMNP. (See pics below). Throroughly wiped, I didn't quite manage to stay awake for fireworks back in Loveland that night!

Driving, hiking, swimming around this beautiful state the past few days has been an odd feeling. I'm always faced with an intense bittersweetness when I realize I'm about to go away. Driving around Steamboat, Kel & I put on that great Caedmon's Call album, 40 Acres, which contains a favorite song of mine from the Hungary year. The song is "Faith My Eyes," and is basically about how much the singer wishes he could stay at home, instead of always traveling. It's written from someone far away, watching the hometown weather on TV.

But if I must go
Things I trust will be better off without me
But I don't want to know
Life is better off a mystery

So keep'em coming these lines on the road
And keep me responsible be it a light or heavy load
And keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise
And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes

Hometown weather is on TV
I imagine the lives of the people living there
And I'm curious if they imagine me
Cause they just wanna leave; I wish that I could stay...

So keep'em coming these lines on the road
And keep me responsible be it a light or heavy load
And keep me guessing with these blessings in disguise
And I'll walk with grace my feet and faith my eyes



So that's my prayer, I guess. That I can walk the next month with grace, and with faith in my eyes, as my eyes.

A gorgeous 4th of July in Estes 

Calypso Cascades in the Wild Basin area of Rocky Mountain National Park 

Dave and Kristi trying their best to look outdoorsy 

At Ouzel Falls 

Outdoor adventures with the fam 

Who's Annie?

Some of you may notice that I have updated the blog a bit, in preparation for keeping in touch with friends and supporters this next year in Lithuania. I've also added some links, one of which is to my friend Annie Nelson's blog. Annie is preparing to move to France to work with a well-known organization, in its regional staff office . I think it's hilarious that she and I were roomates in Hungary five years ago, and now after having seen each other once since then, we're going to be back in the same time zone! Annie's an very wise and hilarious friend, so I look forward to reading about her adventures in France and the work God has for her!