another day

its been almost a month since i've moved here to iowa. i can honestly say i'm thankful to be here and i'm really enjoying my time here thus far.

here a few of my favorite things about being here:

1) being close to grandma milly & grandpa marv

2) being in a bachelor's degree nursing program

3) having to get out of my comfort zone and actually be "the new person". not having all of my friends that i love "down the street" has been stretching but its been a good experience for me on a lot of different levels...

4) having my own little place (even though i share it! : )

5) not having to sit in traffic

6) cooking a lot more

7) having a coffee shop other than starbucks that is insanely amazing

mind you i really miss people from back home... not so much california (except the sunshine!). i'm learning a lot in so many areas its a little overwhelming. school, life, who i am, where i want to be...

oh and side note: i have to share my new favorite breakfast:

lavender oatmeal. don't say gross, i think everyone should try oatmeal with lavender flowers, flaxseed, slivered almonds, and agave (or honey) on top. : ) i made it up yesterday and i'm stoked about it. its my attempt at domestic-ness.

in case you missed my face...

i'm alive and well : )

morbid moving sale...

its crazy that i'm starting week 3 of school on monday... time is flying. i had a really good week which included going to wednesday night college group close to UNI, meeting a girl from church for coffee at my favorite cafe <3, and spending time with the grandparents.

 

weird thing- i'd never been to a "buy out" before. i know my grandparents go to these things a few times a week on a regular basis. basically its when someone dies (usually the case) the guardians of the estate hire a company to sort through and sell the deceased's belongings. grandma & grandpa took me to a buy out this morning and seriously it was the CREEPIEST feeling EVER to be looking through all this stuff of some dead person! i'm sure i am the ONLY one who thinks like this but please if i die, donate my stuff or give it away. every piece of furniture i was trying to imagine what this person was like and i was getting way too involved for a "moving sale"....

missing

i really miss my dogs. i mean, i miss a lot of things of course but i saw the cutest puppy tonight when i was driving out of UNI... i asked the dude walking the dog what kind it was, and it was an alaskan eskimo puppy. (i'm fully aware of the fact that he only had the dog to get chicks and i'm sure its working for him. he looked way to manly to have an adorable little white puppy)

 

i miss pixie and pumpkin...

roots market <3

i just wanted to share my sheer and utter joy of finding roots market today. its the closest thing here to a trader joe's/organic market and my heart is officially completely happy.

FRESH HUMMUS/TOFU/ORGANIC GOODNESS = HAPPINESS.

towed by a tractor

i bet not too many of you can say that you've been towed out of a snow drift by a tractor. well, i now can! after the BITTER frigidity of last week, i decided to head to the farm to escape the indoors and for a change of scene. i can't say how happy i am to spend time with grandma milly and grandpa marv on a weekly basis. i spent the night out there friday night and planned on leaving saturday early evening. saturday i "attempted" to "set" grandma's hair. (epic fail). i know that i was never destined to be a hair dresser. haha. hey i tried.

anyways. grandma needed to run into town for an errand and asked if i would drive her. we hopped into grandpa's ford 500 and started driving into town. (let me tell you that the wind had picked up early in the AM and the snow piles had started to drift all over the roads...) this was making me EXTREMELY nervous as we drove down the country gravel roads and the drifts across the road were growing larger... we made it in to town safe and sound, and an hour later we were ready to head back. can i tell you that the entire time we were in town i was having partial panic attacks just thinking about how bad the roads were going to be on our way back to the farm. i have my 81 year old grandma in the passenger seat and i'm praying that we make it. well, 3/4 the way there... we hit a white out. "white out = you can't see anything". i'm driving about 3 mph desperately trying not to go into a ditch that i can't see because its covered by snow, but i know its there. directly in front of me on the road is probably at least 6 inches of snow because of the wind picking up and i know we aren't gonna make it. surprise surprise, we can't make it through. we are now stuck in the middle of a country road in a white out. thankfully the farm is about 1/4 mile down the road and grandpa marv is home. we call him on the cell to ask him to please rescue us. grandma thought he'd bring the truck and just steer for me and take us out of this mess. 15 minutes later we see a huge john deere tractor pulling up through the whiteness. SWEET. i'm going to get pulled out of the snow drift by a tractor. that made my day. grandpa chains us up to the tractor and pulls us out. : ) we make it home safe and sound and i immediately get bruce and drive home. thank heaven for 4x4.

i found an amazing church last week that i visited, "cedar heights baptist church" that i visited today as well. it feels like home and i'm really thankful to be there. the people are super nice and i think i've found my home church.

not too much else going on. its MUCH warmer today, high of 28!! tomorrow i'm participating in the martin luther king jr. day service challenge through school so that should be cool.

off to read some pharmacology...

when you feel so tired but you can't sleep

its official. week #1 of nursing school is over. : ) i've survived thus far. yes, i know i still have QUITE a long way to go but hey step by step, right?

its 10:40pm and i never am up this late... i was working on some online assessments for pathophysiology and i felt like i was staring at the same questions for 20 minutes. finally finished thank heaven.

i decided to take a little break from the land of studying and watched this movie called "the grocer's son." i really enjoyed it. it was a french film about a guy getting a grip on life and learning to appreciate people for who they are and the impact they have on you. gotta love the foreign films.

its -21 degrees out tonight. lovely night for a walk. haha. i'm actually really looking forward to going to the farm tomorrow to hang out with grandma milly and grandpa marv... i need to get out. its been too cold to go anywhere and i'm not used to this whole idea of "being inside". yay for weekends.