It's Gettin' Chile!!

There are so many fun play on word jokes you can make with Chile! I love it! I just wanted to write a little blog dedicated to my teammates and Chile because it has been on my mind a lot lately.

It has been an interesting semester so far. Not exactly what I was expecting when I came back, but nothing ever is. We have had some amazing times and some rocky times, but all of it good an necessary and I am so thankful for every moment. We have come so far and have so far to go, but God started all of this and he is going to continue to lead it and we need to let him. So to everyone on the team I love you and can't wait to see what happens next!! Here are 2 pics of beautiful Concepcion. Look at those beautiful trees. And can you see the coast?

Ok, enough sappy stuff! Chile is so cool! The coast line alone stretches for about 3997 miles = 6435km. (I need to start learning that conversion but a big thanks to converters on the internet!!!) It is so stinkin' long! Because of that it covers so many different climates. Also did you know that the Andes mountains run through it. Way cool!

At the top of Chile the area is desert. We actually flew into there and it was the strangest thing to see huge sand dunes all around. The desert is called the Atacama Desert.

Further south from the Atacama is the beach town of Vina del Mar. Pretty sure this is a big vacation spot. Seriously this country has all the climates!!!

When we go we are not going to have much money and our point for going is not to travel, so I am sure we will never see everything we want to see but I am already dreaming now. There is so much hiking and adventures to go on I cannot wait to go camping and exploring and see what God's beautiful Chile has to offer. South America's tallest mountain is Cerro Aconcagua and it is on the boarder with Chile and Argentina and it stands at 22,843 ft. or 6960m. Eat that 14ers in Colorado! Ha! : ) There is no way I could ever climb that, especially with Concepcion practically being a sea level but maybe I can see it! See the picture below? That's me hiking in a few years!

Chile also has its own Patagonia. No not the store, the area of land that is full of "sexy mountains" (thanks to Tamara for that phrase) and glaciers! It also has the largest ice fields in the Southern Hemisphere, after Antarctica of course. I have visited the Argentine Patagonia but I cant wait to visit the Chilean side. The picture below is of Torres del Paine which is a mountain down there that looks super awesome with those 3 rock towers. I hope I get to see that too!

All this to say Chile is an amazingly beautiful country with amazingly beautiful people and I cannot wait to move there and serve them and teach them about Jesus. I am going to miss my family so so so much but this is what God has made me to do. Who can argue with God right?

FYI- If you type Concepcion, Chile into Google pictures of our team comes up. Way cool!!

Not a Fix-It Kinda Girl

I like to think I am handy. I know how to see if my car has enough oil and how to put more air in my tires. But that's about it. I know how to change a light bulb, and poor drain-o in the drain when it gets stopped up. But that's about it, and yet I still try. Two examples:

The day before leaving for spring break the drain in our kitchen clogged up and I thought I would try and work on it. I tried drain-o and a plunger but that only provided temporary relief. So I sat down in front of the sink and tried my best.

I took off the little "u" shaped pipe. There was nothing in it. So I went a little further and took off the two connecting pipes and they were empty also. About this time one of my roommates friends walked in the house, thankfully. As I sat there looking at the pipes and thinking about cleaning them out anyways water started GUSHING out of the open pipe all underneath the sink. I started to scream and the girl came in to help. She got some bowls to catch the water and after figuring out that dumping the bowls into the sink was not helpful, we caught some of the water coming out. Whew! Stupid Deanna did NOT realize dish washer pipes run through sink pipes. Oops!

So I got the mess cleaned up and left the kitchen, only to come back to more water on the floor! The dishwasher was not draining either and was pouring out all over the floor also. So I stopped the washer and had bail the water out with a bowl until it stopped overflowing. It was not a good day for the kitchen. Thankfully while we were all gone for spring break someone came and fixed all of it for us. Yea!

The second example happened last night. It was not as traumatic, but still not helpful. My roommate said we had no hot water and she noticed our unusually loud hot water heater was not making any noises. We read through the instructions, I laid down on the floor and was prepared to burn my face off for the sake of hot water. One roomie pushed the button down and I tried to light the pilot light but nothing happened. I really couldn't tell where the pilot light actually was so I just put the flame around underneath there, but still nothing happened. We were in a pickle!

We thought maybe the gas was out so we turned on the heater, and yep, it did not work either. Neither was the little heater fan in our bathroom which I had noticed but as I told the roomie "I just figured things broke around here!" So hopefully the gas company got called today and hopefully it is a problem on their end because I don't know what else to do. So, take notice you couple of readers, if you have house problems feel free to call and I will do my best, but don't expect me to actually fix anything.

Tired of Clothes

How can a girl be tired of clothes? Don't all girls love clothes? Nope! The BFF might write a blog like this because strangely we were both thinking the same thing but I am going to do it first! I have had these thoughts for a while but now they are surfacing again.

I remember talking with my old roommate about how it gets really old having to pick out new clothes for each day wondering if they will look good together and if they will fit the weather outside and whether I have worn the outfit recently or not. Blah blah blah. We decided that each person should only have a weeks worth of winter clothes and a weeks worth of summer clothes and they just rotate and never change. That way you never have to shop (unless things wear out) and you don't have to think about it. Seriously!

The past 3 days I have pretty much spent in my house studying or just hanging out with me. And since it has just been me I have pretty much worn the same thing, with the excepting of running and church this morning. I have showered and cleaned up, but I have been in sweat pants and a long sleeved t-shirt. I have not gotten them dirty and I have not been dirty so I see nothing gross about it. Why cant I do that everyday? I think people would start to notice. I know I would notice if someone wore the same thing everyday. But why does it matter!

When I think about this I think about futuristic movies like The Island where they wear those space-looking clothing that are skin tight and silver or like they wear in Star Trek. And while I do not want everyone, me included, to walk around wearing spandex clothing, it sure would be nice to just open my closet everyday and pick out clean clothing that looks like all the rest of my clothing.

Like Ernest!!! Did anyone ever watch the Ernest movies? Oh man! I should be embarrassed. My mom and I actually watched one when I was home for knee surgery. You can see a clip here of a super funny scene...but you probably wont think its funny if you have no idea what I am talking about. You might not think its funny even if you do! But anyways, I have an image in my mind of him going through his closet and all of the clothes hanging are the same grey t-shirt with the ugly denim vest over it. That's what I want to be! Well maybe not that outfit and maybe not the space outfit, but I want a designated outfit.

So! Who wants to start a trend with me? Wearing the same outfit everyday anyone? Ha! Probably wont happen and I would probably get tired of the same thing, but a girl can dream right? : )

quarterlife

So maybe I am not cut out for this grad school stuff. I just spent an entire day, that was supposed to be devoted to studying, doing not much. I slept in, rode my bike to the grocery store, did some stuff around the house and then discovered quarterlife. I might be behind the times, but I have heard a little about it from friends and got sucked in today. It was more of an "I don't feel like studying" moment and that moment turned into the rest of my day! Ahhh! Tomorrow is a serious studying day now.

But this show. Has anyone seen it? I guess it started out as an internet tv show and it has now moved to NBC. The basis is a girl video blogging and then just the lives of her and her friends who are in their 20's. Hence the name quarterlife. The characters are pretty normal looking people with normal lives, and yet it is still so interesting. Probably just because it is about people my age and I can some what connect. They do lead a little bit wilder life than I do, but they are going through the "what the heck am I doing with my life" stage. After college but still somewhat connected to the parents. Parts are funny, parts are sad, parts I cannot relate to, but some parts are dead on!

Not that I have no idea what I am doing with my life because amazingly I do have somewhat of a plan. Right now I am doing grad school and then it is off to Chile to do mission work. But other parts of my life are just up in the air and I have no idea what to expect. My "love life" is non existent, as usual, and I am still wrestling with who I am and who I want to be. I desire independence but am still dependent on my parents, especially being back in school, and I am ok with that. Some days I love myself and my life, other days not so much.

It is a weird time in life and yet it is amazing! I love being in my 20's! I am an adult and have responsibilities but can still be a kid and be silly and do stupid stuff. All this to say, quarterlife is interesting. It is kinda like an update and twist on Friends...but not as funny.

Happy First Day of Spring

I am back in Abilene and Spring Break is officially over for me. I need to study pretty hard the next 3 days since, surprise surprise, I did not study much in Colorado. I did have an amazing time though. I got to be in awe, once again, at the beautiful snow capped mountains, hang out with my great friends, go snowshoeing (see blog below), and catch up on some sleep. As much as I know all of you would like for me to go through my week word for word, I just don't feel like it. So here are some highlights.

--Sunday night I got to hang out with the Golden crowd, eat some good food and watch the beautiful snow fall. The snow was perfect packing snow so we had a great snow ball fight. I actually think that was my first real one since being in CO. But I recommend using gloves.

--I got to hang out with my old roommate and we caught up and laughed really loud together. She is even louder than me. She is getting married in June and I really hope I can go back for it.

--I stopped by the natural food store and it was amazing. The food was way interesting, but way expensive so I only picked up a few of my favorites. My favorite honey, favorite Boulder chips, favorite cereal. Then I found the hot tea isle. I think there was a glowing light around it with angels singing because it is so amazing. They had more teas to try than I had ever heard of, including my favorite by Celestial Seasonings that I can find no where else. I am now set on tea for a while.

--I hung out and did campus ministry stuff one day and got to see some of the students I worked with and got to meet some new ones too.

--Laughed SUPER hard when my old boss led a little devo for the campus ministry kids and the ACU campaigners who came up. He is kinda wild and takes a while getting used to. For a glimpse, he owns a construction company called Steel Erection. He likes to tell people that and watch them giggle.

--I spent some time walking around my old town and the best place to live ever, Golden, looking at the new stuff, studying in the coffee shops, and loosing sight of why I live in Abilene.

--One of my favorite times, next to snowshoeing, was Sunday morning at church. How wonderful it is to walk into church and see so many people who love you and have missed you. It really feels like a church family. I miss that. A guy on the missions committee even told me they have been praying for my team. I didn't even ask them too! It is time for me to change churches.

Wow, that was not a short summary of my week but there were just too many good times to choose from. The drive home was alright and I made it in record time, 11 and 1/2 hrs with only 3 stops. Seriously amazing. I got home in time for LOST and was reminded why I watch it in a group. Creepy!!!!!! Can't wait for the new episodes on April, 24 (4 days after my bday by the way).

Rocky Mountain High

I really am high on the Rocky Mountains. I have only been here like 2 days and they have been an amazing 2 days. Right now I am sitting in the living room of a family from church. They are out of town and letting me stay here. I am on the couch watching the Rockets hopefully win AGAIN, looking outside and just waiting for it to start snowing. I am warm and cozy and going to get some studying done. I just feel so content and joyful.

Church this morning was great. It is so nice to go to a church where when you come in people are happy to see you and have missed you. I do not feel that in Abilene. I LOVE this church here. I was so blessed to see all the people I love and to even have someone on the missions committee say that they are praying for me and my team. Wow! And Bible class was typical Colorado. It was on Christianity and the environment and what our part is in all of it. Things I have actually been thinking about a lot.

Saturday I got up early and me and Jeremy drove to Rocky Mt. National Park for a day of snowshoeing. My favorite thing to do in CO!! We found a good trail and got going. It was very cold but we warmed up fast. We met a nice couple who took our picture and said they would send it to us since I forgot my camera and Jeremy forgot his memory card. The trail started out easy but then we kinda followed a trail less traveled and it began going up and up. It was tough but good. The snow was beautiful, we had AMAZING views of the mts. around us and no one else in sight. I just soaked in all the beauty and tried to remind myself why I moved back to A-town. We had no idea what we were climbing, but when we got down and looked at a map we were actually climbing Longs Peak. Oops! Eventually I got tired and we turned around.

Going up on snowshoes is hard because it was steep and you would slide a little with every step. Going down on snowshoes is hard because it was steep and you slid ALL the way down! Jeremy had fun just running and sliding, but my natural reaction for sliding down a mt. is to sit so I sat a lot and my butt got pretty wet despite my snow pants. Also, I still with every little slip picture my poor knee getting tagled up under me and tearing my ACL again, so I am a little more cautious. But we made it down faster than up and it was so fun.

But the fun did not last. While hiking I would say, without a way to really know, we got up past 11,000 ft. I had my usual high altitude feelings of shortness of breath, my entire body feeling oxygen deprived and not having a huge appetite, but that is all normal!

As soon as we got down from hiking is when the real trouble started. I had an awful headache and as soon as I sat in the car I felt sick to my stomach. We drove for a bit, and knowing myself I just needed to throw up so I had Jeremy drive fast and curvy which always works. We stopped, I did my thing and got back in the car thinking it was over. Nope! As soon as I got back in the feeling came back and less than 5 min. later I did my thing again. Yuck! We quickly got out of the park and stopped for some headache meds at the store. Again, I got in the car and no less than 5 seconds and I had to jump out. We were getting no where. So, we walked to a restaurant and I got a sprite and tums and just waited. I was shivering, pale, my head was pounding and I felt awful. So we stayed there for about an hour and until I felt like I could make it. And I did and felt fine. Whew! Never underestimate the power of altitude sickness. I dealt with it in high school on trek but it had been a while. Stupid low altitude Abilene!!!

Despite all that, my trip has been great so far. The rest of the week is going to be spent hanging out with my friends, relaxing, and studying. I cant wait! I hope I can convince myself to leave. It might be hard!

Midterms + Running + Spring Break + LOST = Excited Dee!!!!

It's that time of year. Time for spring break! Man I missed having a spring break when I was working. It seriously comes at the best time ever. This week I have been studying for my New Testament midterm and now it is over. I studied enough but not too much. I do not think I did awesome, but I did the best I could and I am happy with it. But I am more happy that I am done with it. I kinda have that "I just finished my first grad school test" high. Know it? Ha!

Another exciting thing is that I ran yesterday! This was the first time I have run, outside of physical therapy, in over a year and a half. I have been saying that I am done running because I am overly protective of my knees now (ACL surgery does that to you) but I just got the bug. It was sooooooooooo beautiful outside yesterday and running is kinda big at ACU and we have this super nice loop around campus so I gave in. I did 2 miles and it was good. I was not really in pain, but I felt like I was pushing myself and I could feel my leg muscles and heart saying "Thank you!!!!" I loved it!

I am telling myself now that I do not want to go more than 4 miles. Maybe I will focus on pushing myself in those 4 miles because the higher mileage is what hurts my knees. When I got done I iced my poor little knee (I still hug it sometimes and tell it I am sorry, wierd I know) and today it feels pretty good. It feels a little sore and a little tight but nothing I didn't expect, and my muscles are not sore at all! I am promising myself though that I will not have running be my only exercise. I need to cross train. Run, walk, bike, basketball, football, soccer, baseball, jump rope, etc.

So tomorrow I leave for beautiful Colorado and I am super excited. I am not feeling the "I need to get out of Abilene" itch yet but I know it will come and this is probably my last chance before June so I need to take it. I am not really looking forward to the 12 hour drive by myself but I got some audio books and some good snacks so I should be ok. So if anyone is traveling or bored tomorrow give me a call!

My time in Colorado is going to be a spontaneous time, which I need after having a schedule for the past few months. I have a few things I want to do and lots of people I want to see, but not much planned. The only real plan is on Saturday to have an adventure with Jeremy, and probably Trey and Danna too. Hopefully this means snowshoeing! Other than that I just want to spend time with the people I love there, enjoy the glorious scenery and get some work done. I know everyone takes work on spring break and then doesn't do it, but I HAVE to! If I don't I have to come home early which would = sad Dee. I need to get all of my little papers done so when I get back I can hit the major research papers hard! But I can just find a good spot to look at the mountains and get some work done. Maybe I will even go to the Mines library. Such a dork!

The last and yet first exciting thing is tonight! Do you even have to ask? Thursday night? LOST NIGHT! I think this might be the 7th episode which is sad and yet so exciting. I am watching it with some of my mission team and I am just so pumped to spend time with them. The semester has gotten busy for everyone and we are seeing each other less and less so I look forward to every second with them. I love Thursdays!!!!!!!!

I am all jittery and excited. Probably because I had more coffee this morning than I have since like December. Wow! I had coffee because I woke up early this morning to study. It was still dark outside and I had NO idea what was going on. My first thought was that it was time to go to work at Starbucks. Man, that 4:30am shift will haunt me forever!

Hope everyone else has a good spring break. Be safe!

O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A Oklahoma OK!

Want me to sing the whole state song for you? I really can. It is much better than Texas' and I don't really even have the Texas song memorized. Anyway, I went to Oklahoma this weekend to visit my brother, sis-in-law, and my parents joined us from Houston. We planned on have a nice, relaxing weekend to just hang out and celebrate Shannon's b-day. But of course things never go as planned.

Last weekend my great aunt died and she lives near OK City so on Saturday we drove up and went to her funeral. I did not know her well but the funeral service was nice and it was cool to get to see and meet the people that did know her well. I also got to see and catch up with extended family that I do not usually see in March or any other time of the year. My aunt is back from the peace corp and this was my first time to see her so that was wonderful.

The rest of the weekend was spent hanging out with each other, playing with the dogs and eating A LOT! I drove home Sunday night and had a glorious show to watch on the way back. I was coming into Abilene from the north and was about an hour away and the lightning storm was awesome! I could see it all around me and at that moment was so thankful for the big open sky and lack of trees. Sometimes the lightning would light up the entire sky!

I drove along enjoying the entertainment and then realized I was driving right into the storm and really couldn't see how bad it was. Being the kid who grew up in Oklahoma my mind went straight to tornados so I found a radio station to keep me updated. No tornado, just lots of rain, hail and lightning. The rest of the drive was not as fun. It was pouring and lightning was striking sometimes less than a mile from my car. I kept reminding myself that you do not get fried if your car gets struck. But I was just waiting for it! Luckily I made it home slowly, but safely.

Finally

After a long, boring, stuck inside while it is beautiful outside, day of studying I was given my reward. Ellen and I have been wanting to see this movie since we heard about it. The movie took FOREVER to come out and then the weekend it did, we called all 4 movie stores in Abilene and none of them had it. So today we were determined. I checked one store and they were out. So I called another and they had one left and said they would hold it for me. Victory was mine!!!

Tonight Ellen and I had a wonderful evening with a delicious cob salad, garlic bread, and No Reservations! I know you are thinking, "what is the big deal?" I really am not sure. I think it was just one of those things that I got into my head that I really wanted to see and I would not stop until I did. But it was worth the wait. It was so sweet and funny and sad and, yes that's right, clean! No sex, no cussing, no violence. Just a good ole' nice movie and we loved it!

To anyone who is looking for a good movie to watch I would totally recommend it. Maybe not for guys so much but you never know! On another note I LOVE Audrey Hepburn! Love her! Another friend of mine and I love watching old movies. We have watching anything from Citizen Kane to The Godfather to Lawrence of Arabia to our all time favorite, Roman Holiday. Roman Holiday stars Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck (best voice ever by the way). Ever since watching it we always try to find an Audrey movie. Our latest was Funny Face which is a musical and it has wonderful dancing and is just so funny. Actually Gap used a scene from it for one of their ads. Sadly Audrey movies are not in high demand in Abilene so we are always on the hunt! Others of her I have seen are Breakfast at Tiffany's, My Fair Lady, and Charade.