Calm Before the Storm

Its hard for anybody in VT to talk about anything right now besides the incredible damage from Irene. The pictures, the videos, they all tell a tragic story of what mother-nature is capable of. VT is not often of mother-nature's war-path, other than blizzards in the winter. We rarely see tornadoes and hurricanes, and only occasionally feel earthquakes (an event happened recently). But this time watching the news, the flooding wasn't in some distant area. It was right here. At home.

I'm sure most of you have been briefed by facebook media on the damage, so I decided not to spend this post reiterating what you've already heard. Instead, I'll talk about the small amount of peace we had before the storm. It started on Friday.

It had been a long week. Thursday and Friday at work were spent preparing for and working on the picnic at Willow Park. Not your usual picnic. More or less it meant a lot of extra work for the staff, but the weather was nice, and the participants enjoyed themselves. I even got an hour and half of overtime, purely from have more work to do than time to do it.

The moral of the story: I was exhausted. By the time we put the kayaks in the water, loaded up the gear and set off, I was more than ready to be at the campsite, tent set up, and dinner cooking. Several miles of paddling later found me more exhausted, and slightly cranky. We did eventually reach the campsite, however. After scoping it out to make sure no other travelers had claimed it first, we hauled the kayaks onto the island, and lugged out stuff up the trail and to the site. Utilizing amazing boyscout skills, Adam got a fire going, and I set up the tent. By the time this was done, the sun was down, and dinner was left to be made in the dark. Luckily, we had flashlights, and baked beans and hotdogs aren't especially hard to prepare. An hour so later we had full bellies, topped of with smores, and sat down to enjoy the night sounds by the lake.

The stars blazed across the night sky, and loons echoed their melancholy sound to us. The lapping of the water was rhythmic and soothing. The stresses of the week began to ebb away with the water, and we sat for minutes in pure silence and wonder over God's creation.

Morning found us awaked by the loons and other nature noises. Cozy in our tent and sleeping bags, we got out to look at our surroundings and get breakfast going. A few steps out revealed that we slept on the Eagle's island. Whoosh, whoosh, and an interesting call and he was gone. Not a bad start to the morning.

Pre-made pancakes turned out to be a great idea. After adding water, and putting them in the pan, we were eating like a King and Queen in minutes, complete with butter and maple syrup. :) There was even an extra for the chipmunk.

Adam rolling up on of our many dry bags

After packing up the important stuff (tent, and sleeping bags) and loading it into the kayaks, we set out for a morning of exploring and fishing. We found a neat cove, complete with a walking bridge for the trail along side the lake. 

Adam got his fishing pole set up, and happily floated around attracting the fish. 

We then headed up to the north end of the lake. We went all the way to the farthest point up the stream we could paddle, and hopped out on a point which happened to be growing some tasty berries. 

Some parts of the lake were extremely calm, while others remained choppy. It amazed us how the waves could change in an instant with increase of wind. 

We made it back to the site a little after 1:00. I was famished after all the paddling, and whipped up mashed potatoes, green beans, and yes, another smore. :) After a little rest, we decided we better pack up and start making our way towards the south end, as we were getting picked up around 7:00. 

Chacos are now my paddling shoe of choice. Wet or dry, walking or hiking on the islands, they work great. 

The close we got to the south end, the later it got, the more it clouded and the winds picked up. 

Thankfully, we made it to shore before the storm. In fact, it started raining only 10 minutes after we started driving in the truck. God definitely was looking out for us. It turned out to be a wonderful trip. We're really glad that we did it now, as the roads are closed to that lake now, and we have no idea when we'll be able to get there again. 

Latest Endeavors

A lot has gone on in the past couple of weeks. There have been many things I wanted to write about, but when push came to shove, my time usually ended up spent elsewhere, on the many other projects I've been doing lately.

One of the biggest changes in our lives the past couple of weeks was the acquisition of 2 kayaks. We had out pastor and his wife over to our house one night, and they talked about their upcoming canoe trip to the Boundary Waters. Hearing their stories brought up a desire we long ago had to rent kayaks and check out the nearby lakes. After some thought, we decided we didn't want to just rent, we wanted to buy. I was already convinced I didn't enjoy canoeing, mostly because Adam and I both wanted to steer. So buying 2 kayaks was a good alternative. After doing a lot of research, we settled on a type sold from Dick's Sporting Goods, which happened to be on sale. What we thought would be easy, turned out to be a little more difficult. After calling 8 stores, we finally found 1 that had 2 of the same boat in the store. We quickly headed to Hadley Mass to buy our precious new toys.

The more we thought about kayaking, the more we realized how much fun it would be to camp with the kayaks. It just so happened that Dick's was having a sale on camping supplies when we went down, so we were able to pick up a lot of the things we needed for a lot cheaper than expected.

So far we've taken them out twice on Somerset Reservoir. Both days were gorgeous, and we had a blast. We've seen a loon, 2 bald eagles, a group of geese, a beaver, several chipmunks, and lots of fish. We are planning out first camping trip this weekend, weather pending. Our last outing was happily shared with friends.

It was a gorgeous day spent on the water, although Joe could tell you that the sun was a bit too strong. 

Its only the beginning of what we hope to be a long-running hobby, and might I add, a great way to spend time with my hubby. 

Updated Comment Setup

Many people have told me that they were unable to comment on my posts. I thought this odd since many blog I read allow anonymous users to comment. Upon looking at my settings, I realized my blog did not allow this, so the settings have since been changed! Comment away people! Because this girl LOVEs comments! :D

A Little Change

This past Sunday I made a little change to my look. I got my ears pierced. I had been thinking about it for a little while now, and the opportunity presented itself to go with mom to the mall, so I did it. The majority of my friends and family are open-minded enough to accept such a change in me, or have their ears pierced themselves, but let me tell you, I know plenty of people who would make an issue out of this "little" change.

Honestly, piercing my ears was just never something I wanted to do before now. To be completely honest, there were so many battles to fight over necklaces and other jewelry with certain people in our church growing up, that I never wanted to add that extra element of drama to my life.

I decided to write a post about this for a few reasons.
1) People are going to see my ears sooner or later, so why not blog about it.
2) I want to explain the way I feel about them, and how I've grown as a person.

I have to say that I've grown a lot spiritually in the past year. Growing up in the Bennington church did a number on my opinion of myself, as well as my understanding of God's opinion about me. I used to be that having my own opinions and ideas about religion were unacceptable, because it didn't coincide with tradition. I've now learned to embrace my walk with God, with all of my questionings, lack of understanding, and need for growth. I used to be so concerned with what other people thought about me, that it kept me from being me. I've realized this is unhealthy and not what God wants for me. I also learned that judging others is simply unacceptable, because in so doing I condemn myself. Don't get me wrong. I'm not perfect. I struggle with this daily, but it is something I give to God each day to change in my life.

With these understandings, I finally feel comfortable being me. And let me just say people, I like to wear jewelry. I always have. My great grandmother used to have an old jewelry box for grandkids to play dress up with. I have a lot of fond memories of doing that at her house. From when I was a child, I had my little stash of necklaces, anklets, and rings I'd collected on various vacations and other outings; all cheap and without value to everyone except me. The problem was, I was not allowed to wear them unless we were far away from Bennington. Hypocritical? I think so. I hated it, but I understand the desire to not "make waves," so I complied. As I got older, I wavered back and forth about what that meant in my life, and how I should deal with it. In the past few years, I have become acutely aware of the hypocrisy in my life; being one person in church, and another outside. I just can't stand that anymore. Its not what I want. Its not what God wants. And you want to know something else? God accepts me and loves me for who I am. Jewelry and all.

I love to dress nicely for special occasions, and coordinate my outfits so that they compliment each other. Just ask my family. To me, jewelry is just part of the outfit. It compliments it. I realize that many Adventists don't see jewelry the same way, and thats fine. Just don't tell me how to think. That is none of your business. How anyone feels about dress is between them and God. He is the one we should look to as our model. Not each other.

The reason for this long rendering of sentiments? I want this out there, so people know how I feel. I also want people who have felt condemnation from other Adventists over such issues to embrace freedom before God, as He is our judge, not our fellow neighbor. Let God create you to be the person He made you to be, without the fear of condemnation of others. Besides, if they judge you, they have their own battles with God.