Finally: Part 1

I'm now ending my three month hiatus (Lindsay, I'm sorry I didn't get your message until just now! But if you ever come down to Portland I'd love to see you.) I have a mass of pictures (83 to be exact) that I'd like to post but may not get to be posted all in one go. We'll see where this ends up. So, the wedding:










After the wedding we saw the Decemberists with the majority of our wedding party and we all went dressed in our wedding clothes, it was fun. Also, one of our friends wore a monocle, but I don't have a photo.




Then we went on a short honeymoon in Charleston, SC. We stayed at a lovely bed and breakfast called the Eliot House. It was old (as is everything in Charleston) and beautiful. Since it was the off-season for tourists it was very quiet. Every evening we would go down to the courtyard and sit in the hot tub which was set under a trellis of wisteria, very peaceful. Every morning they brought us breakfast in bed (lovely and extravagant!). Over all it was very peaceful and calm. I didn't take many pictures which I'm sorry about because we saw some really awesome things there. I saw a banana blossom and didn't take a picture (how stupid is that!). But here are a couple pictures of our room.





This is a bridge we crossed a couple times. It's some kind of suspension bridge and I don't know the name, but its still pretty fantastic.




We visited a place just south of Charleston called Edisto State Beach on Edisto Island. There are salt marshes, the best shelling in South Carolina and lots of palm trees.









Then on our way back to Baltimore before starting the roadtrip to Portland we stopped in North Carolina. We first stopped at the Alligator River WIldlife Refuge. We unfortunately didn't see any alligators that we're aware but we did see a heron, a couple of black turtles and two suspicious looking forms in the water which weren't actually alligators but certainly made us look twice.








On the East Coast the Outer Banks (aka OBX) is a big deal. Luckily, again being the off season we were able to see the beach without many people around which is nice. There were a lot of really cool shells in amazing colours. And covering the beach were many little jellyfish, and one really big one as well.

Whirlwind US Tour

Its been a long month. As most of you know, I got married to Joel Stizlein (hurray!) and we are now moving across the country to Portland, OR so I can go to school. We are almost to Portland, but have stayed in Teton Village for the last two days. This has been like an extension of our honeymoon, our hotel was reasonably priced because it's the off-season but its *very* nice. Pictures to come. :0) Today we visited Grand Teton National Park and went a little way into Yellowstone but neither had any through-roads because of the snow and, again, the off-season. They were both free for that reason ($25 each!) but we would have gotten in free because we got a National Parks Pass for a wedding gift (totally awesome!). There will be photos of both parks to come too.

Thus far we've driven through PA, WV, and OH, stopping in the latter for Joel's grandmother's funeral and our second reception for local friends and family. Then went on to IN where we visited Joel's old roommate who is now currently residing in Bloomington, IN which was a great town. Then we ventured through MO, stopped at the Arch in St. Louis and went through KS. Neither of the Kansas Cities (MO and KS) were cool cities, I've never been more disappointed in a city before. That part was kind of sad. Then we drove to CO to visit my (extended) family for Thanksgiving. It was good, we relaxed a bit after spending many days driving all day and into the night. Then from there we drove to Teton Village in WY. I've got to say, desolation never looked so pretty! Ha, we've honestly driven many miles through WY without another car in site and only plains and flats full of dry grass and cattle. Tomorrow we are embarking for our final leg of the trip on to OR. We'll be driviing through a little more of WY then on to ID and finally to OR. It should take about a day and a half and we should be there on tuesday.

We've got an apartment pretty secure. We're filling out applications and the studio we're applying for has no other applicants, so it looks pretty solid. Joel has an interview to be an MRI center secretary in a couple days too. Things seem like they're looking up and I will most assuredly update what happens to us next and will include pictures of our trip.

Thanks to everyone who made this all possible!!

Good News

The good news is that I'm going back to school! After much thought, prayer and meditation I've decided to go back to school at PNCA. I wasn't going to for a while, and I didn't, but I think now that I've got things straightened out a little better I'm going to give school another shot.

I've also thought about the direction my work could go in and I've decided that I really want to do work with plant propagation and using the plants in my work, using them as my work, etc. I'm really excited to see where this is headed.

So after the wedding we'll be moving to Portland, OR sometime before school starts. Anyway, we're going to visit Ohio (Joel's parents) this weekend, it was going to be next weekend but both of us had an unexpected amount of days off of work so we're taking advantage of it. This way we don't even have to ask days off from work to do this!

These are some photos of insects and other creepy crawlies from the farm that I'm finally uploading for you all to see!

This is a katydid, approximately 2.5 inches long. Thats one big bug!


Common house spider.


Can you spot that mantid? Hint: in the lower right quarter..


Thats the female Praying Mantis.


So things are still really rocky. I'm possibly going to California for the 3 weeks to a month before I get married to spend time with my mom (and family) and take care of wedding stuff and chill out. I still haven't decided what I want to do for sure yet because I feel bad about leaving Joel again, but we've done it before and we did it well. I also feel bad about not having involved my mom for the most part in the wedding stuff. So I don't really know what will happen, it would be nice not to have to pay for rent for sure but is that the most important thing? So many things are going on and it makes me sick to try to comprehend it all. I need some perspective.

Life as it Goes

Life can be disappointing. And speaking of disappointing, I'm sorry to those of you who read my blog, or did. I'm going to try to write more. In any case, the disappointment. Yesterday Joel and I were driving around the Woodberry/Clipper Mill area and I saw the BioHabitats firm. So I decided to stop in and see if they had anything to offer. I don't know what I was quite looking for, perhaps a job, volunteer work, internship. Who knows, I just want to learn about environmental restoration. That's what they're all about anyways. ( http://biohabitats.com/ )

I was able to talk with Tim Burkett who deals with employment at the firm. It was helpful, really helpful -- and really disappointing. I found out that what I was hoping to do, willing to finish school for... just doesn't exist. I want to work outside, plant native species, rip out invasive species, collect bugs, research things and collect data. This job doesn't exist. Why not? Ask someone else because I do not know.

Now it is time to move on and figure out what I need to do. Someday I want to own a cafe and used book store. I do want to continue learning but school is so ridiculous to me. I don't want to be an executive anything, I don't want to be an artist, I can't be the biologist that I want to be. So what now? If anyone wants to give me ideas besides working in a coffee shop or retail, I would really appreciate it. I need inspiration and a goal. My goal was ripped out from me and now I feel aimless and confused. Like walking in a cloud, with diffused light and muffled sounds. Where do I go from here?

Who knew working 60 hours on a farm, getting yelled at by farmers and planning a wedding *wasn't* a good thing? I certainly didn't know. So unfortunately we're calling it quits early. It was too much to handle and way too stress inducing and no longer good, fun or healthy. So in two weeks we shall say good bye to the farm. We told the farmers today and they were surprisingly calm about it. That was nice. In any case, that is the update for now.

Photos!!

Alright, I'm just going to post the photos now with not too much text if -- I can help myself. :0)

These are some wasps next to my room's door.


And this is a silly chicken roosting in the tree. They don't usually roost in the tree since there is a roosting house where they lay eggs and also sleep at night.


It was this dirty before I swept it when Joel came. Then after done sweeping I forgot to take that picture.


What a cock! He wasn't getting along with the other chickens so they plucked out his tail feathers and now he's growing them back and feeling more confident. He's even gotten up the nerve to chase the hens (no mounting just yet).


One of the chickens. They're very friendly and photogenic.



An old dump truck and some new trucks.


Baby birds!! Unfortunately they didn't make it. I took this photo on a sunday and the next monday they were no where to be found. I was very sad. :0(



Tomatoes!!



And some lovely zinnias.


The end. More to come, don't fret!