Party in the USA.

I have to preface this blog with a simple statement:

I love Wal-Mart.

I know there's a lot of controversy that arises when Wal-Mart becomes the topic of conversation. There are people that refuse to shop there due to the way their employees are treated, people who refuse to shop there due to the quality of the merchandise, people who refuse to shop there simply because their friends refuse to shop there.

But I grew up on Wal-Mart.

I'm not going to pretend like I know the inherent evils that live inside the factories where Wal-Mart products are made and distributed, because I don't. I don't have any friends that work at Wal-Mart. I don't have any friends that work in underground sweatshops where Wal-Mart products are made. I know this blog is getting somewhat desensitized but I think I have to do that in order to defend my simple utter

love for Wal-Mart.

I love the Super Wal-Mart's especially. Not only can you grocery shop, clothes shop, and purely decorative shop, you can do it all at all hours of the night. 24 hour Super Wal-Marts are genius.

All that to say, I had a delightful experience at the super Wal-Mart in Redmond a couple days ago.

Not only did I get a weeks worth of meals for under $6.00, I had the time of my life capitalizing on the fantastically unfortunate passion for fashion of my fellow Wal-Mart consumers.

I apologize.

But I know you're interested in what I saw...so let me try my best to scribble a picture for you...

Krista had wandered down one of the many hygiene aisles looking for deodorant. So I wandered down the bathroom accessory aisle feeling towels. Weird, but somewhat comforting. As I was feeling a towel, I turned to my left and what did I see...

A middle aged man, slowly approaching 50, with bleach blonde corn rows that all mingled together in a pony tail at the back of his head. I almost lost it. Right there, petting towels, I almost laughed out loud.

But I held my composure and decided I had to get a picture.

I apologize again.

So I crept up behind him with the camera app open on my phone. Come to find out, not only does he have bleach blonde corn rows tied back in a pony, he's wearing a denim jacket with a giant bald eagle on the back with a giant pitifully patriotic USA emblazoned underneath the talons.

Welcome to  Wal-Mart.

Welcome to America.

I failed miserably to get a good picture the first time around so I prayed for another opportunity as Krista and I got in line to make our purchases. Just as we were grabbing our bags from the lazy susan style bagging device, the one thing I legitimately hate about Wal-Mart, I saw Captain America just a couple aisles down, reaching into his basket for one last evasive trinket to conclude his purchases.

That was my chance. I snapped a quick pic with my phone, in the hopes of making the peopleofwalmart  website. No sooner had the flash and the click taken place, when a friendly Wal-Mart associate kindly reminded me, "Ma'am, you're not allowed to take pictures in the store."

Busted.

Not sure what she thought I was taking a picture of but I quickly apologized and skirted my way out the door. Krista and I had a gut jiggling guffaw as we walked out the door peeking at the pictures I had successfully snapped.

I really do love Wal-Mart.

I apologize.

Remind me next time to tell you the story of Krista and the publicly private man at Barnes & Noble.

Words.

Sometimes I just can’t stop thinking about words.

My stomach grumbles and my mind fidgets with discomfort as I dream up methods of making my words heard.

Getting people interested in what I have to say, now that’s something for my brain to chew on.

I used to spend hours a day consumed by the dilemmas of parents who never loved me. Dwelling in the sadness of the circumstances I’d been dealt.

And now I spend hours a day pondering how to relay the message that becoming a victim of circumstance is like slamming your finger in a car door, repeatedly, and on purpose.

It’s just dumb.

And yet it happens.

All the damn time.

So here I sit, on an uncomfortable wooden chair, with my stomach grumbling, intestines unhappy with the wretched amounts of caffeine I pummeled them with, thinking about what it is that people find captivating.

Captivating enough to read.

Captivating enough to read and then go tell their friends to read.

People are captivated by a couple of things…

Those things include but are not limited to:

1.     1. Things they would never do (i.e.-hiking 2,600 miles from Mexico to Canada, becoming homeless on purpose in order to show people the love of Christ, running across America, literally running across America, as a means of raising awareness about chemical dependence and the children that are affected by it.)

2.    2.  Things they’ve done and can relate to (i.e.-signing onto facebook and getting pissed due to yet another new layout, vegging on the couch watching Gilmore Girls while eating their feelings because they got dumped via text message, or arriving promptly one hour late to a pivotal meeting only to discover they forgot about daylight savings time again.)

3.    3. Things they’ve always wanted to do but just never done (i.e.-travel the world, save a life, climb out from under their emotional stress, or simply tell someone what they really think.)

I want to write.

And I want what I write to be captivating.

So captivating that you will read it.

And then you will go tell your friends to read it, too.

I want to imagine up ways to inspire you, to encourage you, to inform you, and to empower you, oh, and to entertain you of course. 

An so I sit, on an uncomfortable wooden chair, consumed by words, ideas, passions.


Consumed by things that bring me joy.


Instead of things that paralyze me. Things that suck the life right out of me. Like dwelling in a murky pool of sadness playing victim to the choices my parents made.


Climb out of the pool and jump into the boundless ocean with me as I sit on an uncomfortable wooden chair dreaming up ways to bring hope, joy, and peace to others around this playground of a planet.


Are you captivated yet?

Gunnysack.

My heart is racing. Thumping. Jumping.

The sweat trickles down the nape of my neck. The droplets frolic down my face.

Deep breaths. Darting eyes.

My feet have grown accustomed to the repetitive beat they drum into the dirt. I can feel the friction under my arms as I wind down the uncomfortable road to chafing.

It’s been ten miles and I am invincible.

A bird flutters across my path and my first instinct, run faster.

Faster and faster, farther and farther. 

My best friend is a water bottle that is caught up in a custody battle between my right and left hand.

My coach is the wind that blows at my back, whispering in my ear that I am the captain of this vessel.

I am the captain and the dusty trails are my undercurrents, pulling, beckoning me into their infinite abyss.

I get lost in my brain when I’m running.  

I get lost in my brain and I like it. I love it. I live for these moments.

The moments I can escape. Escape the monotony and climb out of the proverbial box I’ve been shoved into. Stifled. Suffocated. Sanity seeping through the cracks.

My name is Sabrina McCarley and I live to run.

And here’s why.

I’m the product of what you might call a dysfunctional family. I hesitate to use the word dysfunctional considering it’s been cast about like a rag doll at a preschool. Everyone wants to claim it as their own, believing that having a dysfunctional family makes their story sit on a throne above the rest, which brings me to my point.

I’m the product of a dysfunctional family. A mother addicted to meth. A father addicted to alcohol. Dwelling in a world of physical, emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse, I became a recluse. Invisible to the world, invisible to my family, invisible to myself.

I always dreamed of running away.

But instead I escaped into books, stories that weren’t my own, lives that were happier, prettier, more delightful than mine.

And then I discovered that I really could run away. I ran away through the pages, devouring books as if there was a pending burn pile outside my bedroom door and I had to read them all before they were pried out of my hands and banned for all eternity, cast into the famished flames.

But then I discovered that I could physically run away everyday.

Run away but come back. Come back because I didn’t have the audacity to defy my parents, no matter how much I secretly wished that I did.

Running quickly became my outlet, hopping onto the list of solitary hobbies I recruited to hang out under my invisibility cloak.

And now at twenty-two, long after I have moved out from under my parents, I continue to run away. Everyday.

I am free. I am focused. I am thoughtful.

I imagine. I dream. I delight.

I conjure the grandest of schemes when I’m running, schemes to write a book of my own, schemes to climb mountains, schemes to change lives, schemes to save the world.

My latest scheme?

Run across America.

I have a dream that I will one day fly solo, sew some paper wings on my shoes, and run across my country, coast to coast.

And that’s where you come in dear reader. I’m presenting an opportunity to you and asking you to partner with me in this grand scheme.

It will be an epic adventure.

Care to run away with me?

Plethora.

I decided to make public a lot of the private things that I've been writing about lately.

Enjoy.

Marianne.

I don’t know much about her, but I know her humble spirit is contagious.

She lives in a storybook house, on a ranch, at the end of a private road. I know the road; I lost control on it once when the pavement was icy.

She has dogs. She has kids. She has an uncanny amount of fruit sitting on her kitchen counter. I know the fruit; I grabbed a pear, two oranges, and a banana as I left this morning.

The giant panoramic windowpanes in the dining room expose the poised and placid beauty of the Three Sisters.  I know the windows; I bumped my head on one as I tried to stick my face closer to the snowcapped mountains.

The carpet is plush, so plush you’ll lose your toes in it if you’re not careful. I know the carpet; I had to pry my pinky toes out of the comfort to plunge them into their socks.

The espresso machine perched next to the sink is alive and active. I know the espresso; two shots of it splashed into the bottom of my blue ceramic mug, swirled with skinny milk and sugar free vanilla syrup.

The beds are fresh and clean and plentiful. I know the beds; I slept between the crisp sheets, and floundered amidst the down comforter and pillows.

She is gracious. She is inspiring. She loves unconditionally.

Her faith will knock you down with it’s length and breadth.

She opens her home to young and old alike, to strangers and the dearest of friends. Her conversation is intentional and meaningful.

She is witty. She is fun.

She deserves an award of the utmost acclaim.

Her name is Marianne Walker and her presence is staggering.

Incontinence.

My incontinence was never an issue. Until I turned 5. When I turned 5, peeing my pants was no longer ok. No longer socially acceptable. No longer parentally allowed. I don’t particularly remember peeing my pants. I don’t know how often it happened or what time of day seemed most probable for my bladder to lose control. But I do remember when it stopped being ok.

Because I started getting punished.

It wasn’t really the fact that I was getting punished that has been etched into my memory, but more so the way in which I was punished, that has fermented in the depths of my brain.

My parents chose a different sort of parenting book to read from when I was born. They chose to read the book of “My parents did it to me, so it’s ok if I do it to my kids.” I’m not sure if this book taught them that it was ok to punish your kid for peeing their pants, but in all other instances, they lived by this book.

Looking back, I’d say their punishment was the equivalent of grabbing my muzzle and rubbing my nose in the soiled Lion King underwear. Actually, come to think about it, it was worse than that.

I wasn’t even comparable to a dog in the eyes of my parents.

When I was 5, I lived in a mobile home at the end of a gravel driveway in the middle of a relatively busy residential avenue.

For most petty crimes that I committed as a child, my dad would punish me by sending me out to count the rocks in the driveway, or count the leaves on the bushes.

One particular instance I remember being told to stand in the corner. Four hours later, I mustered up enough courage to ask my dad if I was allowed to come out. He laughed out loud. He had completely forgotten about me. I was roughly 5 years old and I stood in the corner, staring at the point where the two walls met, for four hours.

I don’t remember being a particularly bad kid. I wasn’t a troublemaker at school. I did what I was told and I spoke only when spoken to.

But somehow someway, my parents found ways to punish me. So when I turned 5 and still couldn’t control my bladder, my dad had found a way to punish me.

His method of punishment was public humiliation. It wasn’t embarrassing enough that I was peeing my pants; I must be humiliated further in order to cure the ailment. This rationale could only come from the book, the book of “My parents did it to me, so it’s ok to do it to my kids.” Unless my parents were petty imbeciles that capitalized on my inadequate bladder in order to achieve their daily quota of amusement. I wouldn’t be surprised.

So my dad bought a package of Pampers.

Not only was I to wear Pampers under my pants. I was to wear them on my head.

Not only was I to wear Pampers under my pants and on my head, but I was to walk to the end of the gravel driveway in the middle of the day carrying a sign that said “I still pee my pants.”

I don’t particularly remember the look on my dads face as I did my walk of shame, but the memory of my long skinny body standing at the edge of the hot gravel, with a diaper on my head, and a sign in my hand, will be stamped in my memory until I either die, or develop a severe case of Alzheimer’s.

And I still pee my pants today, most often during bouts of uncontrollable laughter.

Perhaps I’ll put some Pampers on my head and pray that this time the punishment will work.

Frolic.

There’s a pocket of people that live in the middle of a camp in the middle of a canyon in the middle of Oregon, and you’d be fortunate to one day find yourself in the middle too.

The camp is Washington Family Ranch. The town is Antelope, Oregon. And the streams of life and love are babbling, billowing, overflowing there.

There’s a whimsical magical melody that blows through the trees there. The breeze tiptoes off fence posts, and teeters on the shore of the pond, but just for a second before it plunges into the brisk water, rippling into stillness. The rays of the sun cascade down the hillsides before they launch themselves into the glistening eyes of the children that play there.

Hearts change. Perceptions change. Lives change in this place.

It’s like everyone that lives there is a giant bubble wand, waiting patiently for his or her chance to be grasped in the hand of the Lord. To be dunked in the bubble bottle. And to have unconditional joy blown through them. Bubbles of joy floating through the plush air, floating and frolicking, splashing on the heads of those in need, in need of a pocket full of joy.

It’s a journey to get to this place. Several single lane highways, a stretch of gravel, some stray cattle, and a super sized ice water with a side of light snacks will get you there from the small town of Madras, Oregon. It takes patience, the ability to drive slow to prevent motion sickness, and a good mix cd to successfully reach the ranch.

But you will be changed upon arrival.

The food will stretch your belly beyond contentment, and send your taste buds on a merry go round ride of ecstasy. The recreational activities will challenge your fears and your faith. The scenery will shatter the antique portrait of beauty you have stored in the attic of your brain. And the company will alter the way you view this fleeting life.

So take a chance.

Come visit.

Prosthetic.

I once had a grandma who loved me more than she loved herself.

You know how I know she loved me more than she loved herself?

She had a prosthetic leg.

The fact that she had a prosthetic leg is not what proves that she loved me more than she loved herself.

It’s what she did in spite of that prosthetic leg.

Because she had a prosthetic, you would automatically assume that she had an amputation. You would be correct in that assumption. My grandma had her right leg amputated up to just below the knee, when she was roughly 70 years old.

She laughed in the face of the prosthesis. She cackled at its complexity and decided that she could get along just as well without it. And she did.

I played softball for a bit of my tweenage years. I was a first basemen due to my lankiness. I had a reach. I had an extensive reach, and I was good. I could hit. I could run. And I could catch. Pretty much all you need for a good game of softball.

Grandma never missed a game.

When mom was nowhere to be found, Grandma could always be counted on for a smile and an affirming shout of congratulations.

Even after the prosthetic.

Conjure up a mental image of this and then maybe you’ll understand why I know that my grandma loved me more than she loved herself.

She would drive with one leg to my softball field. She would hop on one leg around the car to the trunk. She would balance on one leg while she pulled the wheelchair out of the trunk.

Then she would wheel herself the sometimes a hundred feet, sometime a quarter mile, to my softball field, depending on the location.

More than one foul ball has ricocheted off the frame of that wheelchair, but she never missed a game.

I once had a grandma who loved me more than she loved herself.

Writer.

I’ve known that I was going to be a writer for a long time. But I don’t know when I actually became one.

I’m not exactly sure what specific moment solidified the concrete at the base of this statement, but let me grab a chisel and I’ll take a stab at identifying it.

It could have been that time when I was 5 and I stole a roll of quarters from deep in my mom’s purse, from deep in her closet. I stole the quarters to buy pencils from the .25 cent machine in the office of my elementary school.

Or maybe it was the time I colored letters on the wall in permanent marker, just to practice my penmanship.

It could have been one of those times before I learned to read when I would make up my own stories to go along with the pictures on the pages.

Or it could have been the time when I actually learned to read and I discovered that I absolutely adored it. The times when I would visit the public library weekly, to check out the allotted 30 books, to read them and return them the next week.

Or maybe it was when I started volunteering at the public library when I was in middle school, because I couldn’t get enough of the way the books smelled, the way the pages felt beneath my fingertips.

It could have been the time that my story about meal pills won first place in the Reflections contest in 7^th grade.

Or the time I did my honors world history project on the printing press in 9^th grade.

It might have been the SAT words like genuflect and extol, egregious and gregarious, that captured my interest in the beauty of cacophony and euphony.

Or maybe it was penning the captions at the bottom of the pictures on all the yearbook layouts I edited.

Sometimes I believe it was the valedictory speech I gave at my high school graduation that sealed the deal.

But then it flourished in the late night poems I scribbled in my journals.

And then, as much as I hate to admit it, I think the brand on the blowdryer that permanently set the concrete in place, was blog.

I started blogging. And people started reading.

And now I consider myself a writer.

Simply because I can’t stop stringing words together. The words plummet out of my fingertips and onto the placid page before I have time to harness them.

But why should I put a leash on them?

I’m a writer. Deal with it.

Tantalizing.

I decided I needed to break up the monotony of my immensely wordy blogs and include some visual stimulation for my dedicated peoples...and maybe a video or two..so here goes...

Incredible highlights/incredible lowlights of the past couple weeks/months include...

• dirty mustaches at a dirty mexican restaurant fully equipped with two dirty bouts of food poisoning.

• Shredding in the skatepark. While simultaneously roller skating around the basketball courts. And dancing with no inhibition to Rihanna's Rockstar 101. And eating candy on Celebration Sunday. Oh and bench pressing 75 lbs, only 25 short of my goal for the year. Yup, all at the same time.

• Shadow puppets in the corner booth at Dairy Queen.

• Negotiating with the friendly volunteer thrift store associate over a plush unicorn collectible. I didn't end up purchasing it because I couldn't get her to budge below three dollars.
• Finding out that I am the 2010 summer video intern at Washington Family Ranch. Quite possibly the highlight of my life.
• Failing miserably at getting snow chains on my lopsided vehicle.

• Discovering expression through oil pastels, and dedicating a wall in our house to commemorating that expression and allowing others to join in the majesty.

Deeper spiritual and emotional insight coming soon...

Ashy.

Today is Ash Wednesday.

Welcome.

I won't spend time explaining the significance of this day. All I know is I want to fast from something for the next 46 days.

I want to fast. And I'm going to fast.

Over the past 5 months I've consumed more sugar than I have in the past couple years combined. There are candy bowls scattered all over camp's main office. Every time I am in that building I will consume at least 5 morsels, if not more. It's wretched and impulsive and without even realizing it, I think I've become addicted. I know addicted is a word that gets thrown around flippantly these days, but this ish is real.

I think about sugar all the time. Incessant thoughts invade my mind and I can't get out from under them.

"I wonder if there's chocolate in Mary's bowl today."

"How many miles should I run today in order to compensate for the three handfuls of saltwater taffy I pounded?"

"Is two pieces of ice cream cake and a three scoop waffle cone of mint chip ice cream too much for one dessert?"

"How many sodas can I drink in one day without being embarrassed?"

"two nerds ropes and a box of valentine sweethearts. too much?"

And I wonder why I have 850 dollars in dental bills and nine cavities due for filling.

Needless to say this petty five letter word consumes me. Sugar. It's so easy to be suffocated by its cellophane wrappers, held captive by the sweet nothings it whispers down your throat.

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.

Problem admitted.

And now I'm fasting.

It's Ash Wednesday and although I don't have a pastor present to smudge an ashy cross on my forehead, I think my ashy elbows and ankles will have to suffice as a remembrance and a repentance.

I now pronounce this vow of abstinence from all things sugary...including but not limited to: Coca Cola, mint chip ice cream, berry cobbler, Better than Ben's chocolate chip cookies, saltwater taffy, peppermint patties, tootsie roll pops, oreo ice cream pie, and nerds ropes.

I sure hope this fast lives up to it's synonymous counterpart, meaning that it goes by quickly. HA!

Thanks for reading. And laughing at my pathetic problem.

Fare thee well kind friend.

Epiphanies and Revelries.

I just woke up.

And I woke up thinking about the word blog. It's a contraction of the two words, web and log, but really it's only a few letters short of bologna.

And then I started thinking about bologna. What's it made of? Who even consumes it? And then I started to think about how I would like to incorporate the word bologna into my vocabulary more often, simply due to its pending extinction. Bologna isn't pedantic and out of reach. It should become an active member of the vernacular. So use it. By all means, please don't eat it, but throw it out of your mouth with some other words sometime. I don't think anything would brighten my day more than someone shouting, "Now that's just bologna!"

In thinking about bologna, I then floated back to my appetite for words, and how sometimes it's insatiable.

Which then brought me to the epiphany, that with a love like mine, a passion, an obsession, an appreciation like mine, why would I ever consider not teaching English?

Which then brought me to brewing up assignments for my imaginary high school kids in their make believe classroom.

Which then brought me to the revelation that the dictionary application on the dashboard of my Mac, is quite possibly my best friend. In no way should that last statement be considered hyperbole. I hang out with him at least 6 times a day. I hung out with him 3 times already today. And little did I know that the word epiphany is biblical. I really had no idea. I'm not sure why I had no idea that it was biblical, but that doesn't change the fact that it is and I didn't know. Silly me.

All of this then reminded me that I need to e-mail my junior high American lit teacher, simply because the mundane SAT word memorization she subjected me to really crafted a nest in my brain. I find myself using those words often. I used several in this blog, and the other night during a squeaky clean game of Bananagrams, I spelled the word ennui, and no one believed it was indeed, a word.

Thank you Ms. Lamy and Ms. Pagano. For holding the chisel that etched those endangered words into the recesses of my brain.

All that from the word blog, before I even got out of bed this morning.

Welcome to my wandering mind. I'm delighted you could be a part of the revelry.

Loaves and Fishes.

So in case you all were wondering, I'm thinking about going back to school. Yup, just thinking. No pursuing at this point.

I spent about an hour online yesterday checking out the creative writing MFA programs at UCR and the University of Oregon. I think those are the only two that I will decide between at this point...and if I do decide to pursue this endeavor, it won't be until after the completion of the PCT.

I would apply this winter, to go to school next fall, right after I'm done trekking the west coast in it's entirety. PS. the invitation still stands for whomsoever would like to join me. On the PCT, not the grad school diploma.

And I have to share with you some incredible highlights of the past two days...

I have to give you some background on the first one.

I work in the kitchen on the weekends. Normally only a day and a half a week. This weekend it was two and a half days due to the holiday. Which holiday is it again? Oh yeah, President's Day.

So Saturday I worked the a.m. shift, and I lead the shift, which means I was in charge of delegating the work crew through breakfast and lunch. Which means I was in charge of serving out two meals. Which means I was in charge of making sure that just over 400 people were served food that was both hot, and plentiful.

Which means I stress out.

Without fail, I stress out, every time I lead a shift. I lose sleep the night before, thinking about all the ways I could fail miserably at one of the most pivotal jobs at this camp, feeding kids.

There are so many outrageously integral parts to facilitating a successful meal, and within each meal, there are actually two meals, because the work crew eats an hour before the campers, which means I'm actually serving out four meals now, instead of just two.

Which means there are more ways for me to fail.

I know I know, you're thinking "fail? fail? those are just more ways to succeed!" Right?

But that's not how my brain operates. I pre-meditate everything, and that means that I find every possible way for things to go wrong, so that I can avoid them.

So the a.m. shift on saturday went relatively smoothly. The kids ate, and they ate until they were full.

But Sunday I worked the p.m. shift, which means I'm only in charge of dinner. Should be easier than the a.m. right? One meal would common sensically amount to less responsibility and therefore less stress, than the a.m. shift.

Yeah, I thought so too.

Until the lasagnas happened.

Dinner last night was lasagna, which should have been outstandingly simple because only one dish has to be served out to each table. The bread, margarine, beverages, and salad are all pre-set. Just lasagna has to be served out hot. Just lasagna.

I had about 8 work crew peeps on the assembly line to help me prepare the lasagnas. It was quite the event considering there are about 8 million layers in our lasagna. I was already frazzled due to the fact that there were 8 work crew, because the task really only needed about 4. More people make the job harder. Especially for me. I've learned that I'm definitely not the most efficient person there ever was. When it comes to preparing meals effectively, I tend to do things the hard way.

There was much spillage of red sauce and ricotta slop. Several bodies ran into each other leaving shmears of said sauce and slop along sleeves. There were too many people and too many toppings for comfort.

But we layered and we layered and we layered...and then we ran out. We ran out of noodles with 16 lasagnas left to top. We searched high and low in the freezers for noodles. There were no more noodles. No. More. Noodles. The three words echoed in my head, echoed into eyes welling up, echoed into a heart starting to race. I almost cried as I consulted my superiors, Tex and Sarah, to see what could have possibly gone wrong. The work crew stood beside us, baffled and with nothing to do but stare. I got really frustrated because it wasn't my fault that we ran out of noodles, but it appeared to be my fault so I regarded it as failure and ended up tearing up three of the pans of lasagna that I had prepared for the work crew in order to use the noodles for the camper lasagnas.

Which means that we would barely have enough lasagna to feed the work crew, let alone have seconds for the campers. And we have to have seconds prepared for the campers. Have to.

So Tex scours the cooler and freezer for leftover lasagnas from last weekend to salvage for our dinner for this weekend. He finds one frozen lasagna, and one lasagna that had already been cooked that we are going to try and reheat.

He continues to reassure me that everything is going to be fine. He reminds me that the Lord is in control, he reminds me of the 5,000 with the few meager fish and loaves. Every time I look a little dejected throughout the rest of the afternoon, Tex just says the words "fishes and loaves Sabrina, fishes and loaves."

I try to no avail to give it to the Lord. The meal is in His hands. There is absolutely nothing I can do.

So then it comes time to cook our lasagnas. And I tried to tell you about the process that is prepping the lasagnas, well the process of cooking them is even more exasperating. Because our ovens are pretty precarious, they don't cook our lasagnas evenly, so we have to rotate them, every thirty minutes. The lasagnas, not the ovens. So two platters of lasagna sit on one sheet tray and those platters are then covered by another sheet tray in order to lock in the moisture so you don't get dry crusty lasagna. The entire awkward lasagna compilation then goes on an oven rack. Six awkward lasagna compilations live in each oven for about an hour and 15 minutes, or until they reach 155 degrees, which is the temperature at which sausage is fully cooked, in case you were wondering.

One awkward lasagna compilation is very heavy. Very heavy. It takes much balance, precision, and strength in order to relocate one lasagna compilation. Plus the ovens are hot, and you have to wear mitts, which then produces an intrusive amount of sweat.

So here I am, a hot and sweaty mess, rotating lasagnas, worrying about children going to bed hungry because there were no seconds for lasagna.

I also forgot to mention that on this day the kids have only had one meal prior to dinner. They had a brunch at 10:30. Dinner is at 5:30. They haven't eaten in 7 hours. They're famished.

And I have no seconds.

In the midst of rotating, I get caught up in transferring the finished lasagnas to a warmer to wait for the meal. Tex then decides to, being the helper that he is, step in and help me rotate lasagnas. Tex is a wonderful man. This tale is not to denote his abilities in any way, or to disregard my appreciation for the ways he picks up my slack.

That said, Tex has large hands. His hands don't fit in the oven mitts. So he has to use the hot pads. The hot pads that aren't nearly as protective as the mitts.

The lasagnas are heavy. And awkward.

As I am transferring a pan from the oven to the warmer, I hear a feeble yelp and just as I turn around I hear a cacophony of shattering glass and splashing lasagna, and a shard of glass then ricocheted off the middle of my forehead.

There was absolutely nothing to do but make sure that Tex was ok, and then laugh myself silly. There's something quite magical about being so utterly helpless that you have to laugh.

Not only did I not have seconds of lasagna now, but I had lost two of my camper platters of lasagna.

So what did we do, the two of us threw our heads back and laughed, as we stood in the midst of the splattered lasagna.

After cleaning up the mess and continuing the rotation, we thought about what we could do to solve this predicament. And the only thing to do was pray. I continued to pray throughout the preparation of the meal and Tex continued to remind me, "loaves and fishes Sabrina, loaves and fishes."

God continues to stun me with His faithfulness. Not only did all the kids eat until they were satisfied, but there was one entire platter of lasagna leftover.

Loaves and fishes Sabrina. Loaves and fishes.

So that's one funny little spiritual tidbit from the last two days. Maybe not so much a tidbit considering it probably took you 20 minutes to digest it...but on to tidbit number two, which actually just happened moments ago..

Us interns are under contract in case you weren't aware. We're under a contract that says we can't drink, we can't smoke, we can't date each other or other staff people. Under said contract we have to read specified books, and we have to memorize specified scripture.

Today was our deadline for memorizing the specified scripture...John 1:1-18.

I memorized and performed for Sarah about 5 days ago, so I've been helping my roommates achieve success over the past couple days.

About a half hour ago Sonia comes into my room to ask if she can recite for me.

She starts dancing as she recites...she's an entertainer, it's the way her mind works I suppose.

So I grab my half eaten bag of sourpatch kids. And for every verse she gets right, I throw her a kid. It could possibly have been one of the funniest moments of this intern year so far, ok Connie and Bonnie definitely beat this one, ask me about them later, but this moment was definitely up there. She was crawling around on the ground panting like a dog, as I tried to toss them into her mouth after every right verse. They ricocheted off of every part of her body except her mouth. I almost teaspooned. You can ask me about that later as well.

Needless to say, she got plenty of treats, and she almost has the entire passage committed to memory.

God has a sense of humor. He really does. I hope that He's finding ways to make you laugh as He does for me.

And He is faithful. If you get nothing else from this whimsical pile of nonsense, get that. He is faith. And He is full.

Scribbles on Balloons.

This blog is called the adventurist.

Well my latest adventure involved three dirty mustaches, two bouts of food poisoning, and one delightful encounter with a volunteer thrift store associate.

I escaped the canyon on monday with two of my newest best friends. Sonia drove with me. Daniel arrived later. We spent the day dreaming about our lives together as we ate dirty tacos with fake mustaches plastered to our upper lips. It was quite magical.

Here's a taste...

We dreamed of future spouses, trips to Vegas, slurpees on beaches, and joyful gallivanting at the newly opened Harry Potter World.

I told you. Magical.

All that to say, I'm a dreamer. You know this.

It's 11:11. Make a wish. I've been dreaming about becoming a writer and never have I believed in that dream as much as I do now. I've become a bit of an insomniac to tell you the truth. I can't stop thinking about my query letter, my proposal, my plots to make my words known. I just want to write. But I want people to read what I write. To laugh with me. To weep with me. To fidget with discomfort and to fist pump with unencumbered joy.

And so I've been tackling what it means to find a literary agent. Sounds daunting. And far too professional for the likes of my amateur scribbles. But yet, I dream big. And lie awake appeasing my angsty mind, letting the rivers of words cascade into every recess of my naked brain, attempting to lure the words confidence, worthiness, and bravery into my net.

Here I am, taking another shaky step out onto the limb, the limb called chance, called risk, called adventure. I've got some authenticity and some originality floating inside a red balloon and a yellow balloon, both tied to my wrist. Should the limb crack beneath my lofty dreams, my balloons will float me away.

Away to a place where dreams can never be too big, and the imagination can never be wild enough, and the beauty of laughter is the only sustainable energy.

Thank you for harboring a dream by continuing to read these petty words of mine.

Brats and Things.

Yesterday was the super bowl. I'm sure you were aware of that.

Although, I didn't attend the annual canyon super bowl party, I did hear stories. I'd like to share one with you.

Simple and short.

Sonia attended the party. She showered, straightened her hair, and even put on a little make up. Us girls have to get pretty every once in awhile out here, simply to remind ourselves that we can be moderately attractive when we try.

She had a brief encounter with the vertically inclined man from the picture in the previous blog. His name is Tex. Sonia said, "Tex, I like your outfit."

Tex said, "Thanks."

Sonia left the interaction with a grumbling stomach and headed to find food to settle it.

She came back with a brat, not a small inconsolable tantruming child, a brat, short for bratwurst. It was spicy and it was large.

Tex said, "what do you have there?"

Sonia said, "A brat."

Tex proceeded to grab the brat out of her hand, and take a giant bite out of it.

He then said, "That's spicy."

Sonia stood there awkwardly, not really knowing how to react. She took her brat back from him and walked away.

I guess her compliment broke the comfort barrier leading him to believe it was ok to bite her brat.

Enough laughter. Back to deep and thought provoking.

Las night I got this image in my head of an egg. I know, weird. The other day I saw several bird nests hanging out in the tops of trees and I started thinking about birds. Birds and eggs. What do they mean?

Here's my attempt at dissecting what God is trying to teach me through birds and eggs.

Birds build their homes on top of trees. They build their homes in the form of nests. We use the expression "an empty nest" to describe houses where children have grown up and moved away from their parents.

I started thinking about birds and nests because I've been really homesick lately. Sometimes I wish I could fly back to the nest on a whim, whenever my heart aches for Jami's wisdom, or Patric's hugs, or Johnny's studious questions, or Kristina's beautiful singing. But alas, the nest is just too far, and I have toilets to clean, and food to prepare.

So then I started thinking about re-creating my nest. Birds scour the earth ravaging bits and pieces, random shrapnel, to compose their homes. Whatever looks suitable, they will clench in their beaks and bring it back to the coveted nook in the chosen tree, where they will build their home.

Nests get destroyed by catastrophic events of the weathery kind. They fall apart. They wither away. So birds build new ones. Not to say that my nest has withered. It's still very much intact. But I'm getting older and as I continue to grow and mature, I continue to be reminded of my nomadic spirit. How I have to learn what it means to re-create my nest often. Composing my different nests with different tidbits that remind me of the original work of art, the home that fostered my adventurous spirit, the people that loved me through my broken tantruming heartache. The West Nest will always be where I migrate back to, but it's time to start dreaming up how to be happy and comfortable when I can't always be in that nest.

So I'm stepping out. Plummeting out of the old nest and into the freedom of creating new ones. I might build a nest in a nook beneath an overpass with some hippies from Eugene. I might build a nest on a park bench once a week where I meet with a wise old woman who teaches me what it means to be an empowered and confident woman. I might build a nest in a house with a husband and three children with obscure names that they will grow into with bravery and assuredness, knowing that to someone, they mean the world. I might build a nest in the bed of a truck that lands on a different roadside every night. I could build a nest in a library, next to a river, in a valley, on a mountaintop, at the end of a rainbow.

Imagination is endless.

That brings me to eggs.

Eggs are fragile.

I got to thinking about how my body is like an egg. Weird, I know.

The shell is the perfectly crafted casing, that protects the yolk. The yolk is my heart. The gooey clear substance is what keeps my heart from drying out. It nourishes it.

Then I got to thinking about how sometimes, it feels like I have tiny jagged cracks in the fragile casing of my heart. The shell is cracked. The gooey clear stuff is leaking out. The yolk is threatened and losing life quickly.

Weird weird imagery, but relevant nonetheless.

Birds and eggs. Birds magically create eggs. Nests magically comfort hearts.

I miss home.

This is my attempt at coping.

Solitude.

So my weekend of solitude has turned out to be not so solitary.

I embarked on a lonely adventure last night just after leaving a time of joy and deep laughter with friends that make my spirit soar.

Let me tell you about that time quickly before I dive into the present.

We got off work early yesterday, 45 minutes early, to be a little more precise, and so Sonia, Daniel, Deanna, Darren, and myself hopped into two vehicles and headed to town. Taco Bell and Dairy Queen, here we come. We enjoyed great times of gluttony but more important was the mood lingering in the air, the memories being doodled on the pages of this year. We laughed. Deeply and frequently. As I sat there in the corner booth at the local Dairy Queen, watching shadow puppets and planning future marathons, my heart was full. More full than I can remember it being in a long time. Sitting in the presence of friends, friends that care, friends that long to know my heart in its most sincere form, now that's time well spent.

We said our farewells and I got in my car alone, headed to Marianne's.

Now Marianne is my new Maxine. She's an older woman, who is admirable and inspiring. Her spirit is humble. Her heart is overflowing. And for this weekend I am the recipient of the overflow. She has a storybook house at the end of a private road, with four extra rooms that she opens up to anyone who wants to stay...oh and I forgot about the loft. There's a magical adventurous loft that sits above the living room. Perfect for late night pillow talk and top secret plots to save the world.

I arrive at Marianne's and come to find that there will be others accompanying me on my weekend of solitude. Others including both my supervisors and their significants. I'm sharing a bedroom with my housekeeping supervisor, and a bathroom with my kitchen supervisor.

Epic.

And now here I am, sitting in Sisters Coffee, my favorite place in this new environment of mine, and along come Mr. Kyle Kuiper and Tex Piper. A fellow intern, with a fellow kitchen co-worker.

Here we sit, Mac books propped open, like some sort of technological and socially inept playground party. Without the playground. Or the party.

I thought of posting several blogs to tell you everything I had to say...but then I thought that was silly, so I decided to clump it all together...so here I am, launching into my time of solitude, by sharing with you some funny stories and some deep spiritual insights.

Funny stories first, followed my spiritual nuggets.

Funny story #1.

We recently acquired a new vehicle here at camp. Vehicle is an overstatement.

It's a six person golf cart. It came from a retirement home.

And its has clowns painted on it.

The best part, it was christened The Jolly Trolley, at some point in its lifetime.

Sorry to say that soon it will be repainted and renamed. Apparently we're not jolly clown supporters here at the ranch.

Funny Story #2.

My kitchen supervisor's name is Tim Dillman. He has a three year old daughter named Nora. She is brilliant and charismatic and has developed more personality in her tiny three year old body than I could ever hope to accumulate in an entire lifetime. She prefers to be called Ariel. She greets you with a curtsy and a how do you do? and she uses words like filthy and frozen Tundra. I showed her my unicorn. She petted it and then asked her dad if she could have one. I asked if I could be her friend. She said no. I feel inferior to her. And I'm ok with it.

Funny Story #3

Me and one of my roommates who shall remain nameless, had an imagination party while cleaning rooms at the orchard inn. We imagined life after the canyon. There were slurpees on the beach and potential exotic dancing careers. Her name will be Sandra Honeysuckle, should our imagination become a reality. Sometimes inappropriate moments have the potential to lift my spirit dramatically. This was one of those moments. As is the next story.

Funny Story #4

Me, Sonia, and Daniel played dirty word scrabble. Not necessarily morally uplifting, buuuutttt....sometimes childish antics are worth more than morals. What?

Funny Story #5

I've never felt so handicapped as when I try to push a mop bucket down a corridor, a mop bucket with a faulty wheel. Just when I think I've got it stabilized and on a straight path, it tweaks and careens into the wall, frothy water billows over the edge, leaving me sad and dejected, complete with sopping pantlegs and a bruised ego.

Funny Story #6

Would you rather sit, wallow, in Stinky Pete for an afternoon, in the middle of summer..

or, lay in a bed naked, while dirty fem bags are poured all over your body?

Stinky Pete is where all the kitchen garbage lives. Fem bags are pretty self explanatory, perhaps sanitary napkin bags would help you get the point.

Again, inappropriate, but comical nonetheless.

So which would you rather?

Funny Story #7

Cookies & Cream. Oh no, not the tasty ice cream you're envisioning. Sonia re-christened the poop chips caked on the inside of the toilet bowl. It's now known as cookies & cream. I'm taking you to realms you never wanted to plunge into, but I'm trying to introduce my world to yours. If you're not ready to dive in whole-heartedly you can click the little red x in the top left hand corner of your safari page, or the colorblind x in the top right corner of your pc.

Moving on...

Funny Story #8

As you're probably aware, I got a tattoo of a unicorn a little over a week ago. Whilst getting this permanent whimsical creature colored on my ankle, I asked the artist, "Have you ever tatted a unicorn before?" He replied, "I tried, but it ran away."

Nuff said.

Funny Story #9

This next one is documented "carrot girl at Wal-Mart" in my notes. I'm sorry to capitalize on someone else's lack of intelligence, but I just can't let it go. Krista and I went to the Wal Mart Superstore last weekend on the way home from Spokane and Krista was attempting to buy some carrots, 11 of them to be exact. We get to the checkout and the associate helping us has a very indiscreet and unattractive hicky on her neck. Red flag number 1. She proceeds to try and ring up Krista's bag of carrots. She leaves her station to walk over to the next check out to talk to a fellow associate. Red flag number 2. She then comes back to us, proceeds to touch every carrot as she counts them, and then rings them up for .86 cents each. Unless these carrots were dipped in a sheen of solid gold, there's no reason why Krista should be paying TEN DOLLARS for a bag of carrots. When we attempted to tell the girl that the sign above the carrots said .50 cents a pound, she looked at us quizzically as if we were speaking another language. Never did she ask one of us to run over and double check, nor did she volunteer herself, or even call for back up to double check the price. She looked at us. Quizzically. So Krista left the carrots and we left the store. Later, we discovered that the woman had forgotten to put the 6 dollar block of cheese in the bag as well. Funny but unfortunate. Poor poor carrot girl.

Funny Story #10

The weekend before last we had a different kind of group come to camp. The consensus of the entire staff was that this group was just slightly off. From the work crew to the assignment team to the campers, the aura was just off. Maybe it was the camp speaker with the "no homo" pin permanently attached to his shirt. Maybe it was the incessant sassy attitudes. Maybe it was the man in the pits washing dishes who was outraged that we didn't have powdered creamer or a better underground drainage system. Whatever it was, the Family Worship Center just didn't rub me the right way. I got chewed out by a middle aged man with a sweat ring around his collar, because our drain in the kitchen is inadequate. I tried to pass him off to my supervisor, but he wasn't having it. He wanted to prey on my innocent intern flesh, what with my young female lack of authority and my stupidity in all things drain related, I was the perfect candidate for his unabashed commentary with a heaping side of spittle.

Funny Story # 11

There's no story. This is just funny. He's 6'7''. She's 5'0'' even.

Funny Story #12

When I showed my boss my tattoo, he told me "can't wait to see what that looks like when you're 90." And that was it.

Another day, he told me that he had a no tattoo policy in the kitchen and that if I wanted to work in the kitchen this summer I would have to have it removed. He said it's setting a poor example for the children. I told him I would be finding a job elsewhere should this become a legitimate policy.

Funny Story #13

Since getting Amadeus on my ankle, yes, I named my unicorn Amadeus, pronounced Ah-ma-day-us, there has been talk between Sonia, Daniel, and myself, of many other potential tattoos.

They include but are not limited to,

A dinosaur eating an ice cream cone.

A bottle of orange Fanta that has a speech bubble that says "Bonkerz."

A bag of chips.

A hamburger eating a hamburger that says "you are what you eat."

A pterodactyl.

A robot eating a hotdog.

A full arm sleeve of me bungy jumping with different significant creatures that either have wings or a parachute, flying in the air next to my falling body.

There are other funny stories but I'll spare you so we can get serious.

Last weekend I met with a most wonderful and talented woman by the name of Kathi Inglesby. She pursues me. She asks really hard really meaningful questions. And she's insanely comfortable with sitting silently while gazing into the eyes of whomsoever sits across from her. Needless to say our time together was deep, and rich, and overwhelming.

She asked me a question that's been resonating in my heart and on my mind.

"Are you hunting, or are you being hunted?"

We went on to talk about the subjects of the hunt. If I'm hunting, who or what am I hunting? If I'm being hunted, who or what is hunting me?

Think about it.

Since that convo I've been attempting to process what that means for my life. I'm certainly being hunted in more ways than one, hunted by doubt, by grief, by unbelief...I'm hunted by the looming ever-present possibility of failure, of loneliness, of inadequacy.

But in this scenario where I have fallen prey to so many things, I think that I've definitely taken some steps in starting my fight back, my own hunt of sorts. I've suited up in the camo and I'm perched behind the bush, watching, analyzing, assessing the situation, deciding how best to execute the attack. My prayer is that I would be more aware. More aware of what's hunting me, more aware of my feelings, my attributes, more aware of who I am in my relationship with the Lord.

I think that's why I'm out here. I'm here in this canyon to redefine my relationship with the Lord and to redefine the relationship between my mind and my heart. I've drawn pictures in the past of my brain beating up on my heart. It's a perfect depiction. My brain is the bully and my heart is the poor kid who just got it's milk money stolen.

So I sit here, in my attempt at solitude, reflecting on how to set the tone of the rest of my life, how to re-evaluate and restore and redeem this wretched heart and soul of mine.

For you oh Lord, are my rock, and I will trust in you.