Just a Little H20

Wow.  The summer heat has finally hit, and it's almost too hot to sit with the laptop and write this. Clearly, I need to just invest in a fan, but when the apartment (which unfortunately has no AC) gets too hot there are plenty of ways to stay cool.

This last Saturday I started the day paddle-boarding on String Lake with Sam and Hannah.  (Thanks Sam for letting us use your board!)  Then went straight to canoeing with Hannah, Meredith, and Becky.  (Thank you Meredith!) and then went tubing down flat creek. We ended the night with hot-tubbing and a small rain-storm.  Yeah, I got a little wet.  Today I'm sun-burnt and exhausted, but it sure was a fun day!

Dipping in the Skinny...and other adventures

Well, I finally did it. I went skinny dipping. And boy was it fun!

Yesterday was my day off, which I started off by sleeping late and making a legit breakfast for once (steel cut oats with banana and brown sugar topping--yum) and then going on a long walk/run around the National Elk Refuge.  I ended up at a historic site, the Miller House (or "the first trophy house of Jackson"), which was built around the turn of the century. This nice elderly couple gave me a tour and then lent me their binoculars to look at the coyotes out on the refuge land.  My favorite part of the tour was learning about Robert Miller's wife, Grace Green, who was the first woman mayor of Jackson (and had an all-woman town council) before most of the country even gave women the right to vote. Way cool!  I'm not really psyched about the idea of the doing the research required for a legit piece of historical fiction, but if I ever write one, it's going to be about those five women.

Later in the day, I got some ice-cream with Stacy (it was her birthday), watched the town shoot-out (which--between you and me--isn't that interesting), and visited the park.  Then, I went with my roommates Sam and Stacy to find a moose out on the Moose-Wilson road.  Lo and Behold, we found a Mama moose and her adorable baby! It was so cool to just watch them eating and walking along.

But what am I rambling on about? The important part of the day was when the rest of my roomies finally got off work and we were able to celebrate Stacy's birthday the right way--in our birthday suits!  We drove out to the Kelly warm spring, stripped down, and with much shrieking and hollering waded into the tepid water.  The pond might not seem like much.  It's usually full of bison pies, tadpoles, and moss and I doubt it gets deeper than seven feet in the middle.  However, last night it was pretty magical.  The moon was just bright enough that we could see around us and still have a great view of the stars and the water was perfect.  I've always wanted to go skinny dipping and I couldn't have planned a better night, place, or group of ladies to do it with.  Now I can check it off my bucket list.  Huzzah!

Lucky Enough

We have this sign at the store that reads "If you're lucky enough to be in the mountains, you're lucky enough" and that's really how I feel everyday up here.  Here are some pictures of some of my recent adventures in and around Jackson Hole:

Okay, so this one is actually in Rexburg.  Jayme, Stacy and I went to a bonfire, and when I say bonfire I don't mean a little weanie-roast bonfire.  No no no. If you'd have tried to roast a hot dog on this fire you would have almost certainly lost a limb...or all of them.

I went exploring on a day off and found the coolest old cabins just chillin'  out there, no signs or fences or anything.

But, since I'd just been warned by this sign that "there is no guarantee of your safety in bear country" and I was all alone, I thought it best to not stay long ha ha.

The next fun adventure? River rafting with Teniele!  Don't we look cool in our Star Trek  wet-suits?

We met these lovely ladies, Chris and Angel (or "Chris Angel" as they were known, just as we were "Captain and Tennille") on the bus.  It was the four of us and a whole troop of boy-scouts from AF.  They were hilarious.


And the best part? It was free! Yay for River-guide friends!

Over-night camping trip in Curtis Canyon with my work buddies!

Taylor and I after a chilly night.  (Which we both spent in a truck. We are true outdoorsmen. Ahem. Women.)

The JTC campfire band:  Dawn and Taylor on vocals, me on the uke and  Patrick our harmonica and guitarist.

Finally, this morning a few of us woke up at 5 a.m. to catch the sunrise on Mormon Row.

Sam. Shooting those sunrise pics like a boss.

The iconic barn on Mormon Row

Me and the barn, embracing our Mormonism.

Oh look, the Tetons.


I live here next to these amazing mountains and that's pretty dang lucky I think.  Signing out!

(Photo cred to the lovely Teniele Anderson and myself)

Lessons from Jackson Part 1

Things I have learned thus far:

1. I honestly should have let my dad teach me about tools.  I at least know how to recognize a "Philips" screwdriver head, but who knew there were different sizes? Or that an electric drill can put a screw in AND take it out AND often has a built in light? I feel like a complete idiot whenever someone needs me to use or find a tool in the cluttered shipping room.  (Luckily for me, Rosemary, who is fifty-something and much more tool-savvy, can help me out.)

2. What goes around comes around. The other day I had to find a spot for four-boxes worth of packing foam in the tiny shipping room.  After bumping into counters and scraping my arms on misplaced tools I finally just shoved it all in the back, resolving that if it was a nuisance to someone back there, at least it wouldn't be me.  Guess who had to go search for a tool at the very back of the shipping room the next day? That's karma for you.  Of course, it goes the other way too.  In a spare moment, I put size stickers on the huge wall of folded shirts to make the dreaded "shirt-list" easier the next day.  Turns out that the next day, I was put on shirt-list duty, and the project only took five hours instead of six.

3. When life gives you lemons... okay, okay, I know.  Enough with the cliches! But I don't know how else to phrase this one.  How about: when your stove doesn't work right, make s'mores? nhmmmmeh. The point is, one of our stove burners doesn't work at all.  The one next to it works too well and burns everything we try to cook.  However, we have learned the beauty of roasting s'mores over the stove and that one unnaturally-hot burner creates the perfect "bed of coals" for making delicious hot s'mos!

4. It's great to have friends in the hotel business. Jackson is very much centered around the out-of-doors activities, and so when it is rainy and cold outside there are pretty much only two options for social activity: watch a movie...or go hot-tubbing. We went hot-tubbing at a hotel last night, and when the night guard came to close it up, it was one of the guys in our ward.  We still had to leave but he sent us over to the place next door that was open later and said he'd let a friend that worked there know we were coming.  (That one ended up being out of order, but still! Pretty awesome.)

Stickers

So today I spent several hours peeling mis-placed price stickers off of heavily shrink-wrapped pottery delivered in boxes stapled shut by the thickest, gnarliest staples I've ever seen.  It was a long process and my fingernails have been sawed down to bits from all that scraping and tearing. The flip-side?  Went home for lunch in the middle of the day and had a hankering for an apple.  You know those annoying little stickers they   put on apples that you always tear off half of while you are washing it and then can't get the other half off?  I peeled that baby off in one try with no sticky residue whatsoever.  Nailed it!

New Job

So I have a new job. And it's freaking awesome!

Actually, it's just your standard retail. But who am I to pass up the opportunity to learn how a small, independent business does its work? It's pretty cool actually.



Lately, I've been learning all about stocking.  I learned how to use a price gun, which is a pretty nifty tool if I do say so myself.

And of course, I've spent a lot of time counting which is helping me stay up to date on my math.

And I've been folding lots of shirts.  In fact, I just can't help thinking about the Teen Girl Squad episode where So and So gets a job at "the shirt-folding-store."   My management is a lot more considerate but I can sympathize with the steep learning curve:

"A kid just puked in dressing room 3"
"But it's my first day and..."
"Here's your name tag Mark. Get to minimum wagin'"

To view the whole video, click the link
http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs11.html

Leaving Limbo...at least, for now

I started this blog last summer when I was feeling pretty down about life and needed a way to talk myself through it and make light of the confusing stage of life that I've been in.  I made it through the summer, and in the end I felt like it was a good experience and one that I needed to learn from. BUT that doesn't mean I'm keen to do it again, so you can probably imagine that I've been pretty anxious about this coming summer and the following school when many of my best friends (including my amazing roommate Hope) are leaving on LDS missions.  I've been applying for jobs and scholarships and auditioning for plays and constantly making tentative plans, and finally it all seems to be falling into place.

And so...here's my plan:

-I'm getting a job this summer. A real job! In Jackson Hole, Wyoming at the Jackson Trading Company store. Super nervous and excited :)



-I've been offered two scholarships by the school (thanks to some really awesome donors) so I will definitely be staying at USU for a while...but I'm taking a semester off because:

-I'm going to CHINA!!! I'm heading to the land of Mulan and Kung Fu Panda to teach English for semester with ILP. I'll be living in the city of Zhongshan, playing with and teaching adorable children everyday, and having a whole new kind of adventure.  (I'm leaving in August, and at that point this blog will become a sort of travel-log for my mom and anyone else to follow while I'm gone.)

<---here is Zhongshan.


Not having a plan is scary and stressful, but it has sure made me grateful when experiences and opportunities come my way.   I'm super excited!!!!