14,716,800 Minutes

Soon....

So today I have been alive for 28 years.  2.8 decades.  10,220 days.  245,280 hours.  14,716,800 minutes.  That is a lot of minutes.  So much can happen in just one minute.  It takes mere seconds for a new life to be created, for a life to end, for an idea to appear in your mind, for something to happen that will change your life forever.  And in one simple breath it can all disappear.  And what if it did?  What if you were about to take your last breath?  Would you be afraid? Would you be content?  Would you be regretful?  10 years ago, did you think you would be doing what you are doing now in 10 years?  Probably not.  But are you happy with how you got to today? That is the important question.  When I was in junior high, 28 sounded old.  45 sounded nearly dead.  Today, I feel healthy, happy, vibrant, blessed - young.  I look forward to every day, to every lesson, to every challenge, to every fork in the road and every decision that brings me further along my path in life, whatever that path may be. 

 

The '20s' have been a roller coaster of emotions, decision-making, self-discovery, hard-learned lessons, reflection and the firestorm of anxiety and hormones just to make it all a little more interesting.  I have become more assured, more self-aware, and have gained more clarity as to what is truly important to me and what it is that I really want out of this life.  I have solid, valuable and cherished relationships with my family and my friends that I consider to be family - that I know will never weaken, regardless of where we live in the world and how many times a month we actually get to hear each other's voices.  I have learned that what I thought I wanted my career to look like may not be what it is going to actually look like, nor what I want it to look like anymore.  I have learned that I am capable of far more than I ever would have imagined, even 5 years ago.  I have learned that "you get what you earn" (thank you, Adam) - and if you show up to the table and give of yourself, your return on investment will be ten-fold.  I laugh sometimes when I think about my 'senior quote' in high school.  "Give the world the best that you have and the best will come back to you."  At the time, of course my 17-year-old brain wasn't fully understanding of the scope of this and the true depth of what it carried.  It was just something that really resonated with me, and a nice summary of how I wanted to live my life and what I wanted others to try and live by as well.  And now, it is a philosophy that has expanded, deepened, branched out in so many ways in my life and in my psyche that I feel it is subconsiously ingrained in everything I say and do.  At least I hope it is.

 

I have seen and experienced things that I would have only dreamed about seeing and doing when I was a child, and I have given as well as received love at such magnitudes that I could never express my gratitude in words.  Every experience that I may have perceived as negative at its time has always, without fail, manifested itself in a positive light down the road.  That of course, is typically a matter of chosen perspective.  It is a perspective that is hard to maintain at times, when we see people doing such atrocious things to others and behaving in such selfish ways that negatively impact so many others.  It is so frustrating.  I used to be of the vengeful mind...fight fire with fire...focus on doing everything possible to fight against what we perceive as 'wrong' or negative in the name of what we feel is 'right' or positive... but I have found that my desire to simply focus on only the positive and do more ignoring of the negative is much more productive, less stressful, and healthier.  Energy is much better spent in the manner of building yourself and others up, inspiring good, empowering the weak and vulnerable, supporting those that seek and need support...rather than expending so much energy 'fighting the baddies', when the baddies will never turn into 'goodies'.  So let the sucky people suck is what I'm saying.  Let them wallow in their own suckiness.  They will continue to suck, regardless of the energy you spend thinking about or telling them how much they suck.  That is their chosen path.  Don't let their suckiness affect YOU.  Rise above, choose to see the silver lining, the rainbow, the lollipops, the unicorns, whatever it is that symbolizes the good for you.  And then BE that good.  Everywhere, all the time, in your actions, in your words, in your interactions with all other humans.  It will be infectious in ways that you may never even know about and affect others in positive ways that you may never see.  And it WILL come back to you, exponentially.  I promise.  Find your strengths and focus them. Maximize your potential as a human.  Then find the strengths in others and call them out.  Build them up.  Help them maximize their potential as well.  These ripples are what will change the world for the better.  And eventually, if we all project enough good, it will hopefully overpower the loudness of the bad.

 

It has been an incredible and interesting 28 years, and yes, I am most definitely happy with every step that I took to get to this day, because this day is BEAUTIFUL.  And so are you.  So get out there, give all that you are, and don't waste one breath.

 

With love and gratitude,
Emily

Settling In

Just a rad bus.

What a crazy couple of weeks its been!  The day we finally got our household goods was like Christmas! Our delicious giant couches that had to be brought in through the living room window, our cushy mattress, our wonderful cookware, all my art supplies, my book collection (and my boot collection), all our art, the GRILL, a place to sit and eat...the JOY!!  We worked for three straight days getting everything unpacked, dusted, and put in its perfect place and hung in the perfect spot.  At the end, it felt so good.  We really, really love our little house.  A few excess things had to go, including my obnoxiously heavy file cabinet (replaced by a much smaller version) and the wine rack (sad, but its prime is long gone).  Serendipitously, the extraction of my wine rack left the perfect space for a new chest freezer that a neighbor couldn't fit in their house, so we will be filling that with delicious clean meat from the farm shop this weekend! Hooray!  It is so nice to be in a place that is easy and enjoyable to keep clean, rather than the bottom of a dust bowl.  I bought a new vacuum and I have never loved a vacuum so much in my life.  It is light, bagless, a sexy shade of red, and it will suck your face off.  Its funny how the things we get excited about change with age.  It is also a really strange but nice feeling knowing that we are going to be here for 4 years.  That is the longest I have ever lived in one house since I moved out of my parents' house 11 years ago.  Even when I lived in Seattle for 5 years, I lived in 3 different places throughout that time. So even though we know we will be leaving after 4 years, it feels like 'us'.  My husband has his man cave, I have my office/studio, and we have our room, our yard, our patio.  It is perfectly wonderful. 

 

The new job is going fabulously, I work with a great group of people and the work is constant.  It is definitely interesting coming on a few weeks before the biggest event of the year, but it has allowed me to dive in head first and learn the ropes quickly, which I love.  Another bonus of getting our household goods was having extra art to decorate my office with, so it is starting to feel much more like 'mine'.  I still have a massive blank wall that I would love to mural, but I have to get some pre-approval so we'll see what happens there.  I also adopted an abandoned plant from an office down the hall and am nursing it back to health.  I should have taken before and after pictures, it was quite a sad sight.  I am also trying my hand at planting some flowers at home, we'll see how that goes.  I'm hoping to channel my Gram and make her proud. 

 

We got the list of holidays and three day weekends for the next year, so the trip planning has begun.  Top of the list are: Canary Islands, Norway, Iceland, St. Petersburg, Prague and Croatia. There will be others of course, but we don't want to leave here without checking those off the list.

 

*Side note: As I sit here on my lunch break writing this blog, a torrential rainstorm has suddenly enveloped Lakenheath.  It literally looks like a river is pouring out of the sky.  Running from the car to my building resulted in completely drenched pants and an inside-out umbrella. The bonus to working in a really old British dorm building is that the bathroom down the hall from my office is flooding like mad and it has turned into a fun game to see if the puddle growing on the carpet is going to make it to my office before the maintenance guys figure out how to stop it.  I wonder how they are faring on the floor below mine. **Update: It is once again sunny outside and apparently the bathroom flood was unassociated with the storm, just pure coincidence.  And I thought Montana weather was temperamental.  

 

Otherwise, we have just been settling into a routine with work schedules and working out... given the very limited CrossFit situation here that is not conducive to my work schedule, I have purchased my own equipment and am doing it at home in the mornings before work.  Its working out really well so far, and saves a lot of time not having to drive somewhere and deal with traffic but just being able to get up, do it, and then walk the 5 feet to the shower.  Magnificent.  I really really miss my old workout crew at Luke, however.  It is definitely not the same without you!! 

 

Life is good. Onward and upward...

London!

Ben & Winston

London…was a blurry trial run.  It is crazy to be so close to such a destination that it doesn’t really feel like you are traveling.  We drove the hour to Epping and hopped on the tube (greatest invention, layout and most efficient public transportation I have ever seen, I'm in love) and rode the remaining half hour or so into Victoria Station.  We wound our way out of the thousands of people coming and going through the station to hunt for our hostel.  We were right near Buckingham Palace, and I knew our hostel was in the other direction from the palace so we stopped and asked a doorman in the raddest top hat and green tails for directions.  We both were dressed too warm for the beautiful sunny day that was upon us, and were getting hungry for lunch.  We kept marching around, referring to our directions, to various maps, etc.  When we finally found it, we were both ready for some pub food and a cold beer.  Alas, the girl at the front desk of the hostel told us that we couldn’t check in without passports, even though our confirmation stated ANY form of government issued ID would be sufficient for check-in.  Being that we both have 4 other forms of ID, including British drivers licenses, we thought we would be fine.  Not so much.  RAGE.  On top of that, they decided to still charge us for the night even though they wouldn’t allow us to check in.  MORE RAGE.  Off to the dispute department I go.  Eff YOU White Ferry Hostel. 

We decided to go find some food and beer and try to hunt for sleeping quarters for the evening.  After some fish and chips and Kronenberg we were feeling much better and called the husband’s favorite hostel to see if there were any rooms open for the night. There were! Hooray! But husband failed to give his name and rode on the statement that the hostel guy gave to ‘come on over’…so by the time we got there the room was gone and I got slapped in an all girls dorm and he in an all dudes.  EPIC RAGING.  I slept in the dudes’ anyway.  Luckily a couple other chicks thought like me and the rest of the occupants happened to be out taking various mind-altering substances until 5 am so they didn’t notice the extra bodies as they stumbled around mumbling various Cheshire-cat-like statements and touching each other. 

We saw Wicked while we were there, which was amazing…especially from 4^th row seats!  I’m totally on the ‘bad’ witch team now. 

The next day we did some touristy things, Buckingham Palace, St. James Park, Hyde Park, Big Ben, London Bridge, etc.  See pictures here!  There was also a marathon going on that day, which added to the zillions of people marching around.  They are building and prepping for the Olympics as well of course, which is cool to see.  Even with that many people everywhere, the city still emanates chillness and a relaxed atmosphere.  The architecture is beautiful, and there are still a ton of places that I want to go in the city that can’t possibly be crammed into one weekend.  So once the Olympics  are over, there will be many more weekend trips to London to explore.  Its really nice to know its only a short drive and tube ride away… what a privilege :)

On the homefront, all of our stuff gets here next Friday! Cannot WAIT! We are sleeping under a sheet and cooking in the most wretched pans…lol.  Next weekend will be unpacking joyousness! The job is going great, I work with a fabulous group of people and love what I am doing.  Driving on the other side of the road is fine, the roads here are horrifying however.  A huge part of our orientation was about how many airmen have been killed in the surrounding area in car/motorcycle accidents.  It is a ridiculous amount. We tragically lost another one on Monday, my heart goes out to his friends and family :( I am not looking forward to the roads in winter here. 

This weekend, the exploration of farm shops continues!

With love and gratitude,