June 16, 2013

You know those movies where the cute little kid finds an orphan tiger or monkey or gorilla or duck or radioactive beast in the wild and rescues it, bringing it home to learn about love and friendship?  They grow up together and it's usually the most adorable thing we've ever seen and we all decide to go out and find our own wild tiger/monkey/gorilla/duck to become best friends with.  They go through all of life's hardships together, the wild animal follows the kid to school and waits outside for them, they play catch together when the kid has no friends, the animal fights off bullies for the kid, the share an ice cream cone together, they go to prom together, etc.  Ignorant bliss for many years, right?

Eventually though, during the course of the film when the tiger/monkey/duck is an adult, the mother/scientist/parental figure goes to the precious child who raised the wild animal and has a serious sit-down with them about the well-being of this wild creature.  The mean old scientist person talks with the animal's friend about releasing their animal into the wild saying, "that wild animal doesn't belong with us.  They belong with their own kind.  You have to let them go.  They'll be so much happier if you let them go."  Tears ensue and eventually the little human realizes that, indeed, they need to let their animal friend go because they belong with their own kind in the wild.

Sunset on the farm

A very dramatic scene follows in which the human takes a long car ride to the jungle and lets their animal friend out in a forest-y wonderland.  Usually the animal doesn't understand why their best friend is leaving them and tries to chase after the car (making the audience tear up over a dang gorilla chasing after their human friend).  But then we're rewarded with seeing the wild animal bond with some of its own kind and frolicking in the wind.

Great story, right?  Well I've just realized that I'm that wild creature who needs to be returned to the wild.

For too long have I been away from my overly-social atmosphere with friends over all the time, busy with school/work/homework, stressed with finding a mate...I mean table to study at.  I was at the peak of my game - I had Provo at my feet.  Top girl.  But really - I loved my last year at college and was completely happy.  I had fantastic friends, loved my classes, work was pretty great, and I would have been content to stretch out that year for a long time.  But alas, time moves on and so must we.

So now I have gone from being an hyper-social creature surrounded by my own kind to living with old people, basically ostracized from my own kind.  And don't get me wrong - I love those dang old people.  But I need to find a way to fill this insatiable appetite I have that's dominating my life right now and find a way to return to my own kind.

Now this cat is my new best friend.
And the dang thing won't even let me get close enough to love her.

Until then I guess I'll just continue working on the good 'ol farm.  Weedin and such.  Which, I mean, I'm pretty good at.  But really - take a look at this stunning before & after...

 ...and 2 hours later....

 Ohhhhhh yeeeeeah baby, that's the exaaaaact same piece of land in both those pictures.  It's basically my pride and joy right now.  I'm considering charging an entry fee and opening the site to the public, but we'll see.  My ego is pretty big already over this stretch of land and I'm not sure all the publicity and news crews would be good for me.

Oh, and here's the equally impressive pile of grass that was removed.  I'm considering giving it to the local orphanage to stuff their empty mattresses with so they'll have something soft to sleep on.  I'm just guessing it'll fill up at least 82 average-sized orphans' beds.  Or 148 hungry orphans'.  Just an estimate.

Life Lately

Right now I consider myself a Nomad stuck in Limbo.  I'm still just trying to figure something, anything out.  But alas, no matter how long or hard I think about my future (both the distant and immediate future) I just can't seem to make a decision about anything.  I'll get to the point where I'm absolutely so sick of trying to make up my mind about something that I'll just make a decision about something, but then within hours I'll find myself talking myself out of it.  It's exhausting being me, just let me tell you.  Sometimes people get frustrated with my indecisiveness and my annoying decision-cripple ways.  And I feel for them, I truly do.  But if you find me annoying, just think of how annoying I find MYSELF.  You have no idea how hard it is to be me and have to deal with me every day!  So be grateful that you got off so easy and that you're lucky enough to be you (and not me).

Flower shopping

Our new garden gnome I'm trying to convince Gma to buy

Her other option

Last week was great - filled with lots of fun distractions to keep my busy.  Lately I've basically died off with job hunting.  I can only apply to so many dozens of jobs and get so many rejection emails before I start getting annoyed and ultimately realize that I'm meant for greater things and should just give up these petty dreams of having a "normal" life and career and go on to my true calling of being a child actress or a world-famous dog masseuse.  Something like that.

Picking up wood chips for the garden

I still had plenty of time to work on the good 'ol farm of course.  It was good at first to be doing so much  manual labor work to just be able to think, but now I need to stop thinking.  I've done altogether TOO much thinking lately and am starting to stress myself out.  Luckily I've been able to distract myself from thinking while I work by contemplating things other than life, like flowers.  Flowers are a safe thing to think about.  I've also become a full-time hero rescuing birds from the many wild cats around the farm.  Oh, those lucky little birds - to have me as their savior!  I spied one of the black cats (who is a convicted cat-rapist (I've unfortunately seen it with my own eyes and will never be the same)) climbing a tree to annoy some birds (who I heard protesting angrily) and I ran over to shoo him out of the tree.

The nasty cat making his way over to the birds...

Unfortunately, he was too freaked out by me to climb down the tree, and I wanted him to come down.  So I settled for giving him a very stern look, and then backing away so he could race down the tree.  He decided to engage me in a staring contest and was not at all happy with my success of scaring off the birds to safety.  Ahhh, all in a good day's work.

Look at that death stare he's giving me!

Yeah, you'd better run.

It's a really good thing that the young dreams of our hearts don't really come true.  I've thought about this alot here in Kaysville during my long hours of working, being inside my own head.  For example, if my mother's life had worked out the way she had dreamed as a young child then I would have been a farmer all my days.  And a red-headed farmer at that.  Thank goodness some greater force knew I could never survive that life and kept her young prayers from ever panning out.  This greater force knew better things were in store for my mother and refused to let me suffer a long life permanently in overalls (and I'd probably grow into one of those awkward farmers who ONLY wear overalls with no shirt underneath.  Yes, I have seen real people do that before and can only bless my lucky stars that I will never have to join them).  Hopefully this greater force also realizes that some people's dreams are actually good, well thought out ones that should come to pass.  Like, I don't know, maybe a whimsical and comfortably attractive young blonde's dream of marrying an alluring and hopelessly attractive scruffy Australian man and becoming an Elementary School Librarian, who only wants to spend her days riding one of her eight adorable bikes (each with its own basket) or playing with her fluffy white kitten.  Just sayin.

I spent a lot of time with Katie and Jake this last week as well.  I came boating with them and Jake's boss and son on Thursday.  Unfortunately it was reaaaally windy and cold so there was NO way I was getting in that water.  Jake and Katie braved it and I enjoyed the bouncing of the waves from the safety of the boat.  I love boating, but truth be told I much prefer just staying in the boat and enjoying the ride over making a fool of myself out on the wakeboard.  And luckily, since it wasn't my boss I went with, I got out of sufferi-I mean-enjoying myself out on the water.

That's my sister!  Kate got up on her first try, of course.
(Another reason I was glad to not have to perform)

Then Saturday and Sunday Katie, Jake, Jake's sister and her husband, and I went camping in Logan together.  I haven't been camping in forever so it was nice to get to do it with Kate and Jake.  Jake's sister brought their dog along and it was my first experience camping with a dog.  I thought it would be fun with a dog, but I very nearly strangled the thing several times during the trip.  The thing barked and whined constantly and although she wasn't as hyper as some dogs, she was still hyper enough to bug me.  And now I remember why I ended up not liking dogs after I worked at the animal hospital for two years.

The view right outside our campsite

We went hiking on Sunday to the Wind Caves, which I only found out afterwards was "difficult" trail.

Jake's sister and her husband set such a fast pace that what might have been a "moderately moderate" hike for me quickly turned in to my training for next year's Olympic tryouts for Extreme Outdoor Hiking (a new event they're considering adding, but may not be because of all the injuries to their athletes on training hikes much similar to the one I did in Logan).

Some other sweet rocks we passed on the hike.  

See the guy to the right of it in black??  It was huge!

It was pretty steep, but really not all that bad (except for the crazy pace that was being set).  Luckily I was 'taking pictures' throughout the hike and brought up the rear.  This means that while everyone else was basically running through the shrubbery and wildlife in some crazy group 10k that I was unaware we were participating in, I was able to fall back every so often to 'take pictures.'  Ahhh, such a shame that I had to take so many more breaks than everyone else to get in my picture-taking time.

View from our hike

The Great Wind Cave

The Wind Caves were actually really cool.  It turned out to be this huge, multi-holed cavern that has been carved out over the years by the wind.  My favorite part of the Wind Caves was the break we got to take at the top.  Yup, the break.  I tried getting Katie and Jake to take some pictures together, because, well dang!  if I had a man with me I would have been snapping pics all over the place of us to prove that I had finally obtained nirvana and had snagged myself a man!  But they were dumb and lame and I had to settle with taking creeper paparazzi pics of their backs (which actually turned out kind of artistic-y and still sexy enough).

Inside the Wind Cave

View of the Wind Cave

The only picture you're getting of my hike-nasty self

After the hike we had dinner and just relaxed at Jake's sister's place in Logan and then she took us on a walk around Logan.  I mistakenly told her that I was maybe considering Utah State for grad school in Speech Language, so she dedicated this walk/hike to me (remember, they like to set a marathon-like pace so what could have been a leisurely stroll turned into a sprint around Logan).  I'm not really that much interested in Utah State, but don't worry, I acted the enthusiastic post-grad that I am.

And the campus was actually really beautiful and really nice.  It was huge and had super cool ivy growing on some of the buildings.  I was almost convinced that I should change my plans and go to Utah State when I saw that they were growing lettuce in with their planters of flowers.  I mean, how cool is a university that grows lettuce alongside its flowers??!  But then I thought, they don't have any other vegetables among their flowers, so maybe some weirdo accidentally planted the lettuce here, thinking it was a flower or something, so I actually shouldn't go to this University.  Then I thought, I'm thinking waaaay too much into this lettuce stuff, and was then able to move on with my life.

I think that I've always wanted to be a hippie-esque granola girl who lives in the wild and spends her weekends hiking and being outdoors in nature (flowers not just braided in my hair, but probably growing in my hair because I had found a way to truly become one with nature).  Logan would be the perfect place for me to embrace this inner vision of myself that I have, but I think what I want and what I really want are two different things.  While I may dream of being that carefree hippie who has a cool name like "Aspen" or "River" who only eats things from the local home-grown grocery store that I walk to, I think when push comes to shove I couldn't really live like that.  Nope.

View from campus

So while Logan seems like a cool place I think I would have a really hard time fitting in there.  I'm just not high-adventure or 'natural' enough to live with all the other students and fit in with them.  They would probably frown at my teal, basket-wearing beach cruiser that I showed up in to go on our ride around the mountains.  So Logan, unless I don't get into the University of Utah (or I just don't do Speech Lang...who knows??), I think we shall not dance on the pines of sunset together again (in hippie/Logan language this roughly translates to 'I'm not going to live in Logan.  Ever.').

Those dang hippies.  How I want to join them.

We walked through the cemetery there (Memorial Day was the next day, after all) and saw a fantastic statue of a mother weeping and noticed that her children were buried next to the sides of the statue.  Jake's sister also pointed out a wooden headstone that was one of the oldest ones in the cemetery.  Some dang cool stuff.  I have always loved cemeterys and love discovering interesting people in them.  One of my favorite bike rides in Provo was one that led to the Provo Cemetery, where I'd ride up and down through the pavement in the cemetery and read the different headstones.  Maybe creepy, yes, but also kinda cool, right?  Definitely.

We also made a brief stop at the Logan temple, which looks almost identical to the Manti Temple.  This brought back awkward memories of the bizarre Manti Pageant that I saw two summers ago.  Really, if you haven't seen it, it's really weird.  I don't even know what exactly is weird about it but that it's people overly-acting out Book of Mormon stories on the hill in front of the temple while they play the dialogue that has been  pre-recorded by actors who probably thought they had been promised gobs of money if they played the parts with as much feeling and enthusiasm as humanely possible.  A great family night activity though to be sure.

On the actual Memorial Day the Roueche clan and i went to the Kaysville Cemetery (yay! another one!) and put flower arrangements together to put on Roueche graves.  I looooove Memorial Day at the cemetery because there are so many flags over the graves, honoring those who served in our military.  Yay for America!  Also, I found several Chipman's buried there, which was kinda dang awesome since our name is so attractively rare.

Yours truly arranged that stunning arrangement to the left

Only grandpa could get gma out of the car for a picture.  Good man.