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All posts for the month December, 2012

A Blizzard Story

Published December 9, 2012 by Malia

First off, let me just say that I am NOT a fan of snow, and after today I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever want to see snow ever again.  Just like Taylor Swift I’m officially broken up (except, in my case it’s with a weather condition and not the latest in a never-ending string of boyfriends).

Today I headed back to ND, picking up my friend in Sioux City.  The wind was terrible, but I could deal with it.  Plus, before I left Omaha, I checked all the road reports and weather, and everything was saying it was all okay.  When we got to Sioux Falls, there was some snow that was blowing across the road, but it wasn’t too terrible, and I decided to push on to Brookings (about 40 miles north).  The blowing snow progressively got worse, and I ended up driving slower and slower.  I should have pulled off at the Casino exit, but we were only about 12-15 miles from Brookings and I thought we could make it.  I don’t know what happened, we were driving slow, and suddenly I felt the van sliding sideways and we ended up gliding off into the ditch.  Honestly, if we had to go in the ditch, it could’ve been a million times worse.  We went so slow and just glided and didn’t roll the vehicle.

I tried to dig the van out and poured the kitty litter and did all the things that you’re supposed to do to get unstuck and back on the road.  Nothing worked.  We were stuck.  I called 9-1-1, and I regretted it.  The South Dakota 9-1-1 dispatchers was incredibly rude and this was basically the conversation:

Me: Our vehicle went off the road and we’re stuck in a ditch and need help.

Dispatcher: Where are you at?

Me: About 10-12 miles south of Brookings.

Dispatcher: What county are you in?

Me: I have no idea, I’m not from around here.

Dispatcher: Let me transfer you to the sheriff’s department.

I was then transferred to the sheriff’s department.

Sheriff’s dispatcher: What county are you in (Listing off two county names I didn’t even recognize)?

Me: I have no idea, I’m not from here.

Sheriff’s dispatcher: Well, is anybody injured?

Me: No, but we’re stuck.

Sheriff’s dispatcher: Well, there’s a lot of people that have gone off the road, so someone will get there at some point.

And that was the whole of the conversation.  I understand that their department was under quite a bit of stress, but there was no reason to treat a scared girl who was asking for help like they’re just causing a problem.

Fortunately, people from Katy’s company were passing by and able to pick us up.  My car is currently stranded south of Brookings, but we’re safe.  In case anyone’s wondering what the roads looked like, here’s some pictures!

DSCN0103

I really wish that these pictures weren’t accurate, but that’s really how bad it looked.

I don’t care, but maybe I do?

Published December 7, 2012 by Malia

I’m going home this weekend for one night.  There is actually a logical explanation for why I’m going to make a 1,000 mile round trip in approximately 34 hours.  Suffice it to say, it’s a good thing I’m going, even though it’s for one night, because it’ll allow me to take a load of belongings home.

Home.

What a mixture of emotions that thought conjures up.

I’m both excited and terrified of going.  I have such wonderful pipe dream plans of things I hope to accomplish, and yet I find myself obsessing over the fact that I’m going home with no job.  Yes, there are a few places that have indicated interest in possibly employing me (which is more than I had the last time I was unemployed), but there’s such a terror in the unknown.

I keep telling myself that I’m a strong young woman, and I don’t care a fig what everyone else thinks.  This is progress.  Even though a small part of me does care, I’ve at least reached a point where I can say out loud “I don’t care” and 99% mean it.  I think no matter how much we don’t care, secretly we all somewhat have that 1% of desire for approval from others.

I am truly looking forward to seeing my “niece” more than once every 4 months.  Babies grow fast.  I always knew that, but it’s really hitting home with me now that I have this little girl in my life.  She’s so precious, and I just melt when I’m around her.  That’s never really happened for me before with a baby.  I grew up an only child, and babies just weren’t a big part of my life.  As I’ve gotten older, I’ve shied away from being around babies.  I think this is mainly due to the fact that when I see a baby, it hurts something deep inside.  It’s this reminder that much as I desire to be a wife and mother (not because I’m wishing I was a 50’s housewife, but because I want to love and nurture), to this point those are things I’ve been denied.  I’ve avoided babies trying to protect myself, and it’s not just babies.

I’ve come to realize that in the last 10 years I’ve built up quite the wall around my heart.  The building has been slow going.  At first, whenever something hurt, or I was rejected, I’d put in another brick.  Then, I began ending things before they could hurt me, which meant there were more bricks being placed around my heart.  I did try, a few times, to take a chance on various things, but all ended in disaster, and  I went from using bricks to welding a metal shield around my heart.  When I was home at Thanksgiving, and I saw baby girl, I realized just how much I’ve sealed my heart off.

I’m going to try, very hard, to remove the shield, and undo the bricks.  I don’t want to be a heartless old hag.  I want to love and be loved.  I want to be able to love and accept myself, even with the laundry list of faults I know I have.  I’m not going to be perfect at it, but I’m going give it my best, and that’s all I can hope to do.

Web Series

Published December 6, 2012 by Malia

This fall I’ve discovered some pretty cool web series.  I know I recently mentioned The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and if you’ve not checked it out, you really should.  I realize that not everyone is a Jane Austen fan, so I wanted to recommend another series that I started watching last week.  Space Janitors.  Basically, it’s the story of janitors on an evil space station (think the Death Star).  Anyway, it’s highly entertaining, and here’s the  first episode:

 

Catching Up

Published December 4, 2012 by Malia

Alrighty, I’ve been avoiding writing.  Which, I’ve come to realize, is super lazy on my part.  So, this post is going to read a bit like my Random Saturday Musings.

-My last post was my 100th post since I started writing this blog!  It kind of blows my mind that I’ve reached this many posts, and that people I’ve never met have actually read a majority of my posts.  I’m so fascinated by the way that the internet connects people all over the world.

-I’ve got 10 (more like 9, now) days left here in ND.  I really should probably start packing.  On the bright side, I didn’t bring that much with me, so I don’t have as much stuff to pack.  I’m also really struggling with the fact that I have to say “good-bye” to some incredibly amazing people.  I feel like I’ve spent most of my life saying “good-bye,” and it just doesn’t get any easier.

-I’ve been filling out quite the pile of job applications.  So far, I do have a few job possibilities.  I’ve had a few people wanting to set up interviews, but don’t want to wait the week and a half for me to get home to do the interview.  That’s a bit frustrating.  However, almost all of them have told me to give them a call when I get home; so, not a complete loss.

-I had an interesting realization yesterday.  I suddenly found that I don’t care what other people think about me.  It was an incredibly random realization.  I’ve spent my whole life trying to please everyone and be what everyone wants me to be.  That’s a very exhausting existence.  I also think that trying to keep everyone happy contributes a great deal to struggling to accept and love myself.  It’s nobody’s fault that I feel like this.  I just hate it when people aren’t happy, and I have single-handedly tried to make everything better for everybody.  I’ve known in my head for a long time that this is a pretty impossible task, but it’s only just now actually sinking in to my heart.  I’m still me, I’m just no longer going to base how I am on whether it makes other people happy.

-My NaNo novel turned into a real tragedy.  By 11 p.m. on 11/29 I had written a  little over 37,000 words.  My computer insisted it needed to do a restart, and so I made sure it was saved and backed up, and I let my computer do it’s thing.  When I opened up the file, I showed that I only had 22,269 words.  You know that scene in Little Women where Jo discovers that her novel is being thrown in the fire by Amy?  That’s exactly how I felt.  Thousands of words had disappeared.  People smarter than me with computers gave me advice on locating my missing words, but it was all to no avail.  Those words were just gone.  No explanation.  So, I didn’t make the 50,000 word goal.  I did, however, write a lot.  I wrote more than I’ve ever written in my entire life on one subject.  Plus, I have enough of my first draft left, I’ve been able to start work on my second draft.  I’m super excited about this novel, and I can’t wait to put it out there for the world to read!

-Exciting news on the weight loss front.  I weighed myself yesterday, and found that I’ve only got 119 lbs. to go!  This means that since I started sharing with ya’ll that I was working on losing, I’ve lost 14 lbs.  in 13 weeks.  I think that’s pretty great!  I can definitely tell that my clothes are fitting better.  I’m also not constantly feeling hungry (which is a new, unique experience).  I think this is mainly due to the diabetes meds, but I’m not complaining.

-I’m very excited to get back to working with the puppet team.  I’m super pumped, because we’ve been given the necessary items to be able to travel and do performances.  I can’t wait to see where we’re going to get to go and minister.

-Since this blog was initially conceived with the idea of keeping people at home up to date with my life here in ND, the blog’s mission is going to get tweaked a bit since I’m moving back to NE.  I’m definitely going to continue writing it, but I’m also going to share some of my photography (I love to pretend that I’m good and force my photos on anyone willing to look at them),  and I’m toying with the idea of doing some vlogs.