the unknown

Whoah. So I've been extremely distant - from not just you my followers, but from everyone. I'm currently in Vista, CA just about ready to have the shuttle come get my booty and head to the airport. I'm homebound to Wisconsin and am very very excited.

The reason why I came out here was for an interview with a wakeboarding company known as LIQUID FORCE - they're basically awesome and the people there I learned, are awesome as well. My interview was last week Wednesday and I nailed it, so my future endeavor means moving to California in 3 weeks or so. Most might say that it's awesome - me on the other hand, its not only awesome but extremely scary.

The last week has been geared towards 2nd job searching and apartment/roommate searching - all that has not been the greatest and easiest challenge. I've had so many things cross through my mind that I never knew a brain could think all of it at the same time. From leads on apartments to playing a waiting game on hearing back from jobs and craigslist ads and from friends eager to get me to come home, give going away parties, sad to see me leave in 3 weeks, sisters that don't want me to leave until after a certain weekend - it's quite the roller coaster.

But while all the tears and fears circle through me, there's my faith and optimism that I've been taught - this will all work out and I will and can make this happen.

Regardless, it will be an emotional roller coaster but everyone has to reach outside of their comfort zone at some point in their life, right? Well, my time is now.

Quote of my day, thanks to Tara Hess:

So we shall let the reader answer the question for himself:

Who is the happier man, who has braved the storm of life and lived, or
he who has stayed securely on the shore and merely existed?

Have a good day kids :)

25 CENT cooker...best purchase & lifesaver of the weekend!

Sorry I haven't been on this thing in a few days - I was secluded to a BEAUTIFUL rustic cabin in Sturgeon Bay...

.....that not only had limited cell phone service and absolutely no wireless internet but ZERO running water, no adapter to connect the gas stove up to cook our 3 frozen pizzas we insisted on bringing for the first night and did I mention no heat?

...oh yes, and little were we aware that the posting that said "3 beds, 2 baths" wouldn't have the bed frames fulfilled with mattresses. Yes ladies & gents...we were mattressless.

Here's how the weekend went down:
Amy, Wes, Baby J and I jam packed the Mitsubishi SUV with everything from baby bottles and Amy's booby feeding kit to 36 scrambled eggs (which mind you, we weren't 100% sure how we were going to cook this purchase) and 2 spur-of-the-moment impulse bought 1990 stand up Jet Skis (which were literally bought & picked up on our way up north). Yes everyone, WESTON FLEGEL IMPULSE BOUGHT 2 JET SKIS ON THE LAST WEEKEND OF THE SUMMER. I knew this was just the start of a great weekend.

The ride up was a normal ride--coasting to reggae music and throwin' in a little hip hop every now & then. As we roll up around 7:30pm to cliff top road, our eyes are the biggest they've ever been. All of us, "THE OUTSIDE OF THIS PLACE LOOKS SWEET!" Wes & I head to find the key, open the double bolted door and walk into a cold atmosphere - yup, the kitchen is the very first thing we see. There is no faucet in the sink and no cupboards filled with silverware, cups, plates or napkins (good thing the motherly instinct in me brought plenty and came prepared)....as we walk into the so-called living room, it has one wickered chair and stone floor (this is still okay! we've got this!)...we anxiously headed up the stairs to go check out where we'd be spending a few hours a night snoozin':

walk into bedroom #1 = beautfiul wooden bed frame (peek over the frame)...no mattress.
walk into bedroom #2 = one twin size mattress
walk into bedroom #3 = just an old white metaled bed frame...no mattress

We started laughing & pondering where we're all going to sleep and how this is going to work (mind you, there is only stone and wooden floors). We figure out our sleeping situation which concludes Drew, Amy, Wes, JJ & I snuggling in the downstairs room closest to the fireplace.

Mission #1: How do we cook our pizzas? Well, pizza #1 gets smoked and burnt after our brilliant idea to roast it over the fire. (Words of Wisdom #1: don't cook a pizza over a fire without some type of topping to cover it...complete smoke taste if you leave it topless) Pizza #2 was better, but certainly not the greatest pizza I've experimented with. Let's just say we didn't even get to opening Pizza #3.

Mission #2: How do we cook the 36 eggs we bought? Brilliant idea again - over the fire! (atleast we were being creative, right?!)...smoke taste. (Repeat Lesson: Umm...cover your eggs if you're going to cook them on a fire)

Mission #3: We are heading to the grocery store to get charcoal and tin foil so we can heat up the grill and enclose our food inside the tin foil! We pass a nearby rummage sale...seeing life jackets and knowing we need some if we're going to crash the 5ft waves with the newly purchase jet skis. On our way back, we swing by looking at all the antique merchandise (the life jackets were junk) and all of a sudden...Gods light shines through the dull, overcast windy sky....AN ELECTRIC COOKER FOR 25 CENTS! This 25 cent cooker won't only cook our eggs but it will BAKE our cinnamon rolls and bring a light brown look to our toast!!

The rest of the weekend was a success. We played multiple card games of SPEED & Solitaire, TABOO, stoked the fire every 30 minutes, felt like free spirits dipping in the rocky coasts' water, fished a late game, powered up the 1990 jet ski and hopped in our shared wet suit...and best of all, enjoyed eachothers company.

Lesson #2: if you want to bargain shop for electric cookers, just tag along with Amy and I.
Lesson #3: No matter how caught off guard you are by the circumstances you are brought into, make the most of them. We could have easily called it a weekend and headed to another location, but we knew that the people we had together would make it memorable.

happy day after labor day story :)

life is a blank canvas...its mine and yours to paint

You ever get those days where you just need full balls-out inspiration? You need a bit of a push to get you back on your ferris wheel? You want to see or hear about someone who has came from a state of mind where they didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives and you, YES YOU can witness their accomplishments?!

So yesterday, instead of doing my regular 'go to Urban Frog to eat a sunflower wrap' or 'a stroll down N. Broadway street to people and car watch' or a random errand run during "lunch time" I decided to visit one of my very dear girl friends new Art Gallery. She's always been an older sister to me and it just works that we have the same type of passion with the arts. We always have something to chat about and how she puts it, "our conversations can start over here (using her left hand as a starting point) and can twirl around in circles and 5 hours later we'll get back to what the point of our initial story actually was."

I walked into "Christine's Gallery" on 111 N. Wisconsin St. in De Pere, WI at 12:00pm (ish) yesterday - my eyes just lit right up, my heart dropped and I became the most proud of her I've ever been! She went out on a limb after endless hours of thinking and processing how this could be either financially stable or financially instable - knowing that this is a big risk - to create her dream. So many opportunities presented themselves to her and she finally grabbed them by the bulk - A beautiful space opened up for rent in the MOST PERFECT location, she found a timeless, unique apartment less than 2 blocks away from her soon-to-be-gallery, she found the time to "get in her zone" to paint and explore her full potential and most of all...through all of this she found herself.

Uplifting? Yes. I had needed an extra boost of inspiration to get going on a few freelance projects and seeing all of her art was the most uplifting Thursday noon experience I could have gotten! I'm thinking I'm going to start bothering her a bit more.... [I promise Steen, I won't talk! You do your work and I'll just look at your pretty, breathtaking artwork and become inspired enough to do mine!]

Lesson of the day - if your dream is something you can see in your world, make it a reality. I just sent my sister, Kelsie off to college and my younger sister, Mackenzie (I call her Dootsie) and I gave her a memory book...a small portion of my advice for her was "Explore. Take advantage of every opportunity regardless of the time and cost. Never let money get in the way but be smart. Live out loud and remember the best things in life are silly. Be yourself and stick up for what you believe in. Remember God and ask him for help when you need it. And remember to thank him. Love yourself because that's the only way anyone can love you back. Make mistakes but learn from them."

When I walked in that gallery, I could tell her heart was happy and that made me love her even more.

I’m not a complete idiot…parts of me are missing.

Okay - so as a "new blogger" I've been checking out a few other bloggers & I found one entry that is simply HILARIOUS (like almost peeing my pants laughing at my computer all by my lonesome hilarious). I wish you could have seen me reading this blog - watery eyes glued to the computer screen (from laughing so hard!), fingers axiously waiting to scroll down to read more, big grin on my face and every time my phone would buzz I'd press the ignore button immediately.

This man has the greatest sense of humor & I've fallen in love with his blog from Monday. Check it out!!

http://www.wheelturninghamsterdead.com/