Interruption

My nephew has been a little distracting.

The Pursuit of Happiness

Wasatch Mountains, Utah, 1997

All done with grad school applications!!! Now I can knit!

There's No Place Like Home

This isn't the first time this thought has gone through my head, but there are times it runs through my mind with more persistence.

It would be nice to be home.

Not that I have any particular home to go to, but especially today it would be nice if I lived in the same town as the most trustworthy mechanic in the world. Sigh.

If you're looking for him, it's Dave (although you could trust Joe with your life too) at Stanley Service Center in Spokane, Washington - 509.327.1460.

Out

Out of the office, out of my mind, out in general.

Fire lookout on Mt. Baker. Looking toward Mt. Rainier (that tiny bump in the distant center).

I'm taking the GMAT tomorrow, so I'm headed out of town today (it isn't offered here in Sheridan).

The West

Deep breath, in a different way.

It's another version of the west.

The Long Weekend

I hope you had a wonderful fourth of July!

Mine was spectacularly American and the first one I've celebrated since 2006.

Lake, sun, trout, grill, camping, friends, fireworks, not necessarily in that order.

Panoramas, They're Like Big Hugs

Someday I will get around to scanning all of my old photos from college road trips and share Carrie's and my strange fixation with panoramic scenes where we take turns being in every picture.

In the meantime, however, I have these two examples of places where I couldn't get far enough away in order capture everything I wanted in just one photo.

This is where Hugin comes in.

It's a photostitcher that can be downloaded and used for free (unless you're a secret professional photo printer). It can be simple or complicated depending on what you attempt to do with it.

It easily stitched a 7 photo horizontal panorama, but had difficulty when I tried combining photos with very different exposures.

We'll see how it feels about college road trips.

Expectations

I'm still getting settled in here at the new job and home, so I thought I'd provide some entertainment before your weekend.

In Nicaragua, I was often surprised at how little was considered normal. No ceiling (just a corrugated metal roof), no kitchen cabinets (no oven either), no sink in the bathroom (and no running water during most of the day).

But then I'm reminded that those things weren't always normal here either. Just after WWII a home in Levittown averaged 750 SF. I probably don't have to tell you, that's not average anymore.

subprime from beeple on Vimeo.

New Day

Today is my first day of work at Habitat Sheridan. As with all new life changes it's exciting and scary with innumerable possibilities.

When I walk into the office for the first time I will be meeting all strangers, but I have no doubt I will quickly come to feel as though I have known them forever.

And yes, that could be good or bad!

Buuuut, I'm sure in this case it will be good.

Americorps and the PSO

Do you know what a PSO is? Neither did I.

What about TCB, VMSU or VISTA? Yeah, that's what I thought.

Welcome to the world of the US government. Unfortunately, even though I don't receive the benefits (such as all federal holidays off), I still have some of the responsibilities including learning and translating a crazy quantity of acronyms.

Vista (the program I am a part of) was founded in 1965 (Volunteers in Service to America) by President Johnson. The organization was put under a new umbrella of Americorps and the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) by President Clinton in 1993. Other groups which were created in the mid-nineties and put under the CNCS include Teach for America and the Senior Corps.

Vista was created specifically to fight the war on poverty. Every Vista Volunteer works within local organizations which attempt to alleviate poverty within their community.

They also only take on responsibilites which provide indirect service. That means they don't teach kids, feed the hungry or directly serve the poor. We are a capacity building group, we are there to work ourselves out of a job.

We will organize programs, train volunteers, write economic plans. And then we will leave.

We are only there for a year (in most situations). We will come, learn, plan and teach. Then, if all goes well, if we are astute in our observations of need, ability and cultural expectations, if we are careful in our prioritizing and communicating, if we are lucky, our work will be carried on by those in the organization we served and the community we lived.

And the Pre Service Orientation (PSO) is where you learn all that!

Adjusting Again

It's still hard to believe I'm not going back.

Almost two months after I left Nicaragua, even though I felt very ready to move on, I find myself looking back.

I suppose it's a natural process to reflect on those two years, moments gathered together in a catagory because they happened in the same geographic region.

I'm still not quite sure what to say when asked where I'm from. Saying I'm from that little third world country seems rather presumptuous that Nicaragua would want to consider me one of their own.

But I'm not from anywhere in the US in particular anymore either. I'm headed toward Wyoming, but I'm not there yet and it's going to be temporary too.

So I suppose I'm still between countries. Never quite belonging to one, but not fully adjusted to the other either.

How long does it take to belong?

Gardenia Sweetness

My memories of my grandparents are inextricably linked to the wafting fragrance of flowers around their homes.

As they have all sold or are selling their homes and moving into retirement places, I try to keep those memories in other ways.

Here, in a photo of the last blooms at the back steps, I even love the imperfections of the bruised petals because that's how they really are.

Prickly Ornament

A liquid amber tree

Too Much Too Quickly

We've all heard about it, we've all complained about it. We've all thought to ourselves, 'well, I probably shouldn't.'

But somehow, just about all of us manage to accumulate incredible quantities of stuff. Some call it affluenza, others call it the American way.

And in the process of aquiring and maintaining, it can get in the way of living.

My grandparents are having difficulty paring down their posessions to move from their three bedroom home of 24 years into a two bedroom apartment in their retirement village.

I had to leave almost half of my things in Nicaragua after only two years because I didn't want to pay for more than one 50 pound suitcase. I had taken two suitcases there, but managed to accumulate as much as I used up.

With the recession, sales statistics clearly show that people aren't spending as much money, but have we, as a country, truly changed our ways to avoid repeating what brought us here in the first place?

It doesn't seem like it.

What do you think? And more importantly, what are you going to do (or not do) about it?

Persistance Doesn't Always Pay Off

Ok, I think this is the last of the family home videos and photos I'm going to torture you with, at least for a little while.

While Charlie is persistant, he doesn't always find what he is looking for!

Good for America

A house for the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Housing Authority, built by HOPE VI funding and lots of volunteers!

The Edward Kennedy Serve America Act has been passed by the house and will be signed into law as soon as President Obama returns from the G20 summit!

For those of you who aren't familiar with it, the new service bill will (among other things) increase the number of Americorps volunteers from 75,000 to 250,000 over the next eight years.

It also will increase support for social entrepreneurialism. For those of you with short attention spans like me, here is a link of the highlights.

A Little Something

A little family time.

So my month in DC with my nephew is over! And as you may have noticed I didn't have much time to post anything, he kept us busy!

A little smile.

In just a month he grew so much and became such a little person! You know, instead of just a sleepy poop machine.

A little look.

A little baby powder, a little fussing, a little giraffe painting, a little crib assembly, a few doctors visits, a little showing off, a little tiring, and it all flew by!

I miss him already!

Good Sleep

Peace

Living Alone is a Luxury

It's not a right.

As plenty of you have probably already realized, the US has been obsessed with the idea of one small nuclear family per McMansion regardless of the consequences. And, well, now we all get to pay.

What is an anomoly in the rest of the world is standard practice here, in part because we're such a mobile society. For me it was Seattle, Nicaragua and Wyoming in the course of four years for work.

In Nicaragua, most everyone assumed I had lived with my parents up until I had moved there. They were shocked to learn that not only had I not lived in their house, or their city, I had even lived in an apartment all by myself for the three previous years.

They couldn't imagine it. Wasn't I scared? Or lonely?

They didn't understand because they had learned the joys (and how to handle the challenges) of living in community, of living with multiple generations in the same home and neighbors whose conversations (and livestock) you could hear while lying in bed (although they were muffled and in Spanish so I never really understood them (the conversations, not the livestock)).

I could have bought a house in Seattle in 2004, 2005, 2006. It would be a house whose value would now be less than the mortgage. I worked for a general contractor who now has had to lay off some employees, maybe I'd be out of a job.

And I could ask you to bail me out, pay my way because I was part of a cultural bust that could ruin you if left undone.

But maybe I got lucky, luckier than getting pulled out of a mess. I learned how to live in community. I lived with roomates all through college to minimize debt. I lived with NPH and in a family home in Nicaragua.

And now I am being welcomed into the home of Dave and Karen in Wyoming who speak with enthusiam for Habitat for Humanity, hiking, their two grown sons and their families.

I will be paying them $300 per month for a bedroom, bathroom, utilities, food and general use of their home (a generous offer anywhere, but especially in Sheridan where just a room in someone's house can cost $500 or more per month). I'm also sure care, hugs and listening to frustrations will also be included free of charge.

And I suppose that is the real luxury so many people miss out on. While looking for privacy, space and a view they miss the joy of shared laughter, the comfort of shared time and the purpose of shared values.

It looks like more people are learning this lesson out of necessity (link to Seattle Times article on shared housing). So maybe there is a silver lining to these hard times.