Beauty Reminder

I'm going to talk about one of my favorite bands for a second.
During my Junior year of high school, the cool kids in my school had been whispering about this band for awhile. I just assumed I wasn't cool enough to know about them so why try.

But then one day I just went for it and blindly bought the Avett Brother's live album on Itunes. Go big or go home, right?

I fell in love. Not in some weird fan girl way, I don't even know the singers' last names. Jk. Its Avett. (Sorry that was supposed to be a joke and it was terrible)
But in all seriousness, since that day, I have never gotten tired of their music.

For so many reasons.
Their blue grass sound, their harmonies, the fact that they are actual brothers and sing about their family heartaches and victories, the fact that they are fathers and love their wives. The fact that they remind me of home and sweet Saturdays driving through Southern mountains with the windows down.

But mostly I love their lyrics. They are so simple and honest and they don't try to trick you with cryptic phrases.
I can listen to their songs once and have a pretty solid idea of what they are trying to say.

I have always felt that I could walk up to their porch and talk all night long about things that matter. Then they'd bring out their banjos and we would write a simple and short song together. It would never be a song they record, just a song for our friendship. And it would be perfect.
So that is why I love them.

Every now and then a different line will stick out to me and stick with me for a long time. One of my long time favorite songs is January Wedding. I'll post a video of it because I want everyone to enjoy it.
Sure when I first listened to it I do the girly "I just want a guy to sing this to me." And I still do that, lets be honest. But this song really does affect me on a deeper level.

So the other day I had a snow day. Praise!
True story, no snow on the ground though, ha.
For some reason one of the first things I thought of when I woke up was this line, so I knew it was going to be a good day.

"I don't feel weak but I do
need sometimes for her to protect me.
And reconnect me
to the beauty
that I'm missing"

To me, this line describes why friendships are so necessary.
Even when we think that we are doing great on our own, we always need people.
I need people to protect me, and to reconnect me to beautiful parts of our world that I overlook.
See, we are supposed to be connected to beauty, it is how we are created.
And it is so easy to lose this connection.
So why are we not constantly trying to realign ourselves to appreciate beauty?

For example, remember that snow days are not just a gift because it is a break from every day business, but it is a chance to look at the world stand still under a beautiful blanket of white.
Or recognizing that my messy roommate is so much more beautiful than her mess.
Or remembering that the Sahara desert is the size of the entire United States.
Or that ballet exists.
I could go on, but I won't.

So this got me thinking of friends I have that seem to effortlessly remind me of beauty I miss. I came up with about 2 or 3. Not that friends who don't do this are bad friends, but some people just have a gift of being able to do this. And I am grateful for them.

So my goal for this week is to thank them.

Cayo Costa Pt. 3

So back to my Cayo story.

We landed on the island about noon. Remember, this is June in Florida and it was hot hot hot. Its amazing that there can be so few trees and still so much humidity. I guess I always pair massive humidity with a rainforest, but that is not the case in Florida. It is just one big swamp.

So anyways, we unloaded all of our stuff and waited for the Ranger to come pick us up with his golf cart trolley system.
I'll call him Ranger Tom.
So he came and helped us load all of our food, tents, bags, animals, etc.
Jk about the animals.
This island is famous for its wild boars, actually. But I'll get into that later.

I remember the golf cart trolley was shiny aluminum that hurt my eyes, and my hand when I touched it. It was not even 1pm and it almost gave me a second degree burn.
That was my first "Oh snap" moment.
Florida is dang hot.

I could tell by the end of our trolley ride to our camp site that Ranger Tom thought we were a joke.
It wasn't hard to see the condescending laughter he was trying to not let slip past his mustache.
Yeah we were 6 young girls camping on an Island. So what Tom?
Its not that weird.
And we can do it.
He made a few jokes about the vast quantity of our "stuff".
It wasn't that much, thank you. And so what we brought a weeks worth of frozen casseroles? Its better than luke warm spaghetti-os and he knew it.

So we got to our campsite, and it was sweet.
The island was mostly tropical rainforest (minus the rain), and then beach and ocean. We stayed in the tropical part (no worries there were clearings), and you only had to walk about 100 meters to get to the empty beach and turquoise ocean. It wasn't quite the crystal clear Florida Keys water I had imagined, but I tried not to let that bother me too much.
It sure beat the fish poop colored Atlantic.

So we started unloading; we were going to set everything up first so we could play all afternoon. #responsible.
Haley's parents gave a castle of a tent to avoid swimming in a collective sweat puddle all night. It was going to be a task setting it up, but heck Ranger Tom we were girls and we were going to do it!

But...
We forgot our tent poles. True story.
We looked in every nook and cranny right down to the bag of peanut butter and oatmeal and they were nowhere.
They were laughing at us from happy home of Haley's garage in South Carolina.
Shoot.

Surprisingly, nobody freaked. I think we were all in survivor reality TV mode and we got right to using our string to rig the tent up between the palm trees.
But it didn't work.
We probably spend 1.5 hours trying to do this. Our "we can do it" optimism started to fade when Haley's scholarship winning engineering mind admitted that it really wasn't possible. Around this same time sweet Carly's started getting big white and red splotches on her face.

Thats when we realized it was over 100 degrees, we hadn't had anything to eat or drink in some time, and our tent string shelter/shade was a no go.

"Carly are you ok?"

"I think so, I'm really hot though"

"Yeah it might be a good idea to sit down."

"Well, there is no shade, but drink some water."

"So this might be a good time to tell you guys that sometimes when I get overheated and tired I have pretty serious seizures."

Everyone just kind of looked at each other.

"So, do you think you are going to have one?"
"I'll let you know."

This is when we decided to ask Ranger Tom for a tent.
Serious shot to the pride, but survival often accompanies humility.









just because I miss green in this winter here is a throwback picture to leaves

Miss you Green, see ya in a few months. 

Things Disappear

So I've started listening to NPR these days. 
Not excessively, but because I live a good 20 min. from the high school where I teach, and fifteen min. from campus I am in the car a lot. Alone.
I love music, don't get me wrong, but I'm always trying to squeeze in effortless learning when I can. 
I promise its not to bring up "So I was listening to NPR.." and sound really pretentious. 

Kind of like the word pretentious. 

(Pretentious:) attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.

Whoops. 

The reason I bring it up was because today they were interviewing a San Diego Zoo Zoologist and I keep thinking about it. 
So the most recent depressing animal news is that there are only 5 living White Rhinos (Actually, maybe it a specific type of White Rhino and there are plenty of plain white Rhinos). 
Anyways, they recently had one die; he was old no worries. 
As soon as he died scientists swept in to harvest as much genetic samples and sperm cells as they could so they can work on scientifically reproducing the Rhinos before they die out entirely. 

She made a point that they do not do this to "Bring back dinosaurs or animals that are already dead." They do it to bring back animals that are close to extinction because of humans. 
So basically, we destroyed the Rhino's environment. Almost all of them have died, and there a few Zookeepers trying to do something about it. 

Then...
I was listening to a story about an ice climber that was the first person to climb frozen Niagara Falls. 
1) That is so cool. 
2) He knew what he was doing, it wasn't just a publicity stunt. 

Ok maybe it was, but he really did know what he was doing. 

Actually, I take that back. I really think it was more of a personal thing for the guy. And he sounded really awesome, so if I ever get to meet him I would never want him to think I think he climbs giant waterfalls simply for publicity. 

So then the NPR interviewer asked what his next big goal was. 
The guy said he is working on climbing things that aren't going to be around in the next few years. And he had a whole list. 

So I was like "What?" 
"Oh shoot, global warming."  
 That's real, Pope Francis even confirmed it. (But we Catholics have believed that for a long time, I promise.) 

See even though I have never left the country (sad but true), I have plans.
There are tons of things I want to see and google earth is just not good enough.

I hadn't even THOUGHT of making a list for things that aren't even going to be there when I have an income to actually support travel.
DANGIT.
Back to the drawing board.
Stupid humans ruining everything.

I'm kidding, I think humans are wonderful.
And the reality is, I don't feel thhhaattt bad about not seeing everything cool before it disappears.

I could never see frozen Niagara falls before I died and I probably wouldn't think twice about it. But because it won't even be there in a few years I suddenly NEED to see it.
Same with the Barrier Reef (that's on its way out too). Get me to Australia!

Its kind of like me not even wanting ice cream and then my mom telling me I can't have ice cream and then suddenly all I want in the world is ice cream.
So its like that, but semi-grown up edition.

There are always going to be be great things I never see.
There are going to be wonderful people I will never meet.
 Living in FOMO (fear of missing out), is no way to live life to its fullest. (And MY fullest, not an ice climber's fullest).
^This is what I tell myself all the time. Easier said than done.

Ice cream melts.
The world melts.
I'm just going to have to be ok with cheering Sir Ice Climber on from whatever Internet site is letting me know how he's doing. No hard feelings.

Front Handed Insult

So you've all probably heard of the term back handed compliment.
Basically that means someone is trying to compliment you and they are actually insulting you.

I like to call them front handed insults because it is my theory that people might play dumb, but they know what they are doing.
We get it a lot in the south.

• "Wow, you are rocking those sweatpants. I going to wear sweats but I always look so homeless when I wear them." 

.................. ok I'm going to change. 

• "I wish junk food didn't go straight to my gut so I could eat french fries, too. You go though!" 

I'm not stupid. I realize that I am going to see the affects of going to Chick fil a twice a week, but I don't need the affirmation. 

• "This is by faaaaaar the best pizza you've made." 

Its fine, you've only had my pizza at least 12 times.  

• "I've never seen your hair look that good before." 

Just tell me my hair looks good, you don't have to keep talking. Geeze. 


So I had this one teacher in high school who did this all the time. I like to think the best of people, so part of me thinks she was clueless about the fact she did the all. the. time.

But then the other part of me thinks that she hated me so she did it on purpose.
Who can say?
I don't care too much at this point in my life.

But the reason I bring this up is because I was teaching a lesson on the Ancient Greek Empire the other day and I was brought back to a description of Spartan vs. Athenian women I will never forget.

So I'm in 9th grade and my teacher, Ms. Rocky we will call her, is happily going through her Ancient Greece powerpoint. She goes on to describe Athenian women.

"They never spent much time outside so they were pale and not exactly athletic. They did a lot of lounging and eating grapes. They cared a lot about what they looked like so they wore makeup and were pretty. Dark features and dark hair that was often long and curly. So pretty and plump and pale, remember that."

Then she looks at me.

"Emmy! You look JUST like an Athenian women. Seriously, you could be from Athens."

I just looked at her. Did she just call me fat and pale? Because that is what I heard. 
"Well, I don't know about that. I'm from Oregon."

She kept going.
"No seriously, you could be from Athens. That is so crazy! How did I never see it?"
Please stop talking. 
"Unbelievable. Emmy the Athenian."
Please move on. 

Then Ms. Rocky went on to describe Spartan women.
"Women from Sparta were really athletic. Almost manly. They never cared about what they looked like and they trained to be soldiers and kill people. The toughest women in Greece, but they never acted like women in the first place."

Then her eyes rested on Haley, my best friend who was the crazy good soccer player. And no, she did not look like a man. She was and still is the type who has to struggle to remain single.
Love her for it. Sometimes.

Any ways, you can assume what happened next.
"Haley, you look JUST like an Spartan woman. I mean I'm not saying you look like a man, but you're just super tough like someone from Sparta."

Me: "Haley I'm pretty sure she just said you look like a man."
Haley: "Yeah I know. Why the heck does she hate us so much?"
Me: "Maybe because we know she isn't a good teacher?"

She never liked us, all year.
This was harder for Haley to swallow than me because she was used to teachers asking to write her recommendations and such. In middle school I secretly called the awards ceremony to Haley Hunt show. Ok maybe not secretly. Who wasn't jealous in middle school? And high school....

I think if you asked my teachers about me they would probably say, "Oh yeah Emmy. She has a big family. How is Megan doing? Megan was such a good student."
I didn't start liking school until college, and I've never excelled at faking enthusiasm.

Haley got most likely to change the world as a senior superlative.
And I got most likely to quote a movie. So that's lame.

Well anyways, I didn't call any of my female students out for resembling pudgy statues, and to that I tell them "You're welcome."

Have a happy Valentines Day everyone! Spread da love not da heart hurts.

Photo Intermission- Summer 2011

So things are starting to heat up. Here are some pictures to give you some mental images.

3am. 

Notice the two sets of legs. 

Fashionable on a Florida ferry boat. The blond is Alison.