I've been meaning to follow up after that paper tragedy that went down, but things have been so crazy that it hasn't happened. But, the short story of it is this: I survived and I got it done.
Friday afternoon one of my wonderful Kalonavite brothers texted to heads up on a movie night at one of our friend's house. While I had previous plans of having a movie night with one of my friend's from Salt, after the trauma of having lost so much work, I couldn't think of anything I'd love more than to spend the evening in Kalona. After telling my friend that I wouldn't make it due to my impending suicide due to the loss of my paper and he informed me promptly he'd show up at my house within the hour to offer moral support and motivation.
True to his word, over he came and, while he didn't turn out to be all that helpful, he's a quirky sort who has a talent in straight-forward truth speaking and honesty, which is what I need more often than not. He urged me to keep working on my paper until we left for Kalona. (My friend agreed to switch movie night location plans to Kalona instead of my house). So, I managed to restore almost all of my paper before taking a time out and heading to Kalona for an other adventure.
It was SO great!
We returned ourselves to our respective homes around midnight-ish, and I think I managed to crawl under my covers close to 1am.
Saturday I awoke at 7 and began layering myself like a parfait. Well, maybe more like an onion.
We knew the concession stands would be cold, but I didn't work the final game last year so I wasn't quite sure what I was about to encounter. I had about 6 layers on going into the game, and with the uniform on (Over all the layers) I was up to 8. EIGHT LAYERS OF CLOTHES!
Our stand was cold. I took a bucket of hot water outside of the stand to wash the counters... the water froze instantly to the counter and we had to use the pizza servers to scrape it off. Back in the stand we were hugging the pizza warmers and eachother to keep warm. That is, until my stand manager approached me and asked if I'd be willing to work a Mini stand.
A Mini stand is a 2-person stand, so you're isolated from the rest of your crowd. It's also out in the open and doesn't have any heat source at all. The only saving grace it has is a brick wall that blocks the wind kinda sorta.. but not really.
It sounded like an adventure to me, so I accepted my stand manager's request and began to follow the boss out the door. One of the angels in the big stand saw me heading out and offered me her gloves on account I didn't have any... OH MY GOODNESS IS SHE A SAINT!
Upon arrival at the little stand, I was introduced to my selling partner. She's a senior at Cornell and was volunteering for a sorority. Didn't know her before the game, but we bonded over the frozen state of our existence for the next 4 hours.
I posted on facebook how cold it was, but in case you missed it, here it is.
-We left our water spritzer bottle out on the counter and it froze inside and out. And then we ran it under hot water and tried to squeeze it.. it shattered. (It was plastic)
-We would open the door of the pretzel warmer and the condensation rolled down and formed icicles in the time it took us to pull out a pretzel and close the door again. (Seriously, 7 seconds max)
-We had to keep our new bottle of water in the refridgerator too keep it from freezing
-We would spray water on our pretzels to dip them in salt and the drops of water froze on the previously warmed pretzel before we dipped them into the salt.
-We watched someone drop a bucket of steaming hot chocolate onto the cement and it froze solid in less than 20 seconds. Seriously, By the time they got it tipped back up, it was solid. Like a little ice skating rink.
-I spilt a little water on my gloves and I would clench my fist and watch the ice fall off.
-People left 5 and 10 dollar tips because they didn't want to stick their hands out of their mittens or coat pockets again.
-I had my scarf pulled up over my face and the mere act of breathing on it caused it to freeze and I got frost on my eyelashes.
- I breathed on my counter top just to see if it would freeze instantly.. it did.
-I had someone offer me his 20 dollars of change in exchange for my phone number. Tempting.. but I had a few moral hesitations with that one.
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Basically.. it was cold enough that I wanted to cry, but i was worried the tears would freeze onto my face. But, it was quite the adventure and I was SO thankful when I got home and plopped down on my couch with a quilt wrapped over me.
After arriving back home, I set out to work on the paper some more. There was some insanity that ensued, but it was justified. I stayed up until 12am and then gave up for exhaustion.. but was so close.
I woke up at 6am and worked on it til 10 am when I finally finished it, turned it in, and breathed a sigh of relief. No time to rest of course, showering and church readying needed to happen, and then of course, actually going to church. I didn't have time to dry my hair and so it froze in the time it took to walk from my car to the front door.
Church was wonderful and I made a new friend. (Seriously guys, if you're going to sit alone.. too bad. I'ma sit by you.) Coffee was out when we got there, so I resolved to take pain killers later for the headache that would surely ensure from the lack of sleep AND caffeine. We arrived home some time after one and all of everything distracted from that plan.
First of all, we were all out of food. (Who goes shopping right before break? Not us.) We had been existing off of cookie dough the last several days and so when we arrived home Sunday for lunch and only found left over cookie dough in our fridge.. we each took a few bites and hoped that maybe there'd be food of some sort at the hymn sing later. (Mennonite food beats everything). I found a nearly expired small cup of pasta in the cupboard and I think Anne ate some lettuce? Amanda had to go work at the studio, so she didn't eat. (Us poor college kids). We just didn't have food so we distracted ourselves with packing and cleaning. Maybe this is why my headache worsened, I don't know, but I felt worse as the day went on. I layed down for a few seconds and realized that I'd fall asleep instantly if I did, so I kept myself awake doing other things, as I had a friend popping in on her way home from UNI momentarily and I needed to be awake when she arrived.
She came, we chatted, it was wonderful! Then she left and I began to straighten the kitchen and living room and do the little chores that my roommate requested I complete while she was gone. Finally she returned home, and we scrambled around the house to get things in order for us to leave for the Hymn sing because we would be heading to Storm Lake after. She managed to find some old Pita bread in our basket and we each got half a pita as we drove down down to Kalona.
OH MY GOODNESS! MENNONITE HYMN SING!!!!!
There aren't even words to describe the wonder that is this little Kalonavite happening. The Lord was so there and my heart was just cradled and tended to as the most beautiful sounding worship rang out through out the little church. I'd come full circle.
A year ago, I was doing a triathlon through the valley of death and just coming to the end of the swim-through- the-lake-of-fire (basically) and there wasn't much hope left to hang on to. February, is when I crossed the finish line for that particular hellish trial and my heart was in so many pieces that I couldn't imagine it *feeling* much of anything for a while. THE VERY NEXT DAY, literally, a little over 24 hours after closing the lid on the coffin that held my dreams and hopes that had been dead long enough they were starting to decay, I was invited into this little church, just outside of this little town, and it was there I heard the the song "Oh Love of God" sang in a capella by this wonderful group of people who love the Lord.
The Lyrics are these:
- The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.- Refrain:
Oh, love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure—
The saints’ and angels’ song.
- Refrain:
- I can't describe how it sounds, but I can tell you that the Lord reached down during that song the first time and told, "I've got you, Fern." And so started my adventures in Kalona. And here, months and months later as my heart has been going through re-constructive surgery to put the broken pieces back together, I found myself in this same little church watching the same 2 godly men lead people by way of song and I felt the same love from God that I had the first time. AND THEN WE SANG THIS SONG! Wahhhhhh! I just cried. *Sigh* How the Lord loves me.
- So after that little glimpse of heaven, Amanda and I set out on our next adventure. Home in the caddy. While we had, indeed, been offered food by the Mennonites, we never actually made it to wherever that food existed as we were chatting with our good friends. No matter, we needed to stop for coffee anyways (tired headache still prevailed).
- It was just after 10pm when we arrived at a little gas station in some little town and went in to survey the food options. Everything warm was shut down at that point, so we settled for pumpkin spice coffee and receieved well wishes for our travels from the clerk. We determined we'd stop else where for supper but settled on eating more cookie dough until then. The one other place we tried had closed at 10 and we found ourselves staring in the window at 10:30. *sigh* We had originally planned to stop SOMEwhere but, we were so exhausted, we just plowed on ahead. Some time after midnight, we switched off and Amanda drove. There was no sleeping, of course, because whoever wasn't driving was in charge of keeping the driver awake.
We stumbled through the front door close to 2am and went to bed. PRAISE THE LORD FOR HOME!We awoke around 8am and a little giggly brother sneaked in with a warm corn bag that he slipped under our covers before tucking us back in saying, "Sleep for a while more, I'll be back"<3 Be still my heart strings. He's all about giving us breakfast in bed. :)I mean.. that's what his intentions were, but come 9am we were so starving (carried over from the night before) that we emerged from out covers and wandered down stairs to see the panekukin just being placed in the oven. We all sat around the kitchen table while catching Mom up on our latest adventures, attempting to describe the hymn sing she'd wanted to go to but couldn't.Monday was filled with cuddling and resting and sometime around 2pm I realized I still had that headache and decided I just must be really exhausted. Around 3pm I realized it was because I hadn't gotten any coffee and I called my father at work and informed him we needed coffee around the house and he informed me to check the cupboards and to call him back by 4pm if I didn't find any. Shortly thereafter I fell back asleep in the penthouse and all thoughts of checking the cupboards and calling back were soon forgotten. I awoke sometime close to 5pm to the most beautiful sunset ever.
Home. Where you can actually see the sunset. This is what I miss in Iowa City.
Tuesday was slightly more productive than monday and we managed to scrub down the kitchen a little. Abe, my former Mennonite friend, invited himself over shortly before lunch and we put him to work chopping wood. (He's a Forestry major, so that basically means he can chop our wood for us when he comes over).
Around 4pm we had to take Amanda to the meeting point so we could turn her over to her mom :'( . Eva and I got some good chats together on the way home and the house was quiet again when I returned. *sigh*
So now we have last minute house cleaning to do before the rest of the Kohlpack arrives home. Well.. amost the rest. We'll be one-short this year, but 9 outta 10 is still an A right?
Happy Thanksgiving, my friends!!! I love you all and I'm SO thankful for you!
