Attitude is Everything

I have a lot of thoughts about a lot of things.

Phew!! This blog has been a long time coming. Probably 2 weeks at least. I've been opening my drafts folder every couple days for a while in a hopes of composing something brilliant.. But ya know... Good intentions don't always amount to good results, right?

So, I knew this was coming and some of my friends knew this was coming...but believe it or don't, I've grown a little fond of this little country bumpkin society that I felt punished with last fall. You may read back to those blogs if you like, but honestly, I didn't expect I would feel "home" here. And now that I've up and moved to Des Moines, it seems impossible to stay away.

I'm technically still employed here in Storm Lake. The office gives me hours enough to make rent and hold myself over until I find something solid closer to where I pay my bills.

But! There's something to this country living. Wearing boots, feeling macho as you carry two bales of hay at one time, eating garden fresh veggetables everyday and watching the sunset every night.

I hated it at first because I had no friends and I figured nothing could be enjoyed without friends. I have sense friended my gem little siblings who are basically 10+ years younger than I, but that doesn't matter. People often assume I'm only 2 or 3 years older than them and I don't mind.

Hicks. I never wanted to be a hick. Torn up, dirty ol' shirts, old jeans also ripped up, baseball caps and cowboy hats, boots and belt buckles. Totally not classy. Totally bum looking. Come on, people, at least dress up a little out in the public, you know? Heck, I was wearing maxi skirts and fancy shoes every day before I moved here.


Different worlds. But! Now that I've mucked a few stalls, fenced a few cattle yards, wrestled a few steers and hauled a few hundred pounds of grain, I've learned a few things about how these hick humans think.

First of all, you work hard. Physically, your muscles ache. You get a free workout better than any gym can offer because it's hours on hours of exorcise. Fencing takes two hours minimum. Chasing cows off the highway takes running speed, endurance, and than good arm and shoulder strength if your fast enough to halter them. Feed bags are 50lbs a piece. There's no build-up-to-it weight lifting, you just pick up the thing and carry it. Same with hay bales..they're probably only 30 or 40lbs...but if you need two of them and you really don't wanna make two trips to the cow trailer, you carry two of them. And you get all worn out and sweaty. So, the heck with lookin nice, you probably don't smell nice, so we try to look it?


Second of all, your clothes are gonna get ruined. If your fencing, you're gonna catch your clothes on the fence or the wire you used to make your fence or there's going to be a nail sticking out of something in the barn. So..holes are all the latest fashion. Rips are all the rage.

Another thing about farming is manure. In the movies, it's kind of a dry and chunky sort of material that some good looking farm hand is pitch-forking into a wheel barrow.
In real life, it's wet and slimy and soupy. "Mucking the stalls" gets it name from the sound your shovel makes when you lift it out of the...stuff. Think of muck and that's what you're standing in. So! Why wear new, trendy skinny jeans? Why not those cruddy flair jeans from 15 years ago? They even fit over your boots so all your mucking doesn't end up in your socks! So that explains why hick humans are stuck in fashion trends from my childhood. Skinny jeans sure look cute tucked into boots
and all...but the hems would be ruined for all the stuff that would get up into your boots. So that's
that.

Then there's the hats thing. Really, you do a lot of work straight up in the sun. It's hard to pound fence posts with the sun in your eye, so it's really practical to have a hat. Why not trendy sunglasses? Good question! Because of gravity. You see, when you sweat, sunglasses don't stay on so good. When you sweat and pound fence post, using all of your weight and muscle to come down on the thing to get it to drive into the ground, your sunglasses fall off of your face and land in whatever your standing in and will probably get stepped on by the friendly cow that it currently licking you up from top to bottom because you smell and taste like their pasture.

So then it is, why not wash and groom yourself before showing up in public? Well here's the thing, you take a lot of pride in all of your hard work and labor and sweat and toil. You earned every bruise and callus on your body. And since you don't get to call up all the humans to come over and admire your fence and fat cows, you kinda brag it off by going out into the public all dirty and bruised and still wearing your work clothes because in the farming world, 8-5 doesn't exist. Because if you shower, change, and go into town, and then come back and find that your cows are on the highway because the stupid black she-devil can stinkin jump OVER cattle panel, the time you lose by changing and preserving your clothes is way too dangerous. Cows are worth way too many thousands of moneys for you to worry about a pair of jeans when it the darned thing is about to lose to a semi.
So! Wear your stinkin work clothes out to dinner in case your back to work when you're done.

Plus, it's very accepted in this whole farm culture life. Everyone gets it. And the belt buckle thing? That's basically their way of being fashionable while not being fashionable. At least, that's what I've gathered. It's for show and pride rather than anything practical.

And being a human that had packed all the maxis and dress shirts away and made a life out of old
 for several months, when I moved back into the look -nice-all-day-err-day thing, I missed the acceptable tshirts life, just a little. Farmers are over it, really. At the end of the day, you really don't give a care about what you looked like or what people think of you cuz you stinkin made a 1000lb animal submit to your will.

So! All that is to say, being a psychologist, I know how plastic the brain can be and how it changes and adjusts easily, I accidentally became part hick and have a special sort of respect for country bumpkins that seem way outta the loop, fashion wise.

Not that I intended to blog about hick culture, but The Lord will go to pretty extreme measures to make sure your heart has no un-loving veins in it. So who knows but God why I had to learn to love and respect the bumpkins of the world, but speaking from experience over here, I strongly suggest you open your heart to all the peoples before The Lord decides that the best medicine for your darn
pride and selective acceptance is to plop you right in the middle of all the kinds of humans you like the least. And leave you there. With no friends.

You just watch yourself, punk.

So that leads me to this whole thing about attitude and work. Not that I want to admit it, but I have major attitude issues sometimes. The summer after my freshman year of college I worked at the farmers market selling honey for my parents. I, of course, judged all the hicks there and hated every second I was associated with farming. I think people only bought from me cuz I let them sample the sweetness of our honey, which probably made up for the bitterness of my pride.

I had a terrible attitude about moving out to the boondocks. I had a terrible attitude about being removed from all my friend humans. I had a terrible attitude about how The Lord chooses to act and
work out His careful plans and how He prunes our branches without taking into regard our opinions for how we think it aught to be done.

How any of my friends wanted to keep me, even over long distance, is beyond me. Ew.

But, the stubborn thing about the Lord is that He will give 70x7 opportunities to get your attitude worked out. And 70 x 7 chances upon each one of the fist 70 x 7 chances. Good luck not learning your lesson! Ha!


I've has quite a few opportunities to work on my attitude. Last week my siblings had to help clean up the fair grounds for fair and I got roped into helping because I was home early to work in the office the next day. We arrived a little late for when it started and we were told by a friend of ours that there was major 'tude going on all over the place. We weren't in a bad mood yet and I quickly called a huddle meeting with my little ducklings as we assessed the situation. After some chatting, we decided that the best way to fend off a bad attitude was to play it like we were having the best stinking time of  our young lives.

We got out on fridge and concession booth cleaning and w e went to town, chuckling at the black mold, being in awe and wonder at the mouse droppings in the refidgerator, and repeatedly telling eachother how great we were doing and how awesome things were looking.

We figured outer good moods might be offensive to the humans out there who hated their lives, but I think that only encouraged us all the more..knowing we had the power to have a good time out of dusting and catching spiders with our bare hands. People walked by and complained about the smell of bleach, to which we responded to eachother with high fives all-around for killing the mold. "Good use of bleach, Kolby! Killing mold saves lives!" "I appreciate you using bleach after those mouse droppings, good work!"

And the adults would walk by and observe us cleaning the fridge and, thinking we'd completely ignored the shelves under the counter, would point out the shelves and say, "the shelves need to be cleaned." We'd bleached them already, but for as many times as we were asked to clean the shelves, we always immediately complied and cleaned them again. Making sure they felt respected and heard. We bleached every shelf, underbelly and all, at least five times. It took at last an hour, but we didn't mind. We were really rather safe from the other human's bad attitudes of we kept in our corner and kept cleaning the same things over and over. Anyone at the fair can order 4H concessions in good conscious, knowing that the place was cleaned through and through.

One particularly grumpy lady made a comment about how we sure seemed to be in a good mood. "Of course!" We replied, "our parents taught us never to work with a bad attitude." She complained a lot less after that.

We really do have a good time. Everything we did was the best, funniest thing ever. And every complaint we took in was apologized for profusely with a lot of, "oopsie poopsie! How could we have missed that?? Thank you so much for pointing that out!"

Surprisingly enough, not too many grumpy parents stuck around to see if we did the job they wanted done. What shocked me the most, though, we just how rude the parents were. Rolling their eyes, complaining loudly about having to clean, treating people they didn't know with disrespect. I get that they assumed I was in high school, but either way...you shouldn't disrespect people just because you have a bad attitude. I hope I never teach my kids it's okay to be grumpy at strangers who didn't do anything to you to deserve it.

Me and Eva got the chance to practice our attitudes again on Sunday when we had volunteered to work a concession station. I had exhausted myself over the weekend and Eva had fair projects to finish. But, if there's anything we've been taught, is that, no matter what attitude you have, if you said you were gonna do something, you better do it. Be all there and be committed.

So we showed up and got out on filling drinks. "No worries," they told us, "it's been slow all day".
Now, I worked concession at Iowa Hawkeye football games, I'm a fast pace, high intensity, pressure kinda performer. I don't do slow. So! I moved myself off drinks and got on a register and started announcing all we had to offer at every human walking by. Next I knew, Eva was at my side doing the same thing. We pulled in a few customers and decided that method was working. Then we figured  out that between her cute face and my loud voice, we had something going for us. We made it our whole goal to catch any and every potential customer out there. We decided it was like fishing.

We complimented their shoes, we told them they did a great job biking so far and we expressed our care and concern over their hydration and hunger. "Have you drank enough water today?? You should drink more water!" "Sir, you look very hungry. Would you like a turkey filet sandwich? We can feed you!" Did we do that? Did we shamelessly bat our eyes and smile our best smiles? Yes. We did that. All our proceeds went to cornerstone for life, a pro-life ministry dedicated to saving babies. Amen, amen.

Needless to say, we had a great time, our attitudes were well adjusted, and we stayed two hours past our shift and were stilling pulling in hungry customers at 10pm, making well over $100 in tip money alone.

Good attitudes make for a great time.

So that is where I am now. Working on my attitude while I wait on the Lord's provision.

July

Has it really been a full year since I moved out of Iowa City? Yes. Yes it has. I just can't believe it. It's been the fastest and slowest year of my life. 

I'm still not managing to stay in one place very long. I keep telling my friends that when the day comes that I'm in the same place for two weekends in a row I will have to celebrate. Who knows when that will be, though? For me, a 2.5 hour drive is as natural as going to the grocery store. In fact, I probably do more of those 2 hour stints than I do buy groceries. 

I'm still hunting a job. You'd think I'd become less picky as time drags on and desperation builds up. But when I think about it, there are a couple potential ideas that I've simply ruled-out for the time being. 

Also, the more I wait on a job, the more I dream about grad school and finishing out my goals and dreams. However, waiting on a job means that my funds for existence are slowly dwindling down and grad school seems less and less realistic. But! someday! 

In the meantime, amidst job applications and cover letters, I've been on the move. Popping back and forth between my apartment and the farm. Honestly, I can't really say if I truly live in Des Moines yet. I'm getting better at the street names and one-ways and traffic, but I haven't found any thing that makes me embrace it altogether. 

We'll see though! I've only been here two months. And not even that because I haven't fully stayed here all that long.  All of my decisions lately have been on whether I should stick around here and grow some roots or keep living in the moment and run from reality. 

I usually choose to run from reality. I spend enough time with reality as it is. 

So that takes me to now. It's Friday! And I'm in Des Moines, believe it or not. I'll be on the road again soon enough, but for today and tomorrow, I'll hopefully be in one place. 

I've thought a lot about The Lord in all of this. I've sort of asked for prayer in finding a job. I've sort of placed my trust in the Lord's hand and direction as I wait for an interview or a call or some indication that I have a chance at employment at some point in the near future. 

Sort of. 

The funny thing about being a believer is you never fully learn all of the lessons on trusting the Lord the first time or even the second or third. Or maybe it's just me? I don't believe it's just me. 

I think, deep down, I'm trusting the Lord. Deep down I know the Lord will provide the perfect job and put in the perfect place.  I know that, which is why I don't worry so much, I guess.

But actually, I've been a little anxious. Well, really anxious. Mostly because of my pride being all squashed and tromped on. Humans my age are expected to be established and independent and having their life altogether. I don't. I don't have my life together and I'm not 100% independent and I'm certainly not established. 

But, I'm learning to accept such humble circumstances and not worry after it too much. 

Waiting, you know? Still waiting.