Life Update! Here we go!

24 days. That's how much time I have left of my Iowa City life chapter. We've got a bucket list that we are working through slowly. It's been a joy. 

My heart is thumping thumping thumping this morning. I feel stressed all the sudden. But I think it's mostly because I managed to drink down 18oz of coffee in under 5 minutes and the caffeine is going to work. 

I need to pack. I hate thinking that.. or having that on my To Do list... last year when we moved in I told Amanda, "Let's not do this ever again." haha.. well... now it is that time of year again... That time that has come every year for me for the last 5 years. I'm ready to settle somewhere for a long while already.. but maybe I'm not. I rather like adventure. And since it took me a good 5 years to establish my friend group.. since i'll be snipping off my roots and re-building a new friend group, maybe I'll just be a free-floater for a while. 

I originally planned to move to Des Moines in August or September and get my roots in the ground working some desk job and living the work life, doing same old same old and maybe meeting my future husband. However, as many of you may or may not know, my father had some major seizures a couple weeks ago.. at the worst possible times ever. 

The oldest 7 of us siblings were reunion'ing with eachother in Florida and my father caught a flu bug just before heading off to a work conference in Des Moines. Due to the bug, he wasn't able to absorb his anti-seizure meds and had a grand mal seizure sometime around 10 or 11am and he was admitted to a hospital. Not knowing he had the bug, he felt fine soon after and was released to go back to work. Around 3pm he had another and was again admitted into the hospital having experienced 2 seizures, bit his tongue, and the flu bug settled in with full force. 

Since us siblings were 100s of miles away, we couldn't go visit him or anything. And my poor mother, down with the same flu bug as well as 2 young children also miserably sick, were stuck in Storm Lake 3 hours from Des Moines. Poor dad, three days in the hospital with no visitors and feeling miserable. 

Anyways, on account of that miserable adventure, he isn't permitted to drive for 6 months. My dad's job covers at least 23 counties in Iowa and driving is basically a lot of what he does. With mom still running a house and home-schooling 3 children and doing everything else under the sun (I think I've mentioned how incredible she is) she doesn't quite have the time or energy or great desire to galavant across the great empty plains that are Iowa. 

Who knows that I have quit all my jobs and graduated from college with a nothing degree but for such a time as this? So! My next life chapter of adventures will be THEE personal chauffeur for one of Iowa's most top agricultural engineers. I mean, I've been saying I belong by the farms and under the stars and in view of a good sunset. Right? Right. So that is my next move. Exploring Iowa one day at a time. Woohoo!

I suppose I'll try to find a job with flexible hours so I can generate income whilst adventuring from pig farm to extension office to all over the place. Maybe I'll start taking my paintings seriously and selling them? Maybe I'll take up a new hobby and learn how to weld or something like that. Maybe I'll hunt down a kind mechanic to teach me the ways of car fixing upping. The possibilities are endless. But my mom is a great example of always learning a new life skill and always expanding one's capacity to serve others better. So I'm sure I'll find some way make myself useful...besides trying to reign in my aggressive driving habits.... I'll *TRY* to work on that.. but I have a feeling that the great expansive flat empty roads of North West Iowa might only encourage my great desire to speed up the process by which one travels from point A to point B. 

Either way! TODAY I go out and retrieve plastic tubs for packing in since cardboard boxes won't be good enough if I end up moving into a barn or something. Also... I mean.. I like to think that I don't actually own that much stuff.... but I do. *sigh* SO somehow or other... I'm gonna figure out how to get all my stuff out of my apartment...and some of it home. 

Ah new adventures. I think I'm excited now. I've been praying for the Lord to help my heart to move on and not leave parts of me behind. And so the cauterizing process here has been a little rough, but at least the bleeding is being stopped before it gets going to much. 

One of our friends let us pet his little lambs the other day and we noticed they still had their tails. I remember the days as a young girl that I had to hold my little lambs still whilst my father chopped off their little tails with a very hot object that looked something like a cross between a scissors and a large pliers. The hotness was obviously to cauterize the wound immediately... but the smell of burning flesh and wool...ugh. So of course we asked how these friends of ours intended to remove the little tails on these precious fuzz faces and he said they used rubber bands. What a novel idea for tails. It just cuts off the circulation until the tail falls off. Not so much pain or blood involved. 

Okay... sorry if that was too graphic. But that is what the Lord is doing with my heart. Rubber-banding that chapter that is Iowa City. Slowly it is being cut off and slowly my heart will adapt to new things. 

I think my biggest worry at this point is finding a Christian community back home. I know exactly ZERO humans my age that love Jesus back home. That's not a very good starting out number... but I mean.. Jesus has been known to provide humans before. Obviously it'll be a time for being humbled.... but I mean... Jesus has plans, right? Right. 

Anyways... The Lord is good. And I'm just rolling with the punches as they come. If any of you have suggestions on what to do with my life for the next 6 months.... I'll take them!