Iowa State Fair, part 1

So, Ian and I went to the Iowa State Fair last Friday, one of the largest fairs in the United States. It was a fun day, with a lot of walking, and we were pretty tired when it was finished. There were many very interesting elements, so I took some pictures to let you all know some of the things you can see at the fair.

That's right, folks: it says "Hot Beef Sundae." Mashed potatoes with meat and gravy over the top, and cheese sprinkled on top of that. Ian had one, and it was actually quite good. Reminiscent of shepherd's pie, of which I am fond.

This large fellow was advertised by a large sign outside his barn that said, "SuperBull," complete with the Superman logo and everything. Of course, after seeing that, we had to go inside and take a look.

And here are his stats. He must have terribly strong knees to do much of anything at 3400 pounds. Also, it's true that there is a town in Iowa named What Cheer.

I thought this reindeer was pretty exciting. Look at his antlers! (I almost typed "horns," but Ian is always on me to be more precise with my language.)

Ian and I like to show our support for Iowa and pork whenever possible.

Ian makes some new friends.

The draft horses were amazing! I don't think you can really tell from this picture just how huge they are, but up close they are very scary. Well, at least to someone like me, who has no idea how to control horses.

Anyway, apparently one of the things the ISF is known for is the variety of food you can find on a stick. They have chicken on a stick, pork chops on a stick, salad on a stick, frozen bananas dipped in chocolate on a stick (the Bluths, anyone?), and other things on a stick. They also have the usual fair fare (ha ha!), including deep-fried Snickers and Twinkies.

Our tour guide was a girl from our church. She is very involved in 4-H, has horses, and her dad teaches agriculture, so she knew a lot about the various reasons for why animal owners would groom them in certain ways for judging purposes. Apparently it's good for sheep to have a completely straight-across back and large hindquarters (indicating strong muscles) and for cows to have a bit of a peak at the top of their tails before they hang the rest of the way down. I was glad she was there because there is nothing like having an expert with you to increase your appreciation for completely foreign territory.

More pictures will follow soon!!!

This Is What Love Looks Like

When Ian picked me up at the airport on Tuesday evening, I noticed right away that he had cleaned my car. Upon arriving at home, I discovered that the house was neat and these were waiting for me on the kitchen counter:

(The roses are self-explanatory; notice the popcorn is the caramel-flavored kind and not the butter toffee.)

My man knows just what I like!

Madison County Fair

The air outside our house smells faintly of dung, and Thursday morning I woke up to the sounds of cows mooing, horses neighing, goats bleating, pigs oinking, sheep baa-ing (is that a word?). I felt like I was living next door to a farm. So what was it?

The Madison County Fair! The fairgrounds are only a few blocks from our house, and I don't know if it's because Iowa is so flat, or maybe it was just that the wind was blowing the right direction, but that morning I could hear all the animal sounds, and often the air around our house smells a bit like a farm.

The fair reminds me of those movies where people in the 50s go to a little county fair, and they see the quilt and baking entries, and walk through barns and look at all the horses and cows and pigs (I discovered this week that a barn full of pigs smells TERRIBLE-it made me never want to eat pork again). The only thing is that it's not the 50s, and there is no old-fashioned ferris wheel, only other carnival rides that look unsound.

I did enjoy watching the 4-H kids demonstrate their horsemanship, although I was a little out of the loop on some of the 4-H jokes. The announcer would say something, and the crowd would burst into laughter, while I had no idea what was going on.

Sadly, I did not have a chance to go to the mud run, the rodeo, or the demolition derby. I was somewhat disappointed, but those were extra money and I did not feel like paying. Maybe next year this will change. I feel like I shouldn't let my cheapness keep me from experiencing Iowa.

Too Long

Yikes!

It's been so long since I posted. So, just to catch everybody up, here's what I've done in the last two months.

MAY: My parents and brothers came out for a visit. We had a really nice time, eating a lot of good food, watching good movies, hanging out, and enjoying all the fun that Madison County has to offer. Speaking of which, I did not realize how exciting the Madison County Historical Museum would be (I am not being sarcastic, I actually like museums. Ian says it's the homeschooler in me). And we saw all the bridges of Madison County, because my mom is goal-oriented and likes to be thorough.

Then, we spent two weeks playing parents. A couple in our church took a mission trip to Uganda, so we watched their house, three kids, and two dogs. One of the dogs ran away for three days (some might say that I lost it), so there was much searching, praying, and tears, at least on my part. I think Ian only participated in the searching and praying. No tears.

JUNE: Ian went to Reno/northern California for almost two weeks. I would have been lonely, but I had Abbie and Kimi, the two summer missionaries (who were teenagers here back when I was a summer missionary) to hang out with. Petey became very attached to Kimi, and we wondered if he thought she was the new Ian. I did miss my husband, though.

When Ian got back, we participated in running a day camp in Des Moines at the Friendship Center, an inner-city ministry. It was fun, but very tiring. I liked getting to know the kids and discovering that I had retained many of my basketball skills, in spite of not playing at all for the last three years.

Also, I've been doing a lot more freelance writing and a lot more fiction writing, which is fun but resulted in my letting the poor blog go by the wayside. But now I'm back! Hopefully for good.

Worlds of Fun

This last weekend, Ian and I and several other adults took a bunch of kids from our church to Worlds of Fun, a theme park in Kansas City, Missouri. The park was hosting a few Christian bands (including Skillet and Switchfoot), so we left early Saturday morning and drove south for three hours. I was quite excited to go to Kansas City and to be in Missouri, since that's one state I still hadn't visited. (Now I have completed the whole column - Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana.)

We had a great time! It was fun hanging out with the kids and getting to know them better. There were some really good rides, particularly one called the Mamba. It was so fast that my eyes were watering, and I was completely terrified the whole time (in the good way, of course), so the thirteen-year-old I rode with accused me of crying at the end and laughed at me. (Let the records state that I was not crying. It was windy and I was laughing hard from terror.)

The concerts were good, and we spent the night in two guest apartments at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. We were expecting to sleep on the floor, but they had provided several mattresses in the both the girls' and guys' apartments. The next morning we went to a small church there that a friend of ours attends. It was really neat because the community was from a lot of different cultures and we got to sing "How Great Thou Art" in Swahili. Then we drove home, and everybody was absolutely exhausted by the time we arrived in Winterset.

All in all, a good time.

Bikes!

Ian and I used part of our tax return to buy bicycles for ourselves. I didn't have a bike, and Ian's was really old and he had to leave it in Reno when we moved. So we got new ones. His is a mountain bike, since he likes to bike on trails and do stuff that I would consider scary, and mine is something that's a cross between a mountain bike and a street bike (see how little I know about them, I can't even remember what they're called), because I'll probably do most of my riding around Winterset, though it would be nice to ride on trails every once in a while.

So I rode five and a half miles from our house to Clark Tower this morning. It was very fun, and a good workout. Let's just say I am very out of shape, thanks to my wimpyness about getting out in the cold over the last few months.

There is also something satisfying about riding short distances on your bike instead of in your car. It makes me feel like I'm exercising and saving fuel at the same time, and as my friend Cory would say, provides a "false sense of moral superiority--the best kind of moral superiority." (Sorry, Cory, I used this quote without permission. I thought it was funny.)

One More Thing...

Oh yes. And cleaning. That's one more thing I forgot to mention when I was speaking about my new glamorous lifestyle.

Now that Ian has a full-time job and I do not, I do most of the cleaning, and washing dishes by hand, since we don't have a dishwasher.

Lest you think my life too fun...

Life Update

Different people have asked me if Ian and I like Iowa, if we miss Reno, if I have found a job yet or am worried because I haven't. I was thinking about that this morning, about how God has been taking care of us and has done a lot of unexpected, new things since we came to Iowa.

I am the kind of person to freak out and stop trusting pretty much as soon as things don't go according to my plans. As soon as there's any kind of snafu, or if I have to wait on God more than, oh, a day, I become impatient and start worrying. This has happened a few times in Iowa, like when I first started looking for a job, but in the meantime, God has provided in a lot of ways, and so I just wanted to share with you all how good to us He's been and how many things He's done since we got here.

Here in Iowa, I am doing exactly what I wanted to do for the last year. It never happened because of school, work, being busy, the crazy life we had in Reno. But God has taken away a lot of things that were really important to me, yet replaced them with opportunities I don't think I would otherwise have.

So this is what I am doing in Winterset, for all of you who wonder how I spend my time:

-I am writing stories again.

-I am translating documents from Spanish to English, and making money at it.

-I am reading for fun!

-I am doing a lot with our church; I help with high school and junior high students on Wednesday nights, Sunday nights, and Sunday mornings; I lead a women's small group (meaning I study and prepare Bible verses/topics, and then facilitate discussion when we all get together).

-I am giving piano lessons.

-Occasionally I interpret for the police station here.

-When I run into someone I know at the library or at the store, I actually have time to have a conversation with them.

-I am spending more time with Ian.

-I have time to take a short nap most days.

-Most days I can drop everything if I want to and go to Des Moines with Mrs. Terri or Adrienne. (I'm not saying this happens very often, but if it does, I can!)

-I have applied for different jobs teaching Spanish in the fall, and have put together my dossier for easy assembly every time a new job opportunity comes up.

-I have time to observe, and to think, and to watch Lost, The Office, and Lie to Me every week.

In other words, I have the life I wished I could have for a long time, especially the writing part. I just never had any time to spare. It probably sounds kind of boring to some of you, but I like it, and I'm able to make just enough money to pay for what I need every month. We were so busy in Reno, especially the last few months we were there, that it felt like my life was spinning out of control and everything else was controlling me, instead of me having any kind of control over my life.

I do look forward to having a real job in the fall, and to being a little bit more occupied. But for now, I am amazed at how good God has been, especially since at first all I could notice was all the things He wasn't giving me, like a job. So He didn't give me a full-time job, but He gave me everything else I had been wanting for the last year. That's so amazing!

Windy and Music

So, the weather here turned cold again and then warmer yesterday and today is rather cold, cloudy, and windy (but the grass is still green!). I am sorry to talk about the weather so much, but I honestly find it fascinating here. Having never lived in the Midwest before, I have no idea what to expect.

In my last post I said I had not posted for a while because I was busy, so I thought I should explain why. I had taken a job playing the piano for recitals at the high school here. So every morning I went to the high school for a couple hours and practiced along with the students, and I also spent a lot of time practicing at home. Since I was paid based on how many hours I was at the school, and I have not yet obtained full-time employment, I was greedy and asked for many hours, not realizing that I would then have three weeks to learn twenty songs of varying degrees of difficulty.

I did not realize until I started trying to learn these songs how much of sight-reading and learning a piece is (at least for me) based on intuition, muscle memory, and sound. Some of the songs were very old Italian or German songs, and the chord progressions and melodies were unlike anything I had ever heard before. This made sight-reading very difficult because what my ear would want to hear next and my fingers want to play would not be what the notes said to do. And, because a lot of playing for me is muscle memory, it was hard to train my fingers into twenty new songs with their own patterns in just three weeks.

So I had to spend a lot more time practicing than I had expected. But the recitals seemed to go well, and now I have a binder-full of new music that I am capable of playing. This is exciting, even though I am sure that I will never play some of the songs outside of a high school music recital.

Magic

Hello everyone,

Sorry it's taken me so long to post. I was actually kind of busy the last week in February and the first two weeks in March, and then I was just so out of the habit that I didn't post anything for a while. Plus, nothing terribly exciting has happened, so I wasn't sure what to write about.

But now I have a story to tell you all...

I remember spring days in Reno, when the weather would finally become consistently warm enough that people with lawns would decide that it was time to make them green again. So you'd go out and water, or turn on your sprinkler system, and maybe do some fertilizing or aeration. And you would carefully and consistently work at it until, hopefully, your lawn was revived. If you didn't care you might not put quite as much work into it; however, the bottom line was that if you wanted to make your lawn look nice, you had to make the decision and put in effort.

Well, I have discovered that here in Iowa, lawns turn green on their own. It's like magic!

The weather has been warming up quite a lot. It's been a few weeks since our high was below fifty for more than a day, and many days it has been in the sixties or even as high as the low seventies. And, in the midst of all this warmth, I noticed that the lawns (including my own, to which neither Ian nor I have done anything) were slowly starting to change color. Then, the other night, we had an amazing thunderstorm and heavy rain for a few hours, and the next morning the lawns were noticeably greener.

They look so healthy and happy and alive, and all this without any effort from anyone! I realize that if you are from Iowa this might not be quite so thrilling, but I spent a lot of my life in deserts. When you live in the desert, you have to work to make things grow.

Best Birthday Gifts Ever

While I received many wonderful birthday presents this year, there were some that were especially memorable, and show just how well the people who sent them know me. And now, posted in the order in which I received them...

Now, while some people would have wanted to send a lovely homemade cross-stitch picture with a welcoming statement or a Bible verse, my best friend chose to send one with a quote from one of my most favorite movies ever:

As she noted, sage advice. 

My mom, knowing how much I love the color red, knitted me this  set for the terrible cold here. Notice the wonderful cable pattern...

...and how excited I am to be wearing them! I wore the fingerless gloves one night and found them to be surprisingly warm. But, as Ian commented, "Millions of homeless people can't be wrong."

And then, finally, my friends from my writing group sent me a camera for my computer. Now we can do our meetings face-to-face instead of by chatting online through text or audio. It is easy to use and works wonderfully.
You can't really see Rachel (which is good, because I have this idea that you shouldn't post pictures of people on the Internet without their permission), but my face is the one in the little box in the left corner.

How exciting!

Taking a Walk Around Winterset

Okay, so I am going to take you on a tour around southeast Winterset. These are just some of the interesting things I have seen when Petey and I are taking walks. Now, do not get too excited; none of these images are going to blow your mind. However, I selected them because they are the kinds of sights that I don't remember ever seeing in Reno.

I came across this old, rusty tractor in someone's backyard in the middle of town. Large antiques are not just for country yards! It makes walking so much more interesting.

This suit of armor is sitting (or standing, I guess) on a porch. I thought it was quite charming, and it stands almost three feet high. If I ever see a for-sale sign, I will try to buy it. Who doesn't want a knight guarding their front door?

Welcome to Winterset's Middle School! Here, we have an elementary school, a middle school, a junior high, and a high school. It sounds confusing, but it's not, and it's all apparently due to some overcrowding and building-rearranging that went on at some point. 

The buildings you see here are some of the shops that are on the outskirts of the square in Winterset. They are all some type of brick or stone and are all connected, and most have apartments above (although not all the apartments are actually in use). But I took this picture because you can see the courthouse tower rising above, and you can see the courthouse spire from a lot of places, including several miles away as you approach town on the highway (just a testament to how flat this area can be).

And here is the town square itself, with the courthouse in the middle. Everything else in Winterset spreads out from the middle here, which, I have discovered, most people refer to as "uptown." Since this is the center of the town and the most commercial and touristy area in town (excepting John Wayne's birthplace a few blocks away), I am not sure what Winterset's "downtown" is.

Now, I was quite excited when I discovered this signpost in this front yard. I have no idea how long it's been there or what struck someone to put it up, but I thought it was interesting...

Notice that you can gauge the distance to various destinations away from Winterset. It would appear that San Francisco is approximately 1,785 miles west, while Ft. Lauderdale is 1,514 miles south. Good to know.

This is a sight that amused me quite a lot, which may actually belong on one of those "FAIL" blogs. Notice the second-story door, and the lack of something onto which you can actually step out. They must have had a deck, or been planning on a deck, at some point.

So, that is all for the first installment. I may include more pictures as I walk around different areas of town.

Too Many Beetles

Ian was in my office just a few moments ago sucking up some Japanese beetles with his shop vac.

I don't actually know what they are. They look like ladybugs, but everyone in Winterset assures us they are "Japanese beetle-type things." Apparently they stink and bite, but they haven't yet afflicted us in either way. But on sunny days they come out of nowhere and crawl all around the inside of my office window and in between the inner and outer window panes. I have been sucking them up with our vacuum because I hate touching any bugs, but then I have to empty them out of the filter later. So Ian used his shop vac to avoid filter problems. I am so grateful to have a strong man with a shop vac to rescue me from tiny beetles!

Anyway, pictures really are coming soon... I just still have to select the best ones.

Hello everyone,

Just a few quick updates. Nothing particularly interesting had happened for a while, so that's the reason for the long delay between posts. 

It's an overcast and rainy day today. It's enjoyable living in a place where it actually rains when it gets cloudy, and where the rain is more steady than a drizzle and lasts longer than fifteen minutes. It seems like one gets to more fully experience various types of weather in Iowa than in Nevada (except, of course, completely dryness). The last few days here have been beautiful- in the fifties every day, which feels like springtime after weeks of below freezing.

Anyway, I've been seeing a lot of interesting things as I walk Petey around Winterset. I will post some pictures soon.

A Good Week

I am quite content this morning. I slept in and had coffee and a quiet time when I woke up; now I am just stalking my friends on Facebook and leaving comments on my brothers' blogs (I must figure out how to link to those. I am sure it is something very easy, but since it involves technology, I am intimidated) and eating Apples and Cinnamon instant oatmeal.

This was a very good week. Examples to back up my thesis statement:

On Monday Ian and I found out we finally have a renter for our house, so thank you to everyone who was praying for us. 

I did my first bit of freelance writing for the company for which I used to edit, and I got in contact with someone about a possible job at a university here, so unemployment is no longer the only thing looming on the horizon. 

Yesterday I talked to two friends on the phone (I miss you Sarah and Alison!) and got to have an evening to myself since Ian was out of town. 

I have been in contact with a few professors from my M.A. program, which may not sound exciting, but when you are in a degree program that trains you to seek the approval of certain people time and time again, then even after you graduate you get a rush every time they affirm you. Better than drugs, I say!

Small World!

So, I am applying for a teaching position at one of the colleges here in Iowa, and I discovered yesterday that the professor with whom I have been in contact also got her M.A. at UNR more than twenty years ago, and she knows several of the Spanish department professors that I studied with there.

Crazy!

All About Fareway

I went to Fareway today,  the local grocery store and midwest chain. I love going to Fareway. I'm not sure how much of this is the fact that I actually like the store, or just that I am going a little stir-crazy and enjoy pretty much any time I get out of the house. 

I also think I enjoy it because it's local and so small. I know that there are other Fareways, but this is the only one I've been in, so it feels unique to Winterset. It's also nice to not have to wander a really long way just to get from the frozen vegetables to the milk. There are slightly fewer choices than you would get in a Wal-Mart or Safeway, but since I am not decisive, this pleases me. And the prices are good... they are actually somewhat similar to Wal-Mart, and things that are on sale are cheaper than you can get them at the Wal-Mart in Des Moines.

Also, Fareway can be a social time because it is a major employer here in town. About half the kids in the youth group work at Fareway, so if I go after 3:00 or so I get to see people I know.

So anyway, grocery shopping is fun again.

Homesick

This morning I woke up homesick for the first time since I've been here. I miss a lot of people in Reno.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to give you all an update. I realized that I haven't written much about what has actually been going on in Winterset since I started the blog, so I thought I would let you know how things have been going for the last three weeks.

Bottom line: things are going well.

Actually, it's been really neat to see how people have welcomed us into Winterset. On the day we arrived in town, a group of women had already cleaned out house up, so I didn't need to clean the bathrooms or wipe out any cabinets. They left a variety of cleaning supplies (paper towels, clorox, Lysol bathroom cleaner, etc.) and grocery staples (bread, cereal, etc.) on the counter. Eight different people showed up to help us move into our house, and since then, several people have had us over to their house for dinner or taken us out to eat.

Everyone has been extremely welcoming and kind, and it's been great. I'm realizing that the sense of community here is much greater than in Reno. People wave when they pass each other driving, and pause to have long conversations even when you both are in the middle of tasks. I had a long conversation with the librarian who gave me my library card (now you see where my priorities are), and she said that she had lived in Winterset her whole life, and she had heard that other places had much faster paces of life.

"It's true," I told her.

"That's hard to imagine, because it seems pretty fast around here sometimes," she said.

I didn't say it, but I was thinking that other places, she wouldn't have time to talk to me for so long, and that's how you can tell the slower pace of life. It's great.

So... Ian is working hard and getting some of his first tastes of Southern-Baptist-ness through the state office (not so much our church). We have made several renovations to the Studio, and we are getting to know people at the church. I look for jobs and read and write and hang out with students at the Studio and play homemaker. This is what most of our days are like.

If you would like to pray for us, please pray that I will get a job soon and that we will be able to rent out our house in Reno soon.

Thanks! I will talk to you all next time.

What Sixteen Degrees Fahrenheit Feels Like

So, my poor dog had not been for a walk for two days, because on Wednesday the high temperature was less than 10˚ and Thursday the high was 0˚. I was not anxious to go outside on those days, but today the high was supposed to be a balmy 16˚, so I thought I would take advantage of the nice weather and walk Petey.

The walk was only fifteen minutes long, but about halfway through I realized that my face was numb. My cheeks seemed too stiff to smile, and it felt like my nose was running, but you can't be quite sure when your face doesn't actually have any feeling. So I zipped my jacket all the way up so that the collar covered part of my face, and walked a little faster, which was difficult because my thighs were also very numb inside my jeans. By the time we got back to the house, my calves were also beginning to lose a bit of surface feeling.

But my cheeks had turned a fantastic, naturally red color that looked way better than any makeup I'd ever worn. If only one didn't have to freeze to get that look!

It is fun experiencing new daytime high temperatures that are so low, just because they are so new to me.

Pictures of Our Road Trip, Pt. 3

Okay, so here are the pictures from the last part of our journey, from half of Iowa and all 450 miles of Nebraska.

So, this is evening of Day 2. We are entering Nebraska at this point, and pretty much what you see here is what we saw during daylight hours there. But at least people there live the good life. And I didn't realize that Arbor Day had a home.

This is sunrise in Nebraska on Day 3.

There was a pretty little church in the distance. This is also what Nebraska looked like. Note that my window if rolled halfway down because it was very dirty.

And, skipping a few hours...

Here's our front yard and the trailer in Winterset! About eight people from the church came to  help us move in (unloading in an hour and a half what it took us three days to load). It takes a long time to attach the trailer to the suburban, so when it was time to haul the trailer to the church to unload Ian's office furniture, one guy offered to bring over his John Deere tractor to shorten the process. O, the beauty of living in farm country!

Pictures of Our Road Trip, Pt. 2

Okay, so here's what we saw the first two days of the road trip:

These are some of the mountains in Nevada, just outside of Reno. While brown and ordinary most of the time, they were quite pretty when dusted with snow.

We stopped for lunch in Winnemucca, where it was VERY snowy. 

This is the start of Day 2. See the pretty Utah sunrise! Really, from I-80, I'd have to say Utah was the best-looking state.

Here we are, still in Utah, headed for Wyoming's capital. (At this point, it was still about 400 miles away.)

This is a lot of what Wyoming looked like: hills, vast expanses, big sky, light snow, and long, straight roads.

Also in Wyoming, there were many hilltops lined with rows of these huge windmills. They were absolutely enormous and very cool-looking.

See how cool-looking this is! From the picture you can't tell how huge it is. (That's what she said.)

Now, at some places there was a lot of snow blowing across the roads. It wasn't actually snowing, but the winds, those high Wyoming winds that we were warned about, blew the snow piled on the sides of the road across it.

Finally, here is another scene of Wyoming. All along the highway, they had these fences built, I'm guessing to block wind or what the wind blows. This was a pretty mountain to the south of I-80. The southern side of I-80 was consistently prettier than the northern side. It's like they purposefully divided the state in half.

Pictures of Our Road Trip, Pt. 1

I enjoyed a new hobby of driving photography while we were on the trip. In Ian's parents' driveway, right before we left on Saturday morning. These people came over to say goodbye to us.

As we drove out of Reno... notice the back of the trailer. This is what I looked at the whole way, all twenty-five hours of driving.

Things I Learned Driving Across the Country

1. Wyoming is the most dangerous state to drive in - ever.

Having lived next to the Sierras, I expected to see a few "snow tires and chains required" signs here and there on our winter drive. But what I didn't expect to see were all the other signs that appeared in Wyoming:

"Warning: High Winds next 8 Miles" (There were about four of these all in a row, so I wondered why they didn't have just one sign warning about high winds over the next 32 miles.)

"40+ mph Winds"

"Chains Required When Flashing"

"I-80 Closed When Flashing - All Vehicles Must Exit" 

"Interstate Highway Closed When Flashing - Exit Now."

Note that there were no signs of this type in any of the other states. All I can say is, if you are driving, STEER CLEAR of Wyoming.

2. Trying to draft off the large trailer in front of you doesn't work in the winter.

Let's just say that I was hoping to increase my Honda's fuel economy, but the amount of ice and sand on the road made it perilous for my windshield.

3. Moving mix CDs are best when made by friends and not oneself.

Thanks for my best friend Kristen and Ian's cousin Ben, we had three new CDs of moving music to listen to on the 25-hour drive. I also had made myself a moving mix, but I could only listen to it once for enjoyment, instead of the suspense, novelty, AND enjoyment that are available when listening to an unknown CD.

Introduction

Hi everyone!

I am starting this blog so I can keep everyone who's interested updated on what Ian and I are doing in Iowa. This way, no one will receive mass e-mails or be placed in the awkward position of having to ask to be removed from an e-mail list. (Just in case I assumed you're interested and you're not, or maybe you are interested but not that much.)

So, just in case you didn't know, Ian and I moved to Iowa almost a week ago so Ian could take a position at a church here. Basically, we moved because we were convinced that God was calling us here. The long version of the story is on Ian's blog (see Ian's blog here).

Anyway, I will try to keep this updated with anything interesting that happens.