A lot has changed in the past few months. I moved out of my teeny tiny apartment in Little Rock, quit my job at the "Juvy," and accepted a position at Ferncliff - the camp and conference center where Joel's dad is the director. At the last minute the person who was to become the Disaster Assistance Center Coordinator for the summer decided not to come because there was a chance she might have to leave for the Peace Corps, so I decided that it sounded like a job I just might like to do. Now I am here and driving to Perryville a lot and learning many new things - I taught myself how to use Excel! Next week (because they were short staffed) I am actually going to be a 100% camp counselor. I will have a group of 7-9th graders who are coming for a camp called Heart for Art. For those of you who know me well (and may be snickering at the idea of me leading activities like mountain biking, canoeing, Bible study, etc...) no I'm not joking. I am even looking forward to it - I think. I know it will be a challenge, but - hey - I always liked going to camp. How bad could it be?
After I left Little Rock and before I came to Ferncliff, Joel and I went to visit Iowa City. The drive (which was predicted by modern technology to be 10.5 hours) was 12 hours from Perryville. We took the scenic route north into my childhood stompin' grounds, passing the road to Success (where my sweet momma lived as a girl), driving right through Corning (where I lived until I was in the 3rd grade), and missing by just a couple of miles the old farm in southern Missouri where my closest cousins (Sami and Trent) and I visited my mom's parents when we were just munchkins. We used to take baths in little metal tubs out in the yard and dress up as karate kids in my grandfathers undershirts belted with one of his neckties with another tie around our foreheads to compensate for our marked lack of fierceness.
Joel and I continued north through St. Louis (hello arch!) and to Springfield, Illinois until we reached our soon-to-be hometown. We stayed at the Canterbury Inn and Suites - a medieval themed hotel/restaurant (the House of Lords) - in Coralville, which is a town all smushed up against Iowa City. They are practically the same town (think LR/NLR or Memphis/Germantown or Tupelo/Saltillo depending on which one you are most familiar with). We visited our soon-to-be house which is very cute: it has a porch across the front, old big windows with pretty woodwork, and a really nice little private office space. The least cool thing about the very cute house is the bathroom: the paint is falling off of the wall, there is no tub (only a tiny little shower stall), and the dimensions of the space are closer to phone booth than out-house. This might present the most comical obstacle of our transition, because 1) Joel and I are both used to having our very own medium-sized bathrooms and 2) some of you know how I feel about bathrooms/using them in general - AHHH!
Joel is plotting some scheme to get our landlord to fence in the back yard and to replace our port-a-shower with something more substantial - to which I say "Best of luck, honey, but don't press your luck." He's such a dreamer. Fortunately, though, the yard is just big enough to have a garden the size that we are used to, though we probably won't be able to have it for as many months of the year as we're used to. Well, that's all I'll say about the house because people like to hear about other peoples' houses just as much as they like to hear about other peoples' children or grandchildren.
The town of Iowa City (in case any of you are planning a trip to see us, which you definitely should be) has a hoppin' downtown area. Everything is within walking distance of everything else, and there is a great co-op, a very popular farmer's market, and lots of interesting little green spaces (parks, etc.). We like it already. I say "we" and not just "I" because it is a town with a population over 3,000 people that Joel actually likes! Woo-hoo!
Well, other good things have happened lately. I love summer. Joel and I went to Mountain Home to visit my Uncle Mike and Aunt Linda. Mom and Scott were there, my aunt Cynthia and cousin Ben came, and my step-sister Kilah came. It was a grand ol' time. Arkansas is BEAUTIFUL!
More soon.
