So I was thinking - I'm SO sorry to my friends (yes I call my blog readers my friends...heh). I really haven't been ignoring you all completely. I just read your blogs through a reader on my phone which doesn't allow me a way to comment. Also, I have been neglecting my own blog. I have not been posting. I come up with blog ideas in my head but then I don't find the time to follow through. Work has been crazy and life outside of work has been crazy this past month. I am writing you right now from a hotel room in Las Cruces, New Mexico - about to head up into the mountains for the week to direct the junior high/senior high church camp that I grew up going to. I am excited and nervous at the same time. I know things will run smoothly but I never feel "ok" until I get there.
ANYWAY, on to the exciting news that I have not shared with you all yet. I paid off my car in May! Two years early even! Back in November I decided to do my own version of Dave Ramsey's program. One of the "baby steps" he talks about is snowballing debt. Paying it down as fast as possible. I have a pretty extensive spreadsheet (because I am an accountant and very nerdy) that shows potential time frame of paying off all debt. I should be able to finish by my 28th birthday I believe. Then all that money will go towards building up 6 months worth of wages (not expenses...I wanted wages) - which will be done by my 29th birthday. And then when I turn 30 I want to take off (may have to quit) my current job and go to Peru for a semester. I will have the money I need to take off and do the program and hopefully spend 6 months down there taking spanish classes and volunteering and traveling all over. Living with a Peruvian family and just immersing myself in the culture. That right there is what keeps me on track and keeps me following my budget and cash flow spreadsheet. I don't know if I've ever felt more excitement about something I've accomplished BEFORE it actually happens than I have with this whole paying off debt. I have soooo much debt it's disgusting - but to say I am debt free BEFORE 30! That's going to be cool. Now of course I will still have my house debt - but at that time I can decide if I want to pay that down early or what as well. I could even rent it out when the time comes and just pay it down double time. We will see - main goal is to pay down car (CHECK - booyah) and now federal and private student loans that are EVIL!
Anyway, I don't want to bore you all with this financial talk. Just wanted to update you. This is the first car I can officially call my own and I love it. Yay for my little Beetle. Now he better last me for a long long time!
Showing posts with label Peru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Peru. Show all posts
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
Day 05 - A picture of your favorite memory.
I want to start off this post saying...I have a LOT of memories. It was ridiculous how many I thought about posting about. I have been so blessed in life to have so many amazing experiences and moments with so many amazing people. Here is just ONE of those experiences:
Back in 2007, I got to spend January down in Peru for college credit. We did some business consulting working with the organization ProPeru. Anyway, I think I have so many great memories from that trip - but here are a couple of them.
1. Building the "poop stove" in the random village in the Andes mountains. Women and children get very sick in many of the villages because they did not know how to build stoves with chimneys. Their stoves were filling up their huts with smoke and causing a lot of respiratory problems. Our group went in and showed them how to build stoves out of these stones (which I believe ProPeru provided) and a mixture of dirt, poo, and wetness. I seriously saw kids mixing this up with their feet (imagine something like grape stomping for wine...only this is poo stomping for stoves). Haha. Myself and another girl in my group helped a guy who was building a stove for a restaurant he wanted to start in the village. Here is a picture of the completed project along with the family.
2. Machu Picchu. Not a lot of things in my life have left me breathless. This place - it did. I could spend DAYS there literally. I think my favorite part of the trip was getting to Machu Picchu early and the fog was still down in the "city" and we had hiked up the trail to get a good view of the ruins. Here is a picture of the fog - and then when it finally lifted.
Back in 2007, I got to spend January down in Peru for college credit. We did some business consulting working with the organization ProPeru. Anyway, I think I have so many great memories from that trip - but here are a couple of them.
1. Building the "poop stove" in the random village in the Andes mountains. Women and children get very sick in many of the villages because they did not know how to build stoves with chimneys. Their stoves were filling up their huts with smoke and causing a lot of respiratory problems. Our group went in and showed them how to build stoves out of these stones (which I believe ProPeru provided) and a mixture of dirt, poo, and wetness. I seriously saw kids mixing this up with their feet (imagine something like grape stomping for wine...only this is poo stomping for stoves). Haha. Myself and another girl in my group helped a guy who was building a stove for a restaurant he wanted to start in the village. Here is a picture of the completed project along with the family.
2. Machu Picchu. Not a lot of things in my life have left me breathless. This place - it did. I could spend DAYS there literally. I think my favorite part of the trip was getting to Machu Picchu early and the fog was still down in the "city" and we had hiked up the trail to get a good view of the ruins. Here is a picture of the fog - and then when it finally lifted.
3. Lastly, there is a story I tell most folks who know me about my time in Peru. When I was a kid, my first pet was Jitters. He was a guinea pig and I loved him. I even showed him in the 4-H fair. One day he got really sick and ended up dying. He was the first "death" that I remember. I know I had many pets (dogs and cats) before that had passed away - but Jitters sticks with me for some reason. I remember crying for days, whenever I would think about Jitters. He is buried in the garden of the house I grew up in - my parents moved away when I was in college...but Jitters will always be there. Anyway, in Peru - guinea pigs are a delicacy. Families have guinea pigs running around their house and when it is time to cook a fancy meal - they are ....*cough* USED *cough*. I knew this going down there and I knew it was going to be inevitable. It happened one night. The family cooked us all up a special meal of ....yes "Cuy" (guinea pig). Here is the big pile of our "yummy" food for the evening.
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| Notice - I have already eaten the leg. Slowly and steadily. Don't want to offend when they offer you their best! |
Monday, January 17, 2011
Best place ever!
I'm going to go with Peru. I've traveled to a lot of different places, but this has been the ultimate trip for me. I think that pictures speak more than any words can so here it goes.
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| Beach in Lima, Peru. |
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| Hot springs in the mountains of Peru - doesn't look that great but felt very refreshing anyway heh. |
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| Helping out some local small businesses...here we were visiting a bee keepers who sold their honey. |
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| We hiked a mountain up to a waterfall - I got altitude sickness after this. Mate de coca is very helpful for altitude sickness. I snuck some back into the states in my suit case too ;) |
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| Got to see llamas on our way out to a small village in the Andes!!! I LOVE llamas. |
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| A Peruvian delicacy. Yes...I ate what I could...I couldn't eat a head though. I felt like such a bad guest, but my first "real" death in my life was my pet guinea pig Jitters...and this was a bit much. Tastes like bland chicken. |
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| I called these stoves "poop stoves". We went to a secluded village far into the mountains and helped teach them how to build the stoves and provided them the resources to build them. The mud was literally mud and poo mixed together. Yuck - but very rewarding...they didn't ever build chimney's with their stoves so many of the women and children were getting sick from smoke inhalation in the home. |
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| Machu Picchu! By far the most glorious thing I've ever seen in my life. I don't even know how to adequately describe how awesome it was. |
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| Machu Picchu |
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| And ....more Machu Picchu! |
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| Best trip I've ever taken and I would LOVE to go back and live with a Peruvian family this time (I was staying with the group I went with so I wasn't immersed in the culture like I would have liked). |
Friday, October 22, 2010
Passion
Lately I have been thinking a lot about "passion". What are my passions? Can a person have too many or too little passions? What if you go through life never realizing what your true passions are?
I have found myself stumbling from one activity to another - loving the learning and experiences I gather from each however, not truly finding a passion in any of it. I feel a lot of times, the activities I engage in are out of responsibility and duty. Whether it be the duty I have in my profession to network and expand my contacts to help grow the Company to the duty I have to staying in touch with friends and family and making sure they know how life is going and meeting up with them every now and then. Don't get me wrong - I love doing most of the things I do...it just seems like I lack something in it all.
Recently I have started a list in my head of the major events that have happened over the course of my life. This is a process one of my life mentors has challenged me to do. Obviously, birth is the first event (even though I can't remember it). It sparked every other occurrence in my life. As I went along, the things that started sticking out the most have been my experiences away. The times that molded me the most from junior high and high school were at church camp in New Mexico. I remember waiting all year long for that ONE week a year where I got to see these folks that were so important to the development in my life. Whether it be friends who lived in cities that were not close to me so we only got to see each other this one time a year - to the teachers and counselors who probably still to this day don't realize how much I looked up to them and watched them so closely and tried to mimic their lives. I loved camps - and now I have been the camp director for 2 years (will be again next summer) and I love it. I would say camp is one of my passions because I believe in the change it has for the better in the kids' lives.
In college there were two major experiences away from the campus that shaped me. The first was my time spent in Chattanooga, TN offering ministry in the downtown area for the month of January. I loved learning how to relate to folks that weren't like me. Learning that folks have much harder lives than me was an eye opener. You always read stories, but to hear them first hand from children - about their parents who are out on the streets...doing "street things" - leaving their children at the homes to fend for themselves...small children learning adult things as they struggle to raise their younger siblings. Searching through garbage cans to find food to feed them...hiding under mattresses when gun shots were fired through the windows...etc. Stories that would make anyone shiver. I grew so much in such a short time. I learned what exactly showing Christ's love to someone truly meant. I learned a little bit about judging people without knowing them. I learned how to see through someone else's eyes and learned that maybe the things you see people do is not who they really are...it is survival. Through this I found that I have a passion for learning to love people. Learning to love no matter how rough the edges may be but working to get past what you may see on the outside and truly seeing how I believe Christ sees his children.
The second experience in college was my trip to Peru. I found out that I have a passion for culture and being immersed in it. I was out of my comfort zone probably 90% of the trip. I could barely remember the Spanish I was taught in high school and the culture there is so different. Still I managed to make friends and I managed to learn a lot about their culture. I would LOVE to go back one day and spend time living with a family there. I think my best memory from the whole trip is when we traveled into the mountains to help build chimney stoves with the folks of the village. They spoke Quechua but also knew Spanish and some English. I had just finished helping a family build their stove and the young boy in the family was showing me how to count. He would count in Quechua first and then in Spanish and then in English. I was amazed at someone so young knowing three languages like that! I wished at that moment that I would have studied other languages more and spent my life learning like many in other countries. I would go back to Peru any chance I got and live among the people there. They were all very happy even though as I walked through the villages, I knew instantly that I was in a third world country. I felt horrible bargaining down at the markets for things that were already underpriced. I of course was a poor college student at the time and couldn't afford even underpriced things - but still realized that this is how these folks made their living! It was just incredible! So I believe that traveling and learning about other cultures and the people in them is also a passion of mine.
I have recently discovered a new passion locally. I have spoken about the program before - but Open Table is awesome. I have been involved since June and have been meeting with our Open Table family weekly. Each week it amazes me. On their website they state what they are: Open Table is a growing collaboration of people from faith communities, state and local government, business, education and non-profits who are united in a shared purpose of restoring families in poverty to wholeness and full participation in our communities. What gets me every week is that we truly are making a difference in our family's life. The biggest thing I see is that every person on my table yearns to be a support system for this family. We aren't there to gain something for ourselves - we are there to give ourselves to someone else. I often wonder what it would be like to be on the other side. To be the family in poverty learning to trust the folks there around the table that are helping you. What goes through their minds? Last night we had run their budget and they didn't have enough for gas the next week so everyone through in a little money without hesitation. If I were them - I wouldn't believe my eyes. Most people in our lives wouldn't do the same for us - they probably wouldn't even know we had these struggles. I don't know where I'm going with this - but I do know I am finding my passion in this. I am finding that I want to be involved in making the world a little better for my neighbors. I am finding that my mindset about those living out on the streets and on the side of the road are changing. I find that when I pass someone on the street - I make less and less assumptions about them and instead love them and hope that one day they can find someone to help support them and believe in them enough to get out of their situation. I know that folks make mistakes now that ultimately lead to their downfall - but that doesn't mean they can't learn to change. Anyway - that's all about that I suppose. I keep rambling without getting my true point across. heh
I have found myself stumbling from one activity to another - loving the learning and experiences I gather from each however, not truly finding a passion in any of it. I feel a lot of times, the activities I engage in are out of responsibility and duty. Whether it be the duty I have in my profession to network and expand my contacts to help grow the Company to the duty I have to staying in touch with friends and family and making sure they know how life is going and meeting up with them every now and then. Don't get me wrong - I love doing most of the things I do...it just seems like I lack something in it all.
Recently I have started a list in my head of the major events that have happened over the course of my life. This is a process one of my life mentors has challenged me to do. Obviously, birth is the first event (even though I can't remember it). It sparked every other occurrence in my life. As I went along, the things that started sticking out the most have been my experiences away. The times that molded me the most from junior high and high school were at church camp in New Mexico. I remember waiting all year long for that ONE week a year where I got to see these folks that were so important to the development in my life. Whether it be friends who lived in cities that were not close to me so we only got to see each other this one time a year - to the teachers and counselors who probably still to this day don't realize how much I looked up to them and watched them so closely and tried to mimic their lives. I loved camps - and now I have been the camp director for 2 years (will be again next summer) and I love it. I would say camp is one of my passions because I believe in the change it has for the better in the kids' lives.
In college there were two major experiences away from the campus that shaped me. The first was my time spent in Chattanooga, TN offering ministry in the downtown area for the month of January. I loved learning how to relate to folks that weren't like me. Learning that folks have much harder lives than me was an eye opener. You always read stories, but to hear them first hand from children - about their parents who are out on the streets...doing "street things" - leaving their children at the homes to fend for themselves...small children learning adult things as they struggle to raise their younger siblings. Searching through garbage cans to find food to feed them...hiding under mattresses when gun shots were fired through the windows...etc. Stories that would make anyone shiver. I grew so much in such a short time. I learned what exactly showing Christ's love to someone truly meant. I learned a little bit about judging people without knowing them. I learned how to see through someone else's eyes and learned that maybe the things you see people do is not who they really are...it is survival. Through this I found that I have a passion for learning to love people. Learning to love no matter how rough the edges may be but working to get past what you may see on the outside and truly seeing how I believe Christ sees his children.
The second experience in college was my trip to Peru. I found out that I have a passion for culture and being immersed in it. I was out of my comfort zone probably 90% of the trip. I could barely remember the Spanish I was taught in high school and the culture there is so different. Still I managed to make friends and I managed to learn a lot about their culture. I would LOVE to go back one day and spend time living with a family there. I think my best memory from the whole trip is when we traveled into the mountains to help build chimney stoves with the folks of the village. They spoke Quechua but also knew Spanish and some English. I had just finished helping a family build their stove and the young boy in the family was showing me how to count. He would count in Quechua first and then in Spanish and then in English. I was amazed at someone so young knowing three languages like that! I wished at that moment that I would have studied other languages more and spent my life learning like many in other countries. I would go back to Peru any chance I got and live among the people there. They were all very happy even though as I walked through the villages, I knew instantly that I was in a third world country. I felt horrible bargaining down at the markets for things that were already underpriced. I of course was a poor college student at the time and couldn't afford even underpriced things - but still realized that this is how these folks made their living! It was just incredible! So I believe that traveling and learning about other cultures and the people in them is also a passion of mine.
I have recently discovered a new passion locally. I have spoken about the program before - but Open Table is awesome. I have been involved since June and have been meeting with our Open Table family weekly. Each week it amazes me. On their website they state what they are: Open Table is a growing collaboration of people from faith communities, state and local government, business, education and non-profits who are united in a shared purpose of restoring families in poverty to wholeness and full participation in our communities. What gets me every week is that we truly are making a difference in our family's life. The biggest thing I see is that every person on my table yearns to be a support system for this family. We aren't there to gain something for ourselves - we are there to give ourselves to someone else. I often wonder what it would be like to be on the other side. To be the family in poverty learning to trust the folks there around the table that are helping you. What goes through their minds? Last night we had run their budget and they didn't have enough for gas the next week so everyone through in a little money without hesitation. If I were them - I wouldn't believe my eyes. Most people in our lives wouldn't do the same for us - they probably wouldn't even know we had these struggles. I don't know where I'm going with this - but I do know I am finding my passion in this. I am finding that I want to be involved in making the world a little better for my neighbors. I am finding that my mindset about those living out on the streets and on the side of the road are changing. I find that when I pass someone on the street - I make less and less assumptions about them and instead love them and hope that one day they can find someone to help support them and believe in them enough to get out of their situation. I know that folks make mistakes now that ultimately lead to their downfall - but that doesn't mean they can't learn to change. Anyway - that's all about that I suppose. I keep rambling without getting my true point across. heh
Even with all of these things I listed above - I often feel like I lack passion. I want to be doing what I am passionate about yet don't feel it is realistic. My ultimate goal is to figure out how I can live my life here in Arizona with genuine passion. I want to find the activities that feed those passions and be able to have the time to do them. I don't know exactly what that will look like - but I will keep searching and maybe one day it will find me.
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