Call me crazy if you must

I'm about to confess something that, here in South Dakota, makes me at worst a heretic and at best, a little bit crazy.  The end of August for us signals the beginning of the cooler weather of Autumn.  And of course up here, no one thinks about Autumn.  Its just the season that leads us into winter.  And so, when the day comes that the temperature doesn't get above 80 for the first time, no one is happy and says "What a nice day it is."  No, of course we have to start freaking out and think, "65 today, -30 tomorrow" and inevitably they sink into winter despair many, many weeks before winter actually starts and months before anyone will be feeling anything close to -30.

I, on the other hand,  have been looking at the onset of cooler days a little bit differently.  Of course I am enjoying every moment of the beautiful weather that I can, knowing they won't last, but here is my confession; I'm actually looking forward to winter a little.

Maybe its because of the nature of a job that gets so much more interesting in the winter.  (Not to mention more profitable)  Call it sick, but one of my favorite things about my job is helping people find a coat who have never before experienced a Sioux Falls winter.  Its just fun, okay?  I see the panic in their eyes as I ask them if they've ever experienced 30 below.  It reminds me of myself.  I had these horrible visions of how awful winter would be.  In my mind it quickly turned from a mere season to a monster with icicles for teeth and frostbite for breath.  I enjoy attempting to reassure people that the buildup to winter is way worse than winter itself.  Sure its cold, and long, but its not the end of the world and spring is that much more awesome because of it.

I had this family who just moved from South Carolina come into the store a few days ago.  They bought three coats off of me, as if they were afraid that one morning they would wake up and be snowed into their house.  The mom kept asking "Now, these are winter coats, right?  They'll keep us warm all winter long?"  How do you tell someone that in winter at its worst, nothing keeps you truly warm.  Nothing.  Not if you're cold blooded like me.  Not if the coldest thing you've ever experienced is 40 ABOVE zero. I just smiled and said, "Well, make sure you come back when we get all our hats and gloves in.  We have some really cute stuff that will match your new coats well."

But while the fact that it makes my job way less boring is a big plus for winter, I'm also looking forward to a lot of other things about winter.  Winter means hot chocolate, (add chocolate chips, milk, caramel syrup, and marshmallows and hot chocolate suddenly becomes heavenly) games with friends with only a ice crusted window keeping the wind at bay.  Winter means snow, which I still love, and the sound of shovels against cement, which reminds me of waking up as a kid to my dad shoveling our driveway.  That sound meant snow days! Winter means my friends quit traveling everywhere and we can just be together.  Winter means that you can go out to a park, or walk on the river, and experience the most exquisite silence that you have to hear to believe.  No birds singing, no bugs buzzing, no cars honking.  Even your own voice seems to leave your mouth and drop frozen to the snow.  Silence extraordinary.

I love the changing of the seasons.  Always have.  When spring comes around, I will be just as excited for that.  Probably more so, actually.

Oakley

At my work meeting last night, we talked about a girl who runs the Oakley shop in her store.  They showed pictures of her Oakley room at home.  Yes that's right.  Her Oakley room.  She has five Oakley cases, one of which probably costs more than I ever intend to spend on total sunglasses in my lifetime.  Each case is full of Oakley sunglasses.  If you know anything about Oakley you know that their sunglasses run from $100-$300, with the exception of some of their limited edition glasses which are priced in the thousands.  (Our store has a pair that retails at $1,500.  That's more than the value of my car.)  Even at the great discount she is getting through the store, that's a lot of money.

A few things went through my mind as I processed all of this is: how do we work for the same company and she can afford this?  I never could.  Secondly, if I ever become that obsessed with an object, kidnap me, steal all my stuff, and knock some sense into me.

Why I Stayed

While there are lots of amusing, frustrating, or insightful things that I could talk about right now, I think its good to begin with the basics.  Therefore this is a post dedicated to why I came to Sioux Falls and why I stayed, despite weather so cold that frost occasionally develops on the inside of window panes.

Why I stayed.  Of course the answer to this question begins with why I came in the first place.  In the summer of  2008, I traveled for my school.  For three of our camp weeks, we were stationed in good old SD.  I remember loving the camp and the youth pastors and just thinking that this was an all around great experience. The next summer I chose to be a part of what my school dubbed "church planing teams."  Not a very original name, but it got the job done. I heard that one of the youth pastors from the year before was planting one of the churches where we would be sending a team.  I hadn't spoken much to him, but something in my heart told me that South Dakota was where I wanted to be. I couldn't even spell Sioux and half the time I thought it was on the west side of the state, (south eastern, if you'd like to know) but I thought it'd be a great place to spend a summer.  I was pleasantly surprised when I was assigned to come here, along with my dear friend and roommate though college.

Long story short, I loved it, so I stayed, the end.

Wow, I wish it was that easy.  I did quickly find that I loved it indeed. (I was fooled by all the sunshine and cool summer weather.  Now my heart is set.) But it wasn't that simple. BD was staying.  She made the decision look easy. I however, had other plans.  I was going to go to seminary.  I had it all planned out.  I had the deposit down on my first class and was having my mom take trips to go check out apartments for me. This two month internship would end at the perfect time for me to get to school and settle in before classes started. But then something hit me.  I can't really explain it but I do know that whatever it is had me crying my eyes out in my pastor's office, torn between what my heart wanted and my plans.  I had no plans here.  No job.  No apartment. No goal.  Just friends, a church, and a heart that wouldn't let me think about anything else.  I sat, crying, as PT asked me a simple question, "Do you want to stay?" "Yes!" I blurted out before I thought about it.  He shrugged as though the answer was completely obvious, "Then stay." He should have just gone ahead and added "duh" to the end. I wanted to argue that it wasn't that easy, but I had already betrayed myself.  I had confessed my true wish and there was no going back.

But before you think it was easy, let me assure you it was not.  Aside from all the practical tasks on my "to do" list, I still wrestled with, well, everything.  I was convinced that God wanted me to stay, but for what? I had a plan and now I had none.  Have you ever jumped out of a plane?  I haven't, but I'm sure it would feel something like this.  A leap of faith, praying to God that he packed your parachute correctly, because there is absolutely no knowing until that moment when it either opens and you glide safely to the ground, or when it doesn't, and you are dead.

Its still confusing at times, but I'm confident that I am where I need to be.  I've been here two years and every once in a while I still think, "Huh, South Dakota, who would've thought?"  I love it though.  Preparing for my third winter here and I'm almost embarrassed to say I'm sort of looking forward to it..  Winter means hot chocolate, friends and card games, cute boots, (I'm a little obsessed) and our fireplace DVD.  I'm excited to see that on our new big screen.

Sorry about the long post. Taking questions from the audience.  What do you want to hear about?  I may need some inspiration at some point.

Disclaimer

It is my goal with this blog to be honest.  I have no intentions to make this an inspiring blog full of lessons to be learned in life, though I hope my story inspires now and then.  It is not a blog created in order to make you laugh, though I hope it does.  The purpose here is to share my life, selfish as that may seem.  In that light, I promise to never lie to you, but I may not share the whole story.  If I say things are good, it means things are good.  If I don't want you to know if things are bad, I just won't mention whatever it is that is upsetting me.  I expect, given the nature of the subjects I intend to discuss, that I am close to most of you who read these words.  If that is the case, I would probably share anything with you anyways, in person, of course.  Or even a personal FB message.  Does this seem fair?  Besides, discretion must be used out of respect for those who are the cause of my frustration. :)

Inspired

My sister is an inspiring person. Years ago I started this blog and never even told anyone it existed. I wrote things but never shared them. J started a blog and in the process discovered mine. I read her blog and have become inspired to continue my own and maybe tell some people about it this time around. I think the reason the last time was such a flop was that most of the people I knew were near or I had the ability to call them up. Now I have so many friends and family members spread so far out across the country that keeping up is hard. So here I am, writing again in order to share my life with all of you! Don't get to excited. It's bound to be pretty boring.

The most important thing that you need to know, if you don't already, is that I now live in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. If you are wondering why the heck I live in South Dakota, don't worry, I wonder that all the time. I never would have imagined that I would have ended up here, but if you think about it, it was sort of destiny. My mom, after all did get the inspiration for my name from the wonderful, booming metropolis of Chelsea, South Dakota. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am named after a town that, as of the 2010 census, had a total of 27 people. Destiny I tell you!

I started this post thinking I wouldn't have enough to say and now I have all kinds of this ideas, like explaining why I really am here, or why I've stayed, or about all the wonderful people here, or about my vendetta against the overuse of the word "yet," or how it actually felt the first time I experienced -30 degree weather. All in time, my little blog reader. For now I will leave you this and the realization that I need to take more pictures.

Isn't she beautiful?