Week 13

Day 84: Nov 2, 2014

Today was pretty darn marvelous. It was the second day in a row where there was blue sky almost all day! So, because it was daylight-savings last night, I was up and ready to go an hour early. I ended up starting a movie before going to breakfast. After breakfast and finishing the movie, I spent some quality time stacking wood onto our porch so that we can have fires in our fireplace this winter. Lunch was followed by bread making (for communion) and chatting in my room. I got to show Alex, Leah, and Benji my favorite purchase ever, my LED light strip. It is sooo cool. It is controlled by a remote and you can change the colors and brightness and oh man, it is just the coolest thing. Once the bread was done, we were going to go for a walk down to Ten Mile Creek but after eating one of the loafs of bread between four of us we decided not to go (I know it should have been the other way around but it wasn't). Instead we watched a VHS recording of the 2012 summer olympic games, specifically the women's gymnastics and some of the swimming. Leah and Alex fell asleep during it but I don't blame them, it was 2 hours long. All in all, it was a great day off!

Day 85: Nov 3, 2014

I GOT MAIL TODAY (and it wasn't just from my mom)!!!! It is more exciting to get mail here than at college. I think it is partly because I don't get all of the junk fillers that went into the boxes at times. Now when I get mail it either means money has gone into my account or someone loves me. It is pretty great. Ok, other than that exciting piece of news, I did not take a nap today. Instead, I spent about four hours in the craft cave. About half of the time I was working on a weaving project (I am making a rug), 45% of my time was spent making encouragement cards and the remaining 5% of the time was making felted soap (put wool over soap, put soap in bag with hot water, agitate, and voila- felted soap). I decided to make some encouragement cards because it is getting darker and people seem to be a little more frustrated, tired, or just down in general. The cards are simple. They are about the size of an index card and they just say “have a great day” along with a little picture of a sun. They aren't much and didn't take too much time to make each one but hopefully they will brighten someone's day, even if it is just by a little bit. I am going to keep them in my backpack and scope out who seems to need one while I am at the coffee cart. If someone seems to be having a particularly bad day, they will receive a card in their mailbox. I have not signed them and don't really plan on telling people that it is me because it doesn't really matter who is trying to lift spirits, only that it is happening. Who knows- maybe people will pass them along when they notice that someone needs a pick-me-up.

It is getting darker in the village. I needed my flashlight to go to dinner at 5:30 today.

Day 86: Nov 4, 2014

Another ordinary day. The only thing worth mention was the fire alarm that happened at 9pm. Once again, it was lodge 2 that went off. I think they thought they had fixed the wiring issue that was setting off the alarm but I am going to guess that was the issue again. Hopefully, it stays quiet for the night.

Day 87: Nov 5, 2014

quick rant: If you have a problem with someone, particularly someone above you, talk to them about it. Don't use a meeting where they are gone to totally rip on them. Explanation- So today we had our usual hospitality meeting but, unfortunately, our manager had to leave for a family emergency. One of my co-workers has been having issues with communication lately and seems to not be able to accept that they are not the highest person on the totem pole. So, they were already in a mood because the amount of power available has been limited and they felt that they should have been told before everyone else found out. Then our manager left and this person felt that our manager should have told everyone that he was leaving (it was last minute and our manager can't be expected to run around trying to find everyone to let them know). The person then proceeded to rant about the fact that our manager doesn't go and find him every day to see if this person has questions. Basically, they want our manager to be everywhere, all of the time. This person decided to b*tch about it during our meeting when our manager isn't there to address the problem. Then, when a few of us tried to support our manager since he could not do it himself, this person got mad that we were supporting our manager. Basically, the meeting was an incredibly uncomfortable meeting of one or two people ripping on someone who wasn't even there. I was so uncomfortable.

At least the day ended well, though. There was a movie after dinner that was good and the staff meeting was relatively short. My day ended with a few games of dominoes and an episode of Girls. It all turned an uncomfortable morning into a relatively good day.

Day 88: Nov 6, 2014

Another average day. The only things of note were the fact that we have started puzzles in the coffee shop (we finished one today) and a group of us watched Step Up last night. Such a good yet horrible movie all at the same time. It was a ton of fun.

Day 89: Nov 7, 2014

It was so cool! So, this morning was finally clear! I couldn't see many stars because of a full moon but I could see Orion. He was standing on Copper Mountain perfectly. It was beautiful. Tonight was equally as amazing. We have a full moon right now and at night it lights up the snow on Dumbbell mountain. The mountain literally glows in the moonlight. It is so incredible and I could never capture it on camera (I did try). It will just have to live mostly in my memory.

Day 90: Nov 8, 2014

Today was lovely. In the morning, I went out for a walk along a 2ish mile loop by the village. I went off the trail a little to climb around on some boulders and walk along some deer trails (I saw 15 deer within the first 10 minutes of the walk. It was crazy) but mostly I was looking for materials to turn into Christmas wreaths. During my scavenger hunt, I also found a few down logs that I think will make good carving wood so I brought some of that back as well. The afternoon was spent knitting a slipper that I am going to felt and watching MASH. I had to stop for about 2 hours because they were working on something at the power plant so the power was out. I knew it was going to be a long outage after it stayed out for about 20 minutes so I took a nap (I didn't feel like draining my computer battery). It was a beautiful day and I am glad that I was able to spend most of the day outside.