There and Back Again

                                  Well, here is the story for all of you nosy people out there—I suppose I am a blogger, so the point of having a blog is to make people nosy about what is going on in my life. Anyway, A couple of years ago, I attended Christ Fellowship Church in Royal Palm and on occasion I sang BGV’s for the middle-school and high-school services. Even during my first semester of College, I was still very attached to the high-school service on Wednesday nights, So I continued to attend. On one of the last nights I attended, I met the new intern, Daniel Sadowski. He was very friendly and loved to write. During service, I was sitting off to the side, working on a paper that I had to turn in the next day for my English Composition Class at PBAU. He and I sat around joking for a while and when I left, I said goodbye, thinking I would probably never see him again. But he knew that I was already dating someone so he backed off. We said Hello to each other every once in a while when we passed in the hallways at church, but we didn’t really keep in touch. Facebook and Myspace, assisted in our connection. We became friends online, but still really didn’t speak. About 1 ½ years later, he started chatting with my online and told me about the fact that he was going to Peru for a semester. I thought it was neat, but I didn’t really think too much about it. You know, whatever—just another guy from church that wants to serve in ministry, “yeah, right.” So, I still tried to ignore him, but once he arrived in Peru, we started talking on almost a daily basis and by September 13th we had expressed our feelings to each other. 
                          Before talking with Daniel, I didn’t really have a daily devotion set in place, and my heart was really struggling from some unfortunate events that took place in my previous relationship. While talking with Daniel, I noticed that all he wanted to talk about was God. This really annoyed me at first because, I knew that my heart was not right with God, and it really made me feel inadequate and uncomfortable. But I always came out encouraged at the end of the conversation. So, since he was always going to share, I started reading my Bible because I wanted to have something to share. Soon this became almost everything that we talked about and I couldn’t wait to finally meet him again. I had to wait until December 6th, 2008. The first time I saw him was actually on December 8th, we met at a park and he brought some Publix subs. We immediately clicked, it was a little awkward at first, but we both came around. 
We spent the winter break getting to know each other and reading our Bibles together. The next semester we would both be attending the Bible College in Peru, which I must say, felt the like 5 years of getting to know each other concentrated into 4 months. We lived about 30 feet away from each other. We were forced to see each other on our best days and worst days and to set an example to all the other students on campus for what a relationship should look like (since relationships were not encouraged on campus.) We did a great job and were commended by our pastor at the end of the semester. By the end of the semester we were really talking about marriage and starting a family. Well, we were serious. 
                               On June 25th, 2009, Daniel took me on a secret date. I thought we were going to the beach, but it turned out to be the Jupiter light house. We went on the tour and climbed up to the top. When we got there, it was only the two of us. *side note* Daniel wears a pair of dog tags on a necklace. One has information about his epilepsy in case of an emergency and the other one has the Bible reference for the armor of God. I am always fixing them. Well, once we got up to the top of the lighthouse, he walked over and asked me if I could fix his dog tags for him and I was about to tuck them down in his shirt when I saw the ring on the chain. I didn’t know what to say and he brought up the Bible verse about Jesus being the light of the World, told me that he loved me very much and that I was his best friend and sister. Then he got down on one knee and proposed. I told him that “I am more confident about this then anything else in the world. Yes, I’ll marry you.” We prayed and started our walk back down the stairs. Did I mention that he is terrified of heights?! He was backed up against the wall at the top and I’m like leaning over the edge looking at everything! Hehe. He is so brave : ) That night we went to eat at Bimini Twist, a fancy Sea food restaurant on Okeechobee. We dressed up. It was very nice : )
             We have not set a date yet. We are hoping sometime in November or December. Right now, we are both trying to save some money. He works part-time at Panera Bread. He hasn’t been getting many hours, but some is better than nothing! I currently am unemployed. I’m looking for a job, but nothing has come up yet. There you have it : )

I realized today, that I am a horrible person. I guess there are things that I do on a habitual basis that really aren’t very nice—I offended someone today—not exactly intending to be rude, but I really felt incredibly sorry, downright atrocious when it was pointed out to me. I was rather put-out and mortified—‘Am I really this awfully inconsiderate?’ Wow. I really need to get myself in order. I’m pretty selfish---good thing I’m realizing that before I get married—I mean, it’s only going to inflate it’s palpableness when I tie the knot. Sad day---I mean, I want it to be happy, but I’m afraid of realizing even more, how horrific a person I could be. Daniel, I don’t know how you do it. Honestly, when I think about the way that you love me, all I can do is compare it to God’s love for me. It’s been made more than plainly seen that I need an attitude adjustment on a moment to moment basis. I can insult you as much as my selfish heart will let me to try to make you not love me---I only want to be sure( this is so sub-conscious! I hate it!) ---yet all you can say, is, “I don’t care what you think. You don’t have to understand why I love you. It won’t change anything. Just accept it. I love you, Melissa Stimely, just the way that you are!” That always blows me away. It has given me a more personal understanding of how God loves me. Thank you. I hope that one day, it will be easy for me to show you that kind of love too. Daniel, I’m sorry, but it’s going to be a challenge. I promise to try my best, but I promise that I’ll mess up too. Kyle, I’m sorry that I’m a jerk. Please, forgive me for being so harshly rude and bad-mannered. 
  I’m not even totally sure about what else to put into this post except about my current ideas and plans for my future… which are pretty much out there.
1. Getting married—not sure when, but soon. A lot of things need to happen before then. 
2. Career—not sure what but here are some ideas—I have always wanted to act---so I’m working on some research for that direction. I love to write and I’ve been working on a book since I was around 12 and now I’m’ just working on developing an actual plot, developing characters and creating an actual story that has some point and function to it. It’s going to take some time—but that is definitely something that is going to come about before I die of old age (since I have determined that is what I’ll die from—since it won’t be a vampire bite—yes, I’ve been sucked into the twilight saga : ) ) Anyway, those are some of the immediate plans.
  OH! I got an email from my employer (?) the other day, laying me off. They don’t have room for me anymore—so I need some sort of job—because I’m technically broke and the last thing I need is debt because I’m not competent enough to provide for myself—that’s the last thing I need against me if I want to be getting married soon. Wow, Prayer anyone? 
  When I get home, I have lots of work to do. It’s hard to accomplish things and research when there is almost never internet on the road in ALASKA. It’s amazingly beautiful up here and I’ve been really inspired this entire month. I am excited to get home. Everyone hates me, I’m sure of it. Especially my senior citizen, my head on a silver platter would probably be his death-bed wish. Like I said—I’m just that horrible. Any takers?

The extremely negative and annoyed blogger,
Mel

            I have been in Alaska for a week now. I’ve been having a great time. We have been able to see so many amazingly beautiful sights. During our almost daily driving sessions, every five minutes someone yells and points, “Wow! Look at that! Isn’t that beautiful, wow!” The mountains here are huge and colorful! The Rivers and streams are in abundance. Every few miles we will stop just to get out and look and to take pictures. We have even stopped to refill a couple of water bottles in the streams too! It is so beautiful here. I can’t even express. Even all of the pictures that I could share would never come close to the amazing splendor of the Alaskan mountains. 

           The first day, we flew into Anchorage. My first day lasted from 6 am Thursday morning until 10:30 Friday night. Which is 18 hours plus 22.5 and plus 4 hours ( to make of for the time difference) which equals 44.5 hours. I was pretty tired and I still am. I really haven’t quite caught up on sleep yet, but I’m getting there with a little nap here and there. Anyway, we flew into anchorage and waited for our ride over to the Great Alaskan Holidays Rental place, where we watched a 30 minute video on how to manage and maintain the RV that we rented. We drove off the campus in an E-Series Winnebago Chalet. It’s really nice—it has two slide-outs, with 6 beds, yet only 4 people are on board. I sleep in the huge bed just above the cabin. It’s pretty comfortable, at least while I am able to sleep. It’s especially a great place to sleep while the camper is actually moving. It basically rocks me to sleep. We drove off the campus in Anchorage and finished at a parking lot on the side of the road that supposedly had an amazing view of Mt. McKinley in Denali State Park. We thought we were seeing it, but were quickly corrected two days later when we actually saw it. Woah---it’s HUGE! 
         The second day we had a short drive to Denali national Park where we camped at a beautiful campsite- “Savage river.” We stayed there for two nights. The next morning we caught a bus that drove 66 miles into the national park. It was about an 8 hour bus ride. We saw all sorts of wild-life and amazing mountains. My favorite sight was the Polychrome pass. It was so incredibly beautiful! Then, once we went back to the RV, we went for a walk down a path just behind the park and we saw three grizzlies right there in the wild! --- a Mommy and her two cubs! 
           The next day, we drove to Fairbanks and North Pole, where it is ALWAYS Christmas : ) The street poles were decorated like candy canes and Santa was everywhere! We stayed at a resort RV park, no hook-ups of course, but there was a Natural hot spring there where we got to swim and relax for a couple of hours. The moose came right up to the water! We had been hoping to finally see a moose the entire trip and finally got to see them! It was really nice to be able to take a shower after that. At this point, we hadn’t showered in almost 5 days! Whew! About time! 
            From the Chena lakes hot springs resort, we drove about another 160 miles and stayed at the Chena Lakes park. We did a little bit of GeoCaching and kayaking. Now, we are in Valdez, Alaska. Not pronounced Valdehz it’s Valdeez if you please! Yesterday we drove through Thomson’s pass down Richardson highway—wow. Just wow… The mountains and the iced over lakes were beautiful. I don’t know that I will ever see anything as beautiful again as I have on this trip. Seriously, if you have never been to Alaska, at some point in your life, you need to plan to come here and see all this amazing stuff!
                Yesterday, we went on a 9-hour boat ride on the LuLu Belle out and around Price William Sound out past Glacier Island and back around to the Columbia Glacier. This was incredibly cool. We got to see humpback whales, Orca whales, Seals, Sea Lions, Sea otters…Definitely cool. It was very very cold out by those Glaciers and Icebergs. Today was just kind of a hang out day. We slept in, went for a walk and grocery shopping, did some more geocaching took a long nap, and ate a delicious beef and potato dinner. Sally is a great cook. Thanks Sal! Tomorrow, we are going to go the Valdez Museum to learn more about all the history here. We may even make it over Sugar and Spice, a little place down the road that has a video of the earthquake that happened here in the sixties. It destroyed the entire city and forced the city to relocate, at least those that survived. A 9.2 earthquake shook for 4 solid minutes and forced a tsunami in through the harbor and landed barges in the middle of the town. There wasn’t much left after that. But it was caught on video by a mariner. CRAZY stuff! We still have a week and a half left. I’ excited about driving back through Thompson pass again. That is going to be beautiful! Hopefully there won’t be any clouds this time. It would be nice to see it all. Next trip we have decided to climb mountains and glaciers. We just need warmer jackets and some rope---we seemed to have left those back in Florida. 
  It’s stressful living so close to people for so long, but it is working out nicely and we are having a great time. 

 

         Well, I know that I haven't posted much of anything in the last month or so. The last couple weeks of the semester were very busy and full of writing papers, sitting through six hours of classes a  day and studying for impossible-to-pass  exams, of which I successfully aced all. Okay, so the one that was really impossible was the Genesis exam...i got a C on that one...but I successfully aced all of my classes. It was a very good semester and I was very sad to leave knowing that I probably wouldn't be back there for some time. This is the picture of the day. People have been begging me for ages to get a new profile picture..I’ve pretty much had the same exact one on facebook for about 7 months now….maybe a little bit longer; but anyway. I took this one today and I love to edit photos…I especially take pride in my unique talent over overly editing photographs…I love this! I could do this all day! I only wish that I could actually afford the equipment to improve my photography skills and to actually have a studio so I can take pictures for other people. A studio would be so much fun! I would turn it into my own personal cave—kinda like batman…and I’d live there editing pictures for the rest of my life….I would probably need a few extra trips to the eye doctor considering that glaring into a computer screen all day is the furthest thing from healthy. But that’s what technology does to you these days, I guess.
  Anyway…now that I’ve been home for going on three weeks…I have successfully acquired three sunburns, a great tan, a surf board, and a butt load of stress that I can’t figure out where to dump off. I don’t even have a job yet---I really haven’t been looking for one though because I am leaving for Alaska for two and a half weeks starting this Friday! I’m pretty darn excited. I’ve also started a VLOG show with my cousin. It’s called the LN and Mo show (since she has called me MO since I don’t even know when.) We sat around the other night being totally ridiculous which is precisely how we are when we get around each other….i’m actually going to Alaska with her…this is really going to be interesting. You know, I’ve just realized that I’m a pretty major traveler…and I love it. Within the last 6 months, I’ve visited every east coast state, lived in Peru for 4 months and spent two and a half weeks in Alaska…and by the end of the year, I hope to visit the cayman islands as well. 
  I usually give my entries a title after I have finished typing them out, but, this one is going to be rather complicated, considering that I’ve included just about every topic I can think of right now. Anyway, here is a video that Ellen and I made the other night. I hope you laugh at our foolishness! Enjoy! :)