getting started

I am NOT a morning person. I am willing to admit that. I can be nice in the morning, pleasant even, but inside I am thinking about getting more sleep. I am happy as I can be at night, even when I am tired (unless we are talking about the time around midnight, when I can't go to sleep!) but I choose nights over mornings. Chad, on the other hand, is a morning person. He doesn't seem to mind getting up early and going places, even if it is work and at night...don't even ask. If he isn't in bed and mostly asleep by 9:30 or 10 pm....bad things man, bad things. But, I am opening the store this morning again. I was supposed to close and was looking forward to sleeping in but one of the other supervisor's asked me to switch and I love being at home with Chad at night so much that I jumped on the idea. Two nights, home, with my sweetie, in a row? Perfect! Three (I'm off tomorrow)? Even better! So, I went to bed last night after starting my houndstooth project and got up this morning with Chad. OK, so I said "some back and get me after you walk the dog" but none-the-less, I'm up now.

So, I've agreed to work this week long trip in April in Pine Mountain and taken the days off work to do it...I did it last year and it was an exhausting blast o'fun so I am doing it again this year. A week off the Hobster Lobster and getting paid to play in the woods? Totally worth it. It is hard work because it is a class of 7th graders from a school in Tampa that have virtually NO outdoor experience and are so accustomed to being waited on by their parents that they kind of get a shock when they get to camp and discover they have to sleep, go to the bathroom, and eat in the woods for a week (oh come on...they knew it was coming!!). The guy that I work for, F, has been doing this for years with the same school and pretty much has it down to a fine art. They spend one full day when they get to camp on the ropes course (at the Girl Scout camp), learning some basic team building stuff and then they spend the next four days out on the trail, hiking around 20 miles and just learning how to not only survive the woods but survive life a little better and be a little nicer to each other. The change that comes at the end of the week is sweet, amazing, fun, and totally worth all the blisters and miles and miles of "how much farther?". I am really looking forward to it but already thinking about all the stuff I need to pack to take with me...need new hiking shoes, need to break in said hiking shoes, need to break in the rest of my body for a 20+ mile hike...Oh well...not until the middle of April so I have plenty of time.

Gotta get ready for work and go convince the dog that whatever she is barking at doesn't really exist...normal morning for me.