Ready To Run...

I really wanna go home.
My mom is visiting this week...which is nice but it still just reminds me of what I'm missing, by being here in North Dakota.
I think it is time to transfer to a new university.

On the plus side, I got a new fridge!

Poem from the Past...

I stumbled upon this poem from my creative writing class portfolio, it was the only one I submitted that I hadn't written during the course. I know my teacher considered that cheating, but it was from the diary of fourteen year old Brittany. A little girl at the time, who found the sensational clarity of divorce, amidst violent verbal abuse. Although revised, the main message remains.I hope that someday maybe someone else will stumble on it, and in doing so catch themselves. Enjoy.

Father is Ordering Tears, Instead of Empty Beers

Is anyone still calling,
For my tears that won't stop falling,
Because I feel that I can't stop them on
My own.

My tears are being ordered,
By a man that has me cornered,
Somehow I have the notion
He will drown.

Someday he will notice,
Walk away and never show us,
What it means to drink my tears
And wear a crown.

What he doesn't know,
Is that his tab will always show,
And in the end I never ever
Let him down.

-Brittany Ricco

Oopsy Daisy

So...my laptop crashed and I lost all of my writing. 

My heart, my soul, and countless hours of revision/hand cramps. I have been so busy tapping away that I forgot to use my flash-drive to save the files, damn it!
My husband says that this is an opportunity to rewrite all of it...he says the second time around I can add new detail and I won't be so hung up the original phrasing...since I won't remember how I worded it previously.
I'm not so sure.
It's days like these that I feel so overwhelmed with love for him.
He has so much faith in me, even when I feel I don't deserve it.
Can I really recreate it all?
Now I'm wishing I had submitted more to the Inkwell Journal, supposing my classmates liked the submissions, I would have a hard copy to work from...a reference. But I am so scared of rejection that I just submitted one poem, knowing they had to accept at least one of each author's submissions.
Now the battle is finding the money to buy a new laptop before I forget every little insufferable detail.

*             *              *                 *
In better news, Kyle and I spontaneously decided to go camping this weekend. We went to Lake Bemidj State Park...(i think that's how you spell Bemidji anyway).

We had such a nice time! I absolutely love camping and being submersed in nature. It is when I feel closest to God...away from all of the skyscrapers and strip malls.There was just so much wildlife to be seen, frogs and chipmunks and hummingbirds, oh my! :)
We also canoed past a set of Loons...the bird I mean! They were so beautiful! I think it is strange how the wildlife here in the Midwest differs so from that of where I grew up. Are there even slugs here? What about Spitbugs...the ones who leave globs of foamy saliva on the tall grass during the early morning. Where are the caterpillar nests hiding in the trees, just waiting to explode with tiny, fuzzy bugs?
Either way, I think we both really needed to get away from the stress of our apartment. Neither of us can ever seem to relax, until we are forced to. Hahhaha! If we can get cell reception to pay our surmounting bills...there is no fun to be had.
I think the camp was a little too sparsely vegetated  for my taste...meaning we could hear and see everyone else in there unnecessarily bulky RV Trailers from our tiny orange Walmart tent. Also the lake was actually a pretty lengthy walk from our campsite. But overall I think we had a great time.

I ALMOST FORGOT THE BEST AND WORST PARTS!
Worst: Despite the four years of canoeing I did as a kid at Camp Arnold, (due to my childhood crush on "Bear" the canoeing instructor),for lack of a better word, I flipped shit as soon as our canoe got out into the center of that lake. How did we out so drift so far?! The wind tossed our canoe around and our paddling just rocked it more...all of the sudden life vests seemed like a much better idea even with a $4 fee. My heart was racing and tears flooded my eyes...I was a grown woman, screaming at every wave, like a five year old on a roller-coaster  I was terrified.
TERRIFIED.
Kyle was trying to calm me down...the coast guard was trying to calm me down from the shore...my logic was trying to calm me down...but nothing helped. Worst hour of my life since I passed that pancreatic stone in March. Poor guy rented us a canoe for $10 and only got to use it for 1 hr.

Best: On Saturday night I am woken up to Kyle unzipping our tent in a rush, snagging it every few inches on the surrounding material, flashing a beam of light in and out of my eyes, whispering in the hurried, tired slur of a man at 2 am. Kyle was woken up to a crackling noise in our camp. He heads out and the chase begins. Something or someone has something of ours and is running up the bathroom trail...(oddly, yet specifically labeled by the campsite as, "Toilet")??? Anyhow, the noise stops and he returns to the tent. I have already passed back out.
In the morning we inspect our camp for the missing mystery item. But everything seems in order...then we think ok maybe an animal...but we packed up all of the food in the car right? Wrong. We for got the bin of honey roasted peanuts. And as it appeared so had our furry friends. We spotted the container, brutally gnawed and scraped up by little squirrel feet, half way up the toilet trail. Kyle has chased the peanut bandit into the woods....hahahhah! They must have scarred the crap out of each other. Here Kyle is suspecting a luter, with our camera or something and it's really a little scavenger looking for a late night snack, about to be attacked by some crazed "hunter" in the woods.
Little scavenger vs. Potato Chip:

Good times.

 PS: Can you tell who takes the photos? Since they are mostly of Kyle...I'm sure you can imagine. lol