myretroperspective

To my great surprise (Not!), it was raining when I got ready to go to work at the Pea Island VC this morning.  It was a really big gully washer out on the island, and the dip in the road at the entrance to the VC had about 5” of standing water in it.  I was lucky that the rain decided to stop just as I arrived.  Had to wade through a few large puddles and no one showed up for the scheduled morning bird walk. That didn’t stop people from visiting during the day.  Mary and Neil, the couple that was to lead the bird walk, stayed at the VC most of the day, and helped folks operate the three scopes in the viewing area as well as identify birds seen for them.  This is the first time I’ve ever had help running the VC, and it sure enhanced the visitor’s experience.  I could concentrate on sales, and answering those three most often asked questions. During lulls in the crowd, I even got a chance to enjoy the view out the picture windows.  With all the r...

{Merchandise Mart, Chicago, where I spent the last two years of University} Dear Chicago,  I've kinda sorta missed you lately. My parents are there right now enjoying all of your great food, good people and amazing lakeside summer weather. Hopefully we'll be back to visit sooner rather than later.  Dear 5k , you are the first that I have ever signed up for and another thing I can mark off my list of goals. Thankfully I'll have a great group of girls to run with (well, they'll run, I'll huff and puff and try to keep up) and awesome sparkle skirts to get more stares from Koreans with.  Dear school,  I love that I now have Mondays off but I think I may cry a little when I see my paycheck. I keep reminding myself that God has always provided more classes in the past, this will be no different. Trust and faith are two things I always need to practice.  Dear weather,  I thought that leaving Tulsa would be great because Korea couldn't possibly be as bad that. Wrong. Yo...

Not every day of life on the road produces exciting adventures.  Sometimes the ordinary chores catch up with you, and you have to take some time to get things back in order.  That’s just what I’ve done the last couple of days.  I got the oil change on the car taken care of on Monday.  Then on Tuesday, I had an appointment to get an eye exam.  I planned to do my grocery shopping afterwards while I was in Nags Head.  So much for plans.  The doc dilated my pupils which took care of the rest of the day.  I was lucky to drive back to the rig with that goofball sunshade behind my glasses without incident.  No way I was going to try to stagger around the grocery store. They told me my eyes would be back to normal in four hours.  Not so.  It took a full nine hours of staying inside.  I ended up vacuuming and cleaning the rig at 10:00 at night.  I must admit that is not unusual for me.  I seem to get the urge to do cleaning ...

Before Jack and I said our “So long’s”,  we had one more adventure to embark upon.  I had kind of twisted his arm into helping me with a refuge chore.  (It didn’t take much twisting, by the way.)  After dropping off my toad at the Ford dealer in Manteo for an oil change and general check-up, Jack met me at the dealer’s and I hopped into his truck with some supplies for our mission.  A couple of the information boxes at the entrances to Alligator River NWR needed to be replaced.  Like this one, for instance.  The brown sign was dangling, the front of the box had been ripped off, and the post was askew. Can you guess what caused this destruction?  Nope, it wasn’t wild teenagers, but one of the bears on the refuge.  He had pretty well gnawed and scraped the post, and undoubtedly messed up the sign and box.  The bears do the same thing with the wooden road sign posts on the refuge.  They like to lean on them to scratch an itchy ...

I never craved red meat while living in the states but as soon as we moved to the land where beef is immensely expensive, I started to crave it more and more. You know it's expensive when you feel guilty eating it alone. Since being home from our vacation in the States we've been craving it more than usual. So what's the only logical solution? Driving to Cost-c0 (thank God for Cost-co in Korea) and picking up some steak. I've always used store bought marinade but decided to try to make one from scratch (how hard could it be right?). I googled steak marinade and "The best steak marinade in existence" popped up on allrecipes. It was a sign for sure. What you need, minus the garlic powder Yum! I've never been so excited for steak before. What you need 1/3 cup soy sauce 1/2 cup olive oil 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce 1 1/2 tablespoons garlic powder 3 tablespoons dried basil 1 1/2 tablespoons dried parsley flakes 1 teaspoon ground white...

Locals here along the OBX can’t seem to remember the last time there has been so much rain during the summer.  It seems to me that there has been plenty of rain, especially on my days off.  I had a shortened work day scheduled today, and once again we had 2.5” of rain pouring down.  Just before I left for work at the Gateway VC yesterday, I glanced out the dining table window. Perched atop the volunteer building was a red- tail ed hawk.  Can you see how wet its feathers were and the water droplets it was shedding onto the rooftop? It soon flew down to the wind vane that is attached to the top of one of the electric fence posts.  Out came its wings to dry.  It was once again overcast, so there weren’t any sunbeams to help in the drying process. This bird is just a youngster.  You can tell by the brown barred tail.  Next year, it will have the beautiful red tail that is so distinctive.  No doubt this is one of the offspring of the pai...

We survived the "gauntlet", as I like to refer to the last 2 weeks of conferences (3) & weddings (3).  We have one more wedding reception to attend tomorrow night and we did cut the marriage conference we planned to attend, but cut us some slack, it was a HUGE two weeks. Let me highlight just one of the conferences & one of the weddings since I actually took photos at those two. First I spent last week in Chicago (mostly naperville rather) at Cru's STINT briefing conference.  I always get super nostalgic attending this conference as a coach because I remember 5 years ago attending with bags packed ready to spend my first year abroad.  Everyone interning for the year with Cru overseas comes together for this one week for great teaching & worship before launching out to various locations around the world. For me, I love thinking about learning a new culture and world even when it's not what I'm about to embark on.  The band that leads worship is also one...