Ice Ice Baby

This weekend I travelled up to Haliburton to do a late Christmas dinner with my family (yay for a never ending Christmas time). It was so great to spend time up there. There was lots of snow (well more than we have here in Peterborough) and as Lorelai Gilmore would say “I love snow. Everything’s magical when it snows, everything looks pretty”. Winter is seriously my favourite time of year. It’s means my favourite activities, landscapes, sunsets, and attire.

Snowy sunsets are the best.

selfiez for dayz

Last winter I absolutely fell in love with ice climbing. I was incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to climb almost everyday. I’ve missed it heaps since the season started. Luckily, my brother is the BEST and took me climbing on Medeba’s wall on Saturday. It felt so good to climb again. I love the feeling of a good axe throw and when your muscles start to burn. It’s just the best sport.

First lap of the season!!

“Another picture?!”

After a year of waiting I FINALLY got an ice climbing wound (or scratch?). It may be small but it bled!

 

It made me miss adventure. I know there’s adventure in the day to day life but the thrilling, new, challenging adventures are amazing. Life these days mostly consists of working at the mall and school (I recently started taking two courses at Trent). I’m really looking forward to the exciting adventures that 2016 will bring! It’s been a struggle not to let the anticipation take over my life. There are still about 14 months until we leave for the AT. It is going to an AMAZING adventure.

ALLLLLLLLLLL the excitement

With the silly Peterborough transit schedule I’ve had a lot of time before (and sometimes after) my shifts for reading lately. I always mean to read lots but there always seems to be something I have to do and reading gets pushed to the back burner. I’ve really been enjoying the half hour time slots surrounding my shifts where I can get lost into a story. I just finished “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed (like basically every other person around) and am now following the hiking theme (surprise, surprise) into Bill Bryson’s “A Walk In The Woods”. Bryson writes: “Life takes on a neat simplicity, too. Time ceases to have any meaning. When it is dark, you go to bed, and when it is light again you get up, and everything in between is just in between. It’s quite wonderful, really” I love that. I’m looking forward to that.

It seems a little surreal to me that in 14 months I will be onto my own adventure (with Stan of course!) and I will be writing my own story much like those writers. I will have my own experiences to tell. I can’t help but think about how exciting that will be.

My pack (I went with the Gregory Deva 60L) has been leaning up against my bookshelf for the past week or so half packed in one of my “I’m going to pack up all of the gear I’ve accumulated so far and make this all seem more real because I’m to excited to wait” moments. They’ve been occurring quite frequently recently – I blame my readings. I can’t help but think of how pretty it looks. I’m so lame. ANYWAYS! I’m very excited for what lies ahead!

It seems difficult to have to wait another full 14 months! But I know that waiting can also be a very good thing. Patience…. That word nobody really likes to hear. God has taught me a lot about it recently. I moved back to Peterborough in late October and after about a month of job hunting galore I landed two part time jobs. Things didn’t seem to be working at one of my jobs and I kept on praying about it asking God what I should do. Eventually I was let go from that job and I didn’t even stress about it (which is very unusual for me as I tend to overthink and stress about every situation). God had me and I knew I could trust in that. The other job (which I’m still working at) has been incredible. It’s an environment filled with encouragement and amazing people. It’s just about perfect for me. I just needed to have patience and trust that God had the situation in His hands. He knows what He is doing. It’s so easy to forget that very large detail. Knowing He will be with me encourages me so much about concurring the AT!