'most crawling reptilians, the most earthbound of all creatures, have remained unchanged for millions of years. some, however, grew feathers and wings and turned into birds, thus defying the force of gravity that had held them for so long. they didn’t become better at crawling or walking, but transcended crawling and walking entirely.'

I woke up this morning and felt like I am a part of something big. really big.

We started working with Habitat for Humanity yesterday. And while all we did most of our first day was clear trash from work sites and move a butt ton of scaffolding to different build sites, I felt like the work I was doing was really worth while. We got to see a house dedication yesterday evening and it was really heart warming.
During the day, the owner of one of the homes, Ms. Stacey, came frantically in the truck where we were putting the dry wall scraps and other trash and she needed to find the pull chain for the ceiling fan, it had been left in one of the boxes. I searched with her and ended up finding it, and when I found it she was so happy. She gave me a huge hug and just thanked me about 12 times. It was simple. Anyone would have helped her look. But she was so grateful. Ms. Stacey seemed grateful for every single aspect of her life. She looked at her house with pride, she looked at all of the volunteers with love in her eyes.

I can't even express how much I love our house. Its older and it has a history. Grant gave me a sweet Christmas ornament and a Rugrats pillowcase he found in the trash. Seems crazy, but I loved it. The people who use to own this his evacuated during Katrina and just never came back. Habitiat did a lot of work for us with cleaning and fixing a lot of things around the house, but it still feels like it was abandoned. I always felt like buildings, houses especially, reflected the emotions of the people who lived in them. Walls can talk, if you will. And this house felt sad. I love being able to bring it back to life; to add our own River 2 touch to it. Tonight is Halloween and I really hope we get Trick-or-Treaters!

I get to go home for Thanksgiving!!! Orbits keeps sending me my travel itinerary and updates for my flight and I get so excited every time! I cannot wait to see my family and my friends. Goodness.

oh. this is three blocks from my house. no big deal.

my favorite chords

Spike project number one: check.

I'm really happy to be back from our first round project. I will miss the beauty of our surroundings and the amazing staff that we got to work with over the last few months but I am so excited to start our next project! After a week of debrief and clearance meetings we're gonna make our way to the coast! My team is off to Bay St. Louis to work with Habitat for Humanity! At first we were going to live at Camp Coast Care in a trailer with another AmeriCorps team, it seemed ok.. still a step up from some of our previous living conditions. Howeverrrrrr a few days ago we found out we will actually be living in a house! For us to live at Camp Coast Care Habitat had to pay some ridiculous amount of money so instead they got us a house! Its a 5 bedroom 2 bathroom (with at least one half bath) and a huge porch! We're only a few blocks from the downtown area and..drumroll.... the beach!!! I'm so excited. I cannot wait to work with Habitat and learn all these new crazy construction skills!

Strange though, when we got back to Vicksburg on Friday, I felt like I was home. Its odd to me how just 10 weeks ago I was a stranger in this town. I now have so many memories here. The Yazoo River is such a special place to me. It feels like home here. These people are my family. I love it.

learn how to use my hands not just my head.

over a month later! sorry guys.

ok. so our first round project is at this water "park"... its a camp site. not a park. very misleading here in the south. anyway. we've been working at Little Black Creek Water Park for the past 4 weeks. And honestly, that is why I have not been updating. I was a little disappointed with our project selection. Other teams were off to the coast, working with Habitat, building houses and changing lives... and here we are.. working on aesthetics for those who are fortunate enough to go on vacation here. Basically we've been either painting all day everyday or working our butts off in the hot sun clearing away brush from a dam or ripping roots out of the ground on a horse-trail. I worked hard. I pushed myself. I did things I had no idea I was capable of; such as not only having the courage to hold a machete, but actually use it to take out some intense thorn covered vines. However I still felt like what we were doing was kind of a waste of time. And it made my days difficult. It made my real desire to be here dwindle. Our team morale was low. We actually even had a team member return home. Our living conditions have been interesting, too. We are staying in a lodge hall that is about the size of a large classroom. We each have our own cot that is barely big enough for one person. We have about 3 feet of personal space before running into our neighbors cot. We cook there. We hang out there. There is one bathroom for 11 people. No Mirror. The shower is about a half of a mile walk. The closest town (internet access.. food...civilization) is at least a 10 minute drive. Its been rough.
Then, the other day as I was walking to our tool shed to continue painting signs for our horse-trail, I saw an adorable family picnicking on the dam that we had cleared brush from. They had an amazing view of the lake and they looked really, really, happy.
In that moment I felt pride.
I hope that the image of that family sharing a meal on land that was once covered with gross vines covered in thorns stays with me not only for the rest of this project, but for the rest of my life. Its easy to lose sight of what is really important. I forgot to enjoy the life that I am living right now. I don't have to sit at a desk all day. Or do homework. I get to be outside. Using my muscles and strengthening my body. How awesome!
I'm going from dreadfully saying that I live in the woods to excitedly saying I live in the woods!!!! I walk out of the lodge and see hundreds of trees. Since I have to be up at 6am everyday I GET to see the sunrise over the lake every single day!
Some days are a lot harder than others. And some days are the most amazing days of my life. Its a struggle. But its worth it. I hope you can look around and find things in your life that you are proud of. That you are excited about. And if you can't.. when you wake up in the morning and get out of your comfy bed.. think about how I sleep on a hard cot every night and say good morning to the 11 other people, thousands of ants, spiders, cockroaches and crickets that are my roommates and maybe you will feel better.

Lots of love.