It's good to be home.

True to form again, I haven't written a blog post in quite a while.  My visit home has been too full seeing friends and family to want to spend hours writing on the computer.  However, as my presence in Colorado is coming to a close (already?!), this seems a fitting time to summarize, reflect, and appreciate.

I started off my visit by landing in Denver, going home, and a day later turning around and heading to CC for the spring Ellement concert.  Short turn around and a little unfair to Mom, but what a wonderful opportunity to see my girls!  We somehow managed to get all 4 of us who graduated together to go to the concert, pretty cool considering we had to come from New York, San Francisco, Denver, and...oh yeah, Australia to pull it off.  I'm impressed it actually happened!  The special thing about it, other than all of us being in the same place again (probably for the first time since graduation) was that the freshman girls new to Ellement during my senior year were, this time, the seniors of the group - in my mind, the last chance for me to see a concert with girls that I know and love, which means a lot.

Hillie's solo.

Ellement of 2014.

Ellies old and new.

All the girls who used to sing together: (left to right) Anna, Marina, Louisa, Shayla, Hillie, Emma (that hair!), Kendall, Sammi, Camey, and Hildy.

The senior girls (Hillie, Marina, Shayla, Camey, Emma).

Lots of reasons to smile for breakfast at Smiley's :)

And so began a 7-and-a-half week visit, a whirlwind of no free weekends and lots of catching up.  I may let the pictures do the talking here:

Rockies game with Riley.

Hiking in Buena Vista.  We ended up going there three times (way more than normal for us): twice with our Boulder friends Dave, Charlie, and Audrey; and once after watching the Pine Creek race during FIBArk with my aunt Ruth (photos of that to follow).

A visit to The Wild Animal Sanctuary southeast of Greeley.  Guess what we saw?  Lions and tigers and bears...oh my!

Sleepy kitty.

Hahaha.

Looook at the size of those paws.

Mmmm tiger.  Tiger, tiger, tiger.  (You'll get this if you've seen Kung Pow)

Wonderful Mexican food night with the DeLyser side of the family in Loveland (plus Riley and Anthony, who we've pretty much adopted anyway) - my uncle David, me, my aunt Kim, Kim's husband Dave (he's my uncle too, right?), Anthony, Mama, and Riley!

And this is what happens when you break out a secret stash of clown noses and googly eyes...

Maybe I don't need to post all these pictures, but then again they make me giggle, so hey, why not?

Riley's trying really hard to keep a straight face.

My gorgeous kitty!

Here's a tour of our garden:

Arugula.

Spinach.

Squash.  We're also growing zucchini, leeks, beets, basil, onions, okra, and flowers, of course.

My beautiful mama!  Happy after a (windy) day in the garden.

Yes, I'm obsessed with her.  But she's so darn cute! 

Paws!

Watching the Pine Creek race during FIBArk.  Pretty high water, which means sometimes you end up where you don't want to be.

Unintentionally surfing Pine Creek hole (aka where you don't want to be).

Looks gnarly, but nothing bad happened in the end.

Hildy and I walked down to spectate at Siedel's Suckhole in Lower Brown's Canyon.  Worth it.

Oops.

"Here I go!"

Weeee!

Hildy and me, enjoying a hike by the river.

One of the best things you'll ever eat: pomegranate-avocado salsa.

Neighbor's cat hanging with the deer, no big deal.

In some ways, I don't feel like these pictures can do justice to how good it's felt to be home (and of course there are the people I saw without taking pictures of us, like the Jebe side of the family in La Junta for my cousin Mandi's high school graduation, and Cory's mom and sister for dinner in Manitou Springs, and my dear friends Emily in Colorado Springs, and Jaycie and Maria and Ellen and Mike and Robin and Maggie and Ida and Larry in Salida, and everyone at Runners, and Brian rafting in the Royal Gorge, and Hannah and my aunt Ruth for FIBArk).  I realize, after being gone for over a year and a half, that I really do miss the people I've left behind here, and I appreciate the fact that we can see each other again, reconnect, not lose touch.  These relationships are, after all, the reason for coming back to visit.  I think I've traveled enough to where I'm at the point that people and the relationships I have with them are more important than purely ticking things off a to-do bucket list.  The world will always be there for me to explore, but these people may not be, and it's important to take advantage of the chance to be with them.

It may sound like I'd be content to stay here and not go away anymore, but let's be honest: it's me we're talking about, and I will have trouble staying in one place for too long.  That's why, after Maria's wedding this weekend, I'll be on the move again, first to San Francisco with Mom and Ruthie, then to L.A. to see my papa, and then back to Australia to finish out my work and holiday visa.  But not just to lollygag around.  My purpose has changed, and here's how:

Just before coming home from Australia, I applied for a job with the Rainforest Alliance that would've entailed certifying rainforest products (coffee, chocolate, timber, etc) as being sustainably produced.  The position would've required me to stay in the US, at least for starters, and I probably would've ended up living in or around New York, which I honestly may have struggled with the same way I struggled with feeling stuck in Melbourne.  The difference, however, was that this job was something I really wanted to do, and something I wholeheartedly believe in.  I didn't get the job, but before I'd been told a definitive "no" I started imagining how good it would feel to have a job that let me do something I cared about, something worthwhile, and that gave me a way to contribute to addressing the world's problems (primarily environmental, but arguably social and economic as well).

LIGHTBULB MOMENT.

Even though I didn't get this particular job, I realized that what it offered was very important to me, and I decided to start building my experience and knowledge towards one day getting a position like that.  This revelation was probably a long time coming, but it took the hope and disappointment of the job search to crystalize the idea in my head.  As a result, I've been looking into various ways to start building the necessary experience to be competitive in that type of job market, and I've realized that I'll have to start at the bottom as a volunteer or intern and then work my way up.  Stop waiting for a paid position to give you the opportunity to gain that experience; just go out and find a way to get it yourself. 

My most recent idea, one that really excites me, is volunteering long-term for an organization called Cloudbridge Nature Reserve in southern Costa Rica.  Nestled adjacent to a national park, the organization aims at reforesting land that was previously used for ranching, and studying the process and effects of these reforestation efforts.  They allow volunteers to stay for any amount of time, but the coolest part is that they encourage volunteers to conduct research and present their findings to the reserve manager, who may in turn publish the research on the organization's website in their Research Library.  This is huge, really, because most places want a demonstrated track record of field work before they allow you to join their own studies, but not so here.  As a volunteer there, I can present my own research idea and carry it out with the guidance of reserve staff, and then in the future I have a tangible real example of my work to show to grad schools or prospective employers.  I'm pretty sold on this idea, and I'm considering starting there in January and staying for a few months minimum.

With this possibility on the horizon, I suddenly feel much less stressed about just traveling and enjoying Australia, since up to now I haven't given the country a fair chance to show me its best.  I think I'll pick fruit for a little while to earn some cash, work on an organic farm for a while to get my hands back in the dirt, and explore the countryside while I'm there.  Cory and I will still have to leave Aussie at the end of October, at which point we'll probably head to a little corner of Southeast Asia to see what there is to see.  If I carry through with my plan to volunteer at Cloudbridge, I'll be home again in December and spending Christmas on the beach in Costa Rica with my mama :)  Sounds dreamy!  Pura vida.