Stressed Out!

So I don’t know about you guys, but I am super duper excited to be done with classes. Winter break can’t come any sooner. I feel like this whole last week of school has been like complete hell to me. So many things going on and its starting to build on me. So let me give you a little insight to how my week has been.

            So last week about the middle of the week, I had seen an advisor and had my classes all mapped out, everything was perfect. I live out of town and I got my classes all figured out so that I only had to drive to Lacrosse twice a week, how much better can you get. But things started to fade quickly. Being that it was the week for freshman to register last week, I went in to check on my classes, and the one online class that I wanted had to classes for it, and both were filled already, my jaw dropped. So I just figured I would take that class during the summer or next year sometime, but I am really trying to avoid going to school next year because I only got four classes left to take and then I am on a wait list until 2012 for my program. So basically over the whole rest of the week and up through Tuesday morning I was having panic attacks because I kept checking to make sure classes were still available that I wanted.

Come Tuesday, I woke up at around 8. I checked the classes to make sure I was still good. I couldn’t enroll until 8:45 that morning and at 8:30 I was still in the clear. Being that I had to leave to drive to class at this time I had my mom plan to enroll me. By the time I got to La Crescent I got a text from my mom saying to “call her immediately, I only got one class”. My heart sank.  I found out the only class I got was speech, I needed to have my A & P class for sure though, because I can’t enroll in the program until this is done.  When my mom tried to enroll for the class it said it was restricted.  I drove like hell to get to school, I even skipped my class that morning, just to go wait in line to see an advisor. It took forever it seemed like.

So finally I figured out that it was reserved for surgical tech students, and I had to wait until Monday to enroll if there were spots still available. Low and behold, let me tell you I was royally pissed off. So I immediately tried to find another class that would work, well I found one that was a Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Not too bad, I can live with this. So now I’m debating if I want to keep the one I got now or go for the other one when it is available. How fun, right. I’m to the point where I am pretty sure I am just going to keep what I have.

I hope everything works out, I was lucky when for the tech reporting class, they opened another one up for students, I got myself in that right away, So at the moment I’m taking three classes, and will have to figure out if I want to take that last class available for me to take over the summer or next school year. I plan to take it online, so it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle. Any suggestions for me on when to take it??

I just hope in the end it all find a way to work out!

Winter Wonderland

I’m sure everyone is starting to get anxious for the snow. You’re either dreading it, or you’re about ready to jump out of your pants because you can wait for it to come. Either or, it’s on its way. The winter can be a very fun thing for people if they have activities that they enjoy doing when there is snow on the ground.

            Things that can be very fun for children to enjoy doing in the snow, can be things such as building snow men, building igloo forts in the snow, going sledding, getting into snowball fights. These are all thing I know I loved and enjoyed to do all winter long with my two younger brothers and my sister when we were little. I remember my dad would come out and help us with things, or my favorite thing was sledding. Once there was enough snow on the ground, as a family we would go sledding, but not without some preparation. Where I live we have a huge hill that goes from the road all the way up to the tree line. Before we could even go down the hill, my dad would get out his snow shoes and walk a path up the hill for us to go down on the sled. By doing this we knew we would get to the bottom, and it also packed down the snow, so we would go faster. We live on a road that is not too busy, which is nice because there were many occasions where we were going so fast that we ended up in the road, luckily no cars were coming. But probably the funniest time was when we got my mom to come out and go for a ride down the hill, my little brother road in the back of our long sled, and mom in the front, by the time they reached about the bottom of the hill they were going way to fast to stop,  so my little brother bailed before they went into the road, my mom on the other hand did not and went air born off the buildup of snow along the curb, landed in the road and went all the way across to the neighbor’s yard and down there hill in there yard. When she got back over, she was laughing so hard she almost wet her pants; she could believe what had just happened. All in all it was quite the thing to see.

            When people become a little older they can get into things like, skiing, snowboarding, snow shoeing, snowmobiling, cross country skiing and so on.  These days I love snowboarding in the winter, I also love going snowmobiling with my boyfriend. These are two things I’m about losing my mind over because I can’t wait until there is enough snow out to do them. Some of the most fun I have had snowboarding was when I went out to Colorado two years in a row and got to go boarding on the Rocky Mountains. It is so beautiful out there that you can’t help but love where you are and love what you’re doing, because there are only so many people that can do what you can do and see what you can see. It was a great experience and I would love to go back out there again.

            So for this week, I think it would be awesome that for your response to this blog, if you would put down one of your favorite memories with snow. Let’s see how many ways snow has been a part in our lives.

Dear, Deer... how much I hate you!

So I had one scary night last Thursday. I had just gotten done at work and was heading up to my boyfriend’s house for a little while. It was a little bit after 9’o clock at night and I was heading up the hill to his house. The road he lives on is gravel and way out in the country. Every night he warns me to look out for deer because there are so many of them up there.  Along the road to his house there are cornfields. In the fall they cut down the stalks for the most part, but still there are some random ones that are still there. The deer love to nest and eat in along these fields.

            So that night I was driving along this road and that when out of the corner of my eye I saw something that just didn’t look like a old dried up corn stalk. Just then it started moving and I knew it was a deer, with antlers. The buck took off running right away and it was coming for me. I knew there was no chance that I would be able to stop in time, due to the fact that I was on gravel and it is very difficult to stop a vehicle on it. So I laid on the breaks as soon as I could. Next thing I knew the deer actually ran into the side of my suburban on the right side of the vehicle between the mirror and bumper. The deer went flying across the hood of the vehicle and landed in front of me.

            This is when I actually hit the deer because in a matter of seconds the suburban was still not completely stopped yet. When the deer when across the hood, I was just praying that it wouldn’t hit the windshield because its antlers were quite large and I feared it would shatter the windshield and come through the vehicle. But I was fortunate to have gotten the vehicle to slow down a bit by the time it hit. I was going about somewhere between 25 and 30 miles an hour at the time on a 55 mile an hour road. Thank god I wasn’t driving 55, or this could have ended very badly.

So sure enough once the deer landed in front of me, it couldn’t get up, it began to kick and roll around until it could get up, which at the time it got up, it took off and ran down into the woods through the opposite field that it had been in prior to it getting hit. I was so scared. My heart was just pounding after the whole ordeal. I immediately called my boyfriend and told him what had happened and he said he would be out right away. I was only just a little bit a ways from his place, so I just drove on the rest of the way. When I arrived I got out of the vehicle immediately and ran around to the hood to inspect the damage. Turns out it wasn’t too bad, there was a about a 5 inch dent on the front of the hood from the deer’s antlers, and I had a few cracks in the grill and one around the framing in the light on the left side.

My boyfriend could believe I had so little damage, he figured it would look about as bad as my dad’s truck did when he hit one a few years back. To describe how it looked, it was comparable to a one-eyed Cyclops. So shortly after we hopped in the truck and went driving through the fields to see if we could find it dead at all, but we could find anything. Ironically two days later when hunting opened, one of his uncles shot a buck that was nice size, but when they looked to inspect it, they found that it had a broken jaw, but it hadn’t been broken for very long, because it was not very skinny yet. Is this the deer I hit or not? I have no clue, but either or at least I ok and there was very much damage to the vehicle.

Now when I drive up their at night I’ve been a lot more cautious and aware, because I scared to dead another deer is going to run out, and it could have a much worse outcome.

Snow?

When will it snow? This is the big question these days. Late last week, the temperatures began to drop quite a bit. It got colder and colder. All through the week I had heard news about freezing rain and possible snow. This got me excited.

            During the winter I love to go snowboarding, this is something I have done since I was in 8^th grade, and it is something I really enjoy; I have gone out to Colorado twice to hit up the big mountains out there. I also enjoy snowmobiling with my boyfriend in the winter. Due to the word of the upcoming snow, I was getting excited, so I ordered a new snowmobiling helmet, a pink one to be exact.

            Thursday night it started to rain. When it got to the morning and I had to drive to school, it was a little tricky. It was hard to tell if it was cold enough out to make the rain freeze at all or make things slippery. But I made it to school just fine. When I left class that day, it was raining out a little harder than it had been when I had arrived. During the rest of the day, it just kept raining, and was really cold. Late that night it had begun to lightly snow. I was getting excited, but I knew the ground was still too warm to be able to hold the snow, so I didn’t get my hopes up.

            Saturday afternoon, my boyfriend went on his facebook, and a friend of his from Mankato had posted pictures of what happened there over the night. Mankato had got 12 inches of snow over the weekend, and Winona had got none. The snow was so close, yet so far away. Kind of depressing in a way, but I know that the later the snow comes the more safe it will be for me to have to drive to school every day. So yes there is a positive and negative side to this whole no snow thing.

            When the snow will come, I have not a clue, but one thing I know, is that I really hate it being cold out and not having snow to go along with the cold. So I hope that it will either warm up a bit or just bring on the snow already. As soon as the snow arrives I know I got a fun winter ahead of me. When you have things that you enjoy doing in the winter, it makes it a little easier to stand the constant cold weather. If you don’t and you hate the winter, well then it sucks to be you, and just to let you know, you’re probably living in the wrong area.

PBR Night

Well this last Friday, my boyfriend and I went to the Bull Riding at the Lacrosse Center. I hadn’t been to see bull riding for a long time. The last time I saw it was when I was in about 5^th grade when I went to a rodeo in Colorado. So I was very excited. I had heard about it for weeks on the radio and thought that would be a really fun thing to go to.

Well sure enough, Friday came around, and it was time to go. We started the night at Hooters since it was so close. It turns out this was the place to be for people going to the bull riding. There were people everywhere in cowboy boots and hats. I had a wonderful meal of shrimp, one of my favorite foods.

After we finished eating we started walking over to the Lacrosse Center and got our tickets. We were in the first section, across from the gates. We had perfect view to see the bulls and riders. During the night we got to see bull riding, barrel racing, little kids riding sheep, a bunch of guys stand in a circle with a bull and see who lasted the longest, and 18 year old guy show us his tricks and moves with a rope.

Some of the highlights on the night were when a bull went after a rider, and ran over the top of him, the rider was fine, as the bull was going back to the gates though, we thought he was in, and then all of a sudden he runs back out and goes after all the people in the ring. After a bit the bull did return to the pen. The last rider to go for the night rode his bull and when the the guy fell off the bull ran around and went after the guy on the horse, the bull did not want to go to the pens, so the guy on the horse roped it and took off fast because he knew the bull wasn’t going to budge and was going to put up a fight.  Next thing I saw the bull was rolling on the ground. The bull was pulled so hard and so fast that it was taken off its feet. Once it got back up it was pissed. It took of chasing the guy on the horse. No one had the rope anymore because it came out of the man’s hands. So at this point people were running away and chasing after the rope so they could get the bull in the pen. After a bit of struggle sure enough they were able to get it penned.

The other ridiculous part to the night was when the little kids were riding sheep. The best one was when the little kids had the sheep fall over and roll over the kid, and the kid was still holding on. Then the sheep took off toward the rest of the sheep standing in a heard. The sheep ran into the wall with the kid still attached, and yet even after this the kid did not let go. A man had to come over and pull the kid off the sheep. This ended up being the kid that won the contest.  It was so funny to watch.

Over all, the night was a fun one that was filled with many laughs and much excitement.

Big Timber, Montana: A Place of Wonderful Memories- Final Copy

             I never knew I would learn so much in one day. It started out early, about 7 in the morning, I had just finished eating breakfast, and the group of us, my dad, my brother, my grandpa, and I and a few other relatives were getting ready to head out to the ranch. It was a cool, fall morning and the mountains were very visible off through the valley.  The peaks were all shiny as the sun illuminated snow covered mountains. Oh how I wish I could go snowboarding was all I was thinking about.  I had no idea what today would hold for work out at the ranch, but I quickly learned what kind of work we would be doing the rest of the day, and all I could think was I hope I don’t screw this up.

            When we arrived out at the ranch, the first thing we did was get out of the truck; Leo came up to us and said we would be herding cattle today. I thought to myself oh wow; I’ve never really done anything like this before. Little did I know how involved I would be in this whole process. Leo then talked to Lloyd for a few minutes while we waited around. These two are both close relatives of mine. Lloyd came back and he said we would be going out to the other barn down the road, taking out the hay truck and loading hay into it. We did this so the cattle would have something they wanted, so it would make it easier to move them.

            The next part was the part I had never expected to come. As we started to walk away, Lloyd calls me over; kind of like he needed to say something to me, well low and behold he tells me he is going to have me ride behind the cattle on the four-wheeler. I figured, hey this couldn’t be that hard, but then he takes me in to get the ATV and this is when I find out it’s a manual. I knew how to drive an automatic, but not a manual. At this moment I was secretly freaking out inside. I made myself take a deep breath, after all, what the worst thing that could happen, all I really needed to do is have Lloyd give me a little lesson on how things ran, so he took about 10 minutes to show me how everything worked, everything was pretty self explanatory, the only thing that really gave me any difficulty was trying to get it set in reverse, but after a few tries it got better as we went on.  I figured, it didn’t really matter if I couldn’t get it because I was in a field, so really all I had to do was drive myself around, to go the other way.

After we got out to the other barn, I got on the wheeler and backed it out of the trailer we used to haul it down with. Everyone else piled into either the hay truck or the other pickup truck. All of us headed through the field and up a very steep hill. I felt my heart just sink as I took a glance back down the hill, realizing how steep it really was. I continued on up the hill; as we reached the top, I felt as if I was on top of the world. It was crazy to see how much we lined up with the mountains in the distance, and it was noticeably colder and windier, so I knew we were pretty high up.

            Once in the fields, we drove around looking for the cattle. After about 30 minutes of looking, we found them way back down in a valley, resting and eating in the shade. We had to get close enough to them with the hay, so they would want to leave and follow it. As my dad was getting the truck closer to the cattle, Lloyd directed me to drive back there with the four-wheeler and try to get the cattle moving. After about 30-45 minutes of this, we had finally gotten all the cattle out of the valley and moving onward to the other pasture. I was told I had to keep behind the cattle and to cross back and forth from side to side to keep them all in one general area, and not allow them to spread out. This trip to the other pasture was somewhere between 1 and a half to 2 miles away. A few times along the way, some of the cattle started to mess with the other cattle and they would get into little fight. There was one moment where I thought the two cattle that were fighting were going to run right into the wheeler, but the sound and size of it spooked them just enough to get them moving right along again.

            This whole move took about 2 hours but we got it done, and really had no issues along the way. I couldn’t believe what I had just done, and how well I did it. This was something that was totally new to me and I had just learned moments before doing. I was so proud of myself. I felt like I had worked very hard to get something very important done, and it seemed to be pretty fun all along the way. This made me really want to do it again sometime.

            Later that day, we were doing some light work around the ranch, when my brother spotted a coyote out in the lower pasture, where some cattle were. Lloyd and my Dad wanted to go shoot this coyote and if they were unable to hit him, they wanted to at least scare it off. So I was then told to go get the wheeler and run along the far edge of the pasture and slowly creep my way over to the other side of the ditch where the coyote was hiding out in. He then told my dad to go set up himself and the gun down in the ditch about 200 to 300 feet from where the coyote was.

            As I crept up on the coyote, all I was worried about was that it would go the opposite way of where I was trying to make it go. I was just hoping I wouldn’t mess up. Then all of a sudden it took off, and the next thing I heard was a gun shot, but my dad missed, and I looked and saw the coyote running up the hill across the valley, then I heard another gun shot, but the coyote didn’t stop running yet. As it was approaching the top of the hill, I heard one last shot go off and next thing I knew, the coyote was down. We did it! I was so happy with how things went, the only way it could have been better, was if the first shot would have worked, that way we could have gotten rid of the dead body of the coyote, but it was too far up the hill in a part that would be difficult to get to so, we decided we would leave it there for the other animals to eat.

            After a long day, I never knew how good it could feel to do all this work and learn so many knew things in one day. It’s a good experience seeing how people make a living in different parts of the United States, it makes you see how hard people have to work to do what they do. I also think that this experience was a good way to see how the world around us and everything in it play a role with everything else. It was a great way to experience life and what it takes to survive or make a living in the natural world around us. It is a way to see life and death, and hard work and respect all in one place at one time. Every day since that entire week I was in Montana, I have wanted to go back so bad and help out at the ranch again and spend time in the beautiful scenery. Big Timber, Montana is one of the most peaceful and relaxing places I have ever been and it is the place of many, many wonderful memories I have made.

                 

10 Seconds

Wow! Who knew I could see my life flash before my eyes twice in about less than 10 seconds.  It was Sunday Halloween night. I had just gotten done going on the walk of horror at St Mary’s University and was running a friend of mine back to his apartment. We were on our way back to my boyfriend’s house, which is just off of Hwy 14 going up Stockton Hill. I was driving up the road, and I had a car in front of me that was just going incredibly slow. This road I was on is a road that has 3 lanes. It has one lane for the traffic coming down the hill and two lanes for the traffic going up, so I signaled over so I could pass this car in the other lane.

 The road I was on is a hill road that has a lot of turns to it and weaves in and around the bluffs. So at this point the car I passed was just a little ways behind me. I was approaching the first corner, when all of a sudden the car coming down the hill moved into my lane. At this point the car looked to me like a big SUV and was about 30 feet away from me. All I kept thinking to myself was I hope to god that car moves back into its lane, because now the car that I had passed was now just about next to me again. There was no room for me to move over even if I wanted to. I kept looking at the headlights and waiting for them to move back to their lane, and then I saw the deer. Not one, but three and they didn’t know where to go, because they were stuck by the guard rail on the other side of the road, where traffic was coming down. I jammed my breaks so hard, because they were running about frantically. I had nowhere to turn, I had to hold my ground in the lane I was in and pray to god I got it stopped before I hit one and got into an accident.

As all of this was running through my head, I couldn’t help but hope to god the car coming down the hill wouldn’t hit one because it could very easily be thrown up into the air and hit me. At this point I consciously had no idea where the car was that I had passed. I was just so concerned with the doe that was running out in front of my car that was not stopped yet.

To my surprise, I missed the doe from hitting the front of my car by mere inches. I couldn’t believe that I got it stopped, because going 55 miles an hour and basically trying to stop it on a dime is not the easiest thing in the world to do, on top of it I was trying to worry about all the other things that could have happened. But to my surprise I was just fine, along with the car. As I proceeded to drive up the hill again, one of the doe’s started running up the road in front of me, but then it slowly crossed over to the woods. By this point my heart was just racing and I was just happy nothing bad happened.

The next morning, my boyfriend called to tell me that when he went back down that road to go to work, he saw that one of the doe’s had been hit. I have no idea if it was hit during the time when I was going up it, or if one of the many cars behind me ended up hitting it, but all I know is one life was ended, so I just hope the person in the car that hit it came out ok.

It’s a scary thing how something can change so quickly and without much warning. It just comes down to how easily you can adapt to change in such a short time. Reflexes, adrenaline, and sudden decisions are all things that I think people take for granted. These are things that could change a person’s life in the blink of an eye, for better or for worse. The scariest thing about this whole story, is it happened in about 10 seconds, and these were all the things that ran through my head in this short of time.