Go eat a cookie.

Welp, I bought a new car.

Oh, hi! 2012 Subaru Outback! Welcome to my life. 

Obviously I didn't take this picture, but my car looks exactly like this..I promise. 
All of my pictures are either grainy nighttime pictures from the night I first bought it, or from a day since the snowstorm we got.  Snowstorm=Denver panics and puts down 72 inches of salt and gravel over every inch of every road which makes my white Subaru look...well...horrible.

Anyway...all that to say I'm too cheap to get another car wash cuz hey, I just bought a brand new car! Maybe tomorrow.

So that's my new baby.  I love it.  Gets good gas milage, they're built well, and it looks outdoorsy so I can pretend like I'm a true Coloradian now.  Coloradoian? Coloradoan....?

In other news, I bought Girl Scout Cookies today.  I was going to wait, but they caught me at a weak moment outside the grocery store.  I had just worked out, I hadn't eaten dinner yet, and I was about to buy groceries so food was on my mind.  I'm not even kidding, I had two rows of Samoas eaten before I even got to my shopping cart.  The funny thing was, I was being intentional this time about getting healthy food.  Apples, grapes, grapefruit, brussel sprouts (seriously, kirsten? yes.).  The more healthy food I was putting in my cart...the more Cookies I would eat.  It was like my sick and twisted way of rewarding myself.  Peanut butter (the natural kind, although I'm sure the trade off for less fat is that you get more bug legs in your jar), whole wheat bagels and tortillas.  Cookie.  Ground turkey instead of ground beef, egg whites, for sure a Cookie.  Yogurt, milk....three more Cookies.

And thats Cookies, with a capital C.

On my way out of the grocery store, I was on a bit of a sugar high and basically wanted to save the world.  Hey, it's for a good cause, right?  Two more boxes, please!

Every picture of inanimate objects is better with a Quincy in it. 

So, speaking of cookies.  I'm training for my second Half Marathon! Wheeee!
Here's my training schedule.  I kinda mixed two plans (beginner and intermediate) and tweaked it to my schedule...and this is what I came up with. Oh, also...I made it colorful.  Because that just makes it better. 

Well, I guess that's all for now.
Until next time, support your local Girl Scout troops! Eat cookies! Then eat healthy food! Buy a hedgehog! Get to the gym! Tell me you like my new car (just kidding...but seriously)!

Have a Happy Tuesday!

Bucket List Parallels

In the past 5 months I've accomplished two of my major bucket list items. 

-Move to a new state...preferably one with mountains.
-Jump out of a perfectly good airplane...preferably with a parachute and professional attached to me.

Check and check.

Although they are super different life experiences, some of the fundamentals of finding enjoyment out of the two are very similar.

If someone pushed me out of the airplane against my will, or even forced me to go skydiving to begin with....I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it.

Same thing goes for cliff jumping.   At my best friend's cabin last summer, we went cliff jumping into the lake.  We all jumped or dove, from varying heights according to our comfort level...but if someone didn't want to, we didn't make them.  Of course everyone at times needs a little encouragement.  And a little peer pressure is good when you know deep down the person wants to.  But we never forced anyone.

If you're forced to jump, the whole fall you are in panic mode.  You don't enjoy the experience. You are angry and freaked out.  If anything goes wrong, you blame the people who pushed you against your will.  Sometimes you even try to grab onto something to stop the fall. Anything to get back to that comfort zone.

I've found this same concept to be true for moving...or any new life change for that matter.

If I had been forced to move to Colorado, at the first sign of loneliness or fear I would have panicked.   I would have blamed the situation or person for forcing me to move.  I probably would have become bitter.  I maybe would have wanted to get back to that comfort zone so badly that I would have moved back.  I probably wouldn't be seeking out new adventures.  Trying new churches all by myself.  Putting myself out there by hanging out with new people. 

But thank God, it WAS my choice. I wasn't forced or pushed.  I was led here by God through a lot of prayer, internal interests, and crazy "God-things".  I chose to jump.  I'd like to think that even if life's circumstances had forced me to move, I would still do everything the same as I am now and have the same positive attitude about things...but I'm not really sure.

When I get lonely or bored it's my responsibility to either fix that by prayer and/or action... or just dwell in it for awhile and then move on.  I don't have anyone or anything to blame.  

And I love that. 

So choose your own adventures.  Follow where God is leading you.  Don't be scared of the leap.  You can have all the support and encouragement in the world (which you should!!), but YOU have to take the leap of faith into your own new adventure.  We all are pushed and forced into life's twists and turns enough the way it is. 

My new adventure was born out of getting laid off.  Not exactly something I wanna celebrate.  But God had a plan through all of that and He chose to share it with me.

Now, I live in Colorado.  And am loving it.    :)

And the adventure has just begun.....

Yes, I live here.

Today was the day.

Today I woke up and fully realized that...I live in Colorado.  For the first time.  My new adventure is now my new reality.  I love it.  I love making new friends and exploring new places. People are really great about inviting you to do stuff here. I saw the movie The Vow with some new friends this weekend...so good.  Made me in a super lovey-dovey-sappy-girly mood after though.  Weird how movies do that.  And on Monday I hung out with my friend from college who lives here and had fun watching The Bachelor and Gossip Girl (don't judge me) with her. I am blessed to have her here and be able to catch up again! And yesterday for Valentines Day I went with another new girl friend to watch one of my high school classmates play ECHL hockey! It ended up being a really fun game to watch and it was fun to get to know her a little more.   We laughed a lot.  And I needed that :)

I stood in the wrong line at the DMV the other day (getting my CO license!) for 20 minutes.  Whoops.  Guess I should have paid less attention to the world's strangest couple (seriously) and more attention to the sign that specified which line was for what. Also, I had an identity crisis.  When filling out the info for the license, the lady looks at me and goes, "Blonde hair, green eyes?" Um....no, brown hair, brown eyes.  We compromised on hazel eyes.  But really, I think the water here is making my hair lighter.  Or maybe it was because 90% of the people in the DMV that day were Hispanic or African American. Or maybe she saw me wait in the wrong line and just assumed.....
Either way, don't worry, I'm legally still a brunette.  

Yes, I love all the new little adventures.  But at the same time, of course I miss the familiar.  I miss being able to call up my best friend that knows everything about me and ask last minute if she wants to go shopping or just hang out and talk about everything and nothing at the same time.  I miss coming home to my roomie where anything we do, whether its sitting on the couch watching t.v., or trying out experiments for her youth group and laughing so hard we can't breathe....we always have fun and just enjoy each other's company. I miss all my other friends that all have other unique things that I love and miss about them. I miss the lakes of Minnesota.  I miss my church.  I miss the familiar.

All of these emotions were hitting me on the drive to work this morning.

But then...when I thought today was going to be a struggle to get through....I honestly had one of the best days yet at my new job.  Nothing super significant happened, it was actually pretty uneventful. But through various small things I was completely affirmed that this is exactly where I am supposed to be right now. I love that.  I honestly don't know how people who don't have faith can get through big life changes.

Although she probably didn't realize it, last week my friend Emily came to visit at such a perfect time.  I've been here long enough to be able to know some cool places to show her, but all of this realization of being so far from home was starting to really hit me.  It was nice to have some familiarity come to my new reality and showing her how beautiful this state is made me proud to call this my new home.

We actually did a lot in the few days she was here.  From checking out some of the touristy mountain towns to going to a Gopher/Pioneer hockey game and temporarily kidnapping someone (True story...).

   Emily in Loveland. Look a lake!

 

On the road to Estes Park.

We're not in Minnesota anymore!! Garden of the gods in Colorado Springs.

Hey Emily, thanks for coming and letting me have an excuse to pretend like I was on vacation, too!

In other news...this weekend my parents are coming to....*drumroll please...* HELP ME BUY A NEW CAR!!! Well, a new SUV to be exact.  I'm pumped.  However I'm freaked out about having a car payment...and actually sad to part with my little silver Grand Am.  I will never forget the past 9 years we spent together.  It's not you...well, actually yes it is you.

 I bought a vacuum last week.  That was big news in the...Kirsten & Quincy household.  He still loves Colorado too, by the way.  He runs on his little wheel like there is no tomorrow.  He's training with me for the half marathon this spring too.  Ok, not really but at this point I bet he could beat me.  I gotta get back in the training mode here pretty soon.  Official training starts the end of this month, bah! That's a good thing, though.  My snack stash at work is getting the best of me lately. It really is an impressive array of snacks though, I must admit. 

Anyway, that's all for now.  But I'll leave you with this.  There is a little card sitting on our break room table at work with a picture of a little girl from a Latin American country with a huge smile on her face, with this verse written below it: "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer".  That verse has really reminded me these past few weeks on the simple yet profound way to get through both the ups and downs of life.

Joyful in hope.  Patient in affliction.  Faithful in prayer.

Amen.