MY BIRTHDAY!!!

Today was my Birthday.
As far as birthdays go it wasn't too bad. But then again I have had some interesting ways of celebrating my birthday. Some notable birthdays were spent knee deep in a bog, or at a sewage treatment facility. One year when I was young a few days before my birthday party 1/2 my guests decided they couldn't come because they had been invited to another party that sounded more exciting. I spent my 19th birthday working at a summer camp so there was definitely no major partying to celebrate my reaching the age of majority. That year my sister also ate the piece of birthday cake my parents had sent me. So as far as birthdays go I have learned to have low expectations.

This birthday in comparison was pretty awesome. I woke up at 6:55am (the time of my birth) and then went out for breakfast with my parents. (I had french toast and cake.) We then drove to the beach and my mom and I went kayaking for 3 hours. It was a beautiful day for it too- not too hot and not too windy. We had just the right amount of waves to make things interesting but not too tiring. Then my Dad met us with cream puffs from Culbert's bakery (these things are soo delicious!) I spent the afternoon chilling at home and had a lovely chat with my sister who lives in Alberta. Then I went out for dinner with my parents and Grandma.

As you can see I am not a wild party animal but today was nice.
My paddle was enjoyable although ask me again tomorrow because I might have sore arms. However it was definitely necessary to work off all of my cake and cream puff eating.

I'm going Nuts!

So moving day has come and gone, and I am now once again living with my parents. This in itself poses its own unique challenges and changes. However the biggest challenge right now is trying to fit my house into my room. Everything fit so nicely into my apartment, however it is really hard to put all that back into my childhood room that was never completely emptied in the first place. I am in the process of cleaning out my room and throwing out a lot of stuff I didn't realize I still had. However this process is made difficult by the large amount of things I have in my room- I need my clothes and some things in my room and easy to access but this is hard since there is no space or empty drawers for them. Basically I have resorted to an old college trick of moving stacks of stuff from my floor to my bed and from my bed to my floor depending on which space I need the most. It's not the most efficient system however so the cleaning needs to happen sooner rather than later.


Today was my second day working on this monumental task. To date I have emptied:
4 milk crates/ milk crate sized bins
4 1/2 large cardboard boxes
3 1/2 dresser drawers
as well as gone through my closet and drawers and identified a large stack of clothes for the second hand store.

Today I was mainly working on some boxes in my closet which mainly contain old compositions, knick-knacks, crafts, etc. from kindergarten to highschool. Some of these items are treasured momentos, others are humorous stories (perhaps I'll post some sometime.) and there is always a hefty dose of junk and detritus. Perhaps one of the strangest things I found was this:  (pic from google)

What would you do if you found something like this lying on your closet floor? Perhaps you already know what this is, I however did not. So I did the only sensible thing a person could do. - I took it outside, smashed it with a rock, and examined/ smelled the remnants. Turns out it was a Brazil nut. I have never seen or eaten a Brazil nut, and as far as I can tell neither has any of my family members. Yet somehow a Brazil nut ended up in my bedroom closet.

In honour of this strange occurrence here are some interesting facts about Brazil nuts:

• They are an excellent source of selenium, copper, magnesium and phosphorous
• Perhaps they are too good of a source of selenium- you can easily eat way more than the recommended daily intake of selenium with just a handful of nuts
• They also contain high quantities of Barium and Radium (not enough to take an X-ray but still 1000x higher than many other foods)
• They are a very fatty nut and can apparently be lit like a candle
• The Brazil nut tree relies on a special bee to pollinate it so it produces fruit, this bee relies on a certain orchid to reproduce, this orchid is sensitive to rainforest deforestation, so without a healthy rainforest there are no brazil nuts 
• Botanically speaking the Brazil nut isn't really a nut but a seed
• Most wild Brazil nuts are planted by a guinea pig- sized rodent called the Agouti. The Agouti chews through the hard outer casing to get to the "nuts" it eats a few and then buries the rest- forgetting about them like North American squirrels and chipmunks.
• Brazil nut oil can also be used for a lubricant for clocks, artist paints and cosmetics

Small Towns

Small Towns are great, I love them, they are the perfect size for this introverted blogger. I grew up in a small town, made even smaller since within that small town I was part of an ethnic enclave of dutch immigrant farmers which made up my school and church community.
I love the small town I grew up in.
I love that I don't need google maps to figure out where I am going.
I love that the streets are in a grid pattern rather than a confusing twisting subdivision so if I miss a turn I just have to go around the block.
I love that I know where to go if I need groceries, clothes, medicine, dutch treats or a good bakery.
I love that I know where the good hiking trails are if I want to go for a walk, and that the beach is only 20 mins away.
I love that my Grandma and cousins and family are close by.
I love that the streets aren't crowded and people actually know how to drive.
I love that I don't feel claustrophobic, or overwhelmed or intimidated by the streets, people or driving.
I like that I don't feel self conscious about going for a jog when the inspiration strikes.  
I even don't mind waiting behind a tractor, or the smell of freshly spread manure.

There are many things I love about the small town and community I grew up in yet for some reason I still am not very excited about moving back there at the end of the week.
Maybe it is because I like the independence of living on my own.
Maybe it is because I feel a little like a failure having to move back in with my parents since I don't have a job.
Maybe it is because I hate moving and packing.

Or maybe it is because my hometown isn't really home anymore. I grew up there and I love the place, but I haven't lived there for 5 years. I have been there for visits but I haven't lived there. I have roots there, but I also have branches that reach far beyond my hometown and small community. I have friends scattered all over the country and even the world but I don't have any close friends back home. The people back home know my family, they watched me grow up, some of them went to school with me, others taught me or changed my diapers. But they don't know me as I am now. They may have known grade school or high school me. But they do not know me- an independent, intelligent, individual young woman. Instead they know me as "one of the Kuiper girls" or "Mark and Alice's daughter." They know me as the nerdy girl from school, or the goody-goody who actually loved catechism class, only listened to Christian music, and never drank or danced. They don't know the me that likes kayaking, swimming, hiking, camping, drinking wine, listening to good music and dancing on occasion. They don't know that I make delicious lasagna, homemade bread, and strawberry pie. They don't know that even though I am terrible at it I would love to play a game of soccer, Frisbee or volleyball. They don't know me and I don't know them (I am sure they have changed in the past 5 years as well.)

I am scared/ hesitant/ unexcited about moving home since I am afraid I will be really lonely.

It should be easy to go home and strike up a conversation and  get to know them once more- after all we have a shared history. Yet something inside me feels that it would be way easier to move somewhere else, where no one knows me and start over. It is easier getting to know someone when there isn't a pile of shared history, past impressions and old memories to climb over before you get to who they are now. Getting re-acquainted with someone involves overcoming all that- which is much harder than getting over a stereotype, bad first impression or misjudgement. When they already have an idea of who you were it is much harder to introduce them to who you are. Yes, moving somewhere else and starting fresh would be a whole lot easier. But my present circumstances do not afford me that luxury.