this is it.

these old things are officially retired...











__________________________________

i learned so much this year... lots of obvious things i'm sure i've covered over the span of this blog. this blog i want to talk about things i learned that i didn't anticipate on learning... so here it is...
my list of things i never planned on learning: ( i know there's a lot more... but i limited myself to ten)

1) i've learned that i can live completely comfortably& contently on these things: face wash, toothpaste/brush, body wash, deodorant... some clothes and food. these are my essentials... this list has majorly shrunk since the beginning. totally life-giving to find that less is more.

2) you don't need to be a part of the finished product of something to feel good about it. this is a huge concept i'm glad to have learned by putting it to practice. this program has had me a part of the ongoing process of a lot of projects... and when i have to leave it unfinished, i can just be glad i left it better off than when i started it. The end results might not come for years, and i'm ok with that.

3) i'm a lot stronger than i thought i was. (while i don't mean muscles, you might find yourself impressed with my bulging biceps when i return home...) no but really, you don't know how strong you truly are until you've been in positions that literally take all that you can give... until you've been at the end of your rope and come back stronger than ever.

4) people around you are there for a reason. everyone has something to teach you.... and it's more than ok to ask for help. it's totally ok to have really weak moments in front of people that you know and love. they will not only love you through it, but help you with it.

5) i am normal! well...as normal as everyone else. living with 12 other people shows you that you aren't all that different from those around you. people have the same basic needs. real people experience real emotions and moods and it's ok to let yourself feel them.

6) life goes on without me... i know... real shocker to me as well...
Saginaw got along just fine without me this year... now that being said, i think i have a lot to offer and i'm excited for the opportunity to do that at home. this year definitely changed the way my relationship is with my cell phone... it's convenient to use but not attached to my hip.

7) no one in this world has a better support system than i do. this is the biggest blessing in my life, and it's one i hope to never take for granted.... i have awesome friends that love me for me and never failed to encourage me from miles across the country.

8) that it is actually true what they say about your mom!
they always told me that when i left home that me and my mom would become best friends...when they told me this, i was a little brat in middle school... but who knew it would be true? people would always tell me how much alike we were.
this year... i found myself calling her just to talk to her. because i missed her. this is crazy to me! honestly she is the most incredible women on this planet and is of course... married to the best of the best.

9) that i can live anywhere with anyone...even in the most weird of situations... as long as i can wake up in the morning excited about what i'm about to do and go to sleep at night fully knowing that what i did that day was absolutely meaningful.

10) aka the BIG ONE
i was under this impression that i was doing this thing...AmeriCorps, because i know exactly who i was and what i had to offer. i thought i knew just what i wanted out of life...
that is laughable to me now.... because
i. don't. know.
i will never fully know.
but that's so ok. why? because there are these little moments in life when you just stop and say "yeah... this is why"

i'm more of myself today than i was yesterday. more than i have even been before. i am learning from that.

my name is abigail dehart and i'm in this constant process & i'm finding that i'm finally beginning to understand exactly what that means.

help.

please tell me how i'm supposed to fit everything back into my bag?


-really soon guys!


abigail
in processssss

the grand countdown

5 more days until i'm on a plane home to saginaw, michigan : ]
it's becoming more and more real...

my flight gets in at 10:06 PM on July 27th. the time zone difference makes it somewhat inconvenient because i'll be losing two hours, but that's ok... i'll probably be pretty tired on tuesday anyway.

so on the last day of travel, we stopped at garden of the gods in colorado springs. it was an awesome time and i'm really glad we got to do it. i hadn't been there since i was in 6th grade. (katelyn smith's family and i went there for the day when both of our families were vacationing in colorado at the same time... good memories)
i think i appreciated quite a bit better this time. it is absolutely beautiful.
this week is a lot of boring paperwork and stuff. they probably could have squeezed everything into a few days and graduated us early... but that's ok.
today is the first official day of outprocessing. turning in equipment and signing papers...

-abigail who is a part of outprocessing but also still in process.

hard goodbyes;

Wrapped up the forth and final round yesterday, and climbed into a van with my 13 teammates on our last trip back to denver. It felt very surreal… our amazingly wonderful project sponsors all came over to see us off. It was one of the hardest goodbyes of this year (so far, but the hardest ones are coming up in a week) We had really grown close to all of them. They all contributed so significantly to my two months at the park.
There was Roy. He is more than I can explain in words. He was like our grandpa. He was so incredibly cool . The guy used to be an elephant trainer and now he rides his motorcycle everywhere. He knew everything there was to know about everything, but never acted like it. You know when some people know everything and they know it and make sure you know it? Not him… He knew everything but he still let you try things your own way before he helped you out with a better alternative. He was in charge of us on the trail building and bridge building aspects of the project. He taught me so much about construction while I was there and was so incredibly patient with us. Here's a picture of him testing out the newly finished bridge on his gator.
He had an incredible girlfriend named Amy. They took care of us. Things like taken us out to eat or bringing us donuts for breakfast. We all approved of her for Roy : ]

Our main project sponsors were Paul and Selena. They are such an awesome couple and they both live in the park in a house that is provided by the park. Needless to say… they never really have time off. They were both so happy and content with where they were though. They had us over for an amazing Texas BBQ, and also always let us come over to watch the world cup. I especially got close with Selena. I spent a lot of time talking with her… she is one of the most original people I have ever met. In a lot of ways, she’s a large part of the reason I was able to finish this year strongly.

The other staff members were equally as incredible. I will miss them very much, but I can almost guarantee you that I will be back sometime in the future. The park will look very different, because it’s in the peak of it’s development. I’m excited though. I feel like I’ll always have that home away from home.

So… the bridge was finished! Literally against allllll odds… it’s done. The last day of work we stayed after about 2 hours because we wanted to finish it. Roy and Amy stayed with us, and she took pictures. We were down to our last battery and last bits of energy. It was such a gooooood feeling to finish something we started. A lot of times in this program we get to start a lot, but don’t normally get to finish it ourselves. Now that bridge is our teams… they are putting a sign that says “Earth One” next to the bridge.

Tomorrow is our last day of traveling. We only are about 2 hours from Denver, but we’re gonna sleep in tomorrow and go out to lunch and then to the Garden of the gods for some sight seeing and hiking. I’m really excited.

-abigail in process.

our time is running out.

So, it’s here…
The last week of this project. The last true week of AmeriCorps.
I feel a gazillion things, as I’m sure you’d expect.

I am going to be so sad to leave this park and all of the amazing people who work here. We’ve gotten really close with all of the staff here at Lake Houston Park. We’ve had a lot of them over for dinner, and brought them meals (showing off our awesome cooking skills) p.s…I can kind of cook now : ]
And we’ve been taken out to dinner, had barbeques cooked for us, and gotten to be a part of a lot of really cool things.

I will miss this park most definitely. I love running and walking here. Despite the impossible heat and humidity, it’s been awesome for my active life. I’ve felt a new level of contentedness in this simple, yet incredibly complex place.

I won’t miss the bugs… being covered with mosquito bites all of the time, and the constant threat of poison ivy.

So the past week we were very affected by the rain from the tropical storm. We didn’t get much storm except for an incredible amount of rain. It dumped on us…
Because of this, we did a lot of inside work. We fixed up one of their cabins and did other various odd jobs around the park.
We can’t get out and do much building because the power tools can’t be out in the rain.
but look at how good the bridge looks now : ]
i'm excited.

My 4th of July was different. Hah. No, it was good. We spent it volunteering at the big shin-dig in Houston. Please close your eyes for me and try to picture the 4th of july in Texas.. Really, do it.
Ok… that’s basically how it was.
Really though, I think it’s been cool to spend a lot of my holidays volunteering. I think it makes it a lot easier when you’re away from home to be thinking about others as opposed to what you could be doing and who you could be hanging out with.
Plus we got these cool hats as modeled by my lovely teammates-


So today was 7-11 National Slurpee day. Alas, there are no 7-11’s anywhere near Houston… it’s alright though… my mother got one for me and enjoyed it. She’s so thoughtful, I know what a huge sacrifice that was for her : ]
Also… the World Cup today… phew. Never seen such an ugly, dirty game before. Like 9 yellow cards and one red card?
Good job Spain, but I, of course, was going for the Nederlands because I am a Dutch girl, after all.

-ik ben abigail en ik in proces

ready.

I'm not gonna lie....I don't feel like typing all that much right now, but I haven't updated this in a while and i'm on the internet so... gotta try!

Things that have happened since my last entry...
- more bridge building and trail work

-last weekend, we had to move out of our cabin because it was rented by a group. we went "camping" There are these screened in gazebos in the park where we stayed. They actually weren't bad at all. I liked the whole screened in idea behind it because you still have a roof over your head and a floor under you... but you still feel like you're outdoors. The main problem was that we were so incredibly hot all weekend. the humidity here is a killer

-this part is really fun and exciting...i was the lucky one this month of AmeriCorps to get the random drug test. this meant that i had to go pee in a cup for some poor guy in a clinic. i'm pretty sure he made it about as awkward as possible. the only part of the drug test that i was nervous about was not being able to produce urine when the time came.
weirded out yet?
ok i'll stop.

- we got free tickets to a major league soccer game, but only a few of us wanted to go. it was the houston dynamo v. colorado rapids. it was really fun actually. it made me miss playing soccer a lot though.
you know what else has been making me miss soccer? the world cup! (obviously) I'm all about the Netherlands this year. They will win it all... i'm proud to be a dutch girl : ]

- so we have had some trouble with these local young guys. They trespass on the park's property and build crazy forts and stuff up in trees right where we're trying to make our trail. Anyway, we've been having to tear down their stuff and they don't like this very much.
One day, my teammate Gordy and I got out to the bridge (on the way there we had to dodge a coral snake...freakkky stuff) anyway, we got there and the bridge looked like this...This is not how we built our bridge...My first thought was that the crazy storm the night before was a bit crazier than i thought. my next thought was what really happened... vandalism.
they ripped up one half of the bridge and threw the lumber everywhere. They actually left a footprint trail and the hammer that they used to bust it up.
It was highly frustrating. gordy and i called in to the park management so they could get pictures and contact the police and then decided the only thing to do was to lay down on the part of the bridge that wasn't messed up.

we laid there about a half an hour and pulled ourselves back together. the rest of the day was incredible actually. we both decided that it sucked that it happened, but we had to start fixing it.
the amazing thing is that people came out to help and by the end of that day, the bridge honestly looked better than when we had left it the day before.

AmeriCorps is ridiculous.
in a good way.

i'm learning a lotttttt. i want to completely enjoy my last 3 weeks and finish to the best of my ability... but i also think i'm going to be ready when i get to that point where it will be time to move on.

i'm abigail and i'm in process constantly.