Ancestors

During the NH job, I started doing genealogy research. I am addicted.
I never knew much about my ancestors at all, not even my grandpa on my dad's side. All I knew is that he died 4 days after I was born and that he could be mean.
I have traced my ancestry back to the late 1550's/early 1600's to Eiserfeld, Siegen, Germany. I don't know much about those early ancestors, but I'm finding out little things about the more recent ones, like my great grandfather owned a little store across from a methodist church and he played the organ.
My great great grandfather was a highly respected farmer.
My great great great grandfather was a pioneer of Jefferson County, Illinois.
My great great great great grandfather I don't know much about, but my great grandfather x5 served in the revolutionary war. He supposedly came to the US from Germany around 1767....I'm still trying to figure out his story.

I never thought about my ancestors much before, but now they are a passion. I'd like to find out more little stories about them. My dad and uncles and I are in the midst of trying to locate the family bible, it holds a ton of info, and probably the little stories I want to hear.

I'm starting to babble....must go to sleep!

Burning Out

I haven't been home for more than two weeks since Memorial day. I think I have mentioned that before.
When I am home, I have been trying to do too much I think.
I have put off things I have NEEDED to do for things I have WANTED to do.
I was told today I may be going on 3 or 4 jobs in July. This is stellar for the compnay, things I really taking off, and I think I have had a lot to do with that.
However, is this sometihng that's good for me?
I normally rack up overtime hours on travel jobs, which is good
I don't have to pay for anything while I'm gone, which is good

I spend all my time with people that are very different from me, which is fine.
They tend to be kind of cynical, I think it damages my aura/psyche/whatever- not so good.

I come home feeling totally deprived of affection- not so good for me.

I worry about the ferrets while I'm gone. John (my landlord) takes great care of them, but I still worry.

The answer I' am coming up with is that going on jobs all the time, while advantageous monetarily, is not so good for ME.

I think part of it is me still adjusting to traveling every few weeks and trying to figure out where my limits are when I come back.

I think part of it is being tired all the time. We've been working mostly night jobs, and switching back to day time isn't always smooth.

I do not feel right today. I think that may have had to do with my 2nd Gaurdasil such. That shit F**king hurts. My arm is still sore today, and I"m wondering if my funk is somehow tied to the shot.

I want to believe it is, I don't want to feel funky of my own accord.

I'm not going in to detail of why, but I found out today I'm quite afraid of and facsinated by cancer. Afraid because it strikes regardless of pretty much anything, facsinated because it has to do with cell mutations in our own bodies and how cells decided to mutate.

That added to my funky-ness.

ALSO, then train came by about 6am this morning. I went back to sleep. I slept through the alarm and woke up at 8:20...10 minutes before I normally get to work. While I was oversleeping, I had a dream that I went down a little alley way in my car, and that the end had been blocked off by a couple of open gates or something. I started to close the gates so I could get past, and this women came out of a house and told me to come inside. I had to wait arounf for her husband to come out so he could yell at me for moving the gates. I think everytime the alarm went off, I tried to leave in the dream, but someone kept telling me I couldn't leave. It took me all day to figure out that's what actually happened. I was somewhat amused.

Anyway, that's it.

As usual, I didn't spell or grammar check.

Notes from the Road: NY x 2

The boys and I went to New York for two jobs. The first day of the first job was on the summer solstice.

The trip started off with me worrying we wouldn't get to the rental place on time. I then got to drive a cargo van (with no side windows)through New york city. During rush hour. I can't remember the last time I was so stressed about driving. Especially cause I tend to use my blinker when I change lanes or try and merge. Apparently that is a sign of weakness in the Northeast. I decided the Northeast in general should be called 'the land of many merges'.

Anyway, we got to the hotel in one piece. It was not the best hotel...a little on the scary side.

That night at dinner we had indian food. The next morning I had a little bit of an allergic reaction...the whole left half of my bottom lip was numb.

The first job was spread out on different roads. we had to jump around alot with the land surveying equipment. About halfway theough the surveying I screwed up and ended up having to redo half of it. That's when I fried myself on surveying.

The only thing that shuts us down is lightning. There was lightning and pretty heavy showers on this job.

The next job was about 1.5 hours North of the first job. The site was sort of out in a little rural town. It cracked me up that one of the roads we turned on to get there was called Shivertown Road.

Part of our work area included the foundation of a building that had burned down. We had to run our survey lines inthe foundation and up over the walls. It was logistical nightmare of sorts.

At night at this site there was just a TON of fireflies. It was awesome. Kind of like at the olymnpics when everyones camera flash is going off- that was about the number and frequency of the fireflies.

The consultant on this job was a female geologist. We got along great and talked about all sorts of things. It was really nice to have another girl in the field. I think her being there made the guys realize there are just some things girls DO and it's not just ME.

Those were the highlights that I can remember....it's been a few weeks.

Notes from the road: NH and MA

The last job site was on the border of New Hampshire AND Massachusetts. Literally, half of a survey would be in each state. I thought it was funny.

This trip reinforces why I heart Southwest airlines....at least on of my connections was early to AND from the job.


This one was another overnight job, so when we got to the hotel on Monday I thought I'd stay up kind late to try and switch over to a night time schedule. Since I'm going to Germany sometime in the next few months, and since I knew I had german ancestors, I decided to do a little genealogy research. I researched for 6-7 hours that night alone, and got back to the 1600's. Luckily other Stonecipher's have done lots of research on the common older ancestors, so getting back that far wasn't so bad. I'm still trying to verify the stuff I found. From that point on, I have been totally addicted to researching my families genealogy...more on that in another post.

This job went pretty well, we 'rented' a guy to help us with traffic control and stuff, which worked out pretty well until the last night of the job when he just didn't show up cause he couldn't get a ride....but didn't call to tell us that.

The entire crew is a little burnt out on traveling. I'm defintily burnt out with land surveying. I get so anxious about whether I'm doing stuff right that I tend to make more mistakes. Luckily the guys still need practice on learning land surveying so I didn't get stuck doing all of it this time.

The consultant on was female (yay!) which is always refreshing/relieving for me. We found out that we both took a class from Dr. Van Brahana at the Univ. of Arkansas. Sometimes it's a small world.

It was not an eventful job, that's mostly good when jobs are uneventful.

That's about it, I have to back track and write about NY.

I don't want to go to NH

This summer I have been going out on field jobs every week or two since Memorial Day. Up until this trip, leaving was just something that would be done, no questions or reservations.
I do not want to go to New Hampshire tomorrow.
I can't figure out why.
The job is short- only 3 nights.
As I wrote that sentence, I fully realize that this is an overnight job. The last overnight jobs we had were Florida and Texas, which were not so good, for various reasons. I also realized, after reviewing my field notes from those last two overnight jobs, that I don't funtion if I don't get enough sleep. Invariably, things happen during the course of the night which usually causes us to stay later than intended, leaving us less than 8 hours to get back to the hotel and get back to the site. Which means 5-6 hours of sleep.
Well, now that I figured out why I dont want to go, I am going to go pack. While I pack, I am going to visualize the job going well and getting enough sleep.

Nebulous Thoughts

I want to dance barefoot on the grass
have the wind carry my laughter
to a place where it is needed

I would climb the apple tree again
just for the thrill
to pick a sour apple

My mind is flying everywhere
so many thoughts
which to snatch and ponder?


I saw photos of the universe
from the hubble telescope
so much wonder

How do we come...
from hydrogen clouds and dying stars?

Unimaginably big, the gorgeous universe
and me, so tiny

My mind is a nebula
forming melodic stars
from time to time

The longing to create
is my connection, my song

How do we come...
from hydrogen clouds and dying stars?

A circle that's not so vicious

I don't recall if I have blogged about feeling 'disconnected' to the universe. If not, the past several months I have felt the disconnect.

In Brian Fround's Fairy Card deck, the card Ekstasis represents the 'song' that fills the universe. It is a feeling of ecstasy and universal energy. It is this song that joins all of us and everything in the world together.
The concept of the Ekstasis card resonates with me. When I feel connected, it's like I can feel and hear a humming or vibration, which I assume is caused by being tuned in to the frequency of the Ekstasis energy. When I am disconnected, there is nothing.

When I first moved to Colorado, I was grateful. Grateful to have a job, grateful to those who had helped me along the way, and grateful to the universe and the powers that be, whatever name you may call them by.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped being grateful. It was wierd though...before, the feeling of being grateful was like a vibration in my being, it was something nearly physical. Later, the matter of bring grateful was cerebral...there was no longer a vibration associated with the 'feeling'.

The loss of the grateful vibration also signaled the loss of my connection to the universe.

I have struggled with how to get the connection back in the past few months, and nothing has worked consistently.

Last night, I went out with 4 good friends of mine. We started off having martinis, ate sushi, bar hopped a bit, and danced a little. It was such a great experience, and soooo much fun.

I realized today that I started to hear/feel the humming again, that my connection was returning.

I started to analyze why that was- here is what I came up with:

I have thought for a while that the meaning of life has to do with the relationships we have with one another. What is life but a series of interactions with others?
I started to realize that my interactions with quality people, people whose company I enjoy, has been severly limited the past few months due to traveling and my own hermit-ish-ness. This somehow adversly affects my connection to the universe.
Being around people I truely enjoy has somehow corrected my connection.

I used to be fairly stressed about my job performance and the amount of time it took to do things. I think the stress actually caused me to perform poorly and add time because I was constantly worried about it. At some point, I adopted the attitude that things will get done when they get done and that's that. Hurrying to finish will only make things worse, so just take the time to do things right.

Those are the two major thoughts I had anyway...I'm sure there are more little things.

With the connection to the universe returning, so is the vibrational gratitude.

So, in my moment of reclaimed gratitiude, I want to thank my friends for sticking by me. I know it's hard to keep up with my travel schedule, and I appreciate the effort y'all take in working with me. Thank you for helping me to reconnect to Ekstasis.

As I typed those words, the song became louder and stronger within me. And so begins the circle. A circle that is not so vicious.