all the broken hearts in the world still beat, lets not make it harder than it has to be

it's lunch time already.  where did the morning go?  it was probably lost in a spontaneous combustion of answering the phone, composing numerous emails, releasing orders, applying credits, petting my favorite thursday office pup, and nerding out on my latest purchases.  a solar shower for our Moab trip and leg guards for mountain biking.  please don't be fooled.  leg guards could make me sound far more bad ass than i am.  in actuality, i am a wimp and the thick grass and over growth on the shoreline trail cuts my legs.  yes, i now own leg guards to protect me from the grass.  i am a nerd.  but either way it still makes me wanna take a camping/mountain bike road trip this weekend.

what a month july has been.  such awesome-ness.  so much awesome that i have been meaning to write for several weeks but didn't know where to start.  so now i sit in front of a piece of paper with a list of no less than 7 topics that have created a fury of excitement in my world.  for starters.  of the next 40 days i will only be in the office for 19 of them.  that's awesome.  until i come back from all those trips.  that part is less awesome.  but worth it.

it all started about a month ago.  an email with the subject line titled: "Experience of  Lifetime".  of course i was all ears.  there was a place for ONE qbp employee to join a volunteer experience on the Hopi reservation in AZ.  but since there was only one spot available and there are nearly 500 of us who work here there was going to be a fight to the death.  ok.  it wasn't really like that...not that you believed me anyway.  instead, those of us who were interested in going on an 8 day trip to arizona to build an adobe house in temps at and/or around 115 degrees filled out an application to be a part of the experience of a lifetime.  of course my application submission was accompanied by some silly remark about how i would be the chosen one.  always have to keep the positive vibes flowing.  i used to need all the help i could get.  i'd venture to say these days the tide has turned and i'm realizing that i am turning into a pretty rad human.  i digress.  not long after my application was submitted i received an email that read:

"You are the numero uno pick for the In Good Co experience, Brooke! Congrats. You had a solid application and Mike had nothing but good things to say about you. Pack your bags! Well, not quite yet. Do you accept? It’s going to be a tough gig but what doesn't kill you, yeah?"

a smarter person may have been deterred by his warning of it being a "tough gig".  not me.  i was, and still am, completely stoked.  i'm excited to volunteer my time to help a family who needs it.  a little sweat never hurt anybody.  and i get to sleep in a bed every night and shower everyday.  that's really all any reasonable girl could ever ask for.  i absolutely cannot wait.

from the time i was an impressionable elementary student i have had a very deep curiosity and appreciation for native american culture.  perhaps it was the beautiful scenes of nature in which native americans were always portrayed in our textbooks.  nature and i go way back.  regardless.  not only is this an opportunity to give of myself to help others but its an opportunity to experience, know, and love a culture for which i have long held a great amount of respect.  exceeding my greatest expectations.

i head out on august 23rd and return on august 30th.  i'll do my best to share the experience here.  although i'll probably be overwhelmed with inexplicable emotions, thoughts, and experiences so it might take me a bit to get around to putting my thoughts/feelings to words.  i appreciate your patience....all 2 of you who even still read this thing.  :)