Painting a picture with a keyboard

So, Albert Lea is SO weiirrddd. I sometimes dont leave our little townhome for days (literally - and can you blame me? Today it was ONE degree Fahrenheit - not Celcius, mind you, FAHRENHEIT and Lucy's little cheeks got wind burnt last time we went out. And we literally dashed from the townhome to the car and were only outside 3 minutes! So I forget. But when I do leave, I am quickly reminded how weird it is.

We went to the mall today - HILARIOUS. So weird - the kind of mall where the town's insurance agency is in it. The only store you have ever even heard of before (excluding Hallmark) is Claire's. They do have a handmade mini golf course run by the 'Rock of Christ' youth group though that is open from 6:30 PM to 9 PM on Fridays and Saturdays, which was our primary purpose in going to the mall. Pretty sweet mini golfing - they had one hole that was made of hockey goals and pucks - very innovative and creative! Howeverm the guy running it was bored out of his mind and is now our new best friend. I definitely could use some friends in this town, but still...

Ryan wanted to bring in our camcorder into Walmart the other day because, according to him, the whole store was especially full of 'crazy old zombies.' All of them Christmas shopping slow as molasses, not moving out of his way, and almost backing up into him as he tried to get back to the car. Everyone in this town is old, REALLY old (the population of this city literally keeps decreasing because people keep dying). Or fat. Like very fat. Or old and fat. I dont mean to be rude, it is just SUCH a weird population dynamic and I have never seen anything like it before!

And nobody seems very stoked to be here, yet my impression is that people generally are not very successful when it comes to escaping this town. The story of so so many of the people that Ryan and I have met here is that the town is boring and there is NOTHING to do, so people have sex and get pregant when they're still teenagers. And they have no money so they get stuck in this tiny, sad little town with no education, no skills, and no prospects. Their parents help raise the kid, and the kid grown up and the same thing happens to the kid. I am not exaggerating - the people who grow up here stay here and never get out, although they all want to. Its really pretty depressing. My model is pro-abortion just because that happened to her parents and her older sister. yikes! When we voted, the lady who registered me to vote was all 'a passport? That is the 1st time I have ever seen anybody register with a passport!' They dont get out much.

I feel like I SHOULD have a lot of life experience by now. Ryan and I have moved 9 times in our 4.5 years of marriage. We lived in England. We went to BYU-H. We have both traveled, thanks to our dad's jobs. We have the Gospel perspective. But I really feel like my time here is schooling me as to what so much of America is like that I have never seen before. Poor - quite downtrodden. It has absolutely come as a shock to me and helped me realize how grateful I should be for the insane amount of blessings I have in my life. And I am hoping it will help me learn how to be a more charitable person.

A really funny testimony

So, this happened 2 months ago, but I just wanted to write it all down to share. I wanted to bear my testimony in church about this experience, but since it requires WAY too much background info, it would have taken the whole meeting to share. So YES, Albert Lea is an insanely weird place in between 2 other equally weird places (those 2 places being Austin MN - Spam City USA - where Hormel stared and the city where they slaughter 10,000 pigs a day for Hormel - I just keep asking myself 'what are we doing here?'). See the post after this one for more about Albert Lea.

So a few of my friends have commented that they were suprised I could find a model is such a small town whose population is composed of at least 90% old people. And it IS crazy that I was able find a model for Ebay. This is literally what happened. With $700 a month in our loan payments, Ryans paycheck would not be able to cover our month to month, expenses, so quitting Ebay was not an option. We had less than $500 in savings and credit card bills due soon. I had gone to Walmart, the grocery store, and the ghetto mall several times looking for a model. It was beginning to really be a problem and I found myself again thinking 'I cant model myself, my butt is huge - maybe I could model the larger sizes.' And I began to get depressed and stressed out and I kept praying to the Lord 'what am I going to do?' because Ryan's paychecks would NOT be able to pay all our expenses. Then, the funniest thought came to my head; 'well, Satan can't stop me from helping to support my family.' Ryan was very practical when he came home that day and was like 'well, we just need to just keep searching until we find someone.' So the next day, he got off work early and we showed up to the high school as school let out (hope that puts a funny picture in your mind me and Ryan cruisin with Lucy, looking for chicks with skinny legs). There had to be a thousand girls, and yet no one was any good. Braces - big butts - super super fake baked - really bad acne - and most importantly - UNskinny thighs. I was like 'crap.' So we are driving around - stopping at the community college, shopko (its like a Kmart), anywhere we can think of. I am driving, and although the town is not big, I manage to go the wrong way and get lost. But then, walking on the side of the road is a girl with skinny thighs! I had to really summon my guts, but I pulled a u-ie (how do you write that word?) and gave her a flyer (oh, yes, I made flyers to hand out!). I hardly looked at her but she looked great. Skinny, skinny thighs. but I didnt want to appear like a weirdo and ask for her phone number. So I get back into the car, and Ryan is like 'you didnt get her number - what if she doesnt call you?' (the flyer had our phone #). And I am like - you're right, I am a wimp. But then she is gone and we have no idea where she went. And I am like CRAP the only girl in the whole city with tiny thighs - gone!

And so we go home, and then 2 hours later she calls and wants to do it! And she is awesome! I found Alex (my model) JUST in the nick of time. We took a ton of artsy pictures (which are awesome if I do say so myself) for me to re-vamp my webpage literally 3 days before it got DEATHLY cold and frozen outside. And even though she had no modeling experience, it looked like she totally knew what was up (maybe she wants to be on top).

It seems like such a silly testimony builder, but how it all worked out made me absolutely know that God was aware of my situation and would help me in even the most random, silliest way. I am willing to work my BUTT of on Ebay to find the items, fix them, measure them, list them, and ship them, but the ONE part that was out of my control was finding a model. And the entire success of my business depends on having a model. And so he helped me find one. A funny thing to make me feel the Lord's awareness of me, but I have been so grateful for that help. It just proves to me that the Lord can do anything and that everything is in his power. As far as I am concerned, he might as well have poofed a model out of thin air. Now I just have to keep doing the hard work part. And yes, the pictures are HOT even if I do say so myself.