11-28-06
I went into 4imprint for a meeting with last Friday, and I had an idea there might be some sort of "hello" for me... at least I was hoping. :) And I wasn't disappointed! I was called out of the meeting room and directed to the back entrance by our break room. There, waiting for me, was a large percentage of the company associates to welcome me back! The maintenance boys were mixing up milkshakes (Oooh, yummy!), and they were serving cookies with chocolate frosting bootprints on them! Kevin, the president of 4imprint, presented me with a check for $3,514.75 written out to the AA&MDSIF for the "Our Hike" event - this is money that they raised while I was gone - they gathered donations, and some employees even made stepping stones, which were auctioned off with the proceeds towards our cause! How freakin' cool is that?! So a big THANK YOU goes out to my fellow co-workers at 4imprint for all the support! Again! :)
This last week for me was interesting. The hard part was I left Oshkosh, Adam, and friends for a week in Phillips. The fun part was that it was a week with family, food, and hunting season. It was an unsuccessful hunt for me, but that didn't matter much - it was a great week. My brother, Scott, did get a really nice 8-pointer, though. That was really exciting - it was his year!!
I really let myself enjoy sitting in my stand in the woods for sometimes 4 hours at a time. I felt the breeze, let me toes go numb from cold, listened to owls hoo-hooing off in the distance, watched crazy, insane red squirrels chatter and run around trees, turkeys bobble through, and even a few deer running too far away for me to get a shot at. It was actually a warmer year than most, so my toes really only went numb once. And I think the most entertaining, and most annoying, were the red squirrels. We felt that the woods were infested with them. I would sit in my stand, and one would notice me, run up the tree right in front of me, then run down, chatter, run up again, stop, look at me, chatter, grunt, chirp, grunt, chatter, run down the tree, then sit it one spot and chirp consistently until I batted an eyelash. Then he'd run his tail off down the tree, through the leaves to another tree a little far away where he'd repeat his little dance. Crazy things...
Scott and I did some long walks just bushwhacking through the woods, and that was fun, as always. Scott tried running after some turkeys, but we found that even though they seem clumsy when they fly, they can sure run! I guess they can run up to 40 mph! Yikes! So needless to say, he didn't quite catch up to them. I learned a lot more about the woods we hunt again this year, so next year I'll feel even more comfortable just wandering.
So Thanksgiving week, hunting season... it's all over. It's usually sort of sad for me to leave all the excitement and have to go back home where it's quiet. But I was excited to be back home with Adam, and now I start work on Monday, Dec. 4, so I'm looking forward to that, too. I'm certainly not having any trouble keeping busy!
And to end my entry for this week, I found something out talking to a friend over hunting season. She asked me how I was feeling after the hike, and I actually blurted out just how I felt. I said, "I don't feel any different. I feel like I did before I left, but now I have all these memories and experiences in my heart and in my mind. It's kind of like it was all supposed to happen - like it was all part of the plan." So here I am, same old Robin, happy to be same old Robin... I just now have a lot of new friends, a lot of great memories, and stories to share.