Diane’s World

Howdy world!

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I’m now in….

WASHINGTON!!!

Yup!

It was three days of driving, and I was not about to do it by myself.

So I enlisted this little munchkin to help me out. Doesn’t the corn make her look good? She should consider moving to Iowa. Yes?

I made a few improvements on my own looks as well. I think the country bumpkin life is brilliant on me:

We were at pumpkinland… a wonderful land of pumpkins and corn. And a huge corn maze… it took us about an hour to get in and out of it.

Look Ma! I’m tall! And I didn’t cheat at all! It’s not like I’m wearing 2.5 inch boots at alL!

Anyways our roadtrip started on a Tuesday after I showed Michaele around the wonderful world of Iowa. Here is what our trip looked like:

We decided to do it in three days.

On day one we saw the missouri river in South Dakota. I’m sure Michaele and I have actual pictures of the river, but I think that this sign was much more fun. Uh oh… there are snakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We then took a nice little detour to Mount Rushmore. Once again I am more fascinated by the signs than the amazing scenery… um.. Yeah.

It was a little chilly. Poor Michaele’s ears. Poop.

But we did help out Jefferson a little bit… I bet that booger has been bugging him for ages. Thanks for your civil service, Michaele.

So yeah… we decided to try a self-portrait at the mountain. We had several attempts.

This was our best one:

This is what happens when you let me try to take a good picture:

And this is what happens when a park ranger takes pity on us and offers to take the picture for us:

We didn’t think it was as cool as what we could do. Our photos are the bestest.

In South Dackotah they speelll reall gud.

On our second day, the most memorable pit stop we made was when I saw a sign for a restaurant called “The Purple Cow”. My father used to always tell me this poem:

“I never saw a purple cow

I never wish to see one

But if I saw a purple cow

I’d rather see than be one!!!”

So I made sure to take full advantage of this kodak moment.

In Montana, my dearest Chimichanga hit 80,000 miles! And we were going 80 at the time! How amazing is that? We even made sure to sing “Happy Birthday” to little Chimi. I’ll buy him new Washington License plates in honor of this event.

On the last day of our trip, we stopped at a scenic outlook somewhere in eastern washington.

I wasn’t really paying attention to it though… I think I was really sick of just being in a car by now.

And I think Chimichanga was sick of traveling too.

The only way to cure this problem? Ummm…..

I claim insanity.

I got home to finding out that I have no clue how to turn off my parent’s home security system, and it ended up in me having to explain to a pair of cops what I was doing in a house that doesn’t belong to me. Eeek.

I politely asked them not to arrest me. Hooray that they didn’t!

Anyways, it’s late, and we need to sleep! This is our first night in a long time that we don’t have to wake up early!!! Woopeeeeeeeee! And I still have to unpack the car tomorrow. Rar.

Have a wonderful week everybody!!!!

The Deedles

(and Michaele )

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Howdy world!

Just a quick update on one small thing:

I’ve been continuing with my new hobby… yarn dying, and I thought I’d show my last three attempts!

Attempt #1: Wanted to make a “fall” theme yarn. Used red, brown, yellow and gold dyes. Everything went well… except that the “brown” dye really was a deep olive green. Poo! here are the photos for that one!

These yarns were kettle dyed, which means I put the yarn into a pot and poured the dyes strategically over the yarn.

Result? Something rather amazing. I named this one “scarecrow”

I gave this one to a resident in my nursing home who is learning how to knit.

Attempt #2: David Lammers, a friend from college, decided to come by and see how my yarn dyeing goes. Being under the stress of being closely supervised, I kind of fumbled through a second attempt of dyeing.

Color choice: Yellow, blue turquoise. I made a bad mistake though, and threw it into hot water when finished, turning the entire skein…

green. Wah wah wah.

And being dumb and not using gloves, my fingers turned…

green. Poo.

And then I got it tangled, and david got to spend a few hours being unsucessful with untangling it

Yeah…so it’s still tangled so there aren’t very good pictures of it.

Wanting to have some kind of success today, I did attempt #3…

Sarah chose out the colors: red, gold and yellow. Instead of using a pot this time, I thought that this kind of dyeing would be better in a skillet.

I was absolutely amazed with how beautiful this yarn turned out!

looks kind of like a nectarine! Now i’m craving peaches, darn it!

Anyways, i’m so tired. I had to work 3am-2pm today, and I’m still really wiped out from it! Have a wondeful week, folks, I’ll update again soon!

Love, the deedles

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Hey world…

so I realized in the past month that a lot more people read this blog than I thought.

so this is me updating.

Hello.

The song is Glee’s version of “Take a bow” by Rhianna.  Glee is a new show.. that’s awesome. It’s the funniest show I’ve seen in a long time.

So… wow. Was July 10th really my last time updating? I don’t even know where to begin with my life since then.

Like I started a really fun vitamin regime:

Yup. Those are all my happy pills. They are supposed to keep me healthy. I’m so tired of getting sick.

Most impressive thing, though? I can now take all these pills in one gulp:

I know, be impressed.

I also have temporarily stopped running. This makes me somewhat depressed… I miss my endorphines. Really.

How did this happen?

Well, I was stupid. While I was already experiencing severe shin splints, I decided to run my first road race – a 10k. Though I managed to finish in only medium pain and a sub-hour finishing time, the next day a severe pain started in my lower calf / front ankle area.

So I’ve been doing lots of tape, ice and heating pads… but I’m saddened to announce that I am most definitely out of the marathon this year, and am having to put it off for next fall.

To cheer me up though, and as an investment into my recovery, I now own one of the most amazing shoes ever created: the Nike Lunarglide+.

I have never seen a shoe get as many good reviews as these babies… so I’m so excited to start a new relationship with them .  I ran a mile in them the other day, and was impressed with how stable yet how lightweight they are.

Not much going on in Iowa. I work a lot. And I hang out with some coworkers.

Random thought I had the other day: While packing to come home to visit Washington, I was amazed at how many products I’d have to pack with me to look like I normally do. This is what it takes:

Yes, my teenager au-naturale self would be dissappointed.

Anyways.

I suppose this would be the appropriate time to make this announcement:

I’m moving.

To Washington.

At the end of October.

And I’m scared.

With my sister getting married off and me no longer having any real ties to the corny state of Iowa, I figure it’s time to get serious about life and move back where I might actually have potential to thrive.

I’m really really sick of moving. I’m ready to just stay in one place for a while… the past 5 years of my life has been me jumping from one place to another. I forgot what it’s like to have a hometown.

So I’m moving back in with my parents until my life stabilizes a little. It’s gonna be a struggle because I’ve become very strongly individualistic since moving out. And having to figure out life

I could use prayers. Lots of them. Long ones. Feel free to throw in several flowery adjectives and pronouns.

To prepare for my move, and in order to prevent very inevitable burn out at work, I decided to take a 10-day vacation back to Puyallup to enjoy what little summer I have left.

I’ve been staying at my sister’s house and have been enjoying being surrounded by the wonderful things that are my nephews:

(that’s them in birth order – patrick, samuel, ethan and liam)

Tonight I found my old “Mr. Yuck” stickers, and passed them out.

The results were entertaining to say the least:

Besides having silly times with those little guys, I’ve had one of the busiest vacations ever. I did manage to get in sometime to go out to coffee with a few good high school friends, Hilary and Charissa:

And got to go to the fair with family and friends:

And a trip down to Portland, OR with my dad and brother, where Jonny bought an Organ, my dad did some bounce research at the Nike Store, and I survived the world largest canker sore. *ouch!*:

I even had a little time to pick up a new hobby: Yarn dyeing!

My sister, Sarah is quite the hand-crafty guru… and she often buys yarn that has been hand-dyed. We decided to give this process a try, and my very first attempt turned out brilliantly! I wasn’t expecting such beautiful, rich results on my first try!!!

This is something I would love to continue doing, so hopefully I’ll start making even nicer yarn in the future.

I guess the next step is learning how to crochet, but the idea of knitting or crocheting doesn’t sound very appeasing to me.

I’d rather dye.

Hahaa.

Anyways. There is so much going on in life… work, figuring out this moving thing, figuring out grad school applications, trying to manage money to afford the both, apply for new jobs… and my brain hurts and I’m exhausted and stressed out.

Hopefully things will be going well in the next few weeks…. I will be moving home the week of October 17th. I’ll make sure to post again before that. Going 2.5 months without a post is pretty bad. I guess I’ve just not been in the mood.

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Ok… so, I’m adding two songs of the week. The first is Iron&Wine’s “Boy With a Coin”. It’s a good song. You should listen to it. Sarah, you might even like it. It has a great music video… with dancers. Woopie! I want to learn how to dance, and I’m trying to convince my brother to take swing dancing lessons with me.  Here’s the video:

If  you still aren’t convinced, the second song (“Another Saturday Night”) is per my sister Sarah’s request, because all she listens to is oldies and celtic music. Now you have something to listen to. I sing this song to the old folks all the time… usually met with the response “Ohhh… it’s not good.” Yep. I definitely don’t have the vocal skills of my mother and two oldest siblings. Darn. I have a feeling that I’ll survive.

Anyways, it’s been quite an eventful few weeks!

Let’s start with the painful part: I got a really really bad sinus infection. I had to run 6 miles anyways, and felt like I was going to die the entire time. Yeah, it was that bad. I became quite fond of Sudafed.

I went to work the next day, and I felt my eye growing redder and redder and pus-filled. It was nasty. Yes, ladies and gents, I contracted a wonderful case of pink eye. Wanna see?

And this picture was after it had healed for two days, so this is really REALLY  good compared to what it used to be!

Here, have another picture!

The nice thing though is that the redder my eyes are, the greener the iris looked! So hooray, I had extra green eyes this week!

Well I was dying from pink eye, I decided to take a day off from work, so that I wouldn’t infect my elderly friends. Then I got this crazy idea to cook a really nice meal for myself, my sister Rachel and her fiancé, Alex.

I made… Beef Stroganoff (I found a really good recipe if anyone wants it! And I made it without mushrooms, per the request of Rachel. And me too, I guess! Yukkus!):

a delicious cucumber, onion and tomato salad with homemade dill vinagarette (this is an actual picture of it! Be proud!):

And a great Blueberry, peach and blackberry fruit salad with lime juice (also a real live photo! Woopie!):

So yup, I’m all being gourmet and everything. I was spoiled growing up with a wonderful cook for a mother, I only hope to be half as wonderful as she is!

The marathon training has been going really well! I love to run, and I look forward to my runs everyday! This Thursday my Nike+ came in the mail and I got to try it out for the first time!

I finally bought some new running shoes!!! Meet my new friend: The Air Max Moto+ 7, Livestrong editions! Aren’t they PRETTY??

Nike claims that they were made specifically to “take a beating” and feel something like running on a cloud! In the 24 hours after buying them I ran a total of 16 miles, and had no more knee pain, my arches were no longer swelling, my mile times were speedier, and I stopped a whole lot less often. They are amazing. I’m in love.

And plus, 100% of the profits went to the Livestrong foundation (go Lance!), so I can feel like I did something good for the world.

Also, this Thursday my Nike+ came in the mail! I tried it out for the first time, and I am absolutely in love with it as well.

My first run with it was a 6 mile run. Here are my stats for that run, according to the nike+:

Yup yup! If I’m running 8:41 minute miles like it says, I’m standing pretty good for a pace… in fact in marathon terms I need to slow down a bit so I don’t die by the end of the race! So that’s happy stuff.

Anyways, the Nike+ has an option where you have a “power song” – a song that when you are having trouble being motivated during your run  you push a certain button, it will play your “powersong” to help you be motivated. I’m still deciding on my own “powersong” but here is a list of possiblities. Anyone want to add to the list?

Also what happened in the past few days is the 4th of July weekend! (dang you are all getting spoiled…)

There was a cookout at Dave’s house. He had fun blowing up bottles with fireworks. Here’s Dave:

Here’s a video of Dave trying to kill everybody:

Yeah. It was great. Kind of scary, though… here’s Jeremy hiding behing his blast shield aka the garage door:

And then another friend who has keys to Dordt’s science building got us on the roof, and we watched fireworks from one of the highest points of sioux center.

And then we went back to my place and lit up Rachel and My bonfire pit:

Yup. So it was a sucessfully fun 4th of July weekend.

Anyways, I plan to finally choose and register for the marathon next week! I was for a while deciding between the Sioux City and Des Moines marathon, but I think I ultimately chose to run the Des Moines Marathon. It’s a much higher quality and organized event, and even though it’s 4 hours away, and… I now have a new motivation!

And that is… I have someone who wants to go and support me! Dave called me up and told me that he’d take the days off of work, drive with me to Des Moines, and be there at the finish line for me! I am so excited to run now that I know there will be someone who loves me at the other end!

Hooray for having such a wonderful friend! I can’t wait to road trip with him!

He’s been really supportive to me the past few weeks as I’m coping with a few personal issues. I feel like I’ve grown a lot (emotionally and spiritually) the past few weeks, and I hope that the growth continues.

ALSO a huge shout out to my BFF Michaele! Who I don’t have any pictures together with! Which is really sad! If my phone bill is really high this month, she’s the one to blame!

I bought this book on her suggestion:

Apparently she thinks my problem is that I’m too nice when it comes to relationships. So I have to learn how to be more of a …. *achem*…

Oh and I also bought this book while I’m at it:

So I’m excited to get reading. I’ll let ya’ll know how good they were once I’m done with them.

Finally (yes I’ll wrap up this post, finally)… I rearranged the decorations in my room. Yes, this is a big deal to me. But I realized I hadn’t posted any pictures of the inside of Rachel and my new house, so here are a few for those who haven’t visited us!

In the living room looking into the kitchen (I love my table. And you should too):

In the kitchen looking into the Living room:

My room from Rachel’s Room:

and from the other direction:

My germany paintings look really nice all framed and positioned together. I’m so glad that I made them:

Anyways, I officially feel like I’ve been talking for two years. I feel like there are enough pictures that some of you just might have made it this far. Congratulations if you are one of them!

So yes, life is good. I feel great.

Or as my brother would put it:

Honestly there aren’t too many things I would change about life right now. I think all the running I am doing is pumping in a very high level of endorphins into my system. So that is good. I like it.

I hope all of you are having good weeks… I’d love to hear about them if you have the time!

Much love, The Deedles

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Hello there world!

Well what a few weeks it’s been! It’s finally time for an update, and a good chance to get Ms. Clarkson off my main page.

If you haven’t turned the sound on your computer off yet, what you are listening to on dianefeucht.com is my song of the week “Steh Auf wenn du am Boden bist” by Die Toten Hosen.  That means “Stand up when you are on the ground”…

Yup, my new german pop song. Here: have a music video with some cute German guys in it.

Anyways there is a lot of things to talk about!

First of all, I’ve made a big decision to run the Des Moines Marathon on October 18th.

I am now in a heavy training schedule, that I hope will prevent me from dying while attempting to run 26.2 miles in one jaunt. I posted a huge running schedule in a prominent place of my house, so hopefully I’ll be able to keep true to my training.

Anyways, I am in desperate need of new shoes. My feet are becoming all bubbly and blistery. The shoes I am currently using are ones that I bought in Germany five years ago… and the insoles are torn out. Not exactly fun to run with.

So, I hope that within the next two weeks I’ll be able to get a pair of Nike+ Shoes like these:

Aren’t they beautiful? Yes, I’m lusting after them. I can even choose what color I want everything on it to be, and get them to stitch my name in the heel.

The best part is that you can stick a chip in the soles of the shoe, and hook something up to your iPod, and you’ll be able to tell how fast and how far you are running:

But this is currently all dreams.

I also got a membership to my college’s recreation center… so I guess I’ll be hanging out back on campus a lot more in the future.

Two weeks ago I went to Des Moines to explore the city of Des Moines with David.

The first day I was in Des Moines, he drove me out to “show me a surprise”… he didn’t even have to tell me what the surprise was, because the moment I saw this huge pair of cows I got excited and had to meet them:

So yes. It was great and exciting.

He also took me to a great art museum that was rather impressive for being in middle of Iowa.

The next weekend, we decided to meet halfway in the city of Omaha, Nebraska. I really like Omaha… it was a artistic city… something I wasn’t expecting.

I got to go see the Omaha zoo, and was eaten by a hippo!

I also got to see the Joslyn Art Center… and would you believe it or not, but for the first time in my life (after being in love with him for four years now) I FINALLY got to see a work by Hans Hofmann in real life!!! (This is an epic moment for me, peoples!)

and my other favorite artist, Helen Frankenthaler was there as well:

And of course my hometown favorite artist: dale chihuly had a nice installation piece there:

So yes, I am a very happy girl.

Anyways, this last weekend wasn’t exactly as exciting as the other past days have been. Having to work at 6am is definitely not a favorite thing of mine to do. I do not properly function before 11am.

Also, I guess it’s gonna come out sooner or later – but David and I broke up this weekend. It was a “quickly come, quickly go” relationship I guess. But I thank God that he gave me world’s most supportive friend and family base (wow, I’ve been really REALLY overcome with love in the past few days. It’s honestly incredible.)

Also, my favorite way of coping with anything has always been through artistic expression. I painted Sunday and Saturday and made a painting that released any frustration or disappointment I am feeling..

And apparently it is pre-sold to my friend Michaele, for whenever she becomes a rich politician.

So, yup. I’m going to be ok. As my Uncle in Germany calls me a “Stehaufmensch” one of those toys (Like a weeble wobble) that can fall down over and over again but will keep springing up back to life.

Anyways, I need to get running and start moving on with my life a bit. It’s sunny outside and I have lots to be glad about! I have good friends, I am healthy, I LOVE my job, I love my living situation and my future is bright and full of opportunities.

I hope all of you are feeling just as encouraged and loved as I do this week!

The Deeds

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