Thirty Days

 Today it hit me: I leave for Missouri in exactly thirty days.

That's only four more weeks. Thirty days. On December 4th my dog and I will be boarding a horrible plane (I hate flying; especially in the winter time!) and we'll be travelling 2,047 miles (yes I had to Google that) to a state that I've only been to once in my life, to a farm that I've never been to before, to stay long term with people who I've never met, and learn a whole new set of farming techniques and most likely learn a whole new lifestyle. 

 Folks, I'm scared.

 Scared, excited, nervous, eager, anxious, impatient to go, reluctant to leave, regretting my decision, wondering why I haven't done this sooner... You get the idea. As I described it to someone yesterday, I spend about ten minutes feeling like this will be the best adventure *ever*, and then the following ten minutes are spent feeling a horrified dread that I'm about to do this. If you've ever seen Disney's movie 'Tangled' then you might have a good idea on what I look like (and for the record, I adore that movie. Seriously.). The scene when Rapunzel first leaves the tower and is running around everywhere and alternating between shouting, "I did it!! I am never going back!!" and "I can't believe I did this. Mother will be furious!" pretty accurately describes me right now. You'd think that I would eventually find some calm middle ground... Like, be content with my decision, be able to patiently wait for my departure date, and then calmly accept the fact that I'm going to be gone anywhere from half to a WHOLE YEAR before coming back to Oregon. But it seems I don't have the staid sort of personality for that. 

 I'm counting the days until December 4th, but sometimes I wonder if I want to be counting them. I'm starting to feel the crunch... Time is fleeting and I still have a LOT I need to do. I'd say my biggest stress right now is - surprise, surprise - money. Yeah, we've all been there, I'm sure. Who doesn't stress about money? Some nights I lay awake, calculating in my tired brain how much money I think I'll need each month, and then how much money I'll have before I leave. I usually don't come up with satisfactory answers seeing as I'm half asleep and my mental math ends up looking something like, "$1,500 / 4 months = I-forgot-to-feed-the-dog"

My math during the day isn't much better. Anyway, this is one of those moments where I'm pretty darned sure I'll be fine, but I still want to be prepared. This is an unpaid internship, so I'll be on no income whatsoever unless I'm independently bringing in some cash (which I'm working on accomplishing). This isn't a *huge* issue seeing as I don't have to pay for food or board (both are provided) and those are the biggest expenses in life. 

  To come completely clean, the stressing part comes in when I think about the fact that I want to try and get a camera and a laptop before I leave. Ouch. Funds drain astoundingly fast when you start looking at buying those two little things. To make matters worse, I'm something of a quality snob when it comes to gadgets, so I've been eyeing getting my own Canon T2i camera (okay, a T4i would be a dream come true, but I'd be content with a sturdy little T2i). Laptop wise... Well, I'm really hoping I won't have to cave and buy an Acer; my apologies if you like that brand. It's just not my cup of tea. Yep, call me a snob. But I'm slightly easier to please on the laptop score; I mean, it's not like I'm bent on buying a $1,500 Ultrabook (you could buy me one if you wanted to though. I grant thee permission!). Just a decent $300 or $400 laptop will suffice. Right now, I figure I could probably squeak by with buying only a camera (hang on, don't panic just yet!), and then asking to commandeer my host's computer for blogging purposes. I still have to ask them if I could do such a thing, but if I can't buy both of my blogging necessities (you guys are expensive. I'm realizing this now... I have to buy a camera and a laptop to keep my readers happy!?!? I tease... I'm a teaser. I like you guys.) then I'll buy the more important thing first and get the second one later. 

 I really, truly am excited for this internship. Thrilled in fact! But I'm also the type of person who gets knots and butterflies in her stomach just thinking about going to a social event by myself for a couple of hours. Let alone going to a completely different state for months and months. I feel kinda' like Piglet; mentally stuttering "Oh d-d-d dearie dear!" when I think about leaving. But it passes in time, and then I'm back to my more confident self who thinks "Heck yeah! Bring it on!" Sigh. I wish I could find that happy medium of contentedness.

 Only thirty more days folks. Let's see if I survive...