Take a tour of my house:

This is my side of the room

Here's our kitchen with labels on the cupboards(made from duct tape)

stove # 2 in the kitchen

The room that gets the most traffic

Petrified wood wall around the fireplace

Dinning room? With a drumset in the corner.  Yes that's a hot tub. And more petrified wood.

Outside Kitchen

Slackline sideyard

The Mote.  Our garden

Inhabitants of the house. No we are't at our house, a bit of a morning brunch at a Crepe re. 

Excited?

 Day 86 of a solo expedition in Antartica. Norwegian explorer Aleksander Gamme finds his last cache of supplies.  He's lost 55 pounds since he's started, and he has kept his own company for 86 days.  Who knows how YOU would react to what he finds.

New camera. 

Expect more photos from this point on. Got lessons from Mindy(my sister-in-law who is an experience blogger) and I am becoming more versed in the dynamics of picture blogging. So here's a modge podge of some recent photos.

The Kinnier clan gathered together for another wonderful Christmas.  Enjoyed the rolling hills in the Pleasanton area.

We also went bowling, in which the mother broke double digits before everyone else.

 I chuckle every time I see these photos. So I had to share the cheer.  Credit to those who willingly posed for the initial experimentation of the lovely fish lens effect.

This is me after a week of work.  Yes, I wore these very clothes aaaallllll week.  I did take a snow bath midweek, when it was warm enough.  Typically, I have three more layers on and only my eyes are visible. It was chilly this week.  Woke up to single digits every morning.  Being home I bask in the weight of both my sleeping bags and all  my blankets layered on top of me.

 This is Peter, I had another date with him last night. We took a brisk walk around the block.  I wish I could say that I walked him, but in reality he pulled me along the dimly lit streets.

Frozen Water bottle from work.  

I love my purple toes, it keeps me going throughout the week. Thanks Mer!

Hi there. Guess what?
I sleep on a mattress

I climb.
   More
       Than
             Before.

I know my neighbors
    More
       Than
           Before
Shared christmas cheer in the form of
             COOKIES

I went on a date. His name is Peter.
We had sushi, watched French Kiss,
Ate ice cream.
It was an enjoyable night, despite Peter insisting
on eating sushi from MY plate. Halfway through the movie he did fall asleep,
With his head resting on my lap, he let out smelly booches*, but I didn't mind it
since he was so cute and snuggly.

He's very athletic and fast.   He gets excited over the smallest things it's a contagious attitude to be around.
He's somewhat co-dependent because when I'm not around he wines a lot. He's afraid of heights but I'm slowly teaching him how to conquer this fear. He has a large square shaped face, soft ears, and big clompy paws.

What else can I say? A real man couldn't have done better with the evening.

There may be more dates in the future, they might fall under the category of puppy sitting. I'll definitely keep you up to date though......


*Booches: synonym of Fart. Don't bother looking it up, I've already tried.  It is only within the Kinnier and Book family language repertoire. You may adopt it as your own when wanting to avoid the ugly F word.

Grass. Green grass. In the desert? Yes. And cows.  Wander through the desert and skirt herds of cows and wild horses.  The horses typically keep their distance, watching you with intensity to decipher if you are a threat or not. Cows, stand their ground and continue to chew their cud.

I hiked across one of these grassy fields with a group when I experienced what has become one of my favorite moments since I've been working at Second Nature.

We were in the middle of a hike.  Took a water break and had a therapeutic group(called empty chair*).  The head staff member told the client, who had just had the empty chair, to pick up the chair and walk away.  He didn't set any parameters, he just said "walk." This is a big deal.  Our program is constant supervision and it's rare to see a client walk away from the group without staff, far. He walked, and walked, and walked.  Until he was a little spec.  Then he sat down.  He came back to the group after about 15 min.

Within that fifteen minutes, another client checked in*, he said he wanted to bolt. Wanted to feel the sensation of going really fast, getting the thrill of being alone and running.  Running across this huge flat field,  and being free.  He refrained from doing so because in the front country he would go with his impulses and ended in trouble.  He was practicing self control.  He was also mourning that as an adult he wouldn't be able to act with such spontaneity  He sat with it, just wanting to run.  I wanted him to go. I wanted him to feel the beauty of the desert passing under his feet.  The other staff wanted him to go. Nobody said anything, this was his thing.  He closed the group. We put our packs on, and all of a sudden I see the client, drop his pack, go to a staff, put his hand on the staff's shoulder, and say "sorry, I gotta do this" and ran.  He sprinted away, his sun hat blown off, into the distance he ran till we could barely see him.  He stopped and started barreling back.  At this moment, the one staff started sprinting toward the client, matching his speed. For a split second we all thought they were going to chest bump. A slight leap/high five ensued instead. Rejoined with the group, the client was grinning from cheek to cheek.

Run. Be free. Don't feel like as an adult you have to say addeu to being spontaneous.

*The empty chair group is a group that is often run for individuals who need to talk things out to parents.  It is an imaginary conversation where the individual sits in front of an empty chair and tells the person everything they want to tell them.  It can look like a son telling a dad how the dad has hurt him.  They're really impactful.

*Check in: a group that is called to share what you are feeling.  I feel (blank), I feel this way(when), I feel this way because I think I(core belief of self).

I'm squatting down, smashed up into a tree, at 1am, in my rain jacket, pants on inside out and backwards, being pelted with water, and surrounded by bangs and booms of thunder, the lightning proving to be quite the entertainment for the whole night.  I am fixing a corner of the tarp that came undone and is flapping obnoxiously in the wind.  This is my job. And I love it.

Later in the week I saw two wild horses. I almost stepped on a horned lizard and I shooed away a couple scorpions.

I led a hike this week.  It was hilly and beautiful.

During the weeks in the field we have MFT: Mandatory Fun Time.  I taught the ladies how to play signs.  Basically everyone standing in a circle passing on a funny sign while trying not to get caught. We laughed a lot.

Snapshot of my life: I've moved to St. George.  It is in the very bottom western corner of Utah, 45 minutes away from Zion. I live in a six-bedroom house to be filled with seven roommates- more about the house in a future blog, it deserves its own space. Roommates are all staff from Second Nature.  I've 

just completed my third week as an intern.

Second Nature is a wilderness therapy organization.  We work with adolescents and adults, males and females.  It is for people who have drug addictions, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, manipulative behaviors, any/all/some and more......

2nd Nature has a unique lingo.  Words like wiggie, hoho, zebra, sumps, csb, busting, Milan, GnO, P on B's, bear bags, ground scores; all part of a jargon both staff and clients use in the field.

I'll start by explaining Milan: A type of family therapy where a client meets with a therapist while the family is sitting on the opposite side of a two way mirror. The family watches and listens to the session.  The therapist then switches sides and the client watches while the family goes through session, the client hears everything and is unable to interject.

This Milan Model of therapy is used in the field weekly in order to help transition to new staff.  It looks like clients, incoming staff, outgoing staff, visiting parents, and therapist sitting in a circle.  The staff that is outgoing gives a "Milan report" of each client.  It is a summary of how the client's week went, what they worked on, how they grew, how they stumbled, and suggestions on what to do for the next week.  These summaries are often given in themes.

I have sat in on six Milans, and am going to give my first Milan on myself to you:)

Theme 1: Whirlwind of a time

Alyssa packed up her storage unit in Chico and fit it into her Toyota Corolla. She trekked to Utah to be a field instructor at second nature.  What this looks like is working from tuesday to tuesday, one week on, one week off. In the field(consisting mostly of juniper trees, and sage brush) she backpacks with three other staff and 8-12 clients. She has spent the past weeks observing and learning how to respond to adolescent boys, adult males, crying girls and the heat of the desert.  She feels comfortable with her hard skills of living in the outdoors.  She is uncertain with the therapy and processing of it all.  She has learned how to make fire with sticks.  Suggestions for her are to continue to learn how to be a vocal and assertive leader.  She would benefit from giving consequences and setting boundaries.  She has been running in the morning and this is healthy for her heart and her body. 

Empty storage unit. Sorry Mr. Mouse, find a new home

Scamper full to the brim

Theme 2: Time for Tea 

Alyssa is trying to find a rhythm to this life. She is meeting new people and exploring the natural playground of the canyon lands on her off shifts. She is trying to find a balance between engaging with others and making time for tea- otherwise known as time for self.  She values her time at coffee shops, reading, and settling in. She has played a lot of ping pong, is still sleeping on the ground, is going to garden with her roommates tomorrow.  She spent the last week reminiscing and thinking of her Grandma Billie because it would have been her birthday.  While hiking she thought of family and friends(probably because the adolescent girls spent 70% of time talking about how they missed their family and friends from home) My suggestion for Alyssa is to enjoy people while they are around and save time to do what she loves by herself.

Hiking the Narrows

Kubb. Spectacular camping game.

*Here's the translation of the poem*

The Search

I see a bright light
                Darkness
                              My eyes, a sea of sight of a blind man,
                              A baby with the sight of incomprehension,

                              Darkness of the night, hope to see,
                              Light of the night, how can it be?

                              Not to understand or analyze

I see a bright light
                 Darkness
                               I look, look, look
                               With the hope of life
                               Something more,
                               Step by step I get closer
                               The sweat falls at my feet

                               I see blue, grey, and vibrant red
                               Do you know where you are?

Here I am searching
                               A desolate land
                               With only my scattered thoughts
                               Like pages lost in the wind

                               How to understand and know?
                               I search the rythm in my body,
                               Tiered but ready,

I search, search, search,
With the hope to live

By

Alyssa Joy Kinnier

Checking in as a new employee of Second Nature Entrada.

Wooo!