these are a few of my favorite things

these are not in any order and the list will continue to be added to...

1. sunny days. always.
in this category belongs some sub-favorite things. magical things that happen when it is sunny:
getting rainbows in my face from the sun shinning in my window through the prism.
waking up after dark winter days to the sound of birds chirping in the light.
solar charging. because i am a robot.

2. flying kites / seeing other people fly kites.



3. the smell of my sleeping bag.

4. truck bed trailers.



5. receiving letters in the mail.

6. the times where nothing is wrong with my car (which these days are far and few between).
and the day when my motorcycle will be up and running, that will be a favorite.



7. learning new things.

8. trees, the desert, mountains, and clouds. (as long as they don't get in the way of the sun for too long, the exception being storms. those are okay.)

9. making lists.

your turn.

My fartsy, poopsy, lovely puppy.

The best dog a girl could ask for.



Sometimes she may be a turd-bucket. But I love her anyway.

Netflix and My Childhood

Winter this year has been abnormally snowy. It has been extremely beautiful, but it has also made it hard to get out and ride my bike or run or anything. So... Netflix! And do you know what movies they have that you can watch instantly?
Pretty much all the movies from my childhood. Wonderful.
As it turns out, I am still a big sucker for kids movies from the 80s and 90s. So good.

Watching TV (after spending 20 minutes trying to figure out how to turn it on... technology these days.)

Let me just say, I really love the Olympics.

My earliest memory of the Olympics is of the summer games in 1996. We had just moved into the house on Enterprise, where my mom still lives, and I thought I was a gymnast.
At this time in my life, I thought I was an Indian who could sneak up on wolves in the wild and make arrows from rocks. Also, I was an expert teepee builder and Simba from The Lion King (as well as any other character from the Disney movie). Sometimes I could even walk on lava, but only for short periods of time.
I was not allowed to watch more than half an hour of TV every day, but during the Olympics I was glued to our old television set for hours. I would run around the living room and practice tumbling; more than anything, though, I was a balance beam star. Gold metal bound. When my name was announced, the crowds went wild, and when I stepped on my balance beam, everyone became quiet in anticipation of what trick I would perform. I was a natural. Which is why my dad found an old two by four to bring into the living room for me to practice on. I would watch the Olympians and prance on my wooden balance beam transforming myself into Shannon Miller and Lilia Podkopayeva. I would do flips and grand leaps, all of which landed in the splits, on the balance beam. I was a professional.
I was inspired.
During the winter Olympics, I always wanted to be a slalom skier. At one point I even made a workout schedule so I could make it to the 2012 Winter Olympics. Unfortunately I was not able to practice my skiing in the Midwest. And there is no slalom skiing in the 2012 Olympics… being that it will be the Summer Olympics and all.
I still secretly have dreams of grandeur. I think to myself “Whoa, that lady is thirty something! I can train for the next decade and make the Olympics!” but those are my private thoughts so don’t tell anyone. I might start running more in the next few weeks to train before I realize I don’t have the heart. But right now, I am in the moment. I am inspired.
So I CAN DO IT!
It is only the first day of the winter games and I am already both pumped and amazed. What has gotten me the most so far this year (besides Apolo Ohno gaining his sixth Olympic metal!!!) is the community among the athletes.
Yesterday Nodar Kumaritashvili, a Georgian luger, died in a practice run. He is an individual from a country that most Americans could not find on a map unless you were talkin’ about that southern state. Don’t they grow cotton down in Georgia? No…
Although Nodar is an individual from a nation most of us no very little about, his death is being mourned. His death is being felt across the world. The world! One man, one athlete. How often does the world come together to mourn an individual?
There is a community that goes beyond borders and language. This community is a beautiful thing. And that is why this year, yet again, the Olympics have captured my heart from day one.

I am looking forward to the next two weeks.

sun and snow

birds chirping
sun shining
warmth and memories of a spring that has yet to arrive.

snow floating like bubbles
round and slow
drifting across my window

a good book, a long weekend, a warm heater

and excitement for the olympics.

february 12 is a good day.

Snow Globes and Sharks or Childhood

Today is a very cold day.
Today was a very cold day, rather. But it is still cold, and it will continue to be frigged for the next too long.
Though I tend to complain about the cold, it is not so bad.
The wind is what is killer.
Today the killer wind and the cold combined to make a snow globe, which I like.
I am living in a snow globe.
And I was going to entertain you all with a lovely snowy photograph (that I did not take) to go along with this ever-so-short post, but I could not find one to my liking.
Instead I found this drawing of sharks. Which are like snow globes if you don't think about it for too long.



p.s. The shed is okay-warmish. It is not the normal 70+ degrees that it might be on average cold days, but it is not cold. In case you were wondering.

p.p.s. (I still like p.s.s. better.)
Another thought about snow globes: The wind is very bitter outside, but i guess there wouldn't really be wind in a snow globe...which leads me to one question.
What would the temperature be in a snow globe?
I bet it wouldn't be cold at all!
So, maybe i am living in a winter wonderland where the snow happens to be falling up from the ground instead of down from the sky and where the wind twirls in all directions to make a dance of ice on all sides of your face.
Jack frost is wearing his ice-skates again.

I thought you might like a picture (not by me) of Jack Frost himself. But, again, I could not find one to my liking. Except for the one of Bob Dylan that came up in the search. He is not really like Jack Frost at all, though.
But Peter Pan is. He and Jack Frost are friends.

ups, downs, highs, and lows; or my boring life.

returning home from adventuring was hard, but going back to school has turned out to be even more difficult. studying, writing papers, and working have taken over most of my "free time" making the little time i have left for other activities quite precious. the school year is going well so far, it has just been difficult getting use to being in university after time off. as i sit down to write a paper, or as i begin to study for upcoming exams, i can always think of about a million places i would rather be and a billion things i would rather be doing. but now is not the time for those other things, now is the time for school. so, each morning i wake up with the rising sun and hop on my bicycle to ride to campus (unless it is raining, which it seems like it has been every day for the last three weeks...)
even though i spend all my free time doing less than freeing things and am not super thrilled yet about school, i do quite enjoy my job. this is my third year working for holiday decor hanging christmas lights, and i must say this year has been the most fun so far. i just love running around on roofs and being outside, even if the weather is rather crummy. it is nice. it gets me moving and rejuvenates my body and mind.
so, despite all the studying and working i have been doing, it is not all bad. it has been rainy, but the rain just makes the sunshine all the brighter and the autumn leaves more brilliant.