An Ending

Sunday night I found out some horrible news.

I talked to my dad on the phone, knowing something was wrong but not sure exactly what. I thought about his cancer. Maybe something had gone really wrong?

Until he said these words "Grandpa died today"

I didn't understand. Grandpa wasn't supposed to die. Grandpa was supposed to live forever.

I had heard that it was bad. Our trip down to SoCal for Christmas was because my dad really felt like this would be Grandpa's last Christmas. His dementia was worsening. His health was deteriorating. Still, I didn't want to believe.

I wanted to think that my grandpa would make it to see me graduate college. It's just a couple years away. I wanted him around when I finally got married, to see how beautiful I will look on that day. A big part of me knew that he would never make it that long, but still there was that little part of me that hoped beyond hope that maybe, just maybe, he'd still be around.

It's hard. It's so hard to look at pictures, taken just a year ago. To think about Christmas, just a couple of months ago. It's hard to do that and not tear up at the thought of never being able to wrap my arms around him again.

I'm so far away from what's going on, that I feel like I will be able to fly down there and he will be there, ready to hug me when I walk in the door. We can go for a walk around the neighborhood like we used to.


I loved the sound of my name from his lips.   

My grandpa was an amazing man. An awesome husband, a good dad. He was a rowdy kid. A rolled up newspaper out one side of the car on the morning paper route and a lit match out the other.

I've heard his mother broke a broom over his backside on a weekly basis. 

He taught my dad to drive in a time where manual transmissions were the norm and I've heard the man could make gears sing. I've heard my dad tell stories of driving advice when he was having trouble keeping the car in the lane. "This isn't a sail boat, you don't need to tack into the wind."

He hated mushrooms.

I remember feeling like his disease had robbed me of getting to really know him. To know the him that was happy and active and didn't stutter when talked. But even though I felt like I wasn't as close to him as my cousins were, I could still hug him. I could still talk to him. He still loved me. 

I was his pear thief when I was little. He used to eat a lot of pears. Before we moved all the way to Idaho I would crawl up in his lap and steel bites of his pears. I still like eating pears, though these days they are the canned variety and not the fresh. Unfortunate.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm okay. And to be honest, I have no idea if I'm okay or not. I feel like if I don't think about it, then I can't be sad. But then in quiet moments, or when I see a picture of him (because on FB we've all changed our profile pictures to ones with him) and it's hard to imagine that he's gone.

It's hard to imagine the severity of someone's gone-ness. We say goodbye, but we never really say goodbye. Our farewell's are much more in a 'I will see you again later' form and less in a 'This is the last time I will see your smiling face' manner.

Which is for the most part how we operate. And we do see each other again. So wrapping my brain around the fact that my grandpa is missing? Not something I'm too keen on doing.

I'm missing a man whom without I wouldn't even be around. He's been a big part of our family. He was my grandma's best friend. They were married for over 50 years.

It's hard to write about him in the past tense. It's hard to know that next week sometime I will be making a fast trip to San Diego for a funeral. Funeral is such a HARD word to think about. My mom told me that if I want to say a few words about him I'm more than welcome too.

I may or may not write anything. Who knows.

But one thing is certain, he's with his Maker now. And probably the happiest he's been in YEARS.

Today it thundered. It's been a joke in our family that the thunder happens when the angels go bowling and get strikes. Well, I choose to believe that he's up there bowling with them and playing a perfect game. Because everyone knows that that old man could skunk us all at bowling, even with Parkinson's disease and he grinned like a little boy the whole time he was doing it.

I just can't believe he's gone.

Over Dramatic

It was either this photo or the bottom photo on this page, but ultimately I went with the silhouette of LadiesMan because it was my first experiment with silhouettes. I think it turned out quite nice. 

Go to I Heart Faces to see more dramatic photos or enter your own!

It's Friiiiiiiidaaaaayyyy

This week on I Heart Faces is a photo from Natalie P so naturally I had to edit her photo since we share the same first name, and we all know how I love me some Natalies. :)

Original Photo

Just a little clean up and lighting fix. 

Black and White :) 

Re-re-reverse!

Here I warmed it up a little and then added a bit a border. 

Head on over to I Heart Faces to see more edits of Natalie P's photo or edit your own!! 

When I Was Little I Was An Indian. Fact.

When I was little we had a tree in our backyard that we called 'the naked tree.' It was so dubbed because occasionally we would get some heavy gusts of wind, and every time we would get some wind this tree would drop branches. 

It was slowly becoming naked.

We collected the branches from the naked tree and made a wikiup. A wikiup is a Native American form of housing, like a teepee but made from the branches of a tree. We were really proud of ourselves for knowing this,  and consequently played 'Indians' in the backyard because we weren't interested in being politically correct. 

In the corner of the yard there was a current berry bush, and in the summertime it was always full of little red sour berries. They weren't that great to eat on their own, but crush them up and douse them in sugar and you have some fine jam.

Steal a few slices of bread on a Warrior Indian Raid and you have yourself a meal.

And also, cool names were a must. I remember coming up with things like "Blooming Flower" or "Purple Lilac" or "White Wolf" etc, etc. There was always a Chief who had to have a Squaw because we were equal opportunity tribe leaders.

This is code for the simple fact we got to be 'in a relationship' with our secret neighborhood crushes without making it awkward. 

But sometimes tribe members would get too rowdy. Naturally we were forced to exile them. The rebels would congregate in the corner of the yard opposite the current berry bush so that they would have to pass our tribe in order to forage for food.

This allowed for us to attack them for entering our territory. Some people would be wounded and some people would die. But the dead ones just came back as other warriors, so no one was really damaged. 

We would play this game a lot, pretending to be Indians. Especially when I was in 4th grade because that's when you learn about Idaho history and Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea.

And you know, it was either that or baseball in the front yard. But we always played with a tennis ball that got lost in the prickly bushes until one of us went and found it and the pitcher always sucked.  

I Can't Think Of A Good Title

I've had this picture in my head. This really neat idea that I wanted to created in what some people call the Real World.

But I just couldn't figure out how to do that.

Until I found my flashlight complete with working battery. A rare find for people who hail from my family. If you find a flashlight you have about a 40% chance that it will turn on and a 60% chance that the battery is dead or not included.

I turned off the overhead light, turned on the camera and used the flashlight accordingly.

I had to play around the with the settings to get it to do what I wanted it to do, and even then I still had to edit them in photoshop to get the exact desired effect.

But they turned out similar to what I was seeing in my head.

I turned some of them black and white, and I almost like them better. They just have a certain mystery to them. Well, they all do in reality. It makes you wonder what's going on? Why is it so dark? 


And then the black and white of the picture makes you feel like you've stepped into one of those private detective movies. 

She was a pushy dame, but she had a case...

You Know Your Monday Will Be Fun When

-You wake up after one of the weirdest dreams of your life which involves you trying to puncture water blisters with a rusty safety pin

-You decide to wear dressy shoes with your 'nice' shirt and discover your shoes love you less than you love them

-In thanks for trying to look cute, the universe give you the big blisters you dreamed about and now your feet ache

-The under wire on your favorite bra snaps in half and poke you all day because you can't go home an change it

-You walk across campus barefoot because to wear your Devil heels requires too much effort and pain

-Your shoulder knots up after carrying two heavy packs on one side while walking across campus barefoot

-And you realize that tomorrow even though you don't have class until 12:30, you have to work from 7:30pm to 11:30 pm right after you get out of Comm 101 at 7:20 and you really don't want to.

So far, I've been back from spring break for one day and I already can't wait until summer. It'll be back to camp for me again this year. I'm totally looking forward to it. Most of my favorite people will be there!!

And all that stuff with my job that was freaking me out? Yeah, it's coming together. Slowly but surely. I'm going to meet with the lady who bought Java because, after talking to her about it, she wants to keep me on at her shop. It looks like I will still get to work in the Admin Bldg after all! 

I think a nap is in order. We'll go from there.

The Makings of a Masterpiece

I got my hair cut. I like to keep it about shoulder length because when it gets longer than that it just hangs on my face and I can't really do much with it. 

Does it look blonde to anyone else? The last time I colored my hair is was a dark brown, but the sun popped out and here is this blonde hair showing up on my head! Not that I'm complaining because I was thinking about coloring my hair back to this dirty dishwater blonde, but now I don't need to. Which is awesome.

So with my new haircut in tow, we were trying to decide what to have for dessert. TheKeeper and I wanted chocolate cake, but I didn't get to make it until yesterday evening after dinner and by that time TheKeeper was in Las Vegas for a soccer tournament. 

But here is the masterpiece I created. I think I'm going to drop out of college and take up a degree in the Culinary Arts. (Yeah right.)

But it does look amazing, does it not? I am awesome I tell you! And modest too. So very modest. *ahem*

Writer's Workshop

I chose prompt 3.


3.) Could a routine become interesting through words?  Write about a person (perhaps you) caught up in a daily routine.  Establish a rhythm with the story’s words that impersonates the rhythm of the routine.


Be forewarned though, it's mildly depressing. I don't know exactly why I wrote it the way I did, but that's what happened when I just let my fingertips flow across the keyboard.

The Local Post

It’s 7:00am. The coffee pot is full. The newspaper is unfolded on the kitchen table. Reading glasses, dirtied from use, lay on top of the paper as if hastily placed there in the rush of the morning. Scrambled eggs, salted and peppered lavishly, await his wrinkly entrance.

The toilet flush can be heard from down the hall, and a few minutes later one unsure footstep after the other can be heard thudding toward the kitchen inhabited only by a rumply old lady and her frying pan.

“Good morning,” she chimes in a chipper sing-song voice indigenous only to those who are what are referred to as ‘morning people.’ The old man grunts in return. He sits in front of his eggs. The fork scrapes against the plate. Neither registers the sound. Neither even knows the sound existed.

His hands with calluses and deep wrinkles from long years of hard work gingerly put his spectacles in front of his faded blue eyes. The gingham curtains blew slightly from the warm summer breeze through the open kitchen window. 

He turned the page of the local Post.

It’s 7:00am. The coffee sits in the pot, its aroma wafting through the little farm home. The newspaper, collected from the stoop that morning, rests on the kitchen table with the old, round reading glasses. Scrambled eggs smell up the kitchen and dining area all salty and peppery and genuinely delicious. They are made with the eggs from the hen house.

The hens are none too happy.

The sprightly old lady has lived on this farm since she married the man down the hall who flushes the toilet and grunts his grumpy way down the hall to eat his eggs. It was a lovely spring wedding in her parents' backyard. She was pretty sure he was the handsomest man on the face of the earth.

“Good morning,” she greats him with the same enthusiasm she’s had since she was nigh twenty. He scrapes the plate with the fork. No one notices. The gingham curtains rustle in the wind, but the screen keeps out the bugs.

The old man, glasses on his broad nose, scans the articles. Nothing that interests him, as usual. Death, destruction, politics. All things he followed once upon a time, but now his ancient blue eyes search only for the weather forecast and the crossword puzzle.

He turns the page of the local Post.

It’s 7:00am. The coffee is brewed, the eggs are scrambled. This morning she drank some orange juice before she set his spectacles on the table beside this morning's paper. 

The toilet flushes.He shuffles down the hallway.

“Good morning,” she smiles. She has a lovely old lady smile, polished dentures and all. Her face lights up when she sees him, still as beautiful as the day he met her. He sits at the table in front of the eggs. He adds the salt and the pepper, forgotten in the haste of the orange juice.

He scrapes the plate with the silver fork. It used to be polished and lovely, but has faded with time. It was a wedding present from her mother. She purchased the silverware in a shop in New York where only the finest things are found.

The gingham curtain sways with the wind. It’s a pretty blue color. It used to match his eyes. He hardly notices the curtains anymore. Threadbare and patched they have hung in the kitchen window since their youngest son was born. He’s now forty three with a wife and two kids. He lives on the other side of the country and never calls.

The old man shakily places his spectacles on his face, bringing the words on the paper into perspective as he turns the page of the local Post.

It’s 7:00am. A woman stands in the middle of the room, tears in her emerald eyes. Her fiery red hair curls around her face. The scent of coffee still lingers in the air, but there are no scrambled eggs.

The toilet is silent. The gingham curtain is still. No breeze blows through the window today. The glass is shut.

The paper is absent from the table. The reading glasses are nowhere to be found.

The woman looks around the empty room. All the fine china has been boxed up and dispersed to those who laid claim to it. She eyes the gingham curtains, she’s known them since her baby brother was born.

He refused to come to the estate, always too busy with his own life to make time for others. The woman took the curtain rod down and rubbed the gingham curtains between her fingers and thumb. Pressing the fabric against her cheek was comforting to her ivory skin, and she sobbed.

No more coffee. No more eggs. No more turning the page of the local Post.

I Believe It's Okay To Be Lazy

Since I've been home on Spring Break, I've been taking pictures. I like experimenting with the different things my camera can do. 

Monday we rescued my grandma from an overflow of brownies before we cleaned her twelve windows, inside and out. We also saved a few trinkets from a life in the landfill. 

I brought my camera over to show it off. My grandpa wanted to hide it from me so I would conveniently 'forget' I'd brought it over. But he had no such luck. However, it started feeling frisky after being cooped up so long in its bag, so I took it out and let it capture some pretty pink flowers that inhabited the kitchen table. 

Today I kidnapped my sister against her will and made her pose for pictures. I wanted to experiment with different lighting. Some of it worked, some of it didn't. Here's a sample of what I captured:

She was kicking and screaming the whole time, doesn't it show? Actually, she was game for having a lens shoved in her face, and she was glad to have some new profile pictures for her Facebook account. My whole family is on Facebook. And by whole family I mean aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great aunts and uncles, second cousins, first cousins once removed, cousin's spouses, etc, etc. There is no escape.

But honestly, I kind of like it that way. Shhhh don't tell them that though. I try to keep my affections for them a secret. If that information got out in the world, there's no telling what might happen.

Besides harassing my sister and invading her personal bubble with the lens of my Canon Rebel, I also violated the clock, my mom's bell collection and a basket of pine cones in the living room. None of us will be the same again.

To top off my epic beginning to Spring Break, I learned that The Keeper broke his thumb. He decided that it would be a really superb idea to jam that sucker into the ground just to see what would happen when he dove to save a soccer ball from certain death in between the goal posts. 

So the picture I'm going to show him when he gets back will be this one so that he smiles.

I Should Go To Bed...But That Requires Effort

I don't know what to say today. I'm too tired to be incredibly witty.

There have been a lot of shenanigans going on lately. More work issues. There's is a lack of communication amongst the management of Sodexo and there's even worse communication from the managers to their employees. It's spring break and I still have no idea where I'll be working when I get back to school.

I've been really stressed lately, because of work and other some such things. I cope by sleeping a lot. I just take naps during the day and then when I wake up I'm accused of being too chipper and told I should take naps more often.

I do love me some sleeps. 

I've been playing around with my camera. I absolutely love photos where one thing is in focus and other things are not. I'm not sure why this really appeals to me, but I can't get enough of it. 

I'm hoping this week off school will be beneficial. I won't have to worry about homework, I'll deal with my work issue when I get back.


For now I'm just going to enjoy being home. My dad leaves for Honduras tomorrow evening. I'm going to probably go to a track practice or two at the high school. Maybe I'll pop in on my German teacher. I do know one thing for sure though, I'm seriously going to take it easy this week.

Just Love Me

tell me your secrets
hug me
tell me what you're scared of


tell me what your hopes are
sing me a song
play with my hair
write me a love note

surprise me at work
take care of me
tell me a story
go on a walk with me

offer to drive somewhere
love me
talk to me
listen to me

draw me a picture
call me just to say hello
do something crazy
let go of what's holding you back

take a dive
into the cold rushing water of life
and let the current carry you away. 
do what you want to do
but include me

make me feel wanted
or don't
it's up to you. 
i've lost friends

pay attention to my needs
be my shoulder to cry on
i'll be yours. 
care about me. 

rub my shoulders
rub my feet
be curious
when i'm angry just hold me

let me confide in you
be there when things go wrong
when i'm frustrated
help me out

just love me.

Genuine Disreguard For Organizational Patterns of Writing a Blog Post

I have seriously typed out like fifty intros to this post, and I keep erasing them. They sound good in my head and then my fingers turn dyslexic and make the things I type sound dumb and not at all what I wanted to convey. So inevitably I delete my previous words and write something new. 

I don't even know if I really want to post anything, but I feel like my blog has been so depressing lately and I want to share something happy. My problem is that I just don't know what to say that's happy. Everything has been depressing lately. 

My job, some aspects of school, my "friends" etc. You all read me. You all know. 

I thought about maybe sharing some information about Chuck Close with you all because I have to give a presentation on his artwork tomorrow, but I don't know really how interested you would be in that, and I'm still rooting through the loads of information I've uncovered about him so my post would likely be unorganized. 

But I think most of my posts are unorganized due to the fact that I don't post premeditated ideas. I just click the 'new post' button and then type whatever flows into my pretty blonde brain. Sometimes there are things that have been weighing on my mind and consequently they come out in my blog. Or other times I report about my weekend and the things that I do. 

I really don't think those posts are my best work. Actually I think that sometimes those posts are the most boring, so when I write about them I make sure to include lots of pretty pictures to hold your attention. In a way I'm bribing you to read my blog. 

I'm not above bribery. How does it feel to be bribed into reading a post? 

And proof of my lack or organizational skills is that I was going to go in a whole different direction and talk about how I don't know what my 'best' posts would be, but then I started talking about bribery and didn't know how to fit the 'best' ordeal back into the post layout. Hence this paragraph. 

That was supposed to be transitional, but I'm not sure how well it worked. Sometimes my brain takes the weirdest routes to come to a conclusion. 

One time I was thinking about Twilight and how much it bugs me that leaders of the high school youth group endorse a book that completely goes against things that the Bible has to say, and I was thinking of bringing it up to my Pastor and then I imagined that he asked me to speak on stage about it to increase awareness of this issue and then I thought about what shirt I should wear onstage. I decided I would wear one that I saw at Sower's which is a local store. It was black and was a spoof off of the Twilight font. I thought it would make the biggest impact. 


Obviously that never happened.

And I'm going to kill Prince Charming if he keeps reading over my shoulder. No, I won't kill him actually. I'd miss him. But seriously. I hate that. It makes me feel obligated to write something incredibly witty and hilarious and insightful so that I will increase the wonderment and awe other people hold me for me as they watch my genius unfold, but then that sort of stresses me out and the cortisol my body produces makes my brain and fingers cramp so then I freeze and just sit in front of the computer not typing anything while impatient onlookers await the awesomeness to take on word form. 

My heart rate increases. If I ever suffer from a debilitating heart defect I will blame Over The Shoulder Readers and their impatience to wait until I've typed out my feelings instead of eating them and edited my thoughts into some sort of coherent sentence instead of just a bunch of hob gobble that no one understands except me. 

Hey now. Einstein was all sorts of smart, but the man wore penny loafers until he died because he didn't know how to tie his shoes.

I'm entitled to incoherent sentences. Especially when I'm tired and my spoken vocabulary is on a kindergarten plane at best. By that time I usually just need to curl up under a blanket and shut my eyes for about eight hours or so. Longer if I can manage. 

I think if I start off by telling you that I couldn't decide what to write in this post, I feel better about it because I took the pressure off of having to perform like a monkey in a cage and dance for all of you because I have to be awesome and made of epic win. Although I'm just naturally that amazing all the time. Psyche. 

Haha. Psyche. I haven't used that word in a long time at the end of a sentence to let the reader/listener know that I was faking them out. 


Listener? Here's where my brain went when I typed that word:

Listener? Like podcast listener? I don't do podcasts. I don't even do vlogs. Mostly because I hate the sound of my voice. Should I do a podcast? Should I post a vlog? Would my readers like that? Do they want to become listeners? I don't know. I'll type my thought process and see what kind of feedback I get. Maybe that will sway me one way or the other. Sway...as in persuade...is that even how you spell it for my intended meaning? I have no clue.

Whatever.

It's time for me to leave you know so you can soak in all of this important information. Also probably you are annoyed that I typed this much and want me to just stop typing so you can go read about how to solve world hunger, obtain world peace and cure cancer. You know, big important stuff.

Monday Madness

Mondays make me want to puke. I hate them. They are awful. If I could find out a way to successfully off Mondays without making Tuesday the new Suckday I totally would. 

I woke up this morning and by the gut feeling I received of 'I-just-want-to-stay-in-bed-all-day' I could just tell that it was not going to be my favorite of all favorite days either. But I examined myself in the mirror before I left for class and was impressed with what I saw. 

Because I'm narcissistic and I know it.

Anyway, I was all hippity hoppity down the stairs with my portfolio and pink backpack in tow, and then I looked outside, sighed, and pulled my hood over my head. So much for my straightened hair and shoes that matched my belt. Welcome soaked pant legs and disgruntled wavy strands of stringy fine hair. 

I was starving because I'm all sorts of cool and don't eat breakfast in morning. My half thought out plan was that of heading to the coffee shop in the Commons, but the line was like DisneyLand the day after Christmas and I thought "No way in heck am I waiting here."

So I jetted myself all the way over to the Admin building where I work because I know that the lines are never near as long and the coffee is way better. I ordered a croissant that I promptly stuffed in my face and slurped down my 24 oz iced white chocolate blackberry mocha with four shots so that I would wake up. 

I was late to class by a few minutes, but no one noticed. We listened to some presentations (I have to give one on Wednesday!) and then we drew.

I produced these:

They're not so bad, eh? I actually like the last one. His face pleases me. And it reaffirmed my love of drawing fabric with charcoal. I got it all over myself again though. So this time I was black and white and red all over, not unlike that bad joke that either ends with the punch line of a zebra with a rash or a newspaper. Whatever, I'm still awesome.

Design Processing II is a class I would love to just ditch, except that I need to go because I can't risk the absences and if I don't go then I would never do the work because I hate it so much that having homework is just not an option unless absolutely necessary. 

We are painting. I loathe painting. I mean, it would be fun if I wasn't out to recreate something exactly to every minute detail like we're doing here:

The one on the left is my painted version of the one on the right. One of the hardest, most time consuming things I've done in my life. I'm pretty sure I could have baked three cakes in the time it's taken me to mix every color just so. And they don't even all match! It drives me crazy. Absolutely bonkers. And I'm most of the way there on a good day, so it just pushes me farther over the edge. 

Besides that, the stools in that class make your poor little butt cheeks so sore. Every so often you have to stand up and stretch your back from being hunched over while trying to nonchalantly massage your buttocks because they've decided to fall asleep and refuse to wake up. 

It makes for some pretty good times. I had to work to keep from falling asleep. 

I left class at 5:20 so I could come home and eat dinner. I got in line to get a pretzel and an Italian sausage because it just sounded so delicious and Prince Charming was working, so my pretzel would be handed to me with love. 

Bob's keeps their silverware in these round black cylinders next to the food stations for easy grabability and convenience. I was in dire need of a fork and a knife, so while I attempted to balance my tray full of food on one hand and grab the important utensils with the other, an impatient young lad came up behind me. He seemed to be in all sorts of a hurry, as if maybe he was on fire or something was on fire or flooding and he desperately needed to grab a fork to help pry open a container housing an extinguisher or maybe the book with all the answers to life's big questions in it and his timer was running dangerously low. 

I'm not exactly sure. 

But whatever the reason behind his maddened speed, he knocked my tray out of my hand and before I could successfully utilize my mad agility skills yo the tray had fallen on the ground food side down of course, because landing food side up would have been too much to ask entirely.

Mustard and liquid cheese splash on the floor. The boy just huffed and kind of rolled his eyes. He looked conflicted, like maybe he should help me out, but then he remembered the fire or flood or time emergency and darted off. 

Snarky remarks flowed in my head, but who was I going to say them to? Then I just looked around with that all too familiar deer in the headlights look on my face as I knelt down to pick up the fallen food. Managers stopped and told me not to worry about it. They were super nice, and saw what happened so they didn't speak to me with blame filled voices which I greatly appreciated. 

I hopped back in line and was redistributed my allotment of dietary sustenance. Prince Charming was confused why I was back in front of him, so I had to quickly explain myself. I took the wasted food to the trash can and proceeded to nom my deliciously tasty Italian sausage dipped in mustard.

I do love mustard. It's yummy.

The rest of my night has been filled with homework like this:

And I'm working on my presentation for Wednesday on the artist Chuck Close. His stuff is pretty awesome, and when I learned that he can still paint after becoming a quadriplegic his awesome factor went through the roof. It's dangling somewhere around the outer atmosphere. It would be higher, but I have to present him to my class, which I will hate doing.

I think it's time for bed now. Tomorrow better be awesome or I might just cry.

Is It Time For Bed Yet?

I was back home this weekend with Prince Charming and LadiesMan. LadiesMan had never been to Hayden before, so showing him around was a must.

Saturday I went skiing with my dad and totally rocked it. I feel super awesome for only having been on a pair of skis twice ever in my life. We joke about how I'm going to be a sensation at the 2014 Olympics. In '11 I'll hone in my epic kills, but '12 I'll be racing and in '13 I'll be racing professionally so that in '14 I'll be in ship shape for the Olympics. It should be rad. I'll keep you all informed on my progress!

Saturday night I played Apples to Apples with a large group of boys. My sister and I were out numbered, but not out witted. I won with a total of 11 green cards. If you haven't played Apples to Apples before, you should. Not only does it have the potential to be extremely entertaining and hilarious, but you learn things about the people you play with. I highly recommend it. Especially with teenage boys. Eight teenage boys and two girls. 

Seriously. Entertaining.

Sunday after church, we visited downtown Coeur d'Alene and walked around Tubbs Hill with my camera. 

LadiesMan stuck his hand in the water. I should have dared him to take a dip, but despite the relatively warm weather, the water is probably still freezing. 

You know, since it takes longer for water to warm up than air and all. Minor details.

Today was beautiful. It was like someone upstairs knew we were going to be outside today and told the sun to shine extra bright. I loved being outside and soaking up sun rays. It made me forget about everything I have to do now that I'm back home at school. 

Plus, I got to experiment with silhouettes. I have so much trouble spelling that word. It's ridiculous.

 

  

LadiesMan was bent on making it look like he was pushing Prince-y into the water without actually pushing him in. It was quite the sight to see. 

These boys are fun to hang out with. And LadiesMan likes taking pictures just as much as I do. Here's some of what he snapped today:

We had so much fun today that I fell asleep in the car on the way home. Prince was driving and at first he wasn't too keen on my closing my eyes. It felt like I only closed them for a few minutes and all of a sudden we were pulling into Moscow and I'd missed a beautiful sunset. 

Sorry you don't get more sunset pictures today. 

I carried my baggage back in my dorm room, and all I wanted to do was go back to bed. My eyes were saying sleeeeeeeeep! You need sleeeeeep! And my brain was conflicted because it wanted to agree with my eyes, but at the same time it wanted to do internet things and edit pictures. 

Inevitably my brain won and instead of napping I'm in LadiesMan's room watching Prince play a videogame while LadiesMan does homework and I'm blogging. A very social group we are. All using technology...not talking to each other. 

I think someday I will try to get a picture of what it must look like to outside observers. A typical night for us, you know. Screen time. 

The average child in the upcoming generations have on average 7 1/2 hours of screen time daily. This includes cell phone, computers, and TVs. I want to be angry about that, because when I was little my mom would kick us outside. 

"It's a nice day! What are you doing in here watching TV? Go outside and play!" 

And we'd go. Outside. And we'd play Indians in the backyard with a bunch of neighborhood friends. Or we'd ride bikes. Or we'd play kick ball in the front yard. Sometimes we would find a trampoline to go jump on. 

What do kids these days do? Do they even know what outsideland is? Sometimes I wonder. But then I just think, well miss Natalie? What are you doing right now? And here I sit in front of a screen. 

After church this morning we had delicious breakfast burritos. Then before we all left for Moscow there were Red Robin burgers to be had. But now I'm hungry again, so I believe it's off to forage for food. 

Too bad tomorrow is Monday. What an awful waste of a one seventh of a week. 

Next weekend is Spring Break. Who knows what I'll be doing, but this week is full of projects and presentations. Am I excited? No way. Am I gonna be fine? I believe so. 

Am I gonna be tired? You betcha.