Slacking on the blog page

That is what I have been doing.

Well it hasn’t been all riding bikes and hanging out and doing nothing while I have neglected this page. In the mere moments that I have a minute or two, it is usually consumed by school work!! There is only a few weeks left of school and holy crow am I ready for the semester to end and summer to be on my doorstep!!

I have been trying to cram an awful lot into an awful little, but I’m not the only one and I don’t have as much as some so I shouldn’t complain too much but WOW ready for a breather.

Hmm what has happened in a month?!?!

Well let’s see…

Most weekends were consumed by school work…wish I could pay someone….

or that I could go back to the Trapper Keeper days of simplicity…Yea I’m a bit old school….

Went and lifted some buckets..

poured some sap…

made some syrup…

Planned and schemed a vacation away to sunny CA to have a re-do of my 20-10, as my friend Liz calls it….

Much needed and a good break at the right time….

Oh yea…I rode my MTB…

And I won my first EVER bike race…And I feel great…finally can say that I feel 100% healed since my accident…

It pushed me further then I was comfortable with at times, but it made me face my fears and afterwards it was totally rewarding…

Ohh and getting ready for a little ball this weekend to break up the ‘pounding the books with my nose’…

Ready for summer….almost there….

This post...

is a by-product of research paper brain-fried-ness. 


Isn't funny when you focus so hard on one article of scholarly intent. You plug, prod away at it, try to annotate why, whom, when and the reasonings why you find this and that useful, and how to make it better until it all looks alike, no matter how many times over.
In the end, the words are just words, they all mean the same when you open up a dictionary, they just happen to be entered and written in different manners than others, as a by-product of YOUR mind. You secretly hope that your mind is of passing grade.


In the meantime, to break up the intellectual monotony of stressing and pressing words onto paper,  we experience weekends of relaxation. 


This weekend of one of those, simple and no real plans, except where to sleep and who I was with. Sometimes days like those that occurred, are needed in order to break away from the structure of everyday life and papers. 


To decide on a whim to stop here, eat there, and shop somewhere. It is refreshing to be so unstructured at times. 


Although a piece of paper with written words can have so many meanings, there are bigger things within the little things in life. 


It is nice to step away and enjoy them at times. 

Just right...

Have you ever been somewhere, done something, said something, been with someone and just know that it was just the right place to be, the right thing to do, the right thing to say, and the right person to be with?

Sometimes you go an awfully long time thinking that you are doing everything right all the time for all the wrong reasons. Then one day something clicks inside you and you realize that you weren't doing the right thing for yourself. It may take seconds, minutes, months, or even years to come to this realization, but when you do and you start being with people, doing things, saying things, and going places that are right for yourself, it is earth shattering. 

I have learned a lot through my years, but I think that I  have learned the most recently. I have learned that I can go places that I want to go and not feel guilty for that desire. I have learned that I can do something and not have to worry about if it is okay or not. I have learned that I can be completely open and honest and if people care about me, they will respect and understand my point of view. Lastly, I have learned that I can be with someone who truly values me as me. 

The moral of this story is that I have learned to just make sure you take time to do what is right for you, then everything else around you will be just right...

Happiness is...

so many things. 

family.

riding your bike outside.

getting fresh turns in pow.

always meeting new people.

laughing.

crying for good reasons.

having good food.

looking at someone and just knowing.

furballs that purr.

lazy days.

always looking ahead.

a well put together school paper.

snuggling on Sundays.

learning.

smiling.

barking fluffs of stuff too.

hugging.

honesty.

playing in the snow.

the shining sun.

warmth.

amazing.

real.

always being there for someone.

knowing they have your back too.

memories.

being and feeling true to yourself.

holding hands.

riding a horse.

beautiful.

true friends.

snowball fights.

wanting to try new things.

being able to  laugh at yourself every now and then.

truthfulness.

enjoying what you do.

squirt guns.

pink sunsets.

great music.

the ocean.

cattail fights.

rainbows.

art.

feeling the wind on your face.

comfortable.

being alive.

a journey.

A Knowledge Rainbow...

Books tell stories, not just within their pages, but to those on the outside looking in.

I am fascinated by people.


I am fascinated by books.

I am fascinated by people who have all sorts of books. 

Old books, new books, fiction, non-fiction, biography, history, auto-biography, poems, short stories, art books, travel books...any and all types of books. 

Personally I do not have an inordinate amount of books, but I do have a small portion that I have decided that are keepers and 'show and tell' for others to gander at.
Some people have a lot of books because after the class that had required them was finished, they simply decided it was easier to keep then try to sell back for two dollars, myself included. Some people get a lot of books for birthdays, holidays and other special events. Some people have books quite simply because they like to read and want to fill their beautiful minds up with as much as they possibly can about any, everything and all in between.


It isn't so much the reasonings as to why a person has a large amount of books, it is what they are and how they are arranged that intrigue me the most. 


I love just going up to the shelves and just reading the titles of these paper treasures. No particular order, whatever catches my eye. Run my fingers down the spine of the book as I try to decipher what it may be about and if it is interesting enough to pull out to inspect further. Books tell you something about a person. They give you a snapshot of a person's mind,  their history, and even a glimpse of their future. Books hint at what a person likes, what they learned, what they inspire to be, what they want to do, where they want to go and why they may act they way they act.
Most people have a method to their book arranging madness. Some like it in perfect symmetrical, size, shape and order. Others do it by authors or title, in alphabetical order. I have even seen books arranged by ISBN number (like whoa!), that was NOT at the library. Some books are just scattered on a shelf, clinging to the pine boards to keep their place, trying to avoid the inevitable fall to the floor. Some books are on shelves with no order, just packed like sardines in a can, all different shapes and sizes, tightly mushed into their wooden/metal/plastic holding container until one day they are removed to feed the mental hunger of their owner.



I have experienced books arranged in so many different formats. Recently I witnessed the first arrangement of books by color. Now I know that this isn't something new, but I was taken back by it. You know the whole saying "Never judge a book by it's cover", well this arrangement was doing just that, yet it was celebrating it, no judging involved. The person who had done the arrangement was taking the talent that others had bestowed upon the books hard or paperback wrapping and flying its flag of color in such an artful form, that I found myself just mesmorized by the art and colors and not just the words of the books. This arrangement showed me that this person valued not just the inside knowledge that the book possessed but the colorful identity of the book itself. There is value in the art of the book, not just the art of words. 


It takes all types of books to make up a packed shelf. It takes all types of people to read those packed shelves. It takes certain people to read past the words and see whole picture.


In the end, sometimes we need to place the book back on the shelf and take a step back and enjoy the rainbow that is in all of us through knowledge. All different shapes, sizes, ages, and colors in all of our artful formats...

A faultless melody…

You know when you hear a song for the first time and you think at that moment, wherever you are, and whatever it is that you are doing, that you can surely relate it to something in your life. You are determined that there is a reason as to why this song made its existence known. Yet sometimes, as hard as you try to force that song into your world, it doesn’t fit. This inability to place it doesn’t change your feelings for the song; it is simply that your life isn’t fit for it at that moment.

Years past and you go about life, loving that song, for all the same reasons as when you first heard it. The words, the beat, the chords, the voice, and the heart strings it evokes. You always know that when you hear that song again, after a long hiatus, you will feel the life it brings with it, as much as the first time did.

Words, emotion, chords of feelings, and the realities of certain songs are all a part of your life. Songs always come and go.  Different phases filter through music, much like your own personal life. Some songs have longevity, some are one hit wonders, some are fast, some are slow and certain ones are just right no matter what. Regardless of the songs origin, they find a way to move you, physically or emotionally.

Unknowingly, sometimes a new existence with fresh moments of being, allow you to take that song and all of its emotion, and place it into your world. Yet this happens differently than expected. No forcing it to fit your world, it happens by chance. No longer is there searching for that song to fit your moment. There is a moment that fits itself to the song. With this one moment, the song is flawlessly tied into your life. Mysterious ‘til now, there was a reason for that song to enter your world.

Finally, perfect placement. 

And come on in, 2011. You are more than welcome here…

It is exceptionally easy to dwell on the negative moments at times that happen in our lives, for sometimes it seems like the more they hurt, the more they stick out in your collective memory.

Happiness and moments of it, can sometimes be fleeting or can last for hours. Sometimes it feels harder to grasp the strings of memory in order to replicate the happiness felt from those beautiful moments.

Sometimes we think that we ‘choose’ to remember those moments. We don’t choose anything with what our subconscious decides to store or what it doesn’t. We don’t sit there and go “Right now I’m going to remember.…” and it pops up into your head. We can repeat moments in our minds, much like a stuck film projector going over the same slide but even that replication won’t last forever, even as much as we want it too or even as much as we may not. Eventually it will fade and become a memory of what was. Floating, fleeting, semi lucid, permanent, whatever the potency of our moments may be, they become us. They make us stronger. They turn to memories that our subconscious decides what is best for them and when to present them back to us.

A passing year  is like memories in the mind.

We don’t sit back and select our moments throughout the year. We don’t choose the bad, we wish for the good, and are glad when it ‘just is’. We have stuff happen that hurts. We experience moments that just are the day to day flow of life. We long for moments that will make us feel elated. We all want the beautiful moments of the year to stick out, but sometimes, we have no control at what we remember from years past, much like that of the mind.

The good, the bad, and all that random stuff in between is a growth process, whether you are 10 or 85. There is always something that will beat you down, raise you up or keep you even. You may not know it at that moment, but it all happens for a reason. It may not make a bit of sense at that time, but you grow and learn from  it all. You may become grateful for it, you may become hateful from it, or you may become placid with it.

A lot of stuff happened to everyone I know this past year, myself included. The vast spectrum included battles against diseases, broken hearts and bones, realities of war, losing loved ones, falling in love, beautiful babies taking their first breaths, and moving to across town or cross country. All memories now. They may still cause a tear, a smile, a shiver, or a laugh but each of our own personal struggles mold us, they make us, they become one with us. The pain and the happiness and the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and eventually the year that they belong to, are gone.

So with this and the parting of 2010, I raise my glass to all of you:

To a New Year, a fresh start, and to more moments and memories to be made, that will only become part of the intricate fabric that is life. Whether they are bad, so-so, or absolutely amazing, allow these moments to make you more of who you are going to be. Grow from them and with them.

Lastly, make the most out of your precious time here, and share that wonder with those that truly value you and want you in their lives. Enjoy every smile, smirk, tear, shout, laugh, kiss-whatever it is. Make the best of it.

~~~~

“You walked into my world, when I very least expected 
I had just returned, from my own private war 
My mind still wrapped in bandages, my nights still filled with fear 
You filled my hands with song, and my heart fluttered  
all the way home  

…
And as the sun went down, I was filled with wonder 
Perhaps you have to almost die, to feel so entirely alive…”

~Every Day-Meg Hutchinson