Beautiful

I'm sitting on the bench outside the Ad building of a virtually abandoned college and academy campus. Everyone's either gone for the summer or graduated. The wind is bossily pushing moody-looking clouds past, occasionally allowing the setting sun to peek through. Despite the slightly ill-tempered weather, I'm happily eating granola and Greek yogurt, savoring the fact that I have no assignments to hand in, no deadlines, and no one to talk to. The campus flock of ducks are waddling across the grass in scattered groups towards the pond. Wild birds are twittering their evening songs. Night is approaching. For the past week I have unashamedly enjoyed being a bum. I have started to read books I didn't have time for during the school year, journalled many pages, and took as many naps as I wanted to. It's been awesome...and I could use about two more weeks like this. But my time is up. In a couple of days, I'll be helping to lead another canvassing program. This t...

 One of those pictures when you put your camera on the ground where you can't see the viewfinder, let it focus on what it wants to, and push the shutter button.  They say life passes in the blink of an eye, but if your eye is a shutter...  Dusty Sunset There's a very fancy flower  Somebody didn't read it. Thistle; the field anemone  Flower waiting for sunset These ones are so cheerful The jungle of grass A pecan tree. The leaves always grow in these really pretty whorl patterns, if you look at them from underneath. Karen dances Funny thing; you would never find her in a field wearing nice clothes like that Or on an abandoned gravel road A little tree takes the stage Spring and the unexplored hill Campus at Sunset Road to the Ridge Country roads Californian flowers Sunset in front of the Ad building Wild violets Unusual creatures found in the forest ...

A couple of years ago, a fellow student at OHC put a book in my mailbox. When I pulled the book out and saw the cover, I laughed out loud. It was titled something about how to be a manly man and the contents of the book were even more exciting. After I got over wondering why the book ended up in my  box, I took it home and read all about how to skin a rabbit, mix a cocktail, sweet-talk the ladies, survive if lost in the forest, cook a semi-decent meal, and how to do regular and proper hygiene. Yes, the book was a joke. The guy who loaned it to me was an outdoorsy, adventurous sort and, knowing I was a tomboy, thought I would want to know how to be a good man. I laughed at the book, but was honestly disgusted with the main philosophy behind it. Disclaimer here: Growing up, I always wanted to be a boy because I was the firstborn and knew most dads wanted to have sons as firstborns. I also wanted to do fun things like rock climbing with my dad, so I made myself be as tough as...

Transitioning out of survival mode, I'm casting about for things to do to prevent me from sleeping all day. Usually college students freak out during finals week, but I find that to be super unnecessary and counterproductive. In my mind, the only reason why you would need to worry about finals is if you haven't been paying attention in class the whole semester, or if you want to get a grade that doesn't really reflect the effort you've put in the whole semester. Yea. I also know that whatever I cram into my short term memory to get the A will stay on the exam paper when I walk out the door. I'll never remember it again. Case in point; I had to memorize a quote for an exam, and I studied it for about one minute before the test, remembered it perfectly, wrote it down, and promptly forgot it. What's the point in that!? Finals merely exercise my ability to put meaningless information into short memory, and then spit it out intact and undisturbed. Or my ability to ...

Sunni learned to play the dulcimer pretty quickly Sharon played around with it, too A view I saw while scouting territory one evening "Good fences make good neighbors." - Robert Frost We went to a playground for lunch in Yellville and Duncan had some difficulty riding the little horse He's not used to riding horses It was quite a sad moment as he slowly fell backwards And ended up on the ground. (But still on the horse) Danny, on the other hand, had a great experience on the playground Random chair in the playground. I wasn't sure why it was there, until I discovered that it spins! A giant teeter-totter Duncan, still trying to stay on the horse Sunni was quite the turtleback rider Duncan and I tried to figure out who was heavier It turns out that I am - just barely Karen and Rafael riding a dragonfly seesaw Sharon looks like she's ready to go Grandma Dorothy, the nicest lady we...