Snowboarding is in full swing, we haven't been doing much else but planning for the mountain, staying at the mountain, and recovering from the mountain.
We did go to Jay's company Christmas party, although we don't look too happy in the photos:
Me talking to Mom in the condo kitchen:
Fam hanging out in the living room:
Getting ready to go boarding:
Josh jumping a rail:
Happy Thanksgiving picture. Very slim, very stripped-down dinner when you've got to tote everything up the hill:
Last weekend we took Joshua's buddy David up with us. While Josh was happy to have someone to hang with the whole time, on the slopes and off, it certainly got noisy at times.
So Mom figured she'd do some skiing while she was here. The pictures are great. The visit was too. Shout out to Jonathan for giving her tips that Jay and I were unable to impart. We stayed at the condo one night and a good time was had by all.
Here's the one picture I have of the condo...the rest are on Jay's laptop that he takes to work and I haven't been able to upload them. This will have to do for now.
Mom and Sarah (some pics are phone pics, hence the crumminess):
I really am taller than Mom (and she's stretching in this picture):
On the way to the condo (and Mom had no idea what she was in for):
Mom trying to walk (and me trying not to wet myself laughing):
Crashed out:
On the magic carpet, getting legs under her:
Far more comfortable with it now. The guy behind her is Jonathan, originally from Alberta, who was kind enough to spend a half hour teaching her since Jay and I haven't skied in 20 years and were giving...um...conflicting information.
Jay doing his DEVO imitation:
The view from Switchback Seven:
Lying on the floor, westing and wewaxing:
Me and Mom on the way to the airport. We love how blurriness erases fine lines and wrinkles.
Me in my latest Christmas party dress iteration:
I tried with no success to get her to come back in March, but we're planning another excursion come the 2010-2011 snowboarding season.
This is a work of fiction. I was listening to Moonlight Sonata and it just....came. So I hope you enjoy it.
I don’t know what brought me to visit the old burned out shell of a warehouse that day, but it changed my life more than I can even begin to tell you.
But when I reached the deteriorating structure, I only vaguely remembered getting there. For a moment I puzzled over why I was there, however, the moment I heard strains of the most heartbreakingly beautiful music drifting from one of the back rooms, I knew. I began to shake and fear urged me to run, but the soft melody pulled me in closer and closer as if the notes themselves were animating my body. When I saw him, something inside me broke, and tears began sliding down my face. Though I had never seen him before in my life, he was dear to me; the exotic refrain resonating from the oddly preserved grand piano he sat at washed through my being, making me feel as if I’d known him my whole life; that beautiful street urchin.
I stood there in complete silence as the last measure dissolved into the dusty air, tears dried on my face, watching him in hushed, sorrowful awe.
Suddenly, he looked up and noticed me, shock and embarrassment frozen on his face. He cautiously moved towards me, one hand reaching up to my face, as if he were about to brush my tears away. He looked to be about nine years old, ash and dried blood caked on his face and matted in his hair. But his hands were clean, as if he hated the thought of dirtying those beautiful white keys he had been lovingly caressing just moments before. I also noticed his eyes; shockingly green with flecks of gold and royal blue.
“What is your name?” I whispered huskily.
“I don’t have one,” he answered listlessly, casting his eyes downward.
Without another word, I kneeled and wrapped my arms around his tiny body, letting my tears flow silently again.
“Hush,” he breathed, stroking my hair, “it will be all right.”
We stayed like that for a very long time, and when the sun began sinking behind the crumbling buildings, turning the sky scarlet, we spoke again.
“Where did you learn to play?”
“Nowhere. I can’t read music,” he said simply, in a tone befitting a much older person.
“How do you get your songs?”
“From my head….they’re there. Always playing.”
“You mean you made up that song?”
“Yes. In a way. You see, I AM my songs. They’re all I know.”
I couldn’t answer. There wasn’t anything I could say. It was if all my words, my entire self, was gone. Absorbed by his aura.
I pulled away from him, staring deeply into his vast enveloping eyes when he began to evaporate. Somehow I knew it would happen and I could tell he always had.
He smiled sadly and placed his tiny warm hand on my face, closing his eyes. A pain shot through me for a moment before it numbed and eventually faded, but I could tell there was something different. There was music drifting through my head, echoing off everything; his songs.
Even now I hear them; all of them, ceaselessly. Sometimes there are new ones. He’s there somewhere, in my head. I dream about him occasionally. But he never sees me. He just sits there at his piano, playing away. And I always wake up crying. Every time I wander the streets I can’t help but check the faces of all the little boys that pass, even though I know he’s not in the world anymore. When I asked him, he didn’t know who he was, but now I do. He was every unwritten song since the beginning of time.
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Oct. 31, 2009
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Yep, It's Been A While...Here's Some Pics.
Posted By
ThreeJane
*edited to add: I'm now down to 157 lb. and a size 10. I've got about 25 pounds to go and another dress size and then I will be happy. w00t!
Usual goings-on around here, with a few extras. Lots of drama, but hey, that's the way things always go. Pretty soon we'll be cataloging snowboard injuries and pictures of white stuff covering everything too.
Jay painting the girls' nails, Hannah cheesing for the camera:
We had the dogs inside on some single-digit nights, Jay with Lhasa. That old fart is ten years old, and has good lungs, eyes, and heart. He's a good dog.
The girls got to go to the Halloween Mall Trick-or-Treat thing, courtesy of our church. They dressed up slightly more this year, although the capes were still de rigeur, for some reason.
Jay with the kids:
Me with the kids:
The girls in their face paint:
That's all for now. I'll be sure to update you the first time I bust my face on my new board.
Can you guess what happened to my hair since I last wrote here? No? Well, here we go. You know that I bleached it fairly white, using a mixture of straight bleach, hydrogen peroxide, and lemon juice. It seemed to work pretty well, but lately it had been growing out, and because of the contrast between my bleached hair and my unbleached hair, I ended up with what looked like a black streak down the middle of my head. So I decided to bleach my hair again, and see if I could get: 1. my already bleached hair to be absolutely white, and 2. the hair that had grown out to blend in a little better. To this end, I gathered together a few of the things I'd used last time (clorox bleach, large plastic bowl, dishwashing gloves, large rag-towel), and went outside to work on the first step. You have to be outside, otherwise the smell of the bleach will knock you out. (It very nearly did anyway.)
So I put the towel around my shoulders to protect my clothes (which I had made sure weren't ones I was particularly fond of in any case), put on the gloves, discovered that they were both for the left hand, muttered a bit but decided it wasn't worth the trouble to look for a right hand glove, poured a fair amount of straight bleach into the bowl, took a deep breath, and stuck my head in it. (A note: straight bleach kinda burns. You get this interesting feeling, sort of like your scalp is dissolving.) I swished my hair around a bit with my gloved hands, making sure it was all wet, then gingerly pulled my head out of the bowl and wrapped the towel around my hair. The bleach in the bowl had gone all foamy. It was very odd-looking, but I had seen it the last time I bleached my hair, so I wasn't worried. Holding the towel securely to my head with one hand, I picked up the bowl, carried it over to a russian olive, and poured it on the roots. (Theoretically this should kill it, but I'm not sure even straight bleach has a chance against that overgrown weed.)
Then I went back and did it again. I left the bowl upside down on the rocks by the garage door to drain completely (you can't put bleach in your drains--it does bad things), and went inside, carrying the bleach and wearing the gloves. I waited in the garage for a bit, making sure my hair was well wrapped up and wouldn't drip, and taking off the gloves (a feat I managed with difficulty) before I went into the house. I put the bleach away, and then sort of wandered around for a while, waiting for my hair to dry. When it did, I went into my bathroom with a couple mostly empty bottles of hydrogen peroxide, gingerly unwrapped the towel (holding my head over the tub), and poured as much peroxide on my head as I could. I used the gloves to make sure I was getting everything, scrubbing around blindly.
With the towel off my head, I thought, it seemed extraordinarily light. I hadn't noticed the weight of my head when I put the towel on the first couple of times, but now that I thought about it, hadn't my head seemed lighter than usual when I had taken it out of the bowl of bleach for the first time? I was unsure. My head had been swimming from the bleach fumes, and I hadn't been thinking or noticing things properly.
I finished with the second step, and rewrapped my head. It seemed to take forever for it to dry. I went and got the lemon juice out of the refrigerator while I waited. Finally I gave up. Somewhat damp, I decided, was just as good as completely dry. I went back into my bathroom and repeated the process, this time using lemon juice, rewrapped my head, put the lemon juice back, and started waiting for my hair to dry. I wandered about the house, one hand steadying the large pink towel on my head, and thought uneasily about the comparative weight of wet hair to dry.
Eventually it dried enough for me to remove the towel, and I went directly to the mirror. My hair was a dark, tangled mess. I wondered whether the bleaching had worked. It's true that my hair is always ridiculously dark when it's wet, or even damp, but surely it should be lighter than this, I thought. I was somewhat disturbed by this, and went to borrow Mom's hairdryer. I couldn't find it. It turned out to be in a drawer under one of the sinks in BookFreak and AnonymousGirl's bathroom. I turned it on as high as it could go, and set to work. The truth emerged fairly quickly. Under the blast of warm air, my hair dried into a fuzzy, inch-thick carpet on the top of my head. I ran my hands over it incredulously. It felt nice. I felt hysterical laughter bubbling up in my throat. The bleach had dissolved my light-colored hair almost completely. It was still there--on the sides of my head, in the back--but not on the top. I looked a bit like one of those top-bald hippies who refuse to admit that their hair isn't growing in the middle anymore. The sound of the hairdryer covered my mad giggles as I finished drying the longer hair around the sides of my head.
I think Mom considered disowning me when I showed her what I'd done. I asked her if she would try cutting it so the rest of it matched the top, but she wouldn't. I borrowed the razor she uses to trim the boys' hair, put on the one-inch attachment, and attempted it myself. I don't think it turned out too badly. It wasn't what I was trying for, mind you, but even Mom admits that it doesn't look too grotesque. My cousin Michael says I look sort of like Angelina Jolie in 'Hackers'. (Sadly, he's right.) On the upside, I think I'm done with bleach now. I've had enough fun.
Hi Friends~
Life here at Dixon Homestead goes on... as the weather turns colder and the sun shines less.
We are being cautious to stay as healthy as we can, though it is difficult with the changing weather. Almost all of our children went through colds last week. We are thankful to be over them now! We are keeping them in the sunshine when it come out, because sunshine contains a lot of vitamin D, which kills the influenza virus. That and the other health remedies we are using surely kept their colds from becoming something worse.
We are up to 14 goats now, but we are in the process of selling most of them. (If you are interested and local, email me!)... We will also then have to sell our 1yo LGD, Coconut, a beautiful and sweet Great Pyrenees... Chickens will go next.... downsizing in these last days...
Other than that, we are WELL! We are discovering more and more of Torah and how to fully love and trust in Yehovah, and we are truly blessed!!
May you be blessed of Yehovah and have his Shalom, which is not what the world offers and will keep you content in all you do!
Y'know, those big green signs over the freeway. I had probably read hundreds of them. I had probably read this one a hundred times alone.
It was late. My work had gotten off at 11' o'clock. In the evening. I had just worked at catering wedding reception. Everyone seemed so happy there. Nothing but plastic smiles plastered on their plastic faces. Not a care in the world.
This probably wasn't true, but it had worked. I had genuinely envied them.
My life was currently a maze of conflict. I had been raised in a Christian home all my life. Strong, Christian parents, who only allowed me to make strong, Christian friends. But I hadn't complained. That sort of life, though plastic a boring, was solid. But it was about this time that I began to ask myself, "Is the Christian life supposed to be solid? Who's supposed to be the Rock here? Us, or God?" My answer was clear: Our lives were meant to be filled with turmoil. To be tossing oceans. Not solid, or sleepy. The only solidity in our lives was supposed to be the Rock. Only in our instability, can we truly rely on a stable God.
When I had come to this realization, I reacted. I started questioning everything. Acting randomly, and doing dangerous things. I still clung to God, but that was about it. The world was worthless, and meaningless. I had to get away from it.
That's when I saw the sign.
Now, I always drove past the sign and took the other freeway home. I had never noticed it before. Now, it was calling me. Moving me. With every fiber of my being, I wanted to follow that sign.
That's when my rational, solid upbringing kicked in. For the last time. I drove past the sign and headed home. At home, things moved slowly. In my Jeep, things started accumulating. Clothes, money, a tent. It took several days before I realized that I was sub-conciously packing for a trip. But when the sleepingbag found its way into my Jeep, I realized it was time to go. I had to go.
So, about a week after the sign had called me, actually, that God had called me, I was ready to go. I was going to follow the sign. Follow God.
It was 10 at night. A beautiful night. I hugged my mom closely. She hadn't understood, but she had a peace about it. I was walking out the door, when I almost bumped into my friend, Tim, on the doorstep.
Now, Tim doesn't normally visit at 10 at night, so this was unusual.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"I don't know. I just had to come. And I don't know why. What're you doing?"
I told him. After listening he said, quietly.
"I coming with you. I've felt the same thing. I've brought my stuff."
Suddenly, I understood. All this time, I thought I would have to break away from the stable life by myself. I wouldn't. Tim was coming with me.
A short time later, Tim's stuff was packed and we were off.
We drove in silence for 20 minutes. There was something emotional and mutual about what we were feeling at that moment that was beyond words. It wasn't fear. It was peace. We were jumping off a perverbial cliff, and we had a peace about it.
Finally, out on the freeway, Tim kicked his shoes off.
"So, since we don't know what we're doing, can I at least ask where we're heading?" He asked, propping his feet up on the dash.
"I was thinking Kansas City." I responded, leaving the sign behind me forever....
I am 15 and I love reading, writing, listening to music, Tap dancing, and playing bass guitar!!! I am working on becoming a musician and a marine biologist.
