Someone I Like ~ Poems, Sketches, and Thoughts

Someone I Like
Someone I like is far away,
I feel the silence everywhere.
I didn't know how much I'd care.

Someone I like is far away,
I feel the silence in the air,
I feel it, feel it everywhere.

~ Charlotte Zolotow

People
Some people talk and talk
and never say a thing.
Some people look at you
and birds begin to sing.

Some people laugh and laugh
and yet you want to cry
Some people touch your heart
and music fills the sky.

~ Charlotte Zolotow

**************************

I try to be a positive person, but right now it's hard. My life is in upheaval mode and I'm feeling blocked. Trainwrecked. While I have a lot of ideas of what I'd like to do, I can't seem to muster up enough excitement to follow through on anything. I had a plan that suddenly shifted a great deal and now I have no idea where to go next. I'm not interested in committing to a long-term stay in any one place, yet I'm tired of constantly moving my things and being "unsettled." My days are unplanned and I have absolutely no schedule that I follow. I don't have a job, except for a couple of ongoing freelance projects that don't necessarily take up much time.

I've considered trying to find a "real job," but my travel plans for the next few months wouldn't allow for me to do so; I'd be taking "too much time" off of work.

Traveling plans are as follows: Mid-January, I'm going to Las Vegas to attend a Personal Growth Workshop. The following weekend, I'm attending a girls' weekend in Minnesota. After that, I plan to go to Montana to do a little snowboarding in the mountains. This could take up to a month, although any potential traveling companions have not yet committed. In March, I have three options that I'm considering: the Dominican Republic, Florida, or Joshua Tree National Park.

Yes, I need more money to finance all of this. Some will trickle in slowly from my brother, who bought my old purple car. Some will come from my freelance work, minimal as it is right now. The rest will come out of my savings until I come up with a new plan.

I can't decide if I want to go back up to Alaska to work next summer or if I should make some long-term plans that commence now and run through the summer and beyond, involving running my freelance business, or if I should do something completely different....

This entry feels a bit jumbled and negative. Poor, poor, pitiful me. I don't work and I can do whatever I want, and take as long as I want to do it. Life is so hard.

But I need direction and purpose, which I'm trying to find. It's a hard journey for me. I'm asking for any suggestions, comments, or thoughts that you might have.

Next entry will focus on the positives, I promise!

Busy with the Holidays: Snowboarding and Candy

Mount Bohemia opened last Friday! Ten people from my family went and took advantage of the fresh powder (nine kids and my dad). Most of us crowded into the extended van and rode together. The front bench seat is taken out, and we loaded the space with our snowboards and skiis and cooler and water jugs. There wasn't a whole lot of room left over, when we were done packing it in!

For two of my little brothers (ages 9 and 7), it was their first time there, and they had a blast. Typical of youngsters who don't know any better, they bombed fearlessly down the runs, purposely falling over when they got going too fast. As far as carving back and forth, they weren't that great at it, but that didn't seem to bother them.

Much unlike my first time snowboarding (I learned at Mount Bohemia), they made many runs within the first hour. I remember it taking me about 45 minutes to get down the hill the first time, so unsteady was I on my board, I would get up only to fall over immediately. I think I made a total of 4 runs my first day. My brothers had already made 7 runs by lunchtime!

At lunch, I overheard a guy at the next table saying, "Don't these kids have school today?" I had to laugh. Opening day is a great reason to skip school, in my opinion, and my eight siblings who were there that day had all skipped!

The next day, Saturday, we had a gingerbread house making party at my grandparents' apartment building. With a gaggle of young cousins (and me), it was a riot. We worked on tables in the community kitchen, which was a great space to hold us all. Each kid was given an allotment of candy and graham crackers, and they put together their creations with the steady stream of hot white chocolate bark that that parents brought to the tables.

In all, I believe there were 40 houses (and other things..) made that day. Here's the crew, with finished houses proudly displayed in front:

And finally, my "house:"

I've made a number of gingerbread houses over the years and decided that this time I wanted to make something else. So I came up with a beach chair and a campfire. I think it turned out rather well, don't you?

I hope you are all having very happy holidays!

My promised car picture

There it is, the car that makes me "Granola," according to some people. So be it. I like granola.

Car Sickness? Get a New Car!

My drive from Lansing to Duluth took over 11 hours. Ugh. My car, a small purple Toyota Corolla, wasn't much good for going faster than 60-65 mph. Any faster than that, and it would shake noticeably. (Even at that speed, there was a little shaking going on that I just tried to ignore.)

The first couple hours weren't too bad, just driving, listening to a book. Then next couple hours weren't too bad, either, even though traffic increased around Chicago and there was a lot of construction going on. I only got messed up once in all the detours.

I started getting hungry and thirsty, so I stopped a few times and got Vitamin Water once and Life Water a second time, got a package of Twizzlers Pull-N-Peel licorice, and a granola bar. I also ate the rest of my Rollos from the drive down, and had a slice of left-over pizza that I took with me from Sunday night. (Road food on a long drive day is rarely healthy or fulfilling.)

By the time I got to Eau Claire, I was ready to be done driving, but wanted to power through and just get it over with. So I continued on. It was dark and I was getting bored of driving and feeling tired. And I had a scratchy throat and a headache that kept getting worse. And then I started feeling nauseous. I had to keep rolling the windows down to get fresh air. I chewed gum, but I had already chewed a lot of gum and my jaws were too sore to keep working the gum. But the flavor kept the nausea down, so I just held the gum in my mouth.

The clock moved slowly, and the miles moved even more slowly. It became my goal to just get to Superior. I figured I'd pull into a gas station and rest for a little while before finishing my journey.

Finally, FINALLY, I got to Holiday in Superior. When I turned the car off, my world was spinning. I could still feel the car shaking, and everything I looked at was still moving. My headache got worse, and the nausea was still there. It felt like sea sickness. Must have been motion sickness from too many hours in a car that shakes. Well, that combined with not enough nutrition and not enough sleep.

I got out and walked around in the cool night air. It didn't help much. I called Tom to let him know where I was, and to tell him I needed to stop there for awhile before continuing on. He offered to come pick me up, and I accepted his offer. It was about the best thing I'd heard all day. I had been dreading trying to drive the rest of the way. Even the thought of starting up my car made my head spin and my stomach revolt.

So I laid down in my car and waited for him to show up. I think I fell asleep briefly, but then my stomach clenched. I tried to breathe deeply to keep everything down, but then the need became great. So I got out and walked to the darkened area near the back of the building. Then I puked. And dry heaved. And felt better, briefly, until round two commenced.

Tom finally arrived and brought me home; I retrieved my car the following day. I was feeling much better by then, thank you.

Anyway, I decided after that drive that I really did not like my car. No cruise control, too small, not good for winter driving, no roof rack, no all wheel drive, and way too shaky and loud while driving.

I have finally done something about it. A few days ago, I bought a new car! A Subaru Outback Forester. It has all the things I want, and hopefully will last me a good long while. (Picture to be posted tomorrow.)

Lansing Michigan: Capitol Building, Apples, and Pumpkins

Getting back into the traveling mode of this blog... That means playing catch-up! So... Back in October, I went to downstate Michigan to visit my friend Lori. This was the first time I had ever been to my state capitol or saw the Capitol Building (pictured above).

The entire weekend was a blast, hanging out with Lori and her roommies. This was the weekend I talked about briefly in this previous blog post. http://travelingev.blogspot.com/2009/10/loris-collage.html. It was the midst of fall, and I enjoyed the vibrant fall colors immensely, especially as we had gorgeous weather while I was there.

Sunday October 18, a fine day, Lori and I went to an apple orchard that reminded me a lot of the County Fair. People everywhere and cars parked in long rows on the grass. It was cool, but a little overwhelming for me to be around such a crowd. It's definitely been awhile since I've been in the midst of such a milling throng. A day spent at the apple orchard seemed to be a fun family affair; there were lots of activities to take part in: wagon rides, drinking cider, eating donuts, a corn maze, little games, a big balloon bouncing thing, live music...
 
We waited in the long line to go inside and see the cider mill and get our own hot cider and donuts. Here's a ragtag collage that gives a general sense of how long the line was.

The cider mill process was fairly impressive. They would dump large crates of apples into a big container, and the apples would then be brought up a ramp and dumped into a crushing device that would extract the juices. The leftover apple parts dumped into a big pile.

Later, we took a walk down to the orchard and then to the pumpkin patch. The apple trees were completely loaded down with GIGANTIC apples! That was pretty amazing. And the rows of trees stretched on as far as the eye could see. I'm way more used to wild apple trees growing haphazardly every which way. It's crazy to see what apple trees are capable of! (However, I still much prefer munching on wild apples in the quiet of the woods.)

And the pumpkin patch was beautiful. Even the ugly pumpkins had their own kind of charm. We took a ton of pictures.

Finally, a wild photo edit of the THREE PUMPKINS that STOLE Halloween.

Flashback to my Favorite Sweatshirt

Last week, I came across this cutout from my favorite sweatshirt of all time. It was part of a sweatsuit that I wore ALL THE TIME. Andrea, for whatever sentimental reason, had held onto it, intending to someday make it into a pillow.

Doesn't this make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside???

I'M DONE WITH MY NOVEL!!!

Yep. I finished my novel (titled "Rivers") on Friday, November 27, 2009. I just submitted it to the nanowrimo website  and received this very nifty "Winner's" badge!

The official word count was 50,483.