paintedpinkmountains

When I was young, all I could look forward to was turning 16 and being able to get my license.  Living out at the very edge of the school district, I spent most of my academic years begging for rides in town to friends houses, because the majority of everyone who lived anywhere else had no interest in driving the whole way out to Pluto. After that, it was 18. Because being able to (legally) stay out all night without fear of violating a curfew (which may have actually happened) was a huge thing for someone who was a night owl to look forward to. And of course the excitement of being able to legally drink was on the table for way longer than it should have been.  Not that I gave that law any credence either, because I was stubborn and did what I wanted to anyway.  It's entirely possible I did more drinking in the years before I turned 21 than in those that followed.  But this isn't about my delinquent behavior..... After 21 I had 25 to look forward to.  Since marriage wasn

After finding a couple cassette tapes in the old jelly cupboard, knowing exactly what was on at least one of them, I pulled this out of the closet and shed tears when I heard my little voice. I remember making that tape. I remember where I was when I was making it (the front porch of the house I currently live in), what I had on (a pink shirt/short outfit from Dutchmaid), the sound the little tape recorder made when I pushed record. I remember making up those songs. I was probably three years old at the time. Little me, singing, I pictured my hair in a ponytail on top of my head, which created a waterfall effect, and urged my cousin to give me the same nickname. My cousin mostly called me PITA. I'm pretty sure I was a PITA much of the time. She loved me though. And used to stick up for me when I would get in trouble. Long past the time anyone should have been. My mom, my cousin, and I, made a tape one New Years Eve of the Top 100 Countdown on one of our favorite lo

I have a dream. This dream does not involve expensive, fancy cars.  It does not involve a house full of innovative, life-altering gadgets and appliances.  It does not involve a corporate career which brings a six-figure income.  I really don't care about a six-figure income.  But let's be honest here...without a college degree (of which I also don't have a dream of obtaining), and the motivation to plant my ass in a chair, surrounded by dreary, grey cubicle walls all day, shuffling the remains of dead trees around, there will be no six-figure income in any decade of my life.  Unless I actually finish one of my books and it becomes a best-seller and someone decides to make a movie about it.  I was a stand-in for Elizabeth Moss once, maybe she could play me?  Though Kristen Bell a la Veronica Mars is more my thought (Kristen, if you're reading this, keep your calendar open in five or ten years). As usual, I digress.  Back to that dream. I don't know tha

Time is such a fickle thing.  Determined by a multitude of circumstance. Malleable, conforming to presence based on where one is from moment to moment.  There is never enough of it for the ways I wish to be able to utilize it in.  Yet there is so much more of it than I ever truly realize. When I was younger, I would often spend so much time sitting, waiting for whatever was coming.  The event that was days away seemed to be so far off, yet it would arrive and be gone in a flash. The hour between the time that I was ready to be picked up by a friend and the moment that they actually arrived seemed to drag on for days.  The moments of boredom that came when I played with everything and it was only mid afternoon and it was so long until bedtime and what would I ever do with all those hours? Oh how I would use that idle time now if only I knew how valuable it was then.

Every project has a story behind it.  Some have multiple stories.  The Solaris Shawl that I knit last year had a bit of baseball in it, as well as an entire train ride across the country and back, weaving pieces of home and away, as well as the past and the present with the future.  It took me months to complete with all the involved stitches, short rows, counting and counting, backing out, starting over.  In the end I gifted it, and sent all the pieces of me that went into it along with it. Socks are fairly easy for me these days and if I'm able to work consistently I can finish a pair within two weeks.  And I use the same pattern for every new pair, so the only time I really need to read the pattern is when I turn the heel.  Even then I'm getting closer to having that part memorized. This pair was different.  I started these in July and just finished them ten minutes ago.  October 11th.  Four months.  I've not really knit otherwise in that time.  An easy, basic scar

Early in the spring, the blossoms of an apple tree bring the beginning of a cycle, as they fill every inch of its' branches, creating a brilliant display against the blue skies and greening grasses.  The limbs reach up, seeming to open to the warming sun, and it's usually a welcomed reminder of beauty after the darkness of winter. As summer rolls around, the trees pull strength from the sustenance provided by all that is given them during this season, to create the life that they will eventually provide to us when the time comes to harvest. And as the time to harvest comes, you can see the progression that the tree has made from those first days of spring.  The fruit is abundant, and the weight of what it bears pulling its' limbs towards the ground. It's quite a different sight and evokes such a contrasting energy than that of spring. In my own season of grief, I look upon these apple trees, realizing how closely they mimic my own feeling of overwhelm.  I feel