The Island of Lost Toys

*Warning, this post doesn't really have a point...*

I can very vividly remember my mother telling me to clean my room often when I was younger.  She would tell me it's that time of the week, and then she would leave my room and go back to whatever else she had to do around the house.  As soon as her back was turned I would start cleaning (I was the perfect child).  She would call down the hall probably an hour later asking if I was done and I would reply that my room was spotless.  It was great.  Never any problems.

And then I would hear these words; "If I check under your bed is it going to be just as clean?"

Uh, why don't you give me a little longer there mother dearest....  I totally forgot to check under my bed.

Then she would come back and I would be SO proud that my room was clean.  And as a bonus to being clean, it was organized!  I put high value on being organized, even then, so I always felt an extra amount of accomplishment because everything was in its place.  So I'm sure you can imagine my surprise when my beautiful, clean, ORGANIZED room received a barely passing grade in the eyes of my lovely mother.

How on earth had she found fault in all the hard work I'd done?!

Turns out,  my organization skills fall into the category of "stacking" rather than the traditional "finding a place for everything".  And even more shocking than that, according to anyone other than myself, stacking is not actually a legitimate form of organizing.  Somehow I was floored by this revelation, and subsequent accusation, every single time it happened.  I just could not accept that my way wasn't actually good enough for my mother the tyrant*.

Fast forward to now and surprise surprise I'm still a stacker.  I've gotten much better at organizing, and may have even come around to the idea that stacking isn't actually cleaning.  But old habits die hard.  I was thinking about this habit of mine the other day when I was contemplating the location of my ipod (it had been a while since I'd played angry birds).  Shockingly, I tend to lose things.  Not important things, just small ticket items like keys, passports, ipods, car registration....  Ugh I hate that word: 'lose'.... because I have trouble accepting that I've actually lost them.  I found them ALL sooner or later, it just takes me a while sometimes.  Whenever I share my woes about misplacing objects with my mother she invariably goes back to the issue that I am a "stacker" and not a "putter awayer".  I 'organize' things in such a way that I don't have a prayer of finding anything until I go through them again to actually put them away.

Ah the bitter sting of self-realization.  After the initial defensiveness and my overwhelming desire to say "Nuh UH!", comes the let down and soul crushing acceptance that, yes, I lose things.

This self analysis was brought on yesterday when I was cleaning my house (actual cleaning) and came across possibly my favorite pieces of paper in the world.  Before I moved to Michigan my fam had a little pow wow where we all wrote 5 things we loved about each member of the family.  So I have five pieces of paper telling me specific things my family loves about me.  I have read them more times than I can count over the past two years and I am so grateful to have them.  Now, they were never lost.  I promise.  I knew where they were the entire time.  BUT, they were stacked in a very weird location.  And as I came across them yesterday I had the thought, "these would serve me better if they weren't stacked right here, I should put them somewhere else."

And it was then that it lightening hit me and I realized my mother had been right all along.  Dang, I hate when that happens.

*My mother was never a tyrant.  I may have called her that once or twice when I was young and naive but I will forever be grateful for the skills she drilled into me when I was younger.  Even if they include my own faults.

Good Girls Go Where?

They go to Paris.  Did you know that?  I sure didn't.  I didn't even know there's a movie about it, but there is.  The movie was made in 1939 (probably a key point in why I didn't know it was out there).

"Jenny Swanson, a waitress on a college campus, is dying to visit Paris. Thanks to English professor Ronald Brooke, she manages to make her dream come true"

Sounds absolutely fascinating right?  Maybe more so now that I've seen the movie poster hanging in the restaurant I went to on Saturday.  The restaurant Good Girls Go To Paris.  I was absolutely fascinated with the place.  I loved the decor so much and the menu of 50 different kinds of fresh made crepes had me sold.  This little outing marked the first thing on my Bucket List.  Although this particular restaurant or the following activity weren't explicitly on the list, I think it all counts.  And since it's my list, my rules.

How adorable is this place?!  I loved it.  And being there with my sister (who I loved having visit over the weekend) and 8 of my other friends, my Saturday was almost heavenly.  But after stuffing my face with a crepe (that did not have anything sweet in it : ), we decided to go to....

wait for it....

a Roller Derby Match.

Um.  Can my day get any more exciting?!  The answer to that is definitely a NO!

I had so much fun learning the rules of a match (I'd like to be a Jammer), and coming up with my own kick-a derby name (still in the works), and just generally watching the people who comes to these kinds of things.  It.  Was.  Fascinating.

And spending time with this group of people is always a win.  I would show the picture of how my hair would be, were I to be a derby girl, but I think Elizabeth might object as she's in the picture too : ).

Overall, for my first Bucket List selection, it was fantastic.  I can't wait for more.

Ready for Easter!

So, I'm not Catholic.  I've been many times on Easter and Christmas but I've never adhered to the traditions such as Mardi Gras and Lent.  That all changes this year : ).

This year I've decided to observe the tradition of Lent and give up all kinds of candy, chocolate, and cookies.  I realize that 40 days is a long time, and those 40 days do include my birthday.... but I think I can do it!  I'm going to put forth my best effort.

And in honor of the excess before the cutting off:

My favorite kinds of cookies.  I made 24 and I've already eaten 10 of them.  It's much easier to give something up when I feel sick just thinking about it : ).  So here's to sugar, my impossible sweet tooth (that began early btw), and giving it all up for self improvement!

Valentime

I know this may sound strange but I adore Valentine's Day.  It is my favorite holiday.  (Don't get me wrong Christmas is way up there but.)  I cannot get enough of the adorable stuffed animals, all the hearts, and the flowers. 

If it wasn't more cliche than I can physically handle I would have bought myself flowers, but that is one step too far for me.  

Next week maybe.  

Here's my philosophy: people in general, and myself specifically, don't share enough that they love the people around them.  We get wrapped up in our lives and take what we have for granted.  It's not that we don't realize the good people we have around us, more that we forget it's important to tell them that we appreciate and love them.  Valentine's Day gives us the opportunity to share that love, in any form fashion or device we choose :].

Did you know that Chaucer was the first to link Valentine's with romantic love?  For some reason this adds so much legitimacy to the holiday in my mind.  I can't explain but Chaucer just has to be bowed down to I think.  (Wikipedia is fascinating...)

My sister* had a mental hiccup yesterday and wrote Happy Valentimes Day on an unknown amount of cards that got sent home to unsuspecting mothers.  I find this story HIGHlarious and laugh out loud every time I think about it.  But I was considering the word she created and I believe it's actually pretty accurate.  I could explain my whole thought process but basically I love the "time" part.  We need to take more time to show our "Valen".  Valen doesn't actually mean anything (I checked) but it could well enough mean love and affection right?!  We'll go with that.  So share some of that valen and time and know I love you <3.

(Lest you think I'm too weird, while I love and adore the holiday I do not enjoy the actual day.  People get weird, there are many expectations,  and drama seems inevitable, whether it's the real kind or the kind that traps me in my head.  So in light of that I went to the gym today and ran instead of going anywhere else haha)

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent*

The Dtown Bucket list

This may be a little bit of a misnomer.  This bucket list is not just about Dtown, it's about the whole Michigan area.  I believe that I'm going to be leaving Michigan in December so I've compiled a list of things that I want to do and see before I go.  The list keeps getting more and more extensive but I figure it will just give me more things to blog about!!

But here's all the things I have so far:

 - Lake Superior (Munising, Painted Rocks State Park, and a Shipwreck tour on the lake, seriously look this place up and I dare you not to want to drop everything and go there)

 - Fall Colors driving tour (by Muskegon and to see Lake Mich again)

 - Ludington (this is if I can convince my friend Elizabeth to let me go with her :)

 - Canadia (most likely Toronto but really since I'm this close I might as well hop the border more than I did at Niagara Falls)

 - New York City (I'm this close might as well take the plunge... plus I need to see Wicked!)

 - Feather bowling (honestly I have a vague/no clue what this is but it sounds great anyway haha)

 - A Tigers game (gotta hit up baseball at least once and I've already done hockey and basketball)

 - A Lion's game (see above)

 - The Bang (this is a dance party in AA that happens once a month, random goal I know)

 - Detroit Metropolitan Institute of Art

 - Henry Ford Museum (can I be in the Motor City and not learn about cars?!?!)

 - Cafe D'Mongo (a speakeasy in Dtown my lovely girl Damien recommended to me)

 - Roast (apparently this fantasmic restaurant in downtown Dtown)

 - See something at Fox Theater

 - Bruce Peninsula (also in Canadia but from the trip I missed last time it's Gorgeousocity)

 - Explore Hell, MI (I have been there but just to the Dam Site Inn and it was at night)

 - Any other fun place to see/eat with good friends!!

Some things I've done but would like to repeat:

 - The Redford Theater (awesome little Chinese style theater)

 - Mackinac Island (which will probably include running in their race again, maybe this will be my half marathon New Years Resolution)

 - Chicago

 - Boston (perhaps)

 - Another Red WIngs Game (because I'm now addicted to hockey)

 - Go back to Holland to see the Tulips!

*If something isn't on the list it might be because I've forgotten it.... or I've already done it!

Any other suggestions I'd love to hear them!!  And you can count on pictures as I am incredibly addicted to taking them : ).

Snow Day Activities

This is the story of a snowman.  This snowman's name is Fernando Gonzalez and he is a Mexican skier.  A fantastic Mexican skier actually.  This is his story; taking on the Ski Jump of Peril.  (For the record this is my first experience building a snowman*)  Fernando not only has but rocks a toupee, and has personalized hand-made ski poles.

The day Fernando chose to make his jump was absolutely beautiful.

Fernando gets his skis.

The Jump of Peril, staring into the face of our competitor.  Remnants of skis and other jumpers before litter the edge of the jump.  One of the other skiers who tried the jump and failed was an Ecuadorian rival Luis.  The night before the jump the two rivals had a run in with each other over a girl named Daisy.  She was stringing them both along, pitting them again each other.  Some blame Fernando for Luis' failure....

Fernando stares down the jump.  Gearing himself up for what is to come.

The face of a champion.

*Just so everyone knows Fernando was not technically my first snowman.  There has been one other.  However he was no as well established as Fernando.  Anton (the friend who helped create Fernando) graciously agreed to provide some context for my first snowman.

Back to Being 7 Years Old

As a kid, and in to my high school years we traveled a lot as a family.  We were always going places to see family but we stopped at lots of the national parks and things in between.  We also used to listen as my mom would read Roadside Geology of the United States.  This book tells you all about the surrounding geology given what road and mile-marker you are at.  It's really fascinating.  I never wanted to be a geologist, but I loved loved loved learning about the geology across all the states we went through.  I remember a small bit about going to Carlsbad Caverns the time that we went (although I learned when we went this time that part of my "memory" was really about somewhere in Mississippi or Missouri... oops!) and I remember loving it.  But that was back when I was small and I had been thinking about it a lot.  This Christmas break Abbey and I had the joint idea (chicken and the egg kind of thing for who actually gets credit...) to go back when we're all older, her kids might remember, and her husband could see.  I was ecstatic when my mom agreed.  And that was when I turned back into a little kid again....except this time the little kid has a camera!

My picture excitement started when we pulled into our hotel and the sunset was awesome.  I needed to get a picture of the dog's ear as well, those always fascinate me.

It was the next morning that we went to the caves and you drive up onto a little plateau to get to the entrance. Looking out across the prairie was gorgeous I thought.  Well gorgeous in a "ugly desert spiky ocatillo" kind of way.

The entrance to the visitor's center.

We decided to hike down through the natural entrance then we thought we would take the elevator back up at the end of the day.  There is this warning at the beginning of the hike and I thought it was hilarious.  Hilarious because you're hiking downhill.  Maybe they want to put that on the other end of the 1.2 mile trail 750 vertical feet down in the ground.

 This is the natural entrance to the cave.  Well the close up version.  If we had come in the summer I would have forced my family to go back at sunset so we could see all the bats come teeming out of the cave for the night.  But sadly, the bats winter in Mexico.  Gorgeous though right?  The amount of detail that is entirely etched by water and wind.  Mind boggling.

These are called draperies, and it's what happens when water and sediment drip down the side of the cave wall.  The caves we were in weren't really "living" caves, which means that they're dry for the most part, so the draperies, stalactites, and stalagmites aren't still growing.  There were so many caves behind caves, and caves through holes.  I couldn't quite capture it, but I tried really hard!!

It fascinates me how all these things can grow and be shaped and still be their own entity.  They're all entirely separate even though they're formed in the same way.  In this picture alone you can see stalactites, stalagmites, cave popcorn (the bumpy stuff on the right side), and draperies.

When a stalactite and a stalagmite grow together it forms a column.  They are the most beautiful imposing things I've ever seen.  This column was about 4 feet in diameter.  Ahmazing.

This is my favorite picture of the trip.  Sadly it doesn't even capture the things that I could see in person.  But it's still my fav.  The stalactites look so delicate, and yet they're made of rock!  And they're completely untouched and as natural as anything.  I can't even explain how much I want to gush about how cool it is to witness something so amazing and natural and know that man had absolutely NOTHING to do with it.  We were 750 feet directly down into the earth and still this stuff forms.  Absolutely amazing.

This is my tribute to some of the photographs that were taken when the caves were first discovered.  The man who discovered them, Jim White, couldn't get anyone to come see them until he dragged a photographer down to take some pictures.  My tribute would be much better if I had a tripod but I will settle :).  The black and white is pretty cool though and still manages to capture the subtleties of the features.

I was so excited to go to the caves and even more excited that I got to share it with my fantastic family.