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.

A Montage of Thoughts and Restitutions

I just got back from Christmas vacation, which was completely awesome.  I'll have an entire post dedicated to Carlsbad Caverns so this post is just a few thoughts I had over break.  First I got my car back just before the break.  I was in a collision with an unfortunate deer and didn't have it for three and a half weeks.  My friends, that was hell.  Being without a car was just maddening.  Now that I have it back I've realized that the saying is true that your car is never the same after an accident.  By looking at it you can tell no difference (except one headlight is much clearer than the other), but inside and driving it is much louder than it was before.  They had to replace part of the door and it now whistles when I'm going fast.  Fairly annoying.  I'll have to get used to it.  But it is sad to think that the car I knew and loved now has to become something I just get used to.

On a different traveling note, I adore airports.  I don't like flying in planes much because I am terribly fidgety (however speed is always appreciated), but I love watching the people in the airport.  And listening to their conversations but I try not to let anyone know that I actually do that.  But the funniest part for me is when everyone is waiting to get on the plane.  People get SO angry and SO impatient.  Is it hard to understand that we will all be on the same plane??  This is even more fascinating when we have assigned seats.  I just don't get the impatience.  But it's fun to watch people get unbelievably agitated about being FIRST in line!  They obviously deserve it : ).

My last thought is about New Years Resolutions.  I make them every year and I do enjoy thinking about them.  I was thinking about them this year though and the things that I want to do better this year than last, and it kind of turned into "what are Heidi's vices".  I don't know if it's always like that, or that's just what it is this year but it was a tad depressing.  I still pressed on though and made my resolutions.  Maybe my vices will diminish this year haha.

Um...Okay Bye! *Awkward Wave*

In the past couple of weeks I've had the misfortune opportunity to say good bye to a lot of my friends.  Most of them were good byes for just the Christmas break but a couple were good byes to friends I won't see for a very long time.  Here's the conclusion I've come to:  I am straight up terrible at saying good bye.

I've discovered that if you don't know me super well my good bye can come off a little bit like, "Hey I don't care about you. Peace!"  So so so not true.  Really I'm just baffled about what to say.  I love giving hugs and I can do that.  But after that I don't know what to do.  I feel a little bit like Ricky Bobby in Talladega Nights.  I just don't know what to do with my hands.  

I can't express at all that I will miss you.  "Have a nice life" just doesn't ring true for me.  I also have a problem because I really dislike crying, and if I'm saying good bye to someone really important to me then if I think at all about how much I'll miss them it's inevitable I'll cry.  And this doesn't work for me at all.  So I just don't know what to do.  All this adds up to me being super awkward at farewells.  Like as awkward as the word awkward is.  I feel bad for anyone who has to say good bye because it's just ridiculous.  Maybe someday I'll be good at this..... but that would probably mean way more practice :(

a FeW oF mY fAvOrItE tHiNgS

Christmas.

I love this time of year so much I can hardly stand it.  And I have a few traditions that I always do that help me enjoy it even more.  This year though I guess I have been too busy to really think about all those things.  I went to a Christmas Chorale concert tonight to hear my cousin sing and while I was listening to all the different songs I realized all the things I need to do before the 24th!  And I just thought I'd make a list.

First:  I need to find myself the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas CD because it needs to be in my life.  I love listening to the violin's and the drums and the piano.  For me, it makes the holiday mood and lovin' feeling that much easier to feel.

Second:  I need to watch the Nutcracker.  When I was little we used to go watch the ballet every year.  It was possibly my favorite tradition of the Christmas season.  We stopped going because we got older, etc. but that part of my childhood is something I want to go back to.  I sent a text to my mom asking her (with no hope of positive affirmation) whether it is play at home.  Turns our the universe likes to taunt me and the last performance is the day before I get home.  I must admit I was sad.  But then my wonderful mom told me we could get it on Netflix and watch.  So excited!

Third:  White Christmas.  Honestly what would my holiday be like without the beautiful loveliness that is Bing Crosby's voice?  I can't wait to get home to New Mex, break out the VHS and settle in to watch.

Last:  The Polar Express.  This is a new tradition but it's been fairly consistent.  I'm not as invested in it as the others but I do love the music that it has.  And cartoons are always lovely!

I also can't wait to go shopping.  I know it's a rather tedious task but I love shopping for all the presents for my friends and family.  If only I could do it without all the annoying high schooler's that inhabit the mall.....  maybe I'll become an internet shopper...  : ).