Joie de vivre

I am, in fact, Back. As I've had to explain to many people of late, I'm essentially a content person: wherever I am, there I am, and I don't particularly long to be somewhere else. Or miss where I was before. So when I am Home I am happy to be home and only occasionally suffer serious wanderlust, and when I am Wandering I am almost never homesick.

There are certain things about being Back that I am happy about. My computer is one (I didn't take it because of all the other things I was taking, mainly Important things like jewelry (much), makeup and hair products (mucher) and clothes (muchest). Maybe I'll have to rethink my strategy for next time. But I mostly missed my bed. I like my bed. It is soft and large and pillow-covered. I was happy to be back in it last night.

Pictures to all and sundry (that is, Hannah and Melinda) and also posted here will follow, I hope tomorrow. Hey, I unpacked everything last night and I've been at work all day, don't expect me to be superwoman, right?

This was a very educational trip, and full of Experiences. Highlights, in bullet form:

*Falling down an entire flight of wooden (and very hard) stairs. I had always watched scenes like that in movies and wondered just what it was like. Now I know. It hurts, and it results in being bruised from elbow to knee on one whole side of the body. I would post pictures (they're very colorful), but due to placement of bruises they are not exactly for public display.

Now I can effectively write a falling-down-staircase scene.

*Hitting Gap, Old Navy, Dillards, Banana Republic, American Eagle, New York Style, and Macy's in one hour and STILL NOT FINDING A PAIR OF SLACKS THAT FIT. Everything is too low, too long, too wide legged, or just fits wrong. I hate shopping for pants.

*Climbing a butte. I want one in my area. I also want melyndie in my area. She is very much fun and very much cool, whether climbing things, singing, throwing rocks on ice, or book-shopping. I think she needs to come visit me. *hint* (Btw, Melinda, I found the newest Pratchett book half off at B&N, so I came home with four of his!)

*Being introduced, in the name of research, to the world of strong drink. Jason, newly 21 and very interested in mixing drinks, had me try a sip of each one he made. I can now write (more) intelligently all those scenes of Sonny drinking. There was saki (interesting), rum (okay), gin martini, stirred, not shaken, complete with olive (ick), something made with whisky (double ick) and gin and tonic (it must be the gin I don't like). The upshot is that I'm still a wine girl, thank you. Give me a little glass of a sweet red and I'm happy.

It rained almost every day in Idaho while I was there, and the night I got back to Oklahoma it rained for the first time in three months. This morning it snowed. I do love snow falling. Tomorrow the forcasted high is in the 60s. This weather doth amuse.

Whenever I come back from a vacation, I come filled with zest for living and ideas and resolutions for a new and improved life. Thus it is that I can't wait to get back to writing...anything, anything...but particularly the finishing touches/editing of the novel, if only because Gwen wants to read it. And I'm going to redecorate the rest of the house. And buy a pair of jeans that really fits and get rid of that drawer full of ones that don't. And I'm going to generally be very organized in my life and be a wonderful kind of person and have time to do all the things I want and not have constant stacks of paper lying around and read a lot more and learn sanskrit or something else really useless, just because I can.

Don't laugh, anybody!

Snow forcasted for this afternoon: odd for a day so bitterly cold, I feel cozy and warm in my fuzzy sweater. And content and creative.

It's a special kind of feeling, more than any of those words could describe. It's a winter feeling. That's the best I can do. I feel like winter--snowy winter, not dead, ugly, brown winter.

It feels like a day to mail Christmas cards.

Actually, do. I think I'm getting the hang of this life thing. I was actually thinking this morning, gee, it would be kind of nice to have my own little place and do this permanantly. There's this nice apartment complex right across from the gazebo park...

And then she looked at her watch and realized it was time to leave.

Isn't this a lovely icon? I can't believe I didn't use it as soon as I made it.

Well, not actually a new me. Sort of like a more determined me. I finally decided that if I don't start getting done all those Things that I have always thought I'll do Someday, then I'm never going to. If I can't make time to do them now, how in the world will I do them in a few years when I'm working full time and maybe living on my own and possibly even *gasp* married with a husband and a house and maybe a child to take care of?

Answer: If I don't do it now, I never will.

So. I'm renewing my study of Spanish. I'm actively pursuing the piano again (funny mental picture, there...). I'm reading Plato and Aristotle and the huuuge history book printed in 1876. (LOVEITLOVEITLOVEIT! What's better then a gigantic, ancient book with lots of beautiful etchings and a writer who has a flare for great phrases? For example, "The kings and heros speak to us from the walls of their palaces and tombs, in the inscriptions which have defied the defacing hand of time." *squiggles* The fact that parts of the book are literally falling apart is very depressing, but makes the book all the more of a treasure to me...)

I'm also going to try at least one new recipe a week, spend at least a few hours a week writing, and ...yes. I'm going to Read Poetry. I like Tennyson. And Poe. But I realize I need to broaden my horizens poetry-wise. So out comes the huge old poetry good inherited from grandma (much like the huge old history book inherited from grandpa). unfortunantly it starts out with Milton, who is the one poet I really, really don't like. Perhaps he'll be better this time around.

Oh. Yes, I am home. And I miss savetheolives a lot. (pictures from our visit are in the process of being scanned, and may be up before too long.)