lovely things

very cool. literally. i mean, if you can't have snow, you can look at pictures of it. but what i really liked was looking at the video at the bottom of the article -- beautiful visuals and wonderful music!

ah, well, styles change. i've been trying to decide what to do about my hair. i have cut it myself for the last 17 years (no training, no, just grit) and it's getting harder to hold my arms up in my old age. so i went to a gal for about six months recently, but she was cutting it into an unflattering style and when we left to go to MYS's wedding this summer, i had to cut some off, just to tame it, because she was on vacation. so .... back to doing it myself.

it's actually pretty easy to do. you just cut it all the same length! ha! no worries. but, of course, in an effort to save my arms, i cut it really short. and then wait a looooong time while it grows out. after the wedding was one of those times when i cut it really short and i just now trimmed some off the bottom. four months later. and it doesn't look too bad.

but my hair's changing as i get older. it is very much into doing its own thing. when i wake up, it stands up three or four different places. the husband laughs. and when i get ready for work, it's as likely to look nice and fluffy as it is to go completely flat and straight. sometimes i despair.

but i'm doing things i haven't done before. just now i was tired of it being on my forehead so i braided my bangs. look nice. or they would if you could see them. the hairs are about two inches long so they aren't the best for a beginning braider. but, hey. i'm at home, settled in for the evening, the husband is watching football. no worries.

is that smoke i smell?

beautiful colors and arrangments

wow! if you ever want to take a look at some gorgeous flower arrangements, go here and look through their galleries. i love what these people do with flowers and if i had tons of money, i would have them create for me.

they are blessed

MYS's wedding was lovely. the location was absolutely beautiful and even though it was new mexico, the temps were only in the low 70s. it rained a little before the ceremony, to dust everything off, then the sun came out and the ceremony proceeded in a little meadow surrounded by aspen and pines. afterwards we all gathered inside the lodge and ate, danced, and talked. it rained some more.

she's such a sweetheart and i'm so happy for them both. their friends came from all over, including germany, and relatives came from far and wide. it was just a grand affair and a wonderful mix of people.

i wish them a life-time of happiness, joyful surprises, success, sexy nights, comfortable living, and love.

nature's beauty

these pictures are just so pretty. i would never have imagined anything could be pretty in eastern washington. but we never traveled to southeast wa.

and i can just see myself on my horse right down there .... looking for bad guys or buffalo or a good place to plunk down ....

i had a great two weeks off. except for the jerk who stole our credit card number and bought things with it. the flights to and from abq were uneventful, and flying first class is the only way to go.  we met the kids and ate, then whizzed up to sante fe and then beyond, to los alamos. l.a. is at about 7000 feet and is starkly lovely. i remember my dad talking about going to the boy scout ranch at piedmont nm. that's northeast of l.a. and i can see why he was so taken with the area.

l.a. itself is about 10,000-12,000 people and is incredibly vibrant. they have an excellent library, one grocery store (not counting the health food store on the edge of town), and a really big hospital. the humidity was about 12% and while my face loved it, my hands didn't.

we were going to see some cliff dwellings, but that didn't quite work out and there was too much else to do to wait around. we drove up to the caldera and i wanted to move in right away. not that there's anywhere to move -- it's a huge meadow resting just below mountain tops, but i would have been satisfied with kicking out the people at the visitor center, blocking off the roads, and having it all to myself.

just across from there, on the main road, sat two houses that survived this summer's fire. the trees behind their homes were burned less than 100 feet away. honestly, they just barely escaped the danger. (houses at bottom of tree-line)

so ... the trip was great. we checked on and identified the purchases which were made by the miscreant, and are now awaiting our replacement card. frankly, if the creep were caught and the sentencing were up to us, we would simply have him shot. we're sick of the bad guys going without justice. no patience at all anymore for the possibility of misunderstanding, bad childhood, etc. just shoot them all. but on a final note, here are a couple more pix of that lovely l.a. area.

body art via tattoos

oh my god. it's beautiful, but so strange.

takes me back

i recently moved my rocking chair from the library into the living room. i will move it back later, but for now i am totally enjoying smelling my roses while i read. i also enjoy hearing the trains go by (the husband's bane).

i've never paid much attention to flowers, but these roses (which we bought on a whim) are small but packed with odiferous value! they are what roses used to be and while i'm reading, their beauty wafts in through the open window. heaven!

oh look! up in the sky ....

oh cool! we're going to be able to see the northern lights tonight! i'm not sure where i should go to get the best view, since they're supposed to be along the northern horizon and there are evergreens all around our neighborhood. i suppose i should just drive out into the country. of course that would be about 2 a.m. and border patrol would probably drive up and ask what i was doing. still, it would probably be worth it!

see and hear

so. you sit outside at night in your yard in the big city, look up at the stars and think, wow -- there are so many. but what you don't realize is that light pollution from the city lights is really obstructing your view of the sky.

if you've never been fortunate enough to look at the midwestern sky, out in the country, at night then you'll be awed by the videos this guy has put together.  enjoy. (and listen to the music, too)

repeating and repeating and repeating ....

my maternal grandfather was supposed to have been a sort of math wizard. i, on the other hand, missed out on a semester of math when we moved, and never recovered. so even though i know that math has some beautiful things (tessellations, mandlebrot sets), i usually stay away from it if at all possible.

now .... i discovered this little thing about pi. it is three-plus delightful minutes and i wish you the joy of listening to it.

M-class sun events

oh goody -- we're supposed to be able to see the northern lights tomorrow night and the next night. apparently it's a Kp=4 forecast. i know, i know -- it sounds like something i would make up, but no. at that designation, we should be able to see it along with people in spokane wa, great falls mt, grand forks nd, sioux falls sd, minneapolis mn, oshkosh wi, grand rapids mi, and ottawa canada.

oh pooh -- every single time we hear of a good chance of seeing it, we have cloud cover. we will have clouds and/or rain for the next 7 days. dangit!

maybe a previous life?

i love bagpipes. i'm not sure why, maybe it's because of that underlying drone which feels comforting. and scotland calls to me for some reason, again, not sure why, but this little bit shows how beautiful scotland is.

o beautiful for spacious skies ....

this country is so beautiful!! in case it's been awhile since you thought about our national parks or the various terrains here for us to enjoy, give yourself a treat and go here. then scroll down to the 23 pictures at the bottom and take a lovely little vacation!

sunshine

i kept meaning to post this all week. i don't spend a lot of time thinking about the sun and don't spend any time reading about it. i think it's scary and you aren't supposed to get close to it and you aren't supposed to look at it and, ooohh monsters.

that said, these images are so very intriguing. they make me want to stick my finger into the sun and swish it around to see what kind of patterns i can make. hunh ... yeah .....

i need an avatar

i went to see Avatar again this afternoon. this is only my second time. it was in 3-d like the first time and it was just as fabulous. there was sooooo much i'd forgotten, and the visuals were just as stunning as the first time. i want to go there and ride on one of those flying bird/dragon things.

i was looking at some of the trivia on imdb and it mentioned the huangshan mountain inspired some of the 'scapes. go to google images and type that in -- the pix are truly beautiful. except for the graffiti.

snip, snip

i got my hair cut today. the significance of that statement is that it's been about 17 years since someone besides myself has cut my hair. have i let it grow long? have i had training cutting hair? am i good at cutting hair? no, no, and no. but, i'd gotten fed up with trying to find someone who could cut it well, so i'd taken to doing it myself.

for a number of years it looked okay, sometimes even good. but lately no matter what i try to do to it, it just hasn't looked right. so i took a chance and went to a gal who's the manager of a beauty academy nearby. she's also the sister of a gal i work with and i've heard a lot about her and seen her work.

i like the cut i got. it's not exactly the way i'd have done it if it'd had the same know-how, but it's a good cut and i can work with it. it'll be interesting to see how long it is before i get to thinking i should do it myself again. let's hope that doesn't happen.

i want to go there

we saw avatar last night. in 3-d.

i really liked it, the husband thought it was so-so. v, the young woman who went with us, liked it even more than i did.

would you like it? only if you're an intelligent, imaginative, forward-thinking, visual, other-than-republican, nature-loving, free spirit. it had BEAUTIFUL graphics, more realistic than anything i've ever seen. i mean, you were THERE! and you were ONE OF THEM!

the creatures were scary, but the philosophy of the whole place was lovely. the plants, flowers, little bugs were totally neat. i wanted to be there and touch things and see everything and go for a ride. except that i'm afraid of heights.

but, ohmygod, it was so cool. i wonder if i can have a room done like that place. or the whole house. *sigh*

mandelbrot

do you like looking at fractals? they are pretty darn fascinating, to me. MYS started putting together a 3-d fractal thing recently. i'm interested in what it looks like.

i saw an article recently about a math equation which can produce a fractal. it goes through numerous iterations getting more and more detailed and complex. the picture below is one of nine shown in the article. check them all out -- they are otherworldly. is this beautiful, or what?!

it was great!

i'm going to try to bring you up-to-date on the lovely places around here a person can go, to enjoy themselves, without all the glitter and bright lights that usually come with a vacation. all 6 of us were able to arrange our schedules to get together, almost like old times!

this summer's trip took us to a place close-by the northern loop of the cascade mountains. we rented this little number:

this next picture shows the view from one of the back windows (a huge, 2 stories-of-windows type of house) -- there's a shallow river out there just beyond the grass and rocks:

the interior of the house was gorgeous and comfortably decorated -- with three bedrooms and two full baths and all the utensils, towels, etc. we needed:

this is the view of the back of the house at sunset:

and this is a view of one of the dramatic sunsets over the mountains:


and this is the view of one of the little up-the-mountain trails you can drive up and see forever:

isn't it all beautiful?! and don't even suggest i'm being paid to advertise for this. are you kidding? who would take money to say this is beautiful when you can see for yourself that it is. at any rate, if you think you'd like to know more about this place, e-mail me and i will let you know how to find the particulars.