Taking Time

Sometimes when things get overwhelming - I have a chemistry quiz tomorrow that I’m not ready for, a midterm on Monday, and lots of stuff to do over the weekend — one just has to remind oneself of the good things in the world.  No matter how I do on my quiz, there is a beautiful new baby horse at the horse barn.  Tonight I get to curl up in bed with a romance novel.   Tomorrow I’m going to try out vegan pumpkin spice muffins.  Stressors do not eliminate all the wonderful things we can enjoy.  And sometimes, even if your to-do list is pressing, you need to take the time to breathe, look around, and enjoy the day, because it will go by whether or not you finish everything you want to accomplish.  

Surprise socks

I got a lovely package in the mail today from my friend from Davis - cow and pig socks!  Can't beat those. I love snail mail.  It's much more exciting and personal than email, or Facebook.

Winter break is drawing to a close.  I became sad about that today, thinking mainly of how each time I come home, I seem to fall more in love with... home.  You'd think I'd have had time to do that during high school, and the entirety of my childhood.  But, I took it for granted.  I don't anymore, now that I live somewhere else for most of the year.

We drove out into a more rural part of Marin today, and we climbed out of the fog in my neighborhood, up, up, up into the hills, until the fog tapered out and we popped out into the sunshine.  I'll miss the oak trees, and the almost-green hills, and standing on top of them and being able to see all the places you know from way up high.  Davis has no hills.

But, Davis has other things that I love.  Flat, lush cropland stretching out as far as the eye can see.  Green pastures dotted with horses and cows.  Bikes - I can't wait to be back on my bike (Muriel).  I'm definitely looking forward to being back in Davis, in spite of the fact that I'll miss home.

What else is new... I had a book club meeting last night where we discuss Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.  I really liked it.  It followed the plot of a classic Gothic novel, and was filled with suspense, intrigue, and, of course, the always entertaining English aristocracy.  I'm eager to read more of her books.  The next book on our list is The Falconer by John Cheever.  I know nothing about it, except that a guy goes to jail.  It's not the usual sort of thing I read, which is why book club is so great.

Book Club Day

This evening is books club, which I'm very much looking forward to.  Anything to discuss literature set in Britain (Rebecca).  I got up early this morning to take Sally out for her weekend walk.  I didn't think there would be much color to the sunrise, due to all the fog in the sky.  However, in the East there was enough clarity for red to fill the distance, lightening to orange, then butter yellow, and finally deepening to bright gold.  It was glorious.  Now she's fretting because Dad is outside talking with a neighbor, and she can hear them.  The sky is clearing up today, so hopefully I'll get out for a nature walk of some sort, if my parents are amenable to the idea of going as well.

I forgot I had updated this year....

I've been reading a classmate's blog, and have been inspired by that (and the fact that I began a Goodreads.com reading challenge today) to update this blog more often.  I think I've resolved to update more often in every update... we'll see how this holds.

I have a week left of winter break - it's been a good one, as we got an extra week off, bringing the vacation time to a grand total of 4 weeks.  Lots of fun has been had... some highlights:

1) Volunteering at Giant Steps Therapeutic Riding Center, and getting to ride Cici, and adorable little grey Arabian mare.  It was fun to use the techniques I have learned in my horseback riding lessons at the UC Davis Equestrian Center.

2) Having no cavities at the dentist and getting to see the bison in Golden Gate Park and have lunch with my aunt at Green's in San Francisco.  It's a vegetarian restaurant, so I can order whatever I like!

3) I finished reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier for my mother-daughter book club.  It got extremely exciting halfway through (the first half was pretty good, but slower), and I'm so excited to discuss it tomorrow at book club.

4) Started reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.  I'm thinking it shall be a downer.... but we'll wait and see how it goes.  I'm more than halfway done!

5) I also read The Mischief of the Mistletoe, a Christmas outtake of one of my favorite Regency romance series.

6)  Christmas Day was fun - lots of lovely and practical gifts, and Christmas morning by the tree with my family is one of my favorite times of the year.  We went to my aunt's, and they have cats, so we couldn't bring Sally.  I felt bad until I found out that Bob next door took her over to his house for Christmas dinner, where she was the life of the party and ate lots of meat.

7)  I have walked over to St. Vincent's school across the freeway a few times - it's gorgeous out there, and very bucolic.  I had been missing the Davis countryside.  And, I saw a Great Horned Owl with my friend.  We startled it twice, unfortunately.

8)  I went to Kehoe Beach.  It started out completely socked in, and even that was beautiful.  Someone had built a seesaw out of driftwood, which we played on.  Then, the sky in the distance started lightening, and the fog began pulling back towards the shore.  As golden light emerged in the distance, the mist receded around us until the sun shone on the cliffs, and we had to squint into the sky.  We even saw a peregrine falcon (I think it was an anatum) flying along the clifftop.  It landed at what I believe to be a nest, as it was fiddling around there, and then flew to another spot, where it groomed itself and perched for a long time.  The drive back was absolutely gorgeous.  The sun had come out, illuminating rich green rolling hills, dotted with dairy cattle and beef cattle (there were many beef calves, all of them adorable).

9) Mom and I hiked up Grasshopper Hill today.  Funny that we've never been to a place 10 minutes from home before.  The view was gorgeous from up there, and we saw a doe and her two sweet little fawns, plus a flash of another deer, a red-shouldered hawk, and about 5 turkey vultures.

10)  Yesterday, my family went out to the holding ponds at the sewage treatment plant (the stench is minimal, and in most places nonexistent).  We saw lots of water birds - the highlights for me were ruddy ducks, buffleheads, and northern shovelers, green-winged teals, American widgeons, and black-necked stilts.  I even caught a glimpse of an interloper snow goose amongst a flock of Canada geese.  My other favorite part were the raptors - we saw an American Kestrel, male and female Northern Harriers, a red-shouldered hawk, turkey vultures, white-tailed kites, and either a Cooper's or a sharp-shinned hawk.  Lovely raptor watching!  I wish the lake had an osprey, though....

You can see duck hunting blinds from the ponds... our neighbor goes duck hunting.  I couldn't imagine hunting those gorgeous birds for sport.  I understand if it's your only source of food - that's nature.  I even understand if you do it instead of going to the market for meat.  The wild ducks are happier birds than badly farmed chickens, I'm sure.  It's when people do it for fun, and don't seem to be conscious of the individual life they are taking that it bothers me a lot.

Well, I finished this up after the dog park - Kona, a dog I met as a puppy, was up there - she's grown up into a beautiful dog now.  Callie and Nellie annoyed Rocket as he tried to chase his frisbee, and Maxx snarled at baby Benny, as usual.  Sally begged, and ran around when I tried to dissuade her from digging.  That's the only time she runs with me, haha.  So, this was a long post, so I'll finish it up.  It might be boring, as it's about everyday events.  Although, the blog I read was about everyday events, and that was interesting to me... so maybe this will be interesting too.

Almost a year.

Apparently, I am an unproductive blogger.  Oh well.  I'm here now.

My bike, Muriel, has a flat tire in back today.  All my fault - I ran over some star thistle type plants yesterday.  I'm hoping the three thorns I found in the tire were the cause - otherwise I have NO idea what happened.  But, it'll be my first time conducting such in-depth bike maintenance (which is not that in-depth) by myself.  Wish me luck.

Hello, Neglected Blog

Alright, so it's been... 3 months.  Fail.  But now I'm here.  Prompted by an incredulous question from my friend Olivia as to whether or not I had a blog.

I have survived seven weeks of college.  It feels like it's been about 7 years.  And at the same time, when I think about how all of my classes are almost over, it feels like 7 minutes.  The first few weeks were hard - I hadn't found my niche (anyone know how you correctly pronounce that word? Haha), and I missed home. A lot.

My friend Natalie who is here was a savior, and wonderful to hang out with.  My advice... you know when people say, "Don't spend too much time with people you know... it will stunt your social circle and keep you from meeting new people...."  Screw that.  Spending time with my friend was the most relieving thing... ever... amidst all the craziness of starting a new life in college.  And, even with hanging out with Natalie a lot, I have managed to meet cool new people (shocking!).  I haven't become really close with anyone new yet... but that's okay.  You know why?

Advice number 2:  Sometimes it is fun to hang out with yourself.  Seriously.  For me, social situations are usually either tedious or stressful... mainly stressful when hundreds of new people are involved.  So, in the beginning, I wanted to be alone to avoid that.  But then I realized, "Hey, this is kind of nice."  I don't have to coordinate with anyone if I don't want to.  If I'm hungry, I can go to the dining hall whenever the heck I want.  And I read when I eat.  Which, while some may think it the activity of a loner, and while I AM alone when I do it... is exquisitely enjoyable.  Having everything nearby - drugstore, bookstore, shops, town, cafes, etc, etc, makes doing things very easy, and it's nice to be able to do it on your own schedule, or on your own whim.  So, don't be disheartened if you don't have anyone to hang out with.  Grab a book, eat some food, or just go for a bike ride (everyone bikes at Davis) or a walk and look at the beautiful day.  Or, waste time on Facebook.  I do too much of that.  Oh well.

Advice number 3:  Ask for things!  Specifically internships.  I thought it would be complicated to get one, and require applications, etc.  And, in some cases, it does.  But, I saw a phone number posted outside the dairy, saying to call for animal experience.  I called, and the next Tuesday I was headed down to the dairy for an internship.  I go twice a week and work with the cattle, it is amazing... and calves are the cutest.  Ever.

And, now, I feel like being productive, so I'm going to close for now.

Spring Cleaning in the Summer

Today, my mother and I ripped all the clothes out of my closet (which resembled nothing more than an exponentially growing, mutated ball of cloth), and sorted them all.  I even got rid of things, which is saying a lot, seeing as my room looks like it belongs on TLC's Hoarders show.  Now, my closet is basically just as full, but NEAT for the first time in literally years.  It's quite refreshing.

I had planned on writing more the other day, when I was accosted by a lady selling hair straighteners.  I had been out to lunch with my friend, as she was about to leave for college.  Then, I had needed a bathingsuit, so I walked around the mall for an hour looking for one.  It was very exciting and not at all frustrating when H&M had only bottoms (except for a truly hideous, skimpy, patriotic thing...), Sears had suits that would look presentable in a nice restaurant on a cold evening, and Kohl's became the scariest place in the world.  To make matters even... better.... I was wearing these brown pumps that really should not have been used to walk for above 30 minutes around the neighborhood.  So, by the time I was looking around for bathing suits, I was walking around the mall in my stockings, muttering to myself about how I "didn't give a damn if anyone cared.... I wouldn't care."

Basically, all this leads up to the point in time where I said "Screw it," and decided to leave.  Unfortunately, many kiosks are located in the mall, and as I walked by one of them, a young woman with some exotic-sounding sort of accent approached me.  I turned to her in annoyed resignation (I don't think it's even possible to walk past these people without saying ANYTHING), and she asked me, with sincerity in her voice (snort), how I got my hair to be the way it is.  I told her nothing, and she asked me if I ever straightened it.  I told her no, that it doesn't work.  This is very, very true.   My hair is blonde and semi-curly, and whenever I try to straighten it, it says "Hell no!" and looks like dried out, voluminous straw.

The woman then walked back to her stupid kiosk, and beckoned me over, saying we'd try it.  Apparently, "No, I can't," actually means, yes I have time for you to do "just one piece."  At least she had the courtesy to keep her expression exactly the same as I left, and wave at me (both of which were mildly creepy and frustrating, as they show the lack of interest these scary vendors have in anyone as a person).  The odd thing was, was that I knew she was a vendor when she approached my, and yet she sounded so truthful and normal when she asked my about my hair that I thought she might just be wondering.  Silly me, clearly.