Night Gecko

I knew this was going to happen.  I never sleep well when there are too many thoughts -- or dreams-- going through my head.  I wish there were some way to turn off the dreams.  For the past few months, it feels like I remember everything I dream, or at least several a night.  It's like living two lives, one awake and one asleep.  And it is very tiring... It can also be quite confusing, when I dream of real events that haven't happened yet or completely plausible scenarios.  Sometimes it is as if I spend my whole life at the library.  I've at least mostly solved the falling asleep problem by letting myself fall asleep while staring at the computer screen (ok, while playing some game) and then trying to put it away without fully waking up.  It usually works -- it hasn't taken me more than 5 minutes to fall asleep for a while and only once did I lay here for an hour asleep with the computer balanced on my lap.  Of course, that doesn't necessarily make it any more likely for me to stay asleep for a normal 6 or 7 hours.  But who said there was anything normal about me anyway? ;)

While I'm awake, might was well try to catch up on reading some of those blogs...

My favorite part about snow is how bright it makes everything at night.  I love the way the world glows.  A fresh coat of snow makes everything look friendly and peaceful.  It makes me want to sit outside or take a night-time snowshoe hike or something.

My least favorite part about the snow is how it makes me feel after I have shoveled 10 inches of it off the driveway.  Especially when there are another 6 there the next morning.  Though I am often impatient to get out of the house and go places regardless of the weather, this year I would be quite content just to stay inside until it all goes away.  I know this is not possible.  It would, however, be nice.

Only two days into the year, days in which I haven't done much of anything except sit in front of the computer (ok, I went to work and shoveled snow and beaded and knit, but besides that....) and I still haven't managed to make a daily post.  I suppose that's okay though, since I've said plenty in my head, most of which doesn't need to go any further than that.  Pretty much the most recurring thought of the past few days (besides how loud it is to type on this keyboard), something that comes up every 3 hours or so, is that the best thing about not eating wheat for the past almost-year is how good everything tastes now that I have given up on figuring out what is wrong with me and have just decided to go with what tastes good.  And is easy to find.  And is cheaper.  With no obvious positive results, it seemed silly to continue the experiment.  If things get radically worse in the near future, then maybe I'll reconsider, but in the meantime, my biggest problem is figuring out when to stop (yeah, so I had a little too much stuffing at dinner...but it was soooo good!).

Ok, daily post over.  Back to my regularly scheduled life...or Facebook, which sadly is a fairly regular part of my life.  I should do something about that.  Maybe after I check on my farm...

Despite the fact that it is late, I just wanted to get down a few things before I fall asleep and my brain resets.  I had this whole reflection planned out in my head about my resolutions from last year and what I wanted to say about this year and some perhaps quite profound thoughts on life, but as is the case with so many of my mentally rehearsed commentaries, it is long gone by now.  This is of course one of my excuses for not completing my goals for the past year - I can't write things down when they go through my head much faster than any of my output devices work, not to mention quite often when I have no such devices handy.  I have excuses for my other failed goals as well -- the discovery of Facebook (read a book a day), living with four other "roommates" (finish cleaning the house), and an overall lack of energy.  But enough of that.  2010 is the year of no excuses.  The year of living in the moment.  And maybe even a year of wonderful and exciting adventures.

I suppose that is it.  No more profundity.  Just sincere and hopeful wishes to all for a happy new year!

After returning from our grand adventure this summer, I borrowed my parents' nice film camera and loaded some black and white film from the collection I have inherited from a variety of sources.  I had a really good time taking photos, though I wasn't able to persuade anyone to take me to some of the places I really wanted to go photographing...  Anyway, I finished the roll and took it to be developed.  I have these crazy ideas of being able to sell some of my artwork, including photos (which I would love to make into collages), random knitted stuff, dyed silk scarves, etc.  So I just wanted to get the negatives developed so that I could either play with the photos on my computer, or enlarge them, or whatever.  Since I don't have a negative scanner, I paid for a photo cd along with my developing.  When I got my cd back the next day, (ok, so a few days later when I had the chance to look at what was on the cd), I was very upset to find that the images on the disc are a very low quality and poorly done -- I mean, come on, there is dust on the negatives.  I can't do anything with the files on the disc and I still don't have a negative reader.

So I guess I am in the market for a negative reader, or else I'm just going to ignore the 20-some-odd rolls of film I have and give in to the idea that film is dead.  I just like the feel of the real camera, or more importantly, it has an awesome zoom and manual settings.  And yeah, they make cameras like that that take digital pics (my brother has one), but I a) hate to waste the film, b) don't want to borrow my brother's camera all the time, and c) can't afford a camera like that on my own unless I really can make some money with it. 

I love photography.  I would walk around with a camera all the time if I could.  Sometimes I do.  And most times I'm okay with my little digital camera (Juniorette) because it fits in my pocket, but then I use a nice, big camera that takes focused, properly lighted pictures, and it is so hard to go back...

Ah, the minor dilemmas of life...

Yet again, how time flies.  I can never keep track of days, with all that has been going on lately.  Mostly this is a good thing...keeping busy is far better than the alternative.  It doesn't necessarily seem to be helping my sleeping habits, but everything can't be perfect, can it?  We've almost reclaimed the living room and gazebo from the fiesta supplies and equipment.  Spent a long day filming for VBS.  Haven't even thought about the Great ESCAPE today, but that's been a significant focus over the past few weeks.  I wish I had more hours in a day or days in a week or just the ability to slow time down for a little while so I can catch my breath.  I've been stealing a few hours, from sleep-time mostly, to just chill and not accomplish anything, except to keep myself from going insane.  I absolutely love having my weekends back to myself, which of course means voluntarily visiting the library nearly every weekend anyway.  Everything changes so much when you want to be there... :)

Plans for tomorrow: Be spontaneous!

It feels so good to be off my feet.  I'm not sure why I do this to myself, but I walked to work, spent 4 hours standing around, and then served dinner for another 3 hours.  It was fun, though, so I guess it was worth it.  I also drove home from church, mostly because I've decided that I am less nervous driving than I am letting Josh drive.  Or maybe it's just one of those sibling rivalry things...

Anyway, nothing else new, just time progressing at its usual astonishing speed.  Making plans for the Great Summer Adventure, which really needs a better name than that.  I want to go fossil digging...

Guess it's been a while again.  A busy while, as usual.  I've spent so much time at the library that I might as well live there.  Which would be a perfectly satisfying situation with me.  Or maybe finding some way to turn off my brain so I can sleep for a little while.  That would be good, too.  Other random 3 am thoughts:
-I need to put some new songs on my mp3 player (note to self: check out some cds tomorrow...er, later today)
-...

Ok, there are definitely more things on my mind than that, but as I am trying not to think about them, I am not adding them to the list.  Instead, I will say that I am looking forward to spring.  Picnics in the park.  Photos of flowers.  Killer Bunnies.  ;)  Planning a trip to the Grand Canyon.  Not having to worry about situation x, or y, or z. (Not that z worries me, but it's there in the back of my head anyway.)  Going to look up cds in the catalog now...

I just checked my UB transcript and it says "Degree Awarded".  Yay! :)  Awfully anti-climatic, though...

Well, there was all sorts of excitement this weekend in our house. Most importantly, I got my new bed. It's nice. Very nice. Just a tad bit too high, but I haven't fallen off yet, so that's a good thing. I did manage to get out of it this morning to do my Wii Fit, but I am back sitting on it now. I also dragged myself out of it yesterday to go to work and watch the Superbowl, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a nap in my future. So yeah, the bed is nice.

The surroundings are pretty good, too, after the big cleaning/rearrangement. I have two awesome new bookshelves to bring my total up to 5 1/2. Basically all my wall space is taken up with bookshelves. Very cool. I also have sort of a window seat, with the trunk strategically placed under the window. As soon as I get all the boxes and piles off it...

The other big project was Josh's room. It is clean. Immaculate. It will not last, but I have photographically documented it (no, wait...ok, now I've documented it), so we will always remember.  We (by which I mean, Mom) built a whole wall of metal cubes and I threw lots of things away and dusted and vacuumed and found interesting things in the closet.  The other cool part about it was that Josh was gone this weekend, so it was a complete surprise when he came home and finally decided to go upstairs for something and went "oh, my..."  It would have been cooler if he hadn't known that he was getting a new bed, but since we gave away his bed on Thursday, he kind of knew about it.

So yeah, that was my weekend.  I mean, there was watching the Superbowl, which required carefully placing the tv antennae out on the front lawn on a stool and preparing lots of yummy food.  Oh, and reading some good books.  Checking some more out of the library.  Placing holds.  Making lists and checking them twice.  I am reading both the Best Books for Young Adults 2009 and Teen Book Festival authors, so I have lots to look forward to.  In fact, as soon as I go find some food, I am going to come back to my nice new bed with a stack of books and not leave until...well, later.