Touch N Go's

I want a dog so bad. And I think I want a golden retriever. They seem so snuggly and friendly. Man's best friend material.

skirt/F21 : shirt/diy : shoes/thrift

On our way home to park the RV once and for all, we drove past a Naval Air Station where three F-18's were practicing touch n go's for aircraft carrier landings. It was incredible to watch. It's the kind of thing that makes me wish I wasn't 5'1" so I could be a jet pilot. Or even a C-17 pilot. When I was little I wanted to fly jets. Top Gun was my favorite movie when I was a kid, and it's still in my top list.

I will be home in Alaska in two weeks. It is weird. I think it feels weirder as it gets closer. Since graduation I have felt like a bird without a nest, fluttering about to the next perch until I have to move on and fly again. Moving home doesn't really feel like my own nest. It feels like I am just borrowing a nest until I can find my own nest. I liked living on my own for the past two years. I liked having my own domain. My own kitchen and furniture and grocery stores and local haunts. I feel like as long as I live at home I will just feel like I'm borrowing space. I don't really have an option right now though. Washington feels a little bit toxic to me right now. Time to go home, pay off my loans and get it together.

Looking up

I just got back from my two week mini-journey around the Northwest. It was a nice short trip, and the Northwest is such a beautiful part of the country. I guess to some it wouldn't be short, but having spent months on end motorhoming, anything less than one month seems like a blip on the calendar!

I left my camera's card reader in the RV though, so I won't get to share any pictures until I retrieve it.

Has anyone seen the movie "Up"? If you haven't, I suggest you go out and spend the money, because it is worth it. The first 10 minutes of it would've made me cry had I don't been in mixed company... I don't like crying in front of people. It was so moving and touching. I feel like a girly girl saying that, but it was really an incredible opening sequence. If I buy two movies this year, they will be Up and Star Trek. Actually, the first 10 minutes of Star Trek make me cry too...

The best thing about Up is how it shows the importance of our elderly and the legitimacy of living a quiet, non-spectacular life. I hate using the word "elderly" to describe that age group... it sounds so pandering and un-honorable. I guess I will say, those in the "golden years" of life. I feel like our generation is told that we have to make it. We have to get somewhere, we have to make something of ourselves. I feel like just being middle class, having a family, living within your means, and being relatively unextraordinary has acquired some sort of stigma lately. Like, if you aren't trying to become a CEO, or a magazine editor, or politician; if you aren't focusing in on advancing a career, then you aren't living life. Maybe just I feel that way.

I guess I just want to have a dog, own my own very modest home, go to a job every day that I like doing, and come home to people I love. It's not that I don't want to be successful careerwise, I do, very much. I just don't see it as the most important.

(The wedding photo above is by Josh Newton Photography. I went to high school with him, and his work is absolutely incredible. Go look at his photos at joshnewton.com, you won't be disappointed.)

(ffffound)

I think it's important for us to keep our priorities in a healthy order. Movies like Up seem to help us evaluate what we think is important. Right now the top photo is my desktop background. Hopefully it will remind me where I want to set my sights.

Transition Seasons

I am in Portland right now, and it is HOT. It's supposed to be 100 degrees today. I'm not really used to this kind of heat. It's a nice change though. Next week, though, I'll be on the coast of Washington again, where the ocean cools the atmosphere a bit.

Last week we went to the Sol Duc hot springs in the Olympic National Park. We took a hike to the Sol Duc falls as well, it was a lovely jaunt. I haven't been lugging my camera around lately, so here are some photos from my mom's iPhone.

I love the summer though. Despite the heat. I like the freckles on my shoulders from the sun tanning my skin. I like absolute seasons. Summer and winter are absolute seasons. Spring and fall are just transition seasons. I do like spring (more than fall) because it is so much about new life and new beginnings. But fall is just watching everything die. I don't like change. It makes me feel like I'm not in control, which I'm not- but I can pretend.

Fashion is so interesting because it embraces change. It's always about change. People are always looking forward to what is coming out on the runways for next fall, next summer, next spring. Maybe changing fashions makes it easier to deal with other change in one's life. I was always opposed to change. My room at home looked the same from seventh grade until I finally remodeled it last summer. It was funny changing it because it felt like I dealt with some of my dislike of change, I got over something and "turned over a new leaf" so to speak.

I think now I'm more open to change. I'm certainly not one who favors it, by any means, but I'm better with it.

short cuts

I've been thinking a lot about hair lately. Mainly because I'm considering a job which would involve me getting short hair. I haven't had my hair cut short since, oh, something like second grade. Back when I wanted to actually be a boy because girls were so lame in my view. I had my hair cut like a boy until third grade, when I had to wear a skirt to the first day at my new school so people would know I was a girl (my mom's reasoning). At the time I really disliked wearing skirts. I didn't get over that until just quite recently. I also really hated leggings until just recently, but that's another story.

But anyway, my ponderings on short hair have had many hmm's and haw's. In this month's Elle, actually, there is an article by Johanna Cox (who won Stylista, if anyone watched that show), about her making the leap to short hair. I always thought she was very beautiful and her short hair was very striking. Her article confirmed some of my fears regarding short hair. She boldly went and cut her shoulder length hair off, only to come home and have her boyfriend tell her that he was less attracted to her, sans hair. I mean, for me, that is somewhat an issue. I'm not one of those girls who doesn't shave her legs and won't wear bras because she doesn't care what men think of her. But at the same time I'm not sitting at home sitting in front of the mirror worrying about what boys want.

For me, it's more that my hair is a defining aspect of who I am. It's a joke in my family about my daily hair compliment from complete strangers, and 90% of the comments I get on this blog and my Chictopia are in reference to my hair. I don't even really like putting it in a pony tail because I'm so used to seeing myself with my hair framing my face- it doesn't even look like my own face without my hair.

Perhaps this is all just some sick co-dependency issue I have with my hair. Perhaps we need to "break up" and get some space. I would never do it if I wasn't forced, though, but considering this job which requires a mane alteration, has made me think.

I'm not someone with normal hair, so it's not like I can carry off just any short hair style. I run the risk of acquiring an afro if I'm not careful. The shorter my hair is, the curlier it gets without gravity pulling on it. It's more like a terrifying experiment than just going to the hairdresser, showing them a photo and saying, "I want this."

(not sure where these came from except last: Karla)

I just don't know. People are always like, "It's just hair, it'll grow back," but for a woman hair is often more than "just hair." I suppose I've realized that hair is caught up with a whole myriad of emotional and psychological issues. I won't decide upon my career and, consequently, hair paths for quite a few months, so it's not a pressing matter. Just one more thing for my brain to mull over in its spare time. Thank God I'm going to be working full time in a few weeks, all this brain free-time is going to put me in a home.

What do you guys think about hair? Shorties- how has it affected your life? Longies- would you ever dare to chop it off?

KOA

Yay! Another campground with internet access! This wireless is much more reliable here so I can upload more photos!

I am camping on the Washington peninsula for this week and then somewhere else next week, so my internet is going to be intermittent, depending on the campgrounds. Some have wireless internet, others do not.

Here I am on the longest beach in the world (or so they claim) at Long Beach, WA. It was very cool. You could take your car out and drive all down the beach. It would’ve been very cool to be there for fourth of July, there were bonfire remains and firework debris all around.

shirt/nollie : cardigan/thrift(diy) : shorts/thrift(diy) : sandals/target

Here is my mobile-casa! Excuse my goofy expression, my brother was making me laugh. I lived in this RV for two months and 13,000 miles in 2007 with my whole family. We drove from Alaska to Cape Cod, and then back across the country to Washington state. Best vacation ever.

shirt/walmart(little boys') : skirt/thrift : moccasins/minnetonka

When we got in the RV this time, we were all ready to drive across the country for months again. It's pretty weird only being in here for two weeks and only driving a short distance in one state. We went through 28 states and 2 Canadian provinces last time!

*edit* In the jumping picture I noticed I look like I am simultaneously leaping and giving my brother a Vulcan mind meld...