a familia que tenho...

Nieces and nephews are probably the best inventions created. They are cute. They love you. They are silly. They make car noises when they play with you. They get excited to make flower crowns and learn how to leg wrestle. I am in love with my nieces and nephews. This weekend I was able to travel up to visit my brother and his beautiful family.

Conner was fascinated with the lines in the leaves--he would hold them up to the sunlight and point them out for me.

Adventurous Sebrina and Tricia.

Cadin and his great hair.

Conner sitting on the porch waiting for the sun to set.

Chris, Tricia, Me, Conner, Cadin, Sebrina and Abree in front of the Idaho Falls on the Snake River.

Family is so fulfilling.

as cabelas nao aguenta mais esse ritima

I've been trying a new thing: not washing my hair. Inspired by my dear friend Sara, as well as my age-long desire to dread my hair, I decided to experiment. After almost 2 weeks of not washing the locks, I decided I do not fancy the non-washing regime. Perhaps a week of non-washing is tolerable. My issue is not the way my hair looks but how it feels. My hair itself looks great. It gets very curly, and I've gotten several complements. But my hair is far from touchable. As Emma says, "Please just touch the lower portions." But seriously, just touch the lower portions because the closer you get to my scalp, the thicker and heavier and oilier my hair gets. Don't be grossed out. My hair is NOT dirty. I rinse it on a regular basis, but the natural oils have built up a bit. It basically feels as if I have a lot of product in my hair. On the upside, my hair requires absolutely NO maintenance.

Alicia and I were discussing last night our long hair. Conclusion: we love it. Two and a half years ago Alicia and I, along with our friend Erin, made a pact to not cut our hair (we were all sporting short hair at the time) until I got back from my mission. I've been back from my mission for a year, and none of us have seriously gone to the scissors. Probably the best pact we could have ever made.

escrever para esclarecer.

I've been doing this thing the past couple of weeks. Just writing exercises. In the morning I sit and write until I can't write any more or until I have at least 3 pages. I believe the recent surge of blog-making urges can be attributed to this.

Sometimes the days are COMPLETELY overwhelming for no reason. Today I worked for three hours. That's it. But I arrived home utterly exhausted, believe this was a result of thinking too much. I spoke with my mother. She was making strawberry jam, and I became suddenly homesick. This doesn't happen very often, but when it does it is strong and it's then that I must leave the land of college and being alone and enter the family world. Since it was too early in the day to head to my sister's, I did the next best thing: I headed to Alpine. Alpine is the home of my second family. A place where I can pretend I'm 18 years old again and living in CT. Spending all day under the sun, surrounded by the glorious mountains, in a saline pool, with little ones and a brand new puppy has its healing factors.

Ten things I would like to do before I die:

1. Make a beautiful quilt

2. Be a midwife

3. Write my memoirs

4. Maintain a flourishing garden

5. Build a bed

6. Teach a child how to ride a bike

7. Teach a women to love herself

8. Say "I love you" and kiss a tree in all 50 states

9. Hike the Appalachian trail

10. Climb a mountain a year

sou uma boa pessoa

Have you ever wanted to change something in your life? Bad habits mainly? Something that you do almost on accident because you don't realize that it's even happening?

I do.

A lot.

faz um ano

Chegei da missao faz um ano. Que coisa mais incrivel.

I realize I am not a competent blogger, and after a couple of attempts it has become apparent that blogging is not my calling.

And yet, I blog.

Perhaps its an internal fear of not writing something clever enough for people to enjoy. Maybe that same fear that keeps me quiet and listening in a crowd rather than life of the party is the one that keeps my creative juices flowing. Perhaps I just need to think more.

A question was presented the other night: what is it about yourself that you are currently changing your mind about it? I was supposed to answer it, and at first I knew what it was, but now I'm not so sure. I tend to talk about change a lot. I like the idea of change of moving on. I thought I was turning into someone who was capable of change. I sincerely thought that this was it! But when I am put face to face with changes I should be making, I push change away. I rationalize and I want to continue on the path I've been following for some time.

So bottom line: I am a hypocrite and you probably shouldn't listen to what I say. Although I may say some encouraging things or give inspiring and clever and smart advice, I don't listen to half the things that come out of my mouth.

But I don't think I'm alone in this, and that is the comforting to me. I know there are other people in this world and in my little sphere of existence that have these tendencies, and perhaps we are getting better. I know I'm trying.