john perkins said it right.

Hello friends! How's your Saturday been?

 photo credit scenic glory.

Mine's been lovely. I woke up to pouring rain, promptly ran outside, shorts and everything, to mail a letter off to New York. Not only did we have a morning of heavy rain, this afternoon was beautiful. Bright, sunny blue skies. 70+ degrees. Vibrant green grass. Absolutely beautiful.

I wandered down to the woods late-afternoonish to take a few photos, read a few books, and write a few letters. Only the first two ended up happening, because I happened to forget a pencil. *hits self on head.* It was as beautiful down there as it was up at the house. Granted, it smelled a little more swampy, but the house and meadow don't have the sound of creek moving over rocks.

Our woods used to be my favorite place in the world. We would go down there all the time. Four years ago, Anna and I may or may not have snuck out at night to run down there for a few minutes. Last November we jumped into the creek, jeans, sweatshirts, and all, finishing it up by geocaching.

I used to spend all my time down there, and part of me misses the me who would have tried to catch the snake, instead of tentatively poking it with a stick until it uncurled itself and slithered down its hole. Part of me misses the girl who sat curled up on the tree bent over the creek, writing in a journal even when the snow started falling.

I think part of me misses that me, while the rest of me looks forward to the me that's coming up.

As I wrote last week, I'm going to France this summer. Besides being incredibly excited about the trip itself, it's looking like Mimi is going to be in France/Switzerland/Germany around the same time I'm in Europe. It adds about 600 times more anticipation to my growing excitement for this summer.

My dear penpal Bleah called today (actually, after I called her three times) and, because Camp Rock 2 was playing downstairs and neither her nor I had anything better to do, we talked for over an hour. I'm not sure that you could fit any more Tangled references into a one hour space than we did.

At one point we caught ourselves in the middle of another rant about how it's not fair that Eugene is not a real person, and I remarked, "Look at us, we're talking about boys," to which Bleah responded, "How typical and predictable of us."

  "At lunch, we sat outside. In typical teen-girl fashion, we talked. But we talked about untypical things. About how Snowball and Napoleon are Lenin and Trotsky, about how there was bokeh dancing on the blades of grass, about how English teachers should love words. We spoke of the stolen clay knife, why freckles were cute, and the sheer beauty of books narrated by unusual characters. And all this whilst plaiting grass and weaving daisy chains." Libby from Catching the Stars.

That is why I love this Libby quote: because most of the time, we don't talk about typical things. Many of my conversations lately with my best friends have centered around the things I used to eat. (For the curious, the list is as follows: carnations, pansies, Christmas trees, books, stinging nettle tea, and grass.) I love this quote because I love to talk about classic lit. I'm working my way through Les Mis right now, while Anna reads Pride and Prejudice. I love hearing what she thinks about Darcy, what she thinks about the story. I love this quote because we use photography terms all the time, and bokeh is my favorite. I love this quote because "the sheer beauty of books narrated by unusual characters" makes me flash back to the Book Thief.

If you're in the mood for a list, the other happy things about today: the sunlight hitting the mist after it rained - black pomegranate tea - drawing rainbow rectangles - Prismacolour colourless blender - sending Bleah a few Justin Bieber posters, because we all know how much she loves him - singing random lines of the Tangled soundtrack over the phone with Bleah - piles of clean laundry - floral print boots, scarf, and dress - Switchfoot songs playing on repeat in my head.

Hope you have a lovely Sunday.