Mountains and moguls and snow - oh my!

Today is the last day of dear Ski Liberty. I feel the need to tell the story of just exactly how I, a horseback-riding, tea-drinking, wannabe-journalist black belt from a farm house came to snowboarding. Last year, winter 2011-12, I had these friends. They were quite simply pretty really totally awesome, and they invited me to come "snowboarding" - this thing of which I knew very little. I had been skiing a few times, and I had fun, but it wasn't "interesting". So they prodded a bit and I didn't come just because I just didn't feel like it. This year, winter 2012-13, they mentioned it again. I gave it little notice until I heard "discount". "Exactly how much does it cost?" I asked. They told me, and it was actually pretty do-able. After all, this is a one time thing, right? I went home and put the date on the calendar. It was the time during the school year where there doesn't seem to be much to look forward to, so I looked forward to going, I suppose.

 The first time I went, the weather was a lovely cloudy gray, and it was about 0 degrees Fahrenheit at the top of the mountain. We pulled in the vacant parking lot (being home-schooled I could go on a weekday :), and I saw a few punks walking into the lodge... I couldn't help but notice that they were all hoisting expensive, shiny snowboards. I wondered in passing what I had gotten myself into.

  So eventually we got outside of the lodge, snowboards in tow, and I watched as my friends who had taken me magically attached their boards to their feet and glided over the snow to the base of a lift. The youngest stayed behind for a moment. He looked at me and said "I think your lesson is in a minute or two. I'll be right back." I watched as both the group of friends departed for a lift to my far right, and the youngest of the group headed to one in the middle. They all got on the lifts, and were gone.

 "Hey, you're snowboarding?" asked a suave dude with a green coat, sunglasses and a bandanna. "Yeah." I said. "Okay, let's get started."
"OH COOL"  I thought. I grabbed my board and was planning on heading for the middle lift when the instructor turned towards the last place I thought I was going - the bunny slope. So my lesson continued. I managed, in the end, to get down without falling. That took a surprising amount of perseverance.

 Three months and many, many falls later, I was at the top of the mountain with my best friends. Maybe it was karate for a few years, maybe it was that I've known them since I was eight years old, maybe it was arisoft, maybe it was even snowboarding, but these people who at first drug me along made my "best friend" list, which is actually a pretty select list. Either way, I was at the top of the mountain. My friends were really REALLY patient with me, and I think if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have ever tried some of the slopes that I did this year. Yes, I did all of them besides the black diamonds. No, I haven't done moguls yet. Yes, I've gotten past the dorkiness of the helmet because it saved my life a few times.... or at least my skull. 

Pictures: Above; me and my friends, down (1) Dear sister and me (2) A photo I made. 

Moguls and mountains and lifts and lights, goggles and boards and snowball fights.

Daydreaming

I was studying pretty intently today, accomplishing a lot. My sister had previously been in my room and had way - I mean WAY - overdone it with the perfume. So I opened a window and shut off the heat. If you live where I do, it's about 60 degrees outside. That's really nice for the day before Easter. There I was, accomplishing things, when I realized that putting my desk next to the window was a really terrible design flaw. I ended up staring out the open window, a warm breeze tickling my face and a steady rush of perfume out the window. Also, I had finished a brutal water fight with my siblings (coughcough I lost coughcough) about an hour ago and dried, so I could smell the grass on me. It was just so warm and pleasant that I got to thinking, upon staring at the field outside my window, just how lovely it would be if I could have horses in that field. I began to wonder how much a barn would cost and how long it would take to build, I wondered what my parents would do if they had to take care of horses when I went to college, college doesn't have to be far away, does it? I wondered if I could take horses with me. I caught myself in the spiral of daydreaming. It was irritating that I had to break from it because I needed to study.

And that is the story of how my textbook got thrown out the window, kids.