Time for Star Wars... again.

I have lived in West Virginia for one year as of yesterday. It has been a wonderful experience thus far, the seasons change so marvelously here. It seems we have seen the last of the snow, the birds are busy and flowers are blooming. One of my favorite Morgantown spring events is the blooming of the Dogwood trees. They bloomed just as we arrived last year and this year they have mostly all bloomed and are starting to bud out with greenery. They are such wonderful trees, gentle petals as delicate as paper halo the branches. We have several trees on the property, 2 pink and 2 white, a true song of spring.

I attempted to build a bird house and with Uncle Joe's help I got as far as the base with little bars for bird feet to stand on. In my excitement and hurry I forgot that it rains all year here and a roof of sorts was essential. Oops, It still sits downstairs in Brian's Grandpa's old workshop. A few days later however, I found a sweet little cedar birdhouse for a very reasonable price at the local Lowes. The birds are loving it! We have Cardinals, finches, Jays, and I'm pretty sure I saw a dove. It's fun to watch them, I enjoy it almost as much as Francis the kitten.

A week or so ago I decided that it would be fun to choose an actor or actress that Brian and both enjoy and watch all of the movies they have been in during their careers. ( A little ambitious, a little crazy, I know) So our first candidate is a Mr. Harrison Ford, my Star Wars nerd is very pleased with this decision.

So far we have seen 6 movies, including Episode IV. The first one was Dead Heat on a Merry Go Round in which Harrison had a brief couple of lines as a bellboy, cute. The next movie we saw, they apparently cut the scene he was in, and the following movie was really lame in my opinion, I couldn't even watch the whole thing. It was called Getting Straight. Harrison was the only redeeming part of the film. Of course he was oh so darling in American Graffiti which Brian tells me was filled in Petaluma! I kept an eye out for my mama in the back ground. Did you know that Petaluma is an interpretation of the Miwok name that means something like 'valley of little hills'? I think Petaluma is very pretty name.

Brian and I are still up in the air about what we are doing after we get married. We are trying to locate in Sonoma County, but he may have an offer in Australia which would mean a few more years away from home. That would be an adventure to say the least! He already has residency and after we marry I too can get residency. I think I'd be a bee keeper there, the world needs more bee keepers.

Spring, is that you knocking at the door?

It's 7:27 on Monday night here in West Virginia. The snow seems to be melting at last, though we have heard of possible snow storms later this week. I do adore the snow, but find that I cannot be as excited about it as I was in the start of winter. It's hard to stay indoors so much, and it's easy to say 'well why not go outside and build a snowman'..... let me just say, a person can only happily build so many snowman. I do get outside, fortunately I walk to and from work most of the week. It's a good 40 minute walk one way when the snow is deep, so I get my fair share of the forces of nature. Lately I have been dreaming about living in Arizona, perhaps tis due to a wonderful book I just finished that took place there, or maybe a little hard desert earth and sun sound heavenly after such a winter. This is the wildest winter West Virginia has seen in years, and it's the first taste of Appalachian winter for me..... leaving a rather cold and wet taste in my mouth. I haven't been able to make it to Uncle Joe's all winter, as a matter of fact the last time I saw him was Thanksgiving when he came to our house!

I recently cancelled my facebook and myspace accounts, which actually feels quite liberating. I was tired of logging in and poking around, looking a pictures, writing on the walls of friends, and just wasting time really. I want to do something great with this life not be locked into ciber world, I long to be free of the things that don't serve me or those around me. I must ask myself what good comes from this?

Our beautiful garden gate all regal in snowy white.

Thinking about moving back to CA makes me a little jumpy, in a good way I suppose, I just want to know what to do for a living. I have too many interests and too many ideas. I'll rattle a few off for you.... I'd like to write, publish a book and see how it goes, I'd like to paint murals on children's bedroom walls (I will do this), I'd like to be a forest ranger, an astronomer, a gardener, a wedding photographer, a mother (someday), and I'd like to open a daycare with Abra. Do you think I can find time to all this? I assure you this is the short version of my list. I wish a little fairy or angel would drift down to my ear and tell me where to go from here, I know it's never that easy, but a little guidance would be so nice. I also want to finish school, I'd like to get a degree in art, with a minor in Spanish, or astronomy..... but I'd really like to work with children too.... ohh what to do, what to do? I've heard I'm young and have time to figure this out, but I guess I've been hearing that since I graduated high school... 10 years ago. Yup, my 10 year high school reunion is this year! That my friends is hard to grasp. I turn 28 this year.

I am so great full for all the wonderful people in my life, thank you for being so grand. Enjoy the miraculous transition into Spring, don't forget to stop and smell the wisteria, oh man I'm going to miss the wisteria this year.

Cozied Up With the Mountain Mama

Happy New Year everyone! It's so crazy that February 2010 is already upon us! But what a wonderful year it promises to be. Brian and I had a fantastic trip to Santa Rosa over Christmas. We got to see our families, friends and go dancing!(A special thank you to Clay for throwing that impromptu dance party). It was also wonderful to announce our engagement to everybody in person. To those of you whom I didn't get a chance to see, we shall play next time.

It's still cold as can be here. There is a light coat of snow on the ground and icicles hanging from the bottom of the truck. I feel tucked away here, like I am in a little cup inside the beautiful Appalachian mountains, the mountain mama. I've been back at work, 5 days a week now instead of 6. It's rather nice to have that extra time off. Both Brian and I have been walking to and from work and school. It's a 30 minute walk one way so by the time I get back to the house I'm ready to put on the ol' snowman pjs, cook dinner and read a book! Speaking of cooking dinner, I started a new blog about being in love and cooking! Here's the link if you'd like to check it out. http://lovestandsachance.blogspot.com/

Wedding plans are slowly coming together, I'm so glad that we have time to take care of everything, and so much wonderful west coast help. It's hard to do a whole lot from out here. I am so excited to celebrate our upcoming marriage! Another bit of great news... one of my best friends Shalane, who happens to be my cousin is getting married in May. Her fiance Aaron proposed to her on Christmas Eve! I am in the wedding so we will be coming back to the West at the end of May, it will be a shorter visit, but hopefully we shall dance some and see some people. And after that..... it looks like we will be taking another road trip back across the country, and moving back to CA! We are trying to decide whether or not to take the truck again, she needs some work. We also have the Karmann Ghia and the scooter, but then we would have to figure out a way to get all of our stuff over. Ha! It will be another adventure, isn't life amazing!

Appalatian Winter

The ground is painted white this morning. It's so beautiful I can't stop smiling. Snow fell all day yesterday and on Friday night. The whole town is white. It was about two inches of perfectly powdery soft snow, I walked to work while it fell... amazing. It really feels like Christmas time now, Joellen's playing of Christmas carols in the house helps. I love it. She and Brian are bringing down the decorations right now!

I have some fun news.... on the Sunday after Thanksgiving Brian proposed to me, and of course I said yes!! I am so happy, so blessed to be in such love!

My work has been quite nice, I am meeting all sorts of wonderful people and enjoying what I do. I imagine one day I will create my own business,

or be self employed in one way or another.

Brian and I have been teaching wedding first dance lessons, and we just started to teach a swing dance class last week. We shall see how that goes.

Speaking of swing dance, a few weekends ago Gwen came out to visit, and we went to Pitt Stop Lindy Hop in Pittsburgh. It was a blast!

We had a wonderful host named Mark, who used to live and dance in the bay area. We got to go to a museum, and we saw a special exhibit that was visiting from New Zealand about whales. Beautiful whales. There was a room where you could listen to the songs of all the different whales and porpoises, very magical... Brian and I have talked about

moving to New Zealand and we have a thing for whales, so it was really special. I was so glad to dance all weekend and see the wonderful Gwen!!

Lately I have been thinking poorly of the whole facebook experience. I often want to cancel my account, but I get so caught up on it sometimes, looking at pictures, and messaging old friends. I feel like it's a waste of time and a very impersonal way to have relationships. It's a bit of an addiction, I'm sure some of you can relate. I mean, why do I need to check it everyday? Is it really that important to know that Jimmy from high school went to the mall today?

Or that the girl I met on vacation had stewed beets for dinner and posted pictures of it?? The answer is no. Once a week would

suffice. Perhaps I will exercise some self control and only go on once a week, or just cancel the darn thing anyhow. I sit here blogging and wondering if it would be nice to go 100% back to hand written letters. Ha! I do my share of that, but the Internet is such a grand thing in so many ways.

We are coming home for Christmas in... 17 days! I am thrilled! Our time there will be full, with family events, both mine and Brian's, friends,

and dancing, I really hope to get as much dancing in as possible. So if you know of

anything going on while we are home, please let us know! Happy Holidays to all! I do hope to see many of you on my Christmas vacation, and get a chance to connect. My dreams of a white Christmas have come true.

I got some money cause I just got paid

Overcast Sunday morning here in Morgantown, my one day off in the week. Oh yes I'm a working girl now, Mon-Sat. Things are good. It was Brian's 28th birthday on Thursday, I made vegan, soy free, gluten free chocolate cupcakes like I did last year. Yummy. I think things like Birthdays make me and probably Brian too, realize how far from all y'all we are. Hmm.

We had our first visitor from the west coast!! Jonathan came out last week on his way moving to NY for school, he and Brian went to Seneca rocks to climb and he stayed for several nights. It was so nice to see a familiar face and visit with such a nice friend. On that note if anyone feels the urge to visit the east coast you have an open house to crash in, and I'll even throw in home cooked meals.

I got a full time job at the health food store called Mountain Peoples Co-op. It's a wonderful place and it's really little. There are only four people working there including the manager and assistant manager. Ha! I love it though and it's really great to work in an environment that I know much about and really support. So I guess we will be staying for a while after all, Brian got a position in the grad program, he starts this week. I admit part of me hoped that we would be unable to really work things out here and would be forced to move on (westward), but alas here we shall stay.

I think I'm going to sell the Karmann Ghia, I don't want to dump any more money into it, especially when I'm making 4 times less working here than I did at home.

The garden is a sad subject for me.... now that fungus got the cucumbers, zucchinis, sugar pie pumpkins, the eggplants are screwed up by flee beetles, the corn is really tall, but each stalk only created one cob, a rabbit ate the lettuce, the watermelons and cantaloupes shriveled for whatever reason, deer ate anything they could possibly reach, and I find this all disheartening. We did get lots of tomatoes and peppers though, and kale and chard. The onions fluked. Oh, one exciting thing we dug up our potatoes and made homemade french fries, and this morning I made my mama's potato pancakes!! My favorite.

I'm trying not to be homesick, but it's hard. I really want to go dancing, Ellington style, and I want to see my kitty Homer.... and my family and friends of course:)

Sorry if I'm being a downer.

A Garden Moment

Garden excitement! I just made fried green tomatoes! They were ridiculously good. We harvested our first corn, which were mostly yellow and white, but had a few pink or blue kernels inter mingled. We planted some heirloom colorful corn varieties as well as basic corn, and they cross pollinated a bit, making the cobs look beautimous! Dug up all the potatoes, I was expecting a much larger yield, but it's all good. We may try to make some gnocchi. We are still eating salsa every day, and have eggplants and peppers ripe for the picking.

Yesterday, we drove to Grafton to visit Uncle Joe and Cathy, they took us mushrooms hunting! Now we have a bunch of beautiful golden chanterelles in the fridge just aching to be cooked up. It was a fun adventure. I think Brian and I should open a restaurant, we both love to cook and seem to be good at it (a nice combo). Th.. th.. th.. that's all folks!

Hmmm... Things I like about Morgantown and areas in close vicinity.

1. Each house is unique, no developments and track housing. I've found that to be the case out here in the east. Homes are beautiful, actually thought out and designed by different people. No cookie cutter blocks! Everything is younger out west, and you can feel the age of towns here, pretty sweet.

2. Fireflies

3. For some reason (I can only imagine it's the good times of the college students), there is a plethora of shoes thrown over the telephone wires. It's all over town, and usually they come in clusters, you don't often find that lone pair of dirty old track shoes. Together with sneakers, boots, girly shoes, they hang from the wires like flocks of birds eyeing the streets below.

4. The weather, well... now I'm starting to wish it felt more like summer.

5. Downtown there is an old movie theater. It opened in 1924, designed for silent movies and vaudeville, re-designed in the 50's for Cinerama movies. Anyhow, movies are only $5.00 there, and once in a while they show a movie from my childhood, like E.T. or Back To The Future. It's just rad, I wish i could work there.

6. That my car insurance for a 6 month period is the same I paid in Cali for 1 month.

7. Streets here are like a giant maze. It seems that whomever settled here didn't really think about designing a city, they just started building wherever was convenient. The roads swirl around and bumble in and out of downtown, across the river and over hills. I like it, it's without rhyme or reason.

8. The beautiful little health food co-op called Mountain Peoples. There is a mural/collage out front that Brian and I helped make, and I might work there a few times a week.

9. OMG!!! People at the DMV, the post offices, and other similar businesses are so nice! And helpful! It's a breath of fresh air compared to the Santa Rosa DMV... dun dun dun.

10. My wonderful Uncle Joe lives 20 minutes away with Cathy and Moose(the greatest cat in the world, besides my Homer of course) and Beau and one other kitty I can't remember it's name. They have a beautiful piece of property with woods and a pond, and a little flying squirrel that is their friend.

Those are all nice things around here.

On another note Brian got the Karmann Ghia running!! I just got the plates, insurance and new tires, soon I will be on the road! Super exciting!

She just needs a real good cleaning, and a little extra TLC. This pic is of the day we brought her home. (She has no name yet, so I call her Chief for now, little BSG inside info)

Also, I got my motorcycle permit today, so now I can take off on the vespa whenever I want, but I'm taking it slow, to make sure I feel comfortable when I finally start going on the main roads. Woo! I know my pop isn't too thrilled.

The garden is doing pretty good, we are in an abundant tomato heaven, we've been eating the best homemade salsa I've ever had for the last week. Every day, we pick a big bowl of fresh heirloom tomatoes, an Anaheim pepper and fresh cilantro. Roast the pepper, mix it up with a little sea salt and garlic!! Wow! It's amazing!The Zucchini plants are all dead, and a fungus has attacked our sugar pie pumpkins... so I might cry, though we will at least get three off the plants. On a happy note, my poppies and cocks comb are blooming and amazing, once we get a new camera I'll take some more pictures. I don't think I'm going to mention why it is that neither of our cameras function anymore. For dinner tonight we steamed fresh little carrots and fresh beet greens with some purple potatoes we bought at the farmers market, yum!

So, I keep smiling and eating good food, and loving. I really feel the un-permanence of our situation here, we won't be here too long, I have no clue where we shall adventure next... maybe back to breath taking Sonoma County. I miss my peeps, and the ocean. Who knows what the universe will bestow upon us? It's all an infinite mystery, and that my dears, is what keeps me excitedly ticking. Love love love. I hope our paths cross again soon.

P.s WHy the font went blue on me, i'll never know.