Twinkle toes

I've never dreamt of wearing tutus or tie-up shoes. Grace and lithe serenity as befits a ballerina, weren't born with me in nature. I'm much more apt at sports and working in dirt.

I'm almost as flexible though...getting there anyways...

The most dancing I did as a kid was with my sisters to Swan Lake (usually performed in our dress-up tutus...), In the Hall of the Mountain (a song our mother used to get us to do our chores more quickly), and Peter and the Wolf. In my younger years I recall my Daddy leading me in the waltz with my sock-clad feet standing on his snake-skin boots (he used to call me "twinkle-toes"). I was raised on movies like Newsies, Singin' in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Meet Me in St. Louis...basically the old musicals with lots of fun dancing scenes.

I've always loved watching dancing. Especially when it looks like the dancer is having the time of their lives. As my taste in media and my view of the world and all of its many cultures has expanded, I have developed a love for actually dancing myself.

In High School I took a ballroom dance class. Rhythm, timing, form all came easily to me (with the younger boys in the class I usually ended up leading...which turned out to be very unhelpful later on as most 'manly' men don't appreciate the help...odd). Then my first couple years of college I went country dancing with my friends and roommates every Wednesday night (this is where me leading proved an annoyance...the line dances were my favorite).

Whilst searching for a fun elective, I stumbled upon African Dance (and gaped). I signed up for it immediately. I took it for three semesters in a row. Every class was enlightening, fun, energetic. The live drummers came to recognize me and I became fast friends with the hippy bunch (is anyone surprised?).

I want to be brown...and wear the black head piece on the left...

I'd always wanted to travel to Africa. Learning about the meanings behind the dances, moving to their ancient rhythm...it all made me feel like I was getting a taste of the rich African culture.

Recently (within the last couple of years) I was exposed to Bollywood. Hailing from India, it also comes from a deeply rooted traditional country. Bright happy colors flying around. Beautiful smiles on faces of the energetic dancers. The dances are exciting and fun with a lot of movement and happenin songs!

Dil Bole Hadippa...one of my favorites...with my favorite actor...

I love trying out the dances and I can usually pick up on the chorus because they repeat the moves but usually the fun parts are on the verses...so it would take much repeating and lots of practice to get those down. I love the colors! They are so bright and happy which makes me happy so of course I want to copy them. My sister, Melissa, and I are now owners of some pretty sweet Indian outfits..(soon to be owning more...straight from India...)...

As a small child I was completely enthralled with the Native Americans. Pocahontas was one of my favorite Disney movies(might have had something to do with the fact I had a HUGE crush on the cute red-headed Thomas). Camille and I used to run around being little Indians...grinding berries to make medicines, making bows and arrows (not very good ones might I add), setting up real live traps for the mean neighbors, once we even rubbed dirt all over our skin so we were darker. The culture of the Native Americans is also rich and ancient and as with the previous groups, dancing means something and can tell stories about the People. 

Awesome. The end.

They look so passionate when they are dancing. I went to a Pow Ow with my roommate and I was just mesmerized! It was so powerful for them. It meant something to them and that touched me.

Riverdance. What the awesome?! It comes from a land of lore and mystery, of enchantment. This form of dance also comes from an long-lived country. The light and carefree music leads the dancers through frivolity and gaiety! Every dance exudes the bubbling laughter of the people or the misty mysterious beauty of their myths.

They look so mysterious and gorgeous. LOVE.

My sister, cousin and uncle all participated in lessons and my sister taught me a little bit. It was so fun and light and lilting...just like their music.

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A word on being cut open

6 am. That's when I have to be there. 

NOT when I have to open my eye lids to a dark world.

NOT when I have to awake myself and arouse my faculties. 

NOT when I have to take a shower to scrub the special antibiotic soap all over my bacteria-ridden body. 

NOT when I have to prepare myself for my doom.

NOT when I have to leave my home to get to the hospital. 

I'm the first 'case.' That's right. The lucky girl that arrives at 6 am. 

6 am. Oh how I haven't missed you. Lucky for me, I get to be knocked out for a couple of hours to make up for it. That's when they cut me open. Yup. Like in the child's game, Operation. 

Tools needed...true story

Only for real. 

Due to many hilarious stories of delirious post-anesthetic behaviors, I'm leaving my phone in the care of my beloved mother who will be sane and drug-free at all times. She will be in possession of the device whilst I am in a drug-induced craziness. Until such a time that I can coherently converse with you lovely peoples.

SO nothing too scandalous if you please. It's my mother who'll be reading them. Just sayin.

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Woe is me...

Many days had passed since my grand adventure. Laughter, good company, and great stories would never fade from my memory. But there is a small amount of remembering that fades with time. Specific wording to a fantastic joke, complete conversations that changed my life, or merely the look on Betsy's face when Jacs told her to change out in the wild...

But wait! Pictures can speak a thousand words. Written travel logs can replace the memory that fades. Pictures of good times, taken in the confines of a cabin in the woods, taken at the top of cliffs, taken in the three hours it took to reach that place, taken on horses and saved to the memory card for later viewing.

Alas, I cannot blog on this wondrous occasion as I do not have the pictures or the travel log to do it with. I am sinking into the depths of despair and woe.

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Melts and Hot Air Balloons

There once was a little girl named Shley. Dreams of being a grand prestigious artist had always been hers.

One day her friend Bie and she decided to have an adventure. They gathered their crayons around them and some canvases and blow dryers and a little bit of sticky super glue...and they started creating.

After messes and frantic searches and sticky fingers, masterpieces emerged.

We call this the SHAGGY DOG...

Rainbow...duh

Mud castle/Fangorn forest

 Will she sell these pieces of art? Oh no. They are far too wonderful to trade for mere moneys!

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Golden delirium

I watch the little white fluffs coasting down from grey low-cast skies. Street lights cast a glow of gold across the white terrain, almost beguiling me. 

But I'm no fool. 

There is no warmth on the other side of the double-paned glass that I look through. It is a false type of gold. 

Hell's gold.

The real gold won't come for a long while it seems. The presence of cold and slushy snow drifts acts to push back its coming. 

The world has been subjected to this cool silver season for a small eternity. Every year it seems to last longer than the winter prior. And colder. It's always colder than the last roll around. 

Heat. 

That's what I look forward to. Hot molten sunlight saturating my skin and hair. Inhaling spicy summer air, warming my frozen soul. Gold and lively green hues surrounding me and feeding my dull spirit. Sunlight reaching into every dark corner and refurbishing the winter dilapidated happiness.

To run through fields of lush green grass chasing balls and frisbees. To catnap in sunlight's warm embrace. To accompany nature's inhabitants through morning's first waking, along deer trails and mountainsides. To explore the wilderness of a hidden grove. To lay in repose, watching the clouds drift lazily across an ocean-blue sky. To watch tiny seedlings swell to adulthood in the sun's daily presence. To lose yourself in the pink and white frothed orchards.

These are what I hunger for and every winter I'm left wanting. Starving.

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Moving myself: Jog part jump

This is going to sound really bad. Maybe I shouldn't say it. But it's the truth. My confession today is...

I like to do crazy things to my body.

Don't get me wrong here and leave the page thinking you just came across another crazy person!!

For the most part actually 'altering' my body is not an option. Because of my beliefs (1), I will not do extreme things to my body because of the sacredness of the covenants I have made. Henna is the closest I've come to getting a 'tattoo' and the closest I will ever get. I have recently become kind of obsessed with Bollywood and that may have played a part in my crazy decision to participate...

Sadly it faded within a week...

One of my very dear friends (who got me hooked on Bollywood) joined in this activity and has now elicited my services as the artist for her next Hindi party.

All my life...I have lived with a body that was whole. The only holes in my body were the ones God blessed me with. As a church worldwide, we female Latterday Saints have been asked to only have one set of ear piercings and nothing else. Now my Momma decided before that counsel ever came, that we were not allowed to have piercings until we were 18 and could make a marginally rational decision about what to do to our bodies. By the time I turned 18, I hadn't really the desire to join the crowd and get my ears pierced. I liked being different.

One day years later, I was in Wal-mart (don't judge me for it...) and made a split decision to get my ears pierced.

Luckily I had an older lady doing it for me...who couldn't have possibly pushed the needle through any slower...

I love the diversity of earrings. I can express my particular style, mood, and craziness with my choice in earrings.

Probably the craziest thing I've ever done to myself on purpose and with a lot more thought than other crazy things I've done. I decided to wax my legs. I'm telling you now...this is probably the first time in my life...I've screamed in pain (assuming that yelling and grunts don't count). I did the strips the first time I did this and Ima tell ya. That hurt like nothing else I've ever known and I've been injured multiple times in sports and other activities. Since then I've learned that hard Brazilian wax, which is 85% less painful, is the way to go. I have waxed my legs a few more times and the results are so very wonderful.

Now to the awesome things I've done. Besides playing sports with all of my worth (diving, sliding, pushing, shoving) and putting myself in dangerous situations (hiking up the mountainside and coming down waterfall ravines in the rain...), I have done things people either admire or term crazy.

I did a polar plunge. I really don't think I need to say more.

Note to self: don't submerge...just dip...

To go along with that, we went up to a rope swing at Bloomington Lake, Idaho during the early summer. It is in fact a glacier lake with snow sitting off to the side halfway in the Lake.

Am I crazy? Possibly but I'm all right with it.

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Looks for myself: Hair part

 In the entire history of the world, woman has been known for her long lustrous locks of hair. Blue ebony plaits of the Native American tribes. Glorious long blond curls of the Germanic tribes. Sparking red tresses known to the Irish. Brunette ringlets abundant in the European hills.

There is a lot that can be done to this hair we women have been blessed with. If it so happens we need a change of color...there are multiple options at our disposal. Now as a generally un-girly girl (that was for you Melis) I do so enjoy doing fun things although I love the hair that God blessed me with.

Dying my hair a darker shade is one of them.

Only temporarily of course. If it was permanent then I would be mad that I couldn't change it back to my natural color without going through the awkward "dye line" stage.

Highlighting my hair was another color change step I had to try.

Note also the extremely attractive sunglasses. Luckily I didn't do platinum blond highlights because then I would've had one of those undesired lines mentioned earlier. I had more like a caramel glaze drizzled over my already light brown hair. I look like a Californian babe...obviously...

The last color change idea I tried was a peek-a-boo. Now I've tried doing the cool bright colors but they faded... the blond is still awesome sauce. I do not as of yet have a good enough picture to display here but it does exist...

Now. This part is my favorite. I have never been so excited about something so little in my entire life.

My jedi braid. 

A simple wrap of diverse colors and patterns arranged in my hair thus. I'm the envy of the university because of it. The colors you see here have since been removed and replaced with an earthy brown, and bright green and salmon bands. Thanks to the dexterity of my good friend Shalyn Maxfield. I have done my best to spread the awesomeness of the jedi.

The one thing that I have done often to my hair and with a great measure of trust. I've received multiple hair cuts. Not from just any old hair stylist either. I've received hair cuts from not one but two of my beloved sisters....and loved it!! My bravery was well rewarded. Despite their lack of well-practiced hands or even their confidence in themselves, they succeeded in making me happy with a shorter, more manageable haircut.

Out of all the crazy hair cuts, hair dye colors, hair wrap options, feather inserts, hair extensions (which I NEVER plan on participating in) there is really only one option I haven't tried... a perm. Now in my childhood recollections...a perm meant Shirley Temple ringlets. There is no way I'm goin there brothers and sisters! However, when I do happen to have the length of hair requisite for said perming, I will go for the long wavy curls that are more stylin in this age and time. So there might just be a post further in the future concerning my next step in the hair tweaking process...

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