Let Love Grow

As a tribute to Valentine's Day, here's a list of things that I love:

1. Sleeping with the windows open.
2. Old, black and white photos.
3. Mumford & Sons.
4. Creating things: art, photographs, meals, gardens, etc.
5. Hiking with my dog.
6. Riding bikes all day long.
7. Thunderstorms.
8. Hyper-realistic paintings and drawings.
9. Dinosaurs.
10. That point in the night, when you're with friends, and you're so deliriously tired everything becomes hysterical.
11. Jim Carrey movies.
12. Walking through deep snow.
13. Vacuuming.
14. Roller Coasters with big, steep drops. Loops are alright, but they make me black-out a little.
15. Muscular backs. With tattoos.
16. Spending the entire day at the beach and gorging myself on boardwalk snacks at night.
17. Christmas time and everything that goes with it.
18. All breakfast foods. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, waffles, etc.
19. Kittens and puppies.
20. Summer nights around the fire pit, making s'mores, and telling jokes.

That's all for now. Many of these things probably don't come as much of a surprise. But I enjoy making lists.

The Times They Are a-Changin'

Despite what seems like an endless onslaught of icy hell, spring will come. Punxsutawney Phil even says it'll be here early, but I don't put too much faith in rodents (they are the animal kingdom's biggest liars, of course).

By the end of February, things will be quite a bit different. Despite my eagerness to move out and start my life as an "adult", I will be moving back home. To clarify, I will be living on my own, relatively private floor of my parents' two-family house.

My parents are awesome and I have no qualms with living underneath them. It won't be much different than living on my own. There's just that stigma of "living with your parents" that I prefer to avoid. Until I can afford a decent house on my own, I will have to suck it up.

I will still be paying rent, managing my monthly bills, buying my own groceries, and cooking my own meals. The only difference will be the daily comfort of going upstairs and hanging out with my family. I'm only 23, I think I can soak it up for a year or two before I start feeling like a bum.

The reason for this move is obvious if you know me well enough. I'm not going to talk about it much on my blog, out of respect for the other parties involved. Just know that, at least for now, everything is OK.

Tug Hill

Last weekend we traveled 5+ hours to upstate New York for the annual Tug Hill sled dog race. Rob and Dan were nice enough to accompany me for the trip, even though I'm sure there were other things they'd rather spend their weekend doing. Hopefully, some free food and lodging made it worthwhile for them.

The drive up was relatively uneventful, aside for some snow and dark roads. We left Saturday in the late afternoon, and made it to Syracuse around 10 PM. I originally planned to stay at the first cheap hotel we could find. But, we decided we valued our lives, and opted for the Sheraton. The view from our room was pretty awesome.


We ventured out early on Sunday morning for the final leg of our trip, and made it to Winona State Forest at around 10 AM. We watched the 6-dog teams finish, the ski-jores start, and the 4-dog start and finish. I got to see a lot of my Jersey Sands musher friends. I also met up with some Ohio friends (Amanda of Hoof & Howl and Shannon of Diamond Dogs), whom I met through dog forums and blogs. Thank goodness for the internet, or I would never be involved in such a unique activity, nor would I have made so many dog-loving friends.