Thursday hike

There are no classes on Thursdays, so I decided to take my lovely new camera for a hike and get in some practice.


Setting off down 19th Street



Coffee at the bakery


Up the hill...

to the trail head at Hendricks Park


Where I studied for a while



And practiced doing the hold-the-camera-at-arm's-length thing

Then I was off down the Ribbon Trail. It runs for a mile or so along the crest of hills that border the east Eugene neighborhood.


I love doug firs ... and I'm in the right place; they're the Oregon state tree.

Mist and moss

I like ferns, too.


It was rather rainy.



Heading down the trail back to the house and Latin and homework

October

"Oh Marilla, I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers. It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November wouldn't it?" Anne Shirley - Anne of Green Gables.

Picnik

This is why I love Picnik:

Rain!

It pored for about 10 minuets this morning! Yes that counts. All Summer I have been in love with the heat and sun. But all of a sudden I am planing Christmas decorations and sitting down to read children's books like I do every Autumn. Out come Miss Rumphius, Yonder, Owl moon, and all of my other old favorites.

Claire (The not so lonely poster=))

Missouri cookies

We lost the recipe many years ago, but I have exemplified the venerable old practice of oral tradition and committed it to memory. And in my memory it stays -- I have not divulged the secret to any member of my family, because in so doing I make sure that they still want me back at home. ;) There is something about this mysterious concomitance of chocolate, oatmeal, and peanut butter that makes me immensely popular among my siblings. But today I made it for my school with my friend, classmate, and next-year's-room-mate Amanda. We made a double batch and ended up walking to the store to procure the requisite amount of oatmeal. It being June and Oregon, the rain caught us on the way back, so by the time we returned to school to finish our project, we were nicely soaked. Cookies at my little school are always a community event and excuse for everyone to head into the kitchen to chat about homework, soccer (Spain and South Korea today -- the World Cup approaches), and next week's finals.

It pleases me to be able to import a small but precious tradition from the life of my home into the life of my school. Continuity in a life broken up between two worlds is hard to come by, so I have to appreciate it, even when it comes in the trivial form of cookies.

Silly brother

text message:
"I think you should create a band called the Sitting Ducks".

I think someone is tired of the quacking down the hill! I will be home soon to help them be quiet and content. Hopefully he won't take things into his own hands before then. :)

A good friend

We haven't seen each other that much this last year, but every now and then I call her, or she calls me. I am always just slightly nervous, remembering where I was last time I talked to her and feeling how much has changed since then. It's the old philosophical problem of time and space. How to recover and convey so many disparate months of thoughts and miles of distance? But within a few minutes I always realize: in her silent solitary hours of page-turning and pen-scratching, close-caught moments with loved ones, and confrontations with reality, she is thinking about the same things I am thinking about with my anxious schedule, long lists, and homesickness. And after we've been spilling things out for an hour or so, threads start to appear, and we are comforted to realize that there is coherence -- a narrative. How could we know that without a friend?

"A friend is someone who helps you to persevere." :)

love you, J!!