Well, I’m starting the Picture Bonanza. Also, I’d like some input on the useability of my links: can you see them clearly enough? Are the obviously not just more text? Should I have them be underlined? Get rid of the box around it when you mouse over? Do they need to be traditional blue like Ian’s? Would a non-green or brighter color be better? Are they plain OK now? Just some input, please. Finally, I’ve lost all the pictures I took of our trip: or at least, they’re gone until Ian comes back, because I copied them directly to his computer and now Jess has hers all hooked up. Hal9000 is defunct for now. SO, where to start? I guess I’ll just go chronologically starting at the beginning of Christmas break, or in whatever order strikes me. Here goes…

During the Christmas season, my family always pulls out this strange light-bubbly thinger. I liked the colors it made on the wall here. Another Christmas season tradition: Gingerbread houses. I made one with Zoe and Jess, but frankly NONE of my pictures of it turned out. I don’t know why; my camera was just feeling stubborn, I guess. Still, here’s a couple of fairly blah pictures of it.

Front

Back

Side

After a while people started eating it, and then Colleen requested I take some pictures for her. She found its decrepit situation quite picturesque. Ironically, the pictures turned out better then. Here’s just one overall picture.

We also have several earth or globe objects that sit around: one globe ornament, and one a gift from the Fenskes to me last year, a really cool spinning glass earth. I backlit my glass earth with candlelight and it turned out, in my opinion, beautifully. Here’s another earth-ball picture with my ring that I just like in general.

This is just a close-up of my family’s Christmas tree. And here’s the Ferguson’s Christmas tree – much more Martha Stewart-esque than my family’s (this was a somewhat experimental picture. Obviously).

A few days after Christmas Jess and I planned on going tubing. However, when we got there we realized that neither of us really felt like tubing. Big crowds can be a turn-off. Still, we decided to wander around in the snow for a while, and that got me these pictures:

Majestic mountain

Two lumps and a cloud

Ian’s favorite of these; during the day you can still see the moon clearly, though this picture doesn’t do it justice.

Mountain and Clouds

More peaks framing a bright cloud

A fine picture of me, taken by me (thanks, camera, for NOT focusing!)

And this one, which I had high hopes for and it turned out alright.

Finally, a picture of Jess lolling about in the snow. It was quite deep and we had no snowshoes, which made it rather an adventure.

On the way home I happened to glance in the passenger-side mirror and was amazed by what I saw.

Of course, the day after Jess and I drove all the way out to the Pass to go to the snow, the snow came to me at my house! Go figure. Mom and I went for a walk around the neighborhood, just to enjoy the snow, and along the way I stopped to help the neighbor kids make their “snow fort.” Honestly, there wasn’t enough snow in their whole yard – or on the whole street for that matter – to make a good fort, but they sure tried hard. Also on that walk I saw a plain board collecting snow and it struck me as beautiful. I am, after all, still on my search for beauty in the normal world. To that end, here’s another picture of tree branches that I found starkly lovely.

Carmel loves the snow. She goes crazy in it, and can’t seem to comprehend the way a snowball works – once it hits the ground, it’s gone. This is her trying to fetch the vanished snowball. She is a great photo-op, if you can trick her into doing something cute. Frankly, I could spend the rest of this blog showing pictures of my wonderful dog. She likes Ian’s sword… I’ll end the Carmel accolades with this picture, of her pretty much just being her doggy self.

What next? Christmas break didn’t feel long, but I managed to take an awful lot of pictures nonetheless! Ben gave me these cool throwing knives for Christmas, as I’ve mentioned before, and at one point I was struck by how very black they were. Yes, that sounds silly, but look: you don’t often see something just plain dull black, and I seized my opportunity and found some cool contrasts. Ian gave me a mouse, which is as yet unnamed. Here’s my idea: CONTEST! See if you can come up with the best and most creative name for the mouse shown in the next picture. Mouse Contest Picture Here.

Now some random pictures of stuff I’m not sure where it goes.

We had the Ferguson’s Prius in our garage for a while, and it struck me as funny to have two identical cars in one garage. Also, what do you call a pair of Priuses?

There’s a vent on the side of our house that lets off steam. When I was a kid I saw it and thought the house was on fire! So I ran inside, frantic, and told Mom that there was smoke pouring out the side of the house. She was nice and came to look, then explained the difference between steam and smoke. Guess you gotta learn these things somewhere, huh?

When we got home on Christmas break, I found Mom had bought the perfect still-life object! To my dismay, however, no matter how many pictures I took of it few of them turned out. This is the best one of the upper fruit bowl part.

This is just my family, sitting around playing Risk. Which I quickly lost, but that’s hardly the point (ha, ha).

Finally, some pictures of people. I generally focus on objects, possibly because so few people are willing to let you take pictures of them. It’s actually kind of silly to me: why cover your face with your hands? So the photo doesn’t turn out, who cares? It doesn’t reflect on you personally; it just means the picture was wrong somehow. Big deal. Anyway, some people – and remember these are candid shots so you can’t blame them for looking silly.

Ian

Colleen

Dad

Mom

Me (Ian took this one and boy can you tell!)

Well, I think that about sums it up. Unfortunately as I mentioned I really can’t access Ian’s computer. Also I’m still having a few minor troubles with the Shuttle, CyberVixen II (isn’t it cute?): one monitor is fuzzy in places, and changing it from 60 to 70 Hz doesn’t do anything this time. (Look, Ian, I cleaned up all my cords!!) Also, my headphones keep switching from having one channel to two to none while plugged into my computer. My Power Mate doesn’t work. Finally, the speakers don’t work because there are three different places to plug speakers in and I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do with my speaker arrangement since mine didn’t fit into those spots. This post, incidentally, took me over two hours to put together. I hope it’s not wasted because people don’t want to click on all the links. Ah well, either way that’s just life. The good part of life is that Ian is going to call me about 3:00! I finally get to hear his voice again.

Oh, a strange thing happened to me last night. After talking to Ian online, I felt completely emotionally wrung out; I was barely hanging in there and not crying. Then, around 11:00, my phone rang with Ian’s ring. Now, in my head I know that I’ve left Ian’s phone at home so that I can talk for free with my family, and therefore the phone will say it’s Ian calling when really it’s my family. Thus braced, I answered – and it was a male voice I didn’t recognize. He said something about trucks and I hung up, feeling exceedingly miffed and unhappy. Immediately the phone rang again, and the voice said, “Hey, it’s Ken Alford, don’t you rememer me?” Well of course I did, but at that point I was getting extremely strung out by hearing Ian’s ring and seeing the Ian display screen on my phone. I hung up without answering. A third time it rang, and Colleen said laughingly, “Hey Katie, don’t you remember Ken?” “YES, I REMEMBER KEN, NOW STOP CALLING ME!” I wailed. Colleen kept saying stuff, and I continued adamantely crying “Just stop calling me!” until finally we hung up. I was in tears by then, tired and emotionally drained from just hanging through the day: and on top of it here was the lie of my being able to hear Ian’s voice. My stomach growled, so I went to get some bread and cheese. In the kitchen, cutting cheese, I simply fell apart. I laid on the floor crying, and cried and cried, until finally I decided that my family didn’t mean to hurt me. Probably they just didn’t know that the phone even had a special Ian ring, and that their calling triggered it. To that end I went and got my cell phone, tear streaming down my face. I felt them on my lips and running down my face copiously. Back in the kitchen I dialed, then looked down. Not just tears but blood – blood everywhere! Blood on Ian’s sweatshirt that I was wearing, on my hands, on my pants… as I wiped the tears from my face away came my hands bloody again. I finally got a paper towel and began staunching the nosebleed while trying to explain to mom over the phone through tears that still coursed down my face exactly why their calling had been such a bad – cruel, though unintentional – thing to do. Blood everywhere, and what timing. It seemed to exemplify my general mood, however, so I didn’t let it bother me too much. Later I soaked both sweatshirt and pants in a bathtub of icy water and it came right out.

During that, Jess also came to the living room and told me she was sleeping out there instead of in my and Ian’s bed. That flummoxed me, though I can’t complain: I found sleeping alone a major improvement over the night before. I don’t know how this five weeks business will end up working out because I’m finding that I like being alone better than in the company of anybody, really. That way I can just be me, cry when I need to, not have to change my clothes in the bathroom, listen to my music trhough speakers, etc. Ah, I’d forgotten what it was to have a roommate and not a husband.

– KF –

Countdown:

3 days till classes start

49 days to Ian on 3/5/04