Blah, blah!!

I have a joke for y'all:

Two ferrets were in a bar. One ferret leans over to the other and whispers: "I slept with your mother."
The other ferret doesn't respond, so the first ferret repeats himself, louder this time: "I slept with your mother!"
The other ferret still doesn't respond, so finally the first ferret yells: "I SLEPT WITH YOUR MOTHER!!"
The other ferret finally turns to him and says:
"shut up dad"

Hahahahahahahahaha!!!
I REALLY love that joke. Seriously, I have the strangest sense of humor. Most of my favorites I heard from Sadicus. She's weird, too.
In other news: I'm getting those Minnetonka boots I wanted Thursday!! From a small family-owned business!! This will be my first ever brand new pair of Minnetonkas! My first pair belonged to my grandmother (I think) and my second were $4 at a thrift store. These are new! I'm only able to get them because the child support people finally pressured my dad into giving my mom some money. Yay for child support services! Of course, most of our money goes toward food, but this was my (belated) back-to-school thing for the year:)
In other other news: I recently found gluten/sugar-free cinnamon raisin bread that doesn't negatively affect my gag reflex. Woot woot! Speaking of back-to-school, I registered for my next semester classes! Starting January, I'll be taking Archeology, Sociology, Intermediate Algebra, Native Peoples of North America, American Indian Studies, and American Indian History. They're all great! Except Algebra. Bleck:( But I'm excited to have 3 American Indian classes! And my first Archeology class! I'm graduating from high school in December because I'll have all of my high school classes done after this semester is over! So woohoo! for early graduation! My sister still beat me by a semester, but eh. I still feel smart. How I wish I had more interesting things to talk about in my life.
I hope to eventually have some sort of coherent post, but for now, adieu.
Love,
Belle

Home Sweet Home

I think my life-long lack of a real home has made me into this person who obsesses over home furnishings. I really can't wait to have a home of my own to decorate and be comfortable in. I want to travel and I'm rather nomadic at heart but I also want to have a place to come back to. My life-dream involves traveling all over the world as an anthropologist and I have always been uncomfortable in the houses I've lived in. I suppose it was probably more the living situation in all of those places than the houses themselves, but it's not like the houses were all that comfy anyway. But I want to have a home for the times that I'm not dragging my family all over the globe with me. It's going to be in the Northwest, I can tell you that. I've never lived out of the Northwest mountains and I don't want to. No matter how far I go, it's definitely home for me. So the point of this post is to show y'all how much I love Snow White and the Seven Dwarves and The Trouble With Trolls by Jan Brett.

Wait. What?
Trust me, it has everything to do with my future home decor.

I love Jan Brett's illustrations. Her books are always set in these beautiful wintry Scandinavian places. This book specifically is set in Norway. And the little girl in the book reminds me of my cousin, Lily. Not that Lily's little anymore- she's in highschool now!! How crazy is that!? But she's pretty and blonde and I have every confidence that she could outsmart a bunch of trolls to save her dog.

I love the clothes in this book, too. I want to dress like that in the cold north Idaho winter. People seem to think that Canada has really cold winters. If you want to experience a Canada-like winter without the out-of-country hassle, head on up to North Idaho! But don't move here, we're trying to discourage too much growth. I guess we're all still rather into the old frontier feel of Idaho and we aren't quite willing to give it up. Of course, I'm from Northern California, so... Sandpoint has a winter festival every year, I actually haven't been yet.

There's an Elk ranch up here, too. They're so very pretty in the snow.

But be sure to pack your mittens! Oh... mittens... So toasty. Can you tell I was cold today? Actually, it's not very cold yet this year, but it was windy! And my friend got snow at her house in the mountains Friday night.

To be honest, I only like snow in December. I wish it would stay confined to that month. But lots of it for Yule! Anyhoo, I want some pretty carved wood like the seven dwarves had in their cottage.

Pretty, pretty.

Thankfully, there's a whole buncha lotta folksy stuff at thrift stores and flea markets 'round these parts. When was everyone so into this stuff??
Have a good winter, everybody! Enjoy the snow and sweaters, but be careful not to freeze your buns off!
Love,
Belle

Talented Folks I know from High School

Sadicus and her little sister
Some freerunning dudes
The Ongoing Concept
There are more, I'm sure. These are just the ones I could easily find and remember and whatnot.
When Shenanigan and I make our music video with birds and foxes, we will join the list:) It's gonna be kickass. I think I'll go play guitar now. The keyboard is all funky so... I'm annoyed. I had been avoiding facebook for awhile, not on purpose, but because I just don't think about it. So I guess "avoiding" isn't the right word. But I didn't get this wonderful message until quite awhile after the friend had written it, and now I don't know what. I wrote back but I hope he responds. Eh. I'm just being a goose and probably got WAY too excited over this simple little message. He just said he misses me. But I don't know I guess I can't help but want that to mean something after 4 years of ridiculous crushing. Ggrr. We'll see.

Halloween

My Halloween festivities were sadly lacking:( It seems that they always are! Halloween is absolutely, beyond all doubt my favorite holiday. Samhain, All Hallows Eve, what have you, I LOVE that day dedicated to the morbid, the absurd, the long-gone, the glowing flickering candles lighting the laughing Jack o' Lantern faces from within.
This year, the weekend before Halloween, I came down with the flu. I think it's from all those people at college getting their flu shots. They're being infected with a virus, how are they NOT going to be contagious? At least SOME of them? They got me sick. I know it. Stupid free vaccinations...
Thursday and Friday I wanted to go to Greenbluff (which is apparently like Apple Hill in Placerville where I used to go every fall) because I've never been and I heard they had a pumpkin patch and apple orchard. Sadly my friends were busy. Saturday I went to the Halloween/birthday party of a friend of a friend. She's a really nice girl from Portugal (originally from France) and I liked her a great deal. I was already coming down with the bug by that time, but I wanted to do something fun.
I was extra sick the next day.
So I sadly didn't do anything on Halloween day:( I had wanted to go to the haunted house and make silly home movies with friends. I ended up carving a pumpkin with my mom. But I actually really enjoy hanging out with my mom. We made harvest-y soup and served it in little pumpkins and it was delicious! So, even though I was sick and didn't get to do much, it wasn't a bad day.
Anyway, happy November!

Computer Switcheroo!/Wishlist

I am writing to you from a new computer. Well, not a new computer... our old computer actually. See, we'd been using my grandparents' computer but now we're using my mom's. It's a dinosaur. Actually, I wouldn't call it a dinosaur. It's old, but not that old. Maybe Australopithecus (proto-human ancestor). Ancient, but more modern than triceratops. Hehhem. Geek. Moral of the story: Guess who's blog has pictures again!!

I like anything with a Firefly, Psych, Princess Bride, or Young Frankenstein reference. So I found a shirt with a quote from Wash from Firefly! It says: "Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal!" Hhahahaha! Mine is an evil laugh! I also love buttons. I don't care how hipster it is. I just love them. These are Simon Tam quotes from Firefly, my favorite is: "I've been thinking of growing a big black mustache. I'm a traditionalist." Funny, funny man. I love this wolf hat but sadly, SOLDOUT! I'm still looking for a good (cheap) one. This shirt is in the style of the PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon) label, but says: "Hipsters Ruin Everything". Hipsters are known for their excessive consumption of PBR, my mom drinks it and I want her to have this shirt:) Another Firefly reference: "Dear diary, today I was pompous and my sister was crazy. Today we were captured by hill people never to be seen again. It was the best day ever." These are so much better if your a Firefly fan. They're golden:) Deer+Bear=Beer. I know it's an ironic trucker hat and I'm so ashamed! I love River Tam. My nephew says she reminds him of me... I love you, Ethan! This is a t-shirt. And yes. It's another Firefly quote. I'm going to get a grey sweater from Goodwill and sew elbow patches on myself. It's cheaper. And homemade is always better! I already have the perfect buffalo plaid fabric scraps to make the patches! Appropriation is bad. But I love this dress and want it. Its pretty. Besides, at least it's not called Navajo Nights or Cherokee Sunset. I hate when they name things after tribes that have nothing to do with them. Calling it "tribal" print isn't as bad. All world peoples were at some point "tribal". These are lovely fair isle leggings. I want another color, but didn't show them because I don't want people buying them all up before I have a chance! I can't help but love this button. And these wonderfully 70s corduroy shorts. Tricky Mr. Foxy Fox is divine! I don't know why I said that. I want this shirt though.

I would feel so pretty and ballerina-esque. The nerd in me said: Holy Harry Potter Batman! Since When does Delias carry Hogwarts shirts?! Fair Isle and quite close to what I've been searching for. Close enough at least. This one's close, too. Disney Pocahontas taught me my life lessons and I will never stop being a follower of her wonderful cartoon Algonquin ways. I love these. And they're called "Tramper", how cool is that name?! They don't have my size, but I found them somewhere else. Aladdin is another meaningful Disney movie for me. I recently read Arabian Nights (1,001 Nights) and realized why the rest was never made into a children's cartoon. Can we say: sexual! Murderous! Sexist! But an enjoyable read overall.
I guess you may have figured out that this post is really just a time for me to celebrate the return of my picture posting ability by sharing my current wishlist with y'all. I basically just like nerdy hipster pretty things. Honestly, I wouldn't say I'm a hipster, but I do LOVE the same stuff hipsters love. But I don't judge and I don't care about trends. We just so happen to enjoy the same things. I told my friend once that we're the people hipsters are trying to be. Heehee. You could say I'm just a thoroughly 90s kind of gal who loves irony and folksy stuff. Kind of a hippie. But don't tell my grandfather.
What are you guys obsessing over lately?
Love,
Belle

The Girl in the Trees

I've been thinking ever more about how much I need the forest. Contrary to popular Christian ideology (and that of my father and my father's father and my friend's father and my sister's father...), I do not believe that human beings are somehow outside of nature. I'm another animal, another strand of this great web. I did not create the web, I do not control the web, I am simply a part of it. My part is no greater and no more important than any other part.

All of my beliefs started with the Disney movies of my childhood:

The Lion King and Pocahontas taught me my place in the world and how to love nature and be apart of nature.

Beauty and the Beast taught me about selfless love that sees past appearances.

I don't want to sound childish but it's totally true.

"The rainstorm and the river are my brothers, the heron and the otter are my friends, and we are all connected to eachother in a circle, in a hoop that never ends."

"I know every rock and tree and creature has a life, has a spirit, has a name."

When the lion dies he becomes the grass and the antelope eats the grass. And the lion eats the antelope. It's the circle of life.

And that is what I believe in.

My family used to go camping twice a year, once in early Summer and once in late Summer. We don't anymore. This past Summer I camped once with a friend and it just didn't feel like the kind of camping I love. I guess my kind of "camping" is just a way to pretend for a time that I live in the woods. I feel like I should live in the woods. I forage, go for early morning walks, look for pretty stones in the creek for hours, braid flowers into my hair... just sit alone in the woods. I love the forest. I love bears. I love deer. I love trees. I love how I can hear the spirits when I'm out there. I especially love the wolves. Since I was a little girl, the wolf has been my spirit guide. I dream about them. Sometimes they're communicating with me, sometimes I'm playing with their cubs, sometimes I'm being attacked, torn apart. But I've never been any less in love with them, no matter what the dream. I'm not saying I wouldn't protect myself or my family if the need arose, but I will never demonize the wolves. They will never, EVER, be any less beautiful in my eyes. The wolves taught my ancestors to live and hunt in packs. Without them, my people would not know what animals were good to hunt. Wolves are important.

They're important TO ME.

I feel that as an animal and especially as an artist I'm sensitive to my instincts. My instincts tell me to run to the woods. Go to the mountains. I have romanticized mountains hopelessly. I wouldn't call myself a "country girl" or "western" because I'm not a cowgirl type or anything, but I am a mountain girl and I've always been in the west. The west is my home. I want to travel. So, so much. But the west, with it's frontier personality and gold rush history (my home town is Placerville, where they hung bad guys during the California Gold Rush)... that's a part of me. I would love to live in the mountains near the ocean with a simple little house and (just to satisfy my romanticized need for fantastic attachment to my native roots!) a teepee to camp in. I would live with a mountian man with a logger beard, artistic tendencies, and a deep appreciation for the nature of our native west, and make beautiful little forest babies with him. We'd both have doctorates in anthropology, unschool our children with all our vast knowledge, and take them on our travels to archeological digs in foreign lands. And I'd teach them the art of dreamcatcher weaving, because I am a dork, and I want to pass on some kind of knowledge to them. My dreams!

What are your dreams? I've been shaped by Disney movies, what have you been shaped by?

Love,

Belle

PSYCH is back and I have no television!!

What does one do when her favorite bromantic crime-fighting comedians return to the world of television for their 6th season and the stupid TV people can't get a line-of-site and she's doomed to a life of television-less-ness?!! O, the humanity!!
To clarify, I am not a TV addict. I am a technology-denying- live-in-the-woods-with-a-garden-and-no-electricity- sort of girl. But my greatest weakness is PSYCH. Scratch that, my greatest weakness is Shawn Spencer. He is all that I want to be in life... Except a man... I do not want to be a man. But besides that! He's a "psychic" (actually a hyper-aware people-reader who pretends to be a psychic to get jobs), a private detective (a "psychix detective", eh? Eh?), a super funny/weirdo/eccentric... just like me! Woo! Oh, how I love that show.
Never fear, I have a wonderful buddy. My lovely friend, Shenanigan, has TV... and she can record shows. See where I'm going with this? She's recording PSYCH for me!! And I can go over and watch some time!! Yay! Obviously I'm terribly excited.
I love Wednesdays. It means I don't have to do homework. Tomorrow my only class is yoga, and by all that is holy, I truly love yoga.
And Swedish people. I love Swedes, too. Listen to this, if you can. It's First Aid Kit, from Sweden.
I have no point anymore. My mind is drifting aimlessly, and I fear for what crap I might write! Blah, blah, blah blah blah blah blah blahblahblshblsfkf.