abby vanduker, 20, oklahoma

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invisible children
charity: water
liberty in north korea

desktops. three different places i miss terribly.

webcam of where i was yesterday, with little to no snow on the ground, now.

instead of being snowed in up in the rockies, i’m back to fighting severe allergies and classes in oklahoma city.

time to re-evaluate life.

Hiked for a bit this-afternoon. The weather through the days has been near perfect for northern Colorado in late October; reaching the mid-fifties and not too terrible windy aside from the occasional heavy gust down the mountain.

Great Grandma and I drove up from Greeley on Saturday morning after stopping in at Vern’s for my usual French toast, and my throat is finally healing. I wish I could afford to take a week off to fly up here every time I get another round of tonsillitis which is far too common anyhow.

Life up here is so terribly simple. Wake up early, put wood on the fire and pour a cup of coffee, step outside in the biting morning air to watch the deer and have a smoke, cook breakfast, snuggle up by the fire with a book (The Shining for me), have lunch at noon, spend the afternoon hiking or off-roading or picking up groceries at the local supermarket or splitting wood or shooting BBs (I put some in a can from 50m today!), cook and eat dinner with the family, wind down with another cup of coffee, maybe a glass of wine or beer and watching ball games on television, and slip under a heated blanket for sleep. and I love it, I couldn’t possibly imagine a better escape from the rest of the world.

xxxx

Freelan O. Stanley & his wife Flora’s home built 107 years ago in Estes Park, CO is for sale for $2,400,000.

I need it. The interior is not the slightest bit in my taste currently, but I’m mad for old, old homes, Colorado, and the hotel just a half mile east.

Stanley was the co-owner of Stanley Motor Carriage Company which produced the Stanley Steamer- but also built the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park (that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining). I’m infatuated with the hotel, it’s unworldly beautiful and holds so much history. Not to mention that it’s highly rumoured to be the most haunted hotel in America…

twenty-three days, and this is where i’ll be. climbing the foothills of the rockies to spend a few days enveloped in them, with only coffee, a fireplace, chilly october mornings and nights in unfamiliar, lonely bars, days spent running and getting lost on deadman mountain, all with cameras other than my iphone. i need it, all of it. i need out of this place.

anyway; i’m still here. still breathing. still struggling with the idea of placing any bit of my life out for the public eye (aside from twitter). still awaiting the end of the nba lockout and the new iphone on tuesday. still snuggling up with my puppy every chance i get. still drinking entirely too much coffee.
focusing on running, eating healthy, friends, my studies, new found love of yoga, finding other sources to get my basketball fix from, and love.

xxxxxxx

usefulguilt / by: lifeofgenius

asleeplessmind:

dontshreadonme:

shonecakepastrypie:kriisteenuh:im-bad:imgoingtosexyou:

well then.

wow. just wow

Please tell me this is fake, especially that last paragraph…

No. NO. Fuck life, I’m just gonna go be a unicorn.

oh my goodness.

Wow ok. Fuck you.

Fake article, fake image…come on guys, I’m against all this TSA garbage but really, don’t blindly believe everything you read.

obscenegestur / by: laughinacorner

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Clean Getaway by Maria Taylor

You took me by surprise that warm August afternoon in Greeley, my childhood best friend of the summers reintroduced to me as the six-foot-one man dressed so well at the predictable family reunion.

I should be writing at this moment, but not about you- about industrialization and globalization; but my head and heart are not there.

Tonight as I drove home, the sky was clear, lined with so very many stars and the night was cool- but I kept the sunroof down. I found myself putting so much hope in all my logic being entirely wrong and you, somehow, guiding over me from up amongst the stars. If you are, if you could be, I hold so much desire for you to be glad about, accepting of the person I am becoming and the changes I made. I hope you still love me the way you used to, despite nearly hating it back then.

I have realised that I must put effort into remembering the times worth doing so with you, and not just those last few moments when my lifeless body was dragged from yours and replaced with that horrid sheet.
That afternoon your father nearly strangled both of us for bringing those puppies home or the nights we’d sit and listen to bedtime stories before I left for the sister town. The mornings you’d wake me with a skillet and wooden spoon before crashing back into bed next to me or the night I nearly broke so many bones snowboarding in your backyard.
The rainy afternoon in Denver at the Rockies vs. Cardinals game when you kissed me on the mouth.

“and I miss you, I miss you every single day.” 

Twelve hours, twenty-nine minutes.

Twelve hours, twenty-nine minutes to our cabin in the Rockies.
Twelve hours, twenty-nine minutes to everything being so much simpler.

If I left now, I’d arrive at approximately three in the morning to clear the snow from the doorway just to light the fire and pass out right there in front of it on the living room floor.

It’d only cost me about $150 to get there, plus a few groceries. That’s all.

Now to gather the guts to do it, to throw up my middle finger towards my first philosophy exam tomorrow afternoon.

sweethomestyle: symbiosis

I just got a sudden urge to pack a bag and drive ten hours to our cabin in Colorado. I miss it, my family…and real snow.

sweethomestyle / by: symbiosis