Sepia Tones

I hate snow... usually.

One of the reasons that I move home every so often is because I live in places where winter has a tendency to last for up to nine months at a time. Here in the Seattle area it's more like a week- two tops.

Then I have nights like tonight.

It has been snowing for the past two days, and admittedly I have been complaining about it the entire time.

Until tonight.

There is just something about the snow at night. It makes everything glow. We have ONE street light. In the night you can not see more than a few houses up. Tonight I can see all the way to the end. If it didn't mean setting off a very loud and angry alarm I would be out on a walk right now. There is truly nothing like a walk in the snow at night. The silence is awe-inspiring. I highly recommend it.

Tonight there is an added bonus. You see, in Jackson Wyoming everything is just white and green. Here, tonight, I am looking at a picture through my window in sepia tones. Most likely it is the mixture of the white snow, the deep greens, and the one street light.

One street light.

and it's Beautiful.

Singularity

A New Year. Usually about this time I am making lists, contemplating the year just ending, and planning out the year to come.

So far.... all of my lists are short ones.

2011: -stayed at a job in a town I should have left for more than a year

-finally moved out of that same town just a couple of months ago

-finished up getting my mission papers put together

2012: -Go on a Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

- Loose 100 lbs (what can I say... at the moment I am a statistic)

My usual lists are generally several pages in length. I try to be optimistic, but really just end up making myself semi-depressed and semi-overly determined. This has proved to be an unhealthy combination in past years indeed, but it's my hope that that will all change this year.

It helps that the lists were short.

Today I chose to focus instead on the "newness" of it all.

I love the newness of things. It breathes a new spirit into a morning. The possibility of anything and everything (be they good or bad) happening in any year, month, day, hour, minute, or second is addictive. It's like ambrosia.

This year I do not want it to be about what I want to happen, but about being ready for and embracing what does happen.

In the LDS religion one of the things that we believe is that this life is only one part of a larger plan of our Heavenly Father. It is my opinion that one must truly experience this life to truly pass the test.

This life is a singular experience.