Easter Camping

We are well packed for our camping trips!

A week ago today, I was sitting in the Gila National Forest on the most beautiful of days. No wind. Slightly cloudy skies. No homework. No people or noise or distractions. Just me, my dad, my mom and my two pups Emmy and Murphy.

Fast forward one week... I am sitting in my room avoiding doing homework. It's a disgustingly nasty spring day. Winds up to 40ish mph. Dust blowing in through the windows. And too many noises and distractions around.

Amazing how so much changes in a week. A week ago was Easter. As you know, I am not religious but we have been celebrating the traditions of Easter since I was a wee little girl and I love it. One of my favorite things is that we go camping on Easter.

We are a camping family. And we do it well.

We can sleep in tents... but we don't because we have a much more comfortable way to hide from the cold and the rain. When I was young we bought this pretty awesome pop-up tent camper thing from a family friend. It has seen us through many trips. Though, we spend a good 80% of our time camping outside, it is nice to not lay on an uneven rocky surface.

I think we eat better camping then we do even at home. Everything made in the woods on a fire is just incredibly more tasty. Take a hot dog. A hot dog is pretty tasty at home on your grill... but in the woods it's like a 5 star meal that obviously had to have been made with the finest ingredients in all the land. It's kind of magical how the forest seems to have that power over you.

Easter is more special in the forest. My parents used to hide the eggs filled with candy all around the forest and my sister and I would wake to freezing cold mornings to find the colored gifts scattered high in the trees. It's so much more rewarding that way.

We had freezing years where the candy would literally freeze in the eggs. We had years where the droughts prohibited fires throughout the forest in an effort to prevent all the trees going up in a burning blaze. We had windy years where you couldn't sleep because you felt like you may just be lifted right out of your sleeping bag and thrown into the air.

But this year was perfect. It was cool but not cold. It was breezy but not windy. It didn't rain. We had fires all weekend long. We played games, hiked, flew kites. It was perfect. Well, almost perfect. Almost perfect because this was the first year my sister wasn't there to spend it with us seeing as how she is in grad school in Pennsylvania. And almost perfect because it is more than likely the last Easter camping trip I will ever get to go on.

I'm starting to get a little sappy and a little nervous and a little bitter-sweet about everything. I have exactly 28 days until I graduate and 32 days until I leave New Mexico for good. Well, almost for good. I come back 1 day after a very short science related trip to Maryland, just so I can pack and fly out to Boston the next day. Then in August I am back for a total of 3.5 days so I can pack up my whole life in to my tiny new car and drive off to Michigan.

It's all getting very real and I am not preparing for it at all. I'm one of those last minute packers/preparers and right now I am more concerned with the my food list. You know, the list of food I have to eat before I leave. Oh... the amount of green chili being consumed in 1 month is going to be a new record. I am sure of it.

I hope you all had a wonderfully amazing Easter whether you're religious or not. Enjoy the moments... life never stays the same for long.

The Mac Attack

I am apparently way behind on the times. I think I should have lived in the 80s mainly because I think it would be fun... or the 20s because I think I would have been bomb at running a speakeasy, not to mention I would have loved to rock some of their fashion.

Oh yes, behind on the times... I don't know if you've noticed but Macintosh (aka Mac) has become surprisingly popular in the past couple of years. I imagine you must have heard of it... you probably own an iPod, iPad, iPhone, Mac Book... and who even knows what else they sell. But maybe you've heard somebody call an electronic device an Apple...

Or maybe you're like me and ignore everything and choose to only listen to what you want. Which is why in this era of Apple-mania I only own 1product because it really is the only legitimate source of musical influence in my life (my iPod). It's a classic iPod... huge and white and a little scratched. And full of my music. Music is probably my favorite thing in the entire world next to movies and food. I love anything and everything with a good beat, good lyrics (or at least catchy lyrics), and rides whatever emotional wave I am currently on at the time.

I listen to music when I drive anywhere, I listen walking between classes, I listen while doing homework or cleaning, I listen when I work out. I simply love to lie and listen to music. It is really quite an amazing thing and I couldn't imagine growing up in a country or culture that didn't allow music. It's tragic and even the thought of it is enough to break my heart.

Anyway, that is the only reason I invested in any Mac product while I was in high school... and really, I didn't invest in one. I was given my sister's old hand-me-down as she went at bought whatever new version was out. Then, when my old one broke. Which was purely an accident. It had nothing to do with the fact that I dropped it on the asphalt a good 6 times and the screen was shattered beyond all recognition. Or that it was caught in my non-waterproof jacket in a rainstorm. Nope, those had nothing to do with it... for reasons that are beyond my comprehension, it broke. And I was forced to buy a new one.

Around the same time, my sister bought a new touch iPod... and I was like why in the world do you want that fancy gadget? First off, it doesn't even hold as much music! What is the point of a musical device if it cannot hold years worth of music. It doesn't make sense to me. I don't need to play games or get on the internet... I really just need to be able to listen to lots and lots of music. Second, have you seen that very fragile touch screen... you must be joking. Me? I'd have that broken in 2 days max.

I am very hard on my electronics... I'm actually just very hard on my life. I'm quite clumsy and often break things, including myself.

So, I stayed behind on those times and refused to by any fragile mac product and ignored the rants and raves about the newest Mac product... and there is always something new... just give it a month. Though, I did fork out $400+ on my mom's iPad for her Christmas present which broke my wallet and my heart all at the same time.

Then this fancy new thing called Instagram came out... I had no idea what it was except that it involved some sort of picture taking functions and that it was only available on the iPhone. That is when I immediately let it get lost in the place in my brain that holds pointless facts that I will never be able to use.

Then today or yesterday... I'm not exactly sure on this time table... Instagram was released for the Android. That's right. Me and my old-fashioned Droid 2 Global can now get the Instagram application and see what all the fuss is about. Only problem... I really am out of date on the times and since I started writing this post a good while ago my Instagram download is only at 65%. And all I can think is this probably didn't happen to people who have iPhones.

All the while, my computer is flashing that my battery has gotten so bad that it can only hold a charge on its own for 2 hours max and I should probably think about getting it changed. And then I am informed that I should just by a new computer because really... this old gigantic  17 inch Toshiba laptop is just not cutting it anymore.

And now, I find myself sitting at the computer looking in to buying a Mac Book Pro... sometimes I miss the days of writing a report or doing my science poster by hand because we didn't have a computer.

Then, I look at my hand-writing that closely resembles that of a two year old and think... all these years, Steve Jobs was only creating this product known as Apple to save the world from trying to read my chicken scratch or look at my horrible drawings. This makes me feel a little better about the impending Mac attack.

Thanks for looking out for me Apple. Now all I need to do is find the cash in order to purchase this Mac Book Pro.

Also... my android phone decided to get the little hamsters rolling and installed Instagram. You can follow me @kaitnorm if you want. Though I don't have any photos yet... they will surely be coming soon!