Winter: Part One

So there's this place called home.

 Sometimes...

 It's here.

Near the big city, with the people I have now known for two and a half years. 

And the mountains that have known me for just as long. 

 But sometimes it's where I learned to like cold, rainy winters. And rainy summers. And pierogies.

Fall. 

The room I used to sleep in more frequently. 

Pokeball, some homemade quills, and pottery. 

Woodshop projects and childhood puzzles. 

Lyle!

Jonnie. 

Pomegranates and more pottery.

Places that nobody who isn't from Pittsburgh will ever understand. 

People I don't get to see nearly enough. 

...never enough. You should have seen his swiss army knife. 

...Pittsburgh.

Family and friends. 

And the silliest-

-of siblings. 

Writing. 

Did I mention my silly siblings? And their friends.

Starting the year running. Literally. 

Taking joy from the little things.

Sledding, edition 20.8 years old. 

...NEVER enough. 

....never enough. 

You can take the girl out of Pittsburgh, but you can't take the Pixburg outta dem girlsn'at. Heh. 

        There's nothing quite as grand as running near Mt.Baldy at sunset or Modest Mouse jammin' in Sewickley Academy's ceramics studio with long-lost pals. Or getting called out by the cops with your brother for running in a closed park during the first hour of the new year. My Dad's cooking and my Mom's laugh. 

        I have about three more weeks before I head off to Costa Rica for a few months and I plan on making good use of that time. It's damn good to be back in California with Henry, Sandy, Nova, Twitch, and Mayla. I'll miss Jonnie and Lyle and everyone else...alack. 

Best be off: I have a paper that needs written. (Pittsburgh, you get it.)

Cheers.

Preparations.

I haven't updated in forever! It's with good reason, I swear. Just wanted to give various high school friends who follow a heads-up: I'll be posting pictures of my break adventures by early next week, and in anticipation of the conversion of the blag to study-abroad-update-land, I've changed the background from Henry to a QUETZAL.

Quetzals are awesome, guys.

I hope to see many of them and the 893 other bird species in Costa Rica: land of the most intense avian biodiversity in the -world-.
                                                        Also known as heaven.

       Write soon! Missing Henry....