Monday, October 25, 2010

Grandpa Heusser

This past weekend I went with my family to Grand Junction, CO for my Grandfather's funeral. He passed away on Sunday 17. October in his sleep. The funeral was beautiful, the tributes to him were so good. It made me remember all that I had tucked away since his memory and self has been fading. It's been a while since I've had time with my adventurous, intelligent, life-loving grandfather, as Alzheimer's has caused some separation making it hard for me to connect. He was amazing. Seriously. Educator, singer, taxidermist (I kid you not), scholar, outdoorsman, bird-lover, family man, the list goes on...
The picture above is from Grand Junction's main street which has a variety of art fixtures along the sidewalks. This piece has always reminded me of my grandparents. When we would come to visit we would often go to main street and walk up and down checking out all of the little shops and pieces of art and this one always stuck out. My parents always emphasized bike-riding when we were younger, urging us to hop on our bikes to go to the movies, or pick up something from the store, or to go to our dance classes - always with a story of how they used to ride their bikes e v e r y w h e r e when they were younger. This was passed down from my lovely grandparents (especially my grandfather whose thought of an enjoyable excursion was riding bikes from Grand Junction to Salt Lake City-aaahhh!). I used to curse their names as I hopped onto my turquoise bike and pedaled off to various activities. But now I see that it was a valuable part of my childhood and has done a lot in shaping my thoughts and attitudes and goals in life. And they did that in more ways than just this one. I am glad for the heritage from which I come, I love my family and our ideals and standards. I am glad for the weighty value of education, nature, music, art, dance, etc. that is so prevalent in my family. My greatest asset is my family. Really.

For an eloquent tribute written by my sweet older sister go here. Beauty.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Some people change their clothes for the occasion - I like to change my hair.


So, I love to dye my hair. It's a fun change and I have little attachment to my hair - I don't really know what to do with it most of the time. I've spent a good amount of my life with really short hair. I've had some interesting dos. Now I am growing it out for the first time in several years. It's longer than I've had it in a long time, usually I start to grow it out and decide that it's just not going to work out and I end up chopping it off again. Right now it is just a little past my shoulders, whoa. My friend has some mad hair dying skills, so I've been having her dye my hair and put highlights in for the past year-ish. My hair doesn't hold dye all that well, so if I want to go dark, I have to GO DARK. So I got the kit with the picture of the darkest hair and we did it. And it came out black...hmm. We added some blond highlights, it could use a few more. So I am a blackhead. Super dark. Gah.

The worst bit - this is not the first time this has happened. I did this on the mission too. What? But that was a mistake of not reading the word BLACK on the box. I wish I could blame that on Estonian, but it just wouldn't be true.

Thursday, October 07, 2010

it's on like donkey kong


So, I'm going to Indiana. School starts in January, I'll be moving there officially at the beginning of that month. But...I'll be going for a little weekend in November! My friend Kelly just got accepted to IU Bloomington's School of Library and Information Sciences, the very school to which I was accepted! So we have decided to take a weekend trip together to check things out there. I am excited!

Also, can you believe how cute my sister's kiddos are? My goodness. They came down a few weeks ago to visit me and we had a blast. We got some lunch and went to the park where naturally the activities turned to tag and tying my nephew's legs together. A very nice day.

Elu läheb edasi.