holi: the festival of colors

"In India Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. It is a festival that breathes an atmosphere of social merriment. People bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind. Every nook and corner presents a typically colorful sight. Young and old alike are covered with colors (red, green, yellow, blue, black and silver). People in small groups are seen singing, dancing and throwing colors on each other."
(http://www.utahkrishnas.com/main/page.asp?id=1332)

I attended this fabulous event with a few of my friends yesterday. It was so excitingly joyful.

We saw beautiful dancing and heard glorious chanting. We got lost in a cloud of color as soon as the fire was lit. I couldn't breathe from all the dust and strong scent, but it truly was exhilarating.

I'm grateful to the wonderful people who are so welcoming to let us celebrate with them.

bog

No, I didn't forget the L. I'm feeling slightly bogged down at the moment. I have a rather large stack of research papers to grade and I'm diverting myself on here for the second time today. Grades are due tomorrow and I've got to get going, but I figured I'd share an urge I've had of late.

I want to go camping! So badly. It was almost a year ago that Sierra and I began planning a little excursion into the fine red air of southern Utah.

It was deeply lovely and it has bitten me with spring fever (that's a large bite--from May '07 to March '08).

Well, I better get back to grading, but before I do, here are a few pictures that will perhaps bite you. Beware!

an almost fiasco

SHORTLY after completing my first entry on my newly fashioned blog, I get to hide eggs in the backyard for my little brother Josh and for our neighbors. I hide them here. I hide them there. I hide them almost everywhere. It's almost as if Dr. Seuss himself whispers into my ear like a ghost of Easters past. Anyhow, I also hide one hard-boiled egg in this protruding, plastic pipe we have near our porch. We always hide one there. I don't think twice about stashing it there.
SO the kids egg hunt. Little three-year-old Colton gets some guidance from his mom as to where to search. She leads him to the pipe protrusion. He sticks out his cute little digits in anticipation of latching on to the egg, but the egg will have nothing to do with capture. The egg rolls out of sight, down the pipe.
THE adults gather and realize that the pipe is actually a part of the furnace system. I can see everyone's thought bubbles: "Analyn is such an idiot!" I run and get the flashlight. We look and can't see anything. My dad comes home to a discussion about whether we'll have to cut the pipes downstairs or not to try to rescue our house from future rotten egg stench.
CLIFF, Colton's dad, has a grand idea. He gets his shop vac out and proceeds to stick it in the pipe. All the while, my dad is muttering about how he can't believe the egg could have gone back that far. Cliff powers up the vacuum and we listen for five empty seconds until THUNK--something has entered. He turns off the vac and opens it up for us to see. We peer in and see an egg deshelled. We laugh. I still see everyone's thought bubbles though: "Analyn is still an idiot, but at least the Skab's house won't smell like rotten eggs."
THUS concludes my lunch-break diversion. Laters.

first hello

It's a lovely Easter Sunday, and here I am trying to figure out how to create a blog. To start off this first entry, I think I'll just list some things that have made me happy this week:

• seeing the large moon shining in the west several mornings
• coloring/dying eggs yesterday with my loverly siblings
• going for a bike ride and not having to wear a jacket
• helping my mom make spring rolls yesterday
• signing up for the Splash and Dash (a biathlon I'll do this Saturday: 1 mile swim and 10K run)

So, yeah. Happy Easter to everyone. I'm so blessed to have so many happy moments each day.