The natural rhythm of our minds, indeed our whole lives is arising out of silence. I read this somewhere recently, and it's stuck in my mind. So, we each begin with a clean slate - in fact, the paragraph went on to say that each *day* begins with silence, which intimates that we can re-create ourselves anew each day. I like that. Don't be afraid of the silence. It's an opportunity for making your own unique noise.

My weekend... rocked. And that's all I'm gonna say about it. ;) Check out the cool roblog graphic I made in a burst of goodwill for Mr. Fry...he hasn't seen it yet, so the "cool" part is really just my opinion. He may not think it's quite so cool. UPDATE: he liked it..:) Hey, Tom has some Geeks pix on his site. A last event before the fatal RIF.

It's Friday already. Where the heck did the week go? Went out for lunch with the "geeks" yesterday...a group of colleagues from MM. Skiing again this weekend - gonna condo it this time instead of facing the traffic 2x in one day. The Master's thing is well on it's way, and I've re-vamped my resume and have started looking (sort of). Next week is official networking/job hunting/Master's paper Week. I swear.

Whew. Been busy the last few days. Friday: Skied Copper with Bret. Saturday: Vaccinated 80-plus lambs and 76 ewes with Tony and Jean. Sunday: Took a private lesson (have another tomorow) with Bill Berhow on sheepdog handling. Burned some of my fav music to CD (listening to it, as I type). I'm headed out to dinner this evening. All in all, an absolutely rockin' weekend. I love my life.

Experiencing technical difficulties. Yahoo. That was fun, eh? Site was down for a couple of days while I was moved to a new server. Hopefully, I'll encounter less issues with this one. Let's all keep our fingers crossed, shall we? If you tried to send email and it bounced, try again...should be a-okay now.

Happy Valentine's Day. Had lunch at Chez Thuy (Vietnamese) today - heavenly...that's pretty much my Valentine's treat for this year. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. Gonna go skiing tomorrow...See, being laid off really isn't such a bad thing.

What font are you? New things to occupy my job-lacking little mind...Find out what font you are. I took it three times and on average, I'm mostly Redensek with a little Velvet thrown in. Here's what it said: "Wowie! You are Redensek! You are techy yet cute, and pretty much all around cool. Everyone loves you! You're fun, popular, and can mold yourself to fit right in to any situation." Yeah...Whatever...

Yeeouch. Holy crap. I thought I was in good shape, but after that heinous class yesterday I'm not so sure. I can still walk up the stairs, but it ain't a pleasant trip. Good thing I have a massage scheduled for this evening. If I can refrain from running screaming from the room, maybe I'll get some benefit from it. Oh, wait, I can't run right now.

Downtime? Where? It's amazing - I thought I'd have a lot of downtime since I got laid off, but I haven't had a single day yet where I haven't been trying to cram just one more thing into the day. I've still got a huge list of items to accomplish - hope I can get them all done before I find a job! Ha. I guess a job would be the ideal, although I can't say I'm not having a decent time doing what I'm doing...

Had lunch yesterday with my close friend, Beth. She's getting ready to move out of CO with her boyfriend - they both got excellent jobs and are going to move together. Exciting for her! :) Bummer for me. :( Actually, we still have the phone and email, so it's not really so bad. We talk a lot more on the phone than we see each other, anyway. I'll miss having you just an hour away, Beth! But, I'm wishing both her and Lance good luck in the move and the adventure.

Going to the gym with a friend today - working out in someplace other than my basement will be a nice change. This coming week is already full...maybe I need to make plans to *not* make plans. :)

Was reading the blogs of some good friends, and the Bartelian blog is particulary good today - or yesterday, to be exact. The concept of dreaming, trying and not being fearful of failure is easy to conceptualize, but a difficult one to live by. I applaud the bartleman for identifying with this concept - I'll bet he lives by it, too. I won't quote Teddy, but Garth has the same sentiment: "Life is not tried, it is merely survived when you're standing outside the fire..." It sounds a little cheeseball-ish, but: I am committed to "dance within the flame"...I've had more than one friend tell me that they live vicariously through me. Hmmm - is that necessarily a good thing? ;) No regrets!

Daaa, daaa, dadadada. Who else watched the opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics, last night? I got a bit teary-eyed when they brought in the WTC flag. Emotions are definitely still high about 9-11. It was palpable, at least among the viewers at my house. Here's some Olympic trivia for you. You may already know this: The Olympic symbol's interlocking circles were designed in 1913 by France's Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the IOC. The colours of the interlinked Olympic rings were chosen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to represent the union of the 5 continents, Australia, Africa, America, Asia and Europe and further signify the meeting of the worlds athletes at the Olympic Games. The plain white background of the Olympic flag is symbolic of peace throughout the games. The Olympic motto "Citius, Altius, Fortius" is Latin literally meaning "Faster, Higher, Braver," However the universally accepted meaning is "Swifter, Higher, Stronger." ****** I tend to watch more of the summer Olympics than the winter ones, but I'm sure I'll catch a few events in my spare time. :)

Is it windy where you are? It's crazy-windy here. I've got tumbleweeds on my front porch, rolling around. As soon as I free them, more come clamoring up to bounce around. I was supposed to be in WY today, but the friend I was going to ride with had his truck break down. Just as well - I'd imagine the wind in WY is worse. Today's a good day to stay inside (I absolutely love my little house) and cozy up with a good book or something. I may even turn on the fireplace. Yum...

Yeah, baby! After living in my new house for, oh, coming up on EIGHT FREAKIN' MONTHS, I've finally got a garage door opener - thanks, dad! You have no idea how many times that remote has been tested out today. Does it work from the porch? Does it work from the street? How about by the stop sign? (nope)...should I clip it to the driver's side visor? The passenger side visor? In the little compartment near the rear view mirror? So many intoxicating things to discover and decide upon! It truly is the little things in life that mean the most. I am a happy, happy girl.

Feeling better now - spent the afternoon with a friend at a movie and in a bar. The bar thing isn't really my style, but it seems appropriate for today. And I feel better, so...Thanks J!

Mope. Well, so - I'm down in the dumps...again. Recently learned that my ex (Paul) is starting to date again, already. Although I completely know that he's not good for me, not healthy, and the relationship would have disintegrated into something even more unhealthy than it already was, it still hurts. Gotta get through it though, to move on. The only thing that makes me feel a *little* better is that I know he's not gotten over it either and he's dating now so he doesn't have to deal with it. Puerile. In the past I've done that, too - but I've decided that I NEED to go through all the painful crap, so next time I'm free of all the unresolved baggage. I'm going to revel in my loneliness! Uh huh. A friend wrote me today and said: "if you want beautiful things in your life, it is important to avoid people who by their mere presence means you are forced to wallow in things like deceit". Amen to that. I *KNOW* this guy ain't the one for me, just because so much of his life is plagued by deceit. *sigh* Life does go on, doesn't it...

Stock Show and Ski vacation. Just returned from a week in Vail and before that, the National Western Stock Show Trial on Jan 26-27. That's Ken, pictured there...lifting the sheep off the fence. While both my dogs wound up gripping off (a vast majority of all the runs gripped off), I was pleased for my first Stock Show venture. And, spending the weekend hanging with friends and other dog folks was great. I ate too much junk food, but that's part of the fun, right? There's a few pix from the trial on the photos section of my site. Headed up to the mountains after the show, and spent this last week skiing with my dad. Other than a cold that put me out for a day or so (in which case, I read a couple of great books and hung out at the hot tub - justifying that the heat and steam would do me good), we skied all week. Had some good snow during the first part of the week that made the powder fly! I'm headed out today to work dogs at my friend Brian's house - then I am going to put a huge dent in this Master's thing this week. Must start job hunting, too...

Hey, just realized - I've been single for a month now...bleah. Thank you to everyone who's called, emailed, written, stopped by, etc...you have no idea how much it means to have you guys around. Why is it that sometimes the things that are probably good for you are no fun at all?