The speckles are really more like ridges

I don't lie on my floor and stare at the ceiling enough. My current life is not conducive to this.

Reason #1) Colorado is not a state that encourages you to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling. 300+ sunny days! Mountains in your backyard! Zero humidity and refreshing breezes! You feel guilty for running errands, emptying the dishwasher, being inside for any reason, like you're wasting a perfect day.

Reason #2) I wake up at 7, arrive at work by 8:30. Write and design and generally be creative until 5:30. Home by 5:45 to eat dinner and be out the door by 6:10 for dance or shortly thereafter for other regularly scheduled activities. I often don't get home until around 10, when I usually check my email, tidy my room, tuck in my roommate. Then bed for me. Breathe.

BUT...
For the past 4 days it has rained nonstop. We are under flash flood warnings. The temperature is a damp 65 degrees and the thick white brightness of a cloudy day pours in my window. It is yucky. And for once, I do not feel guilty for being inside. It is not a perfect day.

And so I spent considerable time this morning lying on the floor staring at the ceiling. I loved every second of it.

Land of the Free From?

Today is July 4th. Today we are suppposed to remember that we are free. Today we tend to focus less on what we are "free from" but what we are "free to"--free to worship anything, free to disagree with the President, free to waste our time, our money, our lives, free to decide how we decide. In the great span of culture and time, it's quite an unusual position, the freedom to live how we like. And so we celebrate with mass quanities of juicy griled beef, fresh ripe strawberries, sugar-sweet corn-on-the-cob, triple-scooped ice cream cones. Great food is a blessing. So is "freedom to". But really, "freedom from" is the most mind-boggling concept of all. Freedom from sin, freedom from fear, freedom from death, freedom from crippling anxieties, freedom from destructive lusts. "Freedom from" is a gift, one that cost Him dearly. Only by exploring "freedom from" can we properly appreciate the "freedom to" that most Americans think is an irrevocable right. So many people practicing their "freedom to" are anything but free. And those of us who, with wide eyes, have accepted the gift of "freedom from" must exercise our "freedom to" and share that gift. Maybe accompanied by a nice scoop of ice cream.

YOU try to milk a pissed-off cow

Last night a group of us went to the Working Ranch Cowboy Association Rodeo. It was fantastic...and I took 181 photos! I know! I couldn't believe it either. I got a few good shots. Many of them came out blurry--lots of frantic motion at a rodeo, and me with my little point-and-shoot digital--but I was able to salvage the best blurry ones with the help of my Photoshop filter friends. Click on the Snappy Snaps link to see some of them.

My favorite thing about last night's festivities was that all of cowboys competing are real manure-shoveling, calf-birthing, working cowboys. These aren't show-boys; they actually do chores similar to the events they compete in. It's such a far cry from my 25 years of suburbia, but it was made more real knowing that day in, day out, these cowboys are making a living with the very skills I just cheered for. And that makes me appreciate it even more.