HERE IS THIS ESSAY, I HOPE YOU ENJOY IT.

 happiness.

today, mikie got paid. and today, mikie texted me "gosh, we are poor."

we are poor, college students. or at least- poor, in-between-undergrad and grad school students.

but we are happy. 

we have our health, we have a warm places to live in, and we have each other. we are happily poor. i don't mind one bit.

i know that thanksgiving was last week, and everybody hates the person who posts the frequent "i'm so thankful my life is better than yours because ______." i promise i'm not trying to be that person, but gosh i sure am thankful for this life i live amen.

in other news, mother nature dumped snow two days ago.

//i woke up at 6AM because i have some horrible dbag neighbors who are incredibly inconsiderate (just the usual blasting pop music through their stereos, car honking, and yelling at six in the morning. you know, that sort of stuff.) and when i got out of bed so i could spy on them/throw invisible daggers, i saw one of my favorite thing in the world. snow. and then i couldn't fall back asleep; it was like christmas morning.

do you know what i love about snow? i love the coziness of snow. i love the muffled quiet of snow. i love how the sky never quite gets dark when it snows, it just gets that deep purple color. i love when you look at a street lamp, you can see the snow swirling underneath it. i love how the trees get frosted and how the world seems like a cleaner, quieter place.

//so then the power went out for 50,000 people yesterday. that was great. it was -10 and the power went out for eight and a half hours. thank goodness for down blankets and good books. and for fast food, which somehow still has electricity and stays open.

//i downloaded 'the cowboys' by john williams onto my ipod earlier today. i've listened to it at least four times in a row. i first played this song with the all-state band, and then with the high school symphonic band. sometimes i absolutely marvel that i was able to contribute to music like that. it's beautiful and now i wish i had actually bought high school band cds. man, we were jamming in the high school band.

//i was incredibly excited that i got two kids books for $10 (normally $15-20 each!) on black friday, so this is my life has come to now. i talk about my nursery babes like they're my own kids and stalk their moms' instagrams obsessively because i love those kids so dang much.  i make mikie look with me at the baby + kids clothes at target and old navy. whenever i see a super cute anything, i always think "oh, jack/anna/kirsten/grayden/nursery babe would just LOVE that! can i buy it?" to which mikie says no because apparently these kids have their own parents who buy them things, which... weird. i guess this is called baby fever?

c'est la vie.

and because i don't know how to end this properly- here! these pictures are for you.

^^ i love having my brother live down the road from me. there's something comforting about having family live in the same unfamiliar place as you.

^^i had to drop a bag off at my brother's at seven in the morning. i saw this on the way to his place, and i was strangely thankful to be up so early to catch a beautiful sunrise. you done good, idaho.

^^this dumb picture won't rotate.

^^no such thing as too much whipped cream, right?