goodbye asheville...

the few belongings i've had here with me are snug in my luggage once again. i'm sitting in a completely empty room that was full of books, random pages, and scattered pens for the past seven weeks...now it's just me and my laptop surrounded by white walls. this summer has taught me many beautiful and necessary things. i struggled. i triumphed. i saw. life is just that much more clear to me now. i'm feeling more and more like my soul is becoming refreshingly like these bare walls: honest, simple, solid, true. i'm ready to laugh. i'm ready to cry. i'm ready to have no answers. i'm ready to love those closest to me (especially ceej whom i haven't seen in three long weeks!). i'm ready for the ebb and flow. i'm ready to work. i'm ready to see this world. and i'm definitely ready to leave the humidity behind.

i'll see you when i see you.

...summer...

saturday a group of us went swimming in the very cold, but refreshing, mountain waters. it felt oh so wonderful. it really felt like summer to get out of the classroom and library.

hope your summer is going swimmingly!

i think most of us like farms

the last of the biltmore photos...finally. i think the little farm was my favorite part. when one of the farm-hands called out that it was time to help gather eggs from the hen-house i wanted so badly to elbow my way past all of the little kiddies to help gather the eggs...but i resisted and just watched. some day i'll gather my own hens' eggs. aren't the sheep so cute?! loved all these calm animals.

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all of my papers are in. hard to believe i'm finished with the core of my work here. now i just have some reading to do to prepare for my last classes on tuesday. we're reading keats's final letters...i have my tissues ready. i have absolutely loved my romantic poets class. i think i am on the brink of tears and awe every class.

a week from today ceej and i will finally be together after a long seven weeks apart. hip, hip!!

biltmore garden ponds

pretty, yes?

my brain is done being creative at the moment.

ready to listen to the news, get in my pj's, and wait

for a skype chat with ceej.

happy tuesday evening!

something pretty for your sunday afternoon...

my brother emailed me a link to these amazing women, "mountain man."

i think you'll love them.

sestina.

the gardens...but really mostly the greenhouse because it was too hot outside to stand around for too long

what do you think? beautiful, yes? it was a "cooler" day here in asheville, but there were moments of heat that i just couldn't tolerate very well. i tell ya, this humidity will be the death of me {i know, some of you are thinking that asheville is not humid--but it is for me indeed}. we had a big breakfast that morning, so our afternoon snack was some much needed ice cream. by the way, two scoops was a lot of ice cream--way more than i had anticipated, and i felt as if i had eaten an entire meal. so much for a "snack."

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and, in other news, i've posted two days in a row! what can this mean? i finished a HUGE paper today. hooray! so i will be able to relax just a little for my last week and a half here at school. can you believe it? i'm almost done with my summer in asheville. crazy, crazy, crazy. i never thought i'd see the end of the tunnel. but here it is in sight.

ceej is off again for another business trip overseas. when i get home i'll have one day alone, and then we will be back together again in california!!! i can hardly wait to be with him. for a very long while...until next summer. but i don't even want to think about next summer quite yet.

if you build a house this huge-mongous, you have to open it to the public to pay the mortgage

when ceej came to visit {almost two weeks ago! time flies!} we went to visit the vanderbilt's summer "cottage," biltmore, just south of downtown asheville. this place is huge. it's big. it's vast. the house itself is overwhelming. it certainly is grand, and no detail is left out. leather wallpaper, a pipe organ in the banquet hall {my personal favorite}, an atrium, servants' quarters, a library with its own librarian. amazing. but quite lonely in its hugeness. and a little disturbing. the pool in the basement is definitely haunted. i did quite enjoy the halloween room in the basement...really, used for halloween parties only.

coming up: photos of the gardens.