Life's unanswered questions...

Have you ever noticed that life is full of unanswered questions? Last night a friend and I held a bridal shower for our mutual good friend. Times like these can be so thought provoking. I left work a little early in order to finish a few last minute preparations and do a little house cleaning. As I was cleaning the bathroom I discovered something that made question life around my house... The question: "Why is there a full bag of tortillas in the bathroom garbage can?". Hmmm can anyone think of a good answer to that question? I know I can't. I keep my tortillas in the refrigerator, where they stay fresh and unspoiled until I use them in a meal. I don't eat them in the bathroom, I don't use them in the bathroom. Should I happen to keep them too long and they go bad I do throw them out.... in the kitchen garbage can under the sink... never in the bathroom garbage! I asked my daughter if she knew how they got into the bathroom, she was as dumbfounded as I was. Maybe it was her brother (who's out of town so I haven't asked him yet). Maybe it was our ghost. Nobody knows... add it to the list life's unanswered questions!

Our bridal shower was slightly less than conventional. We had a sushi party. So instead of playing silly bridal shower party games we drank wine and made sushi together. It was fun and the food delicious. My friend (who is an excellent cook!) brought the sushi fixins, did most the chopping and the bride to be and her future sister in law did most of the rolling. I got to be tempura chef. It was all yummy!

The theme for the shower was "personal" so we had fun with the gifts too. I think the biggest laughs of the night occurred when the bride opened a silly gift... a frumpy old lady night gown, and a huge pair of granny panties (for those night she has a headache LOL) One of the guests was kind enough to model the gorgeous granny panties. (head removed to protect the less than innocent..) I love my friends!!!!!

Rain, rain... welcome here!

Another rainy day here in Salt Lake City. Being a high desert, we don't get a lot of rain, so when it comes it is usually welcome. Especially in the spring, when my newly planted blooming babies need regular water. The combination of a couple of hot days and missed waterings can bring quick death to bedding plants. Saturday was my plant shopping day, Sunday my planting day, so I was thrilled to have a rainstorm on Monday. I have yet to have the "make my sprinkler system work day" (that better happen this weekend!) so I'm thrilled to have a rainstorm today. I thought I'd share a few garden pictures... my to be planted annuals, my now planted deck pots and pond, and in honor of the rain a few close up pictures of raindrops on my poppy buds. Weird huh? I just love taking macro shots. There's something about seeing things from a different perspective, and viewing details of pattern and texture so easily missed with the naked eye, that really appeals to me.

Concert Friends....

A couple of my morning coffee shop barista's are playing in a band and they invited me to attend their show last night at Kilby Court. The guys are young, around my sons age (friends of his too),so I'm happy to support their musical endevours. As an extra added treat, the other band playing was the band of a good friend of mines son (one of those kids I knew when he was bump in his moms belly!) that I've been wanting to see in concert for a long time.

Kilby is a pretty funky venue, several small buildings suround a court yard with a fire pit, the "concert hall" is essentially a ratty old four car garage; cinderblock walls, exposed beams,a few vines trailing into the eves from the ouside. There is a small raised stage in the corner surrounded by corrugated fiberglass panels decorated with Christmas lights. It's an all ages (non-drinking) venue, thus most of the clientel are teenagers. I'm sure "old farts" like me stick out like a sore thumb, but that's Ok,I don't care because I'm young at heart!

I have to admit I had a great time with the teens. When I first walked up my friends son, Ben, rushed right up to talk, and was thrilled that I came to his show. The girl behind the ticket window took one look at me and said, "You're Matt Morrison's mom aren't you? You used to come teach science in elementary school". I of course didn't recognize her and had to ask her name; kids do change a lot in the 12 years! I was thrilled she was actually a kid I remembered... but now she was a red headed adult instead of a little blonde 1st grader. I can honestly say I was a tad flattered that she remembered me from so long ago.

My barista friends came and chatted and seemed genuinely happy we came to support them. Then between bands yet another young man came up to chat. I didn't recognize him with his very short hair, but he was the son of yet another friend, (another I knew as a belly bump!). I felt like such a dork when I realized who it was, and we had a nice talk. It's so nice to see that all the boys I watched grow up have turned into such fine young adults.

I wasn't the lone "old fart" for long, a whole bunch of other (old like me!) coffee shop regulars came to support their favorite barista's. So it ended up being a nice social night for me. I was really glad I went.

I was especially glad to finally hear Ben's band; "The Periodic Table of Funk". I had always heard they were good, and I wasn't disapointed. They were quite excellent and extremely professional!!!! Funky, jazzy, original, jam band music. Sadly, here in Utah, they can't play in real clubs until they're 21, so they'll have to wait another year, meanhile I guess they get to keep playing the teeny bopper venues like Kilby. But they're definitely ready for the big time! I think those boys are going places!

And again....

Todays addition to my pond birds list is the Yellowthroat. A beautiful male stopped by for swim this week. He frolicked long enough that I could leaf through my bird book and figure out what kind he is. I think I need to go through my book with sticky notes and mark all pages of the birds who's range includes my backyard. At least then I could more quickly narrow my search.

I mentioned my sighting to my fellow birders at work, and they asked if I had heard the Yellowthroat song, stating it is a very pretty song. I hadn't, so I decided to go to the Cornell site and give it a listen. So I'm sitting on my bed, playing bird songs (of course one leads to another), and my critters are going nuts. Oreo, my cat, walks over and circles my computer staring at every edge looking for the sound. The songs are pretty short and when they end the cat walks to the end of my bed and lays down. I find another to play and next thing you know the cat in sitting on my lap, quizzically looking at the computer. He is clearly confused about the origins of these enticing sounds. My dog is laying on the floor nest to me. As soon as a song plays, she stand up and stares at me, and whines a bit. The cat meows. I will swear they are talking to each other about their confusion over the strange sounds emanating from my laptop. Watching their reactions to the various bird songs is an amusing game for me. I hope they are having fun too.

Birds Again...

The bird for today is Western Tanager. I looked out my kitchen window at my ponds waterfall and spied one sitting on the wet rocks. He sat and posed for quite some time allowing me to get a great look at his magnificent plumage. I wish I'd had my camera handy, although I know I know he would have flown off as I opened the back door, and it's so hard to get a good bird picture anyway. Watching the birds on my rocks got me thinking about a new project I might like to do... I think I'd like to set up a "bird cam" trained on my waterfall so I can easily check for pretty birds when I'm not standing at the window, and even better, when I'm sitting at my desk at work. I've been told that webcams are easy to set up and hook to instant messenger. If I can figure out what kind to buy I may give it a try. I mentioned this idea to one of my nerdy birdy friends and next thing you know she is at my door dropping off her Cornell Lab of Ornithology newsletter that contained an article on nestcams. Unfortunately there wasn't much set up information, so I'll have to do some research (hmmm.... will that take me all summer?)
Anyone know anything about webcams? Outdoor web cams? I'm thinking this could be a fun little project for a nerdy little girl like me.

Happy Mothers Day

Last summer my big yard project was replacing my kids deteriorating sandbox with a small pond. I have to admit that I feared spring would arrive and I would find myself with a green, slimy, stinky mess. I was pleasantly surprised that four of my six goldfish survived, my water lilies are sending up new growth and the water quality seems as good as in the fall. So far I think my pond experiment was a success. The big treat my pond has brought me this sping is how it has been attracting the birds, who love to play on my slowly flowing waterfall. I don't recall a spring where I have seen such a diversity of birds, and being the nerdy birdy type I've spent time binoculars and field guide in hand trying to identify them. My list (at least what I remember) so far:

Lazuli Bunting
Dark Eyed Junco
Spotted Towhee
Lesser Goldfinch
American Goldfinch
House Finch
Cassins Finch
Yellow Warbler
Yellow Rumped Warbler
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Northern Flicker
Stellars Jay
And of course the ubiquitous, robins, house sparrows starlings and magpies.
I also suspect there are other sparrows and warblers that I have yet to identify...

I have to admit my favorites are the little flighty song birds that are so hard to get a look at and identify. I love it when they dance in my waterfall long enough for me to get a good look!

Spring..

Here a few of the pictures I took on my May day morning. A lovely little spring snow storm. It snowed on and off all day, but by the time I returned home from work the snow had all melted away. It has been decidedly more springlike the last two days. I was thrilled to to my first hummingbird of the season this week. The cool thing about the hummers is that you always hear them first, then you see them darting around the yard. Yesterday, Lazuli Buntings started visiting my yard. They are such a beautiful bird, I hope they stick around all summer. I also wish it was as easy to take pictures of my backyard birds as it is to snap shots of my flowers!

Happy May Day!

A snowy May Day here in Salt Lake City. I awoke to an inch or so of white fluff covering my yard this morning. Had to actually scrape ice from my windshield and use my wipers on the way to work this morning as it is still snowing like crazy. Big fluffy flakes meandering down from the sky! I did take some pictures of my lovely tulips blanketed in white; hopefully some will be post worthy when I get a chance to down load them. Speaking of tulips, I planted quite a few new ones last fall. Interesting new colors and varieties compared to the rather standard red and yellow onwe that make up most of my current blooms. I've been *patiently* waiting for my new ones to raise their heads, but todays snow has reminded me that I *think* I may have chosen later blooming varieties. More years than not I've awoken on a spring day to find my blooms buried in the snow, hopefully my late bloomers will prove to be good choices.

A morning smile....

Flashback to my childhood....
When I was a kid my my family moved away from my grandparents, so the bulk of our vacations meant traveling by car from the midwest back to Long Island, or after Grandma moved, down to Florida. Anyone else have those sort of vacations? Four kids piled in the back of a great big station wagon, often with the seats folded down so we could play board games... seat belts?, what seat belts?...our parents trying to keep us amused so we kids don't kill each other or cause our parents to go homicidal? We played a lot of those "what can you see out the car window" games, like the alphabet game and the license plate game. Remember how hard it was to find a "J" or a a "Z", or license plates from far off states? I still kind of like playing those games, and of course I played them with my kids, although I have to say they are not nearly as exciting while travelling through rural Utah; sometimes it's a long way between signs and license plates!

This morning while I was driving into work I followed a car with a a license plate I didn't recognize. As I approached a stop light where I could get a better a look I saw that the plate was decorated with a nice big rainbow... it was the license plate of Hawaii, the Aloha state. What a find!!! Too bad I didn't have my license plate list in hand... as a kid that would have been such a most excellent siting, a real game winner. It really gave me a morning smile!

The smells of spring...

Last night I was really tired so after dinner I veged out in front of the TV. Eventually I fell asleep on the couch. About 1 AM I woke up; I'm not sure if the smell woke me, or if I just happened to wake up, but the house reeked of Eu d' skunk. In my grogginess I saw that Oreo, my cat, was with me on the couch, but Daisy, who is most always sleeping on the floor next to the couch, was no where to be found. I panicked. Did I leave her outside in the back yard and fall asleep? I checked the front yard and the backyard- no Daisy. "Crap" I thought... she's off playing with the skunk... one of my worst fears is that the dog will get skunked when I let her out at night. It's happened before, and believe me, I never want it to happen again! I was now finally awake and I checked the house one more time, and this time I found Daisy, upstairs, laying next to Sarah's bed. I must have missed her amongst the all the crap on Sarah's floor the first time I looked. Thank Goodness!!!! She was not the one out playing with skunks!

I was pretty amazed at how much skunk smell permeated my home through all the closed windows. There was still skunk smell lingering in the air out on the street after work today. The neighbors dog didn't get sprayed either, so I'm confused why the smell was so strong. All I know is I'm so thankful that I didn't need to be outside at 1 AM with the hose and baking soda and peroxide.... this time.

A Perfect Weekend..

There is not much better that a perfect spring weekend here in Utah. It was fairly chilly all week, with rain and snow here in the valley, and something like 35 inches of new snow in the mountains. Then *poof* along came the weekend, sunny with temperature in the 60's and 70's.
It was so nice on Saturday my girlfriend and I took our road bikes out for the first ride of the season. Our typical loop is about a 12 mile ride heading down through Holladay to the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon, then up along Wasatch Boulevard back to out neighborhood. It's a nice ride, especially through the scenic part of Holladay, and the ride along Wasatch, the high, road along the mountain side that has a wonderful view or the mountains. I fared pretty well for my first ride; I managed to pedal all the way up the one "big" hill, although I sure needed to stop and catch my breath at the top. I can see some training is in order! I was afraid I was going to be sore on Sunday, but as it turned out the only sore spot was my rear end. I definitely had a good case of bikers butt. Even with my padded bike shorts and plenty of "natural" padding, my butt bones were sore from sitting on that road bike seat. It sure felt great to get out for a ride.

And if a stellar bike day wasn't good enough, on Sunday we headed up to Brighton for an afternoon of skiing. Spring skiing! Warm weather, sunshine and crazy spring snow. Spring snow can be a little weird; soft and silky on the hills, icy in the shade, thick and slow in in the flat spots. Definitely an exercise in staying loose and constantly readjusting ones balance.

Now I have a great case of happy legs, a sore butt, and a wee bit of sunburn on my nose. What a marvelous way to spend a weekend.

Internet advertising...

I recently opened up a google email account (gmail) so I could have a less cluttered place to chat with some friends. To the right of the mail message there is aways a list of sponsored website links. (The hazard of free email accounts!) It didn't take me to long to realize that the weird thing about gmail is that it appears to "read" your mail, then target advertises those web sites to you based on key words it finds in your text. The other day I was conversing about my daughter and her need to get her drivers license... then I noticed one of the "sponsored links" was to a site called AreYouaSlackerMom.com! How in the world did they know??? My daughter thought I was slacker for not taking her on enough driving practice. Of course I had to click the link to "Are You a Slacker Mom?", where I found an online quiz. After taking the quick quiz then clicking past a barrage of potential advertisers wanting to give me their info, I found the answer... I'm NOT a slacker mom... it turns out I'm a Smarty Pants Mom!!! I wonder if my kids would agree?

Signs of spring...

March in Utah is always a funny weather month. Warm spring can come early, or it can be cold and wintery or it can alternate between the two. We had a pretty cold snowy winter, the snowiest winter in about six years. March rolled around and it suddenly warmed up, in the space of week most of the snow had melted, and everybody started showing signs of spring fever. The number one symptom: Flip flops. People here are pretty quick to break out the flip flops and Tevas, and once the sandals appear, nobody wants to give them up again. This was really evident Saturday night. One of my friends had a really big St. Patrick's Day party. I few hours before the party a big storm blew in, and at party time in was pretty snowy. It was interesting to see how many people showed up to the party in sandals; it was wasn't just an oddball or two, were quite a few folks sporting sandals, (no socks) and parkas. I suppose after a few beers you don't notice the snow on your toes when you walk to the car. Sandals in the snow the official sign of spring I think.

Well....

So where have I been? What have I been doing? This has been my first blog break since I started blogging. I've been writing plenty of blog entries in my head, but haven't managed to get the neurons firing between my brain and fingertips... I guess I've had writers block, or writers cramp or perhaps just a bad case of lack of motivation or procrastination. Judging from how messy my house is right now I'm guessing my problem is lack of motivation and procrastination! Oh wait, I can blame the messy house on the fact that Matt was home for spring break last week, and that I had a house guest part of the time. His college roommate flew in from Albuquerque for 3 days of snowboarding. I guess I can blame the bead projects I have strewn all over the house on them - right ??? Ha, ha. Actually a small amount of my bead mess is the kids fault. When the boys came home from their first day of snow boarding they said to me "Hey, you have to see this", "See what?" I responded, and Nate held up his leg. On a zipper pull on the bottom half of his ski pants dangled a few of my lampwork beads. Matt had taken some of my orphan beads to school, where I guess they were a big hit with his friends. I'm always tickled when the kids like my beads, especially the boys. Beads are so often thought of as a "girlie thing", so I think it's great when the boys like my beads as much as, if not more than the girls. Nate was so enthusiastic about my beads I let him pick through all my orphan bowls and take what he wanted back to school.

Computers! Argh!

So what kind of computer geek are you? PC or Mac? I'm a PC geek for a couple of reasons. When I started my current job my lab bought 4 computers, 2 PC's and 2 Mac's. The Macs, which cost more, were always slower and more problematic than the PC's. Those over 10 year old PC's are still chugging along and being used from time to time, while their two Mac contemporaries where retired years ago. So I've just never quite believed it when all the Mac aficionados go on and on about how superior macs are, about how they don't crash and how stable they are.

Lately I've been working on a project that has required me to use a Mac. Today the program (on one of those "perfect" Macs) glitched and gave an error message:

Could not complete the "For Preliminary Report" command because.

Because??? Because why?? Because what???

What a ridiculously silly message!

In all fairness, I imagine the silly message came from the software maker, and not from Mac. But I'm kind of convinced everyone in the computer industry has conspired to make us crazy!

Spring Fever!

Ah... spring is here... or at least for the last two days it has been. After weeks of back to back snowstorms the last three days of sunshine, blue skys and warm (40') weather have seemed positively spring like. The six foot tall icicle no longer adorns my house, and I can even see a one foot wide swatch of green along one side of my driveway. I actually had friends call me up and invite me to a barbeque last night. Of course it wasn't quite balmy enough for outdoor eating, but the nice weather was certainly a great excuse to grill some sausages, sip some wine and enjoy the ducks swimming in their backyard duckpond. The taste of spring will be short lived; another snow storm is scheduled to arrive this afternoon. At least the enormous snow piles beside my driveway have a shrunk a bit so it will be easier for me to find a place to chuck the snow when I shovel tonight, and the skiing should be good again this weekend!

Little Projects...

I'm going to guess that I'm not the only one out there that has a long list of little project that I'm meaning "meaning " to get around to. The problem with "little" projects is that they don't always stay little; they often take longer than expected, or aren't as easy as expected, or spawn other bigger more time consuming projects.

One of the things on my "list" is getting that big ceramics kiln I inherited up and running. It's sitting in garage, but I need to move to my laundry room where I have a 220v outlet to plug it into. I need some sort of cart to put it on so I roll it into place when I want to use it, and can roll it into a corner when not in use. I finally decided to build my own cart; a simple assembly of 18 inch 2x4's and 4 wheels. A quicky, no brainer project. I had the wood cut at home depot so I didn't even need to get out my saw. A few self tapping screws, some lag bolts to attach the wheels, my drill and socket wrench and I should be able to make short work of this little project. My first problem was not being able to find my screwdriver attachment for the drill. Crap! Then after searching the garage shelves I found not one, but two plastic boxes containing sets of various driver bits. Hallelujah, I didn't need a trip to the store. Then I go to drive in the first screw. It goes 3/4 of the way in, and the drill screeches. The stupid driver bit has stripped. Thank goodness I had all those extras. I change bits and try again... the same thing happens....and again, and again. I used up every Phillips head driver in both those driver sets. I don't know where I got those sets from, but they must have been really cheap ones. Did I buy them? Did someone else at my house buy them? I have no idea, but I sure learned my lesson: Do not buy cheap tools! Back to the garage to search the tool box, as I know there must be a better drill driver somewhere. Finally I found one, so I could finish my 30 minute little project. Of course by now my little project has taken up half the morning... argh! There is no such thing as a little project!

Yeah, that's right... I do carpentry projects on my living room floor!

More snow days...

A photo of all the snow down in Durango Colorado, courtesy of my boy Matt, I image that building is somewhere on the Ft. Lewis campus. He's had two more snow days this week; which he of course turns into ski days. Lucky brat, I'd say!

We keep getting the snow, we received a few more inches this morning so I guess I will get my shoveling work out yet again tonight. We have had more snow this year than we've had in about 6 years, and I've sure been enjoying it. I've been needing more upper body work outs!

Speaking of cold weather exercise...

Yesterday morning as I stepped out of my car at the polling place a guy on a bicycle rode up. It turned out to be a guy from my neighborhood, an acquaintance of mine because for one season, many years ago, he was Matt's soccer coach. I see him on his bike in the neighborhood all the time, so it shouldn't be surprising to see him pedaling, but yesterday it was 7:30 AM, all of about 13 degrees, the roads icy, and the polling place up a pretty good sized hill from where we live. I commented to him that he was ambitious, and he told me he didn't have a choice, as he didn't have a car, although he "supposed" he could have borrowed his wife's car. I told him it sounded like he made his choice. Talk about dedication. Talk about me feeling like slacker. I like to ride my bike, but I can't make myself get up early enough to ride to work in the summer, no less in the frigid winter! I think when the weather is nice I'm going to make him my role model and start using my bike for transportation (as opposed to joy riding) more often. One more thing for this years goal list!

Another good weekend

Gotta love mountain country weather. Yesterday was a lovely, sunny day, but today we where supposed to have another storm. A smart person would have picked Saturday of this weekend for a ski day, as blue skis and fresh powder are hard to beat. Of course I'm not always a smart person, so I made plans to ski with my girlfriend on Sunday even though a storm was suspected. The wind was howling at my house this morning, and I actually considered bagging my ski day. My girlfriend invited me down to her house for homemade waffles for breakfast, and her husband, the ski patroller, checked the weather. It didn't storm in the valley at all Saturday night, but as it turned out that Brighton received 24 inches of fresh snow. So we decided to hit the slopes after all, and it was a glorious, albeit snowy day.

I'm a decent skier, but not a great powder skier, so a good powder day is always a challenge for me. As a working person who just gets to ski weekends, I simply don't get enough powder practice. Today was one of those days where the snow was almost too deep to ski. At one point we headed out on a trail that hadn't been skied much, and I decided to try out some untracked powder. Next thing I know I'm in powder up to my thighs, but the slope wasn't terribly steep, so my skis stopped and were totally mired under the snow. Getting those skis out of the snow and back on the skiable trail was not easy. After that I tried to stick to spots that had been skied on and packed down a little. A little later I missed a turn and found myself in the same predicament. Talk about a work out! One of these days I'd like to become a good powder skier like my ski patroller friend. He makes it look so flippin' easy as he skis throught the trees in search of the powder shots. Of course one nice thing about skiing is that folks of different abilities can have fun together. We can all ride the same chair, but when we reach the top my patroller friend can do the extreme stuff, while his wife and I ski slightly tamer places. I'm faster than she is, so I just stop and wait now and then. We then all meet at the lift to do it again. What a great ski day!

Still snowing...

What a nice snowy week this has been. I have done the snow shovel workout everyday, although today I didn't really have to, as we only got a half inch in tonights "big" storm. Yesterday, after clearing my and my next door neighbors driveways I decided I shoveled enough, so I skipped my deck, which left me some shoveling to do today.

My son had a treat on Monday - he had his first ever "snow day"! Monday's storm hit Durango, Colorado especially hard, and Ft. Lewis College actually cancelled classes. Durango even got a mention on NPR Wednesday morning. Apparently they had so much snow that were warning people that even sledding hills could be avalanche prone. Of course that prompted me to call Matt and remind him to be cautious. I was relieved to hear that they do avalanche control on the single rope tow ski hill adjacent to campus where he and his friends have been building jumps and playing around after class. Matt says there is just a ton of snow everywhere. I'm anxiously awaiting the pictures he said he'd email me.

My excitement for the week came the other day as I returned home from work. As I pulled into the driveway a deer ran across my driveway and pranced through my front yard. Not just any deer, but a nice sized buck. I have occasionally seen deer in my yard, but never a buck. The buck headed to my neighbors back yard where apparently it has been hanging out this week. I think the deer siting solved a mystery for me. Numerous times in the last few weeks Daisy has wandered up my backyard hill and into the brambles behind my neighbors house. This is something she never does, she is not a roamer at all, so I was rather perplexed by her recent behavior. I'm guessing she's been following deer scent. I guess every now and then she liked to pretend she's a real canine, instead of pampered pooch.