Two Posts in One Day

I love this picture my daughter took of herself in NYC with her phone.  I love messy-hair windy pictures.  

She's coming home tonight after a week-long trip.  She went on her own to the big city. Yes, all by herself.  She rode in taxis, ferries, and on the subway, saw a show on Broadway, visited Central Park, saw art museums and other sites, and ate a lot of delicious-looking food. How many people do you know who would be brave enough to do all that on their own?  She's my hero.  I can't wait to hear more about her adventures. One of these days, I'll have to go with her.

Been in NM

We spent the weekend in New Mexico.  My sister lives there near a beautiful arroyo.  She timed our walk so that we descended the foothills right at sunset.  I love the rocks there. The picture on the right makes them look particularly affectionate-- kissing, hugging, hovering rocks.

My sister's husband gave her this beautiful flowering plant for Mother's Day.  It's called cyclamen and has leaves that look like geranium leaves.  At first, I didn't realize the plant was real.  In the late afternoon, the way the sunlight came into their dining room window made the flowers look even more incredible and caught my attention.  They look mystical, edible, and for some reason remind me a little of flying nun hats.  I couldn't limit myself to posting one or two pictures of them, so HERE is a link to the album. The album includes a few other photos from our trip.

The Sun Came Out

It has been the rainiest spring ever here in UT.  Finally, yesterday, the sky was blue again and my son and I went for a bike ride.  He's my favorite biking partner.










These flowers looked like they were trying to escape.

Since we'd stopped, my son also wanted me to take a picture of this tree that is near the flowers.  Cool tree, but it also looks caged.

A garden zoo.

Queen of Sugar

While I sat in the car and waited for my children to come out of school, this was my view.  I like the purple tree.

We went to the park today.

Do seagulls read English?  I think this one can since the garbage bin was labelled "sugar."  She's my kind of bird.  She seemed to be guarding it while other seagulls sat below.  My daughter took the picture.

Here is another picture my daughter took today.  It's the prettiest female duck I've seen.

I recommend hanging out at the park after school even on a semi-rainy day.

Not an Empty Sea

I drove my nephew to the MTC this afternoon.  We had some time to spare after lunch and before his designated arrival time, so we drove around for a while.  We saw the Provo Temple, went to Rock Canyon Park, found a great view of BYU, and raced paper boats in the gutter river. It was a memorable, blessed day.

Bugs Are Bad

You can't really tell from this picture, but our car was covered.  I have never seen so many mosquitoes in my life.  There were columns and swarms of them.  One of my kids said it looked like there was a tornado of them swirling around.  We didn't dare get out of the car.  The picnic tables were covered with them too. Optimistically, I brought sunscreen for our Saturday picnic, not bug repellent.

I was looking forward to Saturday.  I felt a need to be out in nature, specifically I wanted to go to Antelope Island. I wanted to reconnect with the earth, my family, and myself.  Antelope Island felt like the only place to do that.  After an hour long drive, we arrived at the gate of the Antelope Island Causeway and a blinking, electronic sign that informed us, "Bugs are bad on the island."  That was enough to get my husband to turn the car around. He was wearing shorts and not at all happy about the idea of black gnats biting him. "We could go there, but I'd stay in the car the whole time," he said.  That was not part of the plan.

He liked the idea of heading north up to Willard Bay.  I had mentioned it as a potential destination a few days earlier along with the possibility that maybe we'd see white pelicans.  I thought they were geese at first, but in answer to that hope, we did speed past a few pelicans in man-made lake in a park near the freeway.  

"We have bugs here too," said the gate attendant at Willard Bay a half hour or so later.  My husband told her we were only there for a picnic and she assured us we'd have a nice time.  

Yeah, in the car.  

No person, sunscreen, big floppy hat, picnic mat, picnic food, frog blanket, or Frisbee left the car. We passed the bag of chips around.

"There's only one thing that would make this worse," I said, "Not having food."  Thankfully, we had plenty of food.

Duckling

Someone handed my daughter this duckling while we were visiting Sugarhouse Park this afternoon.  We were surprised by how tame all the ducks and the geese at the park seem. Will the mother reclaim her baby?  I hope so.

Yellow Light Phenomenon

Last summer, when we moved to Salt Lake City from upstate New York, I was surprised to discover nearly everybody here runs yellow traffic lights. It’s expected. I learned thanks to the reaction of a man in a car far behind me when I approached an intersection of fairly busy roads and the light turned yellow. I had plenty of time to stop, so I stopped.  It wasn’t like he was driving on my bumper.  He had time to stop too.  Afterwards, he pounded on his horn.  I looked in my rear view mirror to see why he was honking and was surprised to see his face red and scrunched up in anger.  He threw both of his arms up in front of him as if to say, “What the heck?”  Clearly, he was upset I stopped at the yellow light.  If I had gone through, he would have sped up and gone through too.  Since then, I have noticed people speed up when they approach yellow lights and the people behind them speed through even after the light is clearly, solidly, red.  Because of this phenomenon, when I am in a busy intersection at a green light waiting to turn left, I have learned to wait until the light turns red and oncoming traffic is basically stopped.  I’ve learned to expect everybody to run yellow lights even after the lights turn red.  I've learned to make sure there is plenty of room between me and the car behind me to make sure they have time to stop if I stop. What is a yellow light supposed to mean anyway?  I was taught it means “slow down and use caution.”  Here, it seems to mean, “Hurry up!  It’s your last chance to make it through this intersection.  You better put all you’ve got into that pedal.  Otherwise you might have to wait two minutes for the next green light. Oh, and if you’ve been waiting a long time and there are two or three cars ahead of you in that intersection waiting to turn left, and that light turns red, even though you are stopped a car length or two behind the crosswalk, you go ahead and plow right through that red light.  After all, you paid your dues.  You waited while the light was green.  You’ve earned it.”

Yes, I wrote this for my writing class. :)

Jog, Walk, Stand 1

I got the crazy idea that I'd try running today.  I like the idea of running.  The reality is more challenging, especially with all the extra pounds on my body.  I didn't run at all, but I did a bit of jogging, a lot of walking, and some standing still while I took pictures.  Biking would have been nice, but I didn't like the idea of wind rushing in my ears.  These days, sometimes it sounds like wind is rushing into my left ear even when I'm indoors. 

I also wanted to test the theory that the slower I go, the more I'd see. True.

A pretty patch of violets in someone's yard.

Gold sunshine on a serene green hill despite land mining just below it.

The first Rocky Mountain blue jay I've seen since moving back to Utah.  He's up high in the pine tree toward the left.  Can you see him?

Beauty trapped right in the middle of a dead bush.  

Colored glass bottles and vases in someone's yard, turned upside down on craft dowels and planted with the flowers. Don't ask me what's going on with the little tree/bush.  It's all black-strapped together.  I have no idea what they are trying to accomplish.

For some reason, everybody is calling our house "the white house" even though the Johnsons lived here for 40+ years, not the Whites.  Maybe it's the white siding and shutters?  Maybe it's this beautiful white-blossomed tree?  The blossoms really do look like popcorn popping.

Backyard Blossoms

We live in a mountain desert.  I don't think it's supposed to be as wet, cold, and green as it has been this spring.  I've had inner ear trouble, so no bike rides for me.  I'm looking forward to warmer, healthier days. Hopefully, it will stay just warm enough to keep the apple blossoms from freezing.

Before we entered into our contract to buy our current home, we didn't know we'd have an apple tree in the backyard.  It's a sad little tree that should have been pruned down a bit before it started blossoming.  The sellers of our home explained their ex-son-in-law over-pruned the tree a few years ago and made it "ugly."  "It'll look a lot better once it has leaves again," they said.  I think it's getting there.

I'm not sure what to think about this tree.  It's some kind of dwarf Japanese maple I guess.  The sellers said it is, "very old."  Should I prune it too?  I'm thinking of googling Japanese maples and seeing what shape makes them look best. I don't really like how it hangs over the sidewalk.

Beautiful Bush

This flowering bush is so beautiful that I rode my bike back around so I could take pictures of it on my way home.  I have no idea what kind of flower it is.  Do you?

Blossoms Popping

Snow in the mountains.  Blossoms in the valley. It's definitely spring.

I went on bike ride #5 for 2011.  I went a little further this time, but I stopped more often and for longer.

You can see downtown Salt Lake off in the distance by the mountain.  This is the view from the edge of our 'burb.

Biking 4

On the way to a park where I took this,

I had to climb this: 

It may not seem like much of a hill.  Either I'm extremely out of shape (also true) or it's a hill.  I thought we lived on top of the hill.  We sort of do.  It makes sense that the closer you get to the mountains, the more hills you find.  I had to walk up the last bit of this one.  But on the way up, the blossoms on the trees smelled delicious.  

And I was reminded of something:  you've got to climb if you want to fly.  I flew nearly the whole way home.

And I realized something else:  I am going to get stronger.

Yay for May!

 I bought these flowers at Sunflower Market last week.  They have kept my kitchen and my heart bright despite snow and rain. The dye from the sunflowers has turned the water pink!


Of course, the shadows also caught my attention.