Winter Zoo

It was cloudy and cold and worth it.  The animals were active.  There were no crowds.   Indoor exhibits, outdoor space heaters, and lots of running and jumping kept us warm.  They sell hot chocolate, but we had some waiting for us at home.  It was a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon with three very energetic children.

Me Encanta Limas

I've been loving limes for the past week or two.  I watched some Hispanic-looking women fill produce bags full of them at the grocery store and decided to follow their example.  Since then, I've been squeezing lime juice on just about everything.  Yum!

There are a lot of Latinos where we live.  Some stores have signs in both Spanish and English.  I only know enough Spanish to get myself in trouble, but I had the opportunity to give directions to a Spanish-speaking woman the other day and it felt great.

Let Down and Up

Do you feel sad when a blogger you normally read goes on a blog vacation?  I do.  I realize I may have let a few people down by my blog vacations.  Maybe those people have quit wondering and looking to see if I'd ever blog again.  Which is fine.  I still occasionally wonder about a few bloggers that I used to read.  But I've lost some links and don't know where to find them.  Sad.

Confession time.  I have several blogs.  Some of them are more inactive than this one.  The only slightly more active one is a private family blog.  That's where I feel comfortable sharing more details, locations, and names.  A couple of her posts ago, my sister put a link on her blog to that private blog.  That link might be bit of a let down for anyone who clicks on it.  So, just to be nice, I'm going muster some confidence and give you an edited version of a recent post on that blog.

Here it is:

The word of the year idea is to choose one word instead of a string of New Years resolutions.  The one word can represent your intention and focus for the year.  The idea is to act as if that word is already part of your life, to let it motivate action.  Most people set goals and try to do things while hoping that once they achieve the goal they'll gain the feeling which is reflected by the word.  That often doesn't work.  They achieve the goal and still don't feel the feeling because it's external change rather than internal change.  You can repeat your word of the year to yourself frequently.  You can say to yourself, "What am I going to do right now, today, to feel or be that word."  Those external goals and your belief in your ability to achieve them can be part of it.

Last year, my word was Courage.  It took courage to get my ears pierced, to encourage my husband to find another job, to accept the new job, to put our house on the market, to leave our house, to drive across the country as the sole driver of our minivan, to live in a very small house with a fairly large family, and to do a hundred other smaller things.  It was a good year for courage.  I still need it.   

My word for this year is Confidence.  It is similar to Courage I suppose.  Trust, belief, and hope are part of it.  

Winter Farm

Visiting the farm in winter is fun.  

These chickens really wanted into the pen which made me smile.  

So did watching my kids look at all the animals.

They made braving the cold worth it.

Merry Red Lights

Temple Square at Christmastime.  Definitely the place to be.

No Flash

This flower looked drooping dead this morning. Four petals were sticking straight up and the rest sagged toward the stem.  I cut off a few inches of stem and immediately stuck the flower into fresh water.  It revived itself.

I was curious how it would look with flash and without flash using my little old point and shoot. I held the flower up to a light to keep the flash from flashing.  Obvious difference.

Gotta Smile

 I'm thankful that most problems don't last. 

Most things heal. 

Most things get better. 

And when circumstances don't improve right away,  bright colors and happy people sometimes help.

Thankfully.

Autumn Roses

 I was going to write a slightly depressing and cryptic post about empty buckets, but then mine was filled.  A comment on my cousin's blog led me to her daughter's blog.  I read all her posts including one about trials.  She insisted that her readers watch this Mormon Message by Elder Holland.  It was exactly what I needed to watch.  Her husband also gives her roses which is incredibly sweet and reminded me of the roses right outside our door.  I'm thankful for my cousin's awesome grown-up daughter. 

I cut off a rose bud and stuffed it in a vase.  Then I became fascinated by the shadows it was creating on the wall thanks to sunlight from the kitchen window.  It's been a partly cloudy day, so truth, sunshine, and roses were just what I needed.

Leaf Blankets

 It seems a pity to rake up all these beautiful leaves.  This is the "before" shot.  I raked up half of these after I took the picture.  I love walking on them.  They are soft and smooth because we've had so much rain.  When all these were on the tree and turning yellow, they were gorgeous.  I imagine when they start to decompose and mix with snow, they won't be so nice.  Otherwise, I wouldn't touch them.  I'm guessing this is only 1/2 of what was on the tree.  The other half has yet to fall.  Maybe we'll get some dry weather and they'll turn crunchy.  They'd be fun to play in if they dry.

The leaves from the bean tree aren't so pretty, but they are nicer to walk on than dirt.  I suppose if I have time, I should rake them up too.

Beautiful Tree

 I don't remember ever seeing a tree so covered in vines that is also thriving. 

I had a friend from New Hampshire who would go on and on about how much more beautiful fall was there in the east than here in Utah.  Since I've lived in and visited states in the northeast, I know what he was talking about-- the vast quantity of beautiful, colorful trees.  But there's that old saying about how if you focus on one tree you won't see the forest.  Well, here, we can focus on individual trees for the lack of a forest and we can feel very very good about it.

This tree is at Sugarhouse Park.  I am grateful to live where there are so many safe, accessible, beautiful, familiar places.