Evening Primrose

These beautiful flowers bloom in the evening.

Video

Remembering Dad

When my Dad was 43 years old I was born. I've always known my Dad with balding gray hair and a mustache. Sometimes he added a beard. He was a loving patient man, inventive, liked jokes, loved to sing in his Barbershop chorus, and took college classes in his 70's.

He grew up in Manti, Utah and worked on a turkey farm. He went to college, served in the military, raised us five kids. He and Mom had 20 great years of retirement living. They spent time in Yuma, St. George, Boise and Island Park and they served two church missions.

I have lots of good childhood memories of doing things with Dad. One of them I was thinking about recently, funny how memories are triggered by smells, sights and sounds. When I was in grade school and Jr. High I used to go to the Boise auction with him.

He would go by himself early on Saturday morning and scope out the auction and estimate what time things he was intererested in might be up for auction. (And I'm also guessing this was his quiet time away from work and us kids.)

Then he would come home and a couple of hours later I would go with him and we would walk the aisles, smell the onions as they cooked hamburgers, and I got to watch the bidding. To this day I still love auctions.

Dad passed away June 7, 1998, just weeks before Father's Day. I miss him and I'm grateful for the memories I have and the special times I shared with him growing up and as an adult.


My wedding to Wally in January 1988, (Dad 73).



Saturday

Rhodys in the backyard. I love this one.

"Saturday is a special day it's the day we get ready for Sunday." And as such I think we should be granted an extra few hours added to the day.

It's 10:30 a.m. so far with we have been to the automotive store, the lumber store, the gas station and McDonalds. Now I'm heading outside to vacuum and clean the inside of my car, then mow the back lawn.

Later I will spend three hours hanging out with the youth at the church for their second to last dance practice before the big day next Saturday.

If I can find the guy on the street corner selling cases of strawberries from California I hope to be making strawberry rhubarb jam this evening.

Laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, well those will happen as time permits.

A shout out to my daughter who is spending her Saturday with her husband's family as they celebrate the life of her husband's grandmother, Tink Hanson.

And also a shout out to my dear friend since 3rd grade Gail, as she hopes to come home from a few days in the hospital after fighting a nasty infection after having surgery on her foot. 

Go out and enjoy the day!

Not Your Regular Hula Hoop

I have become enamored by this video. I work with her mother and she had told me her daughter does this dancing, but I hadn't seen it before. She emailed me this video today and I think it's beautiful.

Friday Night Smackdown

Friday nights at our house consist of Wally watching wrestling and me sitting at the computer. I had intended to write on my blog tonight but got carried off to the world of Facebook and Pinterest. And just now I looked at the clock and it's just about 10 pm. At 10 pm the wrestling is over and I normally clean up the kitchen then go to bed.

But I decided to write a quick blog anyway. Besides tomorrow is Saturday and I can clean the kitchen up in the morning.

I thought of something to add to my life list today. I left the office at lunch time to run an errand in Bellevue. That involves driving across Lake Washington on I-90. I watched people on their bicycles going across the bridge. How fun would that be? I have no idea how many miles it is or even where you start. But that sure would be a fun thing to do.

Also in celebration of the Seattle Center's 50th anniversay, they have put in some new rides and a zip line. Yep a zip line. Something I have yet to do. That is also on my list.

Utah April 2012

It's an annual trip which started for me many years ago when my daughter was in college in Provo. Every April my two sisters from Idaho and I go to Springville, Utah to spend a long weekend with our other sister. We do a lot of spring cleaning, watch a lot of movies, eat really good, stay up way too late, visit with lots of extended family and just have a really good time. Meanwhile the husbands bachelor it, each home alone.

This year the two from Idaho decided it would be quicker and less expensive to drive. I flew in and arrived about 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday. I was picked up at the airport by my son and daughter. Then we went to downtown SLC. We walked around the new City Creek shopping center, had lunch on main street, and visited the brand new Harmon's grocery store.

Then Natalie went back to work and Wayne and I made a trip to Thanksgiving Point to see the tulips. It was a Seattle weather kind of day, overcast and some rain, but that didn't stop us. Every year I've attempted to see the tulips and by golly this year I was going to do it.

We rented a Segway scooter so Wayne had some enjoyment while I wandered the beautiful landscaped gardens and took a gadzillion photos.

Here are a few tulip photos, for more see my Facebook page.

Wednesday we all arrived about the same time to Nancy's house. Sue and Becky got there just shortly before me but still had time to jump in and get a head start cleaning.


Emily made us homemade soup for dinner. I'm sure we watched some movies but I can't remember what movies, what nights. We stayed up till after 1:00 a.m., as we would do for the remainder of our visit.


On Thursday Aunt Margaret and cousin Ruby made the trip up from Manti to visit with us. We had a nice lunch of chicken salad sandwhiches on croissants. It was great to see them.



Standing: Aunt Margaret, Sue. Sitting: Ruby, Becky, Nancy, Emily, Trudy and Wayne.



Margaret and Becky




The hat



Friday afternoon we were visited by cousin Mara who brought her jewelry making supplies. We had a great time making earrings, necklaces and bracelets.

Natalie came down on Saturday to spend the night and to have Emily do her hair. Saturday was spent cleaning the garage, with help from Russell and Wayne. Everyone pitched in. There were truck loads taken to Scott's house, to the dumpster and to Deseret Industries. It was a very warm day and a lot of work.


Happy Birthday to Scott!




They weren't actually watching the movie yet, they were trying to figure out how to get the Spanish subtitles off the TV!



Saturday was also Scott's birthday. We had Lillie and Long join us for dinner and birthday cake. There was more movie watching and more caramel popcorn and a very, very late night.

Here are some pictures taken on Sunday morning. 

 I'll do a separate blog about spending Sunday in Deer Valley and Park City. It was a wonderful trip this year. It's alway so very nice to be able to spend time with my kids and my sisters and nieces, nephews, cousins, aunt. And the weather was beautiful. I really needed the sunshine after all our spring rain in Seattle.

Embroidery Floss Easter Eggs

Here is the site for step by step instructions. 
http://www.crafts-for-all-seasons.com/embroidery-floss-easter-eggs.html
They are a very fun project.
The weather was so nice today after work that I took my basket of eggs out in the backyard for some photography practice.

Here are the results.

Colorful

Love this picture, just lucked out with the timing of the afternoon sun.

Bonus backyard springtime picture.

These were shot with my Nikon D5000 and I'm happy to say I now shoot in manual about 95% of the time. I need to keep practicing. Hoping the rain lets up a little bit more.

Curly Ribbon

Birthday Cupcake Hanger

To make curly ribbon, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Select dowels depending on the size of curl you want. I was using about a 1/4 stick. These are sticks that I got in bags of stuffing years ago and I saved them and use them for all sorts of things. Remember all that 2 for 1.00 ribbon you have collected? Well now is your time to use some of it.

Tape one end of the ribbon to the dowel using a small piece of scotch tape. Then wrap the ribbon around the dowel and secure the other end with a small piece of tape.

Bake in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes. Keep an eye on the sticks. You may smell the ribbon and tape heating up. I've never had any problems with them in the oven. After about 20 minutes removed from oven and let the sticks cool.

Gently remove the tape, sometimes you may have to cut it off. Unroll the ribbon and there you have curly ribbon. It will stay curly. It can be used for various crafts and is cute added to hair bows.

Down and Dirty - 3 Weeks Later

Welcome to the world little seedlings. 

Slot # 2 is cilantro, # 3 is chives and # 1 and # 3 are tarragon and oregano. (I'll know which is which when they get a little bigger.)

I have had to thin the oregano and tarragon and need to a little bit more. The cilantro is starting to look like cilantro. Time to plant more cilantro I think.

Letters

This was my fun project I started last year. I'm working to acquire the rest of the alphabet. I took the photos, edited them and had them printed up at Costco. I bought the frames at Michael's and assembled them with black paper as backing.

Capturing Thoughts

I wish at this time of night I had the energy and patience to tackle all the projects that drifted through my mind while I was at work during the day. It's never when I have the time to actually be doing something that I think about doing something because I'm usually doing something else. That sentence actually does make sense to me.

When I'm at work during the day there are moments where I run through a mental list of all that I want to accomplish at home in the evenings after dinner.

But here it is Friday night, after 9:00 p.m.; I have the second load of laundry in the wash, the kitchen is cleaned up, and there is a pile of paperwork sitting on the table. The same pile that has been there since Monday when I was looking for that one last piece of paper before doing our taxes.

And my bags I brought home from the Sewing Expo like two weeks ago are still sitting in the spare bedroom, full of fabric, patterns and papers. And the fabric I ordered through the mail is all over the spare bedroom since I took it out of the box when I was on a meeting call when I was working from home.

When does all that stuff get taken care of? I don't really know. But it will, it always does. Just not always when and how I planned it. Right now I just want to put the clothes in the dryer and go read in my bedroom. But I don't have a book started right now. And I don't want to start a book just yet because then I would ignore these things that need to be done. Because when I'm reading that's all I want to do, read.

I'm rambling now, I know that. I wanted to write tonight and I did. I also want to write a poem just for fun but haven't thought of a topic. I think I'll say something about all the rain we've had this month. Lots of it, every day. But with a little bit of sunshine here and there. Just to remind us that there will be sunshine.

I lay in bed

The rain taps gently on the roof

Sometimes it wakes me in the night

In the morning I awake

and it has stopped

The air is fresh

The grass green

The white crocus peeks out of the ground

It’s coming soon

I know it is

Spring

Flowers

Cut grass

And bicycles

Soon