Snow and More Snow

I don't have pictures, but you've seen them--snow piled everywhere. It isn't really out of the ordinary, but it is surely more evidence for global warming, . . . somehow. It snowed about three days straight in SLC (or South Jordan) through Christmas day and after. The streets were not well cleared and full of slush and salt. I got terrible mileage, and I'm convinced that it's because I was carrying about 50 pounds of ice in the wheel wells and on the undercarriage of my car. So I fled to Southern Utah, pausing in Provo Friday night at Barbara's house. It got warm enough there for my car to shed huge piles of dirty, salty ice in her carport, and to earn a scowl from her very kind and orderly neighbor who shovels the walks and takes out her trash. Dry roads on Saturday, but on arrival, more snow!! Snow piled by plows blocking driveways and walkways, snow covering the piles of firewood in the back yard, and snow stuck to the blacktop in spite of plowing and salting. It almost makes me want to go to Vegas for a few days. If I could post a picture which I would have taken, it would be from the back of my house this time, through the trees and past the old sagging buildings from another age to the steeple of the ward building across the snow and down the street. I only have to go to Sacrament meeting in this town populated by scrappy, independent farmers and ranchers to remember how thankful we must be for the moisture that falls during the winter months, and which is the lifeblood of this community. They never forget it in their prayers, talks, and testimonies. It has been a lovely Sunday!

Sunday Morning Moonset

When we headed to Utah Thursday evening we were impressed by the huge moon in the sky. Little did I know that I was witnessing a phenomenon that won't be seen again until something like the year 2016--don't know the details, but the moon was a certain percentage larger and brighter than usual. Well, I didn't get a picture. When I woke up this morning, there was the moon setting in the West over the night's snowfall. So I ventured out on the front porch in my nightgown and slippers and snapped this photo. It's not such a great picture, but I do enjoy the exceptionally clear skies and beautiful sunsets. Hope you enjoyed your weekend as much as we did ours.

Soup Recipe

For the soup recipe go to www.brentandlou.blogspot.com in case you didn't already find it. Don't let the number of ingredients trouble you--it's fast and easy as most of it is open and dump. Thanks to Laura for putting it together!

Nothing Like a Good Soup in the Winter

Well, it's not really very like winter as it is unseasonably warm in SLC and there has been no snow for several weeks now. But in a joint effort with my two daughters and the internet, we have recreated, and maybe improved upon, the Olive Garden minestrone. It didn't take that long to cook, and even the most resistent soup hater (Cameron) admitted he liked it. I'd post the recipe, but Laura is the one who put it all together, and I'm not sure of all the ingredients. It has been a busy couple of weeks with very little to show, but I soldier on nonetheless. I'm looking forward to seeing many of you Thanksgiving evening for dessert.

Addendum: Turns out the invite didn't go out for Thanksgiving evening dessert. Nonetheless, we'll be here with pies if anyone wants to come. E mail or call for details. I'll try to get the soup recipe up tomorrow if the dinner preparations don't get in the way.

Not Too Smart

Since Laura has my camera, and I'm not sure I would have anything to post by way of illustration, this will stand as a narrative entry.

First, I decided after weeks of debating that I would do two things this week--go to the temple and get new tires on my car. The temple part I hadn't debated, but just hadn't put it in the proper place on my list of priorities. I headed out from work at about 4:30 Wednesday afternoon hoping to avoid the worst of the traffic on the way to the temple. Unfortunately, it gets dark really early in Las Vegas when daylight savings time ends. Furthermore, there has been a lot of road construction along the route I use to get to the temple. In the dusk I missed a new division in the freeway system which would have allowed me to head East to the temple and ended up going South on I-15. As luck would have it, there was a traffic accident and the traffic on Southbound I-15 was at a standstill. It took me half an hour to get to an exit where I could turn around and right myself. Not that it mattered so very much, but it made going to the temple feel like more of a sacrifice than I planned on. Serves me right for putting it off so long.

So, Thursday I went to Costco to get new tires. I waited almost two hours for them to finish the installation. Determined to be cheerful, I commented to the guy at the checkout that it looked like it was a busy day. He said, "Yes, and the funny thing is yesterday we only sold one tire all day." Just my luck to pick the wrong day and the wrong time to do that task, but anticipating bad weather on the way to SLC this weekend, I thought it was important to get it done. Surely I could have done with a little inspiration or prompting to make my week go more smoothly.

Today I spent the day cleaning blinds and windows. One of the blinds on the back door had been broken last winter when the wind caught the door and wrenched the blind--it has been hanging crooked ever since. I took it down to evaluate the damage. A plastic piece was broken, and part of it was just lying in the header. As I tried to figure out if it could be glued or fixed, the other piece it connected to was so brittle it broke again when I tried to manipulate it. I began looking about for some potential repair, and saw the lid to a spray can which I had emptied in the process of cleaning the windows. A view came into my mind of how I could modify the lid to fix the blind, which I did. It works perfectly, and even rotates to open and close the blind. I am not too smart, but I am smart enough to know I couldn't have come up with that by myself. I am thankful at last for a little bit of inspiration--it makes me happy every time I look at the blind now hanging straight. I guess the week turned out all right after all.

Instruction Book

OK, I forgot how this works. Please read the second blog entry first so you get the picture. I am in Colorado Springs at the Broadmoor and want to share, but I'm a little inept. Maybe you should go to the web site for the hotel for a better perspective.

Last Century Elegance

There are a lot of lobbys and places to sit and read, meditate or relax. There was one lobby in particular that I would like to miniaturize and create in my house. Most of the shots are a little dark, but hopefully you will get the idea. If I get some housekeeping service, I will try a shot of our room, which is in the old original hotel, built in 1918. They are celebrating 90 years this year. All of the lobbys have to have a table and fresh flowers to maintain their five star rating. The model living room is the picture on the right and the one so dark you can hardly see it. It brightens up a bit if you click on and enlarge it. In spite of all the beauty and elegance, I would rather be in SLC with little Ben. I keep telling myself there is not much I could do, but my heart is there nonetheless.

The Fabulous Broadmoor

I came somewhat unsuspecting to the Broadmoor Hotel and Resort in Colorado Springs--business trip with David. It is gorgeous, and although I have pretty much been on my own all day for these couple of days, I am happy to be here. I wanted to share a few pictures of the grounds and maybe a couple of interiors. I'm not much of a photographer, and there was some strange icon on my camera, but at least I got photos. Click on the photo to see the autumn glory of the grounds. There are two pairs of swans on the lake--one black and one white. I caught one of the white swans on camera this morning.

End of an Era; Sign of the Times

Last Monday (or Saturday or Sunday) we filled our gas tank(s) at the Sunshine Truck Stop in Summit. We returned Thursday late evening to find the station had closed in our absence, shocked to learn we had filled up for the last time in Summit. I have been in mourning all weekend over the loss. I learned from Uncle Alma that the truck stop had been there for 35 years, and that four Summit residents lost their jobs when it closed. I had noticed that since the new truck stop opened on the north side of Cedar City, fewer trucks accumulated at the Sunshine stop. I had also noted that the facility was old and looked run down. But the 87 octane gas for cars was the lowest price in the vicinity, and it had a reputation for being good quality gasoline. I'll get over it, but I feel unaccountably sad to see it all boarded up.

On a brighter note, Barbara came for the weekend. We enjoyed watching General Conference, and last night took a tour of the environs visiting Parowan Gap, Parowan, and Cedar City. She did her weekend shopping in Cedar including buying paint for her downstairs bedroom. We had a great time. We also had a nice little visit with Uncle Alma and his kids--Cleon and his family, Steve and his wife, and RaeLynn and a couple of her children--between sessions. David picked apples which are littering the ground faster than we can get them off the tree. Fall is here and winter can't be too far behind, but we had no rain and a little sunshine today.

Default Post

OK, it has been so long since I posted the address has dropped off my list. I have not much to say. I have been here in SLC on baby watch since a week ago Friday. My biggest accomplishments so far have been to change a light bulb in my garage (no mean task since the ceilings are so high and my ladder is not) and get the drapes ready to hang in my bedroom--I have been working on them, intermittently, for months. I don't miss Las Vegas, and I do feel bad about having missed my opportunity to speak in the Summit Ward Sacrament Meeting last Sunday--I guess I do not so much enjoy speaking as feeling good about disciplining myself to prepare a talk. I have been so out of the loop with no church callings for a year. I am now a visiting teacher and loving it. I was also asked to do the monthly Relief Society bulletin. Fall is clearly on the way. I love fall, but winter always depresses me in spite of my efforts to overcome it; it's the short days and lack of sun more than the cold. Again, no pics, but at least I won't get all the way to October without having said something!!

Another Milestone

But I won't bother with a picture to commemorate it. When we first moved after we sold our Vegas house we rented a place with a 3 car garage. Other than the old VW which we stored in the garage, we could only fit one car because of all the "stuff" we brought with us from the old house. When we moved again last fall to a house less than half the size of the first rental and with a rather conventional 2 car garage, we managed to fit one car in. Yesterday morning I got up and opened the garage door and felt a whiff of coolish air, which is not normal during the summer months in Las Vegas. I was so inspired I spent an hour or so rearranging the junk in the garage and David was actually able to park his car next to mine when he came home last night. He could hardly get out and walk around the car, but it was a momentous occasion nonetheless. Just wanted to share--imagine parking your cars in your garage! Someone commented that we build these nice garages for our cars and fill them with junk and park our expensive cars outside; how perverse is that! Not that I have expensive cars, but they are more valuable than the junk that occupies the garage.

Home Decor Slow

We finished the Daybreak house with no mirrors in the downstairs bathrooms; I just don't like the giant plate mirror look. Nine months later, the master bath finally has new mirrors, and I, for one, was so impressed I needed to take a picture and share the results. Thanks to my two sons-in-law, Brent and Cameron, it all happened in a matter of minutes. (I don't have a "before" picture so you can see the dramatic difference--sorry.)

To Put This Episode To Rest

As those of you who have been following my posts know, Friday I was discharged from the hospital. After a "demo" shot I gave myself in the hospital, I had to do two additional injections, then have blood drawn on Saturday. I had a miserable time getting a report from the on call doctor which would determine the course of further treatments (including more self-administered injections) and dosage. I made three calls to the answering service yesterday before I finally found out that after inching up slowly over the course of my hospital stay, the level of blood thinner took a dramatic jump from Friday to Saturday: no more shots and a reduced dose of Coumadin!! Almost as good, no more blood draws until next Friday! So I am home with few restrictions. I will be on the blood thinner for 6 months with periodic checks over the course of treatment. I finished Jane's blanket I was working on, and we are heading back to the salt mine tomorrow. Since I didn't leave the air conditioning on and no one had a key, I anticipate finding dead houseplants and cockroaches to greet me. It has been a week of reflection and reassessment. I don't know what the fallout is yet, but I certainly have a lot to think about.

Free at Last!!

OK, they are letting me out of the hospital today even though my blood thinner level isn't where they want it. Trick is I have to give myself 2 subcutaneous injections a day until the level of the coumadin is where it should be, which should be within a day or two. I have to come for blood draws tomorrow, Sunday and Monday, and if all goes well, not again until next Friday. So I plan to head for Vegas Monday. As I have learned, plans can change but that doesn't mean you can't make them. This has been an interesting experience, but I am glad to see it winding down. Thank you all for your support and prayers.

Hospital Flowers

These beautiful flowers were sent by David's Mom (and siblings) to brighten my room. Latest word is that I will be here at least one more day, but the inflammation seems to be easing off and the blood thinners are working to prevent further clotting. The weather from the inside looking out is quite nice, and you can tell by all the posts that I am getting a little bored here by now. I appreciate all the calls and e mails; for being in the hospital it couldn't get much better.

Unexpected Detour

Well, we got up bright and early this morning to drive from Summit to Las Vegas and loaded up the car. I have had some pain in my leg just above the knee for a few days, and this morning it had turned red. We decided to stop in Cedar City at the emergency room since I had no reasonable expectation of being able to see a doctor in Las Vegas on short order. After a quick check by the on-call doctor and an ultrasound, I was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis--good news: not in a major vein. They admitted me and put me on heparin and Coumadin and I am stuck here until things improve; they are saying probably three days anyway. At least I have my laptop and internet access, but I am sure to be bored out of my mind before too long. On the bright side, they told me in the emergency room that they have had people drive to Cedar City from Las Vegas because it is faster to drive here, be seen, and drive back home than to wait in the Las Vegas hospital emergency rooms. And they are taking good care of me--I was diagnosed in an hour, which is amazing. So until further notice, I am holding court at the Cedar City hospital--not the way I expected to spend the week.

A little update

Once again, I have no pictures, but I just realized it has been many weeks since I posted. Our travel has been seriously affected by the price of gasoline. I haven't been to SLC for a few weeks now, and don't have a trip planned until the end of June/first of July for John Carter's wedding, etc. That's not to say I might slip up there before for an unplanned trip. This last weekend in Summit was kind of interesting. I organized the garage and stacked all the flooring (47 boxes) for our new downstairs floor on a pallet. The interesting part is that with an Aleve before I went to bed, I suffered almost no consequences to my back. Also of note, I started on Janie's purple blanket which I have been promising for months now. The outside tier of cross stitching is done, and once underway, it will surely be completed. I even found some dramatic purple trim to go around the perimeter. Before we left Thursday evening I managed to renew both my driver's license and my temple recommend, events without which I might have needed to stay in Vegas for the weekend. I look forward to a relatively uneventful summer and hope and pray we can sell our office building to lighten the worry load. So there you have my update, if anyone thinks to check it out after so long of nothing.

New Office Interiors

Teddy made it, but we don't have a very good spot for him

Reception Desk

Small Conf. Room

Hallway

Dad's (David's) Office

Large conference room

Copy Room

I snapped a few photos today, and my photography talents are very much non-existent. However, I will give you a little taste of our new quarters and you'll have to fill in with your imagination. After about 15 revisions, I give up. I cannot get the labels and the pictures together, so you just figure it out. Sorry.

Sunday Evening in Summit

I still haven't figured out how to coordinate the pictures with the narrative, so I will just take what I get. We woke up in South Jordan to a late arriving spring storm. When I stopped in Provo for church services with Barbara, there was more snow on the ground than in SLC. The trip to Summit was without incident, with snow flurries and wet roads until about Beaver City. It looked like Southern Utah, including Summit, would just get a brush-by. However, the storm did make a stop, and I snapped a couple of photos for this storm on the penultimate day of March. We are snug and warm with our fire in the woodstove and actually enjoying the last stand of winter. It is already HOT in Las Vegas and we are needing air conditioning at the office, so this is an interesting contrast. Enjoy the trees in our yard with the wet spring snow clinging to them at dusk, and the cozy fire inside.

Moving, moving, moving

Sorry, no pictures again. We moved starting last Thursday to our new office across town. I left Thursday evening, and basically David and Tyler spearheaded and engineered the move--mostly Tyler, actually. It is a tremendous undertaking to move thirty people and all their accoutrements down the road. We have all new document centers, a new voip phone system, mostly new computer hardware and software, and all of this has to be coordinated so we can get up and running and pay for all this new stuff. Today we had some people actually billing hours, but we were basically shut down for about 3 working days. We love our new business home. Most of you don't communicate with us there, but the office telephone number remains the same. Our new office address is 3890 West Ann Road, North Las Vegas, NV 89031. I posted some outside pictures of the new building, I think, and I'll get some inside views as soon as we get a little bit settled so things look better--there are boxes everywhere and lots of junk and disorder still. Onward and upward!!

Musings

No pictures today--just an update. The large amount of snow which had accumulated from the plowing through the winter has mostly melted, and the fields look like shallow lakes. There is so much water in our Summit yard that David took a 3 foot driveway marker and sank it almost to the top in one of two trenches he dug to drain the water away from the house; he was outside for at least two or three hours trying to drain the accumulation of melted snow and rain. It was snowing again late this afternoon and evening. I enjoyed the Summit Ward, as usual, today. The people are so down to earth and unpretentious that I just feel refreshed by being around them. The Bishop dropped by this afternoon with a couple of job listings for John, who, by the way, is starting a job in Salt Lake City tomorrow. The Summit experiment didn't quite work out for John and Danielle, but ever resilient, they are moving on to greener pastures. We are heading back to Vegas tomorrow, where spring is surely evident along with the inevitable wind this time of year.

Moving . . . . again (Don't worry--just the office)

This is the new building, which is a little more than twice the size of the old one and about 10 miles to the North in North Las Vegas.




This is the fabulous lobby which has two story floor to ceiling built in bookcases. This is the part that is hardest to leave.

Here's our old building which we are leaving with some regret.

Kitchen cabinets

Fun, fun, fun with the hardware on the cabinets. I feel like an expert now. It took me forever for the first drawer, but I got pretty good by the time I was finished. I am still short one drawer pull. I am having trouble getting the pictures posted, but I have a couple of the cabinets and some kitty ones. Beautiful day here--apparently the calm before the storm.

Not much happening

More pictures to come as today I finished painting the kitchen and added hardware to the cabinets. I need longer bolts to put the pulls on the drawers and I shorted myself one drawer pull, so when I get back to Home Depot for supplies and finish the job, I'll photograph. I really like the changes. I also washed the blind and the kitchen window, cleaned and vacuumed the living room, and otherwise tidied up. I felt quite pleased with myself. I now want to stain and paint the kitchen table and chairs--maybe not tomorrow. So watch for the photos, hopefully manana.

Winter Sunset

We'll see how long I survive the digital age. I snapped a picture of the sunset tonight from my front porch in Summit, which I will hereby share. Hope you enjoy it.