I'm Baaaack!!

Good news from the tax accountant precipitated the purchase of a car. Because we are on the road so much, we decided to maximize our potential gas mileage by buying a Prius--used--2008 with 18,000 miles on it. We drove it to Summit this weekend, and it was a new driving exerience for us. David admonished me I should drive the car, not let it drive me. If that is your philosophy, you probably shouldn't buy a Prius. You have to watch the fuel consumption to learn how to maximize your potential mileage. That suits my style of driving. Anyway, here's a photo.

Redemption and New Floors

I am finally ready to redeem myself from the bottom of the blog post list. (Eat your heart out, Janet!) Over the last few weeks we have had a new floor installed in the "great room" area of our Summit house. I bought the flooring last summer/fall when Leslie and Cameron installed the same floor in their new home, and I liked it a lot. After realizing that kids with their own houses are never going to have time to install flooring in my house, we hired a contractor. I won't go into the details, but we had planned to buy a rug for the living room, and I ordered a bigger one than I might otherwise have purchased because of some unaesthetic "regularities" in the installation. So I have taken some pictures of the floor (and the new rug) for your viewing pleasure. I now will need to paint the walls, and perhaps the ceiling, because there is too much "yellow" in the rug--so much for ordering on line. All in all, though, we are pleased with the new floor, and I think the wall color is due for a change after 7 years with the original paint.

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.