From the Weathercolours' front yard

These pictures are courtesy of Princess M, who (politely, with permission) pretty much first thing stole my camera and went out and took some truly lovely shots of the view out of the front yard.

This tree, by the way, is the only one on the street that is anything like its size (the branches stretch thirty feet in diameter or so, would you say?) Just yesterday, I was taking my walk and reveling in the fact that I get to be around trees that size-- and that they occur every few feet, along many of the trails around here.

I do love how snow looks on the mountains. That sky is a color that I tend to think of as "Utah blue"-- the color itself is almost piercing, let alone the sun behind it.

And, yes, we do like tulips. Probably more of them in the next post.

The Wrong Tool For the Job

He's trying to take his shoe off with a screwdriver.

His father calls this one Sextus, but I rather like "Piglet" (like from Winnie-the-Pooh)  because I always identified with Piglet's smallness and general confusion about what was going on, and I sometimes see that expression on this kid's face, too. We did monitor him to make sure that he didn't poke it in his eye or toddle off to an electrical outlet, and we did eventually take it away, but not before I got a picture first.

A few more pictures from the Provo trip shall follow (I hope).

Wintertrees

From today!

As promised, lots of trees... I like the curly bits.

Also, the hint of light of the setting sun (like you are shocked that I would like that...)

I caught a little more light, down the road a bit.

Small Update

So sorry to be such a dingbat about updating when stressful things are going down. I believe--hopefully-- most of you who are closest already know about this (Dad's health issues, not the dingbattiness-- you knew about that before).

Papa had a massive brain hemorrhage nearly a month ago.

Right now, he is doing so much better physically that they couldn't keep him in rehab, and the doctors said that, since he started walking again so soon, chances are good that he will recover fully. He was out in Utah, helping the Weathercolours move, when it happened, so that is where he is still; Mom is out there with him, and they are both staying in the Weathercolours' beautiful new house.

Good things DO happen to me-- really they do-- I just need to blog about them more, so that people can know. More on this soon.

Spiderweb and Path (near our house)

I DO understand that some people prefer deserts, such as the one I was born in and mostly raised in. I'm actually pretty happy about that fact, because it means that not everyone gets crowded into the places with trees..

These are from a couple of months ago; I just now got around to downloading them. (But it was worth the wait, right?)

A Story from Papa

"I don't even remember what class it was, but I remember the teacher had left. And [another kid, a boy] was kicking and picking on this girl. She was kind of retarded, and certainly not pretty-- certainly the opposite of pretty, I guess, pretty much-- and had always been kind of a despised one. And right now, my time traveling Walter Mitty [daydream] is that I go back and stand up to him. And my guess is that probably if I had hauled off and hit him one, he was into fighting enough that he would have pounded me into a pulp. Which is probably why I was too afraid to fight him then. And it probably wouldn't have hurt that much-- but I was afraid. Maybe if I'd just said something, I'm certain most of the class-- and frankly, especially the pretty girls-- would have been immediately on my side and I would have been much more impressive to them. But instead, I sat like everybody else, and said nothing. And as I think about it, maybe that's part of why I think of all of these issues of our modern society, being afraid of other people is not a good trait. Right is right."

Kitchen Failure at Elijah Kitchen

Erm. A couple of sisters and I decided-- back in March? I think?-- to start a food blog. And we finally got tired of waiting, so it went live on Thanksgiving Day, but I am such a slacker that you didn't find out about it until today.

But! Probably one of the funniest essays I have written in my life goes live today. So.. if you are interested in reading about Kitchen Failure.. go ahead and click through.

Oh. The blog's name is Elijah Kitchen. You know, like the Elijah plate at passover, the extra one you set just in case a miraculous (or even non-miraculous) extra guest happens by? Only, you know, instead of a plate, it's the whole kitchen. We explain it better in the first post, maybe-- you can read about it on the blog.