Desert Patterns

June 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I love seeing all the color in the desert Southwest, but I was fascinated with these patterns. I guess those are tiny sand dunes dunes down there, but they sure are neat.

These mini-hills all folded and stacked on each other presented a gorgeous pattern outside Vegas.

And one of my favorite lakes as we neared Las Vegas.  I think it may be Lake Powell & if I’d sat on the left side of the plane, I would have glimpsed Hoover Dam.

 

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY:  Off to Arkansas tonight & my last night in a hotel until I am on vacation next week!

Filed Under: airplane, nature

Jumping GIF’s

June 29, 2011 By 5 Comments

With the insane heat, I really just can’t get enough of the pool this summer & both dogs have been so much fun to play with on hot afternoons.  Mia sneaks out of the pool and starts her low-crawl towards whoever might be splashing for her.

This afternoon, it was hubby at the pool with me & she never fails to leap after a splash.

Crazy puppy starts creeping & won’t face “forward” into the pool.  It’s hysterical to try to pick her back legs up and get her pointed in the right direction.

Her legs go kicking the whole time & she’s snapping at the water splashes all the way up and all the way down.

Does this stellar landing not crack you up?  I don’t know how her belly doesn’t hurt after an hour of bellyflops.

I got back in the pool &  hubby drove the camera.  My only complaint is that Mia’s not so great on her aim & doesn’t really watch WHERE she is jumping- into walls, on top of people, over Zoe.

Love that her legs keep paddling away even as I was holding her out of the water.

One more just for fun since I finally figured out how to make my GIF”s big size. Hours on end she wants to splash & jump, but she always comes home exhausted and happy.

 

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I miss my puppies & my husband SOOOO much- I’ve been only been home 4 full days since the 13th!!  Glad to be heading home today, even if I do have to leave again tomorrow…..

Filed Under: Married Life, mia, movie

Letters from the Past

June 28, 2011 By 3 Comments

Mom was cleaning out some closets recently & returned a pile of things to me.  I’m slowly working my way through them & came across this amazing gift from my father that I received over 12 years ago.

He’d made a series notes and included some great old photos.  My dad has always been a note writer & a great card giver, but I had so much fun reminiscing as I looked at all his memories and dreams he had for me at 19 years old.

I love the effort he put into making this for me.  I love all the little details from my child hood (his rough truck & my neighborhood friend).

I caught my first flounder about 20 years before hubby caught his.  Some notes were short & some were longer.

And I can’t believe I’m about to share these photos from my childhood, but it’s who I was in the 80′s!  Yup, I broke my leg running into a parked car when I was about 8 on the way home from swim practice & that’s a costume that Gram made for me when I was in pre-school.  I also started wearing glasses around 3rd grade when I made my first ‘B’ in school because I couldn’t see the board.

Pictures of snow in Houston & pictures of snow in Vail on one of my first skiing trips.  I’ll just go ahead and point out the obvious that I was a little developmentally delayed in the fashion and beauty department, which made the teenage years tough ones.

My dad’s notes were so precious & I even shared hem again with him over Father’s Day and he got a kick out of re-reading them all and looking at the photos.  Such a thoughtful gift & I’m so glad I still miraculously still have it.

 

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: In Squaw Valley today to present my third published paper.

Filed Under: family, flashback, history

Calendar Journal

June 27, 2011 By 3 Comments

Last fall, a really neat idea came across my blog reader & knew I’d finally found a craft I could probably tackle.  As long as I can remember, I’ve always been a list keeper & a calendar girl.  I had a day timer in elementary school & have memories of using similar notecards in junior high school.  Although I “record” life on the blog, many of the things are too mundane or too personal to share online.  Sometimes the beauty of our life is in the details or rhythms that make each day memorable.  I didn’t use the post cards as a divider, instead choosing to use different color cards and ink for each month.

I’ve officially been keeping up with this for half a year now & can’t wait to have several years worth to days on a card.  I don’t usually fill it out everyday, but will do it 2-3 times per week as I remember & it’s nice to force myself to think of 1 thing about each day that was remarkable or that will still stand out to me years from now.  Yup, in the span of 2 weeks, while we were traveling, we sprung a leak in our hot water heater AND a leak in the A/C drain that dripped into our laundry room and down into our living room.

Another bonus of the project was that I had a pile of leftover cards that have become my trustworthy daily TO DO LIST.  I will keep each list for several weeks until it’s worn out & hopefully most things are crossed off the list.  Right about the time I started this project, another idea came across my Google Reader about capturing handwriting.  Although I love my online blog as a journal, the downside of digital is the loss of something so personal as handwriting.  I’ll be the first to admit I have AWFUL handwriting & would love to have some beautiful flowy penmanship.  But I don’t & I still like the idea of capturing and remembering my handwriting in the daily log.

I use these notecards as bookmarks when I’m reading & jot down notes to help me with my review.  All those years of school paid off & I really to pay more attention reading if i am taking notes & knowing that I will have to write about the significance of what I just read.  Usually on the back of my TO DO LIST”s are things related the blog- trying to plan out days, things I need to clean up or work on.

 

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Had a sunny day at Olympic National park yesterday & I am headed to Lake Tahoe today.

Filed Under: flashback

Puppy Play Time

June 26, 2011 By 3 Comments

Several weeks ago, I was home alone on a Friday night with a bottle of wine, 2 dogs, 1 camera and several toys.  Lots of playing and several hundred photos ensued as I sat on the floor playing with one of Mia’s favorite toys.

Zoe was there but had no interest in all the rowdiness.

Mia’s got lots of techniques- the low pull, the twist, the roll.  She is just so happy to be playing.

This one eventually woke up with all the noise and chaos.

More tossing, more retrieving, more play growling, more shaking, more spinning.

Mia did stand still for about two seconds & I grabbed this quick shot since I had my macro lens on.  She’s got some teeny-tiny grey hairs on her chin.

Don’t let this fool you….

Life looked much more like this!

Finally Zoe had enough of the racket & got up to come steal the toy from Mia.

Not that she actually wanted to play with it herself.  No, she was just tired of Mia getting all the attention & she proceeded to take it back to her couch and give Mia a dirty look

That only slowed Mia down for a few seconds as she moved onto a tennis ball & then a set of 3 giraffe legs (the 4th leg and head are long gone).

 

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Though very challenging, I finished Seattle in 4:47 yesterday!

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Filed Under: mia, Zoe
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