Winter Solstice

Look at that new picture up top! It was taken in Rome, Italy by a man who posted it to spaceweather.com - I think it's one of the prettiest pictures I've ever seen. Check out that website for some other very cool pictures.

Here is another - it is an iridescent cloud. Just lovely.

How does life get so busy???

It's beyond me. All I want to do is curl up on the couch with my book - Seven Days to the Sea by Rebecca Kohn. Historical fiction about Moses which is just so GOOD. ANYway, that's not going to happen until probably Christmas Day. It seems that when I just recover from planning and cooking and all, (you all know what I mean) that it's time to take everything down!

I do look forward to January and February though, because it's a good time to do all the cool indoor things, like scrapbooking and reading and organizing. I feel so guilty in the summer staying in the house.

Here is another friendly reminder from your Red Cross volunteer - be extra careful with space heaters. They overheat and cause way too many fires.

Just please have a happy and safe Christmas and holiday season! I love this blog thing, it makes me feel like we are all connected even though in many cases we are far apart.

Merry Christmas and lotsa love!

Early morning photo op

Don't laugh. These were taken at 4:30 IN THE MORNING. This is Trish and me as I was waiting for the shuttle to pick me up at BYU for the Salt Lake airport. It was very cold and we were surrounded by lots of snow. So Trish took this self portrait of us. Not a bad aim for extending her arm out and taking a blind shot! Doesn't she look adorable? For those of you who don't know, Trish kind of "adopted" us as her church parents. She just won the REGIONAL RA of the Year award!!! She's a great kid.

Soon we will look alike. I am getting BRACES next month. Such a deal at my age. It's the weirdest thing. My upper and bottom teeth don't "mesh" or something, so they bang against each other and as I age, they tend to break. I have one cracked tooth and one broken one already, so the braces will hopefully prevent anymore of THAT.

Larry comes home today from yet another business trip to Madison Wisconsin. You all probably know that travel is probably his least favorite thing to do in all the world. Thankfully he will be getting home before this monster storm hits tomorrow. They are predicting up to 25 inches of snow before Monday AM. And wind. And frigid temperatures. I must get us some snow pants so at least we can enjoy this ridiculous weather.

Christmas is coming!!

Glad to be HOME

The storm hit Provo with lots of pretty snow. These are from Trisha's dorm room window.





We went to the women's basketball game at the Marriott Center, ate some meals at the Cannon Center which were really quite good, then when she had a test Friday, she unloaded me at the BYU bookstore. I loved wandering around there, especially the art department. I found so many paintings I would LOVE to put in the dining room, but alas, they were like $400 and how would I get them home anyway?!

The shuttle picked me up at 4:45 Sunday morning and this is a tree near the parking lot that was just so pretty -

With all the crazy weather over the weekend I decided to leave Salt Lake on an earlier flight and try to get home so I would have a better chance of not getting stuck in Chicago. And it all worked out, but I still feel so weird on a plane lately. Even after flying over the ocean to Italy last year, I still get a little scared. Ah well, it is very good to land!! Today, Larry left for Madison yet again and got delayed in Cleveland for 7 hours, poor guy.

Lavatories in the air

Thursday I boarded a plane for Utah to go see Trish at BYU. Easy enough. But as I am up there at 30,000 feet, I am thinking WAY too much, such as:

"Here I am, flying around the country, my life in the hands of people I have never even MET. They could be very bad people!!! How do I know what their GPA was in school?? Huh? And what if they are sleeping??"

The worst is when I have to use the itty bitty lavatory. The little voice in my head goes, "What the HECK am I doing up here??"

And the plane goes, "Bounce, bounce, BOUNCE, bounce, dip, dip, DIP, BOUNCE!"

But I made it. Now when I go home, I have to go through it all over again. AND there is a winter storm warning for the Wasatch. Good grief.

Fire and Ice

Today has been WINDY and cold, with some lake effect snow. I had a bunch of errands to run this morning so I wanted to get them all done before it got too bad out. So I did! Went to Target, got real pretty new sheers at Country Curtains, went to Wegmans and made it home before the minor blizzard hit. BUT, I was on call for the Red Cross from 4PM to 10PM and sure enough, there was a fire I had to respond to. 390South was just awful!!! I could barely see to drive. The roads weren't salted OR plowed and it took me way too long to get to the chapter. When the rest of team arrived, it took us 45 minutes to drive 4 miles in the truck to get to the fire. Thankfully it wasn't a bad one, mostly smoke damage.

Here is a public service message from your friendly Red Cross volunteer (Me!!)- PLEASE be careful when you burn candles in your home. Most house fires (in the winter) are from candles. Every time I come home from responding, I think about what the most important things in the house are that I would hate to lose and then try to think of ways to protect and save them. Photos, pictures, genealogy, scrapbooks; all that stuff could be lost so quickly. Even little fires cause a lot of smoke damage and the firefighters, while they really try to save your stuff, do make a mess. So be aware and be careful!