Taggage

Ok I've been tagged twice this week so this is the first of my tag lists.

8 TV shows that I watch
The Office
Heroes
The Biggest Loser
What Not To Wear
Project Runway
American’s Next Top Model
Jeeves and Wooster (reruns)
Sherlock Holmes (reruns)
But I don’t always watch these each week.

8 favorite restaurants
I don’t know that I have favorites, here are some I’ve been to recently and liked
Panda Express
Costa Vida
Mazza’s
Acme Burger
Belissimo Gelato
Rubio’s
Yanni’s Greek Express

8 Things that happened the day before yesterday
Took an Italian Test-did not too bad
went to Advanced Phonology class (that’s phonology not phrenology)
Studied for my Child Language Acquistion test
Made corn muffins
Talked to my roommates
Made dinner
Watched a movie
That’s it

8 Things that I look forward to
My nieces coming to visit in December
The end of the semester
Getting my paycheck
Saturdays
Hanging out with friends

8 Things I love about fall
Wearing my fall clothes
Crunchy leaves
Leaves changing colors
Halloween candy and autumn treats
Pumpkins!
Cool but not cold weather
Enjoying soup and hot cider or hot chocolate

8 Things on my wish list
Moving to Italy
Learning Italian
Buying a digital SLR camera
Having my own car
Visiting Greece and maybe India
Um other stuff I can’t think of now

Back for Now

Wow, I haven't posted for over a month! I guess school already has me in its evil clutches. I just fnished grading 60 (yes, sixty) exams, bah! So what else have I been doing with myself? Um discovering the joys and frustrations of webcamming with my sister and nieces. Watching the premieres for Heroes and The Office and taking lots of pictures! For my newest project I'm taking photos of all the cool old churches I can find in Salt Lake City. There are a lot of them, but it's so fun to discover them.

Oh also I went target shooting for the first time in my life. My roommate and her friend and I went out to the west desert and shot shotguns, rifles and pistols. I kind of felt a little redneck, but it's not like I was going out to the dump to shoot rats or something right? Anyway, along the way we went to Horseshoe springs and the water looked so nice we just jumped in fully clothed! Also we went to the ghost town of Iosepha. This place like an hour from SLC where the polynesian immigrants to Utah settled. All that is left now is a monument and a graveyard. Ok that is all for now. Over and out.

Summer Days Drifting Away...

So school starts tomorrow-blah! Where oh where has my carefree summer gone? It was a nice low key summer. I'm not really ready for deadlines and commitments, but oh well. Let's go ahead and do a recap of the summer-so if anyone asks, “what in the world did you spend you're time on” I'll have something to say. p.s. This is a work in progress.

Highlights:

Playing with my nieces

Visiting the Cotswolds and wandering through fields of Lavendar

All of the things I did for the first time this summer

Firsts:

Went to the San Rafael Swell.

Visited Northern Ireland

Drove in England on the wrong side of the road

Toured the Salt Lake Cemetery


Went to a play at the Cedar City Shakespearean Festival

Hit golf balls at the driving range

Swam in the Great Salt Lake

Went boating and swam in the Utah Lake

Became a Relief Society teacher

Festivals Visited:
Art City Days

Swedish Festival

Books read (ok not exactly classics, but very fun):
The Thursday Next Series: The Eyre Affair; Lost in a Good Book;
Well of Lost Plots; Something Rotten

Twilight

Reunions with friends I hadn’t seen for at least a year:
College friends Leslye, Andrew, Lia, and Jenn

Aunt Cherry and Uncle Dave

Holly, friend from Boston

Jackie, just back from her mission

Heather, Heather and Christy, friends from high school:

How I made money this summer:

Worked part-time at the University Library

How I whiled away my time:

Facebook, Email, Blogging

Taking thousands of photos

Playing the piano (mostly songs from the Jane Austen movies soundtracks)

Talking to my roommates

Sitting in my Party Pool

Watching the Olympics

Ward activities

Eating out

Working on Genealogy

New Friends made:

Lindsey, Emily, Holly, Jessi, Cristi

England, it's like a whole other country

Ang and Baby on Beacon Hill

I'm back! I just returned from visiting my sister in England and every time I go I learn new things about the way the Brits live over there. Sometimes I forget and think they are just like Americans, since no other country is probably more like us aside from Canada, but the truth is just because they speak English or at least a dialect of English, doesn't mean they do things the same way. And there will always be an endless debate as to who does and says things the "right" way.

Obviously we know they drive on the "wrong" or left side of the road. Last week I got to drive in England for the first time ever and I felt just like a teenager learning to drive for the first time. Not only do they drive on the left, the steering wheel is on the right side of the car and shift with your left hand (good for lefties, a little more difficult for the rest of us). I think I scared her because I kept hugging the curb (kerb in Englandese) and she thought I was going to hit it, but I thought it was better than hitting oncoming traffic. And the roads are so terribly narrow over there it just adds to the difficulty. But once I got the hang of driving, it was exhilarating. Although I don't think I went of 40 miles an hour.

So what else is different? Well they speak a different dialect than americans altogether, it's usually understandable, but sometimes you get a word throw in there that you don't know. Here's a little list of English to English translations.

the boot -trunk of a car

nappy- diaper

to let- for rent (like an apt)

for hire- to rent ( like a car or video)

on holiday- on vacation

torch- flashlight

footpath- sidewalk

chips- fat french fries with fish

crisps- potato chips

biscuits/digestives- cookies

rubbish bin- trash can

toilet- restroom (to an American this is a bit too descriptive, we like euphemisms like restroom or bathroom, but they just say it like it is 'which way to the toilet?')

aubergine-eggplant

to chuck something- to throw it away

lie in -sleep in

trousers-pants

girls underwear- knickers

pudding-any kind of dessert

Anyway, the list could go on and on. They also use different phrases than us. Instead of answering a question like 'Did you go to the store?' with 'I did' they would say, 'I did do.' In the region I was in they also say 'Hiya' a lot instead of just 'Hi'. They also spell things differently, besides little differences like colour and centre, they also have gaol (jail). My sister and her husband have pretty much adopted most of these saying and my little 3 year old niece pretty much has a Bristish accent.

Haha-the English way to say raised pedestrian crossing

And some things over there truly just aren't as good as American thing, take for instance plumbing. There sinks have two faucets, one for hot and one for cold. You can see how this could make it hard for washing your hands, face, contacts, etc. Also the service in restaurants and other places is not as good as in the states. Oh and everything costs twice as much for an American since the dollar to pound rate is two to one. Yikes.

But what do they do better? For one thing Chocolate. Hands down I like Cadbury's chocolate better than any other chocolate anywhere. On my last visit I got to go to Cadbury's World! Ah delicious. Also public transportation is really good and they are better at being environmentally friendly. They've also got the beautiful quaint little village thing down.

Mostly the things I miss when I'm away from England are foods-Yorkshire pudding (it's like a savory puff pastry covered in gravy, so so good), Sticky toffee pudding (this is actualy a sweet cake with dates and caramel in cake served with cream, very rich), Hob Nobs (chocolate covered digestive cookies), new potatoes, parsnips and scones. yes you can get some of these things over here, but they are just better there.

All in all it's fun to visit my ancestral land and I love finding the little differences, it's refreshing really. So although technically it is a different country it's really kind of like a second home.

Fare thee well...

For those of you that don't know, I depart for Dublin tomorrow morning! That's Dublin, Ireland, I'm jumping the pond and then hopping over to England to stay with my Sister and family. It should be fun, we have lots of plans. We are going to have a Red Neck 4th of July BBQ and we are going to photograph her tiny village in England and then we are all flying back to Dublin right before I leave and driving around Ireland for four days.



I'm excited to see my nieces, I'm excited to see the Northern half of Ireland this time ( I went in '03) and I'm excited to get away for a vacation for a little while. Not that my summer has been too taxing or anything, but sometimes it's just nice to have a change of scenery. So wish me luck, the only thing I'm not looking forward to is 24 hours of traveling tomorrow, yuck. I hate airports and planes. But I guess they are necessary evils. To entertain me I have bought the 2nd in the Twilight series and the second in the Thursday Next series.



If you haven't heard of Thursday Next she's a character in a series of books by Jasper Fforde. There are really charming and fun, not like really any genre you've read-almost sci fi/fantasy/ mystery but not, with a little romance and a lot of humor and literary illusions thrown in. The first in the series is The Eyre Affair.

Ok so that's what's going on with my life lately. So I may not be blogging much, we'll see. Ciao!

Getting Back to My Roots

I am 1/4 Swedish, I am more Swedish than I am any other nationality and I'm very proud of it. So this Saturday I participated in a holiday of my forefathers and foremothers-Midsummers. Midsummers is a celebration held at the Summer solstice, the longest day of the year. There is music and dancing and food. You wear flowers in your hair and there is also a Midsummers' pole which you dance around. I was never raised with any Swedish traditions so it was fun to go to this festival and learn something about my heritage and feel at least a little Swedish. Here are some pics.

There were a lot of darling little girls dressed up in Swedish garb with floral wreaths, so sweet.

.

I made this flower wreath myself with Birch twigs and Scabiosa, Valerian and Coreopsis Flowers.

I Want Answers

So today I discovered a really fun place on the internet. A place to go to get answers to just about any topic you can think of. I wanted to know what kind of food my sister in England and I could serve at her 4th of July party that was really really American, so I asked the millions of people online and in minutes I got many answers, ranging from apple pie to 3 Musketeers to fried okra. So what is this site called? It's simply Yahoo! answers (http://answers.yahoo.com). If you already have a yahoo account you're set, if not it's free to sign up.

Then I started to answer questions. It's fun and what a great idea to share knowledge. I mean two heads are better than one and millions are better than one too! It's really fun so give it a try, whatever you wanted to know the world is your oyster!

The Big Parade

Saturday was the big parade in my Hometown and it made me feel a little nostalgic for my childhood. I took my camera and tried to capture some of the fun, hope you can feel that same excitement as you look at the pictures. The kids were also loving all the candy people were throwing from the floats.

A Walk a day...

Poppy Buds

So lately I've taken to going on walks in the evening. I guess it's my form of exercise since I sometimes (ok a lot of the time) have a hard time making myself go to the gym. But I really love these walks. I live in a beautiful area of Salt Lake that was built up in the teens, twenties and thirties and most of the homes have a lot of charm-think Tudor cottages and California bungalows. But even better than that are the lovely yards they have. Around here people have really caught on to the idea of xeriscaping with native and waterwise plants, so instead of front yards with boring mowed lawns they have heaping mounds of delightful perennials like penstemons and yarrow and red hot pokers scattered about! I like to try to identify all the plants I see while I'm walking. There are so many things in bloom this time of year.

Love this House, Isn't a red door inviting?

Variegated Iris, Sage, Yucca, thyme? and something else

Sometimes I'll take my camera along with me just in case I run into something really divine. Also depending on when I'm walking I get a great view of the sunset through the trees. Tonight was a really beautiful one, mainly pink with golds and purples. You also don't realize how much wildlife there is in these suburbs-birds galore and also their nemeses, cats, who love to loll on their driveways at dusk. I saw this one cat tonight, the fattest black and white cat I had ever seen. It waddled up the driveway and let me pet it for awhile.

I try not to think about any of my problems as I walk, but to just enjoy life and summer and nature in whatever form I can find it. Ahh...

That's Just Swell

I'm going to let you in on a little secret I discovered this weekend. The San Rafeal Swell in central Utah is a dazzling place with breathtaking scenery rivaling both Arches and Zions National Parks! I had heard of the swell a few times before, but had never been there or known what it was like, until my new roommate Megan and I decided to go exploring. We drove down on Friday morning and proceeded to get lost on a few roads in the Swell, not really knowing exactly where we were, but really enjoying the scenery.

We made camp next to Muddy Creek and stayed the night. Megan provided the camping gear and I provided the transportation-a white mini van (not exactly a All Terrain Vehicle, but more than sturdy enough to make it through the swell). Now many of you know I'm not a big camper, but I might start changing my mind. It's refreshing to take a break from the world and just go to somewhere really remote and forget about everything. And seeing the millions of stars so clearly at night against the black sky was a really good perk.

The next morning after a breakfast of bacon and pancakes we found our way out of the swell and onto I-70, taking many photos along the way. At this point we were out of gas and had to partially fill up in Emery a very tiny town on the outskirts of the swell and pay $4.20 a gallon for unleaded!!! After going through a few small towns and stopping for lunch at Sherald's Burger Bar in Price, we made our way back to Salt Lake. It was a capital adventure! Megan told me that "an adventure is just an expedition that is poorly planned." Maybe that is true, we could have planned a few things better, but we had a wonderful time regardless. Now here are some pictures.

Megan contemplates the meaning of life in a rusted out truck

The Old "Lucky Strike" uranium mine (ps I now glow in the dark)


Family Butte

Hondu Arch and company

Festival Time

In two short days it will be June, my favorite month of the year. It's not my favorite just because the weather is lovely or because so many things are flowering. I also love it because it's Festival time. All kinds of festivals are going on around Utah and I plan to go to many of them. Here's a list of what I want to go to this June.

Art City Days-June 7-14th! This is Springville's time to shine. There is a carnival and other activities, including a hot air balloon festival and a Children's Art Festival (June 13th) at the Museum, leading up to the "big" parade on Sat the 14th. As kids we'd always sit in front of the Museum and watch the parade go by. We made sure to always sit in the front row so we could catch any candy that people would throw from the floats passing by. It was great!

http://www.springville.org/calendarevents/events/artcitydays/

Utah Scottish Festival and Highland Games-also June 13-14th at Thanksgiving Point. Ah there is nothing like a man in a kilt. I've never been to this festival before so I can't wait to see what it is going to be all about. Plus I am partly Scottish so that should bump up my enjoyment of the activities as well

Ok this photo was mostly for my benefit, isn't Gerald Butler dreamy?

Swedish Midsummer's Festival-June 21st at the International Peace Park 1060 S. 900 W. in Salt Lake. This is a celebration of the Summer Solstice. You put flowers in your hair and dance around a maypole, correction midsummer's pole, and then gorge yourself on a Swedish smorgåsbord. It's delightful.

Picture pages

So I realized this weekend that I dare not call myself a "photographer." Although I do love to take photos and do it quite regularly, I just don't have the right equipment or technical skill to call myself a photographer. At the end of last year I did have one of my photos published in a calendar that was printed and distributed by the University, so I was beginning to think maybe I was some sort of photographer, but now I think I was letting it go to my head.

This weekend my friend invited me to the Salt Lake Photo Safari. Sounds cool no? We didn't really know what it was, but once we got there I realized I was way out of my league. Everyone had really nice big cameras with telephoto lens and tripods, etc. and I had my little dinky point-n-shoot digital camera. We didn't end of staying very long needless to say. It was all a bit over our heads. I also was a bridesmaid this weekend for my now former roommate and she had a photographer there all day as well and I asked him a little about photography and began to realize that to get "good" would take many hundreds of dollars and a lot of time.

So until I get more money and a good teacher, I will have to be content with my my little Panasonic digital and rely on my own ingenuity to take good pictures. What I love to take photos of are nature/plants and architecture, especially interesting textures and shapes. So without further adieu here are some selected photos from this week by a wanna be:

And here is the winning picture that I talked about before. It was taken in Buesa, Spain.

Could a rose by any other name...

If you know me well, you know I love names. I know the names of a lot of plants and a lot of artists. There is not much I love more than walking through a garden or a museum and knowing the name of everything I see. I don't know why I have that passion but I do. What I also find fascinating is how people name their children. What I like to look at most are the trends and see what they say about society and people. Yesterday the U.S. Social Security organization released the top 1000 names of 2007. Good reading!

So go to http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/babynames/. There is a wealth of information on this site, including tops names of every decade back to 1880 and you can trace the popularity of a name back 100 years! For example, my name has been in the top 1000 since 1945 and reached its pinnacle in in 1986 at 13th most popular name of the year. It's popularity has been falling ever since but it still holds strong at 146th in 2007.

But back to the top names of 2007- Emily, Isabella, Emma, Ava and Madison top the list for girls and Jacob, Michael, Ethan, Joshua and Daniel top the list for boys. So what does this mean to America. Well I think it shows that for the majority of people they want girls to be girls and boys to be boys. All the top girl names are very feminine and all the top boys names are decidedly male. Transgender names like Taylor and Jordan are dropping in popularity. And some names are duking it out for rights to be either male or female, like the name Jayden is now most decidely male now although some still girls have it. I think it shows that most people want a return to traditional values. Emily and Jacob ae both very old, very traditional names. Jacob, Daniel, Joshua are also all biblical, as is Hannah (no. 9 for girls) and Elizabeth (no. 10).

People are getting very creative as well though, especially with spelling. The name Jayden has at least five spelling variations and the name Caitlyn has at least 8 variations. Also different, rare names are becoming popular like Nevaeh (heaven spelled backwards) is no. 31 and Serenity is no. 126. Esmeralda is at no. 194, before Kendra or Chelsea. As for Boys they are quite a bit more conservative. From the top 100 you can also see that there is a large Hispanic population in the U.S. The traditional hispanic names: Angel, Jose, Diego, Luis, Juan, Xavier, Carlos, Jesus, Miguel and Antonio are all in the top 100 for boys names.

Anyway, it's all very fascinating so take a look at look up your own name. Maybe you will be suprised.

To Blog or not to Blog...

So one of my favorite new activities is blog surfing. At least that is what I am calling it. At the top of every Blogger blog on the left side is a link that says Next Blog. I just click that and it takes me to a random blog that was just updated in cyberspace. I have found a vast array of blogs ranging from family blogs to art and photography blogs to business blogs to very strange and undescribable blogs. It's so interesting. And there is a suprising number of LDS blogs out there as well, I mean considering how few mormons there are in the world-they like their blogging. So what I think I'm going to start doing is adding a link to a blog of the week that I've "discovered" blog surfing, so you can enjoy them too.

So why do I like looking at strangers blogs? I don't know- I just find people fascinating. Like C.S. Lewis, the most quoted non-Mormon general authority, said, "We read to know we're not alone." I think that is true. We also blog to know we aren't alone. We write in hopes of people reading our blogs and responding to them. It's human nature. And what did people do before blogs? Well of course there have been books for a long time, but for the less educated it started with cave wall painting, then grafitti and then writing on bathroom stalls, a legacy that continues today. Oh I've read a lot of interesting (and suprisingly mostly non -perverted) stuff on the stalls in the Marriott Library. Stall 3 is like a 3D blog with people making comments about other people's "posts".

So to wrap this up, I've really enjoyed my blog and the feedback I've gotten from it. I'm most definitely not alone!

Resolved

Forget New Year's resolutions, I never keep them and I've stopped making them, what it's really all about is Spring and Summer resolutions! I mean who has the drive during the long and dreary winter to keep a cumbersome list of goals, ah, but with the Spring comes a renewing that just makes you want to start afresh. Plus there are more sunlight hours during the day to accomplish what you want to do and school is out (at least for me). So I am now ready to make a list of goals that I might actually be able to keep or at least plan a few good projects to do. So without further ado here is my list in no particular order:

tend my garden

organize my room and make it look "pretty"

go on a road trip

get to the gym a few times a week

work on my genealogy/do some temple work

lose a few pounds
do some volunteer work
get a facial

stop eating so much sugar (except gelato)

improve the appearance of my blog

work on my photography skills-maybe take a class

do my visiting teaching regularly

read a literary classic or some non-school related book-maybe Twilight ;)

edit my photos and organize them

practice my Italian!

Hmm, maybe this list is too long, but some of these things are related so it really shouldn't be all that daunting right? Well as they say shoot for the stars and mabe you'll hit the moon.

My Life in Six Words or Less

So I've been tagged and invited to write a six-word memoir, which is funny since just a few weeks earlier I had been reading my roommates book, Not Quite what I was planning: Six Word Memoirs by the famous and obscure. It's quite the interesting read. People were asked to sum up all or part of the life or I guess the essence of it in six words. That's a pretty hard feat. Below are some of my attempts. Let me know which one you think epitomizes me and feel free to share your own six word bio, I'd love to hear it.

calm on surface, paddling furiously below

well I really had good intentions

found joy in the smallest flower

indiana jones stuck in librarian's body

One Woman's trash...

So I pretty much believe there are two kinds of people in this world-Savers and Thrower-awayers. I myself am a saver, like my dad, and my mom likes to throw things away. This has caused no ends of quarrels, but I can't throw away perfectly good things just because I don't have a lot of space for them. First of all what if I need them again? Second I hate the idea of being wasteful and third a lot of these things I have are my history. Letters, ticket stubs, my old clothes and toys from when I was a kid-this is my past, my life. Somehow along the way my old barbie got tossed and I so regret that!

I also am a partaker of things other people are going to jettison, mostly books and furniture, (I just can't stand the idea of perfectly good things in a landfill! And some people do discard the most wonderful things). As you may have guessed I like yard sales, but what I really like are signs that read FREE on old furniture that people set out on the curb. I picked up a great big bookself this winter (good thing I drive a minivan)! My roommate is a bit of a bargain finder as well. Yesterday she found a really cool solid wood mission-style table on someone's curb-for free. Well she snatched that up in a jiffy and now it looks really cool in our house.

I read this article quite a few months ago in the New York Times about a group of people in New York that live entirely on garbage-I mean they eat things people throw away, like dumpster diving! and furnish their homes and their bodies with perfectly good things that people can't be bothered with anymore (there is even a term for this stuff-Mongo). And these aren't like homeless types, these are people with real jobs and such that have dedicated themselves to not consuming so much. Amazing. I of course could never live out of the trash, but it's an interesting idea.

If I do actually have to throw something out-like real garbage I always try to recycle as much as I can. As a kid I would recycle pop cans and newspaper (because that is pretty much the only recycling you could do in Utah County), but now I'm in Salt Lake I can recycle almost everything. It's lovely. I've decided to get evenmore earth friendly and now I recycle cups and plastic things that I get when I eat out. I just scrape them off and then put them in the recycling when I get home. I know it sounds a bit fanatic, but it is not hard and makes my conscience feel oh so much better. Along with recycling more, I try to use less, my mantra is Reuse, Reduce, Recycle! I hardly ever buy water bottles. I either opt for a drinking fountain or reuse a water bottle. I'm also going to start taking my own bag grocery shopping instead of getting plastic sacks and I try to buy things in larger packages instead of getting lots of small packages.
Well I'm not as Eco-friendly as I want to be yet, but it's a start.

I think this saver/collector personality of mine has extended into all areas of my life. Most of my jobs have revolved around collections of some sort-Herbaria, Libraries and Museums. I even love dictionaries which are really just collections of words.

Well here is to are the savers/collectors/historians/recyclers/scavengers of the world-I salute you!

In Bloom

There are so many things in bloom right now, it's lovely to take a walk around the neighborhood. Here's what's in bloom in my neighborhood right now:

Trees:
Cherry, Plum, Pear and Apricot trees-Cherries usually have white to pink blossoms with smooth bark (also all of the "weeping" trees are cherries), Plum have purplish pink blooms with dark gray bark and Apricots have white flowers with light gray courser bark, Pears have white blossoms.

Maples-Large trees that look like they are getting light green leaves, these are actually green flowers.

Magnolias-Big white or Pink flowers













(Forsythia)

Shrubs:

Phlox-a little shrub with mounds of very light purple flowers.

Forsythias-Large bush with bright yellow flowers

Flowering Quince-Dark pink bloosoms and spiny branches

(Tulips and Grape Hyanciths)
Bulbs:

Tulips-yellows, reds, pinks and whites.

Daffodils-yellow bulb flowers

Grape Hyanciths-little dark purple clusters of flowers.

Regular Hyanciths-clusters of pink, purple or white flowers

Scillia (Spring Squills)-low growing light purple bulb flowers
(Scillia)















Herbaceous Plants:

Rock Cress-little mounds of purple flowers with four petals each.

Violets-low growing purple flowers

(Tulips and Rock Cress)

My Faves

So I've been living in Salt Lake for almost two years now! That is crazy to me, I never thought I would live here, but it's close enough to home without being too close to home. Since living here I've discovered some fun places, so here is a list of my favorite shops in SLC.

Granato's and Dolcetti Gelati

Amazingly Salt Lake has a great little Italian community and I can't get enough of the food. Granato's has a great deli and delcious foccacia. There are four locations but the one I go to is in Holladay at 4044 South 2700 East.

Dolcetti Gelato is a bit closer to my house and I go there a bit more often, ok a lot. Their gelatos and sorbettos are the bomb and have less fat than ice cream, no joke! Go there 1751 S. 1100 E. http://markenglandart.com/dolcettigelato/index.htm

After you enjoy your Gelato head a few block down to Abode, a funky little consignment shop. Cuter than a thrift store but cheaper than an antique store. 1720 S. 900 E. http://abodepfm.com/index.cfm

Ten Thousand Villages is a fascinating little gift shop with fair trade gifts from all over the world. Shop and feel good about it.

Cactus and Tropicals-2735 S. 2000 E. It has plants of course I love it, but it just doesn't have plants it has plants with pizazz. Buy anything from Geraniums to Orchids.

And for Breakfast try Eggs in the City 1300 S. 1700 E. The blintzes are great! or go to Scandia Kaffe House 1693 S. 900 E.-Delicious pastries and food from my homeland!

Books, Allergies and Plants

So It's getting to the end of the semester and I am way stressed out! Ah school, why do we do this to ourselves. I swear sometimes I think it is the least efficient way to learn. Anyway, so in this time of upheaval I'm looking to cut things out of my day. So I considered not going to my office today because I have loads of schoolwork and I just had to get to the store to buy allergy medicine (I had been sneezing and sniffling all day). But then I decided maybe I should go just in case a student shows up (although no one has yet this semester).

So I got off the elevator on my floor and I saw this handwritten sign "Free books this way". I pretty much never turn down a chance to get free books so I followed the signs to some professor's office and there was a full glorious wall of beautiful books, mostly novels and plays, etc, all for the taking! So 20 minutes later I had a good-sized box of Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Dante, Milton, Eliot and the like. And what else did I find Henry Sweets grammar and reader of Anglo-Saxon! Joy! I shrieked when I found it. I guess you really have to be a linguistics nerd to appreciate it, but I just so happened to be writing a paper on Henry Sweet so it was perfect! So the moral of the story I is if you do what you're supposed to good things happen! Well at least today they did. Now I've just got to find a place for all these books.

Oh so I've also decided to start giving "how to" blog posts just to mix it up a little and also to share my vast knowledge with my readers. So my first topic is something I actually know something about-plants!

How to Kill your Houseplants

1. Give them too much water- yes, that’s right a plant can have too much water.
Some plants don’t need to be watered everyday, especially when they aren’t in full sun. If mildew or mold is growing on the top of the soil you are definitely watering too much.

What to do- check the soil, does it look dry and light colored? Pick up the pot, is it light? If so, then it’s probably time to water. Your indoor plants may only need to be watered once a week or less.

2. Treat them all the same- Each kind of plant has different needs, a cactus and a fern are totally different kinds of plants, one likes more sun and drier soil than the other. One is native to the swamp, one to the desert.

What to do- look up what climate your plant is native to and how much light, water, temperature and humidity it likes and what kind of soil it needs.

3. Sit your houseplants outside in the sun when summer comes along-your plants were doing fine in your house all winter long, they don’t need full sun like your outdoor plants do. They like a little shade, that is why they are indoor plants.

4. Leave for two weeks with no one to watch your plants-Think of your plants like pets, they are living things just like your puppy and need a little TLC.

What to do- If you have a tendency to forget about them pick a time and day when you will check them, make it a habit, mark it on your calendar, put it into your palm (no pun intended)-your plants will thank you (in their own plant way that is).

*If you have a half-dead plant now, you may still be able to save it. Just remove the dead leaves and stems then water it regularly, make sure it has some light too.

5. Water them just a little bit each day-This may work for a few plants, but not most.

What to do- water your plant, when needed, (with lukewarm, not cold water) until some water comes out the bottom of the pot (oh about 10% of what you’ve put in). This way you know water will reach all the roots and toxic salts that can build up in the soil will be flushed out. Also it’s better to water in the morning than at night. Night watering can lead to rot.

6. Never repot them-when a plant has been in a pot too long, it may become rootbound. This means there are too many roots in too little space (the root/soil ratio is off) and the roots start to circle around the bottom of the pot and come out the bottom. You may also be noticing that you have to water your plant a lot. This is because there is too little soil to hold much water.

What to do- find a pot of the same material and just one size larger than your current pot (remember root/soil ratio). Make sure there is a drainage hole(s) at the bottom. You may place gravel or a some pebbles at the bottom to help drainage. Fill the pot part way with soil, place you extricated plant in the pot and fill the sides and just a little of top with soil, then water in. Be sure to leave some space between the rim of the pot and the soil line.

7. Let them sit in water-Again with the drowning issue. Make sure you dump the excess water in the catch plate under the pot.

8. Don’t give them light-when a plant doesn’t get enough light it becomes leggy. This means its stems and leaves become stretched and can’t support themselves, usually falling over.

What to do- If plants become leggy move them to a sunnier location, also remember to rotate your pots, so one side of the plant is not always facing the light.

*plants that get too much light may have dry, brown leaf edges.

California dreamin' on a Winter's Day

I'm snowed in! I should be in class right now. But I'm here in Springville and just don't feel like braving the snow on the freeway up to Salt Lake. So not feeling like grading papers and with the satellite not working because of the snow, what is there to do but blog! And I'm way over due for a post anyway.

So lately I've been thinking about dreams. Not the kind at night, but the things you've always wanted to do and not the big ambitious life goals either, but the little dreams that you'd love to accomplish one day. One of my little dreams has been to own a Volkswagen Bug! Can't you just see me tooling around town in a little Beetle car maybe a convertible with the roof down? I don't know what the fascination is, maybe it is my hippie side coming out or maybe they just make me nostalgic for the past. I remember watching Gidget reruns on television when I was young and I'm pretty sure Gidget had a Bug that she would take down to the beach. So maybe I equate Bugs with youth, summer, the beach and freedom. Pretty good connotations.
Every once and a while I will see a bug for sale and I will long to buy it or at least test drive it. In the last few weeks I've noticed that a neighbor has had a dark blue bug for sale. And I've been itchin' to find out the price and maybe test drive it. On Friday I finally called and asked about the car-a 1973 VW Bug with a new engine for $5000! Well I don't really have that much money, but I thought there was no harm in test driving it just to see if it was a steal and I had to have it. So on Saturday I walked over and they gave me the keys and let me take it for a spin(now that is trust!).

So here I am in this little car trying to drive it up and down the hills of Salt Lake. First of all it had a very old stick shift (now keep in mind I haven't driven a stick in awhile) and I couldn't even get it into 3rd gear! Also the speedometer didn't work and neither did the blinkers and neither did the seatbelt. So here I was sticking my arm out the window everytime I had to turn and trying to remember from driver's ed how to sign a left turn and how to sign a right turn. It was probably an interesting sight. Oh and I also accidentally killed the engine at a stop sign and it took me forever to get it started again! Ok so not exactly a dream machine, but I probably looked really cool driving it around (except for maybe the occasional looks of panic on my face). I guess I'm not going to get this car, I don't think I have the mechanic skills to maintain it, but the dream lives on for the perfect Bug and one day, one day I will buy one.

But I have other dreams too, here is the short list:

to be a drummer for a band (I think I'd be really good at drumming, I just need a drum set and a teacher!)
to play the harmonica
to live in a village in Italy and maybe own a little villa
to learn Italian well
to have my very own garden
to be a great dancer