The Trip to Utah

This is a panorama of the view from my big Sisters house. Ogden Utah is on the side of the mountain. Don't let the picture fool you, these are big mountains. Ogden's elevation is 4,617' (1,332m). It is a good sized city. As of the year 2000, the population was 77,226. I love to visit Ogden, it is where I grew up and I still have lots of family there. I don't however, like winter. These are the same mountains that hosted the Winter Olympics a few years ago. Brrrrr!

I didn't really go to play tourist, I went to see my family. I enjoyed every minute of it.

A couple of decades ago, my Mom came to visit us in Great Brittain. We had a butterfly bush in our yard and she was quite impressed with it. I took her to the garden center in our little village and she bought a pack of seeds. She took them home to Utah and planted them in her back yard. This is a close up of the blossoms. The butterfly's really do love it, and by the way, this bush is at least 10 feet tall now. My Mom is no longer with us, but the man who owns her house and garden now is taking good care of it. He makes tents and camping supplies. See his stuff at http://www.titaniumgoat.com/ More later.
Dinner is ready.

Vacation

I am enjoying my family too much to write about it at the moment. I will be home next week, see you then. (Probably Monday)
Kat

If you go to Charleston SC...

Hubby and I went to Charleston SC this weekend. As usual it was great. It is hot and humid in August. The temp was 95 F. That with the humidity is a whole lot hotter than 95 F in New Mexico. However; once you get downtown in the historic district, the ocean breeze improves matters considerably. So dress cool and casual. Put on your comfy shoes and lets go.

Parking is free on Sunday, but not Saturday. You can find some free spots on the battery and occasionally near the Aquarium (Just off East Bay). We got one of the rare spots by the Aquarium.

Shortly after we left the car, we saw a pelican soaring over head. WOW! How can something so silly looking on the ground be so graceful in the air? Of course he was way too fast for me. Sorry no photo.

From there we walked down towards the market. I have heard it referred to as the "Slave market" but slaves were never sold there. In the bad old days, slaves would man the booths. If I understand it

correctly, some slaves lived on their own and were allowed to trade or sell their own products in return for a share of the profit.

We stopped at several shops along Market. They were all doing a brisk business and many were particularly generous with their samples. We feasted on bites of spiced pecans and pralines from a number of places. Pralines are a lovely confection made by cooking brown sugar, butter, and milk together and using the result as a candy coating for pecans. My hubby makes the best of course, but of those that are commercially available in Charleston, "River Street Sweets" are unsurpassed. We also tried Gelato for the first time and bought a large Tiramisu flavored gelato to share.

Another unique treat, I tasted "Key Lime Fudge" (River Street Sweets) I know, it just sounds odd. It was really good.

From the market area, we walked along King Street for the antique shops. The fountain picture is a courtyard that is part of one of them. The area around the fountain is as peaceful and cool as it looks. There are not as many antique shops as there used to be, but there are enough to provide a great afternoon or two of happy hunting.

My favorite jewelry store, "Dixie Dunbar's Studio"

(http://www.dixiedunbarstudio.com/jewelry.asp )is also along King Street. Her designs are always unique and and to me, feel like summer. I saw two different turquoise necklaces that I really liked. This perfect piece of coral was the best thing in the store. I always come out of there inspired.

Sunday morning we had a long leisurely breakfast at our hotel. (Not as nice as Sunday morning at home, but then, I am spoiled rotten) After breakfast we attended our old Unitarian Universalist Church. We were not the only ones who felt the need to be with other Unitarians, the seats were full. Summer services are usually not that well attended.

The service was centered on music. (Uh-oh, there she goes again,). One thing that sticks in my mind is the idea of finding, or identifying a theme song for your life. Mine would definitely be "You can't always get what you want" by The Rolling Stones.

After the service,

Hubby and I tool our walk along the battery. Lovely views of the water on one side, amazing mansions on the other. I could not capture the clean, salty smell of the water, or the sound of the sea, but I took lots of photos. What a wonderful
weekend!

On the way back home in the car, we listened to "The Bridge" FM 105.5 as long as we could get a signal then "Infamous Angel" A CD by Iris DeMint.

What is your theme song?

Have a great week, Kat

What a beautiful day

This first photo is just goes to show that Mother Nature will win. If you look closely you can see that all this new growth is on a tall stump that the loggers left behind in the spring. I love it, it gives me hope every time I look at it. I know it is silly but it gives me hope for the whole world.




Yesterday was wonderful. I finished my last test for the semester in the morning (I get a little more than a month off school now) then my sweet Hubby took me out for lunch at a new British Restaurant in town. It was great. The decoration is
just right. It really felt like a British Pub. We will go back. I, of
course took several photos. Guess I will have to do a scrapbook
page on that too.

When we went for our walk, the sky was overcast and there was a lovely breeze. The temp was perfect and the bugs mostly left us alone.

This beautiful creature came to visit the other day. I took the first photo through the screen door, just in case. Then with the aid of my Hubby (he held the door quietly) I managed to sneak out on to the porch and get more photos with the built in
telephoto. This little camera of mine is amazing. These photos
were taken from quite a ways away. I see deer often on the way
to and from work.

I love them. I also acknowledge the fact that they need to be hunted. They are very prolific here and the climate is good to them. If the hunters don't take some for food, there will not be enough natural forage for them. My heart hurts to think of shooting them harm, but starving slowly to death isn't nice
either. Thank goodness I don't have to be the one with the gun.
I prefer to do my shooting with the camera, what do you think?

My Hubby is preparing to repaint the railings. This little guy came by to visit. I got the first photo, then I startled him. I waited a minute and when he peaked over the side, he was so cute I couldn't resist.

Breakfast is almost ready, the berries were lovely and my sweet Husband seems to think I am not spoiled enough already. So this is what I am looking forward to.

The last photo, is called Spontaneous relaxation. Spontaneous is this sweet kitty's name and she is better at relaxing than anyone else I have ever met. Have a great week.

Sound Track

This lovely old Elm tree stands just outside my back door. It wears a necklace of poison ivy. Since there are no small children here and the rest of us have enough sense not to touch it, we leave her decoration to Mother Nature. I am not sure what niche in the ecology is filled by Poison Ivy, but it is beautiful. Just looking at this picture makes me think of the old lullaby, "Rock a bye baby".

I enjoy a wide variety of music and my life certainly has it's own soundtrack. If I don't wake up in the morning with a song in my head, I usually have one before I finish breakfast. Don't get me wrong, I don't spend my days spontaneously bursting in to song like an old Doris Day movie. (Although I do enjoy watching old musicals, Doris Day, Bing Crosby, Ginger Rogers & Fred Estair, Oklahoma) I rarely sing out loud. I just hear the music.

My Husband will sing out whenever he gets the
mood. He has a great sense of humor so he often

"warps" the songs just a little. The song "Let it snow", became "Let's go home", on a lovely winter day when he was working and wanted to go play.

When I listen to a lot of music, my overall mood improves. We are listening to a collection of Sea Shanties right now, (I think that is what they are called?) When we were putting primer up on the wall for "the project" we listened to a double CD of music from the old "Dr. Dimento" Show and Duran Duran's greatest hits. I currently have Loreena McKennet's "An Ancient Muse" in my pickup's CD player. I have music by Blackmore's Night, Dead

Can Dance, Steelye Span and The Beatles in the

pickup waiting to play. My Ipod is full of pod casts

from "Thistle Pod","Marc Gunn's Celtic Podcast" and other Folk music.

Are you starting to see a theme here? I will sing out in crowds. (but only when they are also singing) I like the sound of my voice blending with others. I am also quite capable of dancing to the music, anytime, anywhere, even if no one else can hear it.

What is on your soundtrack?

One day early

I am posting one day early as I am scheduled to work tomorrow. I don't usually work weekends but I don't mind. It is Saturday and we were surrounded by fog this morning. very atmospheric. The temperature was lovely too. I didn't even look at the thermometer. I took today's first photo from the steps to my back door. The building is an old summer kitchen.

We went for a short walk before breakfast. We had some mail that needed to go in the box. I took my camera and on the way back I got the pictures of the mushrooms and the choke cherries. I have no idea what kind of mushrooms those are but they are quite pretty with the dew drops.
The choke cherries are another matter entirely. I
remember picking and eating them up in what I
believe was Ogden Canyon as a child. I am originally
from Ogden Utah. We went choke cherry picking with some of my parent's friends and I remember Frankie telling me I was going to have a belly ache if I didn't start putting more in the bucket and less in me. I must have been about 5 at the time. I remember it was a pretty day and that I liked the fruit, but I don't remember if I ever got that belly ache.

I was thrilled when we discovered we had wild choke cherries here. That is until I discovered that they like to grow high up in the tree
and we can't reach them.....
Oh well, the birds are happy and when they are happy, they sing. We get a chorus almost all day long.

The screens on my front windows, well most of my windows, are old. I like the view from them
and how the screen shows as part of the pattern. It all adds up as part of why I love to live here. The other day this moth stopped by to visit and I of course, had my camera in reach. I initially wanted to
see how good of a close up I could get of the moth through the screen. When I looked through the lens, I saw this and decided it was what I wanted.
This old place charms me in a new way nearly every day. (Kind of like my husband. He has been charming me for more than half my life.)

The strawberry pancakes are another example of how much my husband spoils me. This was breakfast a few Sunday's ago. They taste even better than they look. I am quite lucky.
He is my love and my best friend. We have done a lot together and are planning on doing a lot more.
We both want to travel as much as possible before we get much older and we enjoy our home together. He is my biggest fan and always cheers me on. With that note, I think I will go see what he is up to. See you next week.