Operation Lawn

Day three:

The seeds are in.
Let's hope this works.

As of late....

my days consist of:

doing yard work. i didn't think i could ever enjoy it. but I do.
running. this is a first for me. i ran farther today than I ever have in my life!
eating on the steps.
staying up way too late.
riding my bike.
learning about flowers. the white and yellow flower opens in the sunshine and closes at night. it's so wise.
learning spring constellations.

it's great. life is good.




Gnomes at a late night second dam excursion. Very Scary.

simple pleasures

I have always been one to enjoy simple pleasures. Giving and receiving kind little notes can completely make my day. Cooking make me happy. Sunshine makes me feel alive. Having dear friends around makes life worth living.

There are only a couple of movies in life that I can watch over and over. One of them is Stranger than Fiction. Whenever I watch it I always feel good. I don't analyze why or think too hard about it but I know it leaves a "right" feeling inside. This morning I finished the end because I fell asleep watching it last night. Yet again it brought a little tear to my eye. A statement really stuck out to me, enough to make me write it down.

"We must remember [the simple pleasures] in life. The nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties which we assume only accessorize our days, in fact, are here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives."

If you have seen this movie you will understand how much this line ties the whole movie together. It's beautiful.

Sow a little seed

Saturday morning awakened all the Gnomes to spring. Juje and I had all day to kill so we spent the whole day out in the yard. We went crazy. We cleaned the garage, cleaned out the garden spaces, rota-tilled (well we watched as our gracious neighbor did), and planted our hearts out. When I told my 85 year old patient what I had planted in our garden he said in his wonderful southern accent "well the economy isn't gonna hurt you". It made me so happy to hear that. I'm gonna be living off the earth this summer and I can't wait.


If you can see in this picture, we have two green bean sprouts already. I am convinced they are a weed but Juje says they aren't. I hope So bad she is right.

One thing that makes me really happy is going into a home or a restaurant or a hospital and seeing a photo or painting of a place that I have been. It's been happening more are more often lately. I love it. When my sister was in the hospital there was a huge photo outside of her room of a place that I camped in the Wind Rivers in Wyoming. One of my patients had a picture of Havasu falls in Havasupai which I jumped off of last summer. And the most recent one was at Angies Diner. We always sit in the Nevada booth (its just a table shaped like Nevada) and I never sat facing the painting till the other day when we were there for breakfast. It was a painting of this super hidden paradise that we found in the Wind Rivers. It was my favorite place of our whole trip. Who would of thought that a diner in Logan Utah would have a painting of my very secret piece of heaven? Well here are the pics to prove it.

Babies!!!

Hayley and I stole so much fun at Baby Animal Days!! I love all kinds of animals but especially the babies. I couldn't help picking up a baby goat in the first petting area I could see but this overly emotional volunteer told me to put it down in her saddest voice. I almost didnt. Little kids were throwing real live tomahawks at logs, riding ponies, holding bunnies (the line was RIDICULOUSLY long for the bunnies! since when did bunnies get popular?), playing with snakes, going on sketchy wagon rides, sitting on the Easter Bunnys lap, going on treasure hunts, holding piglets, digging for jewels, shooting guns (well lets hope it was an adult but we kept hearing gunshots). It was little kid heaven. Well... Hayley and I were also in heaven. I guess we're still just kids.

Sistaz for life.

And happy to be.

Honey '09

I loved every second of this.

Especially the blurb added by our neighbor.

Oh what a day...

Yesterday was great. I have to document it for my records. I rode my bike to work which felt great. The gnomes took a lovely bike ride which included a hill that almost killed Juje and I, dragging main and a boisterous stop into Needham's where I met the owner of my dream house. Then Juje and I started cookin up a storm. The menu included the delicious game hens that I bought along with a full Thanksgiving dinner. It turned out perfect. Juje and I have quite a few things in common which made for great dinner conversation as well as an affinity for taking pictures of our food. The night ended with eggs. We had worked up such an appetite making them and Cody had cracked so many by accident that we decided to eat them. I had such a hard time cracking my gnome egg.

Oh... what a day.

While I was in St. George Janelle, Jessie and I went on a hike with my Grandparents. It was great! From the moment we got out of the car to the moment we got back in my Grandpa had his headphones on with his discman in his pocket. He sang the whole way, he was in his own beautiful world. It was wonderful.

Crazy fo Ketchikan

KETCHIKAN
*The largest city in southeastern Alaska
*Their economy is based on Fishing, Tourism and Logging
*Some of you may have seen Ketchikan in the Banff Film Festival this year showing the controvercy between the logging industry and the salmon
*Ketchikan is known as the Salmon capitol of the world
*The Misty Mountain Fjords National Park is one of the areas major attractions which is located 30 miles east of Ketchikan
*They have the highest assigned zip code in the U.S. 99950
*They have the largest collection of standing totem poles, 33 with only 17 visible to visitors
*Ketchikan is a popular cruise port
*Average rainfall 152"
*Highest tempurature in July is 65 degrees
*The wildlife in the area ranges from black and brown bears, mountain goats and bald eagles to whales, seals and sea otters

For those who don't know, Seinfeld is a staple in my life. I watch one episode every night before I go to bed and I have been doing so for three years. I can easily relate any life situation to a scene in Seinfeld. You can call me crazy. This scene is one that always makes me laugh. I love Frank Costanza. He is such a wonderful character.

Well, while I was at Walmart yesterday getting light bulbs and a vacuum with Juje, I came upon a Cornish Game Hen!!

Needless to say I had to buy it. If you've seen this episode you will understand why. If you haven't you better get on it. It's the episode called The Rye. It's a good one.

Can't wait to cook it up with a spoon full of stuffing and baby mound of mashed potatoes. And maybe even a marbled rye....

Need I say more

ALASKA






From now on I am going to be spotlighting an Alaskan City every week. Get excited. If your not excited then you must not like wonderful things.