Colorfuldayz

Northeast US Roadtrip, Days 4-5

Roses:

• Seeing my aunt Deb and uncle Ken after many, many years (25 years since I last saw her, 10 since I last saw him).
• Uncle Ken giving The Child the guitar that belonged to my grandfather, who died long before I was born.
• The Bargain Cave at Cabela’s.
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie Dough ice cream at Ice Cream World in Allentown, PA.
• Having a conversation in the bathroom at the Quakerwoods campground with a woman from Philadelphia that brings inner city kids camping every year.
• Pennsylvania Dutch art.
• Stained and cut glass windows in homes and churches.
• Cold, left-over KFC chicken.
• Warwick, New York – looks like it would be a fun place to hang out for a couple hours, with its compact, old, stone downtown.
• Wisteria hanging from planters on wide front porches.
• View crossing the Hudson River at the Bear Mountain Bridge.

Thorns:

• Psychotic dog episodes. Daphne freaks when it rains to such a degree that my mother has made a little hood to put over her head to help calm her. It makes her look like she is waiting for the hangman’s noose.
• Having to wrap up in a blanket in the backseat of the truck … my dad moved from up north because he hates the cold weather, and then he sets the air conditioner so cold that I turn blue.
• Scrappy, scruffy little New Jersey towns.
• Crappy New Jersey and New York roads.

Captured Moments:

Cabela's Display

 

PA Flower Field

 

NJ Home

 

NY Flowers

 

Overlooking the Hudson River

 

Croton Point

 

Working the Nintendo

See the Northeastern Road Trip album on the left sidebar for more pics from our travels.

Northeast US Roadtrip, Days 1-3

Roses:

• Discovering The Greek American Grill in Las Vegas. We will be going back (it is near the corner of Tropicana and Decatur, if you are wondering).
• Seeing my mom at the bottom of the escalator in the Pittsburgh airport. It has been too long.
• Pennsylvania is a very clean state … they must be using some of their outrageous property taxes to pay for litter pick-up.
• The way my skin feels in the more humid climate … soft and fresh!
• Waking to a foggy morning.
• Lush green-ness.
• Pumpernickel bagel from Bruegger’s (Mom and Dad buy them in Knoxville and freeze them).
• Rolling Pennsylvania hillsides.
• Turn-of-the-century architecture.
• Washington, Pennsylvania – Dad lived there 50 years ago. We also saw Dad’s high school (Trinity High School), and learned that Dad and the other local teens learned how to drive in the community cemetery (the irony makes me chuckle).
• Centerville, Pennsylvania – seeing Great Grandma Murray’s farm where I caught lightening bugs when I was 5, and almost ran my 50 cc Indian mini-bike into the front porch.
• Wildflowers, berries, and butterflies.
• Fort Necessity National Park.
• Perfect temperatures and light breezes.
• Dad’s chickensalad.
• 4^th of July flea market.
• Old farmhouses and barns.
• Amish buggies.
• Mennonite girls with braids and flowered dresses riding bikes.
• Carlisle, Pennsylvania – great little town. Reminds me of Old Town Alexandria, Virginia.

Thorns:

• The sound of road traffic first thing in the a.m.
• Frizz factor of the hair in the more humid climate.
• Overrun campgrounds for the 4^th of July weekend.
• Fireworks that freak out the dogs.
• Allentown, Pennsylvania, traffic.
• Mosquitoes.
• Ticks.

Captured Moments:

The Rig

Daphne

Heidi

Happy 4th of July

Wildflowers and Butterflies

Milk Jugs

and Toys at 4th of July Flea Market

Rolling Pennsylvania Hillsides

Peace from a Moving Car

The Doll on the Shelf

As I was going through old journals recently (my normal practice as I go into a new one) I ran across this entry I did a couple of years ago. I have a few wooden dolls that my dad bought for me when I was a toddler and we lived in Japan. These dolls have journeyed through life with me for 40 years. The day I wrote this I was sitting in our home in southern California, and the doll on the shelf caught my eye. I started thinking about the moments in my life that she has witnessed.

doll

head bowed

serene, refined, impassive

watching life flow by

voyeur

***

Standing serenly

Watching the joys and sorrows

Flow seamlessly by

***

She stands impassively

As my life flows by.

Joys and sorrows mixing seamlessly,

She never blinks an eye.

 

Northeast Road Trip

The Child and I are taking off today from the Las Vegas airport and meeting my parents in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. From there we will be spending three weeks in a camper winding our way through Pennsylvania to New York City, and then up the New England coast to Eastport, Maine. From there, we will head back west, then south through Vermont, upstate New York and back into Pittsburgh.

I can't even begin to express how excited we are, so I won't even try. The laptop will be along for the ride, so hopefully I will actually carry out my plan to blog from the road so that you can share a little of our trip with us!

• 4 sets of clothing
• 1 set of pj's
• 1 jacket
• 2 tour books
• 1 headlamp
• 5 books
• 1 journal
• pens & markers
• cross-stitch fabric & thread
• 1 mp3 player with downloaded audio books
• 1 laptop
• various watercolored backgrounds to use for doodling and writing postcards

Can you tell I have a fear of finding myself with nothing to do?

Announcing Red Rock Roots & Shoots!

I told you a project had been keeping me busy for the last few weeks and this is it.

Red Rock Roots & Shoots

I and four other energetic women have been spending a lot of brain cells over the last couple of weeks brainstorming and planning on how to make our new Roots & Shoots group fun, educational, and an asset to our community.

We have pages and pages of ideas for fundraisers, service projects and educational activities ... all contained in my colorful and inspiring planning binder! Maybe all that Coast Guard organizational leadership and management training will come in handy after all ...

We will hold our first official meeting in the second half of August, but there is much work still to be done behind the scenes. Detail planning for the first meeting; drafted letters of introduction to local business and non-profits that we can partner with; organizing our initial educational activities to introduce our children to the issues that face our communities, etc. More updates will follow, so check back to follow our adventures.

***

Kolob Web Studio (a.k.a. The Spouse) generously donated countless hours of site development, and covered all initial start-up costs. He is also responsible for the fun stickers now enhancing my organizational binder!

Recap of the Weekend

As I said in my last post, a huge part of my energies have been directed at just surviving the last couple of weeks of school ... barbeques, volunteer breakfasts, testing, project wrap-up, field days, pet day, etc. Well, The Child's class (and a another) had Pet Day on Friday and the Rattie Boys got to attend. They were a huge hit with half the people they encountered, and an avoidance for the other half. People are so funny about rodents. The number one comment was, "Oh my gosh, they are so BIG!" I guess people understand "rat" but see "mouse" when they visualize. Anyway, Seabiscut was a ham, got loads of attention, and rewarded his favorites with sweet little rat licks. Bosco, being the high-strung, nervous boy that he is, hid in a corner of the box. I only kept them there a couple of hours and then took them home. They were so happy to be back in The Child's room!!

For some reason in Utah, this past weekend is a favorite for scheduling activities. It is unfortunate, because it makes it so that you can't attend all the cool things going on. The Utah Arts Festival in Salt Lake City was happening, as was the Tooele Arts Festival. The Panguitch Hot Air Balloon Rally (we went last year, see the post Balloons Galore!) was all weekend over the mountain. Locally, we had the Summer Jam and the Paiute Restoration Pow Wow happening. I stayed to local activities as I am taking off on Friday for another roadtrip.

The Summer Jam was low-key and relaxed, and created one of those times when The Spouse and I acknowledge how fortunate we are. We definitely experience frustrations from time to time over the smallness (physically and mentally) of Cedar City, but it is wonderful to be able to sit in a beautiful little park listening to local musicians while kids run around munching on corn dogs, pop corn and cotton candy with their friends. It is such a safe, mellow environment that you don't really worry.

The Pow Wow events of the weekend included a parade on Main Street Saturday a.m. (Cedar City has a parade for everything!), which The Child and I attended. I am in awe of the regala that the dancers wear. It is beautiful, intricate, and made by hand ... and a lot of the dresses and moccasins were covered in cool bells.

I referred to the clothing as "costumes" once and one of our Paiute students very quickly (and politely) corrected me, telling me that what they wear is their "regala".

Saturday evening I went and watched a little of the children's dancing. I was partially filled with respect for how much energy the tribal elders put into trying to retain their heritage and pass it on to the younger tribal members, and partially filled with sadness at what they have already lost. So many of the youth seemed uninterested.

Birdy Update

Although I have been quite busy with my cherry picking, and just trying to survive the last couple of weeks of school, I have been slowly working on my birdy cross-stitch. Here is the latest progress.

These aren't going to be used on this piece, but aren't these gorgeous threads?

One of the bloggers I follow, Fairyland and Watercolor Dreams and Dancing in the Twilight Rain, recently started hand-dying her own and also has some in her Etsy store. She is amazing with thread and needle ...

Life is a Bowl of Cherries

... actually, right now, life is like many bowls of cherries! Next time we have this many cherries on the tree we will be taking them to the Farmer's Market in St. George! I have picked more than 50 pounds of cherries, and there are still many more continuing to ripen on the tree. I know it is more than 50 pounds because I am now dividing them into 2 pound bags and selling them at work for $5 (quite a bargain considering the grocery store is selling them for $6 per pound!). Between the cherry picking, and another project that I am working on (to be detailed at a later point), I haven't been playing in the art supplies too much, unfortunately. I am hoping to correct that very soon ...

Cute Critters

Sunday a.m. I had the urge to hit the road on my bike. I had no particular destination, but that is usually when I make the most interesting finds. As I was pedaling past the backside of the hospital I noticed a big vacant field across the street with little tan heads popping up everywhere. I parked the bike, trekked into the field, cleared out some of the prickers that were everywhere, and plopped my butt on the ground for a while right in the middle of a colony of Utah prairie dogs.

It is hard to fathom something so cute causing so much contention and anger in a community, but they do. The Cedar City area is full of these little guys, to the point that some consider them nuisance animals. The difficulty comes because they are also on the U.S. Federal Endangered Species list. They have been known to bring construction projects to a grinding halt, as multiple government agencies battle what to do over the discovery of a new colony or the attempted relocation of an established colony.

They don't seem too concerned about the politics, do they?

 

ATC Swap - Kid Style

Friday at school we had our last Open Art Studio - Artist Trading Cards. It has been so much fun these last six months working with the art teacher to introduce some of our 4-6 graders to the wonders of ATCs. To wrap up the school year, we had a swap on Friday. Thanks to Birgit, our art teacher and fabulous artist, and a huge hug to all the wonderful students that participated and made my Fridays full of fun and creativity. These kids were amazing! I think next year we are going to take on mail art ...