here's to Dad, Katie, and Allyson

I saw this in the grocery store today and had to take a photo - this was truly worth GOLD on the trail in Peru and here it is found in Northern Virginia for a mere pittance. Right above the non-alcoholic malt beverage from India. The world grows ever smaller.

Do a good deed...

...today by going to the breast cancer site and clicking on the "donate" box to help donate a mammogram to a woman who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it. It doesn't cost you anything but the corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammograms in exchange for advertising space (and really you don't even have to look at the ads).

LDS PR statement

A very well written article about how to deal with negative publicity about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I think we will see more and more of it in the future.

happy birthday to me

Thanks to the many people in my life that love me I have had a wonderful birthday full of family, parties, balloons, pampering, presents, and love. Thanks to all that have made me feel so loved that I don't even mind being another year older!

Some people are born with a good sense of direction...

...and some people aren't. I fall into the group of people born without a sense of direction or a good sense of distance. What inspired this post? My commute home from work today.

We finally had a really nice day! I haven't had a good workout for weeks because of the cold weather, being really sick, working long hours, and having little to no self-discipline (another hour in bed helps you get well right? maybe a workout at the gym would had been better). So because of the wonderful weather I decided to walk to Foggy Bottom metro instead of getting on the metro by work.

I walked that route 4-5 times a week last summer so I felt that I really didn't need to pay attention to my surrounding plus I thought I would mix things up a bit and take a slightly different route. I saw great parts of GW that I had never seen before and now I know where the World Bank complex is located (it only took me seven years to randomly stumble upon it). I hit 23rd Street and turned left. Suddenly I looked up and the Lincoln Memorial. Apparently I should have turned right.

No worries I thought - I will just walk across the bridge and get on the Rosslyn metro - I was already this far and feeling great. It would have been a brilliant plan IF the bridge by the Lincoln Memorial was the Key Bridge that went to Rosslyn instead of the Roosevelt Bridge that goes to Arlington Cemetary (and the Arlington metro closes at dark and it was now dark). Luckily, I figured it out before crossing the bridge. So I looped around and spent 15 minutes crossing 4 lanes of rush hour traffic in the dark (apparently no has ever needed a cross walk across Rock Creek Parkway) and hiked up the hill to the Kennedy Center. Thank heavens for the the free shuttle back to the Foggy Bottom Metro Station.

Nothing like a nice 2.5 mile stroll on the way home from work. :)

good reminder for today

Harvey S. Firestone - You get the best out of others when you get the best out of yourself.

super bowl creations

So I am not really all that interested in the Super Bowl but will use almost any excuse to create a culinary delight. On Saturday I found two new pans from Wilton - one bakes domes and one little squares plus a new cutter to cut out perfect little cakes. What a great time to try them all out and let others enjoy the results. On the left brownies covered with green frosting turf and topped with a brownie football (two of the domes stuck together). On the right chocolate chip cookies baked in the little square pan so that they came out square with edges which are stacked on brownies cooked in the same pan plus brownies cut out with my new cutter and topped with frosting - mostly a way to use up my extra frosting but really fun result.

Trip home...

Not wanting to make the last post too long I thought I would start another one. Granted I should have started with this one because now they will be out of order.

I postponed my usual Christmas trip until January so it would coincide with Geoffrey's return from his mission. It was great to see him again after such a long time. He did a marvelous job reporting his mission and is now crazy busy in school having started a week late. Staying in Virginia for the holidays also gave me the chance to spend Christmas with the Tippets which was great.

While I was home I saw some great art which I thought I would recommend to anyone who is in the area with some extra time.

#1 Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art - great collection especially the ceramics which are now installed in the main entrance for super easy viewing

#2 Dan Steinhilber at BYU MOA - some of the best contemporary art I have seen recently; it is hard to pick a favorite work - the astract mural of melted trash bags, the wall of duck sauce and dry cleaner hanger mobile are definitely at the top of my list but the packing peanuts were certainly entertaining; these are works better to be seen of read about on the website which does a much more eloquent job than I am doing

#3 Salt Lake Art Center - one of my new favorites is right downtown with a great space and superb art; I especially liked Blindsight featuring four artists who were born with vision but each has almost lost all his sight. I liked the work before reading the fine print about the limited vision and had new appreciation after learning that each artist could see only a portion of their work when creating it

#4 I discovered a little gem in the Sego Art Center in Provo - named for the state flower and part of the Sego Foundation which puts on a music festival every year this one room gallery has a new exhibition each month - look for the new website coming soon and if you are in the area stop in for a look

#5 Covey Center for the Arts also in Provo has a nice little gallery for visual arts and seems to have a great schedule of performing arts

Seeing all that art (in a setting where I was not also employed and busy) gave me the itch to create some of my own which I will post when I get around photographing it. I took my camera to Utah but neglected to take even one picture - even with 2 darling nieces and 1 adorable nephew I still failed - amazing.

Book Club

One of my new year's resolutions is to be a better blogger. I even get points for it (more on that later). Of course to be a better blogger necessitates having more in your life than just work - really no one else is as interested in the intricacies of my job as I am and ofttimes even I am not that interested. So instead of continually writing blogs in my head which are never actually published I am making more of an efforts to stop whatever I am doing when I feel a blog coming and fire up the old PC. For instance currently I should be cleaning the kitchen which is a bit of a mess from my flurry to get refreshments made for book club. The responsible side of me thinks I should do that and go to bed but the creative side of me decided to do this. It was a pretty easy decision since I don't particularly like doing dishes.

We read "Three Cups of Tea" this month which I highly recommend. It was a bit slow to get into but is a fascinating story about how a few people can change the lives of many...the importance of education to a community...why development and commercialization brings both good and bad...how the power of love and understanding can conquer the power of fear and oppression...and the strength of the media to portray images both true and false.

I readily admit that normally I am an escapist reader and this is definitely not an escape but it is enthralling and very much an edifying read. Maybe I am on a roll and will update goodreads more often this year.

Oh back to the explanation of refreshments - no although I naturally feel that any social gathering requires food it is not a requirement for book club hosts but really how can you not serve tea when discussing a book call "Three Cups of Tea". And yes the majority of us drank three cups of tea. Luckily, my roommate Andrea and I are a bit of tea fanatics and thus could provide a plethora of choices by simply opening our cupboards - 8 to be exact. My new discovery - Sweet Thai Delight which is a truly delightful mix of coconut, rooibos, cinnamon and anise made best with a bit of honey and a splash (large splash in my case) of coconut milk (and yes I did actually have a can of coconut milk in my cupboard because you never know when it will come in handy).

favorite christmas quote

I spent this Christmas with the Tippets family. After the traditional dinner at IHOP with funny face pancakes, reading of the Christmas story, and opening of one Christmas gift all the girls went to bed and the adults went to finish wrapping/constructing gifts. About 11 pm I found Eve (age 4) in the hallway rubbing her eyes. When I asked why she wasn't in bed asleep she answered in total seriousness..."I think I had too much fun!".

What is a girl to do - this was a dilemma. I asked what she usually did when she couldn't sleep and she answered that she usually just stayed up. I realized that this is exactly what I do (often to the detriment of my health) but then she came up with a solution for her sleeplessness - she would be able to fall asleep immediately in my bed. So after a quick conference with her mother to get permission into my bed she went and immediately fell asleep.