Under-appreciated National Treasures: Balanced Rock

Today it is time to give a little shout out to Castleford, Idaho, home of the Balanced Rock.  I'm sick of all this blah blah blahing about the Grand Canyon and the Taj Mahal as if they are so great.  Anyone can go there and take the same picture as everyone else (Sam and I haven't yet, and maybe that is where this bitter attitude is coming from).  If you really want to be unique, you don't have to rediscover Vietnam, go to Castleford and see this...

Yes, I am not kidding you, that rock is really balancing there.  I know it looks a little small in this photo, but (warning: obvious statement ahead) the closer you get to it, the bigger it is.  This bad boy is (I quote the indisputable Visit Idaho website) "over 48 feet tall and 40 tons, the wind-carved rock balances precariously on a pedestal only 3 feet by 17 inches."  So yeah, you're going to want to see it.

Sam, slightly concerned at the largeness of the rock as he gets closer

As if its natural wonder-ness wasn't enough, you can really get a good workout climbing up there to check it out.  Sam and I were huffing and puffing and mumbling under our breath by the time we made it close enough to touch the rock itself.

A smile hides the pain of too many Christmas cookies + exercise

One thing I love about life is that as you get up into the ancient thirties, you really start to appreciate all the things that are right in your own backyard.  If the budget doesn't have room for a trip to Castleford today, there is probably something within 10 miles of you that other people would travel to see.  Have fun out there!

Big Hair Heroes

Lately, repetitively cleaning every inch of my house, filling out job applications (alas, my Ten Thousand Villages job was only for the holidays!) and drinking a lot of coffee has given me an opportunity to muse about important subjects like my hair and the state of the baseboards around here.   Like many of you, I have an 8x10" black and white photograph of Dolly Parton in a polyester jumpsuit gracing the counter in my bathroom.

I like to imagine I can understand what Dolly would say as I'm getting ready for the day.  More makeup, Dolly? You'd be surprised how much it costs to look this cheap.*  Is this too much jewelry for this outfit? I modeled my looks on the town tramp.*   Is my hair to big?  Dolly doesn't even dignify that with an answer.

During the summer, being a Southern lady for me was characterized by the humidity dictating that my hair would frizz out to troll doll proportions.  I often got the feeling that Dolly would consider that (with a little hairspray) as an advantage.  

Much as I have always loved my In Style magazines, lately I've been thinking that life is too short to fight the larger than life things one sometimes encounters when they look in the mirror.  Maybe they aren't problems. Maybe one is just comparing oneself with the wrong people.  In that spirit, I am dedicating my bathroom (I mean this to be an honor) to my personal big hair heroes.  Women who not only have hair far larger than what I myself might be able to achieve, but who have also done cool things with their lives.

So far I'm a little heavy on country singers and Wonder Woman, but I know that with time this will be an incredibly inspirational collection, and yet another reason to come visit us at the Chalkboard House.

*actual quotes from Dolly Parton

Storm Watch 2011

Those of you who are watching the weather channel today know that we are having an apocalyptic winter episode here in Georgia.  We thought our Christmas snow fall was a big deal, but this is HUGE.  Sam and I (after a long search for the ruler) have confirmed that there are five inches of snow on the chair outside our window, and the feared frozen drizzle has started making a sheet of ice over everything.

For many people watching coverage of this nightmare, the storm is just temperatures and maps and cars sliding around the freeways.  It occurred to me that in this time of unusual weather, Sam and I could put a face to the madness that is happening in our corner of the world.  This is my up to the minute coverage of real live people in the midst of it all.

8:23 a.m.
I wake up.

(reenactment, in which I look angrier than I was in reality when I woke up)

I look out the window.

8:25
I decide to stay in bed and watch the snow.

9:03
It is snowing lightly.  I get up to make coffee and am happy to find that my I Love Lucy "Slave to Fashion" mug is clean.

Sam sits in the comfy chair, reads the news, and is concerned about what is going on outside.  There will be no going anywhere today.

                               

9:10-9:47
It stops snowing.  We continue to sit around doing nothing.  Both our moms call and we talk about the snow.  Sam's mom reports 8 inches of snow at the farm in North Georgia.

9:48
Freezing drizzle begins.  Sam votes for breakfast and thinks sausage and eggs would be good.  I begin to consider the possibility.

10:15
Sam decides to make a bold move and goes outside to brush the snow off the porch and our cars.  As he works, a fine layer of ice instantly forms on everything his broom has touched.  He decides the mission is fruitless and returns to the apartment where breakfast is ready.

10:17
We eat our sausage and eggs.  The drizzle continues.  We watch out our window as a guy prepares to go to work, and I feel sorry for him.

11:01
I remember that we found the remote control for our converter box and decide to end four months of procrastination and hook it up.

11:13
The weather becomes a cross between freezing drizzle and freezing rain.  We find a soap opera in Spanish and watch it, making up our own story based on the words we understand.

11:39-present
We get sick of making up our own story and turn off the t.v.  Sam does the dishes.  I think about cleaning out the closet and go look at it. The state of the closet inpsires me to begin blogging.  We hear spinning tires outside and I go out to look, but I don't see anything.

STAY TUNED.  This is severe weather and things could change at any moment.  I'll be here with your coverage throughout the day!

A Merry Little Christmas

When I pictured my first Christmas in the South, I thought about gracious Southern hospitality, amazing food, and beautifully decorated front porches.  The one thing I really didn't factor in...

...was snow!  You can imagine how excited Sam and I were to wake up at the farm to find a winter wonderland.  

This is the acceptable version of Sam and I enjoying the snow.  We had to have many tries because one of us wasn't cooperating with my vision for Christmas morning joy:

Sam's mom is known for spoiling us with ridiculously lovely breakfasts, but for Christmas she outdid herself.

We had a lovely time together.

Growing up, I always thought I was a little too cool for Christmas morning pictures.  My mom wanted to capture every present that I opened for posterity, and I thought that wasn't totally necessary.  I think history will show that my mom has documented our Christmas mornings with such an outstanding level of excellence that were we to view those pictures quickly it would be a stilted video of the actual day.  But in this as in many other things, it turns out that I am (proudly) my mother's daughter.  So when Sam and I opened our presents, I was all over it.  

Not to be too braggy, but I thought I really caught the energy of that paper ripping

For our first Christmas together, Sam and I pretended we were snowed in and made a gorgeous dinner of steak, lobster, and of course, Fanta (who could get by without their Christmas Fanta)?  

  

It was a very, very  happy day.  Hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas!

New York

Sam and I recently went for a weekend in New York City as a Christmas present to ourselves.  As always when you travel, you learn a few things.  Along with this picture of the Hershey store in Times Square, here's what I got out of it.

1.  The Flavored Americano
This may be the most important thing I learned, and I believe it is absolutely crucial to impart it to you.  How many of us (and by us, I mean coffee addicts), when we go to Starbucks (if we drink corporate coffee), really want the Pumpkin Spice Latte, but feel like we are getting a punch in the wallet every time we cave in and order it instead of something more responsible?  When I was in line at the airport, the man in front of me ordered a Gingerbread Americano with room for cream.  Call me shallow, but my world exploded.  How could I not have thought of this before?  It saves you over a dollar a cup, and it tastes really good.  I don't know if I can make a case for it being significantly less calories, but in my heart I tell myself there are less.  Seriously, try it.


2.  Tourists are crazy...

This is a picture of me being superior to tourists

...and we are tourists.

Sam pointing out the Statue of Liberty

Me with the Statue of Liberty in my mouth

3.  Guidebooks are back
I have always liked guidebooks, but in my twenties I tried to hide it.  All the cool kids were going places flying by the seat of their pants, just experiencing life.  Lately I have come to accept about myself that it scares me half to death to fly by the seat of my pants, and that I'd rather just have the guidebook.  For me, just getting there is the adventurous part, and at last I'm okay with it.

Thanks to our NYC guidebook we found this little gem--the Hotel 17.  Not only did Woody Allen make a horror movie there (which is something I always look for in a hotel), but it is really cheap for New York--under $200.  It was clean, we didn't get bed bugs, and we even had a flat screen t.v. with 15 channels.

As an extra bonus, it was the narrowest hotel room I ever stayed in.

4.  Go with your gut
Have you ever walked into a restaurant and thought to yourself, this just isn't a good idea.  Sam and I experienced that sensation on our honeymoon when we went into a restaurant we just didn't have a great feeling about.  Things were moving VERY slowly, and yet we plowed on.  Three hours later, we had finally received our overpriced dinner.  It wasn't some European leisure thing with it taking three hours for us to eat, it was more that no one cared whether or not we starved or died of boredom.  Since that experience, we now just leave if things aren't going well.  So in the big city, when we had sat at our table for twenty minutes in an almost empty restaurant and no one had taken our order, we left for greener pastures.  It is such a good feeling!

Anyway, there is really too much good food and not enough time in New York City.  For instance, there are places like the Mac Bar, which serves twelve different kinds of macaroni and cheese and is shaped like a macaroni noodle to boot.

Lobster Macaroni and Chipotle Macaroni

Here we are trying to blend as world weary New Yorkers

5.  Stay street smart
Since I lived adjacent to Boston for a couple of years and I live in Atlanta now, I like to think that I am an aware person who approaches the big city with a good balance of caution and hipness.  This image of myself was a little battered, however, when I went out one morning while Sam was still sleeping to get us some coffee by myself.  My wallet was in my coat pocket, which really didn't seem like a safety first option for me, so I decided that I was probably going to get mugged.  I made it successfully to the coffee shop and because of a slight debacle with making our drinks I left carrying two cups of a coffee and an open cup of cream.  A man who looked a little sketchy began to approach and immediately I shifted into being hyper alert, like the city girl I am.  He suddenly stepped a little too far into my personal bubble and I jumped, completely covering myself in cream.  Because I'm always cool under pressure, I left my cup on the sidewalk (please don't tell, I usually never littler!) and ran away.  What I learned from this was that doing harm to yourself may startle your would be bubble burster, but it doesn't really seem like a good form of self defense.  In the event of a real emergency, I would try to throw the cream at him.

Briefly achieving my hip and cautious stance

Christmas is Here

I had grand ambitions to blog every day in December.   I was so excited to write all about the holidays at our house and what we were doing for our first Christmas together.  You can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning and realized that it is three days to Christmas and if we can trust what appears on my blog, I apparently haven't written a word.  Disaster!  This is like that recurring nightmare that I used to have that it was Christmas Eve and I hadn't bought anyone any presents and all that was left at the store were Jabba the Hut Pez dispensers.  Friends, we will just have to do our best with the time that remains to us. 

Let's start with the tree.  As you can see, I am a real curmudgeon at tree time.





Sam practically had to drag me to the lot to get one.  Like most of you, I decided that there was really only one way for a busy youngish couple who is going to be out of town every weekend in December to go with decor--completely hand made origami lights and ornaments.

We started off strong.  During slow days at the store I was able to make about a hundred little boxes to cover our Christmas lights.  And Sam made five or six while he was watching t.v. so we were in good shape.

 

I have to say, I LOVE the way the lights turned out.

I believe that Christmas should be a meaningful time of year.  When I began the paper ornaments crusade, I had visions of us sitting down every evening and cutting out a paper ornament (paper because it will be our paper anniversary) with a crackling fire in the background (in my imagination we have a beautiful fireplace).  Sam and I would stare lovingly into each others eyes and write on our paper ornaments the things we were thankful for and our hopes for the year.  We each wrote one, and it was nice.  Then we completely lost steam.  About halfway through December I decided that if I didn't do something soon, our tree would remain half decorated so I had to make a very hard decision.

I hope that when my imaginary daughters grow up living with me will have taught them that sometimes in life a woman just has to cowgirl up, admit defeat and go to Target to buy plastic ornaments.  

I would like to say that I learned my lesson from the ornament debacle.  But I don't know if that is the case because I have to leave this blog and go bake five dozen meaningful cookies for friends and family...  I leave you with a few scenes from the Chalkboard house in December.

Uncle Perry

Last week, our family lost a very dear person--my uncle Perry.  Being so far away, it is hard to believe that he can be gone.  With his death being so close to Thanksgiving, it made me think about how thankful I was to have him in my life.

This is Uncle Perry at my wedding.  He and my Aunt Pat have been at every major event of my life to support me, and most of the not so important piano recitals and and choir concerts, too.  I remember a time when the three of us were driving from Twin Falls to Boise and I mentioned how they must be so happy for their grandchildren because they had to wait awhile before they got these great kids:

He told me that he had always thought of me as one of his grandchildren.  I have thought about that many times because it meant so much to me.  It is hard to put into words what someone can mean to you.  Uncle Perry wasn't the kind of person who had to be in the limelight, but it was his presence--calm, kind, always ready to laugh that made you feel like there was something safe and right with the world.  It is a tremendous thing that I can say that in a lifetime of knowing him I never heard him say one bad thing about another person.

It's really hard to say how many times I barged into Pat and Perry's house without knocking because I was excited about something, or had a bad day at school, or was just bored.  I am so thankful that I had someone who didn't mind me barging in and would always be there in his faithful chair to listen and laugh with me.  I'm really grateful for our camping trips and the time we spent sitting around the fire.  I learned so much from my uncle's kindness.  I loved him a lot.

Sometimes words just fail a person.  I really wanted to let Aunt Pat, and Mike, Theresa, Jim, Susan and Paul know how my heart is with them, and how very much I love them.  I was so honored and blessed to have Uncle Perry in my life, and I will dearly miss him.