East Canyon

I decided to be the fun aunt this past week and took neices/nephew numbers 2,4,6, and 7 to East Canyon for a few days.  It was just going to be 4 days of hanging out, watching tv, playing in the snow, playing games, and eating too much sugar and junk and too few fruits/veggies.  And, based on the storm we got in the valley on Christmas day, I was sure we'd have tons of snow up there to make it fun.
As we came in view of the reservoir, we were kind of surprised by how little snow there was. It looked like kind of an average year, where we wouldn't really get to use any snow equipment, and if we tried to play outside, we would just get muddy.  So instead we settled in and started binge watching Psych, the kids' favorite show and the only show I own on DVD.  Over the next couple of days, each morning we woke up to more and more snow.  By the 2nd morning, the snow was up to my knees in the unplowed section of road.  It was the best snow I think I've ever seen up there.  And, even though we hadn't brought sleds with us (my car was packed as tight as it could possibly be packed just with food and luggage), some kind soul had abandoned a couple saucer sleds in the campground area.  We let them sit there for half a day, and they went unclaimed.  There were no cars and no people around, so we adopted them for the rest of our stay.  Some of us had a great time playing in the snow.
There was lots of this:

Number 7 and I went for a walk and saw bald eagles, deer, and animal tracks.  The snow was almost as tall as him, and it was still coming down hard and fast, so we cut the walk short.

The main sledding hill was pretty crowded so number 7 and I built our own.

Unfortuntately, there was also a lot of this:

A stomach flu started making its way through the group on the second day, so we cut our trip short and came home a few days early.  But I think we still had fun.  We got lots of tv binge watching, movie watching, game playing, snack eating, and snow playing in.  And we even got caught in 3 blizzards coming home.  Coming down Provo Canyon, there was a thick blizzard, with terrible visibility, but up ahead we could make out some blue and pink skies, and then suddenly it just stopped snowing and the sun was shining and we were out of the canyon.  It was pretty cool.

A Pain in the Back

Work has been stupid busy the past few months.  In a normal year, we do budgets and board packages August-November, so we can just count on those months being bad, knowing that we can breathe and catch up in December.  But this year, they started the budget process in July, and then they acquired a new company in August.  The acquisition has been a nightmare for a variety of reasons, so our busy months were wayyyyyy busier than normal.  And then, even after the board meeting in November, we've had several extra reports related to the acquisition that have kept us in overdrive, so we haven't slowed down at all.  I've had several pay periods with 20-30 hours of overtime.  And I'm a lightweight on my team.  A few guys had one or two pay periods with 80-90 hours of overtime.  Just overtime.  On top of their regular hours.  It became a normal thing for them to work until the wee hours of the morning, every morning, then come back for regular office hours, plus every weekend, for several weeks in a row.  

We just had our first financial month end close with the new company transferred to our accounting system, so as a little thank-you, the CEO scheduled two massage therapists to come in and do 15 minute back massages for everybody in finance.  I don't have much experience with back massages, but...  

One of my college roommates was from California, and her parents had a tradition of arranging for her to get a massage every time she went home to visit.  I went home with her twice, and each time, her parents got me a massage too.  The first time was my first ever massage and  I had no idea at all what to expect.  The lady turned on some relaxation music, told me to take off as much as I was comfortable with and then lie face down on the massage table with a sheet over me, and she'd be back in a few minutes.  I did as she said, and when she came back to start the massage she said, 'Um...you're going to have to take off more than that.'  She should have been more clear to begin with.  Anyway, I don't remember much else from that massage, except that I came out covered in oil.  Like, really covered.  I just wanted to go home and shower before I got oil on everything else.

My next massage experience came from physical therapy with my back.  I spent a couple months one summer after college going to physical therapy a couple times a week, and each time I would get electro shock therapy (I don't think it was called that, but I don't remember what it was called) that sent electric waves deep into my back muscles.  It was wonderful.  Then the physical therapist would come in and do a quick back massage.  All I remember from that was that he used a ton of petroleum jelly.  He would always wipe it off at the end, but I'd still be covered in it when I got home.  But I always enjoyed physical therapy.

So I was kind of excited for a back massage at work.  It was just the kind where you sit in a chair and the therapist does a quick shoulder/back massage.  Everybody who sits near me ended up with one massage therapist and I got the other.  They were all talking about how it was one of the best massages they'd ever had.  I don't know if it had just been too long since my last massage or what, but it wasn't what I was expecting.  For the whole 15 minutes, it felt like she was digging her knuckles into my back.  I kind of just wanted to excuse myself, but I didn't want her to feel bad.  Also, I must have had some crazy knots or something, because she spent almost the whole time on one small area of my back.  That spot of my back was sore for a couple days after.  I even checked for bruises a few times afterwards.  She kneaded my muscles so hard!  Maybe that's what it took to get the knots out.  I don't know.  But I didn't see anybody else walking around in pain the rest of the day, so maybe I got a bad massage.  But it was still a fun little perk after the months we've had lately.

The Great Mouse Scare of 2014

I know what you're all thinking. 'Carolyn, why on earth are you posting again so soon?!  You just posted three months ago!  Do you really have so much going on in your life that you have another story to tell us already?!'  Yes, it's true; after just three short months, something that may or may not be as exciting as rebuilding a fence panel has occurred in my life.  I'll let you be the judge.  Some of you have already heard this story.  I told you then that it had been the most exciting thing to happen in a while.  I wasn't kidding.  Sorry you have to hear it again.

In one corner of my yard I grow sweat peas and sunflowers.  The sunflowers are super sturdy and get around 7 feet tall.  The sweet peas are kind of viny and climb up the sunflowers stems.  It's my favorite part of my yard.  The picture below doesn't do it justice.  The bright yellow sunflowers are just perfect against all the pinks, purples, reds, and whites of the sweat peas.  And they smell incredible.  They all come into perfect bloom around late September and throughout October.  On the days when I manage to get home from work before dark I like to go stand in my flowers- not in front of my flowers or next to flowers; I climb right in among the stems and vines and breathe it all in.  I come out covered in leaves and poky things, but it's okay.

This year I decided to save the pea pods to be able to plant the seeds next year.  So every few days I would go out and look for mature pods. Then I would leave them on my counter to dry out.  Everything I read online said if you store them away too early, they would get musty and moldy and would be no good by spring.  So one night I left a few pea pods on my kitchen counter and went to bed.  In the morning I came up and found a scene from my nightmares.  One of the pods was lying open and the seeds had been scattered all over my counter and across the floor.  And I don't just mean that section of the counter.  I mean across the stove, a few feet away.  The ones on the floor were several feet away.  The only thing I could think was that I had a mouse.  It had found the pods, opened one, and carried the seeds all over the kitchen.  Which meant that mouse feet had been all over my kitchen counter and floor, including the stove top.  That grosses me out.  I spent my next hour at the gym coming up with a plan of attack.  I decided I was just going to have to be late for work that day.  I would go to the hardware store, get some poison, and put it in key spots around my house before I went to work.  Yes, it could have waited until after work, but that would mean a full day of a mouse (or mice) running free in my house.  And I know mice multiply fast.  Maybe by the time I got home there'd be several generations hanging out, bullying me into cooking for them.  So it had to be taken care of that morning.

But then my more rational side came back into control.  I got to thinking- there had never been any other evidence of mice in my house.  No poop, no scratching sounds, no bags or boxes of food in storage chewed open.I even had other food on my counter- bananas, tomatoes, etc, that hadn't been touched.  I had rodent problems in my houses in Virginia, and I know the signs.  There were no signs in my house.  So when I got back from the gym, I did a little investigating.  The open pea pod had no bite or scratch marks.  In fact, it looked like it had exploded, and in a violent way.  Which explained how the seeds scattered so far.  So I calmed down.  Apparently, when pea pods dry out, they explode.

Since then, I've been storing my pea pods in a paper bag.  Most of them dry quietly, but a few others have exploded.

This is what most of my pea pods look like as they dry.

This is what the pea pods look like after they explode.  Looks violent.

And one more picture for good measure. This is the 'Tree of Life' in Draper Park.

My Saturday

Yesterday I did this:

Do you see all the staples in that beam?  Every single piece of wood in the fence looks like that, and part of the repair process involves pulling them all out so they won't get in the way of the screws when we put it back together.  Not cool.

It may not be pretty, but it'll hold.

And then, with every muscle in my body aching and my hands covered in blisters but numb, I did this (because it's sourdough and I already had the starter two steps past the starter point on my counter, so there was no turning back):

And tonight I'll be having a blt on that sourdough (except by the time I got to the grocery store last night I was so brain dead that I forgot to buy the 'b' part of a blt, or the avocado that I was planning on putting on it, so it will be a grilled chicken sandwich.  But still good.

Hiking

A couple months ago I suggested to some of the nieces and nephews that it'd be fun to go for a real hike.  Some of them sounded interested, and since then we've been trying to find a day when we could all go.  Finally on Labor Day numbers 4 and 7 could go.  Number 3 had shown interest, but he couldn't go, but with the season winding down I thought we'd better just go for it.  I had a couple hikes in mind: Gobblers Knob in Salt Lake, which is supposed to take 6-7 hours or Silver Lake in American Fork, which is my favorite hike and takes 2-3 hours and starts and ends at two different lakes.  But I also did some research and found a few other hikes to give the kids options.  One of the hikes, Horse Tail Falls, is in Alpine.  The description said it's an easy hike, it takes a couple hours, and it ends at a great waterfall.  Another hike was Dry Creek Trail, also in Alpine.  It was supposed to be 3 miles roundtrip, take about 2 hours, and be an easy family hike, and it also ends at a waterfall.  Also, the description I read said it's in the shade most of the way, so it's good if you get a late start. We got kind of a late start on the day (what better way to celebrate Labor Day- or any day- than by sleeping in?), so I decided one of the shorter hikes would be good.  So as we set off, I let the kids decide if they'd rather hike to a lake or to a waterfall.  They said they'd rather go to the waterfall, since it would be new to me also.

So we drove to Alpine to find Dry Creek Trail.  It starts basically where the road ends in Alpine at the foot of the mountain.  And from there it went straight up the mountain.  And then it kept going straight up the mountain.  And up a little more.  I don't know where the internet gets off saying this was an easy family hike.  Luckily, it was in the shade most of the way, but it never let off being steep and rocky.  Number 4 and I were happy to enjoy a slow pace and take frequent water breaks (and enjoy the views- there were a few spots when we'd come around a bend and it felt like we were in a little corner looking out over all of Utah Valley), but number 7 would have run up the mountain nonstop if we weren't there to drag him down.  That kid's got energy!  Finally, after a couple of hours, we came around a bend and saw a bunch of teenagers sitting around and talking and we thought we had come to the end.  Hallelujah!  But when we got up to where they were, we realized it was just another resting point.  They were sitting on a huge flat rock cliff looking over the mountain side.  And from there, we could see our destination: the waterfall was way off in the distance (one of the pictures below shows the waterfall from that viewpoint- you have to look pretty hard to see it).  I asked the teenagers if they were familiar with this hike and how much further we had.  They said at least another mile over a sketchy trail that would be hard to find.  Great.  But numbers 4 and 7 charged on up the trail so I followed.

Luckily, teenagers aren't good at gauging distance.  About 15 minutes and maybe half a mile later, with some mild rock scrambling and dodging of branches, we arrived at the waterfall.  And it was great.  Oh, and it turns out this was Horse Tail Falls, the other hike I had looked into.  The two trails converge somewhere along the way.  There was a short natural waterslide at one level that ended in a nice shallow pool, but that spot was full of a family group with little kids (how on earth did they get those little kids up there?).  So number 4 found a way down to the next level where there was a slightly deeper pool and she and number 7 made short work of getting their shoes and socks off and getting out to the middle of the water.  I was brave enough to put my hands in, and it was COLD.  We sat there in and near the water for a while, eating snacks and challenging each other to get a certain level of wet.  Number 7 was the only one willing to go all the way under (can you tell which picture that is?).  I think next time (now that I know what to expect, I don't think the hike is really that hard), it'd be fun to take swimsuits and towels and enjoy the waterslide on a really hot day.

All the way down the trail, every person we met got a little encouragement from number 7 about how close they were to the end, and then he told them that he was the only one who went all the way under. I'm not sure he ever wasn't talking in the entire 6 hours of our adventure.  But that's okay.  I didn't have a lot to say, so I'm glad he did.

This was on the big rock cliff where we found the teenagers

Can you see the waterfall way off in the distance?

This is the pool at the bottom of the waterslide

And this is the waterslide, and the lid of my waterbottle

The Saga of the Shower Door

When I bought my house, there were a few projects that I immediately wanted to do on it.  One of these was my basement shower.  It has never drained right.  The lowest point of the shower floor is a few inches in front of the drain, so the water pools there and I have to mop it out after every shower. This shower also has really nice tile work, but no door, so I've just had a plastic curtain hanging in it all this time, with plans to eventually put in a glass door and class the place up a bit.  But the house kind of dictated other projects for me to do before I could get to any of the projects I wanted to.  So now, four years in, I decided to do the shower this summer.  I had no idea where to start; I've never hired anybody to do anything in my house and I don't know how it works to hire somebody.  So I went on Facebook to ask people for recommendations for a contractor, but I got nothing.  So then I went to KSL and searched for shower floor and shower door installers.  I found a list of contractors, and went with the one who had the most and best reviews.  I emailed him and set up a time for an estimate, and he came over.  He took one look and said it'd be a really easy job.  He would just have to take out a couple tiles, re-level the the floor under those tiles, and put in new tiles, and the door would be a breeze.  He said the whole thing would only take a few hours, but it would have to be spread over two days to let the grout dry. He told me to go to Home Depot to get the door (because those are the doors he's most familiar with) and to call him when I had the door, and we'd set up an appointment.  He would be free the end of June, which was perfect for my work schedule. Easy peasy.
So I went to Home Depot within the next few days and ordered a door.  I had to get a custom door because my shower is about 2 inches wider than any standard-sized doors.  But the design consultant (we'll call her Barb) at Home Depot said the door would arrive in the store in about 2 weeks.
A little over two weeks later I hadn't heard anything, so I called Home Depot.  Barb had gone home for the day so I just talked to one of the sales people.  They looked up my order and said the manufacturer was missing some info on the order and hadn't started yet.  But the note on my order was that they had called me a couple weeks ago to get the info and left a message.  Um...no?  Barb would have to call me back on Monday (this was a Friday) to figure out what was going on.  So I was two weeks behind and livid.  Barb called me first thing Monday morning to say she hated this door manufacturer.  They had all the info they needed and and had had it from the beginning, and my door would be in by the end of the week.
So I called at the end of the week.  The new note on my order was that it would be shipping within a couple weeks.  This went on for a few weeks.  I would call every few days, and I was always told that it would ship in a few days.  Finally one day, the note had changed to 'shipped'.  It was due to arrive by the end of the week (I'd heard that before).  So I kept calling every few days.  It took another two weeks to arrive.  The sales people couldn't tell me where it was shipping from (turns out it was California) or why it took two weeks to ship, but somehow this manufacturing company hasn't heard of freeways or motor vehicles.  Anyway, I was under somewhat of a deadline, because I was supposed to pick the door up from the store, and it was huge.  I was planning to use my parents' truck to pick it up.  They were planning on selling their truck.  And eventually they sold it. The next morning, Home Depot called to tell me my door was in and I could pick it.  Of course it arrived THAT VERY DAY.  So I told the guy the truck I'd been planning on using was no longer available and that they were TWO MONTHS late.  The guy said he could set up delivery to my house for an extra $80.  I repeated the part about TWO MONTHS late.  He said he'd get back to me.  MmmHmmm.  He'd better get back to me.  Barb called me a couple hours later and said somebody would be bringing the door to my house later that night.  Yeah, that's right.
That night, two guys, who were clearly not delivery guys, brought my shower door over.  They looked more like store managers on their way from work or something.  It was kind of funny.
Once I had the door, I called my contractor and set up an appointment. The timing kind of worked out because I'd already taken a few days off work the next week for Jenny's wedding.  I was hoping to spend them doing fun things, not sitting around my house, but whatever.  The contractor said he'd come on Wednesday.  Tuesday night he emailed to say he'd be a day late because his mom was in the hospital and he hadn't gotten that day's work done.  Good reason, but it was still pushing my deadlines a bit.  So he came on Thursday.  He did the tile, and then looked at the door.  He said it was going to be really complicated, and he had never done one like that before (really?  his website said he specialized in shower doors, and he's the one who told me to get a Home Depot door because those are the ones he knows).  He called it a day and said he'd be back at 8-8:30 the next morning to seal the tile and do the door.  He arrived at 9:30 the next morning.  I'm a time nazi.  I don't like when people are late, and 1 hour first thing in the morning really drives me nuts.  I don't know what he was doing in the basement, but after a couple hours, he said he had to go to the store to get grout and tile sealant.  When he got back, he finished the tile and messed with the door for a couple hours, before declaring it impossible.  He said it's the first time in 40 years he couldn't finish a job.  He leaned the glass panels against my wall, I paid him for the tile work, and he left.  Because the grout was wet,  I couldn't test the tile to see if the floor drained better until the next day.  It doesn't.  I think he replaced the wrong tiles or something.  The water still pools in exactly the same place, and I still have to mop it out.  Fantastic.
This was my last day off before going into a really busy season of work, and I thought maybe I could get somebody to come on Saturday, so I immediately called Home Depot to get one of their installers.  The girl told me they don't have installers for shower doors.  What?!  I had about half an hour before I had to leave for Jenny's wedding, so I started madly going through the phone book and calling everybody I could find who was associated with shower doors.  Nobody would talk to me because it wasn't one of their doors.  I finally got one lady to listen to my story and she kind of noncommitally said she thought maybe they could help, but it wouldn't be for a few weeks, and her installers might not be familiar with my door.  I said I didn't have any other options, so she put me on the calendar.  In the meantime, I called Home Depot again and said they had to do something to help me.  I was talking to a different girl this time (we'll call her Maud), and she said they do have installers.  She found my door in the system, saw the nightmare of my order, and said she'd get an estimate for me and call me back.  She finally called me back a week later.  Her price was twice what this other company was charging, and I would need to be available the next day, which I wasn't.  I told her never mind, and I figured I could wait for this other company.  It was only three weeks out at this point.
This week, three days away from my scheduled appointment, I got a call from the installation company.  She said one of their installers had quit, they were overscheduled, and they were cancelling on me and couldn't reschedule.  She wished me luck and that was that.  I was so frustrated!  So I called Home Depot back and talked to Barb again (she remembered me), and explained the situation.  She said all her contractors were closed for the day, but she'd have Maud call me the next day.  So Maud called me the next day and set up a new installation order.  Later that day a new installation company called me and set up an appointment for three weeks out (I had to ask if they were through Home Depot, because I wasn't expecting this call, and they were. Phew!).  But the next day Barb called back and said she'd have an installer call me.  I told her one already had.  Seems like there's a breakdown in the communication system somewhere there.  Anyway, I braced myself for another three weeks of glass panes lying around my basement.
I had already taken Friday off in anticipation of installation, but my boss was also hoping to take it off.  Because it's a very busy time at work, only one of us could take it.  I told him I didn't need the day after all and I could be at work.  We went back and forth and I very nearly ended up going in to run reports, but in the end my boss said I may as well take it, so I did.  So I slept in, went to the gym, and was just getting ready to mow my lawn.  Then my doorbell rang.  When I answered it, there was a guy standing there with a big work truck parked out front.  He asked if I needed my shower door installed.  I said yes, but I didn't have anything scheduled that day.  I had no idea which installation company he was with.  Was it the company that had cancelled and maybe they'd forgotten they cancelled (although they would have been two hours late if that was the case)?  Was it the company that was scheduled for three weeks out?  Was it somebody else that Home Depot had scheduled?  I didn't really care at this point, I was just really confused.  He turned out to be the guy who was scheduled for three week out.  He said his calendar showed me for Friday.  I said, 'Great!' and showed him in.  He took one look at it, threw out the directions that came with the door because they were confusing, showed me the directions he had downloaded the night before in preparation, and got to work.  And two hours later I had a shower door.  I still have no idea why he showed up on Friday.  I was never scheduled with his company for Friday.  I'm just glad I didn't end up going to work that day.

An Oldie But a Goodie

Here's a little blast from my past.  When I worked at the Federal Reserve, every summer all of the research assistants would have a photo op with Alan Greenspan.  We'd have about a week's notice, and then on the appointed day we would all gather in front of the Fed (if the weather was good) or in the main lobby (if the weather was bad).  The official Fed photographer would arrange us all just right so that we would fit within the frame, and then Greenspan would come in, tell a joke, pose for a couple pictures, and tell us all to get back to work.  I think my first year, one of the research assistants made an obscene gesture so nobody got a copy of the picture.  My second year, I somehow ended up in the back row, behind a big bushy head, and you can only see my forehead sticking out a little bit.  I'm pretty sure that picture is somewhere on facebook, but I just looked through all my Fed friends' albums and I couldn't find it.  My last year, I was determined to get a good picture.  Somehow I ended up on the front row (I definitely wasn't one of the shortest people there, but I wasn't going to argue with it; besides, everybody behind me was standing on the steps in front of the building, so I wasn't blocking anyone).  I thought I was wearing a good outfit and that my hair looked good (yikes, what did it look like on a bad day?!).  The photo day was about a week before I left to go back to school, so I knew I was cutting it close to get a copy, but one of my friends promised she'd send it to me if I missed it.  She never did, and I bugged her about it, but I never got it.  I was bummed.  That would have been a pretty cool little memento from my days at the Fed.

For some reason, this week, one week short of my 9 year anniversary of leaving (how can it have been that long?!), I got to thinking about that picture and I decided I wanted it.  So I emailed the Fed and asked if they could send me a copy.  Tangent: When I worked there, one of my duties was to answer emails from the public.  I bet you didn't know this, but if you have a question for the Fed, you can send them an email, and those emails will get sorted by division and section, and the appropriate person will get back to you.  My favorite emails were from a man in upstate New York who had frequent questions and advice on alchemy, and how we could control the money supply if ordinary citizens could were creating gold.  

Anyway...I sent my email to the Fed, asking if they could send me the Research Assistant picture from 2005, and half an hour later, it was sitting in my inbox.  The wonders of modern day interwebs.  So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to me from 9 years ago, along with some of my friends.

I'm on the front row, 2nd from the left.  The boy on the front row, 2nd from the right was my junior assistant.  I trained him through my second year, and when I left, he became the senior and trained the new junior.  From his first day there, he tried to date the girl in red standing next to him. Within a few months they were inseparable.  It was kind of cute.  They're married now and live in Chicago (last I heard).  The girl on the back row, third from the right was also in our division.  Her counterpart was one of my best friends there, but he had left a week or two earlier, so he's not in this picture. The other girl next to my counterpart was the roommate of the girl in our division, so she hung out with us a lot, when we'd do lunch or if we did something after work.  The really tall guy in the fourth row from the back, 2nd from the right, wearing the suit is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet.  He wasn't in our division, but somehow he always hung out with us (I think he was roommates with some of the people in my division).  He ended up marrying my replacement.  His junior is the really short girl next to Greenspan.  She was also fun. Oh, and the guy standing right behind me was one of the foulest people I'd ever met.  If he gets remembered for nothing else, I'd like that to be written.

So there you go.