High Flying

It's true. I'm in a high-flying mood. Too bad I don't actually like flying. Don't ask why, because I don't really know. I just don't like planes. However, I'm sucking it up and braving the metal beast tomorrow morning at approximately 8:41am in order to fly home and pay my last respects to our lovely California home. My dad got laid off about 3 months ago (curse this economy) and finally found a new job in Austin, Texas, so my family is moving there next month sometime. So I'm flying home to get my last good taste of the beach and the palm trees.

You know, you'd think I'd be depressed by my family moving while I'm in college, but I'm really not. I'm actually pretty excited. I've grown up moving around a lot (longest time spent in one house: 3 years), so I'm accustomed to things changing. And it's not like I can be any more displaced than I already am. I graduated from high school in Iowa, my family moved to California my freshman year of college, and now they're moving somewhere else while I'm still in Provo. So it's really nothing too drastic. It just makes my trip home for Christmas all the more exciting, since it'll be to a place I've never been.

It helps that I've built a life for myself here in Utah. Even though my family is moving, it's not really uprooting me at all, because all my friends, my job, my current place of residence, all that is in Utah. So while my family is uprooting and moving around, I'm staying pretty well rooted.

Diamond Fork Hot Springs

With my dear roommate Michelle's permission, I'm going to include some pictures from our hike to the hot springs. I figure it's about time I actually provide some legitimate updates in my blog. I get too abstract and vague sometimes. Fun, but not all that informative. 

These first two pictures show what we saw on the way there.  As we got closer to the hot springs, the river, which was stunning, by the way, turned foggy  where the sulfur mixed with the water. You could smell it too. That ever-so-lovely odor of rotting eggs. At least the view was worth it. The trail was gorgeous. Unfortunately, all those little rocks that make the trail look so quaint and woodsy make the hike home in the dark a little less fun. Surprisingly, though, we walked almost the entire trail without using flashlights, and managed to see surprisingly well. I've always been amazed at how well your eyes can adjust to take in as much light as possible. Not enough to avoid tripping, but enough to navigate away from giant rocks and steep dropoffs. My toes may hate me, but I made it back in one piece.

Once we got to the hot springs we started to explore. Most of it looked just like the foggy water from the picture above, but a lot warmer. And the reason? This little bitty bubbling spring. :) Of course, this spring is hot enough that you can feel it just walking up to it, and it's too hot to touch for more than a second or two. Yes, I'm aware that it may be considered slightly stupid in some circles to stick your finger in a spring of uncertain temperature, but many trips to Yellowstone have taught me that it's the blue and green stuff that you really want to avoid. Red is actually usually a temperature that won't scald you on contact. And if it's pure white (in the water... deposits on dryish rocks don't count) then it's really hot. Fun fact, right? It's like the colors of the rainbow, where red is cooler and it gets hotter all the way up through blue/violet/white. 

No, this was not one of the hot springs where we hiked. I wish it were, but this pool would probably boil you. This is the Morning Glory pool in Yellowstone, and it illustrates my point. The source of the spring is down in the center, and therefore it's hottest (and bluest) there. As you move toward the edges, it turns green, then yellow, then that reddish orange: the color of our piddly little hot spring up in Diamond Fork Canyon.

Ha. I sound like an encyclopedia. Wonderful. Back to the actual trip to the hot springs. :)

Right above the hot springs, there was a small waterfall of not-so-glacial water, thanks to the fact that it's the end of July. I'd never play in it in the springtime, though. The flow of water and the mineral buildup somehow created a hole in the face of the rock and you could climb behind the waterfall and poke your head through. It was fun. Chilly, but fun. Luckily for me, I have more insulation than some. ;) 

Tevan found a little grotto under the hole and tried not to freeze to death (poor desert boy) while I took the picture with Michelle's camera.

After that, we thawed out after our play in the cold water by soaking in the deliciously warm pools scattered around the waterfall. The hot spring bubbled up fairly close to the falls, and some unknown geothermal experts or someone like that had come in once upon a time and run some piping from a couple of other hot springs that aren't easily accessible into the pools around the waterfall. Unfortunately, not all of the pools are natural: they've arranged rocks to hold some of the water in different levels and different temperatures. But every rock is covered with real-life, icky, slimy moss and mineral deposits, so I guess it was much more authentic than a trip to the day-spa (funnily enough, Michelle's baby sister thought that's what we meant the first time we mentioned the hot springs).

Unfortunately, I forgot about sulfur's adverse effects on silver and left my ring on. In truth, I wear it 24/7, so I didn't even think about it, but sulfur does not forget that it likes to oxidize silver rings, so my ring is now a kind of cool-looking tarnished color. I was really disappointed at first, but it's not a particularly expensive ring and it's been beaten up over the years. I could remove the tarnish, but I kind of like it. A small memento of a fun trip. Just one more memory all tied up in that ring.

Things I've Learned Recently

1. Hot springs tarnish silver rings... and it looks pretty darn cool.
2. Sulfur makes water foggy. Somehow I grew up reading all about volcanoes and geysers and hot springs and never learned that until now...
3. Moms make excellent advice-givers
4. Dads are super-duper cute when they're missing mom. And they tend to talk to kids more often so that they have something to do besides calling mom.
5. Utah sun is unforgiving if you forget sunscreen
6. Graphic designers wince just as much over poor photoshopping and lighting as I do over grammar and spelling errors
7. Some guys (namely my coworker) actually like listening to girl-talk
8. Cookies n' Cream ice cream from the BYU Creamery has amazing healing properties
9. Computer viruses are evil
10. Even though William Shatner as the Priceline Negotiator makes me want to gag, the website he advertizes is actually pretty cool. I got cheap airline tickets.
11. No matter how many times I type "advertizes" in a spell-checker, it never looks right
12. One moment of silliness at Walmart with your best friend makes up for a whole day of ickiness
13. When you start planning your little brother into your Utah plans, like inviting him to hike Mt. Timpanogos with you and your friends, you start to feel really old.
14. I need a new password, because I almost never type it right the first time. You'd think I'd have it down after a couple of years...
15. Life is always better with a pen and some paper to write on
16. Miracle of miracles, I can actually cook. Quite well, in fact. Who knew?
17. BYU offers a geology class that's once a week, 5 hours long, and you spend the whole thing out in the actual geological formations you're learning about, which is way better than taking notes on them in a classroom. If only I'd learned this a semester earlier...
18. I'm officially a senior in college. Back to the feeling old thing...
19. Never tell a guy that something in a Jeep is impossible. Because he will then do that thing. Possibly destroying something in the process.
20. Perseverance pays off. To quote a good author I read recently, "You find out the strength of the wind [and your own strength] by trying to walk against it, not by lying down."

Small Blessings

My life is full of small blessings. Sometimes I get so caught up in the things that I wish would happen in my life that I lose sight of the things that are happening. With a very few exceptions, my life has always been more good than bad. The happy things have always outweighed the sad things. But I find that sometimes my ability to recognize the good things becomes clouded by doubt, fear, frustration, etc.

I've found that I can clear my muddied vision simply and effectively. In fact, it's got a near-perfect record: making the Lord and the gospel the center of my life. As long as I do that, everything else just falls into place and it's easier to see and appreciate the simple blessing in my life.

I get off-center every now and then when it comes to my spirituality. It's easy to become distracted by the pressures of work, school, and relationships. But luckily, we do have some prevention methods that help keep us on track. Someone very wise once told me that as long as we're reading our scriptures and saying our prayers every day, it's pretty darn hard to get too far off-track. Sins of commission are almost always preceded by sins of omission. We stop doing the things we should before we start doing the things we shouldn't. That's not the case 100% of the time, but I'd guess that 99.9% of the time it is.

Anyway, I've been faithfully reading and praying everyday for a while now (not forever; I'm not perfect) so life has been pretty decent. But then I started noticing a decrease in my desire to do those things every day. Sheer stubbornness was keeping me going, which isn't a bad thing, but shouldn't we do something because we really really want to? So yesterday, I took a few minutes before going to meet my boyfriend to sit and read my scriptures for a little longer than I normally would. I also offered a quick prayer for answers, even though I had no idea what question I was really asking.

When I got to Tevan's apartment, I was scanning the books on his bookshelf while he was looking some stuff up on the computer. My eyes fell on an old issue of the Ensign that had a cover story that caught my eye. Intrigued, I picked it up and read the article and lo and behold, it was answering the exact question that I didn't know I was asking. It told me exactly how to re-focus on the things I needed most. After I finished reading, I noticed that it was suddenly easier to recognize the little blessing of an answered prayer.

And today, as I was riding my bike home from work, I felt raindrops and noticed the clouds looking delightfully dark and ominous, so I pulled out my earbuds and listened to the gentle rolling thunder, a sound I haven't heard much of since I moved away from Iowa. I'd forgotten how much I missed it.

So now I'm sitting out on my front porch, computer in my lap, typing contentedly away as the wind (you know, I have yet to convince Tevan that wind is not of the devil) whisks gently through my hair.

I may not be a hardcore writer, or even a very great one, but I love capturing moments like this. Regardless of whether you call it a coincidence or not, I take this little thunderstorm as one of those small blessings that reminds me that yes, life is good.

Welcome Baby Mac

We got a brand new Mac at work yesterday. And it's pretty awesome, not going to lie. The designers who work with me were so excited that they organized a "welcome to the office!" party for it. I certainly appreciated the excuse to take a break from staring at scripts all day, and the food was delish. Not to mention, I definitely enjoyed seeing them get so excited over it, but at the same time, I feel a little like shaking my head.

Granted, the Mac is sleek, shiny, and noticeably bigger than my tv at home, but I felt a little bit of sympathy for my poor not-so-shiny PC. A lot of Mac users get on this high horse about Mac superiority and how "once you go mac, you never go back." Now that may be true. I wouldn't know. I grew up on a PC and I've used a PC my entire life. I'm completely handicapped when it comes to using Macs. I've picked a few things up here and there, but on the whole, it's better for everyone if I just stay away from them.

I'm of the opinion that both Macs and PCs have valuable characteristics that make them important. If that weren't the case, the PC would have disappeared a long time ago.

So while we posted post-it notes all over the office that said "Welcome, New Mac!!!" (yeah yeah, we didn't exactly have custom streamers made) I felt a little bit sorry for my poor neglected PC. It's true that it's not as big or sleek or snazzy-looking as the new Mac, but it chugs along faithfully for me and suits my needs perfectly. I feel no reason to decrease my loyalty to it in any way. All the bells and whistles on the new computer may be cool, but why trade up when I don't need to?

Come to think of it, that's a philosophy that can be applied broadly to my life. Our society always wants more more more and always better, even when the current things are perfectly functional. Better phones, nicer cars, bigger houses, more important friends. Sometimes it's healthy to take a step back and remember that we don't need all the improvements we think we do. I'd love to have the most sophisticated computer available, the nicest camera, the sleekest car, and greatest connections possible, but I don't really need those. My computer suits my varied needs as a student and as I said in an earlier post, I don't use my camera enough to justify a nicer one.

On the same subject, I'd love to be an awesome writer, musician, artist, etc. Heck, I'd even like to be a perfect editor, but if we were all the best at everything, we'd all be the same and no one would ever be able to learn from anyone else. Our talents are diverse and unique and just as I appreciate Savannah's skill with a camera more because I can't do that, we come to value others because they have something to teach us and because they're not just like us.

So while our office's new Mac is pretty cool, and yes, we did in fact need a new computer -- the shininess was just a perk -- my little PC is not without value. Plus, it does technically have more screen space than the Mac, thanks to the dual monitor. :)

Playing with Fire(works)

Pictures are fun. I like pictures. Sadly, I definitely don't take nearly enough of them. In truth, my camera has been on loan to Savannah for the last like, nine months so that she had something pocket/purse-sized to capture beautiful images with. She wouldn't want to be carrying her $1200 camera around all the time. Even though it has this insane ability to make everything look good just by virtue of being such a great camera. Add that to her natural skill as a photographer and everything looks pretty amazing most of the time.

With that said, I've included some pictures (taken with Savannah's previously mentioned awesome camera) of our adventures in sparkler-drawing -- one of the many traditions you can observe around the 4th of July.

This was the first in our drawing escapade and marked our first departure from scribbling words in the air. There are just so many cool things you can do with sparklers.

So we started playing with battle scenes

Amusingly, the idea for this one was not mine or Tevan's. Tevan's roommates wanted to do it.

Savannah is notably the Nefarious Lady Deathmoon and you do not get on her bad side. Ever.

And our grand finale, which involved me and two other friends running around like crazy people while the boys set off smoke bombs and my roommate Aubry just stood there looking amazed.