Spontaneous painting with strangers

The weekend in the middle of December found me with a holiday spirit and not much planned.  So I decided to use a coupon I had and go to a Paint Nite.  You might recall I've done these a few times in the past but this time, I went by myself.  I got to sit with about 75 strangers!  But I had a great time.  I was highly motivated by the painting of a Snowman and knew exactly where I wanted to put it.

This is a more advanced painting than I've painted before.  And keep in mind, I have zero painting skills.  But she walked us through it with patience and easy terms....and a huge sense of humor which I appreciated.

Getting started with scratchy coverage.  Looks complex but it was easy.
The motto is if you feel stressed, have another drink!

Here he comes.  Check out that expert shading!

Selfie to prove it is mine.

Drying sideways.  I'm very happy with him.

Me with my painting.  Cute frame as well.

I had a great afternoon and was pretty happy with my painting.  I hung him in my bedroom and he is very fun and festive!

Beautiful snow storm

When Nola comes to visit, we make a list of things she would like to do while in Utah. That helps us stay on the same page and use our time effectively (that sounds like a business discussion!!).  One thing on her list was "SNOW".  When she got here, Utah looked alot like September with leaves and brown landscape but almost as if she ordered it, Sunday night and Monday we got the "storm of the decade".  It snowed all night, all day, and all night again.  I live on the benches of the mountains so I tend to get mroe snow than the valley.  We got almost 2 feet in 24 hours.  It was so  much snow, the plows didn't get to all the streets.  It was absolutely beautiful but also put a kink in our plans for the last day of Nola's visit.

Instead of spending the day out and about, we decided to stay in and kick into craft central.  I'm so glad I had a decent stock of supplies.  I have a little felt pile to make ornaments and crafts with and Nola thoroughly enjoyed diving into it.  She planned out  some cute ornaments and we jumped into it immediately.  I finished them up after she left and I didn't get a photo!!  But they were cute.  We made birds and Christmas Trees with sequins and beads.  Nola also had some other projects that needed finished up so we got those done too.  She is so crafty.

Philips waiting for a haircut.  Until then, he is sporting a "man bun"

We did have reservations for dinner at The Roof so we did venture downtown for that.  We got there safe and sound and were lucky to get a seat right in the window.  It was too snowy to see a sunset but it was only a few minutes before the temple lights came on.  Words just can't describle the amazing view of the temple.  It really is a grand building.  Especially when lit up.

After dinner, we stopped in the lobby of the Joseph Smith building.  You are literally right next to the temple lights.  We decided to go have a peek.  Because of the snow, the temple as almost deserted except those of us brave enough to venture out.  It is really rare to walk around without major crowds.  But tonight was different and we had a beautiful time.  Nola took some fantastic photos.

Certainly another fun tradition.  It was beautiful and worth venturing out.

Holiday Lights

One evening, we decided to venture out and get pedicures and then head to Thanksgiving Point to do the drive through lights.  Thanksgiving Point is in Lehi around the point of the mountain.  Being a Saturday night, it was crowded!  We waited about 45 minutes in queue before we could enter but it was worth it.  Very very fun.

Unfortunately, I learned the hard way that new cars will not allow you to turn off your lights completely while driving.  Reasonable safety feature but really unfortunate when you are driving in a crowd looking at lights.   I could turn off the large halogen lights but the running lights stayed on.  Miss Grumpy "No Holiday Spirit" took an opportunity to chew us out about it.  It has been awhile since I was confronted in such a manner by a stranger.  Even as I tried to explain they don't turn off, she continues to exude her opinion.  She let us pass her so she wouldn't have my lights in her rear view mirror.  Lucky for her, my passive aggressive tendancies aren't completely gone so I took my time looking at lights and let her enjoy my break lights the rest the way.

We still loved it and enjoy seeing the lights.  I'm sorry my lights won't turn off and that caused her some stress.  Next time we might decide  to take another car that will drive with lights off.

Santa Brunch

I've been very busy the last few weeks.  Not only did I do a business trip, Nola and Mom came for a visit and Philip came home for winter break.  So I will be trying to provide a few updates.  Let's start with Santa Brunch!

One of the traditions Philip and I do is to head to Little America for the Santa Brunch event.  It is really fun to enjoy all that yummy food but also Mr. and Mrs. Clause are present and walk around greeting everyone and talking with the kids.

Philip has a HUGE issue with photos with Santa.  Last year, I was able to sneak in a photo but this year, he was able to dodge the Clause's.  Must have been the death stares and "look avoidance" tactics.  Philip declared he is a grown man so he doesn't need a photo.  We still waved to the Mr. and Mrs and enjoyed the general festivities.

Here are a few photos from that fun morning!

Love the crepes.  I always start and end with one.  Delicious!

Must be the sugar but we started pulling faces and cracking ourselves
up.  I love laughing with Philip.

Beautiful Ice Sculpture and ladies

Very fun tradition!

The end of Kitten Season

This weekend brings the close to kitten season...which means the Kitten Nursery is closed for the season.  It is bittersweet to me.  While the work was very hard for me and there were times (like the wild kittens that fell out of the kennel) I wondered what the heck I was doing there, overall, I loved it.  How often do  you get to interact with tiny baby kittens?  At any given time, there were about 200 kittens in the nursery during the peak season!  That is lots of little babies crying for food!

I saw tiny day old kittens, very sick kittens I was sure were not going to make it, and litters of rambunctous kittens that were anxious to eat and grow and get adopted.  I learned more about kitten care and how to make a kitten poop or eat than I ever wanted to learn.  It seemed like diarreah was a common occurance in the kitten nursery.  I learned pumpkin can help with that. I also learned how loving and caring the Best Friends group is.  I am touched by how much time and care they provided to each and every kitten.

I really wanted to foster a kennel of kittens after my house came off the market but I missed the training so I wasn't eligible.  Probably a good thing because I am positive I would not have been able to turn those kittens back in.  There were some kittens that were minor stars of the nursery.  Usually they were so damn cute, you couldn't help but love them.  I got to see them grow up and go to foster and then out to adoption.  Because the organization is a "No Kill" facility, all pets are saved whenever possible.

The kitten nursery had over 1400 kittens come through with a 86% survival rate.  That is amazing considering every one of these kittens would have not made it in a shelter because of the time and care they required.  Of the ones that didn't survive, it is because they were just too sick when they came in.  At least they had a chance and had people fighting for their survival!   Over Thanksgiving, the adoption center had a sponsor pay for all adoptions so it was a free adoption weekend.  Every single kitten eligible for adoption was adopted on Friday.

The kitten nursery will open again in March.  I know I will be in line to get back on the schedule.  It was one of the most rewarding things I did in 2015!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving really snuck up on me.  But it was here before I knew it.  Philip came home for the weekend and Ryan (yes, my ex) invited me to join him and his family for dinner.  Ryan is a fantastic cook and we have been getting along really well.  Plus that means I get to see Philip on Thanksgiving and share the "most important meal of the year" with him.

We all arrived at Ryan's early and the smell was fantastic!  Ryan and the guys were all in the kitchen getting dinner ready.  I'm a busy body so it wasn't long before I pushed my way in and was helping too.  Ryan had 27 people to dinner which is quite a feat.

Nice to see the guys doing dinner!  It was excellent!!

Me, Philip, and Tiffany (Philip's girlfriend)

We enjoyed dinner.  I sat at the table Philip was at.  It was like the big kids table.  I helped clean up and then came home to get some sleep.  Fritz flew in for a weekend visit on Friday. I bought the 50 lb newspaper to cruise through the ads but I couldn't find a thing that made me want to go out shopping on Black Friday!

We had a fantastic Thanksgiving and weekend.  I hope you did too!

Crash Gordon lives on

As my luck with new cars continues, in true historical fashion, I hit a concrete building with my car.  I was at the Pet Adoption Center and had just finished pulling a volunteer shift doing computer work.  I was backing out slowly and obviously not paying close enough attention.  Before I knew it, I heard a loud scrape and felt the jolt of the car.

I couldn't make myself get out to see the damage but I did see the wall was just fine.  I cringed and drove away with a sick feeling in my stomach about my car.  I had visualized the entire bumper crashed in and a ripple down the rear fender.

I went to the grocery store, took a deep breath and took a peek.  It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Just a huge scrape and lots of missing paint in a very artistic scratchy way.

When Philip saw it, he said the photo doesn't do it justice and it is horrible.  Thanks sweetie!  I took it to my body shop I always go too and decided to not make an insurance claim.  While it will be expensive to fix, I will risk having my insurance rates increase for the next 10  years.

Luckily Jack (the body man) can get me in on Monday.  So I am taking it in before I leave on a business trip to San Francisco.  It should be done when I get home.  Fingers crossed.  And then it will be all better and I can once again be proud of my pretty car.  One of these days, I will get used to the back up camera.  Those new fangled things are beyond me.  :-)