Going Green

I just love a good color scheme. On Independence Day, I like to make red, white, and blue desserts. On Valentine's Day, I seek out the red and turn edible things pinkish with red food coloring. I do sort of the same thing for Halloween with orange or black. On St. Patrick's Day, the whole green thing gets taken to great heights. Probably because there really isn't anything else to do to celebrate it. Does anyone actually know the origin of this holiday?

Green seems particularly fun because it's the natural color of so many things, and a completely unnatural color for so many others! Green flowers, for instance, kind of catch you off-guard, even though parts of the flower are green. When I was a teenager, I used green nail polish at the appropriate time. In college, my roommates and I wore green lipstick and painted shamrocks on our faces with green eyeliner for a huge group date dinner we hosted.

This is one holiday that's magnified by being around kids. This morning, my kids ran around, trying to find all the green things in the house. The three girls have matching green shirts on. The crossing guard had on a glittery green bowler hat. The kids in the schoolyard were sporting all manner of festive headwear, from over-sized leprechaun hats to shamrocks attached to headbands with spring-y stems so they bobble around in the air.

Favorite green foods:
-Key lime pie yogurt (Yoplait)- the yogurt itself is green, not just the picture on the cup
-Apple Jacks- the only green-boxed cereal I know of. The green cereal bits are a relatively recent addition to the peachy-colored ones.
-Mint chocolate chip ice cream
-Kiwi
-Green kool-aid
-Lime Jello
-Guacamole
-Green bagels from Fry's- they've done this for years. Last year, a fellow shopper asked, "What's wrong with the bagels? Are they moldy?" I don't think mold grows in that particular shade.
-Anything shamrock-shaped. My sister's birthday is today, which has led to some cake creativity over the years. We had pretty good success with a flower-shaped cake surgically altered to be a shamrock. Finally, the cake pan people wised up and created a shamrock pan. I've got shamrock cookie cutters and shamrock sprinkles. I think Julia's birthday has motivated a higher degree of St. Patrick's Day observance in our family.

Tonight, I think I'll make waffles for dinner. Food coloring will be involved.

Education is for all creatures

I went early to pick up my daughters from school to do some business in the office. When I opened the door to the building, two alpacas were in there! I thought they were llamas at first (I don't know the difference). They were beige and very fluffy ("in full fleece"). I frequently wish I had a camera with me to capture these quirky moments. The alpacas were apparently done with whatever they had come to do, because right after we came, a lady took them to the parking lot and put them into the back of a minivan.

Dogs and other pets are not allowed in the school, but alpacas- they're okay, I guess.

Olympic Musings

-I really like the Olympics, but it's a good thing they're about over. I'm not a very nice person when I don't get enough sleep.

-Men's halfpipe was the most fun to watch this time around

-Why do some countries have to be such poor sports? Seriously, death threats to the short track judges?

-The media should be more careful about over-hyping athletes before the Games get going. Last time, everyone was SO SURE Bode Miller would win handfuls of gold medals. They put him in a series of commercials to air during the Games, imparting bits of his "wisdom" to us all. Then he won nothing. This time, it was Lindsey Vonn. Other athletes get ignored, some of which far exceed their expectations. Nothing against these skiers. They are very talented and successful. They're not the only ones to watch, though.

-I had no idea Canada was such a cool place. The people are awesome and it's nice for them that they won so many golds (but I'm still happy the U.S. got the most medals)

-I got a little weary of Scott Hamilton's sound effects when figure skaters did difficult jumps.

-Why are the athletes' crashes replayed so many times? And did anyone else think there were a lot more of them this time?

-I liked the snowboard slalom event because it was possible to change the outcome of the race in the final run. In so many sports, it's very difficult to change the rankings that are established in the first runs or performances.

-Once you start using a DVR, it is next to impossible to go back.

A Shift in Voice

A few years ago, I wrote something for a class at BYU. I wouldn't let my husband read it because it was typewritten and I didn't think that I was quite myself when typing. I have kept a journal since I was twelve (I think) and for almost the entire time always used blank books or journals to write in. My brother, a computer programmer, has had an electronic journal for years. That always made sense to me because his voice coming through the computer has always seemed natural. I only ever used the computer to write fancy-shmancy final drafts of papers for writing classes or sometimes for classes I didn't enjoy but had to take for academic purposes. Writing on topics or in ways I didn't choose always sounded fake to me when I would proofread my assignments. Of course it was always me who put the ideas into words and onto paper, but it wasn't ME.

It's a different world technologically from even just five years ago. Email has taken the place of written letters. Blogging has filled a gap between me and people with whom I would like to keep current. Facebook has become the fastest way to get in touch with a lot of people I know. And then sometime in the past few years, my typing became WAY faster than handwriting. My husband and I finally went electronic with our journal writing when the journals we liked to use became hard to find. We also realized that, although computers do fail and information gets lost, it's a lot easier to back up an electronic file than it is to protect an ever-increasing number of books from every environmental hazard.

So now I blog. I'm going to try it out and see how it goes.

Latest Addition

So where are the fish? It turns out you have to set up an aquarium quite awhile before you add fish to it. I thought all it needed was a few days to let the chlorine disspate, but it takes a few weeks to be totally ready. There are actually three fish in there (you can see one or two by clicking on the picture), but they're small, mostly black (also the color of the gravel), and a bit reclusive. They don't often swim higher than a few inches off the floor and prefer to stay in little caves and alcoves in the tank. In another week, we should be ready to add the rest of the fish we intend to keep in this tank. They will be bigger and different colors.

I've passively looked at owning an aquarium for awhile. We have a neighbor who is quite the aquarist and recently downsized from two tanks to one big one. He and his wife gave us the tank, the filter, the stand, live plants, and the three fish. We've spent the last couple of weekends looking for other fish, the canopy, and the landscaping for the tank.

After taking care of a swimming pool, a small fish tank shouldn't be too much of a challenge.

Size in gallons:

Tank: 30

Pool: 12,000

Time to fill:

Tank: 5 minutes

Pool: 30 hours

Filter:

Tank: Weighs a couple of pounds, runs continuously, pumps 300 gallons per hour

Pool: Filled with 400 pounds of sand, probably a couple hundred pounds more total, not that you'd want to lift it. Runs between 4 and 10 hours a day, depending on season, 1200 gallons per hour

Bacteria:

Tank: Growth encouraged

Pool: Great time and expense devoted to banishing bacteria

Chlorine:

Tank: Special chemical added to de-chlorinate water for the safety of the swimmers

Pool: Lots of effort and expense to add and maintain chlorine in the water for the safety of the swimmers

Sand and rocks:

Tank: Added for aesthetic and functional purposes

Pool: Death to the plaster and filter