I Love to Go a Wandering

When my husband and I talked about moving to Utah it was a no-brainer for me.  I'd visited the Salt Lake area a few times and had always said to myself, "Self, we could live here."  When it became a reality I was all for it. 

 

I LOVE it here. My neighbors, my neighborhood, my home, my yard and garden, the mountains that rise up to the sky behind us... It's a hundred times better than I ever thought it would be. 

 

And now we are going to leave it.  It won't be for another 18 months, but I am sad to go already.

Mark's job is as a Safety Director and he creates safe working environments, programs and strategies for the employees. Part of that job is handling worker's comp and general liability claims. In the first year in Utah he was instrumental in saving the company over $million just by better management of claims and safe work practices. Recently, the company decided to hand the claims aspect over to a TPA and take it away from the Safety Directors in all divisions. This decision didn't eleminate Marks job but took a portion of it off his desk. It also created a need for two people to oversee nationally the TPA, work with them and manage claims and law suits over a certain value. 

 

Mark was interested in that position from the git-go. He inquired and found that it could not be located here in Utah so he didn't apply.  He did ask about it on several occasions indicating that he was interested but wouldn't move his family until Krissy graduates. 

 

Last Friday he got a call and was told they would be making him an offer. SHOCK!!  The offer allows him to perform the job from Utah for one year and then begin relocation to Cincinnati. After a little negotiation he accepted the offer. Incredibly, our kids are excited and happy about this opportunity for him. Of course it means we will be better able to help with college for them, so factor that in...

I have such mixed feelings.  We lived in one house in Seattle for 20 years and I was soooooo ready to move. I always thought I would like to move a little more often but moving is expensive. The move to SLC was over $70,000 and fortunately, the company pays that. They will pay for the move to Cincy, too. I love new places and learning my way around and 'discovering' all there is to discover, but I am not done discovering here yet. We'll have only spent 3 years in Utah - I guess I better get busy exploring a little quicker.

I wish I had visited Cincy before. I would have a better feeling for it and maybe a little less reluctance. We will have major league baseball again - yeah!!  We will be back in a big city instead of a small city - yeah!!  It will be humid - boo!!  Liquor laws will probably make more sense, and I might be able to buy a bottle of wine in the supermarket - yeah!!  I might be able to find another volksmarch club - yeah!!  I might be able to get my scrapbook business going again - yeah!!  I might just come to love it there as much as here - yeah!!

And since there is no skiing in Cincy, maybe we'll just have to join a travel club and take real vacations for a change - YEAH!!! 

 

If anyone can tell me anything about Cincy, Ohio, Kentucky - please do - I've ordered some books but would love to hear the details first hand!

 

That's all - I've rambled enough. 

Maren...

(originally posted on MySpace)

It's been one year since Maren jumped off the Aurora Bridge to her death.  We'll never know or understand why, but we do know the hurt and pain she left us with.  Will it ever go away?  

 

We've promised to never forget her, but even without a promise, how could we?  She was an amazing girl. Not yet 16 at the time of her death, she was smart and pretty and athletic.  She was very well liked by her friends and she was one of those rare girls who liked and was kind to everyone.  

 

My heart especially aches for her family today. The two sisters she left behind, her mom and dad. I can't even pretend to imagine their pain.  

 

Maren, I truly believe you acted in anger and haste and would not have jumped had you stopped to think.  Such a horrid act that can never be undone.  We'll always miss you and always wonder what you would have become and done had you lived on. 

 

I hope your soul is in peace.

 

This 'n That

(Previously posted on MySpace)

It's so "Seattle" today in my back yard.  The precip is sleet instead of rain, but it's coming straight down out of a seattle-gray sky.  The patio is shiney wet and the only action is an occasional birdie scooting along the grass to duck for cover under an evergreen.  

 

I'm happy spring is back. Aside from my 'mia' tulips, I have bunches of lovely daffy-dils and the prettiest green foliage on the trees that separate our yard from our back-door neighbor.  The yard is a good size yard with a trampoline and basket ball court, so we don't feel boxed in, just more private. 

 

Since I am off work today I may have to zip up and go to the nursery. I have some fun plans for the front of the house that will translate into fall & winter venues after summer flowers have had their stay. It's time to get the veggies planted and Mark has a new toy to use in that garden.  Pictures will follow once we get to work.

Any ideas for a nice, not too intrusive, vine-like plant to grow along our back cyclone fence?  I love clematis but had no success with it last year. I've thought about a champaign grape that a friend of ours grew in WA - but I don't know how it would winter.  We do have concord grapes flowing over from a neighbor's yard, by the apricot tree, so I am a little hopeful that it could work. 

 

Our mountains were so incredible this morning when I took Krissy to school.  The clouds were high above them, just out of reach of the peaks, and the sky must have been clear on the back side of the mountains, for the sun had lit the lower underside puffs a light yellow in contrast to the upper grayness. The mountains below are just tipped with the last of our snow and below that flowed like green fabric to the tree line, otherwise known as the house line. 

 

From one view a double row of street lights was twinkling right at the base.  Would have been an awesome photo if not for all the phone lines.  I am so in love with this area. I love that the mountains are so close in our back yard!

 

No matter where you are there is beauty. Take time and stop to enjoy and appreciate it.  Read the Alchemist and you will begin to understand the wonder of a grain of sand.

 

Mom's home!

(from my former MySpace blog)

Mom came home from the hospital today and she is doing well!  When we got to the house I asked her if she wanted me to get her wheel chair to get inside or her walker. She's been sick and off her feet since Friday so I assumed she would want the wheel chair.  But oh, no!  She wanted her walker and negotiated two ramps into the house in a rather fast pace for her.  (Just a smidge faster than a snail's pace...). I am rather impressed and very happy.  She's sitting up in the living room reading her usual assortment of catalogs (that's a blog for another day...)

 

Most importantly, I want to thank all of you for your prayers and healing thoughts, hugs & any other positive energies you sent our way. It's amazing how important and helpful that energy is!!  Hugs right back to all of you, my friends!!!!

xoxo

Wasted days and wasted nights...

(from my former MySpace blog)

Not really wasted in the alcoholic sense or the true sense... 

 

Mom is in the hospital again... 2nd time in two weeks.  It's a strain and a drain to spend so much time in the ER.  I think our shortest time spent in ER is 4 hours.  That was today.  

 

She had another spell and this time we called the paramedics. I think that has probably been her plan all along... get three incredibly good looking guys to come fuss over her and take her away in a huge fire truck.  I have to say I did offer to take her place in the truck.... 

 

Don't know yet what is wrong.  This time they said she is very anemic and gave her two units of blood.  In the a.m. they will do an endoscopy (right word?) to see if she is bleeding in her stomach.  I hope they don't want to send her home after only one night again.  She's just too weak to come home so soon. 

 

On the up side... I should have my Phoenix photos back by tomorrow and I got a little promotion at work.  Woot Woot. 

 

I should be in bed now, asleep, but I feel a bit wound up.  Send up your good thoughts and prayers, k?

 

Phoenix

...is a hecka long way from Sandy, UT. Especially by car. But OMHeck, there is such incredible scenery between the two.  And I love Love LOVE road trips!

 

Unfortunately I left home without my camera, or maybe fortunately because I would still be in the car on the road if I had stopped to photo every awesome sight I saw. 

 

Of course leaving Sandy means driving through the amazing mountains that surround my home.  Traveling south the mountains change dramatically in shape and color and although sometimes the scenery stretches for miles without a significant change, it's all so unbelievably beautiful that long stretches are simply okay and easy to "endure." The colors and textures of the landscape, living or mineral, are such a gift to the eyes and spirit. From sea to shining sea our country is amazing.

 

And I still have not seen the Grand Canyon.  I can't even imagine what kind of an impact that will have on me when the day comes. 

 

Now, ten or eleven hours after leaving home (no, we didn't run away, everyone knows where we went...) we are enjoying our down time before bed and in just another 12 hours will be sitting in the stands ready to enjoy spring training watching the Mariners.  Woot woot!!  I miss my Mariners since they aren't on TV in Utah and these three games in the next three days will have to be my 'fix' for this season. Phoenix is having record breaking high temps right now - should be an interesting time!  I have my sunscreen and peanuts... just waiting for that first pitch!

In the head of a shooter

What goes on in the head of a shooter?  Just recently we watched a program on the Columbine massacre and now, within days, a shooter kills five people in a local mall.  A mall I did some of my Christmas shopping in. A mall I take visitors to shop at. A mall where many innocent people were spending a nice evening and suddenly and forever lost their sense of safety and security.  Don't I live in one of the safest places in America?  

 

As often seems the case, the shooter was a young man, only 18 years old. What pain caused him to do this?  What possible satisfaction could he receive in taking innocent lives?  There is no indication of any connection with the mall that I have heard of. Why did he want to hurt people he didn't know and had no connection to? 

 

In some weird sense I can understand terrorism related to religion. A little part of me can step inside the head of the postal worker who's been fired, or the man who shoots his x-wife, judge and lawyer in court.  But I just cannot stretch the limits of my brain towards any kind of understanding of a shooter that kills for the sake of the thrill.

 

I am in pain for the five dead and their friends and family. The injured and the survivors.  The people at the mall last night are all victims, they all lost something. Perhaps all of us in this city have. 

 

My heart goes out to the family of the shooter. I know they are not responsible, but how do you deal with this being at the hands of your son? 

 

What could he possibly have been thinking???

 

(from my former MySpace blog)