Go eat rocks

These are pictures from the Arizona Museum of Mines and Minerals.  All of the "food" items are actually rock specimens of one kind or another.   Isn't it great?  It is the result of one couple's lifelong hobby of collecting rocks that look like food.  Awesome hobby.  

 Even the ketchup and the milk are made from powdered minerals.

I like the pickle and olives.  The lemon chiffon pie is Travertine marble.

Breakfast Rocks!
There's even a bottle of vitamins.  Look at the butter pats and jelly, too.

Stake Conference

     Stake Conference weekend went well, and dad topped it off with a four hour Coordinating Council meeting in San Jose later Sunday afternoon.  Yikes.  I felt so sorry for him I even packed him a lunch.  I am generally not so thoughtful!
     The funniest part of the weekend was on Sunday when they called on several members to come up and bear their testimonies, and one of them, Mary A. happened to be out in the foyer where she didn't hear.  So her husband went out to tell her they had just called her name and she thought he was playing a joke on her.  She wouldn't believe him no matter what he said, because she pictured herself walking up to the front and everyone wondering what she was doing.  Finally her daughter came out to the foyer and told her it was true and she sort of believed her, so she poked her head into the chapel and dad saw her and waved her up to the front (inconspicuously).  Nobody else knew what had gone on, but she told dad afterward and we had a good laugh, especially because Mary thought it was funny, too.
     We had really good attendance, but our numbers will probably be down next time because of  all the people that were called on the last couple of conferences!  It was really great to hear from so many people, though.

Stake Temple Day

We had a wonderful Stake Temple Day last week in preparation for our Stake Conference coming up this week.  We are estimating there were between 250-300 people there.  There were so many people there we had to use two rooms, and also had to bring in folding chairs in addition to that. People had to squeeze into the chapel beforehand, and then we discovered people lining the hallway as we left the chapel.  Wow!  It was quite wonderful. We have such an obedient stake.  The members are always so responsive to any invitation from the Stake Presidency.  They are really faithful people and we love them.  I know it will be a great Stake Conference this weekend and am really looking forward to it.

Happy Valentine's Day

I am just thinking of my family today and how much I love each of you.  So Happy Valentine's Day Reed, Ian, Sarah, Camden, Danny, Michelle, Brad, Caitlin, Terry and Caitlin. You each amaze me in your own way and make me so happy!

Where do pens come from?

I buy pens in bulk.  I only buy one kind - Pilot G-2 in black - but I do like variety so sometimes I get the .07 size, but usually it is .05 or even the new 0.38.  So, I ask you, where do all these other pens come from in my house?  In my "Uncle Joe's Mint Balls" pen jar in the kitchen, and my office jam-jar right now there is a Bic GripRoller, a Uniball Vision Elite (blue!!),  a Pilot Precise V5 (again with the blue!!), a Pilot V Ball Grip, a Bic stick pen (horrors), a Bic Soft Feel (semi-horrors), and a Monterey Family History Center pen (okay, I know where that one came from).  I cannot possibly be expected to use one of these inferior pens. And where have all my Pilot G-2s gone?  I only count four.  I can only conclude one thing:  Pens are migratory.

I spend a lot of time studying human migration patterns and it is very interesting.  I imagine tracking the life of a pen until the day it runs out of ink, and if it doesn't just end up in a junk drawer (or drunk drawer as one of my kids used to say), it would have an interesting tale to tell.  Seriously.  Think of how far one pen could travel, and all the things it could witness.

I think there is a flow of pens in the universe that is a kind of yin yang thing - it all balances out.  When there is an imbalance in a home or purse caused by an influx of pens, a certain number of pens are required to leave.  I hate to point fingers, but I think Reed unwittingly tips the scales with the stray pens that make their way into his shirt pocket and then onto the counter and then into the "Uncle Joe's Mint Ball" jar.  I am not worried about his many clients losing pens to him, though, because I know that Universal Pen Yin Yang will balance things out for them.  And they, too, will learn to love Pilot G-2s in black.  (They are archival-safe, you know.) And don't even get me started on pencils.

Witness Protection

So now I have proof that Greenfield Ward is part of the witness protection program. The three new families who just moved in are named Jones, Smith, and Brown.

Who cares about the tires?

     Today I learned that I have "wheel locks" on my car. And then I learned that when you have "wheel locks" you have to have a special key to get them off so you can replace your really, really bad tires with really, really new ones. 

      It's too bad I did not learn this before I drove to Costco Tire in Salinas, but if I had, then I would not have witnessed a most amazing 15 minutes at the beach in Monterey.  That was after I went to the dealership in Monterey and found out they had no way to get my wheels off.  I was sad. 

     But then as I got onto Hwy 1 to go home I saw the most glorious scene before me, and fortunately I had brought my camera.  So here you will see some of what I saw and you will think, "I must find a way to move back to King City so my bad days will turn out good, too."

     Lest you think only Monterey has good days, the last two pictures are of the Salinas Valley, taken from River Road.

Earthworm Day

[Having been inspired by my daughters-in-law, Sarah, Michelle, and Caitlin, I vow to blog on this space created for Reed and I by my son Ian.]

It has been raining cats and dogs here this whole week.  And I guess it's raining earthworms, too.  Yesterday I had two opportunities to contemplate earthworms---Where do they come from?  What are they thinking?  No, really, What are they thinking?  Do they even have brains?  Because from what I saw yesterday I conclude they do not.  Or, just maybe, the thing to learn is that not only do they have brains, but also a sense of adventure.  

The dogs and I have been on Rainy Day Schedule, which means we are in the house together all day working on our special projects.  In the afternoon yesterday I took them outside to feed them, and in their dog dishes and water bowl I found a bunch of earthworms swimming.  Well, maybe they weren't swimming but were merely struggling  for survival.  Do earthworms breathe?  Were they trying to get out or enjoying some recreation?  It seemed to me they were trying to get out, so I helped them.  Also, I didn't want the dogs to eat them.  

But that made me wonder, seriously, how they got in there---why they got in there.  Did they fall from the sky?  The patio would be covered with worms, unless these ones had parachuted and landed in the bowls.  No evidence of tiny parachutes.  Surely they were not trying to find water, because where they live (under the lawn, I presume) there is presently a lot of water.  So, they must have been flushed out of their underground homes by too much water.  If so, why did they head straight for the water bowls?  Hmmm.  I think I just figured it out.  They could not see into the water bowls to know they were death pools---they thought (if they have brains) they were heading for higher ground, a shiny silver mountain slope that was their only hope.  They reached the top and then...how sad.  I am so glad I arrived in time.

Later, when I crossed my bedroom to turn off the light I noticed a piece of brown yarn in the middle of my white carpet.  I didn't have my glasses on. I reached down to pick it up, but just in the nick of time I noticed it move slightly.  Yechhh.  My first instinct was to be grossed out that an earthworm was in the middle of my bedroom.  Then I got a grip on my emotions and reached for a newspaper to transport the worm outside, the whole time revisiting my earlier ponderings on earthworms.  How did it get in my bedroom?  Why did it come there?  Was it the same worm I had rescued earlier?  Man, such an adventuresome worm!  Sorry, but you cannot stay, I thought to myself as I tried to get it onto the newspaper. It was not as easy as one might think.

It is my understanding that when a worm is cut in half it will grow back into two worms.  Is that true? I hope so.  Because somewhere in our backyard there are two worms thinking, "I have been where no worm has been."  (Do worms have brains?)

Mom and Dad's space

This is space for Mom and Dad to post whatever they want.