Okay, okay, this makes three days without updates. You should know by now that my promises of daily postings are more like wishful thinking than anything else.

So, here’s your update. We did go to IKEA on Saturady (I was going to take a photo to post, but Matt wouldn’t let me. Party pooper.) and we bought too much stuff, as always happens when we’re let loose in that fabulous store. Picked up a few Christmas gifts for family members, some airtight canisters to store our coffee in, new pillows, things like that. We also hit up a couple other places, including Payless Shoes, where I got these (much cheaper than that) and another pair, even cheaper, that I can’t find on the website. Both very cute and comfy. Yay shoes!

Yesterday (that would be Sunday) we made a rather abortive attempt at hiking. There were several obstacles, but between the semi-slushy snow on the trail (but not enough to make snowshoes worthwhile, of course) and the unrelenting rain, we turned back sooner rather than later, and spent pretty much the rest of the day avoiding the outdoors, because it was rather uninviting. And since it was raining while we were hiking, we never pulled out the camera, so no photos. Not that you could have really seen anything anyway.

I have, so far, read three books.

This morning, we decided to head over to Park City and see where the day led us. We walked around historic downtown PC for a while, then went east to Kamas for lunch and then farther east into the Wasatch National Forest for a bit of mountain biking. It was muddy and tiring and I’m way out of shape, and we didn’t go very far, objectively speaking, but it was lots of fun, and I’m glad we did it. Still having plenty of daylight, we swung down and got a really fantastic view from the top of Memorial Hill in the Heber Valley. Here’s part of the view, plus proof that I’m actually on the trip:

See? Skinny, pale, and squinting. It must be me!

Anyway, from there we headed a bit farther south and west over a well-traveled gravel road to get to Cascade Springs, which was lovely and interesting and generally great. Matt took some great photos, but apparently I didn’t upload any. At any rate, we were going to continue on a paved alpine scenic route up past Mount Timpanagos and on to Provo, but it was closed. The nerve! But never fear! There was another option–a state park road that dropped south to the road we needed.

It did come with a warning, but that seemed like much more of a formality than anything.

I mean, look at that! You can almost hear the birds singing! That sign? Biggest. Understatment. Ever.

On the up side, Leo (that would be our 4Runner) got to have fun on vacation, too!

That was the first of three water crossings. Then there was the freakishly steep climbing, which we probably would not have managed without Leo’s low 4-wheel drive gear. There were a few very scary moments. Not, “Oh no, we’re going to die” scary but, “Hmm this might be very, very bad for the car” scary.

But we got some really amazing views. (97% sure this is Timpanagos)

We wouldn’t have gotten anything like that without hiking for several hours. It was fantastic. Very cool. Very fun. I have no desire to ever do it again. :) Definitely an unforgettable part of this vacation.

Between the driving, which always makes me stiff, the mountain biking, and the off-roading adventure, I anticipate not being able to get my own body out of bed in the morning without help. I’ll make sure there’s a book or two on the bedside table so I won’t have to move if that’s the case. Never hurts to be prepared.

Viva vacation!

Okay, so I don’t have any Utah photos for you today, but I do have photos from the first part of our morning. We stayed outside of Grand Junction and took the time to drive through the Colorado National Monument, which really is lovely. We’d like to return sometime and do some hiking, rather than being relegated to the Rim Road. It was a spectacular drive, though, with many opportunities to pull over and walk to an overlook and take photos or just enjoy God’s creation. Driving through on an overcast Friday morning certainly affected traffic, and there were hardly any other people. Amazing quiet, and a really surprising lack of wind, given the fact that wind and water are the chief agents of erosion in this really amazing terrain.

It’s hard to see the vegetation much there, but up along the road there were old trees twisted by the wind, stunted by the harsh conditions. Most of them are probably a hundred years old, but look much smaller. Here’s one that must have started out in a crack in the rock, but has gotten big enough that it looked like it was rooted directly in the sandstone. Very cool.

Tomorrow we’re going to take it easy, really relax and unwind, and maybe venture out to IKEA. Whee IKEA!

Have I ranted here on the blog about the silly people who park in our spot? About the people who park right beside our spot in the stripey bit of the handicapped spot beside ours, as if that were a real spot?

I think I have.

Just to give you a little taste of the kind of thing that happens all the time around here, Matt just pulled the car up so we can load bags for our vacation…

Really? Did the lawnmower dude NEED to put his tarp of grass RIGHT THERE?

It has become amusing to me. Maybe I can set up an electric shocker fence for anyone who crosses into our parking space. That would do it, right? Right?

Okay, so I’ve been rather swamped lately. You see, there was that unexpected trip east last week, and then all the scrambling to catch up and make sure Matt remembered everything he needs to do (he is now officially done with his school year – yay!) and–taking up most of my time this week–there has been the planning I put off for our upcoming vacation.

That’s right, folks. For the first time in two years, I will be traveling entirely for pleasure. We aren’t meeting anyone or seeing family or going to a conference or anything other than relaxing in the middle of some of God’s beautiful country. And we leave this afternoon. Yipes!

We’ve rented a condo thing outside Park City, Utah for the week, and we will be relaxing, hiking, mountain biking, and generally exploring the Salt Lake City/Provo/Uintas Range/Wasatch-Cache Mountains area for the next week. And, as a reward for your general patience and fabulousness over the last few months, I’ll do my best to post a spectacular (or at least an interesting) photo from the trip every day. We’ll have wifi, and I’m taking my laptop, so there’s no reason this shouldn’t work.

Yay Utah!

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

Words and Music by Keith Getty & Stuart Townend

I’m exhausted.

We forgot to get something to give as a thank-you for the family that took care of Shiloh while we were gone.

I. Am. Exhausted.

I can only imagine how Matt feels. He needs to function today and all weekend, whereas it’s more or less okay that I’m mostly staring into space.

I haven’t felt much like blogging lately. There are times when I’m doing interesting things, or funny things happen to me, and I have a lot of fun relating them to whomever happens to stop by to pay attention to my little corner of the world, or at least what I tell of it here.

There are also times when not much out of the ordinary is happening, or when I’m not in the right mindset to spin ordinary things as funny or interesting. Sometimes that’s because I’m just not feelin’ it (and with depression, it’s hard to tell when one of those days will come) and sometimes it’s because I’m just plain busy with mundane things like work and running errands and doing laundry and flying across the country to help with a family tragedy. Incidentally, that last is the main reason for the last week’s worth of silence.

Also, I’m not really that funny of a person. And there are only so many funny things that can happen to a person in a given amount of time. I don’t know if that resets every few months or what, but sometimes it seems like I use up my funny quota and I have to wait until the program resets before I can have more. Because really, there are only so many jokes one can make about laundry before it gets really, really old. At least, there are only so many in a household of two adults plus a dog. I would imagine that adding one or more children to the mix would add a commensurate level of adventure to which stains might be found, how they were acquired, and various descriptions of attempts to clean them. But really, people, I live a pretty quiet life. I suppose (until I use up my quota) I have a knack for giving stories a humorous spin, but that’s really all it is–spin.

Holey shamoley, I just about had a heart attack. You see, I’m on the plane flying from Syracuse to Chicago (O’Hare, thanks for asking) and although I have a novel, I’m not particularly interested in starting it right now. Although I have manuscript pages printed and ready for editing, my brain just isn’t settled enough to concentrate. I tried working my quick crossword puzzles (I like the quick ones–they make me feel smart) but lost interest more or less as soon as the plane left the ground. And I have my AlphaSmart, because I entertained pipe dreams of lots of lovely time to get work done and maybe even write a scene or two, but again, my brain is not cooperating. So I’m writing a blog entry which I will post when we get home, either tonight or tomorrow morning, depending on where I stashed the cable I need to transfer things from here to there. Anyway, the near-miss on the heart attack was the captain coming on the super duper loud speakers to say something or other, which of course I didn’t pay attention to because even though it was muffled by my headphones, he scared the cheese out of me and I had to stuff it all back in before the flight attendants noticed the mess.

If they’re both women, can I call them stewardesses? Or is that universally politically incorrect now? Do I need to use a gender non-specific term when they are the same gender? These are the things I ponder as we fly over Lake Erie. Look! There’s Canada!

And now I think it would be best if I stopped, or else you’ll all just get a running commentary of the terrain between Erie, PA and Chicago. And everybody knows northern Ohio isn’t very interesting. Also, don’t tell the people who live there, but it smells funky. Seriously. I’ve driven through there tons of times, and it’s almost as bad as North Jersey. Don’t tell the north Jersey people, either. It’ll be our little secret. Me, you, the fence post, and the rest of the internet. Yeah.

See? I should have stopped typing at least a paragraph ago. Why didn’t you stop me? Why?? WHY???

I am a vain, fickle creature.

My blog stats did something funky about three weeks ago, and now even though I know people are stopping by, I don’t get any record of it with wp-stats, which is the widget I use. Which means I don’t pay as much attention, and I don’t post, and everything is really quite silly.

I think I know how to fix the stats issue (thanks Will), but unfortunately I have neither the time nor the burning inclination to do so at the moment. Still, I will try to be better about blogging. Because it’s fun, and I get to tell funny stories, and that’s good for me.

Things have been busy. I’ve been trying to catch up on getting things done that have fallen by the wayside in the last few months, and Matt is coming up toward the end of his semester at school, so we’re both a little bit brain-dead.

Also, Shiloh has turned into the neediest dog ever. If we’re sitting somewhere, she’s right beside us, looking at us mournfully, as if we don’t regularly pet her and feed her and take her for walks and, recently, at least once a week to the big dog park with WATER! To run in! I really need to remember to take the camera with us one of these times.

But still, she wants to be rightbeside us all the time, as you can see in this lovely photo, where she found Matt working on the floor and just made herself at home:

Silly puppa.