Happy Memorial Day 2022

It has been a cool and wet holiday weekend. I am not complaining. I love it. The mountains are so green and the clouds are down so you can’t see the top. When the clouds move, the parts you can see have snow on them again. It’s just been so pretty. 

It’s been a pretty low key weekend. We waited to do our cemetery stuff today. My sister had covid again and today was her officially over it day. It was a bit cold and slightly rainy off and on while we were at the cemetery. We didn’t stay super long and there did seem to be less people out. I’m guessing a lot of people went on Saturday morning before the rain really set in. We did get to hear/see the gun salute and Taps played for our armed forces veterans. My mom cleaned up dad’s headstone a bit and there is a big bush next to him that she cut back. And the kids ran all over and had fun. We aren’t a very sentimental family. 

On Friday after work I had made a quick trip to the Wellsville cemetery and there were two men sitting there enjoying the nice weather and the peaceful atmosphere. They told me they were from Colorado and they drove here just to enjoy the cemeteries. In their experience there aren’t a lot of places that decorate graves like we do in Utah. I wouldn’t know, of course. It’s just what we do on Memorial Day and what my mom expects us to continue when she’s gone. It does make me think though that these were real people with real lives and while I have memories of many of them, some of the older family I didn’t know at all. 

Not long ago I watched something about family history work on the church website and one girl said she’s been uploading pictures. It occurred to me that maybe that is something I could do. I never know where to start but I could start looking at my pictures and working back. I know I have some pictures of some of my grandparents. At least it’s something. 

Weekend

For sure the weekend went by too fast! Friday night I went to see my 2 nieces in a local community theater production of James and the Giant Peach. They both did a great job and even though that’s not my favorite production by a long way, it didn’t drag and was fun to see. 

Saturday my sister and I took 5 of my nieces and nephews (including the 2-year old twins) to the Treehouse Museum. We had planned on being there for 3 hours and I was exhausted after 1. The twins had so much fun, but they ran everywhere they went. The older kids had a blast too. We made it 2.5 hours before we packed up and went for ice cream. The 5 year old even fell asleep afterwards on the way to his soccer game. I’m glad they had fun. I spent Saturday evening in my pjs with a book. LOL

Yesterday I went to church with my mom since it was Mother’s Day and then we left and went for a drive to Park City. We took the back way and it was a really nice drive. It was cloudy and even tried to snow on us in Park City, but this is the time of year everything is green and it was so pretty.  I woke up in the middle of the night and it was raining and this morning when I opened my blinds, we had snow on the mountains and rooftops. It won’t last, but I did put on a long sleeve shirt this morning. I was late for work and it’s definitely a Monday but I’m telling myself now: It’s going to be a good week. 

Mascara

To date, mascara is the one makeup item that I always wear no matter what from the time I started wearing any makeup in 7th grade (the year I went to Jr. High and mom let me start wearing makeup at all). It truly became a bit of a security blanket for me and except for rare instances of outdoors activities, I always wore it. Didn’t even matter how early I had to get up to make sure I at least had that on. I do feel more confident with make up on. Funny though because I don’t wear that much makeup in general. Eye liner and mascara, either some liquid or powder type on my face to even the skin tone but not caked on, and concealer. I’ve never gotten the hang of eye shadow and my eye lids are so oily it is gone by mid-day. 

So in my un-scientific endeavors to try and make my eyes feel better, I’ve been experimenting with how I wear eye makeup. I just feel like mascara exacerbates the issue when I’m having “bad eye” days. So I’ve been trying to do without it sometimes. On my work from home days I don’t wear eye make up at all and have been running errands that way. I went to the theater in SL without eye makeup on one night when my eyes were killing me. I already knew that nobody else cares. I’m only the center of attention in my own world and mind. When running errands nobody knows the difference. And my friend with me at the theater certainly didn’t care. 

My eyes were killing me this morning so I didn’t put any mascara on. I used a little bit of eye liner and a new type of eye shadow stick I recently bought. It’s a neutral color and doesn’t have to blend with anything else. Then I went to work. And I’ve been fine. I have to wear my glasses to read the screens and it’s not like I get out of my office all that much anyway. I’m the only one that actually cares. But regardless of what I tell myself, I’m a little bit proud that I did it. I’ve been telling myself one thing for most of my life even though it wasn’t true and now I’m doing something different. It’s not that I’m never going to wear mascara again. I might wear it to work tomorrow. But I am dealing with and changing a lie I told myself for years: I have to wear mascara to look (nice, like I tried, like myself?). 

This morning my eyes were dry and burning and they are still dry and burning. What they are not is swollen and I think it’s because they are mascara free. This is just one day and I’m not done experimenting but I feel I’m making progress. My goal is to feel comfortable with whatever my eyes are going to do any given day and just roll with it. 

April Odds and Ends

I had a really nice weekend. It rained Friday and Saturday morning, but it turned out to be really nice. On Saturday I went with my sisters to my local library where they were giving out packets of ladybugs for earth day. The twins love ladybugs and my nephew Owen, went through a huge bug phase one summer and still likes them. A local aquarium brought some exhibits and let the kids touch a snake and see some baby sharks swimming. It was kind of fun.

 

My flowers outside are starting to bloom and I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw that my new succulent already shot up a bloom. I was not expecting that at all. I can't wait for it to open.

I have been borrowing books from the library again which is kind of nice. I felt like I had spent less money on books so far this year, and it’s possible, but I have still bought quite a few. 10 paper books and 12 kindle. Only 3 of the 10 paper books were actually new to me. I had already read and decided to buy the other 7, mostly because the paperback version was released. And a few of the 12 kindle books were free, I picked them up on a deal. So I’m probably really not spending less money on books, it just feels like it. I’m pretty sure I’m not doing as much impulse book buying after reading reviews. I’ve been checking the library first and waiting for sales. And that is because unless I start reading it right then, it will just stay in the pile of unread books and right now I just don’t want that. I have too many of those as it is. Of course, I’m still spending a lot of reading time on Webtoons and Tapas. That’s not going away.

Movie

I went back to the movie theater for the first time in 2 years. Maybe even a little longer since I didn't go at all in 2020 even before the theaters closed. We saw The Lost City, which was dumb, just like I expected from the previews, and gave me some good laughs. I got to sit in a reclining seat with movie theater popcorn - aka too much butter on the top and nothing at the bottom. It needs to be more evenly coated, IMO.

Still it was so nice. I haven't paid attention to what's coming out in a long time but I guess I'll start again. Movies are one thing I like to do by myself. I mean, it's fun with people too, but I don't have to worry about anything when I'm by myself. I sit where I want, eat what I want, and watch what I want. 

Eyes, Part IV

Well…I survived my 4th and final (for now, at least) eye treatment or whatever we’re calling it. My eyes felt great last week, for the most part, but I was on vacation. They’ve been pretty decent this week as well though, so maybe it’s working? It’s definitely gradual but they told me it would be. I’m waiting a couple more weeks to give this last treatment time to work before I decide if it was worth it or not. I mean already, it kind of was because the doctor was able to squeeze oil out of both eyes. It’s still not quite the olive oil consistency it’s supposed to be but it’s a lot better than it was. But then again, if I knew what I was in for when I signed up, I’m pretty sure I would have said no.

Which brings me to the next point. If I’m not feeling all that much relief in a few weeks, I have the option to follow it up with a different treatment. I forget the name of it already. But they basically put these things in your eyes that do some kind of massage/heat thing that gets the same results as the squeezing does. This was originally given to me as treatment option #2 and I said no to it based on the idea that they had to put things in my eyes. I didn’t know at the time that option #1 (which I choose), was also going to put things in my eyes because the brochure doesn’t tell you that! The picture shows goggles! 

Anyway, the idea of putting eyeball caps (I think they called them shields) in my eyes no longer terrifies or grosses me out so I’m not saying flat out no right now. But I’d really like to be done for awhile. So we’ll see. I have already scheduled a 6 month follow up to see how it’s going. 

So now I’m taking it easy tonight. I’m not hot or tense any longer and my face feels fine. My eyes are a little dry and tender, but that’s to be expected. I’m going to watch a movie and maybe sample a few of those chocolates I bought last week. 

Road Trip!

I took a week of vacation this week and it has been so nice to be away from work. I haven’t even thought about it until I just typed that sentence. My mom wanted to go somewhere so I told her ok as long as we went south so it was warmer. 

We drove down to St. George the first day and stayed overnight there. A coworker told me to go to the botanical garden there and it was nice. I liked walking around it. 

The next day we headed into Nevada and stopped at Valley of Fire state park. I’d never been there before so that was a fun side trip. It was windy though and wind kind of aggravates my eyes so we didn’t do so much walking around there.

We spend that night in Pahrump, Nevada. The next day we got up early and drove to Death Valley National Park. The high temperature was supposed to be 92 so we wanted to start before the heat of the day. Usually, I think of Death Valley as somewhere to drive through/past as fast as possible but it was actually fun to go there and see the diversity of the landscapes and vegetation. 

We walked out on the salt flats at Badwater Basin. At 282 feet below sea level, it’s the lowest point in North America. 

My car is sitting here in the parking lot and on the mountain behind it is a tiny white sign that says: Sea Level.

We walked up a couple of hills at Artists Palette. The sun was in the wrong spot to see the colors really bright but they are definitely there. 

We made Zabriskie Point our last stop. It was fun to see part of the park. There was still so much more we didn’t see. I would not want to do that in the summer and the heat, but it would be fun to go back during the winter months and see other parts and get some sunshine. 

And before we came home we stopped in Las Vegas and went to Ethel M’s chocolate factory. Yes, I bought way too much chocolate to bring home. I regret nothing. The little cactus garden they have there was also a nice place to walk . 

Of course my mom survived walking around the uneven ground in Death Valley just to walk off the curb at a gas station and do a face plant. She wasn’t hurt, but was bruised so the trip home was a fast one. We left Vegas at 6 am and drove home. We did stop back in St. George to go to the Farmstead Bakery because of a billboard we saw on the side of the road. It was excellent and worth stopping at. 

It was a fast trip but very relaxing. I stayed off social media and the news but then was very happy to sleep in my own bed last night. I like to go places, but I really like to come home.