Life

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This morning we had a thunderstorm and this afternoon we had a rainbow. The weather is kinda like life. While we're going through the stormy times, we need to remember that there's a rainbow out there waiting for us.

A Second Look--February 20, 2014

We have had a week of snow with about two feet of accumulation. This has meant a lot of shoveling, work and school cancellations, as well as, doing a Second Look from the kitchen window. That means, it was a week of enjoying birds. 

Here are some things I saw this week during a Second Look.

Sometimes the view looked like this as snow changed to periods of sleet and freezing rain.

Other times, the sky was blue and sun was shining.

 The white breasted nuthatch spent most of its time at the suet.

White breasted nuthatches are known for having strong feet. I guess I can see that in this and the previous picture.

The downy woodpecker preferred to be alone at the feeder.

The juncos were happy to eat the feeder discards.

The starlings showed up at the feeder for the first time this winter. They are known to be aggressive birds that some don't like. However, so far they were behaving themselves.

Great blue heron. My new favorite bird.

Thankful Sunday--February 15, 2013

I am thankful for jigsaw puzzles.

During these snowy days when it's been hard to get anywhere except to shovel the driveway, I am thankful for an abundant supply of jigsaw puzzles. (Ward is a whiz at working them, so we go through them pretty quickly.)

Here, There, and Everywhere

Do you ever wander around on the Internet?  Start with a specific question, but wander around here, there, and everywhere and never quite reach the place your looking for. I had one of those times last night.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when Theo picked up some flatware from a garage sale that he needed. After he got his spoons and forks home, he noticed that his flatware was stamped as coming from many different places--Montana, Utah, USA, Indonesia, Brazil, Germany, and Korea.  I checked all of our flatware and all I could find was the word, STAINLESS. I found the variety of place names on Theo's purchase fascinating. I wondered if it had something to do with the fact that all of the recently purchased pieces were pretty old. So I set out to see if I could find out some of the manufacturing history on any of them.

I did a lot of Googling and found out nothing about when they were actually made or the company they were made by. However, during my wanderings, I did find a few things that I thought were interesting. Here are some of them.


--Utah has a state cooking pot. It's the Dutch oven.

--Montana had the greatest temperature change to ever occur on earth in a 24 hour period. It happened on January 15, 1972, when the temperature went from -54°F to 49°F. That's 103° change. 

--Indonesia is comprised of 17000 islands of which only 6000 are inhabited. It's the fourth most populated country in the world.

--By custom, Korea counts birthdays and ages differently than we do. When someone is born, they are considered to be one year old. They count the time in the womb as the first year. Also, everyone "gets a year older" on New Year's Day regardless of when they were born. The western method, however, is often used for legal purposes.

--Brazil silver, German silver, Utah silver, and Montana silver are all alloys of different metals and contain no silver. However, they are silver in color.

Even though I didn't exactly stay focused, I did enjoy my wanderings of here, there, and everywhere both around the globe and on the Internet. Next time I want to kill some time, I may do it again. (Or next time I start to do this, I should check to see if I really have time to kill.)







Want to know more?

http://www.utah.gov/about/symbols.html

http://montanakids.com/facts_and_figures/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil#Climate

http://www.infoplease.com/country/indonesia.html

 http://www.lonelyplanet.com/indonesia

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daktari

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea

Families

Unfortunately, I've been spending time at a hospital again. My mother had a fall, and I have spent the last few days with her in ICU. Thankfully, she is improving, but will require a lot of attention in the near future. If I'm absent then and again from here, that's where I will be.

The ICU is an interesting place. People who are there are quite ill and require a lot of medical attention. Because of this, there is limited access for visitors, and families spend a lot of time in the waiting room just waiting. And this is where in a very short amount of time, my sister and I got to know some other people quite well. We heard about others loved ones illnesses of stroke, pneumonia, car accidents, and gun shot wounds among other things.

There was one family that stood out in particular. We first "met" them when we arrived and heard one of their phone calls. The caller, a woman, was quite upset. She went on to talk about some complicated situations that we didn't understand, but didn't sound very positive. As the day progressed we understood better what she was talking about. They were there to support a middle-aged man who had had a very serious stroke. They included a couple of ex-wives, a present wife (the caller), and a present girlfriend. There were people of all shapes and sizes. Grandmas in wheel chairs, crying babies, and teens with studs in their body. Some had been sleeping in the uncomfortable waiting room chairs for days but they were all there--dozens of them.

As time progressed, the patient worsened and his 18 year old daughter had to make the very difficult decision of whether to operate or not. Both decisions had a high probability of death, but she chose surgery. We listened as the surgeon told them the operation went well and now it was a wait and see game. I cried along with them as they felt relief that their father, cousin, boyfriend, etc. had another day.

I don't know the final outcome for this man, but his family reminded me what families are all about. Families don't always get along--sometimes in a big way. But when it really matters, they put differences aside and do what's right. I am hoping for the best for this family and every other family I met during those few days in the ICU waiting room.